John Gossage: Here...Half Blind

January 30 – April 11, 2010
Onofrio Gallery

Since the 1960s, John Gossage has created photographs that are poetic, dark evocations of the edges of cities and the suburban, placeless landscape. In these extended projects, which have included Berlin (during the time of “The Wall”), Superfund sites, and the greater reaches of Washington D. C., Gossage has turned his camera to the forgotten, neglected and overlooked elements of the spaces which we pass through and sometimes inhabit. Working with a medium-format camera and films and papers that capture subtle tonal variations, Gossage presents a highly psychological view of our world today. In the spring of 2009, Gossage was commissioned by the RAC to make photographs in and around the neighborhoods of Rochester. The completed series forms an entirely new body of work, which comprises this exhibition, and begins to tell a unique story of our city, its people, and our environment. Eventually, this work will become part of a larger project by Gossage that considers the state of America in the 21st century.

For the exhibition, the main gallery has been divided into several distinct spaces. The first includes images taken from postcards of the city that have been produced over the last 100 years. The images from these postcards demonstrate the recognizable, stereotypical landmarks that collectively describe a Rochester as packaged and presented for visitors. Important and symbolic as some of these images are, there is always some degree of constructing and marketing of a city’s identity inherent in the format. In presenting the postcards along with Gossage’s images of Rochester, the exhibition allows for scrutiny of familiar representations, and consideration of alternative co-existing realities occurring within the same location.

In the second space, the viewer is confronted with a series of large, unframed works that appear to be expressly distorted. Upon developing particular rolls of film used in Rochester, Gossage discovered that a technical problem created compelling transformations of several images. A “light leak” developed in the bellows of one of his cameras, which allowed light to enter into the camera and to partially expose the film within. The consequence of this exposure is ghostly illuminated areas that obscure portions of the images. Metaphorically, the area of cloudy, unknown content points to the unseen or unrecognized within our own environment. The lack of true awareness of one’s immediate surroundings can occur as a visitor to a new place, confronted with the unexpected, or as a resident who has habituated to certain visual information.

In the subsequent spaces, more formal and characteristic work begins. The homes, yards, and street scenes presented within Gossage’s photographs are commonplace enough that most would have passed by the same location without pausing for a moment of contemplation. As in his previous projects, Gossage makes known the disregarded and seemingly insignificant elements of our environment. Beyond the compelling formal qualities of these photographs, there is an emotional and human component to these images, though in most no individual is visibly present. In his photographs, Gossage reveals somewhat ambiguous and indeterminable information about place, to allow the viewer to ultimately decide upon the significance. The subtlety of this approach is in stark contrast to other images of Rochester, such as in the postcards, which are meant to overtly declare the importance of whatever is presented.

John Gossage’s work has been the subject of over 15 monographs including The Pond (Aperture, 1985); Stadt des Schwarz (Loosestrife,1987); There and Gone (Nazraeli, 1997); The Romance Industry (Nazraeli, 2002); and Berlin in the Time of the Wall (Loosestrife, 2004). He has exhibited nationally and internationally and his works are in the collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Hallmark Collection, Kansas City; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Sprengel Museum Hannover, Hannover, Germany; and The Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, among many others. Gossage is represented by Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago, IL, and lives and works in Washington D.C.

Special thanks to Dr. Paul Scanlon, who generously provided postcards from his collection for use in the exhibition.