Range, by New York based artist Penelope Umbrico, considers an analog history of photography within the digital torrent that is its current technological manifestation. For this project, Umbrico focuses on iconic images of mountains in various online and print media such as Aperture’s Masters of Photography book series. Utilizing myriad iPhone apps, Umbrico re-photographs the Masters’ mountains and processes them through their multiple light leak filters that simulate the mistakes of analog film photography. These filters are especially absurd in the context of both analog photography and smart-phone camera technology, as “Master” photographers would never accept such mistakes in their prints, and the impossibility of holes, gaps, or spatial volume necessary to produce these effects stands in opposition to the digital device simulating them. The resultant hallucinogenic colors and undulating moirés disorient and dislodge any perception of stability in the mountain, the Master (most often gendered as male), and the photographic medium itself. In this work the mountain, the oldest landmark, site of orientation, and spiritual contemplation, becomes unstable, mobile, has no gravity, and changes with each iteration.
Penelope Umbrico, Range
March 10-April 15, 2017
David B. Smith Gallery
1543 A Wazee Street
Denver, CO 80202
USA
