Klompching Gallery presents Curious Devices & Other Objects, an exhibition, curated around the theme of art and technology. The exhibition brings together artworks by two gallery artists—Jeanette May and Max de Esteban—together with guest artist, Rebecca Hackemann.
Curious Devices is a newly-released series of photographs by Jeanette May, which continues her exploration of beautifully designed vintage technology. The technological tableaus span antique stereoscopes and art deco clocks to Bluetooth headphones. Each object’s style, color, and material construction epitomize a period of both aesthetic and technological advancement. Surrounded by rich silks and damask wall covering, her still life arrangements suggest 17th Century Dutch vanitas, and exploding with a sophisticated use of color.
Max de Esteban’s Proposition One: Only The Ephemeral, turns our attention to technology specifically utilized in the creation and dissemination of art. Through a meticulous process, he dis-assembles each apparatus, paints the various parts white, and reassembles the machines—photographing them at each stage of being re-built. The photographed layers are themselves assembled into a single image, resulting in x-ray-like photographs that are reminiscent of architectural cyanotypes.
The Nostalgia Technika project by guest artist, Rebecca Hackemann, consists of camera-less wet collodion photograms on metal, referencing cultural and personal nostalgia for lost technologies, centered around cultural tropes such as the homemade mixed cassette tape, the vinyl single, projected home movies etc. The artist uses an even older technical process to talk about a younger defunct technology. The photograms present the objects 1:1, reiterating their direct indexical link to the object imaged.
The exhibition brings together three artists, working with very different processes of photographing, but connected through their reverence for technological artifacts. One might describe them as performing a technological taxidermy, performing the role of memento mori for machines that have become obsolete and may soon be forgotten.
Klompching Gallery was established in DUMBO, Brooklyn in 2007, and specializes in the exhibition and sale of contemporary fine art photographs. It represents an international roster of artists, including the critically-acclaimed Helen Sear, British/Australian artist Odette England, and Barcelona-based Max de Esteban. The gallery has placed artworks into several notable public collections, and works with numerous private clients in building their contemporary art collections.
Curious Devices & Other Objects
Until January 22, 2022
Klompching Gallery
89 Water Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
