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Abelardo
Morell at the Whitney
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Abelardo
Morell (b. 1948), Camera Obscura Image of Windows in
Gallery with Two Paintings, Whitney Museum of American Art,
2003
[Edward Hopper, Woman in the Sun,
1961 and Roy Lichtenstein, Girl in Window (Study for
World's Fair Mural), 1963] |
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On July 7th, the photographer
Abelardo Morell took two camera obscura images at the Whitney Museum
of American Art using signature works he selected from the permanent
collection. Morell had previously executed a similar project at
the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. A book of his camera obscura images,
made over eleven years time, will be published by Bulfinch Press
in the fall of 2004. Morell created the images by sealing off the
Whitney's Sondra Gilman Gallery to allow a small and focused amount
of light to enter through the window, projecting an image of the
building across the street onto Edward Hopper's Woman in the Sun,
1961 and Roy Lichtenstein's Girl in Window, 1963. The gallery wall
was then photographed by two 4 x 5 inch view cameras positioned
in the gallery during an eight-hour exposure.
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Abelardo Morell (b. 1948),
Camera Obscura Image of Windows in Gallery with Hopper
Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2003
[Edward Hopper, Woman in
the Sun, 1961] |
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Installation view
© 2003 Jacqueline Bates and the Whitney Museum of American
Art |
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Abelardo Morell's photographs
taken at the Whitney Museum of American Art reflect the basic principle
of photography: when light passes through a small hole in a darkened
chamber, an inverted image of the outside world is projected inside.
The phenomenon was the basis for the earliest and most rudimentary
photographic device, the "camera obscura" (Latin for "dark
room"). Morell explains, "Any room can be made into a camera
obscura by blacking out the windows and making a small hole. This
hole acts as a lens. The image that is projected on the opposite wall
is not what you would see if you looked out the window. Instead it
is upside-down and laterally reversed--left is right and right is
left. I picked the Whitney as a subject for a camera obscura image
because it owns some of the best Hopper paintings around and I have
been interested in having one of his paintings in a picture of mine.
Both of the paintings I chose depict women and windows. Since the
image coming into the gallery from outside was of windows, I thought
that the conversation, so to speak, would be interesting. One of the
thrills about making camera obscura photographs inside museums has
to do with the curious meeting of art on display and life from the
outside, which becomes compelling art as well."
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Installation view © 2003 Jacqueline
Bates and the Whitney Museum of American Art |
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