Spanning the Centuries
Florence Rephotographed
Photographs by Peter Stramek after views from the Alinari and Brogi Collections

Join the Ontario College of Art and Design and Peter Sramek at Gallery 345 for and evening in support of the OCAD Florence Program

Opening Event: Wednesday, March 18th, 7-10pm
Exhibit continues to April 12

Peter Sramek has been a photographic artist for over 38 years and has taught at the Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto since 1976. He is currently Professor in the Faculty of Art and Chair of Photography. His work incorporates photography, digital imaging, handbinding and video installation. Sramek graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973, where he studied under Minor White. In 1979, he helped found the Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, an artist-run gallery and photographic workspace in Toronto for which he was financial coordinator for over 15 years.

He has exhibited his photography across Canada and internationally in Europe, Japan and the United States and is included in collections such as the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, the National Library of Canada,  the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Toronto Archives, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Toronto Public Library Special Collections, and the Allan Chasanoff Collection of Artist’s Books (NYC). He is represented in Toronto by the Stephen Bulger Gallery.

Recent exhibitions of works from A Passion for Cities include solo shows at the French Institute of Prague in the Czech Republic and at Gallery 345 in Toronto. In 2008, Sramek was selected as a Critical Mass finalist.

Intro:

Often, photographers are obsessive collectors and these ones felt compelled to document their cities, each in their own way, leaving behind major archives  - the grand views and the small details. Peter Sramek has returned to rephotograph their viewpoints to understand their motivations, methodologies and ways of portraying history. Why do these collections resonate today? How does the architectural spirit of these cities help define the identities of western culture? How do we imagine the past through these sites and how do they reinforce how each of us sees ourselves in relation to European history.

A Passion For Cities brings together three photographic collections from three major cultural centres of Europe. These cities have played key roles in the cultural and intellectual development of European society and each of them held European prominence at different times. A rich architectural heritage remains as tangible evidence of these epochs. The photographers referenced here were committed to documenting the architectural record in more than a casual manner and left an extraordinary archive created before, or as, this heritage passed to the modern era.

These photographers were selected for the comprehensive determination of their production and also their differing motivation and thus methodology. Josef Sudek took a romantic's eye to his work, finding images which expressed his love for the city. Eugène Atget methodically mapped-out the vernacular street façades, recording an old and then changing Paris. The Fratelli Alinari and their contemporaries in Florence, notably Giacomo Brogi, photographed the grand buildings and vistas of the Renaissance capital.

These archives continue to be meaningful today. Atget is deemed to be one of the greats. The Alinari Archives continues to produce silver prints, books and reproductions from its massive collection. Sudek's Praha Panoramatická was reprinted in 1992 in four languages and quickly sold out.

In responding to these photographs, I reflected on how historical districts of old cities persist in today's world. The architecture is a constant reminder of the cultural past and survives due to cultural pride on the one hand, and also because of its touristic and economic value. In these cities there is a balance between people living within an historic tradition and the desire of tourists to touch (possess?) that ambience. Questions come to mind. What is the ‘reality’ preserved in historic sites? What is the meaning of our romantic desire for the past? What is the role of photography in creating our conception of historical environments?

For contemporary society, photography plays a major role in the creation of an image of history, usually one which is a romantic projection - at once enticing and misleading. We look at the old photographs and imagine that a past existed within their contained boundaries, willing to believe that they represent a complete reality. Often it is through photographs that we become familiar with the great cities such as these and subsequently we may visit them, making our own photographs.

Rephotography involves finding the camera positions of the original photographer as exactly as possible and making contemporary exposures. It allows one to contemplate the original photographic event. Revisiting these sites allowed me to enter more directly into the experience of the originators and to consider how they conceived their approach, what physical realities determined their vantage points and what choices they made.

The Prague photographs were made in two periods, the first in 1992, the second in the fall of  2002. These images were made with a panoramic camera, maintaining Sudek’s image format albeit on roll film. The Paris and Florence work was shot in 2007 with a 4x5 view camera. Additional panoramic images made at the same time reveal more of the architectural context of the original compositions, often including modern details. The obvious impression is that things change. Rephotography is enticing simply in our ability to make comparisons and visually find clues of time passing. There is also our attraction to what has not changed. We experience our desire to connect with the past, to believe that there is an immutable cultural base which we can touch through the photograph. Looking at old photographs of known places, we invariably bring up our own contemporary mental image. Rephotography allows for a concrete visual comparison, visibly bringing together different time periods for contemplation. A nostalgia for what is still there becomes as strong as the fascination with what has now disappeared.

Florence:

Archivi Alinari

The photographs of Florence in the Alinari Archive are part of an ongoing enterprise of producing architectural and art historical views. Made, as they were, to supply the need for a visual aide-mémoire, they catalogue the important historical sites which continue as part of a visitor’s itinerary today. Thousands of individuals now make their own photographs each year and to make rephotographs of the historical compositions was to question, “Why this exact viewpoint”? 

Inevitably, the albumen prints reference the tradition of the Grand Tour and the 19thC. tourism for which they were originally created. The photograph gives the traveler a portable link to the ideas and historical eras which the monumental architecture has come to represent. In North America, we still see ourselves as inheritors of the Renaissance. Visiting these sites directly, or through photographs, allows us to experience this connection reinforcing our belief.

The original albumen prints referenced for this project are in the collection of Edward Epstein of Gallery 345 in Toronto, Canada. They are mainly by (or attributed to) the Fratelli Alinari. Some were made by Giacomo Brogi whose archive is now part of the Alinari collections. They date from between 1860 and 1900. In selecting from Epstein’s large collection, I wondered about the motivations of collectors and our attraction to photographs of the past, both as images and as objects.

When making the rephotographs in the fall of 2007, I became aware of a major difference from the other photographers. Unlike Atget and Sudek, who worked at eye-level, most of these Florentine photographs were taken from above, expanding the perspective of the rendered space. Sometimes, this was from a conveniently placed window or balcony, sometimes a high terrace. Most often I would suspect the use of a wagon-mounted platform, placing the lens 2 or 3 metres above head-height. The camera position was often a few metres out from any adjacent wall, allowing for such a vehicle to be used.

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