#celebratingthenegative

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Art of the Day 

John Loengard, Imogen Cunningham, Magnolia Blossom, 1925, 1993

This image of two hands lovingly cupping Imogen Cunningham's negative for her 1925 photograph Magnolia Blossom is an emotional highlight of our traveling exhibition John Loengard: Celebrating the Negative. The shape made by these weathered hands echo the petals of the magnolia and pay tribute to their delicate form and beauty. 

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Curatorial Assistance Traveling Exhibitions is pleased to present John Loengard: Celebrating the Negative at Cassilhaus in Chapel Hill, NC

The exhibition John Loengard: Celebrating the Negative will be installed at Cassilhaus from July 5 through September 4, 2014.

Originally part of a larger project reflecting on the beauty and frailty of the photographic negative, this special showing of the exhibition includes the 18 photographs released as a limited edition portfolio co-published by Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ, in 2013, as well as the accompanying letterpress-printed story panels narrating the context of each work. 

Celebrating the Negative explores the beauty and nuance of the negatives of some of the most iconic images of the 19th and 20th centuries, including works by Dorothea Lange, Richard Avedon, and Man Ray. Loengard’s photographs were shot with spontaneity and fresh perspective, with the compositions including the hands of those charged with caring for the negatives, and capturing the moment when they were first brought out of the darkness and held to the light.

The series was completed in 1994, and in the intervening years digital photography has made the photographic negative increasingly obsolete. As film processing becomes a lost art, Loengard notes that “perhaps the implications of [the negative’s] that obsolescence will spark wider interest, but so far, collectors do not collect them, and most museums won’t accept them.” In the meantime, Loengard’s photographs highlight the eerie beauty and rich afterlife of the negative: a physical presence linking past with present, safeguarding these historical images in a way that digital processes can never fully replace.

Loengard (b. 1934) was the picture editor for LIFE magazine from 1978 to 1987, and continued as a contributing photographer at the magazine until 2000. He has exhibited at the International Center for Photography, New York; James Danziger Gallery, New York; Apex Gallery, Los Angeles; University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, KY; George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; and Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ. His photographs can be found in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the Center for Creative Photography, the International Center of Photography, and the Vassar Art Gallery.

Cassilhaus was designed and built by Ellen Cassilly and Frank Konhaus as part private home, part artist residency, and part exhibition gallery for their personal art collection. The building home is situated in the woods forest between Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina. Cassilhaus features a 900 square-foot gallery that spans the space between the couples’ home and the visiting artists’ apartment, as well as three smaller exhibition spaces. Viewings outside of community-based events are by appointment only. To learn more, contact Frank Konhaus at [email protected] or visit cassilhaus.com.