Edition of 500. Essay Making light, making futures by Terence Washington, collaborator with Sleeper Studio. "A book from the project Black Alchemy Volumes 1, 2, & 3 by Aaron Turner"--Inside back cover.
Summary:
"Aaron R. Turner's Moves From The Archive is a richly layered book that pulls from a wide array of ideas, influences and traditions. The photographs, which are a part of the larger and ongoing project Black Alchemy, re-present cultural and familial images, exploring them as both subject matter and material. Using the studio as a space for construction, Turner employs cut paper, projected and natural light, black cloth, mirrors, paint, oil sticks, cellophane and packaging materials for analog photography as building blocks for his images. The result is a formal language that exists in dialogue with legacies of nonrepresentational art in both photography and painting. Turner also challenges assumptions about what it means to be a Black artist working within this tradition - drawing a parallel between racial passing and abstraction. This book highlights Turner's varied approach to image making, fusing elements of still life, appropriation and painting to comment on the complex nature of Black American history and representation. Blackness takes on a multitude of meanings in this work. It simultaneously operates as identity, materiality, metaphor, history and color. It is also an allusion to the darkroom, where many of Turner's photographs are made. In Moves From The Archive, images, forms and materials are constantly shifting, being recombined and reconstituted in different and surprising ways. This fluidity in the studio gives the work an incredibly dynamic quality, but also speaks to the complexity of the histories and ideas that Turner pays homage to in his work. This process of rearrangement is an archival practice, one that productively undermines notions of authority typically associated with Archives. At its core there is a questioning in this work that seeks to challenge the portrayal of historical narratives and identities as monolithic rather than diverse. But there is also a deep expression of reverence too - for Blackness (in all its forms), photography, light and the myriad people who have left an indelible mark on Turner himself. It is at this intersection that Moves From the Archive achieves its lasting power and multiplicity." -- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.