July 1, 2008
Life through Carl Chiarenza's lens
The new book Pictures Come from Pictures: Selected Photographs 1955-2007 illustrates the range of photographer Carl Chiarenza’s work during the past five decades. From his more literal pieces, such as “Providence 1” (1976) above left, and his more abstract compositions, such as “Peace Warrior (Don Quixote) 506” (2003) above right—both showing the artist’s fascination with light and shadow.
june.avignone@rochester.edu
Before he became a prolific artist and well-known art historian, Carl Chiarenza was a working-class kid in Rochester learning about photography from a playground director on North Goodman Street who converted a park shed into a make-shift darkroom. “At eight, I was discovering the magic of pointing a camera at reality,” says Chiarenza, artist-in-residence for the art and art history department and Fanny Knapp Allen Professor Emeritus of Art History.
The magic of “pushing the boundary of the real” has been sustained and honed by Chiarenza for over five decades, as evidenced by a collection of 91 duotone images in his latest book, Pictures Come from Pictures: Selected Photographs 1955-2007.
The photos cover a range of Chiarenza’s earlier outdoor photographs—railroad stations and abandoned buildings from Rochester and its environs—as well as his “indoor” collage work he “accidentally” discovered in 1979 while working as the chair of the art history department at Boston University. The Polaroid Corporation, located in Cambridge, invited Chiarenza to try out their new large-format camera. As only Ansel Adams was allowed to take the large camera out of the studio, Chiarenza found himself challenged to create work indoors, launching an improvisational method involving black and white film, collages from paper and other discarded and found materials, and “manipulative” masking techniques with light and burning tools both in the studio and in the darkroom.
“I want the viewer of my work to sense the power, to feel the presence of the unknown.”
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