Refraction/Reflection Photo Exhibition at Toledo Museum of Art

Eye On Art | 04/04/2012

Refraction and reflection both involve changes in light waves, and both affect how we see an image. With light, shape is realized, textures arise and line is defined. Refraction/Reflection, a new exhibition of photography on display April 20?Aug. 5, 2012 at the Toledo Museum of Art, focuses our attention on the themes of light, shadow and reflections.

The exhibition in the Works on Paper Gallery features approximately 100 black and white images dating from the beginning of photography in the 19th century up to the present time. All of the works are from the Museum’s permanent collection.

Among the artists represented are Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Eugene Atget, Imogene Cunningham, Robert Frank, Adam Fuss, Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz.

The focus of the show is about how light, transmitted through the lens of camera, is perceived by the eye of the artist, said the exhibition’s organizer Tom Loeffler, assistant curator of works on paper. He pointed out that some images on display, however, were created with light but without a camera lens. A good example is Untitled, Droplets by Adam Fuss.

Fuss created unique photograms by placing objects on sensitized paper and exposing them to direct light. Untitled, Droplets was produced by placing a large sheet of sensitized paper in a shallow tub of water, Loeffler explained.

“Water drops into the tub, frozen in time by the use of a strobe light and registered on the paper as concentric rings of light. The unique photogram is chemically fixed and remains an image filled with the wonder and transient nature of light.”

The absence of light plays a crucial role in other works in the show, such as one by Springfield, Ohio native Berenice Abbott.

Abbott, who moved to New York City in 1918 to pursue a career as a journalist and later as a visual artist, reveled in the minute details of image making. Her 1934 gelatin-silver print New York at Night testifies to her technical and compositional skills. To maximize the number of illuminated windows in her photograph, she made the image on the shortest day of the year when people were still working after dark. Setting up her camera on an upper floor of the Empire State Building and using a 15- minute exposure, she created a dynamic bird’s-eye view of buildings west of the iconic skyscraper.

Several images by renowned photographer Ansel Adams are featured in the exhibition. One outstanding example of the photographer’s technical skill and sensitive eye is Mt. McKinley and Wonder
Lake, Alaska.

“Adams had the good fortune during a trip in the summer of 1948 to capture Mount McKinley in Denali National Park without haze or clouds. This image,” Loeffler noted, “was made around 1:30 a.m.
on a July day in the land of ‘eternal sun.’”

Refraction/Reflection is made possible by members of the Toledo Museum of Art and supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council’s sustainable grant program funded by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Admission to the Museum and to the exhibition is free.

Exhibition-Related Programming
Art of the Vine: Wine and Shadow
Enjoy four wines and light snacks from 7?9 p.m. Friday, May 18 at the Toledo Museum of Art. Tickets
($15 for Museum members/$25for nonmembers, plus tax) are available at the Information Desks. Free
Docent-led public tours of Refraction/Reflection are at 7 and 8 p.m. that evening in the Main Museum.

FREE Docent-led Public Tours of Refraction/Reflection
May 18: 7 and 8 p.m., meet in Libbey Court
May 19: 2 p.m., meet in Libbey Court
May 20: 2 p.m., meet in Libbey Court

FREE Family Tour of Refraction/Reflection
May 20: 1 p.m., meet at the Family Center or Libbey Court

FREE Hands-on Activity: Silhouettes
April 27:7?9 p.m., Libbey Court
Use light and shadow to create a silhouette portrait and see how the artists used these and other elements
of design in the exhibition Refraction/Reflection.