Photo: Aaron Siskind. Chicago 42 1952, 1952. The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Noah Goldowsky.
“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything,” American photographer Aaron Siskind (1903–1991) observed.
Also: Bruce Davidson: On a Life in Photography
Born in New York City, Siskind grew up on the Lower East Side. He first took up photography upon receiving a camera as a wedding gift, quickly recognizing the potential of the medium to capture the complexities of life. As a member of the New York Photo League in the 1930s, Siskind began working as a documentary photographer, producing images that spoke to the socially conscious mood of the times.
Aaron Siskind. New York 2 1951, 1951. The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Noah Goldowsky.
By the mid-1940s, Siskind began creating increasingly symbolic and abstract photographs based on discarded and found objects on Martha’s Vineyard and in Gloucester, MA. His interest in abstraction was perfectly timed with a new spirit shaping the art world: Abstract Expressionism.
Siskind revealed, “When I make a photograph, I want it to be an altogether new object, complete and self-contained, whose basic condition is order.” With this new approach to image-making, Siskind changed the language of photography. In 1950, Siskind wrote “Credo” as an as an artist’s statement for the symposium What is Modern Photography? organized by Edward Steichen at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
Aaron Siskind. Chicago 30 1949, 1949. The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Robert A. Taub.
Here, Siskind laid out his philosophy: “First, and emphatically, I accept the flat plane of the picture surface as the primary frame of reference of the picture. The experience itself may be described as one of total absorption in the object. But the object serves only a personal need and the requirements of the picture. Thus, rocks are sculptured forms; a section of common decorated ironwork, springing rhythmic shapes; fragments of paper sticking to a wall, a conversation piece. And these forms, totems, masks, figures, shapes, images must finally take their place in the tonal field of the picture and strictly conform to their space environment. The object has entered the picture in a sense; it has been photographed directly. But it is often unrecognizable; for it has been removed from its original context, disassociated from its customary neighbors and forced into new relationships.”
With this precision of thought, Siskind boldly recreated the photographic plane as a purely aesthetic experience. For the next two decades, he worked in Chicago, teaching at the city’s famed Institute of Design and mentoring generations of photographers. In 1955, he had a solo show at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the following year, the museum began consistently collecting his work.
Aaron Siskind. Jerome 21 1949, 1949. The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Aaron Siskind.
In celebration, the Art Institute of Chicago presents Aaron Siskind: Abstractions, on view now through August 14, 2016. Featuring 100 photographs drawn exclusively from the Art Institute’s collection, the exhibition presents his most influential abstract photographs and series, including a series in homage to the painter Franz Kline. The work beautifully illustrates Siskind’s belief that, “If you look very intensely and slowly things will happen that you never dreamed of before.”
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
