May 15, 2009 - July 9, 2009

Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography

At Aperture Gallery

From the beginning, abstraction has been intrinsic to photography, and its persistent popularity reveals much about the medium. The Edge of Vision, curated by Lyle Rexer, showcases the work of nineteen international contemporary photographers who base their practice in some form of abstraction from highly conceptual to more documentary approaches. The works explore diverse aspects of the photographic experience, including the chemistry of traditional photography, the direct capture of light without a camera, temporal extensions, digital sampling of found images, radical cropping, and various deliberate destabilizations of photographic reference. This abstract use of photography often combines other mediums such as painting, sculpture, drawing or video. All artists join a broad contemporary trend to look critically and freshly at a medium commonly considered transparent.

The exhibition is divided into two sections. The wall labeled “Propositions” displays a range of approaches yielding abstract images. The other walls of the gallery constitute a series of installations exploring in greater depth distinct and radical investigations of photographic processes and meanings. What, after all, is a photograph, and where does its meaning lie? In the picture itself? In the world or its phenomena? In us? These questions are as vital and open today as they were 170 years ago, when no one knew exactly what a photograph should look like or what it might disclose.

The Edge of Vision is accompanied by a new book, The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography by Lyle Rexer (Aperture, May 2009). Illustrated with more than 150 images, this unprecedented and highly anticipated book documents this phenomenon internationally from the early days of the medium through the present day.


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Location Details:

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10001


Touring venues:

Pingyao Photo Festival, Pingyao, China
September 19 – September 26, 2009

Center for Creative Photography, University of Tucson, Arizona
September 4 – November 28, 2010

Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida
January 4 – March 6, 2011

Lewis and Clark College, Hoffman Gallery, Portland, Oregon
January 19 – March 18. 2012

Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, Oregon
May 10 – June 16, 2012

Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences, Charleston, West Virginia
July 14 – September 16, 2012

Louisiana Museum of Art and Science, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
January 16 – April 14, 2013