Kenneth Josephson
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I like the way photography can create something that really isn't there. That . . . it's really magical to me.
I was taking my camera for a walk and came upon this unusual scene of an automobile with its snow shadow. I thought it was a readymade for the explanation of the negative-positive relationship in photography. It just explained it right there.
I started various series that I've continued to add to: The idea of evidence through Marks and Evidence, the Images within Images series. History of Photography. The Archaeological Series. And the Archaeological Series deals with archaeology before the fact.
It's mostly photographed with that meter stick. Things that will disappear, in time. And when the United States is ripe for a dig, over thousands of years in the future, probably the photographs won't have survived, because they're on paper. So it's like a fool's errand, almost. I enjoy doing this, creating archaeology before the fact.
I love working as a documentarian—I love the pureness of that. I'll use that. Because I think I can create a very strong image, where you very selectively photograph something, and explain it very thoroughly and naturally.
When I started actively being a photographer, photography wasn't very well-recognized as a fine art. And it took a long time before that happened. And it was about 1970 that galleries started showing and selling photographs. People, including me, just did it for the pure pleasure of creating art through photography.
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Kenneth Josephson's radical approach to photography has shaped the field, broadening the medium's possibilities. The Chicago-based artist talks about shifting attitudes toward photography and the creation of some of his game-changing works included in Picture Fiction: Kenneth Josephson and Contemporary Photography.
Related content
Video
- Exhibition Tour with Kenneth Josephson20:46
- Short A man with white hair and beard wearing a name badge that reads "Ken" stands near you in a gallery space.
Exhibitions
- Picture Fiction: Kenneth Josephson and Contemporary Photography–
- Short A black-and-white photo of the Chicago skyline from the north shore of Lake Michigan is overlaid with rectangular color image fragments of the same view. The color images add and subtract people from the lakefront view.
Blog
Collection
- Kenneth Josephson, Washington, D.C., 1975, 1975
- Short The Washington Monument and its smooth reflecting pool are centered in this black-and-white photograph. An arm extends, holding a card with cut-outs that match the shape of the monument's obelisk.
- Long This black and white photograph centers on the Washington Monument and smooth reflecting pool that reflects and inverts the monument. On the left side of the frame, an arm extends, holding a horizontally-oriented card against the sky to the left of the monument. A cut out in the bottom center of the card matches the shape and size of the peak of the obelisk; the top of the card extends upward as the positive mirror of the negative cutout below.
- Kenneth Josephson, Chicago, 1972, 1972
- Short A black-and-white photo of the Chicago skyline from the north shore of Lake Michigan is overlaid with rectangular color image fragments of the same view. The color images add and subtract people from the lakefront view.
- Kenneth Josephson, Wyoming, 1971 (from the History of Photography series), 1971
- Short A black-and-white photograph shows an outstretched arm, hand holding a twelve-inch ruler up to a mountainous and wooded landscape above a sign labelling the distant mountain range.
- Kenneth Josephson, New York State, 1970, 1970
- Short A black-and-white photograph of an arm extended over a body of water holding just above the horizon line a photograph of a ship at sea.