Experiments in the Studio

Most of the palladium prints are made for the Real  Photo Postcard Survey Project. Our UV exposure unit broke down right after our film processor--thus reminding us of the extensive labor involved and how we depend on all of our art-making machines to work. Editing the prints has been ongoing for months with each portrait set out in a grid on top the flat files in the entryway of our studio as it is completed. Vintage postcard portraits keep turning up and are also set out. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covered the project while in process and that turned up a few commissions from people unknown to us thus expanding the scope. Liz Koerner from Wisconsin Public Television's "In Wisconsin" program also spent a day gathering material on the project for a segment to air in fall. We invited our Manitowoc neighbors Ryan and Richie to come by for a portrait that day.

We came upon wall-mounted specimen cases to display the prints and have been experimenting with background colors. We puzzled over how to install the prints for months (nail them to the wall in a grid? frame each individually? hang them in the standard plastic postcard holders?). Can small traditional hand-crafted prints have impact in a time when art often takes the form of grand spectacle (thinking Marina Abramovic @ MOMA or Urs Fischer excavating the floor of Gavin Brown). Our palladium prints are not much larger than an iPhone. They sit silently dark while everything streams and multitasks everywhere else. Face recognition is in the eyes of the beholder. The show opens on Gallery Night, Friday, July 23, 2010 at the Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee.