114
James Welling
Untitled from Aluminum Foil
- Estimate
- £8,000 - 12,000
Lot Details
Eight gelatin silver contact prints, printed 1980s, mounted.
1980-1981
Each: 11.7 x 9.6 cm (4 5/8 x 3 3/4 in.) or the reverse.
Each initialled, titled, dated by the artist and four prints annotated in another hand, all in ink on the mount.
Specialist
Full-Cataloguing
Catalogue Essay
Titles: August 16a (B78), 1980; January 8 (B2), 1980; (B91), 1980; (B24), 1980; Spiral (B3), 1980; Crescendo (B89), 1980; (B38), 1980; August 16B (B79), 1980
‘I wanted to make photographs that you could not describe, you could not remember but were still, nevertheless, very sharp and clear.’
James Welling
After moving to New York in late 1978, James Welling worked shifts in a restaurant kitchen to support himself as he experimented with his art. During one shift in late December 1979, he noticed a piece of butter wrapped in aluminium foil and photographed it against a white background. Just over a year later on 1 January 1980, he started working on his seminal Aluminum Foil series. Over an intensive 16-month period, he conducted a material investigation of foil, making over 200 negatives, around 50 of which he printed, and 38 of which he exhibited at New York’s Metro Pictures in March 1981. To create these disorienting, seemingly abstract contact prints, Welling photographed the interplay of light on the dark background of aluminium foil that he had densely crumpled and then unfolded. He describes the foil as having a ‘glittering sensuality’ – the direct result of his decision to carefully underexpose the prints during the printing process. In the 1980s he printed these images in two sizes, choosing the smaller 4 x 5 inch format offered here in order to maintain the ambiguity of the images and encourage the viewer to unmask their hidden meanings.
‘I wanted to make photographs that you could not describe, you could not remember but were still, nevertheless, very sharp and clear.’
James Welling
After moving to New York in late 1978, James Welling worked shifts in a restaurant kitchen to support himself as he experimented with his art. During one shift in late December 1979, he noticed a piece of butter wrapped in aluminium foil and photographed it against a white background. Just over a year later on 1 January 1980, he started working on his seminal Aluminum Foil series. Over an intensive 16-month period, he conducted a material investigation of foil, making over 200 negatives, around 50 of which he printed, and 38 of which he exhibited at New York’s Metro Pictures in March 1981. To create these disorienting, seemingly abstract contact prints, Welling photographed the interplay of light on the dark background of aluminium foil that he had densely crumpled and then unfolded. He describes the foil as having a ‘glittering sensuality’ – the direct result of his decision to carefully underexpose the prints during the printing process. In the 1980s he printed these images in two sizes, choosing the smaller 4 x 5 inch format offered here in order to maintain the ambiguity of the images and encourage the viewer to unmask their hidden meanings.
Provenance
Literature