"Solarized" at Nailya Alexander

I put the word "Solarized" in quotation marks in the title of this post not because it is the title of the current exhibit at the Nailya Alexander Gallery but because it is technically not the correct term with which to describe the photos on display.  True solarization occurs when a negative has received such extreme overexposure while still in the camera that it turns to a positive.  This results in the famous "black sun" phenomenon that can be seen, for example, in a 1955 image by Minor White.  The works shown at the Alexander Gallery are actually examples of the "Sabatier Effect" in which image reversal is accomplished in the darkroom by briefly exposing a print or negative to bright light while it is still in the developer tray.  The extent to which reversal occurs is determined by how early in the development stage the print or negative is exposed.  The term "solarization" is used only loosely in describing this process.

This is all largely a matter of semantics.  No matter which term one chooses to use, there are some excellent examples of the process in the exhibit.  Taken together, they provide a demonstration of the ways in which different photographers - some famous and some less well known - have used the process to accomplish their own ends.  My own feeling is that it is the simplest and most straightforward images that profit most from solarization since the process often reduces the subjects depicted to sharply outlined figures in which some detail is inevitably lost.

Clearly, the star of the show was Erwin Blumenfeld's Manina (1936), a thoughtful portrait in profile from which all extraneous detail had been removed by the process, thus emphasizing the lineaments of the sitter's features to the exclusion of all else.  In a similar manner, the process rendered Rolf Horn's Calla Lily, Study 2, California (1999) as an almost an abstract line drawing.  This same reduction could also be seen in Ferenc Berko's two Solarized Nudes from the early 1950's, each of a mirror of the other in terms of tonal reversal.

Other standouts at the show included Annemarie Heinrich's Joven solarizado (1961), Josef Breitenbach's Solarized Nude, Paris (1933), Pierre Boucher's Solarized Arm and Hand (1933) and two by Jeanne Mandello, Dancer #2, Montevideo (1946) and Portrait of Dancer Violeta Lopez Lomba (c. 1952).  On the other hand, I did not feel any of the three works shown by Irina Ionesco, very much in her familiar style, benefited at all from the process.  Likewise, the five prints by Alexey Titarenko showing scenes from St. Petersburg in the 1990's were already too busy for my taste - solarization only lent to them a more confused appearance and made them more difficult to view.

I should mention here that I have worked with the Sabatier Effect in my own photography and so have some knowledge of the difficulties faced by photographers attempting this style.  Examples of my own work can be seen on my webpage.  In the images shown there, I chose to solarize the negative in order to obtain greater consistency from one print to the next.

The exhibit continues through February 28, 2015.