The Future of the Dag

Abstract

DAGUERREOTYPES PAST AND PRESENT DAGUERREIAN SOCIETY GALLERY PITTSBURGH APRIL 21-MAY 5, 2007 In an unassuming building a few minutes drive from downtown Pittsburgh was an exhibition of unexpected depth and magnitude. As the title suggests, Daguerreotypes Past and Present displayed historic images alongside the work of two contemporary daguerreotypists, Toronto's Mike Robinson and Jerry Spagnoli from New York City. The show provided viewers with the rare opportunity to be immersed in what many believe is the long-forgotten art of the daguerreotype--though this exhibition confirmed quite the opposite. Robinson and Spagnoli successfully employ this nineteenth-century process in their contemporary artistic exploration of time. Daguerreotypes Past and Present, curated by the Daguerreian Society's outgoing president Mark Johnson, was displayed in a three-room gallery housed in a former residence serving as the society's headquarters. Developed in 1839 by Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, the daguerreotype was the first recorded image produced with a camera obscura. The daguerreotype experienced a short-lived popularity--about two decades in the United States--before being superseded by other photographic processes. Today, only a few have mastered the nearly obsolete art of daguerreotypy. These artists face innumerable challenges, including the toxic and highly volatile vapors of mercury and bromine. In the central room of the Daguerreian Society Gallery was Spagnoli's Untitled Botanical Study (2001), an impressive triptych of whole plate daguerreotypes that eloquently captures a delicate pattern of intertwining tree branches. Spagnoli's triptych hung framed on the wall above a display case that held a combination of smaller historic and contemporary daguerreotypes of outdoor scenes. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The exhibition's greatest strength lay in the juxtaposition of the historic with the contemporary as daguerreotypes past and present confronted the viewer side by side. Most of the historic images were grouped thematically in display cases around the perimeter of the front room where the history and technical details of the medium were explained. Some cases displayed daguerreotypes that helped illustrate the technical aspects of the work, such as plate sizes and hand tinting. Other cases presented groupings of similar subject matter, for example, images of children and postmortems. The emotional potency of these unique images highlights their intended function to capture the memory of a fleeting moment. …