Jerry Spagnoli's name is strongly linked with the rediscovery of the antique daguerreotype process. Working from scratch, Spagnoli (born 1956) has literally reinvented this complex 19th century technique which is the first registered photographic device. A direct positive process, the daguerreotype is a unique and highly detailed image captured on a mirror like silver coated copper plate.
They unite a clinical rendering of detail with a rich sensuality that brings to mind the voluptuous abstraction of Edward Weston's nudes. The unsurpassed precision of the daguerreotype becomes the vehicle for a questioning of photography's intrinsic objectivity, and on a deeper level of human perception and of the way in which the mind confronts the world as a surface.
Spagnoli's work is featured in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Getty Museum, the Hallmark Photographic Collection and the Museum of the City of New York. It is regularly exhibited and has been shown at the Museum of the City of New York, the Boston University Art Gallery and the George Eastman House as well as a recent collaboration with the artist Chuck Close. Spagnoli, a native New Yorker, received his art education at the San Francisco Art Institute, and currently lives and works in New York City.
www.jerryspagnoli.com
www.daguerre.org
www.newdags.com
www.daguerre.org/symposium.php
Adapted from Jerry Spagnoli’s inaugural exhibition at Edwynn Houk Gallery
Adam L. Weintraub is a photographer based in Seattle. His Photoexperience.net workshops combine inspiring artists which offer insight and collaboration within an intimate setting. Removed from Cusco's tourist section, Panza del Artista his Bed & Breakfast plays host to the class, overlooking the Cusco valley and offering respite from the masses. He is currently coordinating efforts to create a permanent archive and catalogue of the famed Peruvian photographer, Martin Chambi. He has been President of Blue Earth Alliance since 2004 and is widely published, collected and hired for his Personal Work.
