| Development of Photographic Prevarications For the last eight years, I have been working with pictures that I re-photograph in one way or another—beginning with Inserts, through Koans, to Ambivalent Views and beyond, to my most recent work, which I call Photographic Prevarications. By exploring photography’s inherent tension between objective truth and subjective expression, I coax the viewer to question the nature of photography itself—by making them aware that they are looking at, and perceiving, a photograph, not looking at the subject matter of the photograph. As Roland Barthes would say of the latter, fairly normal, reaction to photography, “the referent adheres.” Several photographers and conceptual artists, those who work with visual conundrum and spatial riddles, have influenced me over the years—Robert Cumming, John Pfahl, Zeke Berman, Kenneth Josephson, and Jan Dibbets. In fact, I made a series of work as homage to Dibbets called After J.D. (below). The anamorphic concept behind these pictures would come back later to inform Ambivalent Views and Photographic Prevarications. 
With the body of work I call Inserts, I began to re-photograph images, usually in the spot in which they were originally taken. This work dealt with the passing of time and a reconstructed personal history. By the use of duplicative hanging prints, these works were meant to produce a conceptual echo, a sense of déjà vu in the viewer.  Koans used the same technique but focused on my body as subject matter to explore notions of existence, identity, and spirituality (see below). I wanted to make visual koans—riddles that have no correct answer, but similar to a verbal koan, are something to be meditated upon as a way of getting away from pure reason. All of the work thus far was created using traditional, analog techniques.  This tactic of re-photography was continued in subsequent work, but with the inclusion of perspective. With the body of work I call Ambivalent Views, a large image is printed on paper after having been carefully distorted (this is the point in which my work begins to crossover between analog and digital). This large print is then installed in a space and photographed from a privileged point of view (see below). This insert image, then, appears to flatten and move toward a parallel relationship to that of the picture plane.  All of these images are ultimately straight photographs—while Photoshop was used to distort the shape of the paper prints, once made they are simply re-photographed in a straight manner. The large paper prints actually existed in the room in which I documented them—they are not digital montage. For one exhibition however, Ambivalent Views—Installed, I showed the actual large paper prints. People could walk around the gallery and find the privileged point of view, but I find that the camera records it more accurately (see below).  In my latest work, Photographic Prevarications, space, planes, and objects themselves are presented in such a way as to underscore photography’s ability to tell untruths. This work began as a small series made in the corner of a gallery (see below). Here, paper prints taped to the wall of the gallery, when viewed from a privileged point of view, can deceive the viewer. They can give the idea that objects, such as a framed picture, or my body, can penetrate a wall and extend to the space beyond—or tilt in such a way that is incongruent with the confines of the room.  I continued this technique when I went to a residency at the American Academy in Rome (see below). In this series, a faucet, radiator, or wall sconce from a space was photographed, then reproduced after being careully distorted. Taped to the wall in a different location and re-photographed in situ, these objects appear to defy the limitations of the room’s floor plan.  The work took a different tack two years ago when I photographed objects or my body in a space, then recreated them in paper form, installed them, and once again photographed them in situ. With the work in Rome, the placement of the objects was designed to defy the room’s space—here they are more logical, being reproduced where they in fact did exist (see below). 
I am currently making work that will exist as single photographs, but also want to return to exhibiting large distorted paper prints. With the addition of a mirror or video camera (placed in the privileged point of view), I hope to invite viewers in to experience both the distorted and “proper” views simultaneously, perhaps with their bodies becoming part of the work.  By using these tactics, emphasizing the tension that exists within photography, playing up its ability to dissemble, I have moved its emphasis from transparency to trickery. This in turn posits the viewer at a point where depiction and deception meet—and hopefully leaves them teetering between the two. Richard Koenig July 2007 |