Between The Bars
Artist
Michael Spano
(American, born 1949)
CultureAmerican
Date1986
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsOverall, Support: 44 x 34 in. (111.8 x 86.4 cm)
Overall, Image: 36 x 27 in. (91.4 x 68.6 cm)
Overall, Frame: 44 3/4 × 35 in. (113.7 × 88.9 cm)
Overall, Image: 36 x 27 in. (91.4 x 68.6 cm)
Overall, Frame: 44 3/4 × 35 in. (113.7 × 88.9 cm)
Credit LinePurchase and National Endowment for the Arts
Object number89.87
Not on view
DescriptionThis is a gelatin silver print from a solarized negativeLabel TextMichael Spano American (b. 1949) Between the Bars, 1986 Gelatin-silver print from solarized negative Purchase and National Endowment for the Arts 89.87 Michael Spano has approached photography with original articulacy. He uses unusual equipment and non-standard darkroom techniques such as wide-view, sequence-exposure, and solarization in order to represent urban experience in surprising ways. This image of street photography uses technique, rather than subject, to confront and comment on urban life. The negative of Between the Bars has been solarized, presumably to dissolve the scenario into a general portrait of every day experience in the city. Both a playful and a serious image, the blurring of line and shape transforms the familiar setting into a scene concerned with a growing alienation and dissolution of human relations in the metropolis. Edited By: GLY Edited Date: 09/2004 Approved By: MHM Approval Date: 09/21/2005Exhibition History"The Portrait in America," The Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photography Galleries, The Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, Jan. 26 - April 8, 1990. "History of Photography," Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photography Galleries, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va, June 15 - August 22, 1999. "Photography Speaks," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photo Galleries, September 4, 2004 - January 2, 2005. Published ReferencesBrooks Johnson, _The Portrait in America_, exh. cat., The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., 1990, 9, 67.
