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Review by
Antonio Morales
Color is so seductive, and the history of American media culture is the immediate triumph of color once technology supports it appearance. How quickly did magazines succumb, once quality presses presented a full palette; the personal computer could never be so necessary to the contemporary home with only a monochrome monitor; and only a small cult following today would prefer a black and white film to the modern descendants of Technicolor.
But broader spectrums do not guarantee artistic success. The raw power of a full palette was confronted in the works of Paul Outerbridge and others, but it was many years before color was mastered as a descriptive device serving other ends besides itself.
Helen Levitt’s luscious New York City street photographs perhaps were the first illustration of this use, and it was over two decades before William Eggleston’s triumphant MOMA show. Even then, Szarkowski’s cause celebré was met with much criticism.
Since that time, color-as-description masters have gradually claimed every photo genre: William Christenberry and Eggleston in the South; Stephen Shore in the vernacular street scape or at Yankees spring training; Lucas Samaras in his fantasy; Marie Cosindas’ wonderfully muted still lifes, Harry Callahan and later, Joel Meyerowitz on the Cape; Richard Misrach in the great West; even Susan Mieselas with the horrors of war.
From Santa Fe north to Taos, the Rio Grand Valley, bounded on the east by the Sangre de Christo mountains, themselves named for the color they turn in the sunset, may be home to the most fabled light in North America. Pueblo and Hispano artisans were already pouring color into their weavings and retablos, or reflecting it in their tinworks and jewelry for hundreds of years, before non-native painters began to flock to these lands around the turn of the 20th century,
Some three decades before this immigration, photographers, notably the 19th century photographic pioneers O’Sullivan, Hillers and Jackson, were plying their craft here. These greats were followed by Edward Curtis and then the modern lights, Strand, Weston and Adams. More recent times continue to draw photographers here. Like the contemporary color giants mentioned above, large format camera users tend to dominate exploration of the landscape, rendering in color as seamlessly as did the albumen plates of days long past.
The shift in contemporary American practice began in the 1970’s; many of those who were key in defining the aesthetics of New Topographics, began moving from 35mm practice to medium and large format cameras to establish what became known as the New Color. Elegant compositions, along with smooth, long tonal ranges began to supplant edgy spontaneous juxtapositions. (Though Nicholas Nixon provides a vibrant compositional counterpoint, a solitary black and white exception, proving the rule, in his 8x10” portraiture.) The larger formats also support the very large prints that in the last decade have come to dominate the exhibition scene.
It is into this milieu that Jim Klukkert has brought forth his Riparian Work in its premier exhibition at August Gallery in Santa Fe. Klukkert has spent the last four years photographing a small section of the river which passes by his house in El Rancho, a farming village some 20 miles northwest of Santa Fe.
Klukkert’s color glicée prints are dense with detail and design, with a lavish and well defined palette of greens, reds and browns to intimately describe the plants that live and die at the river’s edge; the use of a matte paper extends the painterly quality of this portfolio. But it is Klukkert’s working method that distinguish the photographs through framing, camera handling, and particularly the intimate perspective. The vegetation is so close, one viewer commented, “I could feel branches tickling my nostrils.”
These works make great pictorial sense out of the seeming chaos of sometimes dense riverside habitat. Near and far ground spin out of focus, yet are held in the frame by strong unifying visual dynamics. In some images, it is clear that shutter speed is slow enough to betray branches swaying in the breeze, while limbs more stout stand still. As close as Klukkert works in some of his views, selective focus in a minimal depth of field situation enhances this impact. The largest prints (which range up to 20x30 inches) best lay bear the pleasing effect of sharp dynamic lines inserted into surroundings softened by aperture and blur.
As might be expected in northern New Mexico, all works are bathed in light, some in the best of New Mexico’s glorious “magic hour.” The others are illuminated with light ranging from fair to overcast, betraying the photographer’s proximity to, and consequent familiarity with, his chosen site along the Pojoaque River.
Klukkert began photographing as an alternative press photojournalist in the early 1970’s. Though he did venture into medium and large format cameras for a time, his Leicas remain with him. So do the attitudes nourished by his favorite artists, Capa, Cartier-Bresson, Frank and Friedlander among them, and the alternative institution, Apeiron Workshops, where he first learned to take his social reportage into larger issues of symbol, metaphor and image.
A careful viewing of these photographs clearly reveals that this is the work of a small camera. Spontaneity, decisive moments, gesture, widely circulated eye movement, all the tell tale elements are there. “The river is my street,” Klukkert says, “and the plants are its pedestrians.” Though perhaps not many photographers would crawl through crowds the way that Klukkert apparently crawls through the brush to make these active and personable portraits of those who live along the river he walks.
Klukkert’s working method, and resultant images, sets him apart from the historical trend, or perhaps anticipates the blowback against the dominant large format landscape paradigm. Whether he is the harbinger of the return to small camera work, or just the exception proving the rule, Klukkert’s photographs are exceptional. Rooted in the still strong tradition of street photography; bringing forward essential qualities of the natural environment, Riparian Work is sure to satisfy those seeking a new perception of the world around us.
Riparian Work: Photographs by Jim Klukkert continues through April 22, 2006 at August Gallery.