Paris. Since its creation in 2014, the Center Pompidou’s photography gallery has been devoted to monographic or thematic exhibitions highlighting recent acquisitions from the National Museum of Modern Art (Mnam). Located in the basement of the building, it is not on the route of the Center’s exhibitions and is not always identified by the general public, although its access is free and its exhibitions are generally of very high quality. The one currently dedicated to Barbara Crane (1928-2019) is particularly so. It was organized thanks to the recent entry into the Mnam collections of three sets from major series by the American photographer: “Neon Series” (1969), “People of the North Portal” (1970-1971) and “Loop Series” (1976-1978).
A notable entry thanks to this exhibition relating to the first twenty-five years of his career, curated by Julie Jones. The interest shown in the Institute of Design (Chicago) by the curator of the Cabinet of Photography since her doctorate on this famous so-called “Chicago” school is not unrelated to this spotlight.
“Introduced to photography by her father, Barbara Crane discovered the formal and theoretical innovations of the European avant-gardes during her studies in California at Mills College (Oakland) where Imogen Cunningham taught, relates Julie Jones. During these years [1945-1948], she read the writings of László Moholy-Nagy and György Kepes, who were both teachers at the Institute of Design, founded before the war by Moholy-Nagy, a former Bauhaus professor. However, it was not until she returned in 1964 to Chicago, her hometown, with her three children and her husband […], that Barbara Crane joined this school to take photography lessons from Aaron Siskind. » Adding: “Siskind, who, following Harry Callahan, encourages experimentation as a working method in the service of the expression of subjectivity, but also of a certain form of humanism. » Produced as part of her diploma, all of the “Human Forms” (1964-1968), quasi-abstract nudes of her children, are part of the photographer’s first aesthetic research into shapes, light and graphic lines. If we find the influence of Callahan and Siskind, the outline of the bodies, reduced to a pure line, stands out. The prints, made by the photographer, like 90% of the prints exhibited, are absolutely beautiful. Barbara Crane’s technical perfectionism goes hand in hand with her need to constantly experiment to “suggest new ways of communicating the sensation of being in the world”to use the words of John Rohbach cited in the catalog (Atelier EXB editions).
The documentary and the abstract
Produced in the wake of “Human Forms”, “Neon Series”, superposition of luminous patterns on tight portraits of individuals leaving a department store, illustrates this constant oscillation in the artist between abstraction and figurative approach. What the hanging makes perfectly legible: the left wall of the gallery is devoted to series more in the documentary register such as “People of the North Portal”, composed of portraits of people entering and leaving the Museum of Science and Technology. Chicago Industry; the right wall shows more abstract series such as “Baxter Labs”, a combination of negatives multiplied to give a very graphic abstract image, or “Repeats”, rhythmic variations of negatives, with the false appearance of visual representation of a sound, bringing back the importance of classical music to Barbara Crane.
Julie Jones brought back, from the American archives, some sets never or rarely shown in France such as these photographs of Chicago beaches which recall, in another documentary vein, those of Yasuhiro Ishimoto (1921-2012) currently exhibited at the BAL in Paris. Ishimoto, also a student at the Institute of Design in Chicago, advised Crane to purchase his first Nikon 35mm during his stay in Tokyo. From the BAL to the Center Pompidou, it is an emancipation of the gaze born from this Chicago school which tells its story, inseparable in Barbara Crane from a desire to never let oneself be locked into a style. “We will have understood that Barbara is never at rest, physically, professionally but also mentally”, recalls in the catalog the gallery owner Françoise Paviot, who until recently represented it in France.
