Why do twenty-first century photographers employ nineteenth-century photographic techniques? Julian Cox, Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and artist Stephen Berkman come together to consider this question as they discuss Berkman's visual language and practice in colloidal plate photographic techniques--and illuminate the art of Victorian-era photography in the present day. This program is presented in partnership with SF Camerawork.
In Predicting the Past: Zohar Studios, The Lost Years (now on view at The CJM), Berkman looks to these antiqued methods to bring to life a set of mysterious photographs that immerse the viewer in the world of Victorian life in New York's predominantly Jewish lower-east side in the early 1900s.