NMMA exhibit looks at the evolution of photography in the 1960s and 70s

Aug. 26—During the early-to-mid 20th century, works by the likes of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston were considered the apex of great photography.

The artists who followed them understood and appreciated these giants, but they wanted to create their own aesthetics. In doing so, they helped redefine what photography could be.

"Transgressions and Amplifications: Mixed-Media Photography of the 1960s and 1970s" showcases the work of these inventive pioneers who expanded the definition of photography at Santa Fe's New Mexico Museum of Art.

The exhibit features more than 100 photographs, many from the museum's collection, with others borrowed from the University of New Mexico Art Museum, the Center for Creative Photography, the George Eastman Museum and others.

At the time, darkroom black and white photography dominated. This small cadre of American artists began developing new approaches to the field, bringing photography into conversation with other art forms. They were daredevils in the darkroom.

Some of these innovators gravitated to New Mexico.

Working within the turmoil of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement, these artists were as innovative as they were rebellious.

"They came into it with an interest in what photography could be," said Kate Ware, the museum's curator of photography. "They were challenging this."

Some of them revived old recipes for cyanotype or gum printing. Cyanotype is a 180-year-old photographic printing process that produces a distinctive dark greenish-blue. Others dared to pierce pristine photographs with needle and thread; a few created three-dimensional prints or books. Another contingent brought commercial materials and emerging imaging techniques such as photocopying into fine art. Still others incorporated pop culture references and craft traditions.

Known for working in alternative and early photographic processes, New Mexico's Betty Hahn studied photography at Indiana University and later taught at the University of New Mexico.

"She had a teacher who came out of the Bauhaus tradition," Ware said. "But other teachers didn't want to pass her."

Hahn studied under one of the most well-known photography teachers of the time, Henry Holmes Smith, who encouraged Hahn's work in alternative processes.

Smith was inspired by the work at the highly influential German Bauhaus. In 1937, he was invited to teach photography at the New Bauhaus being founded by Bauhaus professor László Moholy-Nagy in Chicago. The Bauhaus was a German art school open from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.

Hahn started experimenting with gum bichromate process, a 19th century photographic printing process. Smith convinced Hahn that photography was serious, potent stuff.

Hahn printed "Untitled (Barbara, Genesee Park)," 1971, on fabric and stitching.

"All of these are a big no-no," Ware said. The work "tends to be more personal; it's about a family or it's about sexuality. They were also saying photography is constructed by the artist."

When Hahn moved to Rochester, New York, to pursue a job with Kodak or Xerox, she took part in evening workshops. She eventually taught at the Rochester Institute of Technology with photographer Bea Nettles, but not without a fight.

"They said 'We can't put a woman in the darkroom with a student,' " Ware said. "Eventually, they did get hired."

Joyce Neimanas' "You Can Take Me Now," 1978, pairs Polaroid with pigment. She created work about heterosexual desire from a female perspective. She contrasted the coy, erotic prop of a hand-held fan set against a floral background against a frank come-on with stenciled words.

"It's very inconclusive; it's very layered," Ware said. "She's playing with images and media.

Neimanas also created work using pornographic film stills and text from the Kinsey Report, a scholarly book on sexual behavior. She later taught at UNM.

Thomas J. Barrow's "Discrete Multivariate Analysis," 1981, is a gelatin silver print coated with automotive lacquers and epoxy enamel. Barrow studied at Chicago's Institute of Design founded by the Bauhaus' Moholy-Nagy.

Barrow worked in photograms, printed images made without a camera with light-sensitive materials and light.

"It's one of the early forms of photography," Ware said.

Made with lights, objects, stencils and spray paint, his work yields something electric and new.

"It's a very layered composition," Ware said, "all kinds of different objects and texts. He uses auto enamel on top of it all. You see the film strips and objects he put on top of it like the hand."

Barrow used collage to reflect the chaos of life, like the Dadaists reacting to the horrors of World War I.

"It's not Yellowstone. It's not a portrait," Ware said. "It's how do we think, how we keep so much in our heads?

"There's only one of these," Ware added. "You can't reproduce it from a negative. It makes it absolutely unique, like a painting."

'Transgressions and Amplifications: Mixed-Media Photography of the 1960s and 1970s'

WHEN: Through Jan. 8, 2023

WHERE: New Mexico Museum of Art, 107 W. Palace Ave., Santa Fe

HOURS: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily

HOW MUCH: $7 resident; $12 non-resident, free for youth (16 and younger), 505-476-5063, nmartmuseum.org