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Composites: Philadelphia

A work made of gelatin silver prints mounted on masonite and wood.

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  • A work made of gelatin silver prints mounted on masonite and wood.

Date:

1966

Artist:

Ray K. Metzker
American, 1931-2014

About this artwork

For over fifty years, Ray Metzker has made innovations in photographic form with a meticulous graphic sensibility. A student of Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at Chicago’s Institute of Design, Metzker had his first one-man show at the Art Institute in 1959, which exhibited his master’s thesis, “My Camera and I in the Loop.” In the mid-1960s, he became frustrated with the limitations of the single image, and began his Composites as a way to explore, as he wrote, “complexity of succession and simultaneity, of collected and related moments.” Influenced in part by Eadweard Muybridge’s gridded motion studies, he printed multiple images in careful graphic sequences. In Composites: Philadelphia, Metzker employed an entire roll of film, rewinding and reshooting (and thus double-exposing) the backlit nude silhouette to produce a work that relates images to one another across time.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Photography and Media

Artist

Ray Krueger Metzker

Title

Composites: Philadelphia

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1966

Medium

Gelatin silver prints mounted on Masonite and wood

Dimensions

171 × 77 cm (67 3/8 × 30 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

The Goodman Fund

Reference Number

1996.45

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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