Artist Spotlight: Adam Fuss

On display now at the Fine Arts Center is 50x50: The Herbert and Dorothy Vogel Collection, an exhibition of 50 contemporary works gifted to the FAC by New York collectors Herbert and Dorothy Vogel. Featured in the exhibition is a manipulated photograph by British artist Adam Fuss.

Artist Adam Fuss. Image Source

Using pinhole cameras and photograms to “reject photography but still hold onto it,” Fuss desired to return to the historic origins of photography to represent elapsed time, rather than embracing the more popular modern ideas of capturing specific moments with a 35 mm lens. 

Born in London in 1961, Fuss began his career using pinhole cameras, the earliest and simplest way to photographically record an image.  

Adam Fuss, Untitled, 1997, Manipulated photograph, edition 61/100. FA 2009.12.10. Image source

Later he moved towards photograms, a cameraless darkroom process involving exposing photographic paper blocked by various objects to light, in this case keeping the paper in a water bath covered with small particles (salt or sugar, perhaps) to create the illusion of a starry sky with scattered material on the paper.  The manipulated photographs of Fuss tend to feature evocative, surreal images such as this one; inspired by nature but not directly depicting it.

Fuss now lives and works in New York City.

50 x 50:

The Herbert and Dorothy Vogel Collection

On view May 11 - Aug. 11, 2013 | Tues.- Sun., 10a-5p