Accession Number
2000/2.133

Title
Kyoto

Artist(s)
Bernard Descamps

Artist Nationality
French (culture or style)

Object Creation Date
1982, printed 1994

Medium & Support
gelatin silver print on paper

Dimensions
9 1/2 in x 7 5/16 in (24.13 cm x 18.57 cm);19 5/16 in x 14 5/16 in (49.05 cm x 36.35 cm);9 1/2 in x 7 5/16 in (24.13 cm x 18.57 cm);6 1/8 in x 5 7/8 in (15.56 cm x 14.92 cm)

Credit Line
Gift of The Morris and Beverly Baker Foundation, in memory of Morris D. Baker, a graduate of The University of Michigan School of Architecture, 1952

Label copy
Flip Your Field – Photography from the Collection
Intro Wall Text

The photographs presented here, in two contrasting displays, were selected from the UMMA’s vast holdings. They present the viewer with an opportunity to see two distinctly different approaches to the art of the photograph. On this wall is a set of relatively straightforward, yet incredibly diverse, representations of the same subject. Here, photographic technique presumes the truth of the image. The display on the perpendicular wall is a selection of photographic works pushed by the artists in a variety of creative directions. Inventive and expressive in nature, they illuminate the intervention of artistic vision into the photographic process.

As an artist I was struck by the breadth and size of UMMA’s remarkable collection—every theme that has interested artists over time is represented. As I looked through the many photographs, my instinct was to group together images of trees, a subject close to our immediate environment and related to my own work. Collecting photographs of trees was never an intentional strategy of the museum. The large number of such images among its extensive holdings is rather the result of the abiding interest of photographers in the subject, evidenced throughout the history of the medium.
As a grouping, these photographs demonstrate what the medium has from its beginning done so well—captured the “fact” of a place or event or thing. Yet within this one subject, the range of imagery is quite broad. The tight arrangement here allows us to see the subject as a whole, while also inviting us to compare the artists’ individual visions. For example, compare the gnarled tree trunk in the Ansel Adams image to the simplicity of the single tree on a beach in the photograph by Elliott Erwitt.
Juxtaposed to the tree arrangement is the adjacent wall with very different photographic images, carefully spaced and arranged in a more conventional manner. These are images derived through artistic innovation, and in some cases traditional photography is only part of the picture—other technical strategies are also at play. These photographs are expressive of each individual artist’s point of view, often taking photographic techniques in new and experimental directions. Most were completed in the darkroom and studio before the ease of digital manipulation so prevalent today. Consider, for instance, Blythe Bohnen’s self-portrait, a photograph capturing motion and intentional blurring of the focus, and contrast it with Lesley Dill’s “White Poem Figure (The Soul Has Moments of Escape),” an image that challenges the notion of what constitutes a photograph.
With the abundance of cell phone cameras, the photograph has become even more a part of our lives. The ease with which we can capture “real life” images, and at the same time manipulate those images digitally, means that the creative work of photographers in the past is, in a sense, now embedded in our everyday experience. Together, the two distinct installations that constitute this exhibition recall the purity of the traditional photograph while also presenting works in which creative experimentation has expanded the boundaries of the medium.
Larry Cressman
Guest Curator
Professor of Art,Residential College and Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design
The UMMA Flip Your Field series asks noted University of Michigan faculty members to consider artwork outside their field of specialization in order to guest curate an exhibition using works from UMMA's renowned collection. The UMMA Flip Your Field series is generously supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
25) Bernard Descamps
France, born 1947
Untitled
20th century
Gelatin silver print
Gift of The Morris and Beverly Baker Foundation, in memory of Morris D. Baker, a graduate of The University of Michigan School of Architecture, 1952, 2000/2.133

Subject matter
Created looking at a slightly downward angle, this photograph depicts a shoreline of a Japanese garden. Lining the bank, a row of smooth stones separate the water from the grass. Rising out of the calm, undisturbed water, a wooden beam extends upwards to support the drooping branch of a pine tree that enters the frame from the left. The shadow of this beam reflects darkly in the water, forming a t-shape against the water’s still surface. The stillness of the water and its mirror-like reflection of the sky above has a subtle disorienting effect, almost appearing as sky itself.

Physical Description
This photograph depicts the water’s edge at a Japanese garden. A wooden beam in the center of the image supports a pine tree branch that would otherwise fall into the water.

Primary Object Classification
Photograph

Collection Area
Photography

Rights
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit http://umma.umich.edu/request-image for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form. Keywords
Japan
Japanese gardens
abstraction
bodies of water (natural)
branches (plant components)
coniferous forest biomes
pines
reflections
stone
stone (worked rock)
trees
water