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Hour 11/01
2022 | Art Schism
Ghosts: An Artist’s Existential Redux
By Galen Collison
THEN AND NOW This photo and the one below from the 1930s have been transformed into contemporary pictures, their subjects brought forward to the present day in time-lapse exposures captured in a series of NFTs. Self-proclaimed theoretical aesthetician David Dann created them as a demonstration of the transitory nature of existence, part of a larger exhibit exploring truth and meaning. Images courtesy White Walls Gallery, ©2022 David Dann
IN 2019, NOTED author Rowling Dord was given a collection of amateur photographic negatives that had been discovered in the attic of an old upstate New York house by workers who were installing insulation. The snapshots, stored away in a cigar box and long forgotten, appeared to be candids of the people who had lived in the house almost a century ago. Dord was intrigued by the images, and had them printed.
The discovery of the negatives was made just as the COVID-19 virus was emerging as a worldwide concern. The ensuing pandemic, with its quarantines, lock-downs and tragically lethal consequences, has left many with a deepened awareness of life’s fragility and of the fleeting nature of existence. Dr. Dord, too, felt these emotions, and it occurred to him that the images captured in the found negatives might provide an apt metaphor for life’s transitory imperative as underscored by the coronavirus. It was then that he contacted his colleague, artist David Dann.
Dann also found the photographs intriguing. With a bit of research, he determined that they had been taken between 1930 and 1940, and the people shown were long dead, including a little boy who died at age six. He offered to collaborate with Dr. Dord on an art piece that would “bring these people briefly back to life.” Dord readily agreed, and the result was his multi-faceted work titled “Ghosts: An Existential Redux.”
Dann obtained access to the property where the negatives were found, and set up his camera in various spots where the original images had been taken. Using the prints as guides, he carefully recreated the 1930s scenes as they appear today. He then placed the photos’ subjects in the contemporary images, positioning them just as they had been over 90 years ago, and bringing them forward in time, almost as though their moments had never passed. The result is presented as part of the exhibit in a poignant video.
Also presented as part of “Ghosts” are additional artifacts that were discovered in the house’s attic. Some were in the cigar box with the negatives, others were scattered among the rafters. They come from a period concurrent with the photos, and they provide a glimpse into the personal lives of the adults and children depicted in the images. There are store receipts, greeting cards, grooming items, school notebooks, children’s toys – everyday ephemera as common now as they were nearly a century ago. Though they have outlived their owners, these items serve as a physical complement to the present-day simulations of “Ghosts: An Existential Redux.”
Galen Collison is an art critic and associate professor of Comparative Aesthetics at Bayonne College in Montclair, NJ. He is the author of Holy of Holies: The Modern Gallery (Knopf Doubleday 2017) and is a contributor to Art & Stream, Gesso Quarterly, Antiquities Buylines and Artenol magazines.