"Ohio Imprint" Opening at Ross Art Museum
Here is a preview of a new exhibition opening this weekend, called "Ohio Imprint." It features prints from photographer Dick Arentz, with corresponding video and sound responses (from me).
Note that the closing reception (for friends in Ohio) is taking place Sunday, March 26, at the Richard M. Ross Museum at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio (2-4pm). It would be lovely to see you there. Otherwise, you can see updates on my website (here) in the upcoming weeks for those of you who would like to see the exhibition online/from afar.
Plus, Matter News did a nice article on the project, which just came out yesterday. You can read it here.
Watch a short excerpt from "Ohio Imprint," of the paper plant in Chillicothe.
In the fall of 2022, I brought videographer Kevin Davison with me throughout central and southern Ohio, re-tracing the footsteps of photographer Dick Arentz (b. 1935). We found the precise locations of seven of Arentz’s photos, in the towns of Mechanicsburg, Delaware, Chillicothe, Jackson, Ripley, Tyndall, and the Serpent Mound in Peebles.
Below, you can see Arentz's photos from three decades ago paired with video stills from today:
In each location, we made field recordings and recorded several minutes of video. The goal was to understand these places in new ways, to see them through Arentz’s eyes, and to experience what was happening beyond the photograph. As the project unfolded, I began to realize that the “imprint” implied in the project’s title is not only the marks made on photosensitive materials or on digital audio and video, but also the impression each place made on me. I was subjectively experiencing each place in context.
Here is a video still from the Serpent Mound:
The exhibit consists of seven videos (corresponding with the Arentz photographs) and a soundtrack of collaged field recordings. In addition, I provide written impressions of each location, including things seen and heard, and of people we met along the way. These notes also offer some historical context to the sites, and search for the stories beyond the image.
Here is the Arentz photo from Chillicothe (compare to the video above):
And here are my notes from Chillicothe:
Kevin and I walk up Bridge Road, carrying equipment onto a narrow strip of the bridge. Is this what Arentz did, too? It is precarious, dangerous. There is no walkway. We find the spot where he took his photograph of the old paper mill, of criss-crossing pipes and elevators, trains and silos full of wood and pulp. Cars and trucks fly by, shaking the bridge. We wonder if someone will come out to greet us, and ask us what we are doing. No one does. We watch smoke stacks at full blast, with a group of birds weaving in and out and around the smoke. Trucks and carts move below, full of people working, their hard hats and vests offering small dots of color. Great piles of shredded trees move along the elevator from across the freeway, up and over and down. And, of course, there is the smell—not too bad at first, but once we are downwind it is acrid and overwhelming—chemicals, wet dog, thick smoke, and bitter steam. I still taste it hours later. I ask someone who grew up there how he could stand it, and he replied, “My mom always told me that was the smell of money. As long as the smell was there, we knew we still had jobs.”
You can read all of my written impressions of each location on my website here.
Ohio Imprint was commissioned by the Richard M. Ross Museum at Ohio Wesleyan University. It is part of their “Artists in the Archive Series,” in which contemporary artists are invited to work with objects from the museum’s collection to make new work. Many thanks to the Museum and its director, Erin Fletcher, for supporting this project over several years.
The exhibition will run from January 22 to March 26, 2023. There will be a public reception on March 26, from 2-4pm. You can find more information here.