TRANSFORMING ART- AS TIME GOES BY
Cape Cod Museum of Art
(December 6, 2006-March 4, 2007)
New Bedford Art Museum
(August 1, 2007- August 31, 2007)
R.J. Katz was commissioned by the Cape Cod Museum of Art in September 2005 to create a special exhibit for the museum. The exhibit was then mounted at the New Bedford Art Museum.
The exhibit pairs 15 paintings by renowned Cape Cod artists (e.g. Ross Moffett, Arthur Cohen) of scenes of the past, primarily in and around Provincetown and the Cape Cod Canal, with 15 images by R.J. Katz of the same scenes from the same viewpoint. The idea was to capture the exact scene in the paintings but in a photographic format without digitally altering or enhancing the image in any way. R.J. Katz photographed the same scene repeatly until the artist's point a view was achieved. She photographed more than 20,000 images over a period of a year. Moreover, at that time she was living in New York, travelling to the Cape, a six-hour car ride, almost every weekend.
A review of the exhibit in the Provincetown Banner stated:
· "If you call Photographer R.J. Katz a perfectionist, you might fall short of the effort she put into her new show at the Cape Cod Museum of Art.”
Below are selected parings of the exhibit and the show itself. While the actual paintings were all different sizes, all of R.J’s pieces were 30” x 40”. Beneath the images is a description of her process.
My process
In December 2005, I was given photocopies of 15 paintings, by the Cape Cod Museum of Art, without any explanations of what or where the scenes were located on Cape Cod.
I spoke with librarians, historians, and artists to find the locations and explanations of the scenes. One painting was of a one-room schoolhouse in Provincetown. Not only did I not know the location of the scene depicted in the painting, but I did not know anything about a one-room school house in Provincetown. My seach lead me to a shop owner who not only attended the school, but shared the history and his personal experience.
Another example was the Old Harbor Life-Saving Station. Currently located in Provincetown, it was built in 1897, and was originally located in Chatham. My research lead me to a Park Ranger from the National Seashore who shared letters from early 1900’s written by those who were saved by the men based at that Old Harbor Life-Saving Station. Reading those letters provided me invaluable historical insights crucial to capturing the same point of view.
I gave a series of gallery talks at both museums explaining my process. The following is an excerpt from one such talk:
"In exploring the sites, I examined and compared them to the corresponding paintings. I was seeking the artists point of view. I took hundreds of photos of each location, standing in different spots, observing the relationships of the elements (e.g. buildings, boats) and of the lines, angles, space, form, and color. Next, I downloaded the images and studied the details in each one comparing it to the matching painting. Based on what I learned, I returned to the area and took more photos, and the process continued until I have captured the elements and angles that most closely matched the painting.”
“Once I determined where I needed to stand to obtain the elements and angles, I revisited the areas once again under the same conditions as depicted in each painting taking into account such elements as weather, time of year, tides, and light, only then I took the final photograph.
Although, the project took a year to photograph thousands of images and hours spent travelling back and forth from NY, it was a rewarding and life changing experience.