Klompching Gallery brings together the photographic artworks of two artists, Robert Moran and Robert Calafiore. Each artist presents compelling photographs of artifacts, bringing to attention in fine detail, the objects' individual attributes. More than this, they each utilize the photographic medium in different ways to preserve histories that are at once universal and highly personal. By juxtaposing the different methodologies utilized by two perceptive and highly skilled photographers, we highlight the breadth of possibilities in visualizing ideas through the photographic medium.
L-R: Blue Flash, Underwood, Beat It © Robert Moran
Archival Pigment Prints, Edition: 8+1AP, 16"x16" (image) on 20"x20.5" sheet
In the case of Robert Moran, we present the Relics series. Made between 2011–2014, the photographs that make up Relics, present artifacts from our recent past that are discarded, and for the most part, no longer used. The objects range from manual typewriters, earth globes, dial phones and lava lamps through to electric fans and pigskin footballs. Each machine or object is centrally positioned upon a shelf, photographed front-on and lit brightly. The method of depicting the objects is reminiscent of an anthropological survey, presenting the viewer with the details to scrutinize. However, the simplicity of approach also enables us to view the subject matter with a touch of nostalgia, warmth and to ignite memories of an object's past use.
Ogetti de Vetro, Smeraldo © Robert Calafiore
Unique C-Type Pinhole Prints (18 panels) 72"x120"
Robert Calafiore's Glass series consists of images of seemingly ordinary glass objects. However, most of them are mid-century family heirlooms, from the artist's immediate and extended Italian migrant family. They are imbued with narratives of migration, generational family history and for the artist, direct experiences of their utilitarian function in the family home. Individual and unique experiences have been transferred into unique objects, with each photograph being made as a one-of-a-kind print, using a pinhole camera obscura to record light directly onto the traditional photographic paper.
Whereas Robert Moran's photographs are almost monochromatic, quiet and contemplative, with each photograph rendered at an intimate scale, Robert Calafiore's photographs are lush in color, vibrant and energetic; boldly stated as a large-scale grid of 18 separate photographs. What they share is a wonderful celebration of the importance of objects in peoples' lives, our projection of personal stories onto them, and in their own ways, a nod to photography's performative role within that context. Both bodies of work are about beauty, about collective reminiscence and personal narratives.
