EMOTION — in BLACK & WHITE and COLOR:
1 5    P H O T O G R A P H E R S

March 24 — September 2007

Doug Cox

"The purpose of photography is to create an emotion about the world through what has been carefully seen and selected." —Eli Siegel, Afternoon Regard for Photography

Note: Click on thumbnails to see larger images & photographers' statements.

THE TERRAIN GALLERY is proud to show work by 15 photographers, work which we believe creates emotion about the world, good for the person having it. That emotion may have surprise or wonder, humor, compassion, but in every case reality is seen as meaning more to a person; as having value where we hadn't seen it in just that way before.

Dan McClung

The basis of this gallery is Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy founded by poet and critic Eli Siegel. He stated—and it has been the motto of the Terrain since it opened in 1955—"In reality opposites are one; art shows this." Whenever a work of art in any medium is successful, the opposites in reality have been made one. As this exhibition shows, in photography, the dramatic interplay of light and dark, sharpness and softness, a specific object and wide meaning, the immediate moment and permanent structure, are central to the success, the beauty, of the work.

The photographers' comments on the importance of the opposites as they took a photo, the visual & technical choices they made, and their increased care for people, things, and the possibilities of photography are a vivid part of the exhibition.

This gallery has been a pioneer in seeing that the beauty of photography is like beauty in all the arts. As the New York Times noted, "The Terrain Gallery held one of the first exhibitions honoring photography as fine art." Eli Siegel discussed photography and the work of specific photographers on many occasions. Several of these important talks have been published, as have been numerous essays and articles by photographers—some of whom have work in the present show—based on the critical method he taught.

Aesthetic Realism itself has been described as "a course in honest world appreciation." We hope this exhibition is a means of the art of photography, and the world itself, being seen with fresh exactitude, excitement, lasting respect.