Black & White
January 14th-March 5th 2011
Opening Reception Dates: Friday, January 14th AND Friday, February 11th!
Seeking for drawings, paintings, sculpture, books, video and photographs that explore the absence of color.
1. Writing or print: saw their words in black and white.
2. A visual medium, as in photography or printmaking, employing only black and white or black, white, and values of gray: a film shot in black and white; a painting reproduced in black and white.
Black-and-white is a broad adjectival term used to describe a number of monochrome forms of visual arts. Most forms of visual technology start out in black and white, and then slowly evolve into color as technology progresses. “Black-and-white” as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white most of these media included varying shades of grey. Further, many prints, especially those produced earlier in the development of photography, were in sepia (mainly to provide archival stability), which gave a richer, more subtle shading than reproductions in plain black-and-white, although less so than color.
Today black-and-white media often has a “nostalgic”, historic, or anachronistic feel to it. For example, the 1998 Woody Allen film Celebrity was shot entirely in black-and-white. Other films, such as American History X, Pleasantville, and The Wizard of Oz play with the concept of the black-and-white anachronism, using it to selectively portray scenes and characters that are either more outdated or dull than the characters and scenes shot in full-color. This manipulation of color appears in the film Sin City and the occasional television commercial. Wim Wenders’ 1987 film Wings of Desire uses sepia tone black-and-white for the scenes shot from the angels’ perspective. When Damiel, the angel (the film’s main character) becomes a human, the film changes to color emphasizing his new “real life” view of the world.
Artists Include:
- David Peniston
- Kate Kosmos
- Brendan Clunn
- Angie Martorana
- Zsuzsanna Laszlo
- Phillip Long
Gallery hours:
Wednesdays 6-9pm
Second Fridays 6-9pm
Or call 510.865.5060
to schedule an appointment.
