Revealing landscapes and the poetry of motion
by Cate McQuaid, Globe Correspondent, July 19, 2007
Stop-action imagesThe motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) and Harold E. "Doc" Edgerton (1903-1990) are legendary. Muybridge used multiple cameras to prove that a horse lifted all four feet off the ground in mid-gallop, among other things. Edgerton used the strobe to capture the splash of a milk drop and the arc of a golf swing.
In "Motion Measured," Gallery Kayafas presents works by Muybridge and Edgerton alongside three contemporary photographers whose art riffs or archly comments on theirs.
Peter Urban uses Muybridge's backdrop of a string grid. The "motion" he traces is more spiritual than physical. In his diptych "The Living Symbol," the first image shows a soldier in desert camouflage, standing proud. In the next, he's gone, but his uniform crumples and bends back in the air. In Urban's works, people disappear like this, leaving the trappings of their identity suspended in the air, but "The Living Symbol" is the most freighted with loss.
Urban... [uses] the work of Muybridge as a springboard to explore contemporary cultural issues... It's a clever mix of technical wizardry and ironic reflection.