“There is an old song that says ‘the brushwood we gather- we stack it together, it makes a hut; pull it apart, a field once more.”
- Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

jane galerie is thrilled to partner with Melrose Botanical Garden to present a field once more, on view from September 7 - October 12, 2024 with open hours Friday and Saturday 12-4 pm at 7406 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90046.

Inspired by In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki, this group showcase examines the playful, yet intricate fragmentation that occurs when something as traditional as black and white photography is translated into a sculptural form.

Photography is often thought to be a window into the world, in a field once more, it returns to its origins of the black and white image, while transforming into an unwieldy, resistant surface volumetrically unfolding off the wall and into space. The unique and diverse array of materials (tape, fiberglass, textiles, paint, clay, latex, paper, etc) by these fourteen predominately Bay Area-based photographers not only disrupts the rectangular two-dimensional expectations of the medium, but rebels against San Francisco’s history as being a stronghold of straight photography proponents and the fine print tradition. The viewer is asked to look around, above, and below photography rather than simply at it.

In Praise of Shadows places shadows, something often thought as secondary to the object, at the forefront to be equally revered and respected. The works in a field once more revels in the objecthood of photography’s potential. We are inundated with images constantly on screens and billboards, creating the illusion that they exist only as two dimensional. In this show we’re considering how images can extend into the world as objects and therefore can become extensions of themselves. Similarly to how a shadow stretches out into the world and becomes an extension of an object, thus becoming its own entity.

“Such is our way of thinking- we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.”

- Jun'ichirō Tanizaki