Fragments: Connecting the Classics with 20th Century Photography

I arrive at 5pm to a crowd of boisterous and elated individuals. The room is buzzing about the new photography exhibit titled, Fragmentary Evidence: Photographs from the Ramer Collection. Curated by Arielle Hardy, a graduate student and my colleague in the Art History Department of the University of California at Davis, the exhibit utilizes the eclectic photography collection of Dr. and Mrs. Barry Ramer in order to scrutinize fragmentation and its effects on perception.

The theme is indeed one rich in material and meaning, both implying a sense of one-sidedness and a sense of incompleteness. The photograph depicts only a portion of the subject, and the subject itself is often broken or, quite appropriately, fragmented. The audience is able to only perceive what the photograph contains, and the subject only reveals a portion of itself. The effect of the two sides of the experience—observed versus observer—amplifies an intense feeling of disjunction, which the viewer is inclined to either investigate further or to ignore entirely.

Hardy comments that she wanted to explore relationships between wholes and pieces in the show, adding that many of the photograph groupings explore either a reassembling of one photograph through the use of others, or an elaboration on the disturbance created by one image's fragmentation through the use of repetitive motifs. Her show was heavily influenced by her work in classical Greek art, which is often extant in pieces or in wreckage. Something is missing from the image, but we the audience are unable to resolve the situation and are left to either accept the image for what it is or to problematize it. In either case, the photographs work well with one another to survey the loaded theme of partiality and its place in the history of photography and in the larger history of art.

The exhibition style itself seems to work well with the premise of the show, seemingly contradicting the idea of fragmentation by introducing fluidity and cohesion through the use of floating glass frames. The effect is isolating and coalescing. The photographs are not displayed using traditional means (matting, mounting, backing, and framing) which exhibits these images less like photographs and more like specimen. Simultaneously, the lack of frames imbues the space with harmony and balance, implying that each image is interconnected to the others through their shared brokenness.

The show, hosted by the Nelson Gallery on the University of California at Davis campus, will remain on display until 10 May 2015. I highly encourage everyone to check it out before it disintegrates ;) (pun fully intended.)