1120 Projects May 2018

Buffalo, NY – Eleven Twenty Projects is pleased to present an exhibition of the latest series of photographs by Buffalo artist Biff Henrich.

The Structure of Things Part II showcases a series of photographic prints that push the envelope of our traditional understanding of the medium. Key to the realization of these works is Henrich’s masterful "in-camera" process—all images are created in the moment of capture and do not rely upon post-capture editing effects. Rather than documenting a scene directly—indeed, sources for these images may be quite banal—the artist shapes a new reality through this unusual and impromptu process. As a result, Henrich's colorful images become painterly abstractions with only hints of the recognizable.

Photography having once been presumed to replace painting, Henrich hybridizes the two in a manner both technical and ineffable. With photography today unencumbered by any technical limitations, Henrich forces himself to function within a specific set of parameters as an effort to realize an unexpected image. He is reinjecting the painterly into the photographic and the analogue into the digital.

Henrich’s works—as with works of painted abstraction—give the viewer room to approach the abstracted space and seek their own resolution to its ambiguous offerings. While time and space are inescapable subjects in reading of a photograph, these images are indefinite and often ethereal, functioning more as color field paintings, inviting the audience to have their own personal, emotional, and imaginative response.

As Henrich himself notes, “The photographs I make are visual experiences that are derived from our everyday world but do not exist in it.”

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Biff Henrich is an award-winning photographer from Buffalo, NY whose work is in many public and private collections including Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Princeton University Gallery of Art. The artist’s work is has been shown nationally in venues such as the Albright Knox Art Gallery, P.S. 1, Artists Space, and Contemporary Art Museum of Houston. Henrich is the former Director of CEPA Gallery, where he is currently on the Board of Directors.

VASA Exhibition March 2018

Exhibition Curator: Roberto Muffoletto

Curatorial Statement: Roberto Muffoletto

In his exhibition introduction Biff Henrich invites (the viewer the reader of the visual text) of the two portfolios included in the exhibition to consider and construct their own meanings and understandings.  Taking the raw visual material, the image, as the starting point, meaning is understood as a subjective and creative process.  From this position, there is no meaning until the reader says there is.  From this perspective the authority lies with the reader and their experience.  

This position creates a challenge for the reader.  The experience only arises when the image is seen, not viewed, but seen.  All images are codified from different paradigms.  We experience the moon light images built upon the aesthetics of pictorialism. The color abstractions, rooted in painting and non-representationalism, explore the relationships between form and color.  Seeing both approaches in the same exhibition, hanging on VASA’s virtual wall, brings to the forefront questions concerning the relationship between the two and the vision of the photographer.  

The exhibition is entitled “The Structure of Things”.  The title provides us with a basic framework to read the images.  The abstract work is clear, it is about structure and relationships, form and color.  The night images (Henrich photographed under moon light creates a quiet and still sense of the space) draws mainly from the natural landscape where we as readers impose structure and form, creating the objects we see in the image, thus providing the reader with a different challenge in thinking about what they see. 

What may we learn about Biff Henrich through the two bodies of work in this exhibition? As he clearly states, these images are not meant to create within the reader the external world but to stimulate an internal reflective stance to the experience.  His intention is not to provide ready-made meanings but invites the reader of his visual text to construct their own.  In this way both bodies of work, as is all photography, are abstractions.  Biff wants to engage his readers in the construction of their meanings, while realizing that the image is nothing until the reader reads it.

Note: (I need to mentiopn that the first viewer/reader of the visual text is the image-maker.  Whether it is looking through a viewfinder or scanning the screen of a digital photo editor, the photographer is the first reader.  Starting with the decision to make the digital recording (or exposure), framing and the moment, to the decision to display (display is a form of publication) the image, the photographer is reading the image and making editorial choices.  After that the image(s) moves up the chain of editors: curators, publication editors and the public.) 

© Roberto Muffoletto 2017
Images © Biff Henrich

CEPA Gallery is pleased to present The Structure of Things a selection of photographic works drawn from two new bodies of work by Biff Henrich. This exhibition of large-scale digital photographs is Henrich’s first solo exhibition at CEPA Gallery. An opening exhibition with the artist will take place on Friday, September 16, 2016 from 7p-10p.

There is a certain elusiveness to Henrich’s conceptual practice: he objects to the use of artist statements and scoffs at the institutional predilection for explanatory notes. The two distinct bodies of photographs included in The Structure of Things, appear at first glance to have no readily apparent common denominator, save for the fact that they are all photographs. However, further investigation reveals an underlying sentiment, intended or not, informed by notions found within the structuralist mode—a sentiment exemplified by his sole reliance on in-camera manipulation. Henrich’s recognition of the sensor as the source of the image begs the question: is it the pixels on the capture sensor itself that form the locus of perception and meaning?

One series, a suite of quiet landscapes shot by moonlight, appear slightly amiss. The light is otherworldly and the artifacts of the long exposures seem to play tricks on the viewer’s perceptions. There is a silky architecture to the images that betrays our sense of the real—an architecture of pixels so subtle in its digitalness that it borders on the hyper real.

Almost as a visual foil, the second series lays bare the digital mode of capture, manipulating it in camera to the point of abstraction. Some images reveal subtle clues as to the subject matter while others are simply a tapestry of colors. There’s a fascinating reciprocity buried within the undulating bands of color—seemingly broken images that fold in on themselves both visually and conceptually.

Henrich’s prolific career includes work as an nationally and internationally exhibiting artist, musician, arts administrator, educator and professional commercial photographer—choosing to operate out of Buffalo throughout his career. During the Late 1970’s and early 1980’s he served as Director of CEPA Gallery and was one of the original members of the punk band The Vores. During this time he oversaw programming that included an impressive roster of then unknown artists, which included Barbara Krueger, Sarah Charlesworth, Laurie Simmons, and Robert Mapplethorpe, among others. Henrich has been directly involved with CEPA Gallery for nearly its entire 40+ year history both as a member and serving on the board of directors in a number of capacities, including as its President. His impact on the cultural fabric of Buffalo’s art scene is undeniable.

David Mitchell

Artistic Director/CEPA Gallery