Stephen Althouse
Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida
SEPTEMBER 9 - NOVEMBER 8, 2009
FROM THE EARLIEST DAYS OF PHOTOGRAPHY, the pictorial documentation of the world around us has held infinite fascination as the subject for photographers. And from the beginning, the photographic image was as influential as the printed word. Even today, when we look at a photograph, we tend to "read" the image for its informational content. Stephen Althouse's images can be read as metaphors for the interconnectedness of secular and spiritual life. His images combine the practical and symbolic, weaving a relationship between tools and textiles as venerated symbols of work and faith. Like medieval devotional relics and honorific textiles, Althouse's tools and shrouds become symbols of power and reverence, engaging the viewer in a dialogue about history, humanity, tradition and spirituality.
Born in Washington DC in 1948, Althouse grew up in rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he trained as a sculptor. The product of a Quaker education, Althouse received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, and studied sculpture at Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia. The sculptural tradition of making and manipulating subject matter is carried over in his photography, and is further explored in these enigmatic and powerful images. For 30 years, Althouse lived in Miami where he was a Professor of Fine Arts at Barry University, before returning to central Pennsylvania, where he lives and works creatively today.
This exhibition presents Stephen Althouse's most recent work as well as a series of powerful images which the artist created in 2003 and 2004 while serving as artist-inresidence at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Liège, Belgium, through a Fulbright Research Fellowship.
The Museum is pleased to share this exhibition and publication with a larger audience in both Canada and Germany. We feel it is important to show Stephen Althouse's recent work and to create a scholarly catalogue that amplifies our understanding of his compelling images. For their very generous support of this publication, we thank Lawrence D. and Lucienne Lefebvre Glaubinger of The Glaubinger Foundation. We thank Dr. Eugene W. Metcalf, Jr. and Dr. Mark McPhail for their perceptive essay which constitutes a significant contribution to this publication. For their presentation of concurrent exhibitions of Stephen Althouse's photography, we thank Jacqueline Hèbert Stoneberger of Beaux-arts des Amèriques in Montrèal, and Werner Ruhnke of Galerie Ruhnke, Potsdam, outside Berlin, Germany. Lastly, we extend our heartfelt thanks to the Museum's trustees and donors, who have demonstrated their commitment to the Museum in their support of the Museum's ambitious and internationally-recognized exhibition program.
WENDY M. BLAZIER
Senior Curator, Boca Raton Museum of Art
by Stephen Althouse
Art Museum, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
Gallery 4
February 15 - March 28, 2006
The photographs of STEPHEN ALTHOUSE transform familiar objects into symbols of human experience and spiritual striving. Through his poetic images of old and outworn artifacts, he makes visible that which we often fail to see -- the intimate and intricate beauty and meaning of everyday things.
In Althouse's photography, old and derelict refugees of his and our past evoke new mysteries. Wrapped, bound, or shrouded in white cloth, many of his objects create a dialogue between freedom and constraint, flight and imprisonment, death and resurrection. Often featuring objects like saws, chisels and wrenches, Althouse's images also serve as monuments to human labor and the significance and value of work. Whether depicting the sinuous leather straps of an old bridle or the well-scrubbed ridges of an ancient wooden washboard, the images of Althouse's artifacts become powerful visual metaphors for the lives of the people who have used them. Through his unique command of extreme photographic detail, Althouse reveals the worn and scarred surfaces of his artifacts, the presence of generations of hands that have held them, and references the timeless untold challenges and struggles of common people confronting their daily tasks.
The magic of Althouse's images begins with his discovery of objects that, for him, seem to embody some special sense of memory, mystery, or enchantment. Recapturing his found subjects through the process of photography, he enshrines them in large-scale, minimalist compositions that transcend the ordinary and turn the everyday into the epic. The power and drama of Althouse's images also arise from the unique photographic method that he has developed to produce his black and white inkjet prints. Combining both traditional and digital photographic technologies, he creates an interplay of light, shadow and contrast to render his subjects in mesmerizing detail against a palette of glowing whites and velvety blacks.
Joanne Cubbs, Mark McPhail, Gene Metcalf, Art Critics and Curators, Oxford, Ohio
TOOLS and SHROUDS
Recent works by
Stephen Althouse
June 18 - September 3, 2005
The majority of the exhibited images by Miami artist/photographer Stephen Althouse were created during his 2003-2004 residency in Belgium as the recipient of a Fulbright Research Fellowship to create new photographic-digital artwork. Hosted by the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Liège, Belgium as an artist-in-residence, he was awarded additional grants from Epson-Seiko Digital Printers and Hahnemühle Fine Art Papers of Germany.
As an adolescent growing up in the farmlands of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Stephen Althouse developed a deep appreciation for the honest, simple, and solid relationships formed between the working people and their land, their animals, their equipment, the seasons, and the passage of time. He also witnessed the economic uncertainties of the neighboring county as its steel and coal industry gradually weakened and died. He received Quaker schooling which encouraged the development of deep personal and private spirituality. Although he has lived in cosmopolitan Miami for almost 30 years and is involved in frequent international travel, the influences of his rural childhood continue to surface in his artwork.
While residing and creating art in Belgium, Althouse found that this was not only an experience in a different country, but for him it seemed like a revisit back to an earlier time period of his life. Living in a small town surrounded by farmland, and being close to an industrial steel manufacturing city in serious economic decline, Althouse was constantly reminded of his childhood. The similarities of the environment and the values and mannerisms of his Belgian acquaintances with those of his Pennsylvania upbringing are apparent influences upon the creation of his recent art. His fascination with tools and implements, and the patinas and textures which relate to their histories are evident throughout the works in this exhibition. Althouse's images involve mystery and spirituality through his usage of metaphoric symbols to create a poetic visual language which is not possible, nor intended to be interpreted literally. Latin phrases written in Braille deliberately add to the indecipherable quality of his work.
Althouse arranges personal symbolic objects into assemblages which visually express his ideas and emotions. He photographs his assemblages using view cameras which use 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 inch film. After scanning his negatives, he digitally manipulates and adds subtle elements to the images before making a finished digital print. Having expertise in traditional darkroom printing, Althouse is now recognized in the field for his ability to produce exquisitely rich and highly stable large-scale black and white digital prints. Highly prized international corporate grants support the continued development of his fine art digital printing techniques.
Stephen Althouse is the Chair of the Department of Fine Arts at Barry University in Miami where he holds a faculty position as Professor of Photography, and was awarded a sabbatical leave by the University in support of his Fulbright Grant. His artwork has been acquisitioned into major museum collections in North America, South America, and Europe
Barbara N. Young
Exhibition Curator, Art Services, Miami-Dade Cultural Center Main Library
Bridle, 2003
Blinder Bridle, 2003
Brick and Ivy, 2003
Belgian Chisel, 2003
Belgian Shears, 2003
Adjustable Wrench, 2003
Clamps, 2003
Clamps and Shroud, 2003
Nail and String, 2003
Royal Spindle, 2003
Axe and Tapestry, 2003
Inlay, 2003
Hammer with Braille, 2003
Massacre Ardennais, 2003
Washboard, 2003
Autumn Plant, 2003
Iron roses, 2004
Rake, 2004
Reins and bit, 2003
Broken Cello, 2005
Sacred Tongs, 2004
Closed Tongs, 2004
Saw, 2003
Axe, Wood, and Shroud, 2003