By Tom Wachunas
“I’m fascinated by objects that outlast
their utility, that are still around after advancing technology has long ago
made them obsolete. Using a camera from the ’70s or a micrometer from the ’40s
is an amazing experience. In a world where the camera you bought today was
replaced yesterday, that's a rare opportunity. If I'm lucky, I'll outlast my usefulness
too.” - Jeremy Aronhalt
EXHIBIT: Older Than I – Photography by Jeremy
Aronhalt, curated by Craig Joseph, THROUGH JULY 17, 2016, at Studio M in
MASSILLON MUSEUM, 121 Lincoln Way East, downtown Massillon, Ohio / Museum hours: Tuesday through Saturday 9:30
a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. / 330-833-4061 / www.massillonmuseum.org
Standing alone
recently in Massillon Museum’s Studio M, I was facing and looking at a
photograph of a camera…through my camera. In that lens-to-lens moment, it
seemed strange if not downright surreal to be making a picture of a picture of
a thing that once made pictures. But I had decided to document this commentary
on the photographs (Archival ink jet prints) by Jeremy Aronhalt, curated by
Craig Joseph, in a manner more true to their physicality, their reality as art
objects presently on a wall in a specific place, rather than presenting
out-of-context, pristine digital reproductions.
Speaking of
‘pristine,’ all of the photos in the exhibit are under glass, uniformly framed
in black, each showing an object crisply focused and perfectly centered, or a
small collection of objects elegantly arranged and balanced, and all appearing
to be situated on a blank white “field.”
There’s something scientific about the presentation, suggesting
inventoried specimens from a bygone era.
The analogy isn’t
so farfetched. As Aronhalt tells us in his statement, these are pictures of objects
that have outlasted their original functions. In that, they’re like so many
fossils of extinct species. But as any paleontologist would tell you, fossils
are neither useless nor mute.
This exhibit, then,
is certainly not an exercise in vapid nostalgia or pointless curiosity. Aronhalt’s ‘fossils’ are largely of vintage
devices used for seeing, measuring, or building, and as photographs they’re
imbued with an oddly beautiful, sublime simplicity and precision. Consider them as eloquent symbols that speak
of the uniquely human desire and capacity to consciously connect with history. On
one level, these photographs remind me that we can most intentionally and fully
appreciate where we are now only to the extent that we can appreciate the ideas
and technologies that got us here.
So there I was, photographing
photographs, noticing the interior of the room reflected off their surfaces,
including myself, holding the camera, a
gadget for seeing, measuring, building a connection. Think of it as a
merging of past with present, of artifact with artifice. Or better still, think
of the art of photography as the useful pursuit of timelessness.
PHOTOS, from top: Thread Gage / Handy Reference / Lufkin I.D.
Mics / Dial Indicators / Installation view
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