us images that display a quiet solitude
that re?ects his own personality.
As an 11 year old boy in England, Kenna
was enrolled in seminary school with the
ambition of becoming a priest. Since then,
his spirituality has become more personal
and rooted in solitary introspection
on man’s relationship to nature—
characteristics that seem appropriate for
a committed long-distance runner. “I am
interested in how we interact with our
environment and what we leave behind
on the planet. I like to photograph traces
of our past activities and try to re?ect the
atmospheres that remain,” Kenna said.
His approach to landscape is a
continuation of the Romantic vein
stretching back to J.M.W. Turner and
the pictorialist tradition in late 19thcentury photography. Pictorialism was
a photographic movement that had its
heyday in the early 20th century but
declined rapidly with the advent of
modernism around 1914. Unsure of the
artistic role of the camera, pictorialists
believed that photography needed
to emulate the painting and etching
of the time, such as Impressionism.
Methods used to achieve personal artistic
expression, to insert the creative eye
into an essentially mechanical process,
included soft focus, special ?lters and
lens coatings, heavy manipulation in the
darkroom, and exotic printing processes.
Some contemporary photographers such
as Kenna and Sally Mann have revived
the pictorialist aesthetic. “I often use
Pictorialist devices in order to simplify a
scene and engage the focus of a viewer.
When I started out, it was with the
assumption that art was essentially the
search for beauty, and my de?nition of
beauty was strictly limited. I believed that
beauty was in escapist ?ction—the mists
of Turner or the romanticism of Blake.
I photographed the pastoral landscape
2
columbiamuseum.org
Winged Lion, San Marco, Venice, Italy, 2006, gelatin silver print, 7/45
of the cotswalds in England, gondolas in
Venice and exquisite gardens around Paris.
Nothing wrong with that, but as time has
progressed, my horizons have widened.
Over the past 25 years I have also
photographed industrial environments
in North West England where I grew up,
the Rouge steelworks in Detroit, coal
and nuclear power stations, interiors of
lace factories in France, a kindergarten
classroom in San Francisco and Nazi
concentration camps throughout Europe.
I look for an emotional response in all of
this work,” Kenna said.
The meticulous printing (Kenna still
personally prints all of his photographs)
and intimate scale of the photographs
reveal images of startling beauty, in
which familiar places are transformed
into fantastical landscapes that become
timeless reminders of our vanished
presence.
Michael Kenna: Venezia is on view July
16 – October 23, 2011.
Meet the Artist Michael Kenna
Friday, July 15 | 7 p.m.
Free with membership or admission.
Photographer Michael Kenna will give an
illustrated lecture on his work followed by
a book signing.
Presenting Sponsor
Susan Thorpe and John Baynes
Michael Kenna: Venezia is organized by the
Columbia Museum of Art in collaboration
with the Joy of Giving Something, Inc.