by Dr. Karen A. Heid
"Six Gondolas, Giardini ex Reali, Venice Italy, 1980" gelatin silver print, 21/45. Photo courtesy of Columbia Museum of Art.
Venice is most certainly not sinking. At least that is how one may feel when he or she sees Michael Kenna’s photographs of Venezia. Venice, the aesthete’s ideal of Italy, has been photographed by Kenna in such a way that he captures this ancient and fragile city as if it were rising from the depths of the marshy peninsula on which it was first built, revealing secrets that can only be seen through a lens.
Luminous, mysterious, and somewhat eerie, Kenna’s photographs suggest a city that is steeped in tradition and gratified by its own unique and ancient legacy. One feels the ebb and flow of the tide in the canals, the rise and fall of the Gondolas moored on antiquated quays, and the solitude of the buildings having been baked in the sun for centuries. At first there is a sense of loneliness in the depiction of each of the photographs. After quiet analysis, the loneliness is replaced by the sense of aloneness. The former suggests angst and the latter solitude, stillness, oneness, and thought.
Known for it’s watery and boat-laden streets, carnival masks, and magnificent glass, Venice is instead portrayed through Kenna’s photographic lens as a city that is quiet, asleep, and on the verge of awakening from a long slumber. With his quiet and patient method of photographing a sense of place, Kenna captures his own idiosyncratic explanation of the meaning of this city. His long exposures, sometimes lasting many hours during the darkest part of the night, are symbolic of the resulting quiet and patient images.
By working at night Kenna relinquishes the need for the sun as a single source of light and opts for light from the stars, moon, and man-made bulbs that come from many different directions. He terms his work “theatrical” when this kind of direct and indirect lighting creates the high drama of conversely washed-out areas and deep shadows. Working with medium format cameras without light meters since the early 1980s, Kenna is not bothered by the advance of technology. He is content with the critical process of film and believes that printmaking is the central component of his gelatin silver prints. His relatively small prints, like the artist’s relationship with his subject, invite the viewer to look closely – to step forward and have an intimate relationship with the work.
Michael Kenna’s Venezia can be seen at the Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC through October 23, 2011. The Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday.
