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"Method Manifesto" (1971)
by Lew Thomas
Art and commercial photographic practice will always exist as closed worlds to individuals working alone without, as one might say, a portfolio. I therefore dismissed and denounced the standards that maintain the meaning and value of these practices.
A clear and simple position was sought for work detached from the retarding influences of competition. My objective was to de-emphasize or displace the fixed-image with methodical ideas leading to a radicalized photographic object.
The most complete reduction of photography that I could conceive formally was simply the issue of black and white, itself. Regardless how remote the ideas might seem to the act of seeing -- seeing was simply a distraction in relation to the more critical problem of structure.
The first piece made from this form of photographic speculation was BLACK & WHITE. The work was made with transfer type impressed on acetate acting as negatives which were then mechanically processed like snapshots. A total commitment was made to let the work stand for itself -- no self indulgence in taste, style or interpretation. I began at the beginning.
The practice of doing this work, BLACK & WHITE, made it clear that I did not need a pictorial image to make a photograph. I did not need to go somewhere to take a photograph. In fact all the content I would ever need photographically was already with me. To progress, I needed structure: BLACK & WHITE is the structure on which all subsequent work is built.
Before the first work was completed, I was thinking about Time as a subject for another piece. Irrelevant details complicating the subject of Time were eliminated until I had reduced the process to a camera, a roll of film, and a lab clock. I had no pre-knowledge of how the piece would look or what problems lie ahead. The uncertainty of what I was doing intensified my awareness of methodology. I soon found procedure and process to be significant levels of construction indistinguishable from the content.
TIME EQUALS 36 EXPOSURES (each panel: 4 ft. sq.) was made one step at a time. The presentation of the idea, Time, was identified with the practice of photography. 36 photographs of a GraLab clock turning counter-clockwise were taken and developed. Since I had 36 negatives, I made 36 prints each 8" x 10". The photos of the clock face were cropped to an 8Ó square format. The presentation emphasized the flat, two-dimensional face of the GraLab clock.The only perceptible dimension of the clock was the corrosion of the hands of the clock. The 36 8" x 8" prints were dry-mounted to a single surface that produced a work whose scale dwarfed the art photography done at this time. Glossy prints were used in opposition to the matte-surface of most fine art photography. The prints were mounted in a sequence similar to a contact sheet. The systematic development of TIME EQUALS 36 EXPOSURES was resolved when a second panel was joined to the original construction made from prints of positive film. When the work was completed, its 72 prints (2 panels) measured 4 feet x 8 feet. The work has no hidden messages. The work was physical and opaque, its object being nothing more than the systematic exploration of the photographic process and its corresponding structure.
This essay first appeared in Thomas, Lew, Structural(ism) and Photography (San Francisco: NFS Press, 1978), p. 9, under the title "CONCEPT: Construction." © Copyright 1971 by Lew Thomas. All rights reserved. For reprint permissions contact Lew Thomas at lthomas16@aol.com.
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