Archives For Photography

Gallery Invitation
Gallery Invitation / Opening October 1st

Galerie Karsten Greve is delighted to present This Shimmering World, a solo exhibition featuring new work by American photographer Thomas Brummett. Works from the RIVER and HALOS series, created in 2020 and 2021 and part of Rethinking the Natural, Brummett’s “project of a lifetime,” will be on show. In his photography series, Thomas Brummett not only explores natural phenomena but also manifestations of the cosmos in many different ways. All his images are contemplative and profound in character, created through quiet attention and intensive observation of his current surroundings. They are based on a rendering of a vital microcosm reflected in the macrocosm of his pictures: “One constant in my work would be looking at things very closely or over long periods of time. “These images are my meditations and are a constant through my life’s work,” says Thomas Brummett.

The influence of traditions from the Far East combined with modern natural science is just as clearly evident in his works as is the spiritual and artistic examination of nature and one’s own existence. He uses the camera as a tool, as a research instrument and mediator between the inner and outer worlds, microcosm and macrocosm, close-up and long-distance view, human being and cosmos. The River series addresses the endless movement of a river in which the world at the edge of the bank is reflected in different ways. Consisting almost exclusively of abstract organic patterns, the images appear as if they were abstract drawings when looked at from a distance. Up close, you can see the reflections in the river, which, to Thomas Brummett, seem like “portals into a reversed other world “.

His Halos series is dedicated to the light effects of atmospheric optics, known as halo phenomena. Halos are created by refraction and reflection of light, similar to rainbows. Thomas Brummett’s Halos pictures show this interaction of light and nature. They are light images exuding an almost mystical atmosphere and poetic beauty. The artist sublimates his many years of exploring the perception and reproduction of the phenomenon of light in its various forms. For him, light not only means physical light but also spiritual light, whose “shimmering,” almost magical quality, fed from an infinite source, invites the viewer to contemplatively approach his idea of “true Seeing.” 

A true genius and beloved educator at Cranbrook.  Carl was one of the first to work with Xerox Machines. He believed the copy machine to be yet another type of instant camera. He created an entirely new vocabulary in the tradition of the photographic collage that has yet to be equaled.  Everyone who studied under Carl walked away changed for the better. (His legendary lectures could go for six hours!) Carl has influenced an entire generation of great artists and photographers.

“A major goal of my work has been to incorporate aspects of photographic process or or phenomena as a central part of its meaning/structure. These self-reflexive elements provide a counterpoint to the connections of unmediated transcription of reality that we associate with photographic depiction”.

Artist statement by Carl via Carl Toth Monograph published by Cranbrook.

There is still a monograph available with a forward by Donald Kuspit titled: “The Epistemophilic Instinct in Carl Toth’s Photographs.”

Carl Toth’s artis included in collections at museums and centers including the Museum of Modern Art, The International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House, The Center for Creative Photography and The Art Institute of Chicago. Toth is the recipient of three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Carl Toth passed away on August 20th, 2022

He will be sadly missed by hundreds of his students…

The Xerographic Collages of Carl Toth

https://www.instagram.com/the.impossible.exhibition/
Press Release

Galerie Karsten Greve is delighted to present This Shimmering World, the new solo exhibition by the American photographer Thomas Brummett, who will unveil selections from his series RIVER and HALOS. Like the rest of his oeuvre, they are part of his vast project, Rethinking the Natural, which he defines himself as “the project of a lifetime”. Immanence and meditative observations shape the genesis of his approach, which celebrates nature in all its forms and tackles the themes of the infinite and the divine.

Download the press release here

I’ve always worked with mining the territory in between drawing and photography. I have over the years repeatedly worked with the idea of the viewer changing their perception the closer they get to my images.

From a distance this work seems like one thing, but as you get closer the visual codes change

to black ink-like Sumi gestures and barren burned out trees. This duality of line and photographic subject is one of the mysterious things photography can achieve which (for me) no other art form can match. In some of these works the river reflections are acting as a type of “Looking Glass” into our possible future.”
Frame study and detail for River Diptych #7 (For Hokusai) which will be in my solo exhibition at Galerie Karsten Greve / Paris titled “This Shimmering World”, in conjunction with Paris Photo.

From the Halos Series included in This Shimmering World

With the Halos series I have tried to document what the world would look like if we could just have the sensory tools to experience it. We are surrounded by starlight and rainbows every moment. We just can’t see them. These are simply records of refracted light. What would normally be a photographic mistake or defect of the lens. In my world it’s a miracle just waiting for all of us…

Halos # 5
Halos #13 (Ascension) For the Fallen….

Honored to to have my work in a lovely group exhibition with some amazing artists titled: “Embodied Landscape”

at GALERIE KARSTEN GREVE PARIS CÔTÉ RUE showing Gideon Rubin, Georgia Russell, Sergio Vega, Lawrence Carroll, Ma Jun and Thomas Brummett
January 26 – February 27. 2019

https://www.galerie-karsten-greve.com/en

4 works available in the Exhibition can be seen here:

https://www.studio-4a.com/-/ttrdp/fine-art-prints/the-murmur-of-a-thousand-suns

Mille Solis #1

Edition 1/3, Signature on Recto (bottom and in white oil paint)
New Work
38.36 x 26.36 in. // 97,4 x 66.95 cm (photograph only)
Frame : 130,25 x 99 cm
Silver Gelatin Print
Also 35 X52.5″ / 89x133cm


Detail