New article and new research direction: "Photography Without Images"

Just published in December 2022! New article and new direction in my research:

Alise Tifentale, “Photography Without Images: A Proposal to Think About the Medium as Practice, Apparatus, and Form of Social Interaction,” in Latvian Photography 2022, edited by Arnis Balčus and Alexey Murashko (Riga: Kultkom, 2022): 152-171.

Download my article as a PDF here!

Abstract:

In this article I propose to think about photography without images, i.e., focusing on the medium as practice, apparatus, and form of social interaction. Based on concepts created by Pierre Bourdieu, Vilém Flusser, and Lev Manovich, among others, this article attempts to depart from the image-centered, art-historical approach to photography that has dominated this field so far. Instead of repeating the romanticized narrative of “great” or “important” images and their “talented” makers, this article proposes to look beyond the images’ surface and examine unpublished or deleted photographs in archives and on social media, the significance of darkroom work and collective or shared authorship, photography on the NFT art marketplace, and the role of AI and automation in photographic production. The article discusses the work of photographers, artists, digital creators, and social media content producers such as Sultan Gustaf Al Ghozali, Caroline Calloway, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Zenta Dzividzinska, Alan Govenar, Ivars Grāvlejs, Lucia Moholy, Emma Agnes Sheffer, Alnis Stakle, Sophie Thun, and others.

New peer-reviewed article: "Sophie Thun Interprets Zenta Dzividzinska’s Negatives"

Hot off the press! New peer-reviewed article:

Alise Tifentale, “Sophie Thun Interprets Zenta Dzividzinska’s Negatives: A Case Study of Exploring and Re-evaluation of a Private Photo Archive,” in Mapping Methods and Materials: Photographic Heritage in Cultural and Art-historical Research. Proceedings of the National Library of Latvia 9 (XXIX). (Riga: The National Library of Latvia, 2022): 254-274. Open access.

Download my article as a pdf here.

Download the full volume from the publisher’s website: https://dom.lndb.lv/data/obj/file/33771027.pdf

Abstract of my article “Sophie Thun Interprets Zenta Dzividzinska’s Negatives: A Case Study of Exploring and Re-evaluation of a Private Photo Archive”:

Based on a case study of the private archive and estate of Zenta Dzividzinska (1944-2011), a Latvian artist and photographer active locally and internationally in the 1960s, the article highlights some of the difficulties of preserving forms of cultural heritage that so far have eluded the attention of both the professional art world and official memory institutions. Curator Zane Onckule envisioned a new model of collaboration between the estate of a deceased artist, the practice of a contemporary artist, and the labor of an archivist. The unusual vision resulted in the solo show of Austrian contemporary artist Sophie Thun, “I Don’t Remember a Thing: Entering the Elusive Estate of ZDZ” at the Kim? Contemporary Art Center in Riga, Latvia (July 15 to September 12, 2021). Onckule invited Thun to exhibit her own work as well as to study Dzividzinska’s archive. During the exhibition, Thun discovered Dzividzinska’s negatives and printed new images from them onsite. Thun referred to her practice as interpreting Dzividzinska’s work. Archivist Līga Goldberga opened the boxes where the family had kept Dzividzinska’s archive, described their contents, and helped Thun with the selection of negatives. Departing from the concepts of kinship, collaboration, and affective labor, Onckule, Thun, and Goldberga engaged with Dzividzinska’s archive to create an evolving space for a caring conversation. By physically bringing her archive into the gallery, the exhibition attempted to reverse the history that too often had overlooked and forgotten women photographers’ work. By centering the project around darkroom work, usually the most invisible part of photographer’s labor, the exhibition challenged the cultural status of that labor and encouraged a broader re-evaluation of Dzividzinska’s oeuvre. After the exhibition, part of Dzividzinska’s archive found a permanent home at the Latvian National Library.

Learn more about Zenta Dzividzinska’s life and works here: www.artdays.net

Mapping Methods and Materials: Photographic Heritage in Cultural and Art-historical Research is a peer-reviewed volume that I co-edited with Katrīna Teivāne and which includes articles by Maria Garth, Leila Anne Harris, Elita Ansone, Baiba Tetere, Stella Hermanovska, Aigars Lielbārdis, Kate Švinka, Līga Goldberga, Mārtiņš Mintaurs, Liāna Ivete Beņķe, Šelda Puķīte, Ieva Melgalve and Andra Silapētere. 

The volume grew out of an eponymously titled photography research symposium and summer school that Katrīna and I organized in August 2021 at the National Library of Latvia and Art Academy of Latvia—read more about it here.

Joining the faculty of the City University of New York in fall 2022

With great excitement I’m joining the faculty of the Art Department at the Kingsborough Community College, City University of New York, as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art History in fall 2022.

So happy to work on the loveliest, greenest, and most relaxing urban campus in New York City with a fantastic waterfront promenade right outside my classroom and the Kingsborough Art Museum right next door.

Courses that I teach here include

• Modern Art: From 1945 to the Present (in person, fall 2022),

• Art History Survey II: From Renaissance to Nineteenth Century Art (asynchronous online, fall 2022),

• Survey of Art History: Prehistory to the Present (hybrid, fall 2022), and

• Survey of Art History I: From Ancient to Renaissance Art (asynchronous online, spring 2023).

Talk at the seminar "Likeness in Difference. Perspectives on Baltic Regional Art History" in Tallinn

Thrilled to think and write about my recent archival research discoveries: my talk “Invisible Photography: Discovery and Interpretation of Zenta Dzividzinska’s (1944-2011) Archive” in the panel discussion "Invisible Photography" was part of the seminar "Likeness in Difference. Perspectives on Baltic Regional Art History in Tallinn, Estonia, May 14, 2022.

The panel was chaired by Annika Toots, and the participants were Alise Tifentale, Agnė Narušytė and Annika Toots.

Download the seminar program as pdf here, and find out more about the seminar on the Kumu Art Museum website.

Photo courtesy of Jana Kukaine.

Seminar “Likeness in Difference. Perspectives on Baltic Regional Art History” took place in the Estonian Academy of Arts and Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia, May 13-14, 2022. It brought together art researchers and curators from the three Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Art history of the Soviet period served as the point of departure for the seminar.

Photo courtesy of Inga Lāce.

The abstract of my talk, “Invisible Photography: Discovery and Interpretation of Zenta Dzividzinska’s Archive”:

I'd like to propose the topic of invisible photography—such as photography that has survived only in negatives—in the broader context of preservation and interpretation of Soviet-era women-photographers' archives. Focusing on a case study of the private archive and estate of Zenta Dzividzinska (1944-2011), a Latvian artist and photographer active locally and internationally in the 1960s, I'd like to speak about the cultural, social, and political circumstances that had rendered her work invisible until very recently.  At the center of Dzividzinska's legacy is a vast collection of hundreds of negatives and prints depicting the daily life of three generations of women as it unfolded in and around their small house in the Latvian countryside as well as self-portraits and collaborative work produced together with other young female artists and art students while she studied at the art school in Riga. She was misunderstood for most of her lifetime, and only since the 2000s her legacy has begun to attract interest from art historians, curators, and contemporary artists. But one of the main challenges for anyone who would be interested in her work is that it is invisible. Museum curators or collectors typically are interested in “great” artworks—they look for large-size, excellent quality, well-preserved vintage prints ready for framing and exhibiting. But Dzividzinska did not make many exhibition-size prints during the 1960s. Her most radical work at the time was not thought of as exhibitable, so it exists in small test prints or only in the form of negative because Dzividzinska not always had the time and resources to produce any prints at all.

Learn more about life and works of Zenta Dzividzinska: www.artdays.net

Photo courtesy of Šelda Puķīte.

Watch my presentation and the following discussion on YouTube:

Watch the lively discussion that followed our panel:

Browse the slides from my presentation: