Kenneth Josephson

This well-edited show doesn’t change any of our conclusions about the obvious intelligence in Josephson’s work, but instead acts like a welcome refrain, bringing some of Josephson’s primary innovations back to our attention for another round of savoring and recalibration. Especially as seen in some of these lesser known works, Josephson’s cleverness and thoughtfulness about photography is remarkably deep; even efforts that we may have overlooked prove to be just as perplexingly magical as some of his best known masterworks.

Photographs of photographs are everywhere these days; Josephson’s work from the sixties and seventies is a reminder that the strategy has a history.

His photographs of photographs, exemplified by his series, Images within Images and History of Photography, are often called up for duty when curators want to include still photographs in telling the story of Conceptual art.

Rather than highlight that heralded work alone, the present show, a core sample from the first half (1956-80) of his career, chooses to demonstrate the sterling craftsmanship that has marked Josephson’s work  even at its brainiest.

Consider Kenneth Josephson: He was a pioneer in conceptual photography and is well-regarded in the history of medium. Yet at 83 years of age, he isn’t widely known to the general public. Fortunately, he seems to be having a late-career moment, with the release of a massive monograph, "The Light of Coincidence: The Photographs of Kenneth Josephson," from the University of Texas Press, and a solo exhibition at Gitterman Gallery in New York City, which runs until June 11. 

Multiple exposures, collages, time lapses, and doctored colors: Since he began working in the late 1950s–early ’60s, Josephson has used just about every available technique to question our accepted notions of reality. Which is to say that in his best work—much of which is on display at this greatest hits–style exhibition—formal experiments are really metaphysical provocations.

Kenneth Josephson (b. 1932) studied at the Institute of Design, the Chicago school founded by László Moholy-Nagy, with teachers known for their radical experimentation, Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind.

Kenneth Josephson (b. 1932) studied photography with Minor White, Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, and spent almost four decades teaching it at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; his work shows the influence of his instructors and his engagement with the conceptual issues that have challenged photographers over the past half-century.
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Conceptual work, including memorably clever photographs of photographs, is what Josephson is known for, and there are fine examples of that material here.
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Whether he records constructed or found images, Josephson challenges his medium and our perceptions with curiosity and wit.
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Shadows and unexpected light play across many of the images, underscoring Josephson’s uncanny ability to animate the everyday and excite the eye.
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