Commission — 001
Documentary
Hung
Client
Kunsthalle Basel
Category
Documentary
Year
2024
16×20 Fujiflex · C-type · edition of twelve
Second Look — three days in a gallery, before anyone was let in
The photograph — 002
The frame that ran
16×20 Fujiflex · C-type · edition of twelve
The brief — 003
Kunsthalle Basel
Three days in a gallery before anyone was let in. The install team wanted a record; the curator wanted something she could use. Those are different jobs and the second one is the one worth doing — a record is a list, and nobody looks at a list twice.
The show was portraits, hung high and lit hard. The obvious commission is to photograph the work on the wall. We proposed photographing the room instead, on the grounds that a portrait hung in an empty gallery is doing something a portrait in a book cannot.
Frames — as shot
Frames as shot
Frame 06 · day three, first briefing
Frame 09 · the wall as it was hung, before the labels
The approach — 004
How it was made
Available light only, which in a gallery means tungsten spots at 3200K and a lot of filtration. Three days, one camera, one lens. No lights brought in, because the lighting is the exhibition and moving it would be photographing something that never existed.
On the third day the invigilators arrived to be briefed and the pictures changed. A person standing in front of a two-metre portrait gives you the scale that a straight copy shot destroys, and it turns out the invigilator looking at the work is a better picture than the work. Nobody was posed. The brief for each of them was to carry on, which most people cannot do for more than about ninety seconds, so the useful window on any given person is short and you do not get a second one.
Frame — full width
One frame, full width
Frame 12 · an invigilator, four minutes in one place
Frames — the rest of the roll
What did not run
Frame 14 · the room itself, once, for the record
The outcome — 005
2024
Fourteen frames delivered, four of which the Kunsthalle used across the catalogue and the site. The frame that became the catalogue cover has a person in it, which was not in the brief and was not argued about once it was seen.
Printed in a run of twelve at 16×20. Two are still available. The Kunsthalle holds one; the rest went to the photographers whose work is on the walls in them, which was the condition of making the pictures at all and cost the practice about a third of the fee.
The print — 006
Editions close at twelve
Specification
16×20 Fujiflex · C-type · edition of twelve
Process
Chromogenic C-type, RA-4, printed wet
Turnaround
Ten to twelve weeks from the last exposure
Signed
On the verso, numbered, with the negative reference
Next — 007
All six commissions
