Light Lines

From his early education at The Art Institute of Chicago in the late 50s, Ray K. Metzker inherited the rich vocabulary of avant-garde photography between the wars: photomontage, solarization, multiple printing of negatives, unique perspectives, diagonals, etc. From his first exposure to photography, Metzker never lost the urge to experiment with the grammar and syntax of the medium, whether it was games played within the camera itself (the Doubleframes, for example) or complex manipulations in the darkroom (the celebrated Composites). He has drawn inspiration from the neighborhoods where he has lived (mainly Chicago and Philadelphia) and, increasingly, from nature—though the vegetation he depicts might be a weed-clogged vacant city lot as easily as the vast open plains of the American West. Decomposing, recomposing, deconstructing, reconstructing, Metzker reminds us of the great and inexhaustible potential of black-and white photography when practiced by a master. With 180 tritone-printed images, this publication offers a rare opportunity to examine the full range of Metzker’s brilliant and ever-evolving formal language.