Tangled Up in Blue

Pourin’ off of every page
Like it was written in my soul
From me to you
Tangled up in blue

~Bob Dylan

By Suzanne Révy

Portraits of our ancestors gaze back at us through the gauze of time as we leaf through family photo albums. These ephemeral traces of the past can reveal how our grandparents worked and played, or what our parents looked like as children. Very often, they are taken for granted until the photographs are lost, perhaps to flood or fire, but more often to estate or garage sales, turning up later in the bins at flea markets or antique stores. There is something wistfully sad about the fate of such vernacular pictures, stripped of context, and untethered from their families. In Lost and Found, artists Edie Bresler and Caleb Cole offer new contexts for such pictures, and in the process retrieve a sense of both collective and personal history. The exhibit features a seamless dialog of prints and photographic objects; it is on view in the Garner Center Gallery at the New England School of Photography through March 15, 2019.

Installation view, “Lost and Found: Photographs by Edie Bresler and Caleb Cole” in the Garner Center Gallery at the New England School of Photography (Courtesy of the artists and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).

The show includes work from several projects by each artist that considers a layered view of the humble snapshot. In her series, Anonymous, for example, Bresler scans found nudes made between 1843 and 1910, and reimagines the intimate relationship between the sitter and early photographer. By employing cyanotype or vandyke brown printing methods in collaging and then enhancing the reprinted imagery with embroidery, sewing and drawing, Bresler breathes new life into faint faces and bodies of the past. Recreating the intimate and delicate connection between artist and sitter, Bresler’s prints draw viewers into web of fragile and exquisite details.

From the series “Anonymous” by Edie Bresler, cyanotype and embroidery. 1843/2017 (Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).

From the series “Anonymous” by Edie Bresler, cyanotype and embroidery, 1880/2018 (Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).

Cole’s prints and objects from “Histories” and “Blue Boys” question the meaning of manhood and explore how men understood their identities and their relationships with each other. In “Blue Boys,” for example, Cole juxtaposes formal 19th century portraits with 1970’s era personal classifieds to question how homophobia affects men’s relationships with the each other. In “Histories,” the accouterments of a well heeled 20th century gentleman – such as a vintage suitcase or necktie embellished with cyanotypes of appropriated portraits of men – brought forth a palpable sense of longing for my own late father. In addition, Cole presents a collage of World War II era soldiers which speak to manhood in times of war and peace and to the brotherhoods that formed within communities of men. He touches on alienation within the group in two examples from his series, “The Odd One Out” where he removes the group leaving a lone figure.

“Flag” by Caleb Cole, Vintage suitcase, cyanotype from vintage photograph in frame, vintage pants and cyanotype bandana with gilding (Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).

From the series “Blue Boys” by Caleb Cole, cyanotype (Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).

Installation view, a collection of vintage photographs of servicemen, hand colored and assembled by Caleb Cole (Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).

That sense of melancholy we so often feel when discovering a nameless face in a snapshot has been transformed by both Bresler and Cole through the interplay of craft and materiality. Bresler’s series of photograms called “Helping Hands” and her images of monuments made with a lo-fi plastic camera woven throughout the show offer a sense of shared histories that are mirrored in family archives. As the popularity of the family album wanes, Bresler and Cole offer a new testimonial to the power of the snapshot as a means to contemplate and question identity, kinship and community.

Installation view from the series, “Helping Hands: Community Project, Cambridge” cyanotypes by Edie Bresler (L) and “The Red Tie” Vintage Red Silk tie with hand sewn cyanotype from men’s physique magazine by Caleb Cole (R), (Courtesy of the artists and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).

“Monuments” by Edie Bresler, cyanotype and vandyke brown prints (Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).

From the series “Odd One Out” by Caleb Cole (L) and from the series “Helping Hands: Community Project, Cambridge” cyanotypes by Edie Bresler (R), (Courtesy of the artists and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).

(Featured Image) Installation view, “Lost and Found: Photographs by Edie Bresler and Caleb Cole” in the Garner Center Gallery at the New England School of Photography. From the series “Helping Hands: Community Project, Cambridge” (top) and from the series “Anonymous” (right) by Edie Bresler. Digital collage from the series “The Ways We Touch” by Caleb Cole (center). Installation views photographed by Suzanne Révy. (Courtesy of the artists and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).

Lost and Found
Photographs by Edie Bresler and Caleb Cole
Garner Center Gallery at the New England School of Photography
https://www.nesop.edu/events/the-garner-center/edie-bresler-caleb-cole/