This intriguing work based upon nostalgic family snapshots from the ’30s and ’40s allows photographer George LeGrady to activate his personal past by use of a lenticular imaging process. It essentially culls a kinetic experience from static photographic imagery, activated by the viewer’s vantage point. Known for ambitious interactive installations, photography and data visualization projects, Legrady’s artwork has focused on the exploration of photography, computational technologies and their potentials in developing new forms of visual expression.
Day & Night, soon to open at Edward Cella Gallery, features two new series of lenticular prints by the Budapest-born LeGrady who moved to North America as a child.
The first part of this series, entitled Transylvania, consists of images taken in the late 1930’s, showing a small party of weekenders in Transylvania, a mountainous region in Romania, east of Hungary. The images depict a leisured class informally lingering with peasants at a cookout and wild boar hunt. Legrady interrupts this historical sequence of images with contemporary photographs of a full moon. The juxtaposition creates an eerie and unsettling disjuncture, offering a suggestion of the occult or preternatural.
The second part of this series, entitled Frolic, is based on family images from the early 1940’s that playfully depict young women and children frolicking in a resort village, north of Budapest. The historical shots, reminiscent of French photographer Henri Lartigue’s candid images of his family at leisure, are superimposed with contemporary images of foliage and trees, evoking the bucolic and idyllic tradition of landscape photography.
Day & Night, photography by George Legrady | Edward Cella Gallery | opens Dec 12
Aren’t they something, Sam? Thanks for the comment!
Striking images, thank you for sharing this.