Working across Time

Rephotographing Images of Place

Demo Announcement

Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe, 2007. A mash-up in time of photos by Ansel Adams (1943), Alvin Langdon Coburn (1911),
and the Detroit Publishing Company (1903) of Yavapai Point, Grand Canyon, Arizona.

The Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona and Arqueología del Punt de Vista are pleased to announce
Working across Time: Rephotographing Images of Place, a triple teaching activity, held by US
photographer Mark Klett. Working across Time will take place in November 2010 and will consist of
a semi-attendance workshop, a conference and a demonstration.

The activity is the premiere of AfterFoto, a cycle of activities related with the production, management
and circulation of photographic legacy. The activities scheduled by AfterFoto call for a reflection on
photographs as part of our cultural and historical patrimony: stories, techniques, authorships, practices,
preservation, accessibility, diffusion, archives; photographs as documents, as vestiges of history, as our
legacy. How do we remember? How do we aspire to be remembered?

This joined initiative of the Arxiu Fotogràfic of Barcelona and Arqueología del Punt de Vista is born
with the objective to bring the photographic legacy closer to the people of Barcelona, while creating
links between the Archive and diverse groups related with photography in and outside the city. The
programme of AfterFoto is based on the photographic production the society generates and we in turn
preserve. Conceived as periodical events of a singular character, the majority of its activities will take
place at the installations of the Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona, with guests a series of acclaimed
international contributors.

Presentation

Rephotography is a meticulous genre that deals with photographing from the same point of view a
scene that has already been registered. At first sight, it is all about providing evidence about the passage
of time through the confrontation of various images, obtained in the same site but at different moments.
Nevertheless, rephotography implies much more than just taking a photograph for a second time.
Rephotography requires a thorough selection of historical material and an investigation, which will
allow us to place our camera where somebody else had long ago placed his. This very fact converts the
photograph we capture into the subsidiary product of a meditation on three subjects: the original
photographer, the photographer who comes afterwards, and the viewer who observes both of them.
 Contents

Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe, 2007. Details from the view at Point Sublime on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, based
on the panoramic drawing by William Holmes (1882). Background: William Henry Holmes, 1882. Sheets XV, XVI, XVII.
Panorama of Point Sublime. From Clarence Dutton, Atlas to Accompany the Monograph on the Tertiary History of
the Grand Canyon District. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

The short demonstration ran by Mark Klett will take place during a morning. The demo is addressed to
students from the fields of Photography, Visual Arts, History and History of Art. It will be offered free
of charge and will be limited to a maximum of thirty persons. Each one of the participating academic
centres will provide their own candidate.

Mark Klett is a photographer living in Tempe, Arizona where he is a Regents Professor of Art at
Arizona State University. Klett is interested in the intersection of cultures, landscapes and time and his
background includes working as a geologist before turning to photography in the seventies. In 1984,
Klett published Second View; a vast project that consisted of revisiting the sceneries of the American
west where renowned photographers, such as Timothy O’Sullivan, registered with their cameras during
the first photographic surveys commissioned by the Federal government in the second half of the 19th
century. This project enabled Klett to establish three paramount elements in his perspective: the
methodology necessary for developing a rigorous photographic genre of rephotography, the necessary
human resources to cover the ambitious purposes of his projects, and a discourse on the construction of
the collective imagery. In the late nineties, Klett took up the same work and published his acclaimed
monography Third Views, Second Sights, which gathers together the 19th century images, Klett’s first
rephotographs of the 1970s, and his revisiting of the previous body of work in the 1990s.

The work of Mark Klett has been exhibited and published both in the United States and internationally
for over thirty years, and his photographs are held in over eighty museum collections worldwide. Klett
is the author of thirteen books including the recently released Saguaros (Radius Press and DAP, 2007),
After the Ruins (University of California Press 2006), Yosemite in Time (Trinity University Press, 2005),
and Third Views, Second Sights (Museum of New Mexico Press 2004).

Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona (www.bcn.cat/arxiu/fotografic/): Founded in 1931 and situated at the

second floor of the ancient quarter of Sant Agustí, the Arxiu conserves two million photographs with
subject the city of Barcelona, dating from 1839 to the present day. The Arxiu installations include a
print room, various work rooms, laboratories, seven deposits designed for the protection and
preservation of photographs and a new exhibition room, which hosts regular exhibitions from the
permanent collection.

Arqueología del Punt de Vista (http://www.arqueologiadelpuntdevista.org) develops theoretical and

audiovisual projects, dealing with the analysis of the actual perception through the study and recovery
of resources, documents and technologies that represent visually previous eras.
Demo date: Thursday, November 11, 2010, from 10am to 2pm
Where: At the venue of the Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona (Plaza Pons i
Clerch, 2, 2º), and in the nearby area.
Application prerequisite: Each academic centre will present a sole candidate.
Language: English
Places: 30
Enrolment: Free of charge
Application submission deadline: Friday, November 5, 2010
Contact: info@arqueologiadelpuntdevista.org

AfterFoto is organized by: Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona and Arqueología del Punt de Vista
The project is directed and elaborated by: Arqueología del Punt de Vista
With the support of: Institut de Cultura del Ayuntament de Barcelona