Cambridge Chronicle/Tab 01/01/03
Opens at CCAE
By Susie Davidson
CORRESPONDENT
One of the first things photography professor Robert Alter noticed, upon moving to Cambridge 20 years ago, was the imposing vista of the Fresh Pond Towers. These twin beacons of industrial-urban congruity inspired his subsequent foray into capturing and reflecting upon both the architectural design and the social philosophy underlying the culture of concrete and steel.
A resultant exhibit, “A Place to Live,” which opens Jan. 3 and continues through Jan. 30 at two locations of the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, documents Alter’s focus on area apartment buildings.
Alter began working on this particular group as a graduate student at M.I.T.’s Creative Photography Lab, where he received a Masters Degree in Visual Studies. He also holds a Masters in Arts degree in Administration from Lesley University, was curator of the Corporate Archives at Polaroid, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at Framingham State College. He has exhibited work at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham and The A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton.
"When I first moved to Cambridge,” Alter recalled, “I started photographing the Fresh Pond Towers from different vantage points, in different seasons and at different times of day."
The photographs, which are large format digital ink-jet prints on artists' paper, reflect not only the form, color and texture of the inanimate subjects, but the social themes underlying their erection, and the quality of life of their inhabitants as well.
"These buildings are not of note architecturally, but I believe they speak to the times that we live in,” said Alter. “They indicate both the way we build things and the way we inhabit an increasingly pre-packaged and standardized world."
“Close-ups and details reveal a world of almost geometric abstraction, punctuated by small expressions of individuality,” said CCAE public relations director Will McMillan. “Flags, holiday decorations, and an occasional window washer are the only hints that humans exist in the world of these massive buildings.”
Alter began this venture by photographing new housing tracts outside of Rochester, New York; he continued not only in Cambridge, but in South Boston, Charlestown, and Columbia Point as well.
“I think that examining how we live and how we as a society build our housing is a very important issue,” he said. “I’m making observations. I hope that photography and other visual arts can inspire people to look more closely at their environment.”
“Photographers have been fascinated by architecture as subject matter since the days of the Daguerreotype,” said McMillan. “As historical document, commercial job, or creative personal statement, we often know more about architecture from photographs than we do from direct experience.” He cited the contributions of photographic artists Walker Evans and Robert Adams to this movement.
His prints are made up of microscopic drops of colored inks. Often referred to as glicee, from the French meaning to spit or spray, the hybrid technique, which combines film and digital technology, ultimately allows for an photographic quality image on watercolor papers. Alter shoots with a medium format camera on film that is scanned to digitize the image, and then print it from a computer.
An After 9/11 series within the exhibit will document changes in the visual landscape following the events of Sept. 11.
As part of the Cambridge Center for Adult Education's Architecture lecture series, Alter will be also giving a Jan. 29 presentation entitled "Looking at Buildings: Photographers Interpret Architecture,” at 8 p.m., at 56 Brattle St. Cambridge. The talk will include works by, among other influences, Walker Evans and Bernt and Hilla Becker, a German couple whose lifetime project was photographing commonplace, mainly industrial structures. McMillan emphasized the technically, historically and artistically multidimensional scope of the talk.
“Illustrated with slides, this lecture will survey the history and current practice of the photography of architecture, with emphasis on the creative interpretation of architecture by the photographer.”
"A Place to Live," an exhibition of photographs by Cambridge photographer Robert Alter, will be on exhibit at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education from Jan. 3-30. The exhibit will be in two locations, 42 Brattle St. and 1 Story St., 3rd floor in Harvard Square.