Lukas Felzmann & John Priola

Photo Alliance in San Francisco is a wonderful organization for photographers or collectors to communicate and study from each other. Their lectures typically feature one or two established local photographers whom would show their works and talk about why and how they made them. The audiences usually have the chance to get a very comprehensive view of a whole body of works within 90 minutes. Last night’s lecture by Bay Area photographers John Priola and Lukas Felzmann, which kicked off a three-day workshop on book-publishing, was especially good. It brought together two very different artists in the same classroom who are also excellent presenters.

Born in a Swiss intellectual family, Felzmann graduated from SF Art Institute and spent most of his adult life in Northern California. His works thus embodied the dual influences of West Coast landscape and German philosophical traditions. They fall naturally into the “New Topographics” movement, whose main players include Robert Adams, Stephen Shore and the Bechers. The photos from the new book LandFallwere mostly shot in Sacramento Valley, where human activities and natural force are in a perpetual tug-of-war. While the landscape continues to change due to manmade underpasses, highways, aqueducts and nonnative trees, the nature also gives back flood, landfall, and rural decays. Not only is Felzmann interested in documenting these changes, he is also captivated by their poetic potentials and philosophic meanings. His series on migration birds are some of the most unforgettable images. Using the formation of the flocks, he shows to us that nature is full of wonders, and it is often more than what we can grasp. As an avid reader, Felzmann seems to be obsessed with knowledge and learning. His many shots of books and classrooms seem to be an unusual lifelong hobby of his.

Priola, on the other hand, made most of his photos in his studio, often with very controlled lightings and meticulous settings. While Felzmannm focuses on the nature and its relationship with humankind, Priola is more obsessed with the sentimental values of objects and memories. If Felzmann observes the world with a detached and analytic eye, for whom God renders itself as a rational, scientific but formidable force, Priola, thanks to his catholic upbringing, gets more fascinated by its mystics and melancholy power. Priola came out of age in late 80s and 90s, when AIDS took away many of his friends. This intense emotional experience affected him significantly, and they showed up under various disguises in many of his works: objects from diseased ancestors, dead butterflies, a fallen flowerpot, an apartment number lit in night. They speak silently and powerfully on time and on the ghosts we can’t see.

Though both artists started with very different aesthetic visions and photographic practices, they have a lot more in common. Both have done installation works, both ponder on traces of time, and both shoot mostly black-and-white photos and rarely do portraits. They look at the world and at the most ordinary with shock and awe, and their works express this feeling of being overwhelmed. Inevitably, they would cross each other’s path: In Priola’s latest works, he shot the same set of trees as Felzmann did. But they don’t necessarily see the same thing.