Eric William Carroll: 2012 Baum Award Winner May 11, 2012

Exhibition: Friday, May 4 - Saturday, June 30, 2012; Opening Reception: Friday, May 11, 5-8 pm

The Baum Foundation is pleased to announce Eric William Carroll as recipient of the 2012 Baum Award for An Emerging American Photographer. At SF Camerawork, he will exhibit a selection of works from the past few years that explore photography's technological history. The centerpiece of the exhibition will be Carroll's recreation of a full-scale group darkroom, titled "This Darkroom's Gone to Heaven." Carroll will also receive a $10,000 grant from the Baum Foundation.

Lined with shadows of missing equipment and lit with the somber glow of safelights, Carroll repurposes the idea of a communal darkroom from a place of production into a venue for observation and dialogue. During the exhibition's eight-week run, Carroll, along with several guest photographers, will meet at SF Camerawork to engage in a dialogue about their favorite dead photographers and technologies. Carroll says: "The Baum Award could not have come at a better time-the recognition and exhibition come as both a 'pat on the back' and a challenge to continue pushing my work and the photographic medium into new and exciting prospects."

While "This Darkroom's Gone to Heaven" may mirror our own humanity by highlighting the mortality of technology, equipment, and spaces, other works in the exhibition will speak to the fallibility of human endeavors. These include Carroll's cyanotypes based on the drawings of Henry Fox Talbot, photographs of hand-drawn camera calibration charts, as well as a large-format photograph produced using a fogged negative; each work representing a "failed" attempt to perfect photographic technologies or to truly master drawing a straight line.

Exhibition: Friday, May 4 - Saturday, June 30, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday, May 11, 5-8 pm

Official Website: http://www.sfcamerawork.org/exhibitions/exhibitions_Carroll.php