ROBERT TAT GALLERY

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Tuesday - Saturday 11 - 5:30 & by appointment
First Thursdays of the month open until 7:30

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More on Beauty Challenged...

“Perfect beauty in all things living and inanimate is revered by our society. Once that beauty ages and is damaged, its embodiment becomes devalued and often is discarded.” With these words photographer Rebecca Martinez introduces her Wounded series, an exhibition of digitally enhanced photographs being shown in the “Beauty Challenged” exhibition at the Robert Tat Gallery.

All of Martinez’s work explores her long-standing interest in the effects of time on the fleeting standards of beauty. Trained as both a graphic designer and painter before becoming a photographer, she is attracted to the wide range of possibilities that open up when photography and painting are combined.

For the Wounded series the artist has photographed vintage mannequins, representing an idealized, unobtainable, youthful perfection. Except her mannequins are all damaged, “wounded” by usage and decay and thus no longer perfect. As she describes them, “I photograph mannequins after they have become individuals. As they become ‘flawed’ and reflect their experiences, they more truly represent us.”

Martinez then enhances her photographs, sometimes by intensifying color or perhaps blurring the image. “I see things in a painterly way,” she explains, “so intensifying the color helps me show others how I see. The blurring reflects time and how everything disappears and gets less distinct.” The images often become skewed and off-kilter, creating a disturbing effect. “In these photographs,” she continues, “I interpret our reactions to our own aging, varying from profound sadness and isolation to acceptance, bravery and stoicism, to attempts to repair and arrest the effects of time.”

As Martinez enhances her images, she chooses what she wants people to focus on, what she thinks is important and what the photograph is about. The result, being shown in the “Beauty Challenged” exhibition, is a group of surreal images that are at once both disturbing and beautiful.

Martinez relates an interesting story about the creation of the series: Looking for mannequins to photograph, she went hunting on eBay, where she repeatedly lost out to the same eager bidder. Finally, she contacted the winning bidder and discovered it was the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City, purchasing for their vintage mannequin collection. Martinez contacted them and explained her project, hoping to convince them to let her borrow mannequins to be photographed. When David Hoey, Bergdorf’s Senior Director of Visual Merchandising, saw Martinez’s photographs he was so impressed that they forged a working relationship and now an exhibition in Bergdorf Goodman’s Fifth Avenue store gallery is being planned.

Also on view in the “Beauty Challenged” exhibition at Robert Tat Gallery are selected photographs from other series in Rebecca Martinez’s 12 years of work. All are examples of her uncanny ability to find and capture the odd view or object, manipulate and enhance the image, and show us something we have not seen or felt before.

Rebecca Martinez was born and raised in Los Angeles. Before shifting her emphasis to her long-time love of fine art photography, she had her own award winning graphic design firm in San Francisco specializing in corporate identification. Her knowledge, experience and training in design and painting are strongly evident in her working style.

Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions
• Lodz Fotofestwal 2010: All My Lovin
• Dallas Contemporary: Click Chicks +: Mostly Women Photographers
• Stephen Wirtz Gallery: Dr. Faustus Portraits
• Robert Tat Gallery: New Acquisitions, Vintage to Contemporary
• SFMOMA Artist Gallery at the SFMOMA Mueseo
• George Krevsky Gallery: The Art of Baseball
• Bergdorf Goodman, NYC: Wounded
• Sightings Gallery, San Francisco
• Wraparound International: The Year in Vision
• Bryn Mawr: Art Ability
• The Armory Art Center: Figurative Works
• Aguirre Gallery: F Stop: Four Photographers
• University Medical Center at Princeton: Art First

Robert Tat has a special interest in 20th century European and American Modernism. This includes classic modernism (photographs made between the two World Wars), and extends to a broader range of work influenced by the modernist school. It also encompasses 19th century photographs that anticipate modernism, vernacular and other anonymous works with a modernist sensibility, and contemporary works.

ROBERT TAT GALLERY is located at 49 Geary Street, Suite 211 in San Francisco's Union Square area. The Gallery is open Tuesday - Saturday 11:00 AM - 5:30 PM. For further information, please call 415-781-1122. We also frequently exhibit at art fairs.

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We are always looking for fine photographs to purchase or consign. If you have photographs you would like to sell, please contact us.

If you are looking for a particular photographic image, works by a specific photographer or a certain style of photograph, please contact us with your request. If we don't have it in inventory we'll be pleased to search for you. We have resources for photographic material all over the world.

What is a Salon photograph?
Numerous camera clubs around the world sponsor regular exhibitions, called salons, where members of other clubs compete to show work. The salons during the first half of the 20th century were particularly rich, featuring the work of many artists who later became famous. We take a special interest in the the works of lesser known salon photographers, often serious amateurs or commercial professionals doing their own work on the side. Their photographs are frequently beautifully composed and crafted, with an aesthetic and print quality rivaling that of the celebrated artists of the day. Many collectors appreciate salon work for these reasons -- and because it is more reasonably priced than works by better known artists. Salon prints may bear exhibition labels or stamps on the reverse of the photograph's mount, indicating awards or other participation in various salons.

What is a Vernacular photograph?
The term "vernacular" literally means "of the commonplace." In photography collecting, it refers to photographs which were made without artistic intent. This includes commercial photographs, personal snapshots and albums, historical images, scientific photographs, etc. Many collectors find vernacular images interesting, both for subject matter and for the occasional image that has an aesthetic appeal, albeit unintentional.

What is a Found Image?
Our Found Images are specially selected snapshots screened with the same criteria as a fine art photograph: artistic appeal, engaging or emotional subject matter, and print quality. We search through about 1000 pieces to find one "gem in the rough" that meets our standards. There is growing interest in collecting snapshots and a new appreciation of them as art, with several fine arts museums mounting exhibitions during the past few years. Found Images from Robert Tat's collection were exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1998 as part of their "Snapshots: The Photography of Everyday Life" show.