Untitled

1981

Not on view

Dispersing flakes of dried phyllo dough on a flat black piece of fabric, Welling confounds distinctions between abstraction and representation, endlessly attenuating the viewer’s desire for a recognizable referent. While most of the phyllo-dough photographs are vertical compositions, close up and in black and white, this unique print is one of four horizontals made of the entire construction and in color (the other three are in a fiery red). An avid reader of Romantic and Symbolist poetry, Welling manages in photography a simultaneously sensuous and austere, theatrical and self-referential, landscape of the imagination that would not have displeased Baudelaire or Mallarmé.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: Untitled
Artist: James Welling (American, born 1951)
Date: 1981
Medium: Chromogenic print
Dimensions: Image: 26.7 x 34.3 cm (10 1/2 x 13 1/2 in.)
Frame: 41.3 x 48.9 cm (16 1/4 x 19 1/4 in.)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Purchase, Vital Projects Fund Inc. Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2010
Object Number: 2010.442
Rights and Reproduction: © James Welling
Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

By James Welling

In the same medium

From the same time and place

A slider containing 5 items.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.

B41

James Welling

1980–81

2-29 VIII, James Welling American, Gelatin silver print — 2-29 VIII
James Welling
1980

Dye Works/Noyon (Calais Lace Factory), James Welling American, Gelatin silver print — Dye Works/Noyon (Calais Lace Factory)
James Welling
1993

Research Resources

The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.

To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.

Feedback

We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.