Not on display

Invocation

Photograph
1992 (made)
Artist/Maker
Fuss, Adam (photographer)
Place of origin
New York (made)

Photograph of a baby appearing to float against a yellow background.

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read Cameraless photography Cameraless techniques have been exploited and reinterpreted by successive generations of image makers and continue to be used by contemporary artists today. While related to the conventional practices of photography, cameraless images offer an alternative, experimental, radical and often r...

Object details

Category
Photographs
Object type
Photograph
TitleInvocation (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Dye destruction print
Brief description
Dye Destruction print by Adam Fuss, 'Invocation', 1992
Physical description
Photograph of a baby appearing to float against a yellow background.
Dimensions
  • Width: 101.6cm
  • Height: 76cm
  • Frame height: 105.8cm
  • Frame width: 80.4cm
  • Frame depth: 4.5cm
Gallery label
Cameraless Photography

Adam Fuss (b.1961)
Invocation
1992
Dye destruction print
76 x 101.6 cm
Museum no. E.693-1993

To make this piece, a mother briefly placed her child on photographic paper that had been submerged in a tray of shallow water. The resulting image – created by firing flashlight directly at the paper – captures not only the child’s outline but also the ripples in the water caused by its movements. Fuss’s image is a kind of baptism, but its title also means an earnest appeal or prayer to a supernatural being for psychological or spiritual inspiration.
Credit line
Copyright Adam Fuss
Historical context
Adam Fuss was born in Britain and lives and works in New York. Having worked as a commercial photographer, he is conscious of what he calls "the pervasive technological-consumerist culture". In response to this, along with other artists of his generation such as Garry Fabian Miller and Susan Derges, he has returned to the simplest photographic means: photography without the use of a camera. Such procedures recall the earliest photographs of the 1830's and 1840's. In Fuss’s work, light is used as a metaphor to illuminate the processes and stages of human life.
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
E.693-1993

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Record createdJuly 25, 2003
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O82744/invocation-photograph-fuss-adam/
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