Photos Alter But Can't Shake Up

Taking an old classic and making it into something fresh always has a risk of disaster. There’s a chance that the update will have the same effect of hearing Britney cover “Satisfaction” or of sighting your gramps wearing bright blue skintight jeans, and that the result will be more disastrous than when Coke tried to update its signature beverage in 1985. In “All Shook Up,” the latest exhibition to grace the art gallery inside of the Boston Athenaeum, photographer Thomas Kellner presents a modern take on Boston’s oldest independent library that manages to be a fitting re-imagination instead of a hideous attempt at revision.

In July 2006, Kellner spent two weeks at the Boston Athenaeum on the eve of its 200th anniversary, serving as bicentennial artist-in-residence. The commissioned pictures of the Boston Athenaeum lend the building a “kinetic energy that metaphorically invokes the intellectual and cultural vitality of the institution,” according to Richard Wendorf, the director of the Athenaeum.

In Kellner’s photographic reconstructions of famous landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower, the structure disassembles and seems to be dancing, breaking, or floating into air. He creates his works by taking individual photos of the architecture, which resemble tiles composing the whole. Kellner alters our usual perspective by tilting particular photos at angles. In this way, a formerly stable image in the world’s collective psyche can shift, to become a wavering mass of once-familiar images.

Although not as iconic as the Eiffel Tower, the Boston Athenaeum was one of the nation’s first independent libraries. Created in 1806, it quickly became a huge success. By 1851, it was one of the five largest libraries in the United States. Past members include Ralph Waldo Emerson, class of 1821, and John Quincy Adams, class of 1787. Nowadays, paid membership is still required. The building retains its 19th century feel through its architecture and interior design, as well as its aged patronage and solemn security guard.

Kellner’s depiction of the prestigious Athenaeum is modern, but not revolutionary. “In front of the director’s office on the 4th Floor” contains composite photos that tilt more as the pictures build vertically, so that the furniture grounds the picture while the books and ceiling are jumbled to resemble a distortion created by rising smoke, suggesting the room’s dissolution into air. In other pieces, the distant planes are skewed more than the foreground, raising questions about the accuracy of depth perception. Some works, like “Long Room with current magazines on the 2nd Floor,” practically beg to be seen close-up. Only then can the viewer inspect the tilted smaller photographs that meticulously compose the larger whole.

Kellner’s pieces evoke watery or kaleidoscopic visions, and yet each is visibly constructed. It is fitting that Kellner “builds” his works by photographing piece by piece. Unlike photographs that depend on chance to capture a moment, Kellner’s work depends on his initial concept and precise execution. He has a geometric eye that is calibrated for repetition, depth, and strong angles. He may share this sensibility with architects, but his photos take established buildings into another realm of playful imagery. As Kellner shifts the world of momuments by using photographs like tiles, it becomes re-arrangeable and malleable.

But despite the imaginative possibilities of photography that Kellner’s work taps into, his mission ultimately feels uncompelling. It is difficult to appreciate Kellner’s conception of the Athenaeum if the viewer has never seen the rooms in their original form. To explore the Athenaeum beyond the first floor, one must have a membership, so visitors to the exhibition will not see most of the rooms that Kellner jumbles.

If the pictures are meant to subvert our normal way of perceiving structures, this concept comes across more clearly on the photographer’s website. Under “Collections,” the Boston Athenaeum exhibition is presented piece by piece. First, a picture of the room is presented, then Kellner’s sketch of the room, and finally his redone portraits. When seen this way, Kellner’s re-configured pictures really do give new life to the classically beautiful rooms of the Athenaeum.

While visually appealing on their own, the works of “All Shook Up” would have been more successful if the exhibition presented Kellner’s pieces along with original pictures and sketches. Without an initial vision or memory, the viewers have nothing to revise, and the pictures lose their meaning as re-constructive works. Kellner’s images in “All Shook Up,” while revitalizing, are not revolutionary. They may not arouse any great emotions or cataclysmic questions, but, at the least, they’re very nice to look at.

—Staff writer Elsa S. Kim can be reached at elsakim@fas.harvard.edu.