Portraits and Landscapes
Book 1
Kali blazed a trail, pushing the limits of photography.
The artistic process of Artography started with a black-and-white landscape or portrait taken by Kali with her Nikon F. In the 1960s, she was living in Palm Springs, California; the house’s master bathroom included a Roman bathtub where a Beseler enlarger awaited. Kali would place chosen parts of other photographs she had taken on top of the first photograph, layering them into a unique print. The resulting images were original and arresting.
TEXT BY brian wallis and ALEXANDRA JARRELL
Among the rebellious photographic experimenters active in Los Angeles… was a largely unknown artist named Joan Archibald, whose archive was only recently uncovered when her homes were cleaned out shortly before her death in 2019. These photographic artifacts, now preserved at the Stuart A. Rose Library at Emory University in Atlanta, reveal a diligent and committed photographer whose large, rainbow-colored photographic prints of long-haired flower children and California surfers with peace medallions from the 1960s exemplify the era’s exuberant artistic practices and its limitations. On a yellowed newspaper clipping from 1970, found among her papers, Archibald boldly declares,
“Photography, in my opinion, is the most fascinating progressive art form. Technically, for me, the work is one big experiment. I follow no rules, except the very basic ones.”
Afterward by len prince
As we complete the delivery of files and writings by various artists in their fields I find myself with a heart full of gratitude, especially while living through a global Pandemic that allows me this long break from my usual life. From the moment my great friend Susan Archibald asked for my help sorting through her mother’s photography, Boxes Showed Up At My Doorstep. I was whisked away with the jaw dropping experience of Kali’s hidden works of art. And not ten or twenty but thousands of original, unique, multi-layered thick prints piled on top of one another in suit cases, boxes, portfolios and 83 unprocessed rolls of film along with many other goodies in a flight bag from the 60’s. After many deliveries from California to my doorstep up in the North Country of New York my beautiful living room/gallery was now transformed into a studio of computers, scanner, hard drives and copious wires, now called The Kali Room.