Sorry, No Pictures

Sorry, No Pictures
Meggan Gould
December 1, 2023 - January 15, 2024
Opening Reception: December 1, 6pm-9pm

Free and open to the public

Aurora PhotoCenter at Tube Factory Artspace

Meggan Gould’s Sorry, No Pictures is many things: It’s 20 years of photography-based work; a treatise on the nature of art-making; a memoir; a skillful meshing of visual and text-based pieces; and an inspirational narrative of perseverance as a maker. Sorry, No Pictures explores the artist’s relationship with the medium, and specifically with its ever-evolving technology, over time. The complexity and sophistication of her work mirrors Gould, who as a visual artist, educator, writer, lecturer, and mother has lived many lives all at once. Sorry, No Pictures offers a beautiful, oftentimes laugh-out-loud funny, and ultimately hopeful narrative that art-making, by its nature, involves failure, change, and transcendence. Published in book format in 2021, the exhibition Sorry, No Pictures brings the impact of scale, presence, and additional contextualization to enhance the viewer’s experience of the artist’s work as a whole.

Each visual element in the exhibition is accompanied by diaristic text that complicates the viewer’s understanding of the arkwork, the medium, and the maker. In one case, a photograph of a hand holding an envelope documents a small user error (failing to engage the film sprockets), that leads to the loss of images and a greater understanding of her practice, with Gould concluding, “This is why photography surprises me. To have wanted the images might mean more than having them.” Throughout the exhibition, nonlinear autobiography connects important moments of growth in art-making. When Gould mourns the dissolution of a romantic relationship, she makes thousands of pictures of crows on power lines, an archive seemingly without purpose, until years later, when the crows resolve themselves in a beautiful visual pun about chromatic aberration. Sorry, No Pictures shows how time provides context for a practice, an inspiring message that values “failed” experiments and risks.

In the exhibition, Gould also examines photographic mark-making tools and technologies and their constant teeter on the edge of obsolescence. Gould’s practice, over time, increasingly focuses on taking apart, examining and re-contextualizing the minutest aspects of the medium, including the iconography of camera dials, the design of viewfinder patterns, and the ubiquitous Epson inkjet printer test pattern. Intertwined with personal narrative, the artist uses “playful resistance” in her work to question the role of corporations and manufacturers of photographic technologies — from Kodak to Flickr — in shaping photography, image-making, vision, and the language surrounding the medium.

Gould’s experience as a working artist and educator at the turn of the 21st century informs every aspect of Sorry, No Pictures. The exhibition makes clear how the personal and political converge in art-making, an important point at this moment when the true cost of photography’s cultural and ecological impact is coming into focus. Sorry, No Pictures offers a long view of a life lived in and with art, showing that through careful examination of the past, we can get to a sustainable future.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Meggan Gould will give a free anthotype demonstration Saturday, December 2, from 1pm-4pm. Gould will demo the basics of the process, in which photo-sensitive emulsions are made from plants and exposed in the sun. All necessary materials and equipment will be available for free on site. This activity is best suited for artists 7+ years old; minors must be accompanied by an adult. The demo is free and open to the public. RSVP required. Please email info@auroraphoto.org to RSVP and with any questions.

Meggan Gould (meggangould.net) is a photographer living and working outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of New Mexico. She received an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work has been exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, and is included in many private and corporate collections, as well as public collections including the DeCordova Museum, the New Mexico Museum of Art, Light Work, and the University of New Mexico Art Museum. In 2022, Gould was named a finalist for the George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship. Her multifaceted practice uses photography, drawing, sculpture, and installation in an open ended dissection of vision and photographic tools.

Annual operating support for Aurora PhotoCenter provided by the City of Indianapolis through the Indy Arts Council. Additional support provided by the Efroymson Family Fund.