Color Mania: The Material of Color in Photography and Film

- Blurb -

Since the earliest days of cinema, film has been a colourful medium and art form. More than 230 film colour processes have been devised in the course of film history, often in close connection with photography. In this regard, both media institutionalised numerous techniques such as hand and stencil coloring as well as printing and halftone processes. Apart from these fundamental connections in terms of the technology of colour processes, film and photography also share and exchange colour attributions and aesthetics. This publication highlights material aspects of colour in photography and film, while also investigating the relationship of historical film colours and present-day photography. Works of contemporary photographers and artists who reflect on technological and culture-theoretical aspects of the material of colour underline these relations. Thematic clusters focus on aesthetic and technological parallels, including fashion and identity, abstraction and experiment, politics, exoticism, and travel. Color Mania contains a general introduction to colour in film and photography (technique, materiality, aesthetics) as well as a series of short essays that take a closer look at specific aspects. An extensive image section illustrates the texts and colour systems and continues the aesthetic experience of the various processes and objects in book form. AUTHOR: Nadine Wietlisbach devises exhibitions, publications and other discursive formats in the fields of contemporary photography and art. She is Director of Fotomuseum Winterthur since January 2018. From 2015 till 2017 she was the Director of Photoforum Pasquart Biel/Bienne, following her post as a curator at the Nidwaldner Museum in Stans. She founded the independent art space sic! Raum fur Kunst in Lucerne in 2007. She worked for various institutions in South Africa and the States, lastly at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. 82 images