Photos The Phone Made

In a dark alley South of Market among the weird street interchanges of Gough, Mission, South Van Ness, and Otis...



...John Gruenwald runs a stone lithography, intaglio, and letterpress studio for art printing...



...and walking up the scary stairway to the second-floor loft feels very New York and insiderish.



Gruenwald and his wife were hosting an art opening this weekend for David Anthony King (pictured above on the right)...



...with a whimsical show on the nature of photography called "Photos The Phone Made."



The printed artist's statement at the front of the room was both brilliant and hilarious, starting with:

"For a very short time (yesterday, this morning), it is still possible to take bad photos with a cell phone camera."

"Pictures with unreliable color, exposure and focus. Photos that appear not so much blurry as smudged and which sometimes look more like a painting. Suggestive of one of German painter Gerhard Richter's photo derived works."

"These photos are composed of pixels so large you can practically count them. However, the latest model of the phone that made the pictures in this book has increased its camera's resolution from a half to one and a half megapixels. A three-hundred percent increase in quality in one year...Soon all of our connective and communicative devices will be assimilated by the phone. Resistance is futile, to quote the Borg."

The essay ends with:

"Even if film is dying and the camera as it was once understood is at death's door, photography will no doubt continue as long as mediated experience is found to be useful and inspiring."

"Can you see me now?"

The fabled art opening staples of cheese and crackers and wine were upgraded on Friday to a whole range of delicious appetizers accompanying a nice selection of beer and wine. The evening couldn't have been lovelier.