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August Issue 2008
Hickory Museum of Art in Hickory, NC,
Features Works by Harold Edgerton and Disciples
The Hickory Museum of Art in Hickory, NC, is presenting the exhibit, Stopping Time: The Art & Science of Harold "Doc" Edgerton's Life Work, featuring nearly 100 photographs by Edgerton and his disciples that capture the beauty of movement too fast for the human eye to see. The exhibition will be on view through Aug. 24, 2008.
Ever since Keanu Reeves dodged bullets in the amazing slow motion technique used in the motion picture The Matrix, slowing and freezing time has become a signature effect in much of our media and entertainment. It wasn't always that way, and ironically the earliest results at stopping time remain the most mesmerizing today.
Harold Edgerton was a scientist and visionary who pioneered the field of high-speed photography with the development of the electronic strobe light stroboscope (an ultra high-speed flashing light linked to a stationary camera) in 1931. His photographs captured high-speed phenomena with either a single flash or multi-flash technique. Both methods took place in a dark studio with the camera's shutter held open, with light from the strobe creating the exposure.
The single flash allowed him to capture events at up to one millionth of a second eliminating motion blur completely. In 1932, Edgerton revealed with a strobe the everyday event of water running from a faucet. The result was remarkable Edgerton froze the beautiful twists and turns of the water, making it look like a long, bulbous crystal. This photograph as well as the iconic images of a coronet formed by a milk drop and an apple pierced by a bullet, are represented in the exhibition.
Examples of Edgerton's multi-flash images are also presented in Stopping Time. They were created by leaving the camera shutter open while an electronic flash fired in rapid succession. Edgerton often used athletes as subject matter. In a single photograph, he transformed one pole vault into six images showing different aspects of the vault. It's astonishing to see the intense effort of the athlete change throughout the vault and not to mention how far the pole bends. The exhibition offers insight into the movements of a tennis serve, a ballerina's pirhouette, a high dive, a baton twirler, a golf swing and a bird in flight.
Known as "The Man who made time stand still," Edgerton's photographs are remarkable in their precision as well as their sensational beauty revealing what the unaided eye cannot see. His innovative process became a source of inspiration to engineers, scientists, filmmakers, artists and photographers world wide.
Stopping Time: The Art and Science of Harold "Doc" Edgerton's Life Work is a joint exhibition presented by the Hickory Museum of Art and the Catawba Science Center, with different exhibit elements in each institution. It features hands-on, high-speed interactives and nearly 100 high-speed photographs by "Doc" Edgerton and those he inspired. The show is sponsored by the Harold & Esther Edgerton Family Foundation, Mr. & Mrs. Charles D. Dixon, and Hickory Springs Manufacturing Co.
For those interested in learning more about Edgerton, Dennis Kiel, Curator of the Light Factory in Charlotte, NC, will give a free gallery talk and walk-around of the exhibition on Aug. 21, 2008, at 7pm in the Hickory Museum of Art's Coe Gallery.
For further info check our NC Institutional
Gallery listings, call 828/327-8576 or visit (www.HickoryArt.org).
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