Bruxelles théâtre 1874-1875 1874 - 1875

This is a theater program designed in Brussels around 1874, and it’s made from paper, ink, and photographic emulsion. The most striking feature is the contrast between the mass-produced print – note the title, "Bruxelles-Théâtre", emblazoned on a banner - and the portrait of Madame Horrack. This was achieved through a separate photographic printing, then laid into a pre-printed design with stock imagery and elaborate borders. In a very real sense, the work lives at the intersection of craft and the industrial, the unique and the reproducible. Think about what it meant to have your likeness reproduced like this. It speaks to both personal status, and the rising status of the photographic profession, which relied on the labor of many anonymous technicians and factory workers. Ultimately, this program challenges our notions of what constitutes art versus ephemera, and the social and economic forces that made both possible.