Nordlicht - 6.00 pm 2018

Curator: Christiane Baumgartner's "Nordlicht - 6.00 pm," held here at the Harvard Art Museums, strikes me immediately with its stark monochromatic palette. What's your take? Editor: Eerily beautiful, almost like a photograph burned onto paper. There’s something haunting about that bright, almost blinding light in the distance. Curator: Indeed. Baumgartner, born in 1967, achieves this effect using woodcut, a labor-intensive process that transforms digital images into hand-carved lines. The horizontality here is key. Editor: The lines do give it this feeling of a paused video still, like a memory flickering. It's both intimate and distant. Curator: And it speaks to the mechanics of image reproduction itself. The image becomes almost tactile due to the carving. Editor: It makes me think about fleeting moments and how we try to hold onto them, even though they’re pixelated, imperfect. Curator: Precisely. These explorations unveil the hidden processes of art production. Editor: It’s a quiet piece, but it whispers volumes about perception and memory, doesn’t it? Curator: Absolutely, from the transformation of digital source to the final printed artifact, Baumgartner challenges conventional notions of art. Editor: I’ll never look at a digital image the same way again.