Michael Spano

MICHAEL SPANO—Photograms

Michael Spano's lengthy career has been distinguished by an adventurous spirit, whether in his experimental street photography, portraits of his wife, or in abstract works like this one. Setting aside his camera altogether, Spano's photograms hark back to the key role that the process played in the development of the avant-garde 100 years ago, as the technique was embraced by artists like Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy.

In 1990, when we presented a solo show of Spano's earlier photograms, he noted "I was fascinated by the dynamics of direct contact application, but determined to alter the characteristic black background of the cameraless process." As recent photograms like this one demonstrate, Spano has indeed developed the facility to break away from the deep black space that is typical of photogram prints, thereby treating the whole image as a space to be freely explored.