Deep Diving: A Conversation between W. M. Hunt and Joanne Dugan

 

4th May 2022

Deep Diving is a dialogue between Joanne Dugan, photo-based visual artist and W.M.Hunt, writer, curator and teacher. Both are New Yorkers and have been friends and professional colleagues for a long time. Two years of lockdown intensified their relationship via random FaceTImes, checking in with each other frequently to gossip and to talk about their work.

 

Joanne Dugan

Working with the historic practice of rendering light directly onto chemically-coated photographic papers, Joanne Dugan recontextualizes two of traditional photography’s most noted printing techniques—Silver Gelatin and Cyanotype—to examine the infinite possibilities of using light as a sole subject and ultimately, as a means of evoking contemplation. Informed by mindfulness meditation practices, Dugan prints a series of multiple images, which she cuts and assembled by hand to create abstract, three-dimensional collages. The works blend experimental chemical interventions with hand-cutting and painting techniques, while also channeling the unpredictability found in vintage methods to create layered, abstract works with a modern sensibility.
joannedugan.com

 

W.M.Hunt

W.M. Hunt is a photography collector, curator and consultant who lives and works in New York. Founding partner of the prominent photography gallery Hasted Hunt (now Hasted Kraeutler) in Chelsea, Manhattan, and former director of photography at Ricco/Maresca gallery, Hunt has been collecting photography for over 35 years.

He is a professor at the School of Visual Arts and has been profiled in The New York Times, Art on Paper, Modern Painters (magazine),The Art Newspaper, PBS’ EGG, the Arts Show, as well as BBC’s The Genius of Photography and elsewhere. W.M. Hunt is on the Board of Directors of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund and The Center for Photography at Woodstock where he was the recipient of their Vision Award in 2009. He also served on the Board of Directors of AIPAD (Association of International Photography Art Dealers) and was the past Chairman of Photographers + Friends United Against AIDS.

During his time as director of photography at Ricco/Maresca gallery and as former curator at Hasted Hunt, W.M. Hunt debuted and represented artists including Wilson Bentley, Elinor Carucci, Luc Delahaye,Jean-Paul Goude, Lisette Model, Erwin Olaf, Eugene Richards, Martin Schoeller, Alex Webb, Joel-Peter Witkin and others.
wmhunt.com