CUBIST PHOTOGRAPHY, BYRON ROBB 

Framed on Fifth
February 1 – February 26

Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. That’s how photographic cubism started for me. The 1912 painting by Marcel Duchamp was one of the seminal pieces in the genre begun in 1907 by Picasso. I found myself wondering if it could be replicated photographically. Having worked out the technical part of it I found it too difficult to coordinate both a nude model and a curved staircase so I have not yet made the photograph.​ 

But an interest in cubism had awakened in me. Could it be done photographically? After all, painters can create anything they imagine but photographers are constrained by having to shoot actual subjects.​ 

Cubist painters attempted to show different viewpoints of a subject simultaneously using distinct planes to suggest a three dimensional feel. Rather than try to create depth in a two dimensional medium they emphasized the flatness of the canvas. Seemed perfectly adaptable to photography.​ 

My cubism journey has included human portraits done by combining photographs take from different angles, architecture done in the same manner, street scenes that show both sides of the same street simultaneously and various subjects photographed from inside and out.​ 

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Framed on Fifth, 1207 5th Ave NW Calgary AB T2N 0S1