Marcel Sitcoske Gallery is proud to present a group exhibition, ATTACK: ATTRACTION, that explores the dialogue between painting and photography. The show will coincide with the Gerhard Richter retrospective at the SF MoMA.

Painting and photography have long had a complementary if somewhat adversarial relationship. Even before photography’s inception, artists such as Vermeer and Dürer used a camera obscura to achieve a highly sought after verisimilitude in their work. Since its creation, however, photography has been seen as a threat to painting’s hegemony over accurate reproduction, while at the same time, it has liberated painting from representational demands.

Photography was originally informed a great deal by painting but as it has become a more accepted art form over the past century, it has come to have a greater influence on painting. Painters are now attracted to photography not only for its exactness but also for its ability to capture atmosphere. This influence is apparent in Angelina Nasso’s paintings of refracted light. She paints from what could be called abstract photographs that she takes herself of light blurred through an unfocused lens or rainy window.

Conversely, contemporary painting, freed from the burden of realistic representation, has come to influence photography in new ways. Artists like Hiroshi Sugimoto make photographs that bear similarities to abstract paintings. Though flat, his work has texture and depth, nuances of color and tonality that evoke movement. The photographs of Stephen Dean and Anne Deleporte are also reminiscent of abstract paintings, as bursts of color obliterate more recognizable forms underneath.

In Gerhard Richter’s work, 128 Details from a Picture, the crossover between media is literal. He has taken a partly-blurred, partly-focused photograph of one of his paintings and painted on the photograph itself. This serves to highlight how the relationship between painting and photography is now one between two mediums that are constantly influencing each other in new and challenging ways.

Artists include: Leo Bersamina, Stephen Dean, Anne Deleporte, Richard Galpin, Fabian Marcaccio, Vik Muniz, Angelina Nasso, Patti Oleon, Carter Potter, Gerhard Richter, Michal Rovner, Susan Silton and Hiroshi Sugimoto.