As the April installment of our Members In Focus interview series, artist Sheri Lynn Behr shares the ins and outs of her widely accomplished Polaroid series Beyond Recognition.
Photographing live concerts and the TV screen during the 1980’s, Behr captured ephemeral moments of media and pop culture, transforming these instants into intriguing, energizing artworks.
Employing a variety of techniques that altered the photographic surface, such as double exposures and drawing on the Polaroids with markers, Behr’s mix media approach is a playful exploration of the medium.
The images are intensely sensorial. At times, Behr’s traces resemble cubist compositions. At others, they are brimming with punk, new wave, and rock and roll energy.
Originally a rock concert photographer, Behr’s unique background and keen eye allowed her to create a body of work that remains powerful, relevant and inquisitive till this day.
Behr’s website: www.sherilynnbehr.com
Behr’s Instagram: @https://www.instagram.com/slbehr/
About the artist
Sheri Lynn Behr is a photographer and visual artist with an interest in technology, photography without permission, and the ever-present electronic screens through which we view the world. Her work shifts between traditional, documentary-style photographs and highly manipulated, digitally-enhanced images.
Her project on surveillance and privacy, BeSeeingYou, was exhibited at the Griffin Museum of Photography in 2018 and released as a self-published photo book. Elizabeth Avedon selected it as one of the Best Photography Books of 2018. Behr was invited to participate in A Yellow Rose Project, a photographic collaboration involving over a hundred women photographers in response to the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.
Behr’s work has been exhibited at the Amon Carter Museum of Art, the MIT Museum, Center for Creative Photography, SRO Gallery at Texas Tech, the Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Soho Photo, and many other venues. Her photographs have appeared in publications world-wide, including Harper’s Magazine, People’s Photography (China), Orta Format (Turkey), Toy Camera (Spain), and The Boston Globe.
She has received a Fellowship in Photography from the New Jersey State Council of the Arts, a grant from the Puffin Foundation, and a New York City Artist Corps Grant.
And back in the day, she shot rock-and-roll concerts. And Polaroids.
Beyond Recognition
For Beyond Recognition, I used a Polaroid SX-70 to appropriate images from music videos and TV shows. I was intrigued by the way technology altered the nature of reality. Video gives us 30 frames per second, and we process millions of images each week. We pause, we fast forward, and the images on the screen are sometimes different from what we see in the world.
If technology alters photographic reality, what is real and what exists only within the photograph itself? These Polaroids were not immediately frozen in time and space, and the photograph was only the beginning of the process. Using pointed tools to manipulate the dyes and sometimes adding marker and paint, I was able to deconstruct the initial Polaroid image and take it entirely out of its original context. It was no longer a portrait of an individual, but an anonymous being – and more symbolic of a technological world.
Images from Beyond Recognition have been exhibited worldwide, and are part of the Polaroid Collection. They are currently included in The Polaroid Project book and traveling exhibition.
What inspired your journey into photography?
I’ve been taking photographs since I was a young teenager. I’d bring a Kodak Brownie camera to summer camp and take pictures of my friends. I remember riding in the family car early on, pointing my camera out the window, and making a “moving car” picture. It was a blurred streak of course, but it was different and I loved it. I really think that started me on the path of experimenting with photography.
What prompted the creation of your project Beyond Recognition?
I started my career photographing rock and roll concerts, with a tiny darkroom in the tiny bathroom of my tiny studio apartment in New York City. Then my friend loaned me his Polaroid SX-70 camera to experiment with. The images developed in my hand, no darkroom needed. I was hooked.
When I stopped shooting live concerts, I was still interested in photographing musicians and celebrities, and I started to use the SX-70 to appropriate images from music videos and tv shows. I became intrigued by the way technology could alter the nature of reality. When you pause a video, what you get is not necessarily what you expect. Then, manipulating the dyes and adding marker and paint to the Polaroid, I was able to take the portrait “Beyond Recognition.” I kept a notebook with the names of everyone I photographed off the screen, because most of the performers – though not all – were unrecognizable.
Where did the idea of altering the Polaroid come from and what message do you hope it conveys?
When I saw photographs made by Lucas Samaras, I was blown away. His Polaroid manipulations showed me that you could totally change what the picture could be. I could take an image of a performer, and then take it entirely out of its original context, and make it something new and different. Sometimes I’d make multiple Polaroids of the same face, and enhance the same image in different ways. When I was making the Beyond Recognition photographs, I came across a Jasper Johns quote, “Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it.” It’s been driving my work ever since.
What have been the biggest challenges for you as a photographer and how did you overcome them?
I come from a traditional photographic background — shooting landscapes and rock and roll portraits. Almost from the beginning I found myself interested in pushing the limits of what the medium could do. Whether using colored filters, darkroom solarization effects or manipulating Polaroid SX-70 film, I wanted to take the image even further away from its reliance on reality.
Still, my work starts with a photograph, and I have always considered myself a photographer. I started using technology early on as a tool to enhance my photographs, and when I first started exhibiting that work, my process was often hard to understand. Photography galleries were only interested in traditional photographs, even though mine had started as Polaroids and were often printed as Cibachromes. Others would just see them as photographs, and weren’t interested in exhibiting photography. But you keep making work, and eventually the world catches up. I see the same thing happening now with photographers who use AI as a tool to enhance their work. The more things change…
Tell us more about one or more of your selected photographs from this series.
1. I’ve had several photographs purchased for The Polaroid Collection, and while I have slides and scans of the images, I don’t often get to see the originals. In 2008 there was a show of work from the Collection in New York City at Soho Photo Gallery. Untitled 3588 was included. I was really thrilled to see the actual Polaroid again, and I felt honored to be mentioned in the wall text for the exhibition— in the same paragraph as Lucas Samaras.
2. I don’t identify the subjects of my photos, though I know some are recognizable. The photo 41386 from an MTV video was actually someone I had previously photographed on stage. I think you can probably figure out who it is, but I’ll never tell.
What drives your continued passion for creating?
I’ve always loved making photographs, and I really have no choice but to make more. I’m constantly picking up a camera or enhancing an image. I’ve even started playing around again with Polaroid film, which is very different now. You can’t manipulate it the same way anymore, so I’m trying to figure out what I can do with it this time around. It’s a challenge, and that’s a part of the process of creating that I really enjoy.
