Light Is a Plastic Medium: The Photography of Carlotta Corpron

About how a photographer treates light and why photography became a fine-art form

Light Is a Plastic Medium showcases the work of Carlotta Corpron, a pioneering figure in midcentury American abstract photography, and positions her within the rise of photography as a fine-art form in itself, set to rival the traditional mediums of painting and sculpture.

Light Is a Plastic Medium showcases photographs by Carlotta Corpron, a pioneering figure in American abstract photography active from the mid-1930s through the mid-’50s. Her career was brief but visionary, resulting in six bodies of work that explore the poetics of light through innovative uses of camera technology. The most comprehensive survey of Corpron’s work to date, this catalogue traces the evolution of her practice from nature photography and gestural light drawings to complex expansions and distortions of space achieved through her use of reflective surfaces and innovative light-modulating devices.