How do you create a photograph without a camera? Many people may respond, “You can’t!” but leave it to the minds of artists to think of a way to do it.

The Pollock Gallery’s current exhibit Marco Breuer: Principles of Extraction features works by Breuer that prove camera-less photographs do exist. Breuer, German photographer and recent recipient of a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, creates his works by bringing an object in physical contact with what is usually silver gelatin paper when exposing it to light. The products are intriguing abstract images with a certain rhythm and depth.

Many of his works are categorized by his technique of manipulation. “Fuse” for example is assigned to the untitled works where a fuse is placed on silver gelatin paper in a dark room and lit. Another photograph named “Coal” where the images are created by placing silver gelatin paper on a coal fire inside a darkroom. And others named “Vodka” where alcohol is poured on the paper and lit, repeated over and over again so that the image is built up in layers. More of his techniques include slinging nails into the paper, attacking the paper with razor blades and exposing spit or blood to the paper as if it were a film strip.

Although these are radical techniques, Breuer is one of many participating in the increasingly popular movement of abstraction in photography. ARTnews, one of the leading visual art magazines in the nation, recently published a story about the new movement featuring Breuer as the cover artist and included several other leading artists as well.

Although Breuer is currently a professor at Bard College in New York City, his work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Spencer Museum of Art.[2].

“Marco Breuer: Principles of Extraction” will run through Dec. 6, in the Pollock Gallery on the main floor of the Hughes-Trigg Student Center.