Contact Photo is pleased to announce “A Call from the Void,” a two-person exhibition that weaves together the works of Joseph Rovegno and Alexandria Barcenas. This exhibition will showcase their new collaborative landscape pieces that blur the line between image and object, exploring the possibilities of alternative photographic forms.
“A Call from the Void” opens on Friday, December 6th, 2024, from 7 - 9 pm at Contact Photo, 51 Porter Ave., Brooklyn.
Rovegno and Barcenas have been working side by side since 2020 when they co-founded LOOK, an independent art and photography book publisher. It specializes in detail-oriented, analog, and labor-intensive handmade books, often in small editions. Rovegno and Barcenas work closely with the authors from the inception and throughout the entire process of bookmaking, which involves concept development, editing, sequencing, layout and graphic designing, printing, paper selecting, and binding.
Their craftsmanship stems from their shared history running LOOK Publishing. Over the years, their extensive research into the physical manifestation of images has allowed them to expand their understanding of photographs beyond flat prints.
Owing heavily to the transformation of the photographs into sculptures, Rovegno and Barcenas’s new body of work imbues an intimate character into the serene and delicate landscapes captured by their cameras. Minimal and pristine, their works nonetheless possess a lively energy.
They have found the perfect physical format for each image, making it feel as though it was meant to be. Whether it is experimenting with the scanning and printing process, deconstructing and layering, playing with the scale and the grid, or inscribing and sewing on the prints with their hands, the installation effortlessly flows together. Rovegno and Barcenas’s ‘making’ of photographs reveals how tactile images can be, and how poetic and sensitive a landscape can become in the physical realm.
About the Artists
Alexandria Barcenas [b.1997, Hawaii] and Joseph Rovegno [b.1995, NY] are New York-based artists who have been working together since 2020. Individually, they are practicing photographers; Barcenas utilizes color photography depicting vast and serene landscapes, and Rovegno primarily works in the black and white darkroom to produce layered mixed media works. Together, they run LOOK PUBLISHING, an artist-book publisher of small-edition handmade books. Barcenas earned her BFA in Photography from Pratt Institute and debuted her first photobook, “Voids: Portraits of Spaces,” in 2020. Rovegno is a self-taught artist. In 2023, Origini Edizioni (Livorno, IT) published Rovegno’s first book, “Only For Now,” which is in the permanent collection of the New York Public Library and the ICP Library. They teach workshops in zine-making at Contact Photo.
A Call from the Void
Joseph Rovegno & Alexandria Barcenas
On View: Dec 6, 2024 - Jan 19, 2025
Opening Reception: Dec 6, 7 - 9PM
Location: Contact Photo (51 Porter Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11237)
