Susan Derges

Susan Derges

The River Taw “Restored” and other works.

April 30 – June 24, 2022.

Susan Derges (born 1955) lives and works on Dartmoor in the south west corner of England. A key member of the British movement that saw a revival of the photogram in the 90s, Derges took cameraless photography to new and unexpected places with a freshness of scale, color, and concept.

Danziger Gallery is pleased to present a selection of Susan Derges’ work concerning the relationship between photography, water, and the environment. Perhaps best known for her photograms capturing the continuous movement of river water and plant life by immersing photographic paper directly into rivers at night and flashing the paper with a strobe light, Derges has taken photography’s earliest origins into the realms of contemporary art. For over four decades she has consistently found new ways to express her personal preoccupations with both nature and photography in a constantly evolving body of compelling, diverse imagery.

This show marks the first American presentation of Derges’ “Restored” River Taw photographs along with three other series which evolved from the original 1997 River Taw work - Eden (2005), Star Field (2008), and Bridge (2013). In each of these series Derges is increasingly involved in the making and composition of the final image taking the insights from the earliest work into and out of the studio.

A note on the River Taw “Restored” work. With no camera or negative, each original piece was unique and the work was quickly sold to museums and collectors until there were none left - except the few where a stone had scratched the emulsion, or where some mishap occurred in the processing of the delicate cibachrome paper. Stored and rolled up in Susan’s studio they were orphaned works until the advent of high resolution digital scanning and printing offered the possibility of flawless restoration. This technology allowed for the exhibition of these important images, creating flawless prints of vibrant clarity. Printed in editions of 2, three of these works will be available along with ten other pieces from Derges’ subsequent series.

Susan Derges' work is in the collection of museums around the world including The Getty, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Museum of Fine Art, Houston; and The Hara Art Museum, Tokyo among many others.