All photos © Chris McCaw

Chris McCaw’s artistic practice is firmly rooted in the history of photography while pushing the medium in new directions. In McCaw’s iconic Sunburn series, the lenses in the artist’s handmade cameras function as magnifying glasses, allowing the sun to literally burn its path across the light-sensitive negatives that are often solarized in the process. The subject of the photograph (the sun) disrupts the idea that a photograph is simply a representation of reality—instead becoming a physical embodiment of the Earth’s movement and the passage of time. In his photographs, the horizon line becomes the site on which our own celestial movements are mapped, connecting the viewer to the larger cycles of astronomical time and planetary motion. His Poly-optic and Heliograph series make use of multiple lenses or exposures to explore the mark-making possibilities of his practice as it shades into abstraction.

McCaw’s work has been exhibited at institutions including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum and the J Paul Getty Museum. In 2014, McCaw received the Emerging Icon in Photography award from the George Eastman House.

Maggie Dethloff serves as Assistant Curator of Photography and New Media at the Cantor Arts Center With a focus on 20th and 21st century American photography, her research is concerned with ways photography and digital media reflect and shape contemporary life.

Maggie is deeply invested in exploring questions about photographic materials and techniques, approaching them from historical, theoretical, and practical perspectives. Most recently, Maggie curated the exhibitions Más Allá | Beyond Here: The Judy and Sidney Zuber Collection of Latin American Photography; A Change of Scenery: Photographs of Leisure in the Landscape; and At Home/On Stage: Asian American Representation in Photography and Film at the Cantor.

Chris McCaw works with a manually modified large format camera, loading vintage photo paper in place of film, and letting the sun come through the lens to physically burn the paper. This analog photographic method holds the unique documentary aspects of photography, as it captures the day and night of a distinct time and place. The passage of time is also recorded on the vintage paper, marked through varying levels of sunlight throughout the day. This book is a compilation of McCaw’s diverse work from the past 20 years, featuring the significant “Sunburn” series along with his Heliograph, Poly-Optic, Cirkut, and Tidal series, allowing us to experience the full scope of his variations flowing as one body centered around the sun. 

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Marking Time by Chris McCaw

Published by Datz Press, 2023.
Hardcover / Pentatone UV printing / Printed jacket
140 pages
ISBN 9788997605613

Explore what Ft Mason Center for the Arts has to offer! Our thanks to Bayfront Theater administered by BATS Improv for hosting us in their space.

Drinking and Dining at Fort Mason Center: 
The Interval (bar w/ snacks)
Greens (upscale vegetarian)
RadHaus (German beer and food)
Off the Grid (food truck festival)

Nearby:
Delarosa (roman-style pizzeria)
Patxi’s Chicago Pizza (pizza)
Plant (organic vegetarian)
Tacolicious (untraditional taqueria)
The Tipsy Pig (gastropub)

Explore all the great restaurants on Chestnut Street.