LES KRIMS – URANIUM ROBOTS
2020-11-09In the summer of 1974, while teaching a workshop for Eikoe Hosoe‘s Tokyo School of Photography, Krims became fascinated by the animated cartoons and popular Transformer toys, or robots, that had not yet made their appearance in the United States. The series, Uranium Robots, was the result of two robot suit-building contests assigned by Krims to his students at SUNY, Buffalo. The competition offered “generous cash prices” for fabricating a wearable robot suit. Krims provided the idea, the space in which to photograph, and the conceptual method for making photographs. Each student had to fabricate their interpretation. The entrants wore their respective robot suits and stood in the same corner of the room, an otherworldly space invader trapped in a quotidian classroom. Krims documented the entrants using an 8×10 inch camera, and the resulting vintage contact prints were developed on either Portriga Rapid or Kodalith Ortho paper.
Opposite – untitled (from the series, Uranium Robots), 1976
Exhibition runs through to January 2nd, 2021
Joseph Bellows Gallery
7661 Girard Avenue
La Jolla
CA 92037
