Kilborn Acme Kruxo, exact expiration date unknown, ca. 1940, processed 2009

Alison RossiterWW-2009-104831

2009·Gelatin silver print·Image/paper: 12.6 × 17.7 cm (5 × 7 in.)

<p>The unprocessed sheets of photographic paper in Alison Rossiter's series are "expired" in the sense that they are no longer serviceable for standard printing; the term "expiration" also suggests the passing of wet darkroom processes, which have given way to digital printing. Some sheets, when placed in the developer bath, showed patterns caused by mold, earlier handling, or minute amounts of light. Others had been so damaged through inadvertent previous exposure that they would have turned completely black. In those cases, Rossiter did not submerge the sheets but instead poured developer over a part of the surface and fixed the results. The series hints at a history of photography that depends not on "style" or individual creative acts but on manufacturing: here, a small firm in Cedar Rapids named Kilborn, that offered a range of products labeled "Kruxo" beginning in 1895. The firm now makes inkjet paper for digital printers.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 2009
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image/paper: 12.6 × 17.7 cm (5 × 7 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Alison Rossiter

Artist

Alison Rossiter

Photography

Alison Rossiter is an American photographer whose work interrogates the chemical and temporal properties of photographic paper itself. Working with expired and outdated photographic materials, she exposes blank sheets to light, water, and environmental conditions, allowing latent chemical reactions to emerge as abstract images over extended periods. Her practice treats the photograph as a physical object subject to decay and transformation rather than a fixed document. Born in 1953, Rossiter's investigations into materiality and process situate her within a broader postwar examination of medium specificity and the indexical nature of the photographic trace.

Jackson, United States

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