From January 16 through April 11, 2024, the new exhibition The Ballad of Reversals: Ephemeral Images of Ephemeral Art reflects on the medium of reversal film through the image archives at Franklin Furnace. Reversal film, also known as slide film, positive film, and transparency film, was introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935 as an affordable and high-quality alternative to negative film. This advance made it possible to directly project images onto screens, as opposed to images needing to be developed in a darkroom becoming visible. By the 1960s, artists, particularly those whose practices were conceptual and ephemeral in nature, began to use reversal film to document and exhibit their work. 

The Ballad of Reversals considers the conjunction of two parallel missions of Franklin Furnace: one that supports and celebrates the ephemeral art and another that aims to preserve the ephemerality. Reversal film, which inevitably deteriorates with age and exposure to light, is itself ephemeral. It is both a medium of preserving ephemeral moments and an object of ephemerality. Embodying this ambivalence, The Ballad of Reversals explores the paradoxical nature of the now obsolete medium through images and physical slides drawn from Franklin Furnace’s Event archives. The exhibition also features a glass vitrine in which visitors can glimpse a simulated darkroom wherein the “magic” of photographic image making takes place.

The accompanying panel discussion, from 5-6 pm et on February 10th, will present exhibition co-curator Tsubasa Berg, conversing on the topic with photographers Barbara Nitke and Marty Heitner, and Harley Spiller, Ken Dewey Director of Franklin Furnace and co-curator of the exhibition. The panelists, all colleagues and friends of Michael Katchen, Franklin Furnace’s Senior Archivist and photography expert, who worked steadily for the organization from his first day as a university student intern in 1980 until his death in February 2023, will also discuss Michael’s career and legacy, and respond to comments and questions from audience members.