Matthew Blum

Galleries

The Blum Museum of Art & Machinery

A continually expanding institution of images, objects, circuits, and questionable ideas.

Room 01

Main Gallery

The principal hall. Photographs from Nature and Machine and Armature for Aperture, hung together for the first time since they came down.

Gallery view Catalog view

Hanging here: work from Nature and Machine (2022). See the original hang

  1. Portrait in Motion. Two strips of black-and-white motion-picture film, every frame showing the same person standing in a park.
  2. 1956 Lincoln Premiere. Silver gelatin. Black-and-white close-up of the rear fender and tail fin of a dark car, with chrome trim and the word Premiere in script on its side.
  3. Typewriter. Close-up of round black typewriter keys lit from the side, the Q W E R T Y and A S D F rows receding.
    Piston. Dark-toned photograph with a mottled border of a broken engine piston standing upright, its connecting rod snapped off.
  4. Electron Tube. Black-and-white photograph of a large glass RCA electron tube lit against a black background.
  5. Mustang on 16mm. A strip of color 16mm film with repeated frames of a dark Mustang parked beside a snowbank, edge numbers printed along the side.
  1. Mushroom. Black-and-white photograph of pale shelf fungus growing in clusters up a dark tree trunk.
  2. Sea Shell. Black-and-white close-up of a large whelk shell resting on small pebbles.
  3. Kalmbach. Black-and-white photograph of tall, straight trunks in a pine forest, sunlight on the ground between them.
  4. Harvest. Black-and-white still life of a woven basket holding peppers, a pear and tomatoes on a wooden table.
  5. City Hall. Low-angle black-and-white view of a modernist building with rows of deep-set windows beside a curved wall, under a cloudy sky.
  1. Farmall. Print with brushed dark edges of the grille of an old tractor, the name FARMALL across its front.
  2. Fireman’s Drinking Fountain. Warm-toned photograph of a painted statue of a mustached firefighter in a helmet, holding a small child in one arm.
  3. Game Joystick. A black single-button game joystick photographed against a plain white background.
    Boombox. A silver Panasonic cassette boombox with two round speakers, photographed straight on against a pale background.

Untitled prints from Nature and Machine

  1. Untitled. Black-and-white photograph of a large willow silhouetted against bright, streaked clouds, the corners of the frame dark.
  2. Iris. Palladium. Warm-toned print with brushed dark edges of a single iris flower lit against a dark background.
  3. Untitled. Print with brushed dark edges of a white water lily open among green lily pads.
  4. Untitled. Print with brushed dark edges of three bison standing in a grassy field before a line of trees.
  5. Untitled. Small color print with brushed dark edges of a monarch butterfly on pink flowers against a blue sky.
  6. Untitled. Warm-toned print with brushed dark edges looking up a tall tree trunk into its bare branches.
  7. Untitled. Warm-toned print looking straight up at bare, crossing tree branches against a pale sky.
  8. Untitled. Warm-toned print with brushed dark edges of a leaning bare tree in snow beside a pond, long shadows across the snow.
  9. Untitled. Cyan-blue print of a lone bare tree standing in a grassy field.
  10. Untitled. Black-and-white photograph of a woman in a patterned sundress sitting in the grass against a tree, in dappled shade.
  11. Untitled. Color photograph of a woman in a long teal dress bending forward on a lawn among autumn trees.
  12. Untitled. Black-and-white photograph of a diesel locomotive on tracks beside a steel truss bridge, trees behind.
  13. Untitled. Print with brushed dark edges of an open grand piano in a wood-panelled room.