Jim Melchert (1930; USA) 

Photo Negative with Ashtray
1968
Ceramic, glass and photographic negative; ht. 7, wd. 18, dp. 19.75 in.

This exceptional 1968 sculpture by Melchert is a rare opportunity to acquire a masterpiece. In the artists own words: "It anticipated my move into later Conceptual projects.  I had begun taking a lot of photographs in the mid-60s and even had my own darkroom for printing them. One of the things that intrigued me was the existence of a negative, essentially a filter that light passing through would render positive. You could block off part of the negative when you printed it so that the light would print or liberate only a section of it, allowing to be part of our world. I decided to play with that notion by imagining that I had taken a photo at a table where someone was sitting, where he had an ashtray and an inverted a cup tipped on his hand.. The only part that was printed of the negative was a square framing the ashtray which, having been brought into our world became real glass and could be moved. It helps to recall how popular smoking was in the '60s. My artwork was completed when a person reached towards it to flick the ash off a cigarette. That person's hand contrasted with the one in the negative that would never move or feel the weight of the cup on its finger. The idea was to complete a work linked with performance; only then could it be fully appreciated. The drawback, of course, is that it won't occur to most people who see it to realize that there's more to it than some glazed clay and object with an ashtray on it."