Foundry Work — Michael Schultz

Show honors workers, captures foundry drama and scale

Although the initial impression of Michael Schultz’s exhibit at the Grohmann Museum is photographs of colossal, towering machines on a shop floor in Hell, a careful examination reveals his work is really about the men and women at work in the industrial infernos.

Foundry Work: A View of the Industry features 22 large-format color photographs of the metal-casting process, from pattern making to freeing a casting from its mold, photographed in foundries in Germany and the United States, including Falk and Maynard Steel Casting in Milwaukee.

Schultz, a professional/industrial photographer for 30 years, took his first foundry photographs in 2004 when he became impressed by their spectacular nature.

His subject matter recalls the industrial photographs of Charles Sheeler and Lewis Hines, his colors the sepia palette of Thomas Eakins, and his painterly style, ironically, conjures the work of photorealist painters Richard Estes and Ralph Goings.

Each of the photographs in the exhibit was shot with full-frame 35-millimeter digital cameras. Most of Schultz’s photographs are composed of three to six exposures shot in rapid succession and then digitally blended. The blending technique enables him to create images with a greater range of shadow and highlight detail. Schultz rarely uses a flash to illuminate a subject because he prefers to “maintain a sense of what the environment was like including its natural light.” That “natural” light, however, is sometimes light radiated by hundreds of thousands of exploding molten ore droplets.

To maintain the correct vertical perspective, Schultz employs a number of “shift lenses” that permit him to shift the lens upward rather than tilting the camera.

Many of his compositions are defined and ordered by dramatic light that creates a sense of the surreal. In some, the light is amorphous, reflected from clouds and plumes of steam, while in others it is concentrated and searing, radiating from molten metal glowing at 2,850 to 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit.

The real significance of Schultz’s work — beyond its beauty, spectacular formal elements, and subject matter — is his representation of the foundry workers engaged in their craft. However, at first glance, it may not be readily apparent that there are human forms in the compositions. Workers are dwarfed by the enormous scale of the machinery. They’re also camouflaged by garments that reflect the fiery light of the foundry or are nearly the same blue and slate gray hues as those of the molds and machines.

During his gallery talk the evening the show opened, Schultz said his photographs are his way of honoring the people who work in “the tough, hard, hot, often dangerous foundries where one slip can cause death.” He has written that the richest part of his foundry experience was getting to know some of the men and women who labor in them and hearing the stories of their work and lives. Viewers who take the time to step into his complex, rich images are bound to be awed by the people, their work, and the foundries Schultz has portrayed.

Foundry Work: A View of the Industry
Jan. 15-April 5
Grohmann Museum, 1000 N. Broadway (MSOE campus)
http://msoe.edu/about_msoe/manatwork/exhibitions.shtml