In 1890-1896 Karl Blossfeldt participated in a project in Italy, collecting plant material for drawing classes. During this period Blossfeldt started systematically documenting plant samples photographically. Some of his photographs appear in Meurer’s publications at the turn of the century. In 1898 he married Maria Plank. The marriage ended with a divorce in 1910 after 12 years. He later married the opera singer Helene Eminem. He started teaching at the Institute of Royal Arts and Crafts Museum in Berlin in 1898, and continued working there as a professor from 1921 until 1930. His first exhibition was held in 1926 at the Nierendorf Gallery in Berlin; and published the book Urformen der Kunst in 1928, which was highly appreciated by both critics and public.

His subjects were plants and living things. He was inspired, as was his father, by nature and the way in which plants grow.

Over the past year, Ryan McGinley and his crew explored huge underground caves, venturing into unknown territory and seeking out spectacular natural spaces, some previously undocumented.

The title, “Moonmilk”, alludes to the crystalline deposits found on the walls of many caves; it was once believed that this substance was formed by light from celestial bodies passing through rock into darkened worlds below.

The series, a departure from Ryan’s iconic images of the past, firmly places Ryan as one of the most innovative and influential artists of a generation.

McGinley rejected working in commercial caves, focusing instead on what are commonly referred to as “Wild Caves.” Some of the terminology applied to explorers and other kinds of pioneers can be applied to McGinley and his work process: trailblazer, pathfinder, seeker, searcher, frontiersman, surveyor. For the cave photographs, McGinley plunged himself, his models, and his crew into an awesome and impenetrable blackness and brought back evidence from the hidden realm; pictures from inside the earth.