The title of Walead Beshty’s photogram provides many clues to the way in which it was made: a length cut from a roll of Fuji Crystal photographic paper was held to the wall by four magnets and then exposed to light three times, with light passing through a different color filter (cyan, magenta, and yellow) during each exposure. This camera-less process occurred in Irvine, California on January 1, 2010. When the completed work is presented, the edges of the paper are permitted to fall into their natural curl rather than be flattened underneath a mat. Yet, even though the artist provides succinct insights into the work’s production, the play of luminous colors and dynamic shapes yields an expressiveness and beauty that transcend technique. In addition to raising questions about when and how technical process gives way to art, Beshty explores the photogram, a lesser known aspect of the history of photography. Determined not to produce variations on the standard photographic genres of landscape or portraiture, Beshty explained that he “...started working with the materiality of the photograph because it seemed like a way out of what I felt were suffocating conventions. It allowed me to rethink my approach and to rethink the history of photography, and to work within what I perceived as a gap in that history, a possibility that seemed open....”