Kali, Blue Stripe Face, Palm Springs, CA, 1970, Archival pigment photograph

Seeing Kali: Between Reverie and Reality

In the evolving canon of 20th-century photography, few stories feel as electrifying as the rediscovery of Kali—the artistic persona of California photographer Joan Archibald. Active during the late 1960s and early 1970s in Southern California, Kali produced a vivid and deeply idiosyncratic body of work that remained largely unseen for decades.

Arthur Tress, Flood Dream, Ocean City, N.J., 1971, Silver gelatin photograph

Arthur Tress’s Flood Dream

Among the most memorable images from The Dream Collector is the photograph titled Flood Dream, Ocean City, NJ. It depicts a boy clinging to the roof of a dilapidated home that has washed ashore. The sea has seemingly receded, leaving the structure stranded on a barren, watery plain, while a distant ship looms on the horizon.