In a spacious, bright room on the third floor of Woodlawn’s First Presbyterian Church, interdisciplinary artist Max Li is reviving the art of tintype photography. Creating photo portraits using processes dating from the mid-1800s, Li’s captivating tintypes reflect the mixture of old and new technologies that give them form, as well as the mixture of historic and contemporary influences running through the church itself, Chicago’s oldest continuously operating institution.

The subjects of Li’s tintypes appear in extreme fidelity, enveloped by a haze that makes it seem as if contemporary faces, clothing and objects were somehow surfacing from the distant past. The high-resolution of the photographs is a result of printing onto metal plates with a silver solution, Li said: “In digital photos, you are limited by the size of pixels. In tin-type photos, you are developing onto silver atoms.”

Li shoots using a camera from 1907, using a Dallmeyer lens from the 1800s on loan from a collector in Shanghai. He prints onto metal plates purchased from a trophy and plaque manufacturer. 

“Some folks bring their antique cars, sometimes someone will ask if I can turn one of their relative’s old photos into a tintype. One (client) even inquired about me photographing a recent surgical scar,” Li said. 

Li first became interested in tintype photography in 2016, while a third year in the University of Chicago’s Master of Fine Arts program. There, Li was exposed to daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes, albumen prints and other alternative photo processes in a darkroom class. Afterwards, he acquired the chemicals and photo equipment necessary to establish his own practice.

“It was very exciting to be deeply focused on learning about these processes,” Li said. “It felt like learning some kind of magic.” 

After shooting on his own for several years, Li acquired his studio space in First Presbyterian, 6400 S. Kimbark Ave., as a result of a happy accident. While snapping photos of the church’s gothic exterior one day in 2021, Li was approached by the current pastor, Reverend David Black, who invited him inside. After discussing Li’s tintype practice, Black invited the artist to submit a proposal to the church about setting up shop in one of its empty community rooms. 

Upon their acceptance of his proposal, Li immediately began cleaning up the space and planning events. He, along with the other resident artists with studios at First Presbyterian, receive their sizable studio spaces free of charge, with the expectation that they will in turn open up the space to other artists and community members.

“The space is very big, allowing for the free play of the imagination, and good reverb if you play music,” Li said. “Building a community here has been a pretty dynamic, ongoing process, and having the ability to engage with different scales of the spaces of the building has been unbelievable. The building has so many stories to tell and little details to discover.”

Today, Li shares space with an illustrator and mural painter, along with a dance studio and the world famous avant-garde music ensemble the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. A community kitchen operates within the church as well, distributing food to those in need. 

Some of Li’s artworks are on display around the studio, including a charming, powerful and enigmatic series of Lego-brick temples loosely modeled on real temples from China. These works look as if hundreds of satellites and stoplights and loose wires had been affixed by a madman to the sedate rooftops of Beijing’s Forbidden City.

Li’s free residency here has been enabled in part by the vision of First Presbyterian’s pastor. Having first served as a community pastor in a socially-minded, art-focused church in Harlem, Black came to Chicago in 2020, keen to share his experiences on the South Side.

“I came to Chicago with a deep belief that churches should be public squares where culture and the civic life of the community flourish,” Black said. “My experiences as an activist in a historically Black community on the edge of a wealthy university, under pressure from developers who sought to rebrand the neighborhood as ‘Central Park North,’ gave me a lot of context for the dynamics at play in Woodlawn.”

Li’s space and the 191-year-old church more broadly have a vital history that touches on many of the central events of the South Side and the city writ large. 

The church housed Chicago’s first public school. In the 1960s, Li’s studio was utilized as a meeting space by the civil rights group and street gang, the Blackstone Rangers. 

Here, the former minister Reverend John Fry offered space to the group as it sought to transition from a street gang into an organization focused on pressing social issues. The Rangers produced plays, conducted peace talks and held dances in the church, while simultaneously pursuing other more violent activities conducted in the surrounding neighborhood.

Remarking on the complicated history of his studio space, Li said, “As someone who came to Chicago in 2019,  I am such a foreigner and can’t comment on the history. Still, I am a Chinese international student who traveled around and stayed with host families, so I can relate the alienation — I think a lot of what the rangers did was a result of encountering intense alienation.”

In seeking to build community through the church, Li has hosted numerous events, including tintype portrait pop-ups, art shows, screenings, dinners, concerts and even a light show with jazz music. Li also hosts what he calls “mini residencies” on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, where he opens up the space to artists interested in installing artwork in the building.

Black framed Li’s involvement and the broader array of cultural activities here as part of a broader effort to make First Presbyterian one of the “most important cultural centers south of the Loop, where the creativity of Black Chicago can find roots, resilience, and flourishing.”

“Our church is blessed with an incredibly beautiful and versatile building rooted in the heart of the South Side,” said Black. “We are also blessed with a congregation that is flexible and willing to take risks. Our two rules are: no judgment and no censorship. As long as artists are respectful of the church building and the spiritual community that takes care of it, there are no boundaries on what they can express in our space.”

To request a tintype photograph appointment from Li, email omaxlgzo@gmail.com. Li’s work can be seen at www.maximage.org.