Sunday Artist 11/23

Richard Misrach

Misrach focuses his photographic work on how society and nature interact: sometimes in harmony and sometimes in chaos. His serene beach landscapes present tiny, anonymous humans, lounging peacefully near a vast and engulfing ocean. His land scenes, however, show man's creations, larger in size and more jarring to the eye. While his beach scenes show nature as the predominant force, clearly in control, his land scenes show mankind's attempt to take over nature, overwhelming the scene with lifeless structures and objects.

While my work doesn't deal much with humans and nature, it does deal with humans and the enviroments they chose for themselves. My work is about human to human and human to sturcture interaction, which speaks similarly to what Misrach does.

http://www.edelmangallery.com/misrach.htm
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/misrachinfo.shtm
http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/exhibition/beach

Sunday Artist 11/16

Do Ho Suh

A brilliant sculptor/painter/craftsman, Do Ho Suh explores the idea of community. In most of that work, the community he shows us is relative to power structure, and often depicts power attempting to overtake the community. His work touches on recent power struggles in Communist China, such as in one piece where he created an impassable barrier made up of tiny, brightly colored, human figures. Another, in which giant feet step on their own shadow of tiny men shows the losing battle between the community, what has been created for the community, and what now creates the community. Do Ho Suh struggles to find the balance between individualtiy, community, and anonymity; something I am also questioning.

Do Ho Suh is represented by Lehmann Maupin. His page is at:
http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/#/artists/do-ho-suh/

Thursday Topic 11/20

Solitary

"Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxoriuosly immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence, rather than of the abscence of others..." -Alice Koller, author.

If I had read this quote prior to starting this project, it would have been the inspiration for starting this project! One of the main aspects of each photo that I enjoy most is the fact that none of these people are affected in a negative way by their solitude. Instead, they go on with daily life, enjoying hobbies and completing tasks. They are none the wiser.

Solitude is often seen in such a negative light. "Hipsters" are considered the people who go out and socialize the most, inmates are put into solitary confinement if they act up, and people are expected to be married by they are thirty. God forbid they become an old woman with a dozen cats. Although we are social creatures by definition, solitude can be positive. What happens when no one else exists?

Thursday Topic 11/13

Inane

Adjective
1. lacking sense: inane questions. 2. empty; void.
Noun
1. something that is empty or void, especially the void of infinite space.

My current project is focused around spaces void of normal human activity. The space creates a sense of awkwardness. Although this awkwardness is apparent to the viewer, the subjects of the photographs seem unaware of it, carrying on with "business as usual" as if the scene were bustling with activity.

This also makes the scene unreal; there is no reason for these people to be acting as they are at that moment in time. This hopefully will provoke questions within the viewer. My work is in part to examine one's individuality, what and who we are without the influence of our community and our society. Am I who I say I am without the people around me? Do they help define me? Who would I become without them? These are some of the questions I want my work to bring up.

Sunday Artist 11/9

Lajos Geenen

Geenen questions the belief in the reality of the photograph. We have often discussed the association between photography and the real world, which is what sets photography apart from other arts. Whenever an artist wants to show the viewer that something has happened, or that something was created, they turn to photography, whether they are sculptors, painters, performance artists or photographer by definition. In journalism, a strict code of ethics binds photographers and, by publishing a photographer, the media stands by its truth. Geenen's work asks how real the imagery is. Each element in his work did, technically, happen, but it is doubtful that it would have happened without him forcing it. Does this make the photograph any less real? Were these elements even in the same place at the same time? Geenen often asks these unanswerable questions.

Geenen has his own website (http://www.lajos.nu/) and can also be researched here:
http://www.artnet.com/Galleries/Artists_detail.asp?G=&gid=613&which=&aid=424415248&ViewArtistBy=online&rta=http://www.artnet.com

Thursday Topic 11/6

Tableau
Adjective
-1. A work in which narrative has been distilled into a single image.
-2. A preconceived narrative created through a composition of props, gestures, and the style of the work of art.

Although this is a very generic term in photography, I take it to mean purposeful storytelling. In my work, I strive mental dialogues, where the viewer can't just look at the image for it's beauty or composition. I want something in the scene to provoke a narrative, while leaving something out of the scene so as not to follow a stereotypical narrative. Without tableau, I believe photography can too easily fall into being strictly documentary. With tableau, the viewer is left to question reality.

Sunday Artist 11/2

Catherine Opie

Opie's landscapes explore cultural identity is regards to the environment surrounding us all. These works feature vast landscapes in which people, or human presence, is the main focal focus, and yet minuscule and almost insignificant. This work attracts me partially because the viewer is forced to find message in figures that are not easily stereotype. The mind automatically tries to assign general attributes to other human figures, and what makes this work jarring is the fact that you can't do that. The other reason I'm drawn to her work is because of the loneliness the viewer feels. There are typical at least two figures or buildings in Opie's photographs and yet, because of the vast appearance of the landscape, there is an isolation that is unnatural and uncomfortable. To me, those aspects make a great photograph.

Opie does not appear to have her own website, however her work and info can be found at the following:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/notebook/2008/11/03/081103gonb_GOAT_notebook_aletti
http://www.art.ucla.edu/faculty/opie.html
http://www.regenprojects.com/artists/catherine-opie/

Thursday Topic 10/30

Society

"Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals." -Oscar Wilde

I happen to agree with this statement. I realize that this quote states something very similar to what I said about "culture", but to me they are two very different things. Your society you can escape, your culture you can't. Within the society I live in, there are so many different cultures that I couldn't name them all even if I had a world atlas. Society to me is governmental. It is the ruling presence over everyone in a specific location. It is divided up into social class instead of race or religion.As a result of this division, it encourages judgment and assumption much like culture does. It is for this reason that it affects my work. The viewer is forced to make several assumptions about the people in my work, not just questions like "Are they crazy?". Instead, the viewer automatically and subconsciously dissects the models image, breaking them down into range, gender, beauty, apparel, etc. This will always affect the work I make, even if I were to silhouette everyone.

Exhibiton Submission Entry

Here's proof that I submitted to the Photographer's Forum 29th Annual College Photo Contest.

Andy Cooperman Lecture

This crafts lecture was amazing! Cooperman was everything a lecturer should be: smart, funny, personable, etc. He made me realize the differences between our thinking processes. Although I only know for certain how my brain works and heard him tell us about his, I would assume that these differences generally span the mediums. Cooperman, as a designer, takes reference material and abstracts it or expands upon select elements. He has a love of nature and showed us several of his references, from wasp hives to porcupines to mold and fungus. His work repeats many of the lines found in nature and translates them into metal and stone.

My creative process, by contrast, starts with a story. I think of a scenario and then figure out the best way to represent it by orchestrating the elements of the scenario and then documenting them. As Paul has said many times over, I produce (over-produce as he put it). I have issues simply taking a photograph of a random event that I had no control over. Instead, I like to have my hand in almost every element of the photo: lighting, background, foreground, models, props, etc. I use reference material only for technique. My references are on particular lighting set-ups, color combos, compositions, blur techinique, and so on. Personally, I think it would be very difficult to put myself into his mindset and produce something in his chosen mediums nearly as well as he does. I have a much better appreciation now for the various artistic endeavors and the other people who create.

Sunday 10/26 Entry

Guy Bourdin

Bourdin's intrigue in women is apparent in his work. He depicts women within strange narratives about femininity and social class that leave you wondering if they created the scene or if it was created for them.

Bourdin was considered a fashion photographer. He did spreads for Vogue as well as work for Pentax, Charles Jourdan and Linea Italiana. He did have a few art exhibitons, such as ones at the Salon Nationale de la Photographie, Galerie Jacques Desbrière, and Photokina 66. Bourdin died in 1991.

http://www.guybourdin.org/

Thursday 10/23

Culture

"Anything we want, we're trained to want" -Chuck Palahniuk

The thing about culture that bugs me a little, is that we have no active part in it. When we are born, we're born into a specific culture, and we're supposed to conform to it. Although a lot of the world's cultures have been "westernized", who knows who culture that was first, people around the world would still have a hard time adjusting to life in America, and vice versa. If I decided to come to class one day wearing what the people in the picture above are wearing, I would first off probably be arrested just outside of the doors. If that didn't happen, Tracie would certain have a few words to say to me, and if I managed to get past the office, my fellow students would either think I was making a statement about being black (As usual) or I would just be "nuts". And if I tried to Americanize that culture and wardrobe? Well, I'd probably be place in a subculture, perhaps the Afrocentrics.

In either situation, I would immediately become an outcast for it. I could go on and on about how many stereotypically black people consider me to be "watered down" and "posing as a white person". It doesn't matter that I enjoy Tupac and wear BabyPhat clothing on occasion, and it is apparently a disgrace to go into a department in which you are the only black person in your class. I should have gone into business.

So what makes this culture mine and not one in African (even though I'm American and have no desire whatsoever to set foot on African soil) or even Mongolia (no, I'm not Mongolian)? Why can't we just make up our own cultures? Would anyone ever feel like they fit in that way? And most importantly: How does the culture that we have been placed into affect us as individuals?

Sunday 10/19 Entry

Andreas Gursky

With Gursky, vantage point is everything. He manages to take the normal and mundane aspects of everyday life and make them overwhelmingly chaotic. It becomes as if they are no longer real buildings and people. The people in Gursky's photographs are so small that they are no longer identifiable, despite the photograph itself being blown up to a very large format.

The repetition in the photographs adds to the chaos of the piece. So much is going on that becomes hard to focus, and you're forced to view the entire thing as some sort of pattern. When you do manage to zero in on a specific aspect of the photo, you're left wondering why those people are there and why what is happening is happening. From the vantage point of one of the people in Gursky's photographs, you wouldn't be able to tell that so much was going on around you, but thanks to Gursky, we now know.

Gursky has exhibited at MoMA, the Guggenheim Museum, and White Cube in London.

http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/past_exhibitions/moving_pictures/highlights_7a.html
http://nymag.com/arts/art/reviews/31785/
http://www.whitecube.com/artists/gursky/
http://www.artnet.com/artist/7580/andreas-gursky.html
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2001/gursky/

Thursday 10/9 Entry

Surreality

"The unreal is more powerful that the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles, wood rots, people, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on." -Chuck Palahniuk

This is why I love surreal elements in photographs. The photograph itself makes you want to believe what is happening is true, that's automatically the power of photography. But to then have an element that you KNOW is off, if just a little, allows for temporary fantasies to occur. Even when the photo is not a "perfect" image, even when the image is clearly set-up and no plausible scenario could produce the given results, the idea of this something occurring in reality can send you almost anywhere. Every persons fantasy is different, even when they look at the same photo, at the same time, in the same place, after eating the same thing.

I want more of that in my work. The silhouettes are getting there, but they are still to obvious. On the bright side, the ambiguity of the silhouettes has the potential for almost anything.

Sunday 10/12 Entry

Philip-Lorca diCorcia

We all know diCorcia's work very well here in the photo department. I won't dwell to much on it; instead I'll just say that the ambiguity of this scenarios is what intrigues me the most (and what relates to my work). I've always been intrigued by the obvious falsification of documentation, especially photography. So the fact that you know the scenes are set up but could still be plausible is captivating. And, as for the street portraits, I also like having insight into someone's mindset, personality and style at an ungaurded moment in their lives, when they feel no need to put on their everyday mask. One can make assumptions, predictions, and stereotypes about a person with no reprocussion or consequence.

DiCorcia has exhibited at the Pace/MacGill Gallery, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Gagosian Gallery and Carnegie International.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/arts/design/11BELL.html?ex=1397016000&en=60b1b588b1096965&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
http://www.artnet.com/artist/5238/philip-lorca-dicorcia.html
http://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/exhibit/dicorcia/
http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/heddon-street-2001-05-philip-lorca-dicorcia http://www.cmoa.org/international/the_exhibition/artist.asp?dicorcia

Thursday 10/16 Entry

Installation

I have found that I have a serious issue simply capturing a moment with my camera. I feel like I'm cheating at making art, like my little sister could do what I just did on the automatic setting of her point-and-shoot. Setting up things that I've manipulated or created makes me feel like I'm not that much of a poser. Of course, current photographic technology has made this more and more difficult. So now I need to choose between documenting reality and documenting pseudo-reality. The line gets blurred at interactive art, which appears to be where I'm heading. The artist is documenting what is really happening, but it is under false pretenses. Without the artist, whatever is happening wouldn't be happening.

Simen Johan Lecture 10/15

The one thing that I meant to ask him and completely forgot was: "What was your childhood like?"

Although his animal portraits are interesting, I have never been much of an animal person, so his child portraits are the ones that really intrigue me. I'm especially curious what his parents were like when he was growing up, and if he had any siblings. His use of ritualistic behaviors make me think of the "child's" constant search for an answer. Not just any answer, but one very specific to the needs of that child. The objects used in the rituals are probably clues to the question needing an answer. I see the girls that made the fort pile of dolls as girls struggling with issues of self identity, more specifically femininity issues.

It is also interesting that animals and bugs often "infest" the images. Most often they are pests that appear to be destroying the things that have been built or created. My question, as it usually is when thoroughly exploring someone's work, is what answer Simen Johan is trying to answer through his work.

Helen Molesworth Lecture 10/7

Helen Molesworth is, as best as I can determine, an art critic. During her lecture, she read a "work in progress" essay she was writing and talked mainly about art affect and abjection. She specifically compared Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party with Robert Gober's work. Despite the obvious contrasts in the works, such as the femininity of The Dinner Party versus the harsh masculinity of almost all of Gober's work, the two share similar affective quality. She also pointed out something about Gober's work that had never occured to me: much of his work is centered around stray apprendages and impaled religious figures, but the brutality of these images goes unnoticed. It is as if he's found a way to soften their inherent meaning to the point that it is almost undetectable.

One last note: She said something else that I had never thought about, and that goes well with this class.

"Criticism is to imagine something better, as in a utopia. But this utopia [doesn't exist] without the potential in the artwork."

Sunday 10/5 Entry

Matthew Messmer

First off, check out this guys awesomely set-up site! It's mainly in Japanese, but there are English subtitles for most of the links and it is so creative. Plus, it has all of his credentials on it.

Now, to the art. Messmer's style of street photography feels like a voyeuristic form of journalism. Its as if you're in that New York subway station, or that Tokyo train, and glancing over at these people, careful not to let them catch you staring. I've always been interested in urban social interactions. More specifically, how so many people can live and work in a single city and share it with total strangers. Naturally, Tokyo and New York are two excellent examples of this interaction. These people force themselves into subway cars and train stations, unable to avoid dealing with one another in some way.

http://www.matthewmessmer.com

Thursday 10/2 Entry

Ambiguity

Ambiguity is the driving force of adventure. It allows for risks to be taken and choices to be made. In artwork, it allows the viewer to keep asking questions. If you spelled everything out for them, the artwork would be pointless. It would become easier to just tell them what you were talking about. In art, the ambiguity keeps someone coming back for more, always aware that they could have missed an interpretation or a well hidden detail.

"Non-ambiguity is the shaping force of reality"-Joseph Pierce

Well, I just don't agree with that. To me, ambiguity is just as much a part of reality as is the obvious. The best part of creating to me is finding new ways to inject ambiguity into my work.