Lecture Entry: Citizen Kane with Professor Mike Jones

Last Monday, November 24th Professor Mike Jones made a special presentation of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. Professor Jones, who usually teaches my Films of Alfred Hitchcock class, gave a lecture on the climate of Hollywood at the time the film was made, and spoke about the stylistics and dynamics of the classic film. Citizen Kane was released in 1941, and heralded a change in American cinema; the film was revolutionary for its use of sound and dark visuals. Welles' film set many ground rules for film noir and auteur cinema. The director was only twenty-five while making this film, yet he was already a well known figure thanks to his radio programs and stage performances. Because of his predilection for sound, which he gained during his radio days, the film features realistic sounds and dialog, as well as sound bridges that connect scenes. His cinematic influences are apparent in this film; he was fascinated with John Ford, Jean Renoir, and F.W. Murnau. Welles' admiration for Murnau's Expressionistic angles and lighting are evident in an early scene in the movie. After a film reel showing Charles Foster Kane's life story ends, a group of characters are left in a dark, hazy screening room, which is only illuminated by two shafts of light coming down from the projection booth up above. This example of chiaroscuro lighting, which allows for deep shadows, is featured throughout the film and is key to the film noir style that flourished in the following years.

I am particularly interested in auteur cinema, and was amazed at how much control young Orson Welles exercised during the creation of this movie. He co-wrote the film, directed it, starred in it and even had the final word on how the film should be edited. RKO Studios allowed Welles an unprecedented amount of freedom with Citizen Kane, and their faith in him resulted in one the most well-regarded films ever.

Lecture: Yale School of Photography

I attended an open house for Yale's School of the Arts in New Haven, Connecticut on Thursday, November 20th. The school is divided into four component departments: Graphic Design, Painting and Printmaking, Sculpture, and Photography. A lecture was delivered for those interested in the photography department by professors Gregory Crewdson and Chip Benson. Both men stressed the importance of the critique, which is the focus of the photography program. Students are subject to three critiques each semester, which works out to each student presenting new work every five weeks. For the professors, making artwork is much more important than discussing theory. The three critiques are open to all students and professors in the school of the arts and are apt to last several hours. Crewdson described the department as "lens-based", meaning emphasis is placed on constructing photographs traditionally, rather than using a lot of technical programs to enhance images digitally. The program runs two years, and each year has nine grad students.

I cannot express how human and unpretentious the students and professors were. Gregory Crewdson, who has been a great inspiration for my work, spoke plainly and was very approachable. The school was built in an old community center and the photography department's critique room is at the bottom of an old swimming pool. The walls were unadorned with prints, so, I assume, we do not get the wrong idea of what Yale looks for in terms of student work. The environment was very welcoming and I did not feel overwhelmed by the school's stellar reputation and alumni. It was an excellent visit, and Gregory Crewdson, Chip Benson, and the grad students were open for numerous questions and comments.

VMFA Fellowship Application

Here is irrefutable proof that I applied for the 2009 VMFA Fellowship. I know that the picture is reversed, but hopefully the return postcard is still legible.

Sunday Entry: Pertti Kekarainen

Photographer Pertti Kekarainen, along with Aino Kannisto, Ville Lenkkeri, and Elina Brotherus is another gifted artist to belong to the Helsinki School of Art in Finland. He was born in 1965 and continues to explore the concepts that he developed while in graduate school. Kekarainen originally studied both sculpture and painting, and began applying his skill in those areas to photography in 1993. His series of interiors entitled, "Tila" deals with the idea of space, three-dimensionality, and focus. While these images are devoid of people, centering instead on interiors and perspective, another recent series, which bares the same title, "Tila" depicts figures moving in and out of a white room. The figures are cropped closely, so that much of their bodies are out of frame, leaving their shadows at the center of the photographs. These shadows stand in for the figures and represent the ideas and conversations the characters are involved in. Without the aid of digital manipulation, the artist adds colored dots to the images, which are reminiscent of apparitions in early spirit photography. The figures are both absent and present at the same instant. Kekarainen presents these color photographs at full scale and hangs them low on gallery walls so that viewers can fully interact with the figures and interiors.

I hope that my artwork progresses in a direction similar to that of Pertti Kekarainen's. The absent subject is the focus of my current series of photographs, and I love how, in this artist's work, the shadows are more fully realized than the figures. The veil of colored dots within the images add another layer of intrigue and complexity that works extremely well.


http://www.helsinkischool.fi/helsinkischool/artist.php?id=9021


http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5132959

http://www.artnews.org/gallery.php?i=384&exi=11088

Thursday Entry: Suspension

This indeterminate, frozen duration corresponds well to the reflective engrossed nature the characters in her works usually present"
-Alberto Martin

Martin, A. (2001) "Strata of Appearance"
Florence Paradeis, 50-52.

Author Alberto Martin examines the phototgraphy and films of artist Florence Paradeis in his essay, "Strata of Appearance". Paradeis truly exploits photography's ability to suspend action, as the figures in her scenes are caught immersed in their own thoughts. In one half of her dyptych, "Tete a Tete", a female figure pours out a glass of red wine, while beneath the table, a man reaches for a fallen fork. The flow of the wine is suspended as is the man, as he gazes at the dirtied utensil; his introspective stare suggests that he has just been transported to another place. His hand is outstretched but his mind prevents him from completeing the action he set out to perform. Martin writes that Paradeis' photos show gestures that lead to "an interior sphere". It is with an obsessive glance that the heroine in "La cuisinere" attempts to wrap a raw chicken in aluminum foil. Just like in the previous dyptych, the figure in this scene is caught up in her own thoughts sparked by the mundane action of covering a chicken in foil.

Paradeis' work sat with me for a while before I could appreciate it. It was not until I saw the "Tete a Tete" pictures that I began to realize just what the artist was articulating. I love the photographic depiction of suspension and have tried to bring that to my own series. It is the in-between moments, the hesitation between states, that really causes me to pay attention to what is being shown. The figures in my current work are trapped in a similar state between ignorance and full knowledge of what is before them.

Sunday Entry: Aino Kannisto

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5132966

http://www.m-bochum.de/artist_image.php?aid=66

http://www.women2003.dk/artists.php?id=46

Photographer Aino Kannisto is another talent to have graduated with her Masters from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, Finland. Kannisto was born in Finland in 1973 and makes "constructed pictures", carefully staged color tableaux, which feature the artist herself. She compares her photographs to literature, more specifically to short stories. Each image stars Kannisto and captures moments both dramatic and intimate. The image, "Untitled (Woman in Water)" presents a tense moment as a woman raises her head above the surface of a lake; her face is pained and vulnerable as her eyes scan her remote surroundings. In another tableaux, called, "Untitled (Classroom)", the artist sits alone at the back of an unpopulated schoolroom. The pale blue desks and chairs complement the mood of the subject, who stairs off to the side, lost in thought. Kannisto's presence in each image helps to create a narrative between the disparate scenes and each photo seems to have its own backstory.

Aino Kannisto begins planning out each scene by creating sketches and writing short stories. She writes out a script of sorts for what must occur in the scene and what has led up to that specific point. I always start off with small sketches of how I'd like my photographs to be composed before shooting. I think this type of directorial preparation allows for precise expression of your original idea, and permits the photographer to worry less about the actual compostition on the day of shooting, since it has been considered beforehand.

Thursday Entry: Unity

"This type of constructive dialogue, carried by a spirit of togetherness, is quite uncommon amongst larger groups of successful artists"
-Rupert Pfab

Phab, R. (2005) "Paradigm and Discourse: The Helsinki School of Photography".
The Helsinki School, 219-222.

Art Historian Rupert Phab's essay illustrates the connections and shared themes interwoven through the artwork of the Helsinki School in Finland. This group of artists were all taught at the University of Arts and Design Helsinki, and share common sensibilities, such as an acute awareness of historical paintings, a robust knowledge and ability to comment on contemporary international art, a sense of reflection on the medium of photography, and a unified mood of contemplation and melancholy. Artist Elina Brotherus demonstrates her appreciation for art history with her series of self-portraits set in disparate landscapes. Brotherus places herself in dynamic natural surroundings and integrates her form, whether naked or clothed, into the composition. Her photographs reference the work of painter Caspar David Friedrich in addition to numerous other artists who have worked with the nude figure in a landscape. Jorma Puranen refers to both art history and the medium of photography with his series of reproductions. By photographing famous oil paintings on display in museums with harsh lighting reflecting off of their surfaces, Puranen comments on the limitations of photographic reproduction and reality. The artists of the Helsinki school are also known for their conceptual, narrative photography and their reluctance to document society in a straight manner.

Unity can be as important within a group of artists from the same school as it is within an artist's own body of work. I have endeavored to allow my concepts to evolve and grow with time. What I have found myself most interested in, the absent subject and liminality, has been present in some form or another throughout my photography. It is fascinating to see how a basic concept can take on different, sometimes divergent, shapes over time.

Sunday Entry: Thomas Demand

Photographer Thomas Demand was born in Munich, West Germany in 1964. While at Goldsmiths College in London, he studied sculpture and pioneered an ingenious way to incorporate his love of sculpture with the medium of photography. In his studio, Demand re-creates locations he finds in newspaper photographs using cardboard and paper. His full-scale re-creations depict politically charged environments, which are not always recognizable to the pubic. Demand photographs the scenes he creates, and then destroys the model; the photographs are the only record of the work. Despite the enormous amount of work the artist puts into each re-creation, the images lack specific details once viewed up close. This intentional lack of detail is to emphasis the gap that exists between reality and fiction. In Demand's "Bathroom Image" the viewer finds a seemingly innocuous scene, in which a pulled- back shower curtain reveals a bathtub still filled with water. Demand based this photographed model on a press photograph of a hotel bathroom where German politician Uwe Barchel's body was discovered. He continues to work with this concept and his images include both elaborately created interiors and exteriors. The Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of Demand's artwork in 2005.

I admire the quiet suspense in each image. Once you learn about Demand's concept, your mind begins to wonder about the events that once filled these iconic scenes. Although our processes of art-making are clearly different, I am inspired by the way he can create a tableau by hand, using only cardboard, and elicit such a powerful response from his audience.

http://www.thomasdemand.de

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2005/demand.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/04/arts/design/04KIMM.html

Thursday Entry: Artifice

"This is not a pipe"
-Henri Magritte

Laakso, H. (2006) "Restless Ways of Worldmaking".
Reality in the Making, 6-7.

The work of artist Ville Lenkkeri is, according to critic Harri Laakso, related to an endless stream of museum-goers passing by an exhibit. Lenkkeri photographs the very type of scene that one would observe in a museum, real life interacting with staged dioramas. These two separate worlds meet unnervingly in Lenkkeri's body of work. Visitors lean against glass cases containing miniatures, and in some images, actually enter the dioramas. Her work is upfront about what is real and what is not. The viewer can easily discern the artificiality of the wax dummies, miniature battlefronts, and taxidermied elephants and lions. Laasko claims that some type of artificiality is always present in this medium,"photography never gives us what it shows". Reality is never truly reflected in a photograph. In a way, these dioramas, like photography itself, are like a memory; the event is represented, but not in an exact, unbiased manner.

Theatricality and a suspension of disbelief are key elements of my own work. I prefer to stage a scene and select gestures and props, rather than just capture an event as it unfolds. The unusual, harsh lighting that I introduce into environments signals a shift from the real world into an enhanced, dramatized tableau. Unlike Ville Lenkkeri, whose work shows a division between what is real and what is false, my photographs are complete works of fiction.

Sunday Entry: Laura Letinsky

Canadian photographer Laura Letinsky draws inspiration from classic Renaissance paintings. She was born in 1962 and did not start taking photographs until her late teens. While at the University of Manitoba, the artist wanted to study painting but did not have the necessary prerequisites for the class; she had to take a photography course instead. She became enamored on the idea of making a photograph, instead of just taking one, and furthered her studies at Yale, where she received her MFA. Originally, Letinsky's artwork captured intimate scenes between couples. She captured private, sexual scenes, which eventually featured the artist herself, until she was awarded a Guggenheim Grant and was able to study in Rome. Surrounded by such a fertile atmosphere, Letinsky began to study Renaissance paintings closely, and was particularly interested in Leonardo Davinci's "The Last Supper". After noticing the importance of the food on the table in that painting, Letinsky began to stage photographs of just tables spread out with food, their dinners having left halfway through a meal. Even without people in the images, their is a distinct sense of their presence. The food left behind is often devoured halfway, as if the tables were still inhabited. The lighting in these scenes is cool and "angelic".

What I find so powerful about these scenes, is the way the viewer has to imagine just what situations took place at these meals, and why they were left in such a state. The absence of people in the series is striking. Laura Letinsky's I did not remember I had forgotten series was recommended to me because of a series I made last year, which featured a similar sense of absence. I created a series of tableaux featuring the remnants of child's birthday party. One of my scenes is similar to Letinsky's in that it depicts an abandoned meal of cake and ice cream. All of the young revelers have gone and left fallen decorations and wrappings in their wake.




http://www.yanceyrichardson.com/artists/laura-letinsky/index.html

http://www.houkgallery.com/letinsky/letinsky1.html

http://www.mouthtomouthmag.com/letinsky.html

Thursday Entry: Transience

"Don't let me disappear"
-J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

Cruz, A. (2003) "Afterword".
Don't Let Me Disappear, 80-81.

Amanda Cruz considers artist Slater Bradley's series, don't let me disappear an intimate look at the young artist's relationships, his vulnerability, and the fleetingness of life. This series, which includes photographs taken from 1997 to 2003 features several key motifs including hot-air balloons, beached whales, and butterfly catchers. The beached whales are shot in the same warm, romantic light as the rising balloons, and stand at opposite ends of the spectrum from eachother. While both suggest transient moments, the whales' remaining hours of life and the balloon's inflation, one is a sign of defeat and the other triumph. Cruz notes Bradley's comparison of the dying whales to Icarus, who ventured too far and was felled by the sun. Vulnerability and precariousness are shown in the artist's self portraits. In both of the images of himself, he is in hospital garb, shown after a procedure to correct his breathing; he too is fragile and alone. The rest of the images in his series are of personal relationships. The photos of friends and love interests are imbued with the same feeling of transience when grouped along with the aforementioned work. Smiling eyes meet the camera lens, but will soon look away.
Hopefully, that same sense of impermanence lingers in the series I am creating. People are caught in transition from ignorance to knowledge as they begin to react to what is around them. Their gestures, as well as their opinions, are not fully formed. Bradley's photos of dying whales are macabre and beautiful for similar reasons. Bystanders collect around the beached whales but are unable to assist; they just watch the mammals' last moments pass.

Sunday Entry: Anne Hardy

British artist Anne Hardy constructs fantastic environments before her camera in her studio. She was born in 1970 in the UK and received her MA in 2000 from The Royal College of Art. Unlike most artists, who endeavor to find unusual places to photograph, Hardy starts from scratch and builds her own surreal interiors, with full knowledge of how she wants to shoot them. For the artist, the process begins after she finds an object that inspires her; she then starts from scratch and builds a room within her studio that would accommodate said object. In many images, her constructed environs are cluttered in an obsessive manner. There are groupings of similar objects and bizarre numbers placed within the room, in an attempt to catalog its trappings. The viewer is left to image who inhabits these spaces, and can construct narratives with the clues Hardy has left in the rooms. These large scale tableaux are notable for never containing the people who inhabit these spaces; the scenes are left, ready for their eccentric owner's return.
Of the tableaux I've seen, I am particularly fascinated by the one titled, "Drift". Perhaps it's all my experience with creating and destroying leaf piles in my youth, but her image of a command center buried within a great drift of leaves sets my mind spinning. The lighting in the scene is provided by, in the context of the image, the sun above the leaves. This scene triggers a host of bizarre stories about the necessity for such a room or who would be obligated to station it. It is this sense of mystery that has kept me making photographs, always trying to exercise the viewer's dedication and imagination.



http://www.anne-hardy.co.uk

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/anne_hardy.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/jan/11/photography.architecture

Lecture Entry: Professor Babatunde Lawal

VCU Art History Professor Babatunde Lawal gave an informative lecture on the Kente fabrics belonging to the Ashante people of Ghana. In his lecture, which occurred this week at the University of Richmond, he exposed the link between clothing and language, by means of iconographic patterns and colors. Lawal noted the importance of the body and its clothing in terms of culture and class. Iconographic images woven into clothing show occupation, status, wealth, power, and even stories. The patterns and colors featured in Kente fabrics can be readily interpreted by the Ashante. Unlike the Ewe people in Ghana, who use cool colors in their clothing, the Ashante employ bold, dramatic colors and patterns. Within their patterns, hands represent friendship, stools represent repose, elephants stand for nobility, and zigzags signify the energy of life, as well as the unpredictable elements found in life. The fish head motif recalls an ancient Ashante adage, "a wise person will grab a fish by the head, only a stupid person will grab it by the tail and let it slip". As with every culture, the Ashante has a set of associations to accompany the colors in their clothing: white is purity, black represents power, obscurity, and secrecy, red is for blood and vitality, yellow is for ripeness, green signifies clairvoyance and healing, and blue is for water.
I am alway interested in the different meanings attached to colors. I had no idea about the significance of every element featured in this culture's dress. Marcus Garvey, the leader of the Back to Africa movement in the early twentieth century, adopted the Kente fabrics as his own and wore bold, commanding colors such as black, red, and green. Golden stool patterns, which I had seen before on graduation stoles, are sacred to the Ashante; they represent repose and are prominent in funerary rites. Professor Lawal talked about Kente's importance in America today thanks to the Civil Rights movement in the fifties and sixties. Muhammad Ali championed the Ashante's designs after he visited Ghana during his prime.

Thursday Entry: Gesture

"Gesture, or a visual communication using physical material, can be an autonomous language,a supplement to various other languages, or a medium"
-Lia Markey
The University of Chicago

Dykstra, J. (2006) "Eyes Wide Open".
Angela Strassheim Left Behind, 1-2.

Critic Jean Dykstra's essay looks at the intricate gestures and glances that Angela Strassheim's photography depends on. The author selects a sample of the artist's work from her series "Left Behind", and analyzes it with particular attention to posture and the photographer's youth. One striking example of effective body language is in the image Untitled (McDonald's). In the picture, a young family is seated at the fast-food restaurant, with their hands linked in prayer. The image is interrupted by one of the girls in the family; her's is the only head unbowed. By raising her head and looking in the opposite direction, the teenage girl's gesture suggests dissension and becomes the focus of the photo. A simple adjustment of posture in an image, such as in this tableau, can lead the viewer in numerous directions. Dykstra cites another instance of the importance of gesture in a photograph of a father and son before a bathroom mirror. The father combs the young boy's hair and links eyes with him through the mirror. A great deal of significance is placed upon the gesture of the father's free hand. Placed upon the boy's shoulder, it is both firm and gentle; it shows authority and love at the same time. Their relationship could be inferred by the simple placement of the father's hand.
My current series of photos also depends on gesture. In these tableaux, an event has just occurred and people gather around as witnesses. Their gestures are crucial because they should look spontaneous and unresolved. The body language should mirror the spectators' lack of information and their curiosity.

Sunday Entry: Elspeth Diederix

Conceptual artist Elspeth Diederix is Dutch, yet was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1971. Diederix and her family moved often, living in Africa, Columbia, and the Netherlands because her father worked for the Dutch embassy. She graduated in 1995 from Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and was awarded the Prix de Rome in 2002. Her interest in photography was a result of being exposed to such amazingly disparate landscapes as a child and her interest in art history and painting. Her photographs are infiltrated with elements of the fantastic. In an image titled Virginia, a woman submerges her face into a duckweed covered pond; her simple, yet bizarre action reminds viewers of a traveler's entrance into a new, unknown world. Unsettling events occur in common surroundings. Diederix plays with strange effects of light and shape in her work, yet uses no digital manipulation. The artist often resorts to suspending objects from clear fishing line to create different environments.
I first came across Elspeth Diederix's work when looking at a collection of the Prix de Rome winner's artwork. I was immediately taken aback by an image of a woman dipping her fingers into a cup of coffee at a cafe. The woman's nonchalance is unsettling; her face and body posture suggest that nothing out of the ordinary is occurring. If might just be that she is fishing a spent bag of tea out of her cup, but the image set my imagination aglow. The same sense of the fantastic is alive in all of her photos. I appreciate her work all the more knowing that she creates all of the effects in camera. I always try to stage everything exactly before the camera so that those posing in the composition have a sense of the atmosphere of the completed image.




http://www.betterwall.com/bnr.php?bid=102

http://www.elspethdiederix.com/

http://cms.dordrecht.nl/dordt?nav=inedmEsHaKpPkCdCaGDzHGRI

Lecture Entry: Simen Johan

Norwegian photographer Simen Johan began working with digital technology at the time of its inception. In his early series "And Nothing Was to Be Trusted" Johan made digital composites of found images in black and white. The monochromatic palette helped mask the problems with the burgeoning technology. This series featured unsupervised children in precarious positions, and touched upon the themes of oppression, emergent sexuality, and masculine identity. His artwork evolved dramatically over the years, and his second series, "Evidence of Things Unseen" found the artist taking his own images and working with color. With this work, Johan focused on the relationship between childhood activities and ritual practices. In addition to making digital composites, he began staging scenes and creating all of the elements in camera. One particular image shows a naked young girl at the beach. Her sand covered body is crouching in the middle of a ring of cigarette butts, which she lays out as if for protection. In 2004, Johan began working on "Until the Kingdom Comes", a series of photographs depicting animals in various environments. Animals, both dead and alive, frequent these scenes, which are inspired by the compositions of famous paintings.
For as intriguing as some of his images were, I found Simen Johan very inarticulate about his work.I wanted to hear more about the conceptual thinking process behind the series, instead of just the digital manipulations. He jumped from one image to the next without really explaining his intent in the images; the audience could clearly see what elements were in the images already, but we needed more insight into his thought process. In prior lectures, the artists have been enthusiastic and eloquent about their ideas, willing to confide in the audience about influences and content.

Thursday Entry: Atmosphere

"the color red attracts and repels. Red is always mesmerizing "
-Anne Varichon

Elms, A. (2005) "Then it's time to unsimplify you...".
Carl Michael Von Hausswolff: Red Empty(Chicago 2003), 1-5.


Anthony Elms' article clarifies Von Hausswolff's series Red Empty (Chicago 2003) and likens it to the film High Plains Drifter. The artist's palette of deep black shadows and saturated reds greatly adds tension to urban structures that would ordinarily go unnoticed. The buildings in this series are classified as in-betweens: "currently negative space, they are not quite ruins". Each structure, whether it be a church or a decaying house, has been highlighted for a particular reason in deep red. The eye is drawn in to these spaces, and the bold, primal color imposes many associations on to the buildings. Red's associations are myriad, and the viewer is given the opportunity to construct narratives with each image. Elms compares this series to the plot of Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter, in that the titular character forces the population of a western town to literally paint all the buildings red, in order to expose corruption and sordid activities. In this way, the townspeople can all share in the guilt, and depravity that leaves no one clean.
Rarely have I seen a series in which each image shares the same atmosphere and tension. Von Hausswolff's sustained sense of drama and unease is something to marvel at. Elms was correct in pointing out the effectiveness of the color red; it is never subtle and can be interpreted in so many different ways. The artist's skillful creation and perpetuation of the sense of atmosphere is something I look to improve on with my own photographs.

Sunday Entry: Erwin Wurm

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/2007/01/erwin_wurm_at_cristina_guerra_1

http://www.kopenhagen.dk/interviews/interviews/interview_erwin_wurm/


http://www.galerie-krinzinger.at/kuenstler/wurm/wurm_ar_fr.html

Conceptual artist Erwin Wurm was born in Bruck, Austria in 1954. He came from an artistically diverse background, which saw him experiment with painting, performance art, sculpture, and photography. In his more recent work, Wurm has been critiquing the self-satisfied nature of society. He is well known for his bloated sculptures of suburban houses and vehicles. In addition to social critique, Wurm has commented on the art world by making sculptures in which famous art galleries, such as New York's Guggenheim, in a state of deflation. The galleries, like the houses and cars before, have become soft and flabby with complacency. The artist often presents photographic prints of his performance art, believing the photographs themselves to be sculptures. In an especially intriguing series, entitled Instructions on how to be politically incorrect, Wurm photographed people in socially unacceptable situations. In one image, a woman leans in and spits in another woman's cup of tea, while looking at the lens. In the same vein, another image in the series depicts a man with his head buried in a woman's sweater. Wurm's humor can be seen throughout his work.
Erwin Wurm's photographs have a distinctly absurd flavor to them that demand all of the viewer's attention.The images are slyly staged, yet have a real sense of spontaneity to them. I love the mysterious qualities of Wurm's photos; each one leads the viewer in multiple directions.

Thursday Entry: Composition

" The sensitive eye of artist and viewer tests every picture for balance, a judgment usually rendered naturally by everyone, with or without knowledge of artistic laws"
-Henry Rankin Poore

Beyn, A. (2005) "People's feet only go where their eyes have already been".
Stefan Panhans: Womit wird eigentlich vergoldet bei einem Walduberfall frag ich mich gerade, 106-111.

Ariane Beyn's essay on photographer Stefan Panhans sheds light on the artist's concerns within each image. Beyn compares Panhans' series of young saleswomen, gallery workers, and waitresses to Vermeer's studies of women caught at work in the artist's studio. The composition is of paramount importance in this work. Because of the artist's dedication to composition, Beyn writes that the photographs fall, "somewhere between the staged and the spontaneous". At first glance, these images seem impromptu photographic records of women at work. When examined further, it becomes clear that the photographer has shot these images from an exterior view, behind a wall of glass. Panhans uses the sheet of glass to his advantage, often lining up reflections on the barrier with the subject. In one particular photo, a young woman is seen resting on couch in a department store. The window which separates the foreground from the background is reflecting a red vehicle in such a way that the model appears to be inside it. His fusion of street photography and narrative portraits successfully creates an air of timelessness.

That sense of timelessness is what initially attracted my attention. I find certain images in this series to be reminiscent of Edward Hopper's paintings of women in New York City interiors. Both artists share a similar sense of composition. There is a strong sense in this work, as well as in Hopper's, of uninvited spectatorship, due to the artist's spatial separation from the model.

Sunday Entry: Seung Woo Back

Seung Woo Back, who hails from Taejon, South Korea, created a two part series of photographs which finds fabricated miniatures juxtaposed with real-life locations. In the series "Real World 1" the artist visited Aiisworld Amusement Park in Seoul and photographed their miniature versions of world landmarks. Back included the South Korean buildings behind the model cities to accentuate his main theme of the culture clash between the East and the West. It is difficult to discern any differences between the modern buildings at first. After careful inspection, it becomes clear that the structures in the foreground are fabrications due to their streamlined appearance. The city of Seoul becomes a spectator, as it looms behind the miniature buildings. Back's images have a brilliant, surreal quality to them. In some views, icons from different cultures overlap and compete for a space within the frame. The World Trade Center stands near the London Bridge, and traditional Asian ships drift in the waters nearby. "Real World 2" is equally powerful. The large color scenes, set in real life locations, are populated by little toy soldiers. The images are strikingly beautiful, and it can take some time before the viewer notices the presence of the soldiers. Against their surroundings, toy men are dwarfed, and their battles are rendered insignificant. This latter series relates more to the individual forming his own identity separate from that of the larger group. I admire how Seung Woo Back can create such a statement about culture by adjusting the lens, allowing Seoul to creep in behind. The city, as well as the country, are unwitting spectators in this series.


www.artrabbit.com/features/features/september_2007/abandoned_protocol

www.foiltokyo.com/gallery/eg/past/realworldexhibitioneg.html

www.english.ganaart.com/exhibition/2008062/biography.02.html

Thursday Entry: Discourse

"...while photographers were involved with photographic form, artists in revolt against abstract and minimalist art became enamored of photography for its content"
-Andy Grundberg

Galassi, P. (1995) "Photography Is a Foreign Language".
Contemporaries: A Photography Series: Philip-Lorca diCorcia, 5-14.

Peter Galassi examines the artistic climate surrounding Philip-Lorca diCorcia while he was in school, and shortly thereafter. DiCorcia was influenced greatly by the photographic movements of the 1970s and 1980s and found success when he was able to skillfully blend popular styles to suit his own vision. The language of conceptual, Postmodernist photography was spreading throughout the country, and the young artist admired the innovative ideas of Larry Sultan and Cindy Sherman. In addition to the burgeoning wave of conceptual art, diCorcia was exposed to traditional documentary photography through Tod Papageorge, one of his instructers at Yale. In 1990, diCorcia used documentary techniques and cinematic lighting deftly in his Hollywood Series. His approach was similar to that of a documentarian, yet the lighting and ambiguous narratives in the series adhere to the directorial mode of photography.
DiCorcia explores numerous locations in his series, yet the lighting remains consistent throughout. I admire the bold, artificial lighting that he introduces into his tableaux, and strive to link my photographic series together through dramatic lighting.

Lecture Entry: Professor Todd Cronan

At the heart of Art History Professor Todd Cronan's presentation, From Postmodernism to Modernism: Painting as Affect Machine, was the conflict between what a work of art means vs. what it does to the viewer. Cronan illustrated the issue with several classic paintings, accompanied by statements from other learned art historians and critics. Yve-Alain Bois wrote that his body produced a physical reaction to the violence he saw in Henri Matisse's "Harmony in Red". Bois likened the experience of viewing the saturated red color in the painting to actual physical trauma. Painter Wassily Kandinsky believed that "color is a means of exerting a direct influence upon the soul". In his view, yellow was always aggressive and unsettling to the viewer. Modernist artists believed that color and line alone could affect the audience. Horizontal lines, for instance, always recalled the horizon and expressed a sense of relaxation. These Modernists valued the physical response a piece of art could induce over the mental comprehension of work.
Cronan believes that meaning is more relevant than physical reactions. He argues that the meaning of the work lies in the artist's original intention. While the viewer may formulate multiple assessments of a painting in response to its meaning, the physical affects, "are not debatable". If a certain painting, by the likes of Francis Bacon, makes your stomach hurt, that is not up for discussion. Art work must be valued beyond its immediate impact on the body.
I was very impressed with Cronan's arguments. He produced arguments and quotations from credible sources on both sides of the issue. It seems strange that one would limit an artwork to just a physical sensation, and not proceed to examine the content of the work.

Sunday Entry: Hannah Starkey

Irish artist Hannah Starkey wields an amazing amount of control over her photographed tableaux. Every element within her scenes is carefully considered; the lighting is often cinematic, and the costumes and color schemes are rife with psychological undertones. Starkey was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1971 and earned her MA from The Royal College of Art in 1997. In her early work, she often depicted young women in relation to their environments. The arrangement of the female figures in her tableaux evokes social status as well as isolation. Her images are striking and yet subtle. The color schemes and composition in each work invite the viewer in to investigate just what is happening with the characters within. While the mise-en-scene is quite dramatic, the action of the figures is often subdued. Starkey has turned to examining constructed realities in her more recent photographs. Cold, manufactured environments are contrasted with the individuals who populate these spaces. Humanity is threated when seen against the sterile, lifeless locales of public institutions.
I admire Starkey's brilliant color choices and full exploration of the depth within the photographs. Her figures are elegantly posed and work well as psychological portraits.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/feb/15/photography

http://www.postmedia.net/01/starkey.htm

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/hannah_starkey.htm