Connally: VCU Senior Portfolio

Lecture Entry: Paul Shambroom

2009-05-07T20:16:00.001-07:00

Visiting photographer Paul Shambroom has been conducting, as he calls it, a "long term investigation of power". The artist grew up during the cold war and has an innate fear of nuclear weapons, a subject that appears throughout his artwork. Whether he is shooting actual missile silos, or training stations for the weaponry's guards, the sense of power and the threat of nuclear anihilation pervades Shambroom's oeuvre. He began his career as a commercial photographer, and found himself wandering around the military factories that have always seemed so imposing. In his speech, he explained that the American public has a constitutional right to see what our government is up to, a right which he exercised in his series. Shambroom gained access to these highly secured locations due to his persistent letter-writing. His Nuclear Weapons series shows the reality of this country's arsenal, juxtaposing complex weaponry and missile sights with peaceful landscapes. In contrast to these high-powered and classified locations, his series, Meetings 1999-2003 brilliantly showcases the board meeting of very low-powered committees. To lend these images a classical feeling, Shambroom studied historical paintings and emulated their compositions. They are compelling scenes of ordinary individuals taking their positions seriously and with pride.

Richmond Public Library Show Application

2009-05-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

I have applied for a gallery space at Richmond Public Library. I met last Saturday with Lynn Vandenesse about hanging work in one of the library's galleries during an upcoming First Friday event, and have a portfolio review with her on Friday the 8th of May. She seemed very receptive and interested in my photography. It would be an excellent opportunity to share my work and, seeing the amount of space available for one artist, a challenge to live up to.

Monday Entry: Larry Sultan

2009-04-19T17:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa422.htm

Thursday Entry: Liminality

2009-04-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

"Demand's photographs capture moments that refer to a greater event, a before and after. An abyss might me concealed behind each door and every blind window. Demand's sites evoke scenes and stories in our imagination..."
-Susanne Gaensheimer

Gaensheimer, S. (2002). "Second-Hand Experience".
Thomas Demand, 70-74.

Susanne Gaensheimer's essay, which accompanies a collection of Thomas Demand's artwork, expresses the the essence of the artist's photography, and also ties in to issues pertaining to my own work. Demand, whose final product is not unlike that of James Casebere, photographs a constructed model based upon a charged, pre-existing image. The viewer is thus several degrees removed from the actual scene-which is itself a representation. Demand gives us a specific view of each scene and every object within the photos are essential to its interpretation. Various parts in the compositions lead the viewer towards estimations of the location's significance. We are caught in between moments in his fabricated scenes; as the aforementioned quotation makes clear, the viewer can sense the importance of what has just occurred or will still come. Perhaps it is the overall stillness that pervades in his photographs that suggests a disruption is imminent. The artificiality of the scene lends to the tension as well; the artist must have recreated these scenes for some reason.

This essay has helped to elucidate some of the issues that I have been working out with my own photography. It eloquently addresses the need to envision what has occurred in the scenes that Demand presents us and speaks about the layers of recreation that he plays with.

Monday Entry: Gregory Crewdson

2009-04-13T05:22:00.001-07:00

Gregory Crewdson, one of the most influential contemporary photographers, was born in 1962 and received his BA from SUNY Purchase, and his MFA from Yale University. He is well known for his cinematic tableaux, many of which were extravagant productions. He deftly moves between shooting scenes on location and photographing in a soundstage at MASS MoCA. Whether inside the studio or out, his control over the details in his imagery is absolute. The lighting is bold and exquisite, as are the colors in his saturated scenes. He began by constructing dioramas for museums, and as his creativity grew, the set-ups became increasingly macabre and bizarre; in one set of images, he made a life-size cast of one of his legs, and placed the severed limb in the fabricated environment. Crewdson's Twilight series has gained an enormous amount of recognition for the stories it suggests and the tension in each image. Just like the series title implies, these scenes are set in that fertile time just before evening begins.

In an interview with Aperture Magazine, Crewdson reveals that he finds most of his inspiration while swimming. This bit of information stood out to me as quite intriguing. When I look at my own thinking process, many of the ideas I have tend to come to me while I'm in water as well. I do most of my creative thinking while in the shower, and have visited the local swimming pool for inspiration when I feel frustrated. Perhaps it is just the relaxing nature of water that allows the mind to focus, or it could be a subconscious link to the womb, a place for ideas to come to fruition.

http://www.luhringaugustine.com

http://www.aperture.org/crewdson/

http://www.gagosian.com/artists/gregory-crewdson/

Thursday Entry: Impermanence

2009-04-08T19:19:00.000-07:00

"Photographing spontaneously, (Maxine Henryson) has an instinctive perception of the fleeting moment"
-Mario Kramer

Kramer, M. (2007) "The Visible Time"
Red Leaves and Golden Curtains, vi-vii.

This essay examines the qualities of Maxine Henryson's photographic body of work. The artist creates her colorful abstract images by setting her camera for a long exposure and adjusting the focus while the picture is being taken; the resulting images evoke distant recollections and sensations-strong impressions of past visitations and events. Composition is important to the artist despite the blurred product, and some of her locations are identifiable, but only just. Interiors and exteriors are obscurred with varying degrees of blur; leaving some photographs more discernible. Henryson is prone to travel in search of locations across the sea, shooting most often in Asia and Europe. The author notes that the sense of timelessness in her photographs is furthered by the absence of contemporary technology and advertising. Just like in a dream, it is difficult to place when events take place. Not every element in her images is blurred to the same amount; there are clearer areas in the picture, allowing the viewer's eye to wander about the scene, wondering the significance of the revealed portion, in comparison to the unfocused sections.

I am particularly interested in Henryson's practice of excluding modern cars and technology. It takes away from the effectiveness of a scene to recognize a cell phone or certain new car, and instantly dates the image. The pervasive feeling of obfuscation in these images is clear; you are near an object or in a location yet are not quite able to find all the details that you desire.

Anderson Gallery Submission

2009-04-07T19:02:00.000-07:00

I submitted three photographs to the Anderson Gallery Student Show last week, and one was accepted. They will be showing my "Doctor's Office" image in the gallery starting Friday the 10th.

Monday Entry: Christian Vogt

2009-04-05T20:59:00.001-07:00

Swiss photographer Christian Vogt was born in 1946 and studied at the Basel Design School. He is known for his diverse body of work; he can easily transform, creating imagery in many different modes. Having worked steadily since the late 1960s, Vogt has acquired attention for numerous series, including 1994-1995's Idem Diversum, which is made of several, full-scale portraits of subjects with their eyes closed. The restricting black borders are reminiscent of the walls of a coffin. His more recent work was created outside of the photo studio and is surprisingly fresh for someone who has been working in the medium as long as Vogt has. Since Last Summer, Vogt's 2003 collection of color work, is rife with bizarre photographs, which appear formally sound, yet spontaneous at the same time. The landscapes and figural scenes are set at dusk, which almost becomes a character itself. This collection was an experiment for the artist, he was not attempting to build a series, rather just photographing what he observed during long summer evenings. Moving on, he returned to the practice of creating series in 2004 with Viewings, a more detached and cerebral group of images focused on the tension between interior spaces and the worlds that lie beyond their windows.

Vogt's photography from 2003-2004 resonates strongly with me. I love the mischievous and dark qualities in Since Last Summer; one longs for the events that immediately led to the scenes caught on film. The sobriety of his compositions in his 2004 series of interiors is as unnerving as it is fascinating. Everything is balanced, and the colors almost form bands, as in color field paintings.

http://www.christianvogt.com

http://www.schaden.com/book/VogChrPho03785.html

http://www.webjournal.ch/article.php?article_id=1015

Thursday Entry: Impact

2009-04-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

"A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence"
-Susan Sontag

Sontag, S. (1977) "In Plato's Cave".
On Photography, 3-24.

This essay, the first in Susan Sontag's classic collection, extols the benefits of the still image over motion pictures. She sights the influence and power of the photograph, writing about one image in particular, the Vietnamese girl, stripped of her clothing and running away from a napalm attack during the Vietnam war. Sontag opines that the hours of destruction in Vietnam aired on American television in the 1970s were not nearly as effective and memorable as that single still image of the girl. The critic writes, "Television is a stream of underselected images, each of which cancels its predecessor". With photography, the artist pays closer attention to the composition and details, distilling what could be an entire narrative down to a single frame. In many cases, there are too many images in film to really appreciate the individual shots. Sontag appreciates the tangibility of photographs, whereas film needs to projected through a machine and cannot be physically interacted with to the same extent. She sees photographs as a unique moment in time; more accessible and considered than motion pictures.

While I am a great admirer of film and would love to experiment more with the medium, I do agree with Sontag. Photography can be extremely potent, when handled correctly. As with several artists I am inspired by, I aim to use the medium to relay an entire story, recounted through the visuals, without relying on text or audio.

Lecture Entry: Josua Poteat and Elizabeth Seidel Morgan

2009-03-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

On the evening of March 26th, VCU's English Department hosted two of their previous MFA graduates to present a lecture and give readings of their own poetry. Joshua Poteat received his MFA in 1997 and has gone on to be a published poet, with his 2004 book, Ornithologies. His poetry is visually striking and often quite humorous. Poteat finds inspiration for his poems from various sources, including the artwork of sculptor Alice Aycock. The author admits that he, "steals titles from other works", even naming one poem "Illustrating a Machine to Catch and Reproduce Ghosts" after Aycock's sculpture. Being a Richmond native, there are many references to historical events that happened in Church Hill in his poetry, including one poem about the legendary train tunnel collapse of 1921. His poems evoke images from the early 2oth century. In his upcoming book, the chapters are sorted into fictional departments in an old Sears and Roebuck Department store. In one poem under the heading "Lighting Department", Poteat imagines light bulbs created to replicate the lighting quality of 1920. Historical events and characters effectively coexist with present day surroundings.

Born in 1937, Elizabeth Seidel Morgan was one of the first graduates of VCU's MFA Program for Creative Writing. Despite her years, Morgan was bright and fiery, reliving her early poems with a sharp intensity. Her poems contain violent and barbed diction, which is apparent in a number of the works she shared. The poem "How Much Was the Most Elvis Ever Weighed?" relates a true encounter with Elvis Presley when he was 18 and she was just 16 years old. She met the legendary musician with a friend after one of his shows and her friend posed on his lap for a picture. In the poem, the author mournfully recounts that both Elvis and her teenage friend died around the same period of time, both from drug overdoses. Morgan does write about bitter periods in her life, yet never forgets her sense of humor as evidenced in "All My Friends' Pet are Growing Old". She was a delight to listen to and imparted a number of keen observation on the audience.

Lecture Entry: Amy Stein

2009-03-30T10:01:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, our department hosted photographer Amy Stein, a graduate of New York's School of Visual Arts. Stein first became interested in photography in her early thirties, assisting at photo schools and submitting images to online publications and newspapers. When one of her images became the cover photo of the Washington Post, she gained the confidence and momentum to keep invested in photography. Stein's first real series of images were born after the DC sniper incident and was titled, "Women and Guns". Because Washington DC was the capital of guns and violence, she studied the culture of people who own and use guns frequently. This series eventually led to an interest in the animals slain after a hunting party. Stein began to research taxidermists and photograph their own handiwork in Pennsylvania. The artist came up with the novel idea of returning these taxidermic animals back into nature, where once they lived. This idea grew into the "Domesticated" series, which was created in Pennsylvania in the summer of 2005. The images are based on real stories of animals coming out at night and wandering around town, yet they have a fantastic, otherworldly feel. These animals look for their old habitat amongst parking lots, swimming pools, and light poles. All of the animals appear to be living as they amble discontentedly around man-made environments.
In a more recent series, Stein photographed ill-fated motorists along America's highways. The "Stranded" series features portraits of drivers and passengers whose vehicles have broken down, standing next to their dilapidated cars. This series does not jog the imagination as her previous efforts have. Perhaps this imagery is too familiar or the compositions are too close to other works.

It may be because Amy Stein is relatively new to the world of photography, but it is refreshing to hear from an artist who appears grounded and not too swept up in her success. I liked to hear about her process and the evolution of her ideas. Stein was quick to acknowledge her influences and that there exists similar series to her own. She spoke earnestly and welcomed questions from the audience.

Monday Entry: Katherine Wolkoff

2009-03-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

Katherine Wolkoff's body of work is surprisingly diverse, deftly moving from one subject matter to the next. She was born in 1976 in Indiana, studied American History at Barnard College, and graduated with an MFA in Photography from Yale in 2003. In 2007, the artist revealed her series of deer beds, which are simple impressions made by the animals in grass fields. Much like her silhouettes of birds and people, this series of photos engages the viewer, inviting him to imagine the details of the animal, given just the outline. There is a great sense of motion and unease in these pictures, for the animals would have had to be startled away from these habitats relatively quickly before the photos were taken, in order for the beds to be intact. Her silhouettes are equally intriguing; in a way, they are working against the audience's immediate needs while exercising their creativity. Wolkoff allows the colorful plumage of the birds and the facial features of her human models to be superimposed on these silhouettes. We end up seeing just what we want to see in the end. She has moved on to a series of images of New Orleans, after being razed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

I am a great proponent of work that suggests more than it actually shows to the viewer. Absence can be extremely powerful when handled as wisely as Wolkoff has shown. Her deer beds are deceptively simple and carry with them a great deal of possibility.

http://www.wipnyc.org/blog/katherine-wolkoff.html

http://katherinewolkoff.com/

www.point-mag.com/pdf/Point-KatherineWolkoff.pdf

Thursday Entry: Personification

2009-03-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

"The rooms that she generates through her photographs of models are not only the rooms of their former occupants...they are also the artist's own rooms"
-Maren Lubbke-Tidow

Lubbke-Tidow, M. (2007) "Spatial Sense"
Anna Lehmann-Brauns: Sun in an Empty Room, 59-61.

The essay published along with Anna Lehmann-Brauns' series, Sun in an Empty Room looks back at her early student work in order to appreciate her current photographs. Author Maren Lubbke-Tidow relates that Anna's student work was much different than that of her peers in Germany; while others were focusing on conceptual documentary self-portraits, she created miniature model interiors, which stood in for people in her life. She injected each constructed space with a personality and christened each image with a person's name as a title. Anna drew from her own experiences with these individuals, the memories she has of them to fashion her interiors. It is more evident in some images (for instance the boy's bedroom titled, "Sebastian") why she decided to title them after an individual. One photograph displays a vibrant red bathroom complete with a tub bubbling over, curiously named "Mamma". Many of her photos go beyond just the owners' own living space and ask just what it is that we remember of someone. The author can relate to the more obscure spaces, commenting that the smell of a certain brand of soap instantly evokes memories of summers with her grandparents. These rooms function as spaces within the artist's mind, revealing intimate recollections of the people in her life.

When working on my series of interiors, I try to find elements that elicit strong memories for me. I attempt to give life to these areas with objects that I introduce to the scene, or with those that I come across that are already in place. The quality of the lighting, in addition to the physical elements in the photographs help me place my own stamp on the locations.

Monday Entry: Candida Hofer

2009-03-22T14:27:00.000-07:00

Candida Hofer, who was born in Eberswalde, Germany in 1944, is one of the many acclaimed artists who have learned the traditions of the deadpan aesthetic while studying with the great Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf. Like her fellow peers, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, and Thomas Ruff, Hofer maintains a cool, detached mood throughout her work. She is known for her exquisite deadpan photographs of public spaces and institutions, which are eerily devoid of people. She has photographic collections of libraries, offices, theaters and more locations. Absence and ambience are her two central concepts; time passes in these public locations and the lighting shifts, and the viewer is reminded of haunted spaces where once life flourished. She is interested in the formal qualities of these spaces, yet it is not the design of the locations alone that draws the viewer's attention; in a good number of these scenes, there are hints that people have just left or will be returning soon.

I am aiming towards this direction with my current series. I love the cool quality of light in these interiors. The absence that I was hinting at with the first part of this year's series is quieter in my new work, but no less apparent, I feel. Hofer's series is similar to my own, in terms of the angles and locations, yet I want to put more emphasis on individual objects and incorporate dramatic lighting.

http://www.renabranstengallery.com/hofer.html

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E3DA173AF936A25753C1A9629C8B63

http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/hfer_candida.php

Thursday Entry: Activation

2009-03-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

"It is only through activating the space of the spectator that the space of the photograph begins to take shape"
-Michael Tarantino

Tarantino, M. (1999) "Haunted Houses".
James Casebere: Asylum, 104-115.

Author Michael Tarantino's five part article is a thorough and lucid examination of James Casebere's Asylum series. The series of photographs under consideration is of models of interiors, devoid of people, and featuring blank white walls and careful lighting. The author notes that Casebere's imagery is subtle enough to suggest a narrative and not impose one. The photos are curious and allow the viewer to cull information from various elements. In more than one image, the window in the scene is not letting in enough light to sufficiently illuminate the space, yet the interior is awash with light. Tarantino finds oddities like that to be part of the artist's plan to activate the viewer into giving the work a second look. He sights Casebere's variation of angle and distance between the viewer and the subject as further strategies to gain the appropriate attention that the work demands. There are four photographs depicting the entrance-ways to neighboring tunnels that actively pull in the audience because of their disparate framing (two are vertical and two are horizontal) and the variation of the point of view.

In my most recent individual meeting with Paul, the two of us discussed my need to adopt different points of view, and the distance between the viewer and the object(s) of interest in my photographs. Casebere is very subtle in this regard; his images pull you in and you do not often find yourself questioning the vantage point. I find myself more immersed now in Casebere's work having read Tarantino's article.

Monday Entry: Katrin Freisager

2009-03-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

Freisager was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1960, and has studied photography in Berlin, Paris, and New York. Her artwork often centers around the themes of suspension, ambiguity, and the tension between fiction and reality. The majority of her photographs feature young women, uniformly attired in tan stockings and underwear. There faces are not often revealed, and they are taking part in actions and activities that seem foreign to the viewer. A strange sense of alienation and foreboding pervades her imagery. The scenes are nearly monochromatic. In Freisager's untitled series from 2002, several limbs from various hosts combine hauntingly to create one abstract form. Her photographs are related to painting, and often look like figural studies for a later work.

I love her restricted palette and emphasis on form. Because of the limited color range, the shadows appear deeper, playing a stronger role. The images featuring groups of models are more interesting to me than the earlier ones with one solitary subject. The purpose behind their interactions is withheld from the audience, a concept that I find intriguing.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_7_39/ai_75761343

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/untitled/

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE2D81F39F930A25755C0A9659C8B63

Thursday Entry: Subjectivity

2009-03-04T20:25:00.000-08:00

"We have long since lost our faith in photography's capacity to show untempered reality. Indeed, it is the very opposite that fascinates us today: the subjective vision of seeing how somebody else sees the world around us, which challenges, awes and inspires"
-Christian Eggenberger

Eggenberger,C. (2004)"Introduction".
Photo Suisse, 11-15.

Critic Christian Eggenberger notes the importance and extreme variety of vision exhibited by Switzerland's photographers. Switzerland boasts a great wealth of talent, which may be a result of its mottled cultural make-up. It is the personality brought to the work by each individual artist that cannot be duplicated, despite similar subject matter. The author writes that native artists Balthasar Burkhard and Thomas Fletcher both work with mountains as a concept, but each man has a unique vision and goes about his photography in a different manner. The former envisions the image before arriving on location, while the latter needs to be on the sight and figures out what he is making after it has been captured on film. Every artist is shaped by personal experiences, which have a way of appearing in their work. As an artist, it is terribly difficult to ignore certain compositions and themes relevant to your own interests.

This collection has introduced me to two artists who have similar concerns, but whose work can clearly be differentiated from the others. Both Katrin Freisager and Olivier Christinat have played with the female form and neutral backgrouds in their imagery, but each one has effectively put their own spin on the subject matter. Katrin's work is more playful and at times dark, while Olivier's can be more deadpan, and focuses more on the power of the model's gaze.

Monday Entry: Olivier Christinat

2009-03-01T20:15:00.000-08:00

Christinat's artwork builds upon the examination of truth in the medium of photography, which I have been researching recently.He is a native of Switzerland, yet was born in France in 1963, and studied photography at the School of the Arts in Lausanne from 1980-1984. He has shifted between various styles, he has an extensive body of female nudes with neutral backgrounds, but I find his staged group scenes the most enigmatic and fascinating. His series Evenements, which was created between 1999 to 2002, depict groups of men and women, all dressed in dark suits and dresses and posed in such a way to recall famous political photographs. One of the images shows a group of six women gathered around the body of man laid out on a table. This tableaux is based upon a photograph of a Spanish family's wake during the Francisco Franco regime taken by W.Eugene Smith. It is fascinating to look at all of the various gestures displayed by the models in his images. Once he takes the figures from these politically charged photographs and removes them from their context, the interest level soars. The uniformity of their costuming is juxtaposed with the individuality in their gestures.

I first became aware of Olivier Christinat while my current series was still in its gestation period, one year ago. I was immediately drawn to the positioning of his figures and intrigued by the limited color palette he employs. The facial expressions are an integral part of the photographs, and I intend to incorporate more faces into my series.

http://expositions.bnf.fr/face/rencon/chris/index.htm

http://www.pascalpolar.be/repartistes/christinat/christinat.html

www.gdvs.com

Thursday Entry: Fiction

2009-02-25T21:04:00.000-08:00

"Now that we know that photography is capable of deception we may be saddened, hardened, made wiser or more cynical, but at the same time we are freed, able to consider it as more than just a recording medium"
-Luc Sante

Sante, L. (1997) "Science and Fiction"
Making it Real, 8-9.

What is taken for granted today was revelatory and even scandalous during its inception. Author Luc Sante compares contemporary tableaux photographers to the ancient creators of fiction, as well as the filmmakers who made a Victorian audience believe that a steaming train may just plow its way through the screen and wreak havoc upon movie-goers. When photography was in its infancy, it was seen as the medium to deliver the absolute truth; it appeared to be an impartial mirror, capturing an event in perfect detail. Photographers soon began to realize the power inherent in the medium and exploited its believeabilty. Civil War photographer Alexander Gardener seemed to have unsurpassed luck when it came to finding compelling images of the war. Audiences in the 1860s would have been shocked to learn of Gardener's photographic slights of hand. To produce such stirring images of our fallen countrymen, the artist actually moved the dead bodies around the battlefields to create better compositions. He placed rifles on unarmed men and even turned their tortured faces towards the camera, all under the guise of documentary photography. Artists such as Gardener lead the way for photographers such as Gregory Crewdson, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, and Sandy Skoglund, by allowing them to distort what is presented to the viewer.

Fiction has always been my reason for not giving up the ghost. I could not help but concoct ghost stories and legends while growing up in antique houses. I can remember my small bedroom in Connecticut being illuminated at night by the light from the glowing sign out in front of the town's funeral home, which was conveniently located directly across the street. On one occasion, I peered out my window in hopes of seeing the first snowfall of the season, and was instead met with a grim glimpse of a late-night hearse delivery. I call upon my bizarre and unfortunate experiences from childhood and adolescence when creating my narrative series.

Monday Entry: Peter Garfield

2009-02-22T20:38:00.001-08:00

Peter Garfield's artwork centers on the fine line between fiction and reality. Born in Stanford, Connecticut in 1961, Garfield studied photography at Dartmouth and received his MFA from Pratt Institiute in 1987. He is best known for his fantastic Mobile Homes series, which feature haphazard looking images of houses falling from the sky. The artist wanted a tabloid-like appearance to the pictures, and used blur to obscure their artificiality. The photographs are absurd and surprisingly convincing. He created the images by dangling small, detailed models of houses in front of his lens. The model houses are in various states of destruction, which suggests the deterioration of family life.Garfield continued this charade by writing an interview in which he reveals that his process involves the dropping of actual houses. Intrigued by his ability to blur fiction and reality, the artist staged mock-documentary photographs of the creation of this series. In one image, which was digitally manipulated, a helicopter lifts a full-sized house miles into the air, prepared to drop its cargo at a moment's notice. With the same humorous approach, Garfield filled galleries with color-coded garbage for his series, Four Seasons. In the exhibit, he matched garbage with seasonal colors, and analyzed what we as a country consume and dispose of. I love his incendiary sense of humor and the steps that he followed to mask the artificiality of his Mobile Homes series.

http://www.petergarfield.net/index.shtml

http://www.pierogi2000.com/flatfile/garfieldp.html

http://chiefmag.com/issues/4/features/Peter-Garfield/

Thursday Entry: The Fantastic

2009-02-18T20:39:00.000-08:00

"Recording media bear witness to the continued existence of the dead where the human eye and ear cannot"
-Pamela Thurschwell

Thurschwell, P. (2003) "Refusing to Give Up the Ghost".
The Disembodied Spirit, 21-30.

Thurschwells' article serves as a prologue to a collection of photographs, which toured galleries under the name The Disembodied Spirit. Her article, as well as the exhibit, explores the connection between the supernatural, in particular, ghosts, and visual media. Ghosts as subject matter appear as often in contemporary photography and cinema as in imagery created during the peak of Spiritualism in England and America during the mid to late 19th century. There is an indelible link between the need for the supernatural during the age of Spiritualism and in current times. Spirit photography was seen by some as a guaranty of an afterlife, which was a great reassurance to many who viewed those early photographs; not only were their loved ones still around, or so it appeared on film, but they could be comforted by the knowledge that their own existence would not come to a halt once they perished. Movies, much like spirit photography promise immortality as well. A loved one can live on through video footage for as long as the medium exists. Thurschwell examines contemporary films dealing with ghosts, such as The Sixth Sense and The Others to support her claim that recording media can provide proof of the supernatural; it is through photographs and audio recordings of spirits in these two films that their respective protagonists accept their own mortality.

The link between the supernatural and photography is one that has intrigued me for years. The sensitivity of the media has been exploited to create many famous hoaxes, but I still believe that film does possess an elusive quality that can record supernatural activity. Many of my staged photographs are built around ghost stories or are shot in locations that are believed to be haunted; this atmosphere, even if it is just in my mind, helps me to better visualize the abstract nature of the absent subject in my work.

Monday Entry: Trinidad Carrillo

2009-02-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

Peruvian artist Trinidad Carrillo was born in Cusco in 1975 and spent a good deal of her young life living in Sweden. She recently received her MFA from the School of Photography at Gothenburg University in 2006. Her series "Braiding" reflects an intertwining of reality and dreams and also refers to the inclusion of both documentary photos and staged shots in the series. She has, in a sense, lead two lives, because of her frequent trips between Peru and Sweden. Her photos, whether documentary or staged always feature her close friends and relatives. Each image draws from her personal memories and stories from her life, which leads the viewer to involve himself in unraveling the meanings.

Carrillo and I have a great deal in common, when it comes to image-making. The artist keeps stories in mind while envisioning her scenes, and does not often share those tales with her audience; she does not do all of the work for the viewer. When she presents her photographs, they are printed large and a typical presentation features scenes taken at numerous locations. Her artwork is lively, imaginative and intelligent. Carrillo prefers to shoot with film, because she loves the uncertainty involved with the medium. Scenes shot at night can appear very differently on film than they do in person.

http://www.trinidadcarrillo.com

http://www.revolvergaleria.com

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

Thursday Entry: Handmade

2009-02-11T19:03:00.000-08:00

"I have also noticed that people's hands no longer turn black after reading the newspaper...Its materiality used to leave stains on the bathroom's white hand-towels, as a reminder that the world we had absorbed in its minutia...is, in reality little more than the dabs of dirty ink neatly arranged on the surface of the cheapest possible paper"
-Vik Muniz

Muniz, V. (2005 ) "Dirty Hands".
A Primer From A to Z, 82-93.

Vik Muniz's article is about the possibilities of the artist's hand within mechanically reproduced imagery. A photographer can wield as much control as a painter with his artwork, and manipulates his imagery in a similar manner. The artist laments the overwhelming replacement of the tangible within the digital age; entire libraries worth of knowledge can now be found on a single computer. He writes that record collections and personal libraries have, by and large, lost the well-earned esteem that they once held. Muniz' artwork consists mainly of appropriations of classic works of art and media photographs, which he has translated into a new medium. A recent series of his is based upon the antiquated halftone process of printed dots, which are read as an image. Muniz selected infamous newspaper photographs, such as a shot of the Loch Ness Monster, and one of Hindenburg explosion. He increased the size of these images greatly and painted each dot of information by hand in a new material, a process that educated both his hands and his mind.

I share a kindred bond with Muniz in our respect for photography as a tangible medium. Perhaps I am superstitious, but I prefer to record all of my images on film; it is reassuring to see the actual physical negative of the picture I have taken. I choose to do as much of my work before the lens as possible, and do not care much for digital manipulation. I agree with the artist that too many processes have become de-humanized and digital.

Lecture Entry: Mark Dion 2/5

2009-02-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

Rarely have I been introduced to an artist as ambitious and hilarious as Mark Dion. The distinguished American artist discussed his interest in historical preservation, and how institutions have the power to influence history and the knowledge of the population. Dion acts as a collector, curator, and scientist, all to prove the point that we as a people are quick to take in what is presented as official, and not truly question it; he showed the institution in a ridiculous light, as he took upon the role of curator and arranged his collected "artifacts" according to a system of absurd classifications. Dion travels from one continent to the next, and often sets up (or creates his own) galleries in the country that he does his collecting. In one instance, he spent the afternoon ambling about Chinatown in New York City, and bought as much seafood as he could find. After gathering his material, Dion created an artificial lab in a New York gallery and began to preserve and classify his specimen. At first glance, his presentation seems formidable and academic, yet once you look closer, you discover his humorous intent. As an added show of authority, Dion placed false laboratory doors against the solid walls in the gallery. In another work, which was presented in the Venice Bienale, he sifted and sorted through a pile of debris which was dredged from the canals in Venice. With a team of helpers, Dion found a rich history, dating back centuries, within the waste. The objects gleaned from the mud were then sorted by form, color, and shape and placed in a series of tents.

Not all of his work is as approachable or accessible as the Venice dredge. In what is perhaps my favorite of Dion's work, he created a one-room flea market, isolated in the middle of a German forest. This tiny cabin bears the name Der Elster, or in English, The Magpie, and is filled to the rafters with bizarre findings. From the outside it appears to be a store, yet those who stumble upon it will find that it is never open. You can only stand on the outside and peer in at his collection. It is, in the artist's mind, that perfect store or oasis, a place that cannot be fully be reached. He has operated behind glass, wearing an official lab coat, during many performances, leading the audience to believe they are witnessing an expert hard at work at scientific classification and dating processes; those who follow Mark Dion's work know better.

Complete

2009-02-09T07:41:00.001-08:00

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Monday Entry: Salla Tykka

2009-02-08T18:41:00.000-08:00

I am increasingly impressed with the artists who have emerged from Helsinki' Academy of Fine Arts. Each time I research the school I am met with the work of intriguing new artists such as Salla Tykka, who graduated from there in 2003. Tykka works in film, video, and still photography, and her film stills are taught and fascinating on their own. She is best known for a trilogy of short 35mm films, Lasso, Thriller, and Cave, which she created between 2000 and 2003, each dealing with the maturation of a young woman, and rites of passage. While the subject matter is familiar, Tykka's imagery is striking. In her 2006 work entitled Zoo, which was influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, a narrative of a young woman ambling around a zoo is intercut with footage of male athletes competing in a round of underwater rugby. The two disparate story lines come together in the end, finding the heroine submersing herself in a pool of water. Inquisitive heroines often find tragic ends in her work.

Looking at Tykka's film stills has made me interested in re-examining the short films I made last year, in hopes of isolating single frames for presentation. Distilling an entire narrative down into one image is what interests me most in photography, and I have never approached it from her angle before.

http://www.sallatykka.com/

http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/28/salla_tykka_trilogy.html

http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/28/salla_tykka_trilogy.html

Thursday Entry: Relations

2009-02-04T17:48:00.000-08:00

"They are mostly...my own creations. It is almost as if I am writing little narratives about life using my family and friends as characters to illustrate certain realities of experience"
-Jessica Todd Harper

McNear, S.A. (2007) "Interview with Jessica Todd Harper".
Interior Exposure, 1-6.

Photographer Jessica Todd Harper's body of work straddles the line between family portraits and tableaux. In each image, she uses members of her family, often surrounded by the ephemera of home, to tell a story, illustrate tensions, or investigate their personalities. Just as it is hard to classify Harper's photographs, it is difficult to tell which scenes are spontaneous and which have been carefully orchestrated. Familiar faces come in and out of the frame, and the viewer understands the relationships between certain figures over the breadth of the series. The images in this book show the growth of a family over seven years, children grow to their prime, and elderly figures fall out of focus as the years progress. Nearly every image is an interior shot, illuminated by the glow of a nearby window or open doorway. Posture and positioning of the figures is key. The artist's younger sister, Becky grows more self-assured and comfortable before the camera, and Harper's attraction and physical relationship with her husband Chris are evident through their positioning. The artist makes sure to leave objects strewn about her interiors, because each element evokes memories for the family.

Although it may not be as evident in my work as it is in Harper's, I often base photos around experiences with my family. My entire series of tableaux was sparked by a snapshot taken during a family vacation. In this now notorious photo, my father scolds my younger brother while my mother and I stand watching. My body blocks the main action, yet there are enough clues for the viewer to glean what might be occurring. My brothers and father also make several appearances in my images, often disguised or slightly out of focus to hide the frequency of their cameos.

Monday Entry: Rebecca Sittler

2009-02-01T16:36:00.001-08:00

With an excellent sense of humor, Nebraska native Rebecca Sittler looks to the history of painting for her compositions. Sittler, who received her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art, juxtaposes bizarre arrangements of everyday objects with domestic settings, which creates a surreal and startling effect. In her series, "A Spectacle and Nothing Strange", the artist plays with our conceptions of where food, such as potatoes, marshmallows, and sandwiches, should be found around the house and inverts them. She creates similar scenes with non-food related objects in the same series. Her color palette is soothing and controlled, even if the scene's content is ridiculous. One particular image, which is titled "Momento Mori" finds a pile of used muffin wrappers heaped on a plate, with a plastic electric candle in the background. In this photo, Sittler uses two common symbols found in classic paintings, the momento mori, which could be an arrangement of fruit, flowers, or even a skull, which represents the inevitability of death, and the single lit candle, a symbol of God's presence. The contemporary setting and irreverence of the modern objects within a formal context are intriguingly uncouth.

While my work is quite different from Rebecca Sittler's in terms of content, I appreciate her sly and surreal sense of humor. I attempt to bring a similar bizarre quality to my photographs that catches the viewer off guard. My favorite type of image is one that makes the viewer unsure whether he should laugh or remain unsettled.

http://www.artslant.com/global/artists/show/6525-rebecca-sittler

http://www.rebeccasittler.com/

http://www.florida-arts.org/grants/fellowship/2006/sittler/

Lecture Entry: Alix Perelstein 1/28

2009-01-29T15:36:00.000-08:00

Before I begin my entry on Alix Perelstein, I feel the need to write that our artist lecture series has brought in some incredible talents before such as Larry Sultan, Anna Gaskell, and Candice Breitz. It really is a privilege to attend this series when the artists are of such high quality and can articulate the concepts of their work clearly. As enriching as those experiences have been, it is also beneficial to attend lectures from those not up to the aforementioned artists' caliber. I find that in such cases, I am able to hone my critical thinking skills and allow myself to truly question the merits of their work.

Alix Perelstein, a New York based video artist with a background in sculpture and choreography, visited VCU this week and left many wondering how she has garnered the accolades and gallery openings that she listed during her lecture.During the course of the lecture, Perelstein seemed to delight in reeling off intentionally obscure artists and manifestos. She tried to work against the audience, even laughing when someone in attendance asked who she was making these videos for. Perelstein played 6 video pieces for us, and while the filming techniques became increasingly intricate and sophisticated, the works became more and more obfuscating and hollow. One of her earlier works, 2002's "Episode", was intended to showcase roles within the family unit and acting-out as a mode of exhibiting identity, yet was an unintelligible jumble of cartoon sound effects, over the top acting and shoddy direction. The camera careened in and out as actors made bizarre faces and wandered about to the sound effects of a Hanna-Barbara t.v. special. In a more recent work, entitled, "After the Fall" her core acting troupe paraded around a black studio while four cameras filmed their actions simultaneously. Spiraling cameras and caterwauling guitars bewildered the audience as her performers strutted around, just trying to keep a straight face. Their motions did not seem to hold any importance, and many of the actors appeared as confused as the viewers.

Perhaps my biggest issue with Wednesday's lecture, is just how self-serious the artist was. She spoke about her videos as if only a select, extremely educated elite could grasp their biting commentary; she expressed no sense of self-deprecation or warmth. As I mentioned before, this experience did have its upside though, as I did my damnedest to pay close attention and look for the value in her video work. I feel this lecture did help sharpen my critical eye and teach me how not to act when presenting my own work.

Thursday Entry: Transformation

2009-01-28T18:47:00.000-08:00

"By the time we reached the vet's office the dog had transformed into a beautiful cocker spaniel. I looked at him and said, "'You don't look so bad. I think I'll keep you."'
-Jeff Jacobson

Jacobson, J. (2006) "Untitled".
Melting Point, pages 15, 40-41, 74-75.

In brief recollections, photographer Jeff Jacobson reflects on the transitional and formative moments in his life, which form the conceptual core behind his brilliant series of photographs. His photographs often feature amalgamations of images caused by reflections in glass and alterations in perspective. He writes about the process of melting; an older form is distorted and gives birth to a new form. The artist re-examines traumatic moments in his life, and is able to glean a sense of meaning and comfort from them. With candid lucidity he recalls the last words his father spoke to him: "Jeff, you're a nice boy, now leave me alone". Writing about this experience, he is able to reinterpret his pronouncement as a blessing. Jacobson's father, who was suffering from cancer, knew his son's good intentions as he encouraged him to get better, yet he was at peace with the inevitability of his death. Like the photographs he created in the book, the meaning of his father's last words transformed over time.

Jacobson's imagery is vibrant and enigmatic. Deep, unusual colors pour into the frame and lead the viewer's mind wandering. Despite the dramatic feel of his photographs, there is an underlying element of humor in many images. Ancient skeletons, which are featured in multiple images are both grim and absurd.Transformation is one of the key elements of my own work. An unseen act is able to throw a group of onlookers into a state of confused chaos.

Complete

2009-01-28T07:11:00.000-08:00

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Monday Entry: Birthe Piontek

2009-01-25T15:30:00.000-08:00

This week's artist, Birthe Piontek was born in Leer, Germany in 1976. She studied language and German literature as an undergraduate, and went on to obtain her Master's in Communication Design and Photography in 2004 from the University of Duisburg-Essen. Her current work, which is titled, Sub Rosa studies the vulnerability of youth versus the experience and hardship found inevitably in adulthood. Piontek's series is a combination of staged portraits and still lifes, which work together to hint at a narrative. Her work is both visually striking and familiar; perhaps her imagery is recognizable because it taps into our own memories of that transition to adolescence. Piontek sights Anna Gaskell, Jeff Wall, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia as influences, and their affect on her work can be clearly detected. Her image of a milk bottle emptying its contents on a staircase is especially Gaskell-esque. The lighting on the bottles is quite ethereal and the picture is riven with deep shadows.

Like the artists' work that has impacted her, Piontek's photographs caught my eye immediately. Her visual storytelling techniques are refined and subtle. The subjects in her portraits do not seem to fit into a specific time period, which is especially intriguing. I admire the seamless manner in which she arranges portraits and still lifes together to express her narratives. It may be that I am just attached to Gaskell, Wall, and diCorcia's artwork, but I find her photographs fascinating.

http://www.photoeye.com/gallery/forms2/statement.cfm?id=195568

http://www.charlesguice.com/artists_bp.html

http://www.jenbekman.com/

Thursday Entry: Saturation

2009-01-21T19:16:00.000-08:00

"What makes his photographs of nonevents especially meaningful is his use of color to convey the 'feel' of a particular place. He emphasizes hues that soak the scene or resonate in a critical way, virtually creating effects of sound, silence, smell, temperature, pressure - sensations that black and white photography has yet to evoke"
-Sean Callahan

Werski, T. (1999) "The Tender - Cruel Camera".
The Hasselblad Award 1998: William Eggleston, 4-11.

Author Thomas Werski defends the work of William Eggleston and states that his artwork established color photography as a recognized medium in the article, The Tender - Cruel Camera. Before Eggleston was given the opportunity to present his photographs at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976, only black and white photography was considered "serious", that is to say professional and worthy of critical attention. This said show, which was simlply titled, "Color Photographs", was curated by John Szarkowski, and was berated upon its opening. Eggleston's intensified colors were seen as aggressive and his choice of subject matter confounded critics; many believed that the images on display were haphazardly taken by an amateur photographer, due to their off-kilter angles and mundane subjects. The artist believed in, what he called the "democratic camera", a way of taking pictures in which every object is considered worthy of depiction. He showed ordinary objects in new, unusual ways, and enhanced his images, both aesthetically and psychologically, with a dye-transfer technique to achieve rich colors.

My work owes a great deal to the early color photographers. I try to pay attention to all of the different colors in the images, so that the picture can be interpreted correctly. My color palette usually remains subdued with a few bright elements. When I am making my color tableaux, I ask the models posing in them to come wearing neutral colors, so that I have a base to work up from. I do not want colors in the image to compete unintentionally. I find it most interesting to have at least one deep, saturated color in each image.

Monday Entry: David Levinthal

2009-01-18T17:15:00.000-08:00

American photographer David Levinthal was born in San Francisco, California in 1949. He studied studio art at Stanford before receiving his Master's Degree in Photography from Yale in 1973. Levinthal's family was very wealthy and well respected, and allowed him to explore his interest in the arts fully. He is known for his saturated images of figurines shot with an extremely shallow depth of field. The artist constructs environments for the pre-made figures he collects and photographs them with a 20"x 24" Polaroid camera. Although he does not create the figurines, he does repaint them builds backgrounds for the tableaux.
In Hitler Moves East, his first series to feature toys, Levinthal collaborated with cartoonist Gary Trudeau on recreations of Germany's invasion of Russia in the winter of 1941. He was able turn this successful series into an entire book. Growing up Jewish, the artist had a painful link to the second world war, and he has explored this in multiple series dealing with German soldiers and concentration camps. His photographs explore concepts such as voyeurism, Jewish identity, and the re-creation of events. He has had great success with his recreation of inherently American scenes which feature baseball legends and western heroes in the form of plastic figurines.

Levinthal employs intensely saturated colors to dramatic effect. I am drawn to the richness of his color palettes as well as the depth in his shadows. As I continue with my series of tableaux, I intend to experiment with shallow depths of field, a hallmark of Levinthal's photography; he wisely uses focus to draw attention to certain areas in the images and to mask some aspects of his fabricated backgrounds. His artwork is a sophisticated extension of what, I am sure is the way many artists began to be interested in photography and compostion as a children, by filming scenarios created with toys.

www.davidlevinthal.com/index.html

http://www.connercontemporary.com/artists/david-levinthal/

http://www.davidlevinthal.com/article_artinamerica.html

Lecture Entry: Citizen Kane with Professor Mike Jones

2008-11-30T11:05:00.001-08:00

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

2008-11-23T11:55:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-23T11:46:00.001-08:00

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

2008-11-22T17:22:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-19T19:37:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-16T15:36:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-12T19:42:00.001-08:00

"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

2008-11-08T14:10:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-06T04:37:00.000-08:00

"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

2008-11-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-29T21:33:00.000-07:00

"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

2008-10-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-24T10:38:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

"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

2008-10-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-16T10:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-15T20:40:00.000-07:00

"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

2008-10-11T18:26:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-08T21:10:00.000-07:00

" 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

2008-10-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-01T21:51:00.000-07:00

"...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

2008-10-01T14:35:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

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

Thursday Entry: Ambiguity

2008-09-24T19:38:00.000-07:00

"The attributes of liminality or of liminal personae are necessarily ambiguous, since this condition and these persons elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space"
-Victor Turner, from The Ritual Process

Slemmons, R. (2006) "The Self Seen Double".
MP3: Kelli Connell, 48-51.

When Rod Slemmons first saw the work of Kelli Connell, he was immediately intrigued and confused by the two characters who populate every scene. The body of work in which these characters appear is a series of personal vignettes dealing with relationships. What stands out as odd, is that the two female protagonists evolve throughout the work. In some images, the women, who are both played by the same model, appear to be identical, while in others, one takes on more masculine attributes. Slemmons relates that their relationship can alternately be both homosexual and heterosexual, plural and singular. The sense of ambiguity in the photographs enables the figures to be seen as individuals, or different facets of the same being.
The author compares the subtlety of Connell's manipulated images to plays of Tennessee Williams. He sees the relationship between the two figures similar to the ambiguous relationships found in Williams' plays.
The images that I consider most remarkable in Connell's series, are the ones that hint at events preceding the moment captured on film, those which have the viewer concoct narratives. The ambiguity extends beyond the relationship between the figures and fills the entire scenario. It seems as if entire years have led up to the moments caught between the women in the photos. I strive to provide enough information in my own images, for viewers to construct their own stories.

Sunday Entry: Bettina Hoffmann

2008-09-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

German artist Bettina Hoffmann was born in Berlin in 1964. The artist, who now lives and works in Montreal, is know for her photographic montages and video pieces. She has studied at several universities worldwide, and received her masters degree from Berlin's Hochschule der Kunste. The aforementioned montages are so well done that a trained eye is easily fooled into believing that the finished product is all from one negative. Figures are transported to new locations, and placed into tense tableaux, frequented by many characters. These re-staged everyday events are heightened to illuminate the conflict and social rank inherent in the photographs. Gesture and posture are key elements of her reworked images. In the series "Affaires infinies" , Hoffmann herself plays each character in the tableaux. The overall uneasiness of the images is intensified by the fact that all the figures share the same appearance, yet interact like separate beings. Witnessing the photos in this series, one gets the sense of a strong, underlying narrative, that is withheld from us. Hoffmann's camera alternately finds itself within the middle of the intimate scenes and at a distance as an observer.
I am attracted to the bizarre, and somewhat hidden narratives hinted at in Bettina Hoffmann's photographs. The works entitled, "Maitre et chien" display an unusual combination of grown adults acting like animals and children intermingling. Her figure placement is what originally caught my interest; she uses the confines of the photographic frame to her advantage.

http://www.bettinahoffmann.net/

http://www.optica.ca/decades/decadeng/files/2000e.html

http://calgary.urbanmixer.com/events/bettina-hoffman-may-16-2008

Thursday Entry: Spectatorship

2008-09-17T20:06:00.000-07:00

"I saw myself seeing myself"
-Jacques Lacan

De Diego, E. (2005) "In the Meantime".
Thomas Struth: Making Time , 73-80.

This article focuses on Thomas Struth's photographic series about onlookers in a museum. Author Estrella De Diego quotes acclaimed intellectuals such as Marcel Proust and Jacques Lacan while analyzing Struth's series. At first glance, the photographs appear simple; groups of spectators gather around famous works of art. The images are immediately familiar to anyone who has wandered around an art museum before. As you spend more time with the photographs, you become like one of the photographed spectators and are eager to view what they are clustered around. De Diego, in accordance with Proust, notes, "it must be worthwhile if someone contemplates it in such a self-absorbed way". Attention alone, it seems, can be enough to validate something. The article dives into the psychology of the group; the more people are gathered around an object, the greater its importance. Those who look at a painting in a gallery both increase its significance and become a part of its history.
The idea of the spectator is one of the facets of my current series of photographs. It is amazing how an event is made more significant or relevant based on who is watching. In my series, people gather after an event has taken place. Their faces are turned towards an object or occurrence that is absent to the viewer of the photograph, yet present in the context of the image.

Tuesday Entry: Candice Breitz

2008-09-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

South African artist Candice Breitz examines pop culture's ability to link those from all over the globe. Popular music and movies have become a way through which we can connect to others, and, for better or for worse, have taught us lessons and set examples. In her series entitled Babel, Breitz digested hours of MTV music videos and culled single syllables from famous performers. The artist broke the songs down to just the basic units of language, and was left with looping videos of the musicians singing "pa", "ma", and "no no". These early words are recognizable in numerous languages. Breitz describes these clips as "mechanical and brutal" reiterations.
In another series, Breitz linked classic pop love songs through personal pronouns. Almost every romantic ballad contains the words "I" and "you", as a place for listeners to enter their emotions into the songs. She selected videos of The Carpenters, Olivia Newton-John, Annie Lennox, and Whitney Huston singing their well known hits, but reduced down to just the aforementioned pronouns. Breitz positioned two monitors, each playing a video of the same performer, right across from each other. While one monitor sings "I" and "me" the opposing screen wails "you". The viewer is caught between a romantic battle waged by two voices of the same musician.
I admire the way Candice Breitz respects the material which she is working with. She mentioned the artist's responsibility to free the material from its original context in order to make it his or her own. Her videos feel both familiar and alien all at once. What we are experiencing goes well beyond the original purpose of the source matter, yet it is all performed by familiar faces. You can clearly tell that Breitz is a fan of the original music and movies from which she samples, as evidenced by her recent series dealing with genuine fanatics.

Sunday Entry: Rineke Dijsktra

2008-09-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

Photographer Rineke Dijsktra was born in the Netherlands in 1959. Like Anna Gaskell, Dijsktra has been awarded the Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize. Her artwork deals with transitions and transformations, and often features the same subjects photographed over periods of time. In her famous series entitled Beaches, adolescent bathers stand on the shore between the ocean and the safety of their towels and dry clothing. The subjects are classically posed, and all attention falls upon their slight gestures and self-conscious posture. Dijsktra's young subjects stand in limbo between childhood and adulthood as well as between the water and dry land. The photographer leaves the background minimal, so as to not distract from the central figure. In keeping with the theme of transition, Dijsktra elucidated the change that occurs in young people after serving their country in Israeli Soldiers. The series of portraits show young men and women before and after their time as soldiers, and highlights the changes that occur in the way they present themselves.
I am most interested in the sense of liminality in her photographs. The adolescents in Beaches are clearly between great changes: they are photographically captured on the threshold between innocence and the responsibilities of maturation.

http://www.rinekedijkstra.net/

http://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/permanent-collection/artists/dijkstra/

http://www.popphoto.com/americanphotofeatures/4602/a-conversation-with-rineke-dijkstra-more-real-than-reality-page2.html

Thursday Entry: Unexpected

2008-09-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

"In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation"
-E.A.Poe

Burnett, Craig. (2005) "Everyday Fantasies and Impossible Realities".
Jeff Wall , 45-63.

This essay turns to photographer Jeff Wall's penchant for creating scenes of the unexpected, framed within a well known area or composition. Wall is unique for photographing meticulously orchestrated tableaux as deftly as his un-staged documentary shots, which are both imbued with the same sense of mystery and fantasy. A simple image such as "The Crooked Path" which, just as the title suggests, features a well trodden path twisting through wild grass, can be just as effective as his more elaborate ones. Unlike Wall's "The Giant" or "Dead Troops Talk", the documentary-style shots are not enhanced with digital technology. In "The Giant", a naked elderly woman of enormous size stands amongst the unfazed inhabitants of a city library. Digital technology was used to great effect to make the woman appear seamlessly in the environment. The artist is wise enough to allow his bizarre subject matter to issue forth through a variety of different techniques.

Wall's ability to return to similar themes in disparate processes and lights has really intrigued me. He refuses to deal with, what he calls, "the spectral" in one consistent manner. So many emotions are on display in works like "Dead Troops Talk". It is refreshing to see his sense of humor in the face of such a dour subject.

Complete

2008-09-07T21:11:00.001-07:00

Paul Thulin has read your blog up to this point/entry. Your blog is currently up to date and complete.

Sunday Entry: Philip-Lorca diCorcia

2008-09-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

American photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia plays with the connections between documentary and staged photography. The artist, who was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1953, has exhibited images that seem to have been captured effortlessly, yet have taken hours to choreograph. In one instance, a shot of his brother reaching into a refrigerator was staged over and over again, in an attempt to feign the appearance of real life. At the other end of the spectrum, diCorcia's recent series, "Heads", which features vignettes of people on the streets of New York, was created instantly as the pedestrians unwittingly passed his strobe lights. The images in this recent series appear to have been painstakingly composed. He is interested in the concepts of alienation in a large crowd, vulnerability, and the loss of innocence inherent in the young people he encounters. diCorcia teaches at Yale, where he received his MFA in 1979.

www.lacma.org/art/ExhibdiCorcia.aspx
http://www.lacan.com/frameXIV9.htm
www.davidzwirner.com/artist/115/

Thursday Entry: Aberration

2008-09-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

Aberration

"It is part of what we regard as awful, dreadful, and terrifying"
-Sigmund Freud

Stahel, U. "Thick Skinned and Ambiguous: Uncanny Beauty, Uncanny Familiarity and Uncanny Everydayness" Uncanny (1999).

In her essay, German author Urs Stahel analyzes the work of five contemporary photographers, whose artwork embodies the spirit of the supernatural and aberrations from daily life. Stahel explores the etymology of the German word "unheimlich", which roughly translates to the Engish word "uncanny" and explains just what, according to Sigmund Freud and other famous minds, qualifies as uncanny. Each of the featured artists (Vanessa Beecroft, Anna Gaskell, Dana Hoey, Natacha Lesueur, and Wendy McMurdo) employ the idea of the uncanny to different effect. The book includes vivid tableaux of children encountering doppelgangers, unusual, sinister events occurring amidst familiar scenery, and other bizarre scenarios. The author connects these images to a sense of fear associated with the unknown, and the discomfort we experience when we are removed from familiar surroundings.

This essay has helped to articulate and enrich some of the deeper themes I have been exploring. With the current series that I am creating, events unseen by the audience, but witnessed by the characters in the photographs, disrupt daily activities and force the figures into a standstill. The occurrence of the supernatural amidst the safety of familiar surroundings continues to fascinate me.

How to Name Your Blog

2008-09-01T18:11:00.001-07:00

Please make sure your blog title is in the following format:

Last Name: VCU Senior Portfolio

Sunday Entry: Anna Gaskell

2008-08-31T09:01:00.000-07:00

Contemporary artist Anna Gaskell considers herself a "photo-based" artist rather than a photographer, because her images rely on all different types of media. Gaskell, who was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1969, draws upon film, literature and paintings to create her color tableaux. She is often inspired by literature and creates a series of photographs and short films to investigate its deeper themes. The artist's literary influences include Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland, Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, and the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Several themes are recurrent in her work, including duality, the supernatural, and the insidious qualities inherent in childhood activities.
Gaskell earned her MFA from Yale in 1995 and was awarded the Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize in 2000. Her artwork in featured in numerous publications and books, including "by proxy", "uncanny", and "half life".
During my research, I had difficulty finding a homepage for Anna Gaskell, but have included several links to collections of her artwork.

www.whitecube.com/exhibitions/halflife/
www.guggenheim.org/new-york
www.postmedia.net/999/gaskell.htm
www.postmedia.net/999/gaskell.html

Word Assignment

2008-08-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

Anticipation...