These two images as well as many other paintings by El Greco feel like they help me be confident in my decisions with my current photographs. the crisp clear blue skies overhead in his paints depicting saints and other topics such as a view of Toledo(as pictured above in the second painting) while not placed within the frame for the same reason are just as striking. In his time El Greco's bright colors and other elements of style were completely out of step with his contemporaries. While representing old ideas and continuing to work with characters and stories well explored by other's El Greco managed to bring new life to them through his painting styles.
the above in order of appearance: The Great War on Facades (1964), Man in the Bowler Hat (1964), The Son of Man (1964)
From all i've read about Rene Magritte i've gathered that when looking at his paintings there are no concrete answers about their meaning. The mystery and the pleasure derived from sorting out that mystery is a key element of any of his works. He changes out objects, and creates pairings that are not easily interpretable. Sometimes he uses very basic pairings as in "the son of man" pictured above. A human figure, an apple, the title itself; delving into religion and religious imagery without really wanting to talk about it. It acts as the initial grab at the audience, the first clues that when immediately applied, make sense then begin to fall apart as you begin a process of deciphering the contents of the image. What he wants is for the viewer to experience that process, and while I am choosing specific characters and archetypes and they are being chosen for some basic relationships, I wish to consider possible connections but not work to make them any more obvious.
By taking the literal translation of a phrase both common and amusing, David LaChapelle delivers a thought provoking series of photographs for I-D magazine. In this iconic set, both literally in the sense of religious icons, and in general as product of the common occurrence of these images of jesus, Lachapelle transforms the classical representations into a more easily recognizable and surprising set up. In replacing the period and set pieces the situations turn everyday events into truly fantastic happenings while sometimes adding a sense of the banal or sexual as can be found in the photo of Mary Magdalene washing Jesus' feet in nothing but a bra and panties.
In looking to perform the reverse with my own subjects, seeing how LaChapelle was able to take the iconic and religious and turn it toward the modern and lowbrow is really inspiring.
Acting as a silent collaborator, Bayete Ross Smith has worked with Hank Willis Thomas through most of his major projects. I found Smith while looking through Thomas' website and was immediately captivated by his works. The image above is part of Smith's series "Taking Aim", a series of photographs that act both as object and image. Included in the series of portraits are copies of many of the images which have been shot through with handguns. Also available is a video from the series in which the portraits are shot by the subjects they depict with a paint gun in an action of mock violence against themselves.
what really interests me about these works beyond their flawless execution can be found in the following quote from the artist's website concerning this series:
"Taking AIM" brings to the forefront, the feeling that is evoked when a viewer is in front of a target. I am interested in that fine line that exists between acceptable, condoned and recreational violence, and deplorable criminalized violence. This dichotomy exists through out popular culture, from Hip Hop to action movies, to sports like boxing, mixed martial arts and football. It also exists through out history, in terms of what wars, massacres and assassinations are considered just, and who is considered a tyrant. Finally it exists in the news and current events, in terms of what types of violence gets reported and how it is contextualized.
In searching for artists who's works examine media representations and their memetic functions i have not yet seen any other artist who's work hits the so directly home. I was unable to find some of the works on his website in a postable form, however also included in this series are images that when exhibited are life size featuring the same figure in up to 3 different outfits or costumes with the same target graphic superimposed over them. By presenting the figures in this manner Smith asks the viewer to examine the media backed cognitive leaps between depictions of respectable members of society and perceived threats to our safety, packing a powerful punch through the self reflective process.
Positives, 2002-2003 Series of staged photographs, printed and reproduced photographically
Series of photographs restaging the famous historical press photos in a "positive version" - repeating the original in terms of composition, but changing the characters and the general meaning of the captured events. "The series is another attempt at playing with trauma" Libera comments, "we are always dealing with memorized objects, not the objects themselves. I wanted to employ this mechanism of seeing and remembering and touch upon the phenomenon of memory's afterimages. This is how we actually perceive those photographs ["Positives"] - the harmless scenes trigger flashbacks of the brutal originals. I have picked the "negatives" from my own memory, from among the images I remembered from the childhood."
playing with the cultural memory, trauma, and media coverage, I feel as if i've found an artist that truly works with similar ideas and in a similar manner as I do. by manipulating images from the past, Libera offers works that play heavily on the experience of the viewer and their own feelings about the past. I am interested often in figuring out similar modes in my own work. While my current project does not fall into the same category or rely upon the same emotional notes and Libera's work, I feel that by looking at his handling of graphic and emotionally charged works, and his willingness to handle controversial material I might be able to further my own skills in presenting subtle and smart artworks that handle issues of similar weight.
Really what i value most across his works is his willingness to confront the viewer with uncomfortable subject matter. To do it in a smart way, to do it in a way that provokes and to do it at all. I see him as a brave inspiration and will continue to follow his works for the foreseeable future.
From the artist's Deviant Art: http://TOYIB.deviantart.com/art/Neuschwanstein-1945-139274187
From the artist's Deviant Art: http://TOYIB.deviantart.com/art/MATS-Terminal-Washington-1959-143027359
http://melmanandthehippo.blogspot.com/ ARTIST BLOG ABOVE
Harahap's Superhero series has recently gained attention spreading first throughout the blogs and most recently being recognized by such news and entertainment outlets the likes of the Telegraph and the Metro Herald. While this series has gained attention for the artist it seems that it is a minor note in the larger body of work he is currently producing. Taking famous images from WWII and other news events up through the 60's and 70's, Harahap uses his sharp photoshopping skills to insert common and easily identifiable comic book figures into world events. The majority of the works center around moments of conflict, and in my interpretation offer a commentary on how the real life participants have since been portrayed. I am interested in somewhat of a reverse in my own work. rather than creating visuals in which super-heros are superimposed on happenings i would like to identify where reality is glossed over into the land of the action narrative and raise questions about why and who is being propped up in the lead roles occupied in the Harahap's work by the likes of Superman, Spiderman and Batman.
from the artist website art also made by Jill Greenberg (source: http://www.lifelounge.com/resources/IMGDETAIL/jill_greenberg_manipulates_john-mccain_detail-1.jpg)
A major commercial photographer, Jill Greenberg's work also explores political content and a general feeling of unrest. While her stylize work is instantly recognizable, the concepts of her series are not always apparent. Other than the many slick covers shot for the likes of The Atlantic (shown above), Time Magazine, and the New Yorker, her recent personal work has focused on frustrations with politics and politicians. Her series End Times, a sequence of images of toddlers crying, expresses the artists frustration with the late Bush Administration. In a more recent controversy the photos shown above were taken during the same photo shoot, but the latter edited in post for the demonic look. What i appreciate about her work is her ability to create images that are perfectly t home on the cover of magazines. For me Greenberg's work belongs to the trade publication medium the high lit images translate to the trade gloss perfectly.
http://www.ted.com/talks/taryn_simon_photographs_secret_sites.html Above link to Taryn Simon's TED talk.
http://www.ted.com/speakers/taryn_simon.html Short Artist bio and back ground on the work being present.
I absolutely love the work of Taryn Simon. Her conceptual backing is extremely strong and well thought out. In expert fashion the images themselves appear just as complete as the thoughts that support each subject's selection.
"Simon shows the things that are integral to America's foundation, mythology and daily functioning, but remain inaccessible or unknown to a public audience."(from the artists bio, link above)
What makes the conceptual backing of her work so interesting to me is that it functions to reveal the conflict between the public and private while exploring the mythology of American culture as well as teasing out the relationship of the broad culture to often uncomfortable realities. In presentation the work is accompanied by text, SImon explains:
"A big part of the work that is sort of absent in this context is text, so I create these two poles. Every image is accompanied with a very detailed factual text and what i'm most interested in is the invisible space between text and its accompanying image. And how the images is transformed by the text and the text by the image. So at best the image is meant to float away into abstraction and multiple truths and fantasy. And the text functions as this cruel anchor that nails it to the ground. " -transcribed from the video (link at top)
I am considering the ways in which i might be able to attempt to construct a similar relationship between the images i will create for this semester. In exploring the visual language of the media coverage of the crisis in Haiti it may be advantages to anchor the constructed images with transcriptions of related reports and commentary from the popular media's reporting.
link to artist's website http://www.tarynsimon.com/#
“if some yahoo from Brooklyn, with no technical training, can do these things then anybody can do them.”
Gregory Green earned his MFA at the School of the arts Institute Chicago in 1984, after receiving his BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Ohio in 1981. Since then his work has focused on the idea that the possibility for chaos exists ever more greatly as the tools to make bombs, computer viruses and other such weapons is ever more available to the public. Throughout his career he and his work have been at the center of a storm wherever he is shown. In his piece "10,000 hits of acid" he reproduced what that would look like creating the chemical compound and providing the recipe with all but the key hallucinogenic compound. When authorities got word that some artist had manufactured 10,000 hits of acid his gallery director was arrested and Green went into hiding until the chemicals had been tested proving he had committed no crime. With no further technical training then any other average American he has gone on to create almost working reproductions of missiles, spy satellites, and nuclear weapons. His more recent work has focused on the idea of creating a country and annexing space including the home base of the gallery that represents his work for the country's embassy.
“The concerned photographer finds much in the present unacceptable which he tries to alter. Our goal is simply to let the world also know why it is unacceptable.” --Cornell Capa (b. 1918), photographer
Freed was one of five photographers selected by Cornell Capa to shoot for and be shown in the "concerned photography" Exhibition. Freed was a long time member of magnum working in the documentary mode.
shown above is the cover of and one photo graph selection from Freed's photo series and book titled "police work". This book came 12 years after Freed's more famous work "black In White America", which had him documenting the "African American struggle for self definition in mid 20th-century America." Like many other of the magnum photography members the majority of his work following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other struggles for civil rights as well as photographing in Berlin around the cold war and the construction of the wall was through the lens of social documentary for with the goal of social justice.
Liu Bolin " In my photography, historical statues, costumes and architecture become symbols of that which confines us. I am expressing the desire to break through these structures. I portray subjects that seem to disappear into these structures and become transparent. The subject is released from social constructs and he is free." from the artist statement
In the images Liu Bolin produces he makes himself become part of the back ground. the back grounds he chooses are of special significance as they embody aspects of the communist specter. trains, graffiti of mao's statements construction equipment and the pedestals of great statues never constructed form the objects with which he blends in.
It is the specter of communism that keeps the work of artists like Liu Bolin Underground to some extent. havign had his studio shut down he makes work that is both a commentary on his outsider status and feelings toward society as well as creating material images of protest against the state that surpresses his aciton.
Richard kern (from the wiki) Richard Kern (born 1954 in North Carolina) is a New York underground filmmaker, writer and photographer. He first came to underground prominence as part of the underground cultural explosion in the East Village of New York City in the 1980s, with erotic and experimental films featuring underground personalities of the time such as Lydia Lunch, David Wojnarowicz, Sonic Youth, Kembra Pfahler, and Henry Rollins in movies like "The Right Side of My Brain" and "Fingered." Like many of the musicians around him, Kern had a deep interest in the aesthetics of extreme sex, violence, and perversion and was one of the leading lights of Nick Zedd's coined Cinema of Transgression.
Kern is now a photographer featured in every VICE magazine. a section called "shot by kern" regularly appears in both video and still form on VICE magazine's website.
In searching for the right color palette to add just the right amount of flash and saturation to my photographs i've been looking at photographers like Kern and McGinley its important for me to try and find the best of the photographers that ride the line between fine art and commercial work and the artists that exist in both worlds. while Kern is more known for his erotic and nude works i feel that he is recognized by the same realms as McGinley, so much so as he is featured in one of the best known fashion and youth targeted culture magazines. I've also been looking for clues as to how to more appropriately light the photographs and am leaning toward the soft whites and golden magic hour colors. maybe shooting with a flash bouncing off of a gold reflector would be most appropriate.
What interests me about Ryan McGinley's photographs in relation to my project is the often warm yet unsaturated tones of his color palette. While sometimes he will go about employing a cooler color palette such as in the wrangler ads they are always tones that are without specific spark bright flashy color. I chose to show the pictures above due to the fact that his fine art photos more often than not feature persons who are mostly naked if not sparsely dressed.
not only do i enjoy his color palette and wish to employ it further in my own, i also feel an affinity with his working method. Specifically in the project, i know where the summer goes.
“It’s really a world–you have to remember that. People look at photographs and believe them as truth and they always will. People look at my photographs and think this is real–this life exists. Even if they know that it doesn’t”
[S]kateboarding is a lot like photography because skateboarding is about making something out of nothing. You’re using the urban landscape as a playground and you’re making ideas for doing skateboard tricks–using a handrail or some yellow curb on the sidewalk–and photography is about the same thing for me [ . . . ] You have to sort of create these scenarios to shoot, these ideas to work, and you have to use the world as the backdrop for your photograph.
i like this quote as he refers to a similar working mode as my own. rearranging reality into fantastic situation that do not exist too far from the truth that speak to specific experiences.
from a Time magazine article speaking mostly to the youth centered nature of his work. "Photography is about freezing a moment in time; McGinley's is about freezing a stage in a lifetime. Young and beautiful is as fleeting as a camera snap--and thus all the more worth preserving."
i think it is worth noting how while he has only done a few print ads they work in the same way as his fine art works. youth centered and obsessed, illustrating an emotional state of being a young adult. there is no shift in the subject matter the fine art works the same as the advertising seeking creating attractive objects and an attractive situation all manufactured in the same method as you would find an advertising shoot executed.
Human Rights Campaign HQ Glamdalized By Queers Against Assimilation
HRC headquarters was rocked by an act of glamdalism last night by a crew of radical queer and allied folks armed with pink and black paint and glitter grenades. Beside the front entrance and the inscribed mission statement now reads a tag, “Quit leaving queers behind.”
the most recent large Bash Back! action is a good example of using alternative tactics in the pursuit of militant action. In this case the "glamdalism" included glitter grenades (probably glitter and glue in lightbulb or water balloon) along with paint bombs. their actions often take on performative aspects as is a strong tradition in resistance movements. In a Memphis, Tenn action a hearse and coffin were sent to the home of an officer alleged to be a part of the beating death of a Memphis transgendered person. Past actions have taken the tone of a radicalized be in staging a queer kiss-in in the large Mount Hope megachurch outside Lansing, MI in '08.
Often in modern resistance movements large symbolic actions and events are staged to disrupt or draw attention to events an issues using a tactical presence that relates directly to the performance art traditions of happenings and be-in's. The tactic of occupying space and opening it up to free expression is a practice that has seen the participation of many groups such as Reclaim the Streets out of the UK and europe in the 90s leading today into the tactics of bashback! funk the war and other groups and actions.
Brian Ulrich's work explores our relationship to consumerism in the post 9/11 economic and social environment. His work uses the camera as a way to create a space in which the viewer can become critical of capital driven environments. While searching for a way to capture the the new social interactions that formed after 9/11 Ulrich was inspired to move indoors to retail spaces upon the "fight terror go shopping" moment. In photographing he found that rather than the interactions between people, the interactions between people and the products and spaces they engaged with were the most interesting relationships to examine. sometimes his work is exclusively about the retail spaces whether they are in use such as the shots taken inside home depot and target but in the more recent work he turns his camera toward the collapsing and abandoned architecture of former retail spaces.
I found his analytical statements about consumer culture and consumer spaces to be of great value to my work. In talking about retail spaces and his photographs of them he mentions how the architecture is designed to wear down the consumer, to make them feel small and to never allow them the space to engage critically with the environment. In his photographs the objects often become stand ins for people not within the frame documenting their traces left behind.
I found some of the language she used to describe her work immediately interesting. In her process she talks about using fragments of other images to create a desired whole. I've been thinking about my project and the function of the photographs i'm taking as more relating to consumerism and the inherent violence of capitalism lately so the lecture she provided us really helped to move those thoughts forward.
Another phrase she used that i really latched onto was the"purgatory of consumerism" she used to refer to a series of works that are all slightly out of focus. she used the phrase in relation to the way consumerism places our consciousness in a frame of reference to objects and obscures our ability to see the whole picture clearly. Perhaps my photos can begin to function as a solution by placing the relationship we have with capital and consumerism in a clear image using the language of capitalism and fashion to deliver the content.
My favorite part of the lecture was when she went into detail about the series of mirrors. As part of her discussion of them she mentioned the idea that in the advertisements when looking at the mirrors the viewer becomes erased and replaced by objects for sale that appear in the viewers position within the environment.
I recently picked up a book/map collection titled An-Atlas of Radical Cartography
included in the book is a map by designers Site-R based on the work of The Institute for Applied Autonomy's isee project a video on the project follows
from the radical cartography website a short bio of the Institute
"Institute for Applied Autonomy was founded in 1998 as an anonymous collective of engineers, designers, artists and activists who are united by the cause of individual and collective self-determination. The IAA has produced several projects under its flagship initiative, "Contestational Robotics." Their work has been seen at MassMoCA; Ars Electronica Festival (where it has won awards in 2000 and 2006); ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati. TXTMob, a recent project, was a cellphone text message broadcast service widely used by demonstrators during the 2004 DNC and RNC protests and at election protests in the Ukraine and Washington D.C. www.appliedautonomy.com"
An essay on the project is presented in the companion book to the set of maps from the essay
"As Cities like Boston, Chicago, and Washington DC implement city-wide video surveillance programs, grassroots efforts to map CCTV networks take on the crucial role if creating public proofs that both document and challenge emerging infrastructures of control. CCTV maps have rhetorical value in raising awareness and provoking public debate. They also have analytic value, enabling citizen-science of surveillance in which surveillance systems are monitored and evaluated by the communities they purport to serve."
for me lately the there have been two main questions related to the content and process of my work. I feel like this mapping project has found answers to both. the first being how to identify the subject matter and record its presence. in this case it was CCTV cameras and the participation of the public in researching their location. The second is how the information functions and what can be done with it. The information provides a open ended collection of data that can be used by anyone for whatever aims related to the location and number of CCTV cameras. the end product presented in this work is a poster that documents several paths of least surveillance available to the public for whatever aims they choose to use them for.
flicker stream here http://www.flickr.com/photos/26296445@N05/
I find it truly hard to go about finding artists who work visually (let alone photographers) who work with the same interests and ideas in mind as i employ in my work. Often it is the work of performance artists, new media and sculpture artists that I relate most directly to. What i feel interested in about this artist is his very basic use of existing mass imagery at the site of its active communication. In changing advertisements where they are found the artist takes his analysis and turns it to practice at the point of delivery.
In the Fear //Anxiety // Trauma i went about delivering an analysis using the visual language of capitalist advertising. High gloss, poster sized photographs similar to that of advertising lacking ad copy. While i"m still not sure where i'll go next i still find it useful to use the visual language of capitalist advertising. How would we have reacted if the photos from abu grahib were high res and studio lit?
"Bilal's family is from Najaf, Iraq. He dreamed of becoming an artist but was prohibited from studying art in a university in Iraq, because of the alleged disloyalty of a member of his family; he studied geography instead. He continued to work on art and was arrested as a dissident for his art critical of Saddam Hussein. He refused to volunteer to participate in the invasion of Kuwait, and began organizing opposition groups. He fled Iraq in 1991 and lived in a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia for two years, teaching art to children. In 1992 he came to the United States to study art at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, from which he graduated with a BFA in 1999. He later moved to Chicago, where he earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003, and became an adjunct assistant professor the following year. In addition to his art he has given lectures about Saddam Hussein's regime and was interviewed by the History Channel."
(I post this because i feel the entry was too detailed and interesting in it detail to paraphrase)
The above video was put together by the hudson mohawk independent media center.
Better known perhaps for his piece titled "Domestic Tension" from may 2007 in which he invited the public through and online interface to "shoot an Iraqi". The idea came after the death of his brother by shrapnel, at the time he had read of a soldier stationed in colorado that was using a computer interface to shoot missiles in iraq.
I find that project to be of special interest as it offers a fragmented experience to both the artist and public participants. the public takes part in the mediated experience of shooting a genuine iraqi through an interface similar to that of a first person shooter video game. the artist was able to experience the fragmented experienced of being shot at and constantly being under the threat of attack.
Perhaps this project offers a case study of what i've been referring to as a fragmented experience. Everyday realities are reconstructed and introduced through a controlled and fabricated situation. the artist was shot not with a real gun but with a paintball gun, not real bullets but paintballs. On the flip side the public participates through a set interaction of "shooting" an iraqi. Once again not truly taking a gun and shooting the artist but shooting the artist with a paintball gun through the mediated experience of the internet interface. On both sides the participants take part in only a fraction of the represented real life situation. through these actions the brutal reality of the real experience of warfare, as well as the underlying reality of the rhetoric of war is exposed. the documentation of that experience moves the temporary nature of the constructed situation to the permanent record of human suffering and has the potential to expose the connection of the simulated experience to the reality by way of the revealed suffering.
video of Wafaa Bilal discussing the project
the day by day video account of the project can be found here
