Art and Websites

Some interesting thoughts and good points made on Conscientious today by Joerg Colberg - good things to consider for artists working with photography and other media as well.  Colberg suggests that "An artist has to think carefully about how to present her or his photography online, ideally in such a way that the presentation serves the work (and not the other way around)."  I'm growing fond of the left to right scrolling page that I've seen artists using with more frequency (such as the image below from the website of Jason Reed).

Click HERE to read Colberg's essay, which is full of examples as well. 

Image Credit:  From the website of Jason Reed

Lost and Found

Another great exhibition of found photographs re-contextualized to create new histories/stories for these lost images.  This exhibition is "devoted to photographs that were separated from their owners and then rediscovered and re-presented by professional photographers. These photos were either lost, forgotten, or thrown away. The images now are nameless, without connection to the people they show, or the photographer who took them. Cut loose from their original context but infused with the aesthetic spirit of their time, these snapshots pose many questions More info can be found HERE.

Above content from Chicago Artists Month

Scott Hubener - Contiguity

So, this MagCloud thing is pretty great.  A print-on-demand service from HP.  Very affordable and from what I can tell so far, decent image quality.  Just received a nice little gift in the mail today from Asheville, North Carolina photographer (and very fine trivial pursuit "player") Scott Hubener.  It's just damned lovely.  You can order your copy HERE.

Zoe Leonard @ Murray Guy in NYC

Questioning the very nature of photography - what it is, what it does, how it does it, and what we do with it.  This exhibition sounds fascinating.  Combining optical approaches by turning one of the galleries into a camera obscura and hanging blown out pictures of the sun in another - sounds like a fantastic experience.  You can find out more about the exhibition, and about Leonard's work by clicking HERE and HERE.

Above Image by Zoe Leonard (from the Murray Guy Gallery)

Kameelah Janan Rasheed

Just found out about the work of this prolific young artist via the Incoherent Light today.  Another artist using found and re-appropriated imagery in an innovative manner.  Her artist statement says, "My work is an excavation of memories. As an art of excavation, I am concerned with making both my process and product visible.  My work is an exploration of the materials that operate as functions of time, an occasional exorcism of insistent memories, an inquiry into the cognitive shrines we build to memories, an examination of the rituals of (re)memory, and an investigation of the role photography plays in framing and mediating our relationship with time. I make use of documentary photography, rephotography, the repurposing of found/orphaned visual as well as textual data, and collage to (re)write histories. I am concerned with the processes of salvaging memories, reconstructing narratives from fragments, and creating public records."  You can read more HERE, and view more of her work HERE.

Kameelah Janan Rasheed, 5: No Instructions for Assembly, V

Innovators in Contemporary Photography

Apparently, Colin Pantell and Joerg Colberg initiated an exchange of sorts between photobloggers this past week - opening up a discussion of which photographers "have demonstrated an openness to use new ideas in photography, who have taken chances with their photography and have shown an unwillingness to play it safe."  It's been great to see the nominations come across the various blogs.  A nice bit of overlap (particularly with Paul Graham - well deserved in my mind, at least) as well as some lesser known (to me) practitioners.  Good stuff to take a look at.  Joerg Colberg has published links to the various blogs today on Conscientious.  You can view that HERE.

Students in Memory and the Photograph might find particular interest in the reviews/discussion of works by Christian Patterson (the book Redheaded Peckerwood) and Erik Kassels.

Above Image From "Useful Photography #010" by KesselKramer Publishing

Max Sudhues at Galerie Christian Lethert in Germany

This looks like a pretty engaging exhibition - taking apart video beamers and reconstructing them via overhead projection (among other things).  Interesting bit of doubling.  Playing around with distinctions between analog and digital, but in a manner that is not trite or cloying.  I like it.

"With the aid of pincette and screwdriver Max Sudhues opened and deconstructed two broken video beamers into their components. This anatomic process and the material gained by it lead to a series of works that range from medium to content and examine the artistic usability of the used material. The innards of these gutted digital devices find new forms and narrative meanings by being observed from different analogue and digital, old and modern projection- and presentation techniques." 

- from Galerie Christian Lehert website

Click HERE to read more about the work and view additional installation shots.

Instagram Photos - Hot Topic of the Moment

I encourage my students especially to read up on many of the interesting conversations currently taking place in on-line photography blogging circles (which is really not as inclusive as it sounds - at least I hope not).  We tend to discuss the nature of nostalgia and the fetishization of antiquated photographic processes in class quite a bit, and I think younger photographers and students of photography have a lot to contribute to this conversation.  One of the great things about blogging is the ability to respond to one another and keep the dialogue going (either through comments if they are allowed or in an authored piece on your own blog that links back to the content you are referencing).

A great example of a recent post on the matter is from Tom Griggs, editor and founder of fototazo.  Click HERE to read his essay.  Be sure to make your way to the bottom where he offers a reading list related to the topic.

Image sourced from:   http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-11-01/tech/30019570_1_iphone-app-photos-social-network

William Klein + Daido Moriyama @ Tate Modern

MAN, the Brits are lucking out with this one.  This is sure to be a fantastic show.  "This is the first exhibition to look at the relationship between the work of influential photographer and filmmaker Klein, and that of Moriyama, the most celebrated photographer to emerge from the Japanese Provoke movement of the 1960s."  This work is particularly relevant to a consideration of the importance and impact of the photobook, as it "considers the medium and dissemination of photography itself, exploring the central role of the photo-book in avant-garde photography and the pioneering use of graphic design within these publications."  Click HERE to find out more about the exhibition.
 

Above quotations and image from the Tate Modern website. 

The Proliferation of the Camera Phone Image

Interesting essay on the New York Times Lens Blog today by James Estrin.  He poses some interesting questions in his discussion of what this abundance means for serious photographic practice and suggests that, "A photograph is no longer predominantly a way of keeping a treasured family memory or even of learning about places or people that we would otherwise not encounter. It is now mainly a chintzy currency in a social interaction and a way of gazing even further into one’s navel."  I wonder what some of my students think?  Click HERE to read the entire article.

For the heck of it, I'll illustrate this post with one of my recent iPhone images -

Thanksgiving 1984 (Green Dress) by Roe Etheridge

Another interesting article discussing the work of Roe Etheridge came across my "desk" yesterday.  The image mentioned in the post title (and represented below) seems particularly apt in light of our discussion of the role of color in light in photographs of "special occasions" yesterday in Memory and the Photograph.  I've included excerpts of text by Max Weintraub from the ART21 blog below:

"Thanksgiving 1984 (Green Dress) has the look and feel of an image culled from a stock photography catalog precisely because it employs the visual language of commercial photography: its vibrant, highly saturated colors and carefully balanced formal composition, its young, beautiful model, and a spread of products and produce arranged for no other purpose than our visual consumption.  But in a neat postmodern twist, Ethridge’s meticulously constructed image reveals itself as just that, a construction.  Looking further at the image, it becomes apparent that the scale is off between the model and the surrounding objects and the depth of field is inconsistent, giving the composition a collaged or Photoshopped feel.  The model’s pose and expression, meant to signal warmth, spontaneity and naturalness, seem contrived, and her seductive, couture dress appears incongruous with the image’s theme of domesticity and the family-oriented ritual of Thanksgiving.  The model’s perfect smile, dress and carefully positioned body reveal not a family snapshot but an image deeply informed by the conventions of the commercial advertisement and the telltale signs of the packaging of luxury goods.  It is perhaps not surprising, then, that the title of Ethridge’s photograph foregrounds the luxury item presumably being hawked, should this have been a real advertising image: the green dress."

I encourage you to read the entire essay (which also includes a discussion of Hiroshi Sugimoto's wax figure portraits) HERE.

Roe Ethridge. “Thanksgiving 1984 (Green Dress),” 2009. Chromogenic print, 44 x 33 in. (111.8 x 83.8 cm). Courtesy the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery.

New Issue of Fraction Magazine Out Today

Once again editor David Bram has selected a solid group of portfolios, each with their own epic and poignant moments/flashes this time.  I think that's what I enjoy most about this issue.  There is an emotive/psychological rhythm to each portfolio that seems to ebb and flow in a subtle manner that is punctuated by occasional sparks of intensity.  I'm particularly fond of how Yakkov Israels's series, The Quest for the Man on the White Donkey, unfolds.  A palpable sense of this land's history is present in the imagery, but equally dominant is the presence of the photographer and the personal/poetic response to the space.  Click HERE to view all of the portfolios.

This issue also includes a special section highlighting a recent workshop that I took part in during the summer on the Oregon coast with David Bram, Jennifer Schwartz (of Jennifer Schwartz Gallery, The Crusade for Collecting, and The Ten, and 5 fellow photographers.  We were dubbed the Astoria 6.  Find out more about that experience, and view imagery from each artist HERE.

Above Image from Fraction Magazine