Oops I did it again…

20 Different Ways of Learning to Fly

I ‘ve been thinking lately about what in my life I consider to be art related and what in my life I consider to be frivolous. How many countless hours have I wasted on youtube watching people jumping off of cliffs, swinging on rope swings, or flipping on trampolines? I’ve always considered these videos to be mindless entertainment, but recently I tried to look at them in the context of art. Almost instantaneously they became beautiful and about something totally different than before. These videos of people flying through the air express some primal urge in all of us to walk on the razor sharp line between control and chaos. Being in that weightless state breaks things down to a gorgeous simplicity. Flying/falling demands total concentration on the singular moment. For a few seconds one is attached to absolutely nothing, in a physical sense as well as a mental one. The act of jumping, the desire for flight, is akin to a desire for total freedom from everything. This feeling is one of the most beautiful I have ever felt, and it is partially responsible for me being here in Utah.

Double Post…

One…

 

Alex Baker left me a nice comment the other day. I don’t think I’ve linked to his site before or his blog. He has a new series up on surfers that goes great with his other series on ice fisherman. I like the idea of documenting people who do things for fun that most people would pay not to do. Sitting on a frozen lake and watching a hole in the ice, swimming in freezing cold water for a few minutes of fun. I guess that’s sort of the attraction for these people.

 

Two…

 

Something pretty interesting happened over at the I Heart Photograph blog the other day. They ended up posting these pictures from Brad Troemel’s blog. Except, they are not exactly Brad Troemel’s pictures. Brad is having a show with twelve photographers and twelve photographs, these were supposed to be “teasers” for the show. Now on the one hand I do agree that they look pretty cool, and I am sure Brad was aware that they looked pretty cool when he was making them, but on the other hand I am pretty sure that the people over at I Heart Photograph were not aware of what exactly they were posting. There is certainly no indication in the post that they are anything but pieces by Brad. They are merely presented as Brad’s work, and in all honesty I would be annoyed if I was one of the photographers. It makes me wonder about this whole blog world and the curatorial practices of bloggers. I mean you can easily go look at conscientious and see that a certain aesthetic prevails in almost all of the photography posts. I guess I am pointing out the irresponsibility of I Heart Photograph. With the growing importance and influence of the blog world you would think that a little more thought might go into posting new work. The people over at I Heart Photograph saw that this Brad Troemel character was getting a lot of attention on other blogs and they wanted a piece of the pie. When they saw something with a similar aesthetic to the work they like to show they just grabbed them.

P.S…

I love these guys:

I virtually exist!

I now have a website that I made all by myself!  Well, Matt Bagwell put some finishing touches on it. Thanks bud.

Anyway here it is: www.joshpoehlein.com

Heroes

John Lennon- Working Class Hero

As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool,
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free,
But you’re still fucking peasents as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
There’s room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.

This song reminds me of a piece by Alfredo Jaar that I saw on Art21 called “Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom.”

The flowers are watered and fertilized and provide with UV light, but high power fans constantly blow the flowers down. Eventually the flowers die and new ones are planted. I forget the exact context Jaar was putting this piece in but if I remember correctly it had something to do with communist Russia trying to use its intellectuals for propaganda purposes.

I often wonder if we are being duped as artists and as a culture. Art is more of a pacifier than an inciter of anything. It is placed in very controlled environments and fed to us very carefully. We have the illusion of art making a difference, when it is really being used to keep things the same. Take popular movies for example. Many of them address sensitive and controversial subjects such as homosexuality, war, racism, suffering, etc. The audience has the illusion of really thinking about these issues. Then they go home thoroughly entertained and satisfied with themselves for seeing such an “important” movie. And for those that are not pacified by this they are duped into being the pacifiers themselves; trying to make a difference, but really just perpetuating the cycle.

I am obviously playing a little bit of Devil’s Advocate on this one considering I love art and make it. It is something to think about though. Is art making a difference when it so contained? Is art just a pressure valve on culture letting out a little steam so the whole thing doesn’t blow the fuck up?

The Golden Compass

I keep getting invitations on Facebook for “Do Not Support the Golden Compass” groups. First of all, I am sure there are far better causes that these Christians could be fighting for, like do not support MTV, do not support insanely violent prime-time television, or do not support sexualized young girl television stars (Hillary Duff, Amanda Bynes, the Olsen twins, etc.) instead of “do not support a movie that might make you question what you have been taught, actually indoctrinated with.” It reminds of me when Huckleberry Finn was banned in ninth grade while there was a book by Clive Barker (the guy behind the Hellraiser movies) on the book shelf in my English class.

Second of all, these people are pretty scared of a children’s fantasy movie. What does that say about how they feel about the strength of “God’s Word?”

Christians love being ignorant and keeping each other ignorant, plus this movie looks kind of sweet. That bear thing rules!

Online Books and Other Musings

Pretty cool idea here. Pretty pictures put next to each other. I like looking at them but has photography gotten too easy?

Recently I have seen a number of photo projects that take the same or similar approach to their subject matter. First, the photographer decides on an event, a history, or a story, which will “inspire” their photographs. The photographer then travels to the place where the event took place, or they travel to a place that has a loaded history. Then they proceed to make pictures that they would probably take anyway. I am conflicted about whether this is a valid form of presentation. I mean, I guess anything is a valid form of presentation. “Is it enough” is what I mean. Is it enough to give your viewers a context to think about your photographs in and then just go shooting? It seems too easy. I am going to go photograph where someone was killed. “I would like you to think about that while you look at the pretty pictures I took there.”

I saw a show called Loaded Landscapes at MOCP at Columbia College when I visited Chicago. The show was basically about this approach to photography. Photographs from Joel Sternfeld’s “On This Site” were displayed on the middle level of the show, while there was more work on the main floor and on the third floor. Sternfeld’s project was sort of the inspiration for the show it seemed.  There were various beautiful landscape photographs taken in places with turbulent histories that bore no trace of that history.  It’s a strange concept for me, basically confirming photography’s inability to evoke memory without a context.  In many cases the beauty of the photographs seemed to serve as a meditative place the viewer could occupy while pondering what the project was “really about.”  For me the show gave me a sense of how shackled contemporary photographers are to current aesthetic constructions.  But of course (as I am on most issues concerning art photography) I am torn.  I thoroughly enjoyed the aesthetics of the landscapes, and Joel’s pictures were gorgeous.  I guess everything felt too passive, too quiet, too heady.  “Let’s just pause…and consider some things.”  It kind of made me yearn for a photographer to do something like Dash Snow’s “Fuck the Police.”

I came across an example in the new work of Christian Patterson. His new project, entitled “Out There” is inspired by a young couple that was from Nebraska. The 19 year old boyfriend killed his 14 year old girlfriends entire family. Then they went on the run. There is an interview with Christian about the project at Making Room. Here are a few photos from Christians older project “Sound Affects”:

And here are a few from “Out There”:

This is definitely not the final incarnation of the work, there could be text or sequencing or layout choices that will make a lot of difference, but aesthetically speaking these pictures look the same to me. I chose this work to look at in this context because I think the idea for “Out There” is fucking great, and I also think Christian is a really great photographer. I’d like to see how he finally presents the project.

This whole thought process has really made me think about how important text and titling can be. If a photograph has a title it completely changes how you look at the image. This Les Krims photograph and caption is one of my favorites:

Affluent Children Dressed by their Parents in Absurd Outfits, Already Displaying Scatterbrain Sexuality, Disdain, and Lust, 4th of July, Edgartown, Massachusetts, 1989.

Colin Blakely has some pretty sweet titles in his project “Somewhere in Middle America”:

The Anachronism of Basic Instinct

Recollection of the Battles Fought Maintaining the Home Front