Photo Pro Magazine

A few weeks ago the UK based Photo Pro Magazine approached me with some questions about my ‘Unstill Lives‘ series.  I got the issue in the mail a few days ago, and it actually looks pretty good.  Maybe some cute British girls will start e-mailing me soon.  Here are some scans of the spread:

On a side note, did you know that there is no difference between these quotation marks “….” and these quotation marks ‘….’ ?  The only rule is that you have to alternate their usage when quotations appear within other quotations.  The British prefer to use the single quotes (‘ ‘), while the American tradition is to use the doubles (” “). I always wondered if there were times when I was using them the wrong way for the situation.

Jane Hammond

I was doing some blog cruising the other day and came across the work of Jane Hammond.  You have got to go over and check out the big versions of her photographs.  The prints are silver gelatin so I imagine all of the manipulation is done in the dark room.  Here are a few of my favorites:

 

Tourist Pictures

Here are some pictures that I’ve taken more or less as a tourist.  They are from Utah, California, Pennsylvania, and New York.  Some of them are kind of interesting, and I was just going through them, sort of photoshopping. Click on them, wordpress is no good at displaying pictures.

 

Real Emotion

I stumbled across the work of photojournalist Paul Fusco today on 5B4.  I must say that it is a rare case that I feel as deeply about photographs as I did when viewing Fusco’s work.  Maybe this is because I don’t look at a lot of photojournalism, but I don’t think that is the case.  Fusco has two bodies of work on his webpage.  The first is called “Chernobyl Legacy” which is beautiful, and sad.  It really makes me understand the power that we have been burdened with by the discovery of nuclear technology.  The series exemplifies the statement, “with great power comes great responsibility.”  Even with that being said, I don’t feel half the emotion that I do when looking at “RFK Funeral Train.”  This may be because the work on Chernobyl is filled with images that look like photojournalism.  Black and white, close up, wide angle, other people’s suffering.

“RFK Funeral Train” does not look like photojournalism.  In 1968 Paul Fusco rode on Robert Kennedy’s funeral train from New York to Arlington Cemetery.  Along the ride he photographed the people who flocked to the tracks.  The work documents a nation’s sorrow instead of a single person’s tragedy.  Looking at the faces of the people that came to pay their respects, and seeing how they stand next to each other fills me with an emotion that I can’t put my finger on.  On the one hand it is sadness, to see so many people mourning, but on the other hand, it is amazement and pride in our country and in people in general.  I am amazed by the gesture of stopping everything to go and reflect on a tragic loss with fellow Americans.  I think maybe Paul Fusco got lucky with this one, not that he’s not a good photographer, but subject matter like this only comes around once in a lifetime.  I’d like to see the original book, which is just photographs from the train.  Aperture re-released it to be more of a photojournalist book,  rather than a piece of conceptual art, which is what I think it really is.  I haven’t seen it all the way through, but supposedly, as the light fades at the end of the day, Fusco has to use longer and longer exposures, which result in abstract swirls of blue light and mourning Americans.  Only a very rare combination of chance, real events, and artistry could come up with an idea as good as this.  It is almost like the work grew instead of having been created.

Peeps

Dan Boardman has two prints up on 20×200 but if you want one you better get there fast.  They’re selling like hot cakes.

 

Also, my friend Kati Gegenheimer has a website up with her Paintings and print work, which are amazing. I had to steal these using screen shots, I hope she doesn’t get mad.

 

On Art and Entertainment

My last post received a really great comment from Joe Heller (I don’t know if that link is him, but I like these cartoons), as well as a rebuttal from my good friend John Brown.  It made me realize that I should clarify some things, and maybe delve deeper into this issue.  I believe Joe and I are actually very similar in our outlooks on art, considering we both produce and enjoy it.  The differences I think are in how we understand certain words in my last post.  First of all, frivolous was a bad word choice on my part.  I believe that art has value, but no definable or singular purpose.  In fact, the definition of “Art” relies on purposelessness.  The modern definition did not come into being until the idea of “Art for Art’s sake” was first introduced in the mid 1800’s.  It is credited to Theophile Gautier.  This wikipedia link does a better job of describing the history than I can. 

 

Here is an example of the Art for Art’s sake idea in modern culture, and it’s collapse when viewed through history.  Some would say that a television commercial for a product is not art, while those same people may argue that the Sistine Chapel ceiling is indeed a great work of art.  They may claim this even though the work was commissioned by a higher power (as an advertisement of sorts).  They still may say this even though Michelangelo himself only agreed to do the painting if he could do the sculptures as well, which was his “true” passion. This is much like modern “artists” who take commercial jobs in order to pay the bills for their “real” art.  In this sense Michelangelo’s most famous work is a commercial…ba da ba ba Ba, I’m lovin’ it!  

 

Here is another example of how the definition of art has changed and is fluid over time.  Shakespeare is revered as one of the greatest dramatists of history, but how is he different from a modern film director, and furthermore what separates him from directors of Summer Blockbusters designed for mass entertainment?  Was his audience not entertained, and was that not their primary purpose for attending?  How can one now separate the two?  It can only be done through arbitrary value judgments, which do not have the ability to draw a solid line in the sand. 

 

Having always been sort of an iconoclast, I decided to claim the more shocking side of this argument, that art is frivolous entertainment, rather than the other claim, which is that frivolous entertainment, is art.  I brought down the status of art rather than raising the status of entertainment.  My intention is to strip the word entertainment of its negative connotations, and point out that the best things in life are entertainment rather than necessity.  Joe claims that art is not “simple entertainment,” but I never say that entertainment is simple.  To say that entertainment cannot “explore issues or concepts unable to be dealt with by both science and religion” is an absurd and unfounded claim.  It is a claim that cannot be made without a proven method of discerning what is art and what is entertainment, which is, as I have pointed out, impossible.  Joe lumps art and social relationships in with the survival needs of eating and sleeping.  There is a difference between desire and need.  Art is NOT necessary.  Love is NOT necessary.  Fun is NOT necessary.  There are certainly those that live without, but these are the things that keep us sane.  Introducing the idea of necessity to art is like introducing the idea of logic and proof to faith.  It negates itself.  With necessity art becomes nothing more than a didactic exercise stripped of all enjoyment.  

 

The enjoyment and experience of art is rooted in the idea of aesthetics.  To get a message across one does not need aesthetics, but in order to arrest the attention of viewers, to empathize with them, it certainly helps.  This is why commercials are beautiful, emotional, and funny.  Maybe the central “buy this” message of a commercial is not art, but aesthetics are used to help deliver that message.  Maybe the recycled, terrible (opinion of course, someone could think it deserves an Oscar) storyline of the latest Hollywood action film or romantic comedy is severely lacking, but that shot that gives you goose bumps of the explosion or the kiss is rooted in real emotion.  These aesthetics of popular entertainment follow the same principles of the aesthetics of high art, and therefore can theoretically illicit the same exact feelings and/or realizations.  The ability to empathize with one another through the mutual appreciation of all forms of aesthetics, emotional, visual, aural, and physical, lies at the root of artistic expression.  Art is one of (maybe the only) form of expression in which one can actually communicate emotions.  This of course can never be proven, that I feel what you feel or what he felt, but I have faith that it is the case.  

 

I believe that the reason why there is such a harsh line drawn between art, entertainment, and commercialism, is because of the vast array of institutions that rely on these categories to exist.  How could a museum exist if an interesting billboard could set next to a Jackson Pollock, and if a street sign from the 50s makes a more relevant cultural statement than the latest Alfredo Jaar piece?  Would a collector fork out 50 million for an original copy of Titanic, while buying the Cremaster series at Best Buy for $19.99?  When you really look at it though, the respective values of a great piece of high art and a great piece of entertainment are not that different.  For example, in 2006 a Jackson Pollock was sold for $140 million dollars to a single buyer, while The Beatles (The White Album) – The Beatles has sold just over 19 million copies in the U.S since its release.  The cultural value placed on these two great pieces of art is amazingly similar.  Such is the fate of art in capitalist society.  In order to exist and proliferate it must be commodified, compartmentalized, and profited on.  In a society where all art is a product only arbitrary lines can be drawn between the Brillo Box itself and a painting of it, they might even make the same amount of money in the end.  

 

The only way to destroy this categorization and commodification is to give out all art for free, which I am a fan of.  Radiohead recently attempted something similar with their “In Rainbows” release, asking the buyer to pay what they think it is worth.  This takes the power away from institutions surrounding the music and gives it back to the artists themselves.  It’s just too bad that some 60% of buyers thought it was worth 0 dollars.  I am actually in the process of working on a series that I would like to give away for free.  My idea is to send large printable files to anyone who asks for them.  Then they can do whatever they want with it, no restrictions.

 

What I am saying is that artists should start seeing their art and possibly marketing their art as entertainment.  One, because they must realize that the differences between art and entertainment are only an illusion of arbitrary categorization, and two, just to shake some shit up!  Why do photographers, printmakers, digital artists, and video artists imbue a piece of art with false preciousness by making an edition of it?   The medium in which they have chosen to work is designed for mass reproduction and the spreading of ideas.  Jen Bekman has started something like this with her 20/200 project, making prints more affordable to your average person.  I guess it remains to be seen if artists could make money this way.  If Alec Soth personally approved a large run of quality prints for $20 apiece, do you think he could make as much as he has on limited editions for $2000?  Who knows?  This means that buyers of art would have to change their reasons for purchasing.  One would no longer purchase because something is rare or is going to go up in value, but simply because they want to enjoy it.  I think this is a better way to spend money on art anyway.

More Series

A recurring theme on this blog is the discussion of the photo series.  Some of the most obvious series are typologies; photographing the same type of thing in different contexts.  Other series are tied together by aesthetics, subject matter, storyline, etc.  In any case I think the photo series is important.  I think it is important because the book is important, and also viewers will almost always encounter work one piece at a time, followed by or juxtaposed next to another.

 

I want to talk about the photo series in relation to our most popular art form, music.  The photo series or photo book is often compared to poetry, but that is an outdated reference.  It’s not that good poetry doesn’t still exist or that good poetry isn’t being written.  It’s that it is not as culturally relevant today as popular music.  I am partial to the idea of a full album as a piece of art (Although it is the time of the ipod,  djs, and Girltalk, the full Album may be culturally outdated as well).  Some of my favorite albums (in Chronological order) are, The White Album – The Beatles, Ladies and Gentlemen we are Floating in Space – Spiritualized, Kid A –Radiohead, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – Wilco .  All of these albums have great single songs on them, and the songs flow into one another quite naturally, and if not naturally, interestingly.  The thing that makes these albums so great is the variety on each album.  The ability to have a kick-ass rock song on the same album as a delicate lullaby and have it work is brilliant.  These albums contain a depth and variety that I miss in some photographic series.  A good example would be Grant Willing’s “Grand County.”  There are wonderful photographs in the series but the point of view is so consistent.  After a while you know what to expect, or at least how to expect it.  “What is he going to look at this way next time?”  The truth is though, that I work this way as well.  There is a great deal of ambiguity and non-specific narrative in my work, which are some of the worst things to read about in an artist statement… don’t really know what to do about that.  Once someone sees one of the pieces, they can have a pretty good idea of what’s coming up next.  I would love to do something where I can take wildly different photographs and have them work together.  A pink skull, a portrait, a b/w still life, a vibrantly colored landscape, an appropriated image, etc.  Basically I’m talking about Noel Rodo-Vankeulen’s “Nocturne.”

 

The last thing I want to mention on music and art is their respective places and therefore “purposes” in culture.  There is a solid line drawn between art and entertainment, far too solid in my opinion.  Music and movies, although readily admitted to be culturally important are still categorized as entertainment and are therefore frivolous.  Art on the other hand is constantly taken “seriously.”  Some claim that art has a purpose, that it is not frivolous entertainment.  I say it is… Art is frivolous entertainment, no different from the latest summer blockbuster or the biggest top 40 radio hit.  It’s all meant to make you feel.  How important it is, is up to the viewer.  Some would say that intention makes the difference, but Britney Spears probably has at least some of the same intentions as Mark Rothko did.  I don’t think this makes art any less valid or important.  Frivolous pursuits are what makes us human.  Something not needed, something extra than what life purely for survival gives us.  Art is pointless, there is no reason and no logic behind it.  In this way it has similarities to religion and the idea of faith.  The definition of faith is to believe something without proof.  Logic is not necessary, this makes it real faith, and real art.     

Around the House.

Just got some film back from Pennsylvania.  Here are a few shots from around my house that I like but probably won’t use for anything.  For some reason these pictures look really fuzzy until you click on them and they open in another link.  Weird

 

 

 

 

Weird Discovery

I was looking for some images of people floating on Google and I found this totally insane site.

The specificity of the names of the photos amazes me.  Check out Leanne jumping towards the fountain while Evan stands on the diving board and Megan grabs an orange ball

Minor Threat

Great article by Charlie White over at wordswithoutpictures.  It’s interesting he didn’t mention the recent gallery closing of Bill Henson’s work though.  His stuff is tops!