The Laconic Egalitarian (with a camera at least)

For as long as I've been making photographs I've shot mostly in color; I don't think I shot a roll of black and white film until I was in college and after my requisite black and white courses I was back to color. Specifically I was working with the dye transfer process. I loved the lusciousness of the prints and how I could manipulate colors, the pureness of the colors themselves and how flexible it was. Because I was not studying art or photography at the time I took great liberties when preparing my separations and was not following the rules of the process as closely as I should have been. As a result my images were very hyper-hued and "unnatural"- just the way I liked it. My dye transfer days didn't last long; I was in college and couldn't afford the film and chemistry and refocused my studies back to architecture (which also didn't last long). All the while I remember wondering if anyone used the process for "real" work. Of course someone already was: William Eggleston.

I was given a copy of  William Eggleston's Guide and was instantly hooked to the imagery: the openess of the compositions, the sheer weight of the everyday, the attention to the mundane and of course the COLOR.  Eggleston's embrace of color in all of its natural and artificial forms is his trademark and has made him a powerful force in photography for over 30 years. His influence can be felt (both directly and tangentially) in film, art, photography and advertising. His deceptively casual "eye" can be seen in the photographic works of Philip Lorca Di Corcia, Catherine Opie, Katy Grannan, and countless others.  Contemporary filmmakers like Gus Van Sant, Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson certainly owe a debt of creative gratitude to Eggleston as well. Now, after 32 years since his one and only major American exhibit, Eggleston is being formally (re)introduced to the art world in an expansive exhibit at the Whitney: William Eggleston: Democratic Camera—Photographs and Video, 1961-2008. The exhibit features over 150 works  of photography and video executed in both color and black and white. It has received accolades from all circles of fashion, culture, art and beyond; I'm sure it will be extremely successful when it starts touring later in 2009. Everyone should check it out. Really, if the show comes to your neighborhood, run, don't walk to be first in line. 

When you do see the show, try to look beyond the images themselves and consider this: William Egglseston DOES NOT, HAS NOT and NEVER will shoot snapshots. Eggleston has never championed a "snapshot" aesthetic and in afterword of The Democratic Forest he writes: 

I am afraid that there are more people than I can imagine who can go no further than appreciating a picture that is a rectangle with an object in the middle of it, which they can identify. They don't care what is around the object as long as nothing interferes with the object itself, right in the centre. Even after the lessons of Winogrand and Friedlander, they don't get it… (t)hey want something obvious. The blindness is apparent when someone lets slip the word 'snapshot'. Ignorance can always be covered by 'snapshot'. The word has never had any meaning. I am at war with the obvious.

Eggleston has always been about the quest for the sublime in the everyday and finding perfection in the commonplace. He is not looking for the truth in his images - that would be an inefficient waste of energy. Instead, Eggleston is sharing with us his bookmarks and souvenirs from his travels and experiences. Which like any collection, is carefully cataloged and considered before acquiring. There are no accidents, no snapshots, no regrets. There is only a deliberate, methodical way of seeing and photographing only the essentials; that is, everything.

William Eggleston: Democratic Camera—Photographs and Video, 1961-2008 is at the Whitney Museum of American Art until January 25, 2009.

It then travels to these fine places:

Haus der Kunst, Munich

February 20-May 17, 2009

Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

June-September 2009

Art Institute of Chicago

February 20-May 16, 2010

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles

November-January 2011

The lure of scars

Making photographs has always been a scientific endeavor. While discussions of photography tend to always circle back to IMAGE, we should remember that to get to that image the photographer had to go through a rigorous process of exposure, composition, developing and printing. This process (traditionally) takes quite a bit of time and (until recently), a tremendous amount of labor. In fact, 19th century photographers had to be equal parts image-maker and chemist, since the luxury and convenience of self-contained photography had yet to be invented. These early pioneers had to drag hundreds of pounds of plates, glass and paper just to create the kind of images that most of us are accustomed making with a small 35mm film camera.

For the most part, we are isolated from the toxic fumes and chemicals of photography. We capture image, have the film processed and order some prints and frame the picture. No muss, no fuss. The process of printing is a build-to-order industrial machine that requires little input form most photographers (except for aesthetic choices). The mixing of chemicals, creation of film and paper, and disposal of said chemicals is none of our concern (unless one has a personal darkroom of course). Yes, we have the luxury of image without the tedium of photograph-making.

I'm considering these things because I just saw some work by the photographer, J. Henry Fair at MASSMOCA. His work is part of an exhibit entitled: BADLANDS: New Horizons in Landscape. The exhibit features architects, sculptors, painters, designers and photographers working with or against landscapes. Fair uses his photography as a bridge of sorts: documenting what he sees as, “ (an addiction) to petroleum and the unsustainable consumption of other natural resources.” Of course these photographs, these Industrial Scars (as he calls them) do wind up being very lush and beautiful and the commentary is sometimes lost to the gorgeousness of the print.

Take the image, Expectoration (displayed above), a photograph of an aluminum refinery in Darrow, Louisiana. It depicts the runoff from bauxite processing (bauxite is an aluminum ore that is stripped mined to process into aluminum). Fair’s photograph is filled with vibrant reds, siennas and browns there is a very painterly feel to it. It’s a joy to behold as an oversized image (about 5ft tall and 8ft wide) and draws in very quietly. In fact, Fair’s message of sustainability and ecological turmoil almost disappears into the image. Viewers are lost in the beauty and I several “Oh, that’s what it is…” faces during my visit to MASSMOCA. The revelation that the images were documents of somewhat “sinister,” events taking place did not seem to sway any of the viewers, most still found the work beautiful and alluring.

Most of Fair’s images are aerial photographs and in many more in common with a Diebenkorn painting than a traditional aerial landscape. The pictures were also not retouched and the colors were as they were found in nature (according to Fair). I found myself studying all the images intently and truly enjoyed them as images. However, once I began to consider their meaning and scope of Fair’s message, I had to wonder:” As a process, how much has photography hurt the environment?” We use copious amounts of silver, platinum, sodium sulfide, metol, acetic acid, etc, etc. Even Fair’s own work requires the use of helicopters, large trucks, and planes to reach remote destinations. In his age of the “carbon footprint,” how should photographers and other artists deal with the environmental of our planet? After all, we are makers of things that have mostly aesthetic and very little utilitarian value. We add to the discussion, but how do we add to the solution? At what point does the mass of objects that are created for sheer pleasure become scar-tissue on the planet?

I have no idea, but I certainly enjoyed Henry J. Fair’s photographs, and for now that is enough.

- S.B.

* I am not throwing digital photography/printmaking/processes in the mix here.

Michael Eastman’s Vanishing America

Adding to the Clutter: Michael Eastman’s Vanishing America: The End of Main Street Diners, Drive-Ins, Donut Shops, and Other Everyday Monuments.

Michael Eastman creates some wonderfully “painted” photographs. Using mostly 4 x 5 systems, he crafts carefully composed and studied images of interiors and building-scapes. They are almost exclusively color photographs and tend to lack any sort of human interaction (save for the fact that the pictures always depict the “remains” of human endeavors). Eastman tends to look for places of solitude and emptiness; his exteriors are almost always photographed on cloudy or overcast days while the interiors are typically lush and saturated.

Take Eastman’s “Arenal” from his Cuba series. The photo is of an old theater that is heavily aged and blanketed by a looming grayness. The once lush paint job is withering away to a sort of pastel palette that sad, yet inviting. Contrast that to “Red Bathroom,” a perfectly arranged and preserved lavatory that is super-saturated in red and warm tones making for a very lively and inviting space (in spite of its perfection).

Eastman has turned his eye for alignment towards a number of subjects (landscapes, reflections, architectural spaces, and horses). With his most recent body of work, Vanishing America, Eastman handsomely captures the persistence of decay of a quickly fading America. From theaters to drugstores to shotgun houses, Eastman applies his signature vision to recording structures as they are now - in their old age - with a whisper of nostalgia and handfuls of love. he exposes the scars and remains for all to see, but not in pitiful sort of way. The buildings display a strength in their solitary compositions, not begging to be restored, but proud in their old age. Many of the images have a “Hopper-esque” feel to them, like “Cairo, Illinois,” which bears more than just a passing semblance to Edward Hoppers, “Early Sunday Morning.” Unlike Hopper’s painting, though, the buildings in “Cairo, Illinois,” are not sleeping, but are dormant and in a permanent state of hibernation; proudly awaiting vines or the wrecking ball.

Another majestic building is found in “Shotgun House, New Orleans.” Photographed from a slight worm’s eye point of view, that gives the building (which is presumably abandoned) its stateliness. The building is transformed from sad relic to a powerful but wounded foot soldier.

Eastman’s skill at containing the disorder in the world is inherent throughout his work, he finds peace in the storm and jewels in the decay. His search for the sturdy and derelict structures in the world result in such luscious imagery that it is a terrible shame that his Vanishing America series is collected in book form so poorly. Rizzoli’s,Vanishing America: The End of Main Street Diners, Drive-Ins, Donut Shops, and Other Everyday Monuments is a 180+ page mess. Beginning with the title, Vanishing America… is overflowing with poorly reproduced images. Worst than that there seems to be little to no thought as to the layout of the book. Images are not given the respect that the are do and there is no breathing room for the images. Pages are often crammed together as if the publisher wants the viewer to gorge themselves on the pictures within the book. Perhaps Rizzoli wants this introduction of Eastman’s quest to be a successful coffeee-table book and sees the market for this book as simple fast-food readers; those that flip through once and use the book as a coaster after they are done. It is a truly shameful book.

For better reproductions and better presented images please visit the artist’s website at eastmanimages.com. His work can also be found at DNJ gallery in Los Angeles

SB

ION ZUPCU: Seeing is the objective

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how much we miss by not taking a breath and looking at things closely. I don't mean simply in a "beauty is everywhere" kind of way, but rather, how much do we really know about the things that surround us. The chairs, the pens, the bottles, all of the everyday things that we use and toss away casually. Are we recognizing the full potential of theses things, not as simple utilitarian objects, but as tools of meditation and study; how closely do we experience the everyday and what can we do to experience more fully?

The photographer Ion Zupcu certainly has these questions in mind. For several years, he has taken the mundane and created some lovely meditations using nothing more than paper, flowers, bottles, and light. Zupcu calls his still lives, “…a conversation with a myself.” Noting that no one ever stops to talk about their feelings for shapes (unless of course you live in Flatland). In his most recent body of work, Zupcu is both sculptor and photographer; taking small sheets of paper and folding them to form the most simplest of shapes. The paper is typically small, but the photographs make them monumental.

In Untitled, March 15 #2, the intersecting strips of paper are arranged and shot at an angle that makes them appear like a Richard Sera sculpture. The singular light source gracefully creates shadows that belies the actual size of the paper. The piece, Close, depicts two sheets of paper that are barely joined by their edges, delicately balanced and strong. This delicate strength is also evidenced in Existence, again two sheets of paper stand together mysteriously suspended and placed against a soft void. The sheets are towers and sails and feathers, ready to bend and sway with whatever forces are pushed against them.





Zupcu’s images can also be quite whimsical and decorative, several of his pieces take on recognizable forms of flowers and shells. However, the most rewarding part about viewing Zupcu’s work is how it opens your eyes to looking at the world a bit more closely and learning to really appreciate the mundane. The work can open our senses to the things that surround us and free us for the tedium of chores and work. Pick up that pen on your desk and roll it around a bit between your fingers for a few minutes; the gesture will focus your mind and your problem will ripple out.

Zupcu’s work can be viewed at his site: www.ionzupcu.ro and also at ClampArt


~Sesthasak Boonchai

Is This What You Do with a Backstage Pass?

I was on trip to DC recently and spent a few hours wandering around the museums there. Some beautiful venues (albeit a tad outdated architecturally and very conservative). Imagine my surprise when walking into the National Pottrait Gallery I see a sign that screams RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture. Whoa, I thought, a survey of hip hop culture in DC at a museum more famous for an hall devoted to paintings of 42 old white men. I know that’s a bit harsh, the museum has an extensive of collection of paintings, sculptures, video art, and of course photography. Actually, The National Portrait gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum share the same building. So there is a wide variety of work in building.

Still, seeing the RECOGNIZE! exhibit there was refreshing and exciting, because whether you love or hate hip hop, you can’t deny it’s impact on global culture, media, advertising, speech, et cetera. So as I made my way to I was imagining what kind of work would be presented (I didn’t bother to actually READ the names of the representative artists). I suspected some graffiti, maybe posters, flyers a few paintings, but I was really expecting tons of photography. After all, hip hop boomed in the 80s and early 90s (around the same time that the 1-hour/disposable camera culture was mushrooming) and more than most other music/lifestyles hip hop was (and is) driven by IMAGE. So the photographic reproduction of hip hop starts and wanna-bees was essential to the spread of the culture. Unfortunately, I was mistaken in my assumptions that the exhibit would be a survey of Hip-Hop portraiture, instead the exhibit was a small group show representing singular approaches in the fields of photography, painting, graffiti, film, and poetry/installation.

Overall I actually enjoyed the exhibit, though. The painter featured was Kehinde Wiley, whose neon mashups of French Rococo and heroic paintings with hip-hop stars were a joy to behold (even though the ceilings were way too low for the scale of his paintings). There were also three very engaging video pieces by Jefferson Pinder. Unfortunately, the photography section of the show was a bit of a letdown. The work featured was from renowned landscape photographer David Scheinbaum, whose beautiful landscapes and panoramas are delicately composed and intriguing. The work Scheinbaum had in Recognize! is from his ongoing series documenting hip-hop performers, shows and audiences. While the idea and the heart is certainly there, the images themselves lack the verve and energy that is, well, typical of hip-hop shows. The photographs displayed were very cold and static; Scheinbaum even manged to take the zing from ROOTS drummer ?uestlove. Two images I did find nice were a shot of rapper Jean Grae:



and a nice motion shot of MF Doom.



These images do a bit to capture the sprit of these folks and the shows; they squeeze the mass of the sounds, lyrics and bravada into a concise moment and hold you.

Scheinbaum admits to being an outsider to the world of hip-hop; he approached it intially as a parent of children engulfed in the culture and not a fan (although I do get the sense that he is a big fan now). He also cites the work of Roy DeCarava for stylistic inspiration. Perhaps that’s one of the problems with these images, DeCarava was a renowned Jazz photographer and while not as well known as the venerable Herman Leonard, some of DeCarava’s images were equally powerful and in many ways more poetic and meditative. Of course, hip-hop shows leave very little time for introspection and I need more insight into the flow of the spectacle and not a glimpse of the pipes and walls of the backstage area. Which leads to me another niggle I had with Scheinbaum’s work, it felt a bit “fanboy’ish” as if he were seeing these people as celebrities and stars and no as poets and musicians. There was a sort of a Naturaist’s eye at work in some of the images and not a photographer's. It was hard for me to understand why the Gallery chose these particular works, when the likes of Jamel Shabazz and Martha Cooper are in dire need of a broader audience.

Seeing Scheinbaum’s work here actually reminded of Charles Peterson’s seminal series, “Touch Me I’m Sick.” His series documented the very early days of Seattle’s grunge scene and is a benchmark for contemporary music photography. It showcased the musicians’ and fans’ spirit, DIY attitude and really helped outsiders see waht was driving the music. I feel as if Scheinbaum's has the potential to be that, but for now is in a sort of stasis mode, like a lyric waiting to be born or a line needing to be spit.

- SB

The out of focus works of Uta Barth and Hirochi Sugimoto

Most photographers pride themselves on how sharp an image is, but Uta Barth and Hiroshi Sugimoto create thought provoking bodies of work by doing the opposite.


Uta Barth’s color photographs from the series “Grounds” (Adbusters, 2003) provide numerous examples of her soft focus approach. In one of her images, the photograph just catches a glimpse of the edge of a windowsill with a curtain draped over its ledge. Blurred but clear enough to reveal the shapes and forms as identifiable, the small unframed mounted image seems to drift toward nothing in particular. It reminds one of the quite moment just before sleep when one gives up on focusing. Muted color tones reinforce the sense of calm in the image by their understated presence.


Another image from that series is a soft focus shot of a green wall with two small framed art reproductions hanging in the upper left, a fragment of a dresser in the bottom right. The prints hanging on the wall are reproductions by Vermeer, but are only generally alluded to since it becomes less identifiable in the photographic print. As the viewer stares at the soft image, a self-consciousness of “looking” is what tends to emerge.

Hiroshi Sugimoto’ architectural studies, created between 1997-2002, purposefully utilize blur. By setting his large format focal length to twice infinity (!), he searches for “…superlative architecture [which can] survive the onslaught of blurred photography”. (Sugimoto, 2006) One example of such work is an approximately four foot by five foot very blurred black and white image of the World Trade Center. Rather than irritating the viewer with a soft focus effect, Sugimoto manages to create a minimalist, engaging charcoal-like study of forms and monochromatic tones. Not a piece of Sugimoto’s compositions are wasted.


The image of Villa Savoye feels like a future Jetson-esque world yet to be realized. The hazy structure rises on its own legs into a sky of ever deepening tones of grey. The grass below becomes smudged by it’s own lack of specificity or focus. This piece, typical of Sugimoto’s work, challenges the viewer to see in an unfussy way.

Both Barth and Sugimoto’s images are compelling but for different reasons. Barth’s color images are disorientating and disquieting. One recognizes the spaces, sort of, but they seem to be the background of another subject about to step into the frame. As a result, we are somewhat self-conscious of the passing of time as we stare at her images. Her work also imparts a psychological dimension because of the vague familiarity of place. By contrast, Sugimoto’s formalist studies of monumental structures defy physics as one watches them seemingly disseminate in our midst. There is an “all-over” quality to his work that gives no more sense of importance to any other part of the composition. For instance, famous structure is equally as important as sky, as grass, as whatever is in the frame. While Barths’ work is about nowhere in particular Sugimoto’s is about the particular.

But regardless of intent or subject matter both artists manage to push us into a new place of blurred form rich in possibilities and meaning.

-Michel Varisco

Bibliography:
Uta Barth. essays by: Pamela M Lee, Matthew Higgs, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe.New York: Phaidon Press, 2004
www.phaidon.com/Default.aspx/Web/uta-barth-9780714841533

Hiroshi Sugimoto. Designed by Takaaki Matsumoto, essays by: Kerry Brougher and David Elliott,
Washington D.C. and Tokyo: Hirshorn Museum, Sculpture garden, the Smithsonian and Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2007. hirshhorn.si.edu/sugimoto/programs.htm

Image samples:

www.artsjournal.com/man/images/Chrysler.jpg

web.ncf.ca/ek867/sugimoto.wtc.jpg

www.edwardmitterrand.com

The Picture from LALA Land

The world of the art fair seems to have exploded in the past ten years, with more and more specialized art fairs cropping up in all major (and many minor) cities across the globe. As the art market continues its enormous expansion, there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight to the number and spread of these fairs. There are fairs that specialize in paintings, sculpture, outsider art and of course photography. Unlike events such as FotoFest in Houston or PhotoNola in New Orleans, however, Photo Fairs (and Art Fairs in general) aren’t really set up for artists. There are no portfolio reviews, artist workshops or panel discussions. Art Fairs are solely designed for galleries, collectors and the public at large as a showcase for new work and as a preview of what the gallery will be exhibiting in the near future.

One of the oldest Art Fairs for Photography, Photo L.A., took place in Santa Monica last month and I had an opportunity to check it out. It was the 17th annual exposition and had a little over 70 exhibitors from across the United States and several International exhibitors as well. It’s a three day event, but I was only able to spend a few hours there on the first day (which was very, very tiring). The entry fee was $20 - which gives you admission to the event as well a beautiful little catalog/directory of all participating exhibitors. The catalog was very welcome and necessary to navigate the almost overwhelming maze of exhibitors. I’ve attended Photo L.A. in the past, but this is the first time (in my experience) that such a luxury was given to attendees.

The exhibit itself was mind-numbing. The crowds of people looking at work (and the occasional celebrity), the mass of gallery reps talking up artists and selling the artists’ work and of course the work itself. It was all bit too much at times and after the first 2 hours I felt fatigued and numbed. It was all I could do to make notes and jot down some observations.

First, this year’s Photo L.A. featured several prominent international galleries including Hackelbury Fine Art, from London; Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, from Paris and Galleria PaciArte Contemporary, from Brescia, Italy. My favorite showing was the contingent from the Queensland Centre for Photography, from Australia. They featured the luscious still-lifes of Marian Drew and the very literal work of Martin Smith. This strong international contingent lead me to my second observation about Photo L.A. 17, that there seemed to be more contemporary work on display than before. One gallery, Craig Krull, even used its massive booth to feature an installation by the brilliant Yamamoto Masao. His delicate installation was like an oasis in the din. There were a number of book dealers and publishers as well. Including D.A.P., Aperture and Bondi Books along with several book dealers that specialized in new, small run artbooks for photographers. One such company, ModernBook, featured the work from the venerable Jerry Uelsmann as well as the 3-D work of Claudia Kunin (who was also exhibiting with three different galleries at the expo).

There were dozens of galleries specializing in vintage prints (which appeared to be the most crowded ones). Even galleries that did not specialize in vintage prints had a few Westons and Steichens on the wall. There so many dealers of such work that, my friend Kirsten (whose sister is photographer Stefanie Schneider) posited: “There are too many old pictures.” I tried to explain to her about the sort of “anti-digital” movement afoot in photography and why vintage prints were so important to collectors, but it did make me wonder, “Why are there so many old pictures?” I do not mean old in the sense of age, but old in the sense of the status-quo. While this was the most contemporary Photo L.A. I’d attended, it was still very conservative. Yes, the pictures were all beautiful and as a collector I was overjoyed to see such a diversity of image types, but as an art maker and educator I was underwhelmed by the lack of challenging images. There was almost no video art (I saw three pieces) and even fewer photographic abstractions and almost no purely conceptual photography. LACDA did have some work by Andy Lomas, who generates fractal abstractions that are vaguely floral. Why should galleries at huge expo events promote such work? Simple, a gallery’s mission should be to not only create a venue for artists to be able to show and sell their wares, but also create an environment that nurtures a conversation between viewers, collectors and artists. This conversation should go well beyond the aesthetic or commodifying aspects of art. An event like Photo L.A. would be a great place for the exhibition of such work. Dealers can show both "old" and "new" work side by side, collectors can at once see the intellectual as well the material. It’s a win win.

Overall, Photo L.A. was satisfying (if a bit dry at times). I was glad to see that photography is alive and vibrant and continues to expand. I’m looking forward to next year as well as the smattering of art fairs that are about to start here in New York. Hopefully, there will be a few more surprises.

See the entire list of Photo L.A. participants (with links) at this site: artfairsinc.com/photola/2008/exhibitors.html

S. Boonchai

Conversion of Manners and Hagiography by Ernesto Pujol

Ernesto Pujol is a conceptual artist who creates photographs, installations and sculptures around memory and masculinity. In his photographic series "Conversion of Manners" he uses himself as subject dressed in a monks robe with gestures of gentleness and humility. Some images are shot from behind,
face hidden and only the vestments and feet revealed. In other images, his face is revealed and his look is one of total submission. But the images that do not reveal his face become monolithic black abstractions of form floating on an offwhite wall. Meditative in their simplicity, the elegant shape emerges as a man of the cloth in the Roman Catholic Church. In all of these works, “What,” one wonders, “is the artist thinking? And is this work satirical or reverential?”

The artist as model is (nothing new) certainly established in postmodernism where identity is an important theme, and the shedding and morphing of identity central. Often, as in the work of Cindy Sherman, identity is a process of active creation emphasizing volition. In contemporary life, art is a realm that can allow for multiple identities to be invented along the way. In some cases, art around identity can heal somewhat discordant realities. In some of Shermans’ work, she mimics the Renaissance paintings of saints adorned in wealthy aristocratic frocks, although by legend the same saints were actually dirt poor. Sherman took on these contradictions and more using devices to mock and reflect the unevenness of what people have accepted over the ages without hesitation.

While Sherman pulls from lore and history in her series, Pujol pulls directly from his own experiences. As a child in an exiled Cuban family, he attended an elite Catholic school run by missionaries, in Puerto Rico. The nuns who taught Pujol by their example, influenced him to attend a monastery for 6 years. In a series entitled “Hagiography” he dresses as the nuns and even creates scenes of St Theresa de Liseaux levitating off of the ground based on photographs of the Saint. His unmistakeable razor stubble on his chin peeps out from beneath the female saints habit in a sequence of images, with blurrier and blurrier backgrounds indicating the miraculous lift. Performative in nature, the works are both humorous and sacred simultaneously.

Pujol’s work is nuanced, particularly because of gesture. It’s without guise. In “Uncommon threads-contemporary artist and clothing” exhibition catalogue, Pujol states: “I am extremely interested in fashioning a visual history of human body, as well as how we have been reduced to our bodies and clothing, in what I increasingly believe to be a post object society; through the rule of fashion…These photographs are as much about the language of the human body, as it has evolved historically, as about fashion, about an esthetic. An esthetic can be like a spiritual experience, particularly if it is synonomous with purity.“ (July 10, 2000).
Perhaps because Pujol is tapping his own experiences, his work has a ring of authenticity. Through the work, he reinterprets masculine body language and ideas via the wardrobes of monks and nuns. In the process, Pujol’s work succeeds in creating a contemplative tone, transcending gender and religion.

ernestopujol.org

Hunt, Barbara, curator. Bodies of Resistance.Visual Aids, N.Y.,2000
Mosquera, Grarado. Ernesto Pujol-Taxonomies, Galerie Ramis Barquet, Mexico,1993

Ulmer, Sean M., Uncommon Threads, Contemporary Artists and Clothing, Hebert F. Johnson Museum of Art

Volk, Gregory., “Ernesto Pujol at Priska C. Jushka- New York” Art in America, Nov 2002

-- “Ernesto Pujol, Conversion of Manners Contemporanea 2000” Absolute Arts.com, July 31, 2000

MV

michelvarisco.com

What’s So Funny About Paws, Claws, and Anthropomorphism?

It is only when we get close to animals, and examine them with open minds, that we are likely to glimpse the being within.

-Jonathan Balcombe, Pleasurable Kingdom


From Eadweard Muybridge’s photographs of Bison and Horses to William Wegman’s endless series of his Weimaraners as actors on a stage, animals have held a storied place in photography. They have been dissected, preened, propped, posed and paraded before the camera for our entertainment and education. Three relatively recent photo books are further proof that photographers love the furry and scaly and in the end each of these books provide a small glimpse within ourselves and our relationships to the “lesser species.”




Jill Greenberg’s Monkey Portraits (Bulfinch, 2006) gives us a glimpse of our simian cousins acting out the most human of expressions: anger, fear, confusion, repulsion, et al. Of the over 70 images presented in the book, not one is a “straight shot” of a monkey or ape. Each photograph (made in Greenberg’s signature style) is carefully coaxed and manipulated so that the viewer always sees a bit of him or herself in the Monkey/Ape. The animals photographed are gorgeously groomed (in fact each animal is a trained actor ape/monkey), professionally posed and seem to be acting out very specific roles for the photographer. The range of emotions depicted by these celebrity monkeys runs the gamut and makes for some wildly entertaining viewing (Monkeys is a great book for cocktail parties). However, the sameness in the image-making and lack of creativity in the book’s layout becomes a bit distracting and I have a hard time seeing beyond the humor. The publisher’s hope that, “these monkeys in all their glory will cause you to laugh out loud and to wonder just how different we truly are,” falls just shy of the mark.




In American Cockroach (Aperture, 2005), Catherine Chalmers presents that most misunderstood of all domestic pests, the cockroach, not as stand-ins for humans, but as the sole inhabitants of a Laurie Simmons-esque world. The book is divided into three distinct chapters: Residents, Impostors and Executions; each chapter is a wonderfully absurdist study in photographic theatricality. In Residents the roaches live, work, have sex and give birth in tiny living quarters that aren’t so much miniature reproductions of human spaces as they are pop culture archetypes derived equally from art museums and DWR furniture catalogs. The Cockroach residents frolic in the light, drink out of tubs and molt next to a “Twombly.” The Chapter Impostors has the cockroaches camouflaged in a technicolor ecosystem, hidden amongst flowers and plants. The little creatures are cleverly dressed and painted to match their surroundings, hiding in plain sight rather than under refrigerators and cardboard boxes. In the final chapter, the animals are depicted being gassed, electrocuted, hanged and drowned. While many of us might relish in the idea of torturing cockroaches, the images in this chapter are very disheartening and probably the most humanizing of all the images in the book.




Andrew Zuckerman does little to manipulate the animals in his book Creature (Chronicle Books, 2007), aside of course from putting them in to a studio and blinding them with dozens of lights. From the looks of things, Zuckerman allowed the animals some controlled roaming in a large studio and he snapped away, allowing for the moments to unfold and the animals to be themselves. Of the three books, Creature is certainly the least anthropomorphic. The animals aren’t painted, they aren’t placed into “homes,” and they are not asked to act (too much) for our pleasure. No, aside from being removed from their native environment the creatures (about 170 of them) are allowed to be creatures. From the ghostly aura of a hairless cat to the powerful photos of a common dove, Zuckerman does not project humanness on the animals, his examinations allow the animals’ humanity to project upon us. The book’s layout adds to the meditative state of the images. The animals are photographed on a white background and some of the images spread across two pages. My personal favorite is the lone honeybee, printed actual size on a stark white page.


Each of the three books are worth reading and viewing, the photography is impeccable, and the images are a joy to behold. Furthermore, the books serve as a wonderful reminder that the human animal shares this planet with other equally amazing creatures and that we should be very mindful of their presence.

SB