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