December

Tacit Knowing

More recent images:

Still working with mostly abstract color images and exploring light and perception, but I don't know where it's going yet. Right now I'm into the idea of tacitness (Tacit Knowing by Michael Polanyi) and the role it plays in our motives behind making art and using images, etc.

Bathrooms

I'm reading a book that Annie Hogan lent me called The Object Stares Back by James Elkins. He mentions that bathrooms are the room best designed for seeing; it is also the only room perfectly sealed against seeing, and is a space of absolute privacy. I like photographing rooms and living spaces as much as the next photographer, but there is something especially appealing about bathrooms. This is a photo I made last year of my friend Rachel-

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Authenticity

Hans Aarsman Ted talk from 2009

Google street view

Doug Rickard:

I saw some of Doug Rickard's photographs at the MoMa yesterday...images taken from Google Maps. They are very reminiscent of color street photography from the 70's- Eggleston, Stephen Shore, etc. Rickard's images are published in a booked called "A New American Picture", which seems to be a riff on Walker Evan's "American Photographs".  Knowing the artist's intent gives the photographs a new dimension though...I'm not that into the idea of an artist "taking photos" using the internet, but a phenomenon like Google's street views is a part of our media-based and image-swamped society that can't be ignored. I started looking at some other artists working with this process-

Michael Wolf

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Jon Rafman: http://9-eyes.com/

and

Apres Garde: http://buchr.tumblr.com/

Recent photos

I've recently been wandering around New Brunswick taking pictures with my 35mm. New Brunswick is kind of enigmatic to me- almost like a twilight zone. (I could probably say that about any place after living there for a while.) New Brunswick is a college town, it's the "Healthcare City", it's close to New York, it's known as Little Mexico in some parts, other parts are "shady"...there is really no definition for it. (Again, you could probably say that about anywhere if you really got to know it). These photos are taken mostly around French Street-an area that a lot of students don't frequent-where the separation of class/culture in our community is made clear. I'm kind of interested in documenting the different sides of certain overlooked parts of New Brunswick in a photojournalistic way, but I also enjoy making images using just the streets and light/shadows and overgrown land plots as my subjects. I'm going to stick with color film; its printing process and the resulting image are much for appealing for me than that of black and white. 

This last image interests me a lot- it was the first image made on the roll of film where the light seeped in...I don't know where or when it was exposed- it's just an accidental image that happens to have been made using a camera. 

11/11/11

Today in thesis class Gerry announced that next week we will be submitting a first draft of our thesis proposals, which should be something of a synthesis of our blog. Frankly I haven't been using my blog as a true outlet for what i'm working on and thinking about, so transforming my blog this far into a thesis proposal would amount to something pretty shallow. Although I think my lack of blog enthusiasm during the first two months of the semester partly reflected my lack of artistic drive (which has taken a turn for the better recently), it also reflects the trouble I frequently have with organizing my ideas and convictions. I am hereafter going to use this blog more so I can really address just what it is I am trying to get at.

Brooklyn

Visiting Brooklyn last Friday was a good chance to see what the art scene is like there. New York is arguably the center of the art world, which must make Brooklyn something like the backstage. Our plan to visit the first studio fell through on account of traffic or something, so instead we walked around a bit and saw some galleries. I especially liked the third gallery we stepped into called Interstate Projects, where we saw a video installation from the artist Jesse McLean. The exhibition, called Trust Falls, consisted of two different videos projected in adjacent rooms. The larger projection was a 20-or-so-minute string of shots of various spaces. It well-made technically and the way the shots flowed from one to the next was mysterious and intriguing, eerie at times. It really made me want to start making videos again (I haven't really made a video for two years now).
The studio which we did visit, the Bruce High Quality Foundation, was interesting in the sense that we got to see how a group of artists are working together and playing off each other's creativity. It was kind of surreal to be inside a warehouse where people have come together just to make art, and then step outside to the beautiful weather and the distant views of New York- it all seemed so contingent & left me thinking on the bus ride back to New Brunswick about what exactly I'm doing in terms of art & where I want to go.

Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees

I just finished reading Lawrence Weschler's biography of Robert Irwin. Annie Hogan recommended it to me when I expressed my interest in perception. I'd like to recommend it to everyone... the book, which is really more of a direct conversation with Irwin, lays out the steady progression of his life through different stages. At one point while he was traveling through Europe he even decided to just live in seclusion in Ibiza for eight months. He was tremendously focused and dedicated to his work, constantly creating questions, always asking more of himself. He was also not afraid to simply drop everything and try thinking in a new light. His artwork is really his perception itself, and how he has altered his perception through experimentation. Although it seems a little contradictory to Irwin's aesthetic philosophy to post an image of his work,

Critique

For the first critique with Rachel Malin I showed digital portraits taken during my time in Spain. For the second critique (this past Friday) I presented three B&W prints, also portraits but definitley with much more of a sensual and intimate feel to them than the digital Spain ones. I think I realize now more than ever how much my photography is based upon voyeurism. It is a topic which is relevant to all photography in some way or another, and something which I truly began investigating last year when I did a series of photographs taken thorugh the window of my bedroom. With my voyeuristic work I particularly relate to a series called "Dreamtown" by Carlos Chavarria: 

I like taking candid photos of both strangers and friends, using the camera lens to crop the scene into something strange. Another influence in voyeruism for me is Saul Leiter's color work:

                                      

As I tried to explain in the last critique, I am frustrated right now with photography because I feel like I am constantly striving to produce something more than just an image on paper. The notion of image vs. object has been conflicting my mindset ever since Julie Langsam's drawing class last year, where she challenged us to create an object rather than an image. Leiter produces photographs, plain and simple- images on paper. I really do love photographs just as they are. But as far as my "artistic potential" I definitely think I want to go further. I am going to work through my self-induced photography-as-a-medium frustration- what I need most to do that is to just keep taking pictures of what interests me, and maybe I'll even come to some sort of an epiphany...In the meantime, I'm in the mood for collages.

Rosh Hashanah

Ardele Lister decided to cancel seminar in video today in the name of Rosh Hashanah. I decided to make the most of the no-class holiday by spending all day in the darkroom, first B&W then color. The first assignment for my photography class with Annie Hogan is to experiment with something, anything, be it a technique or subject or process. Since I haven't been in the darkroom for two years I thought this project was a good opportunity to experiment with printing- no deep meaning attached, just plain old printing. I used negatives of various images taken within the past year, both from my nikon slr and disposable cameras. After the initial scrambling around I found that I got right back into the swing of things. The truth is I love being in the darkroom, focusing the enlarger, testing the aperature, witnessing an image appear on paper in the developing bath, adjusting little by little. The entire process of creating an image on paper manually is completely taken for granted with digital work. I'm definitely going to continue working only with film for now. I always think about the process as opposed to the end result, and right now it's the process that is holding my interest.

Welcome Back show

Mason Gross faculty and 2nd year graduate students have a lot to offer in this year's Welcome Back show. I spent quite a bit of time (on separate occasions) in each of the gallery rooms. My first impression upon seeing the exhibition differs from my impression after having time to truly spend with the artwork. That my opinion changed after repeated visits shows me how important it is to be with the art for a time, rather than just glaze over it. I also found myself appreciating the exhibition more after hearing about the effort and consideration that went into designing the layout.

We were told to blog about aspects of the show that worked together or didn't; things we liked or hated. I honestly can't say that I hated anything- yet there were definitely areas of the gallery in which I tended to linger longer. Something about Diane Neumaier's photograph is really intriguing to me. (Not a surprise that I am choosing to talk about a photograph- I don't usually feel as comfortable critiquing mediums which I am not as familiar with.) Diane's "Untitled" is labeled as an ink jet photograph, which tells me that it is digitally printed. At first glance it doesn't look like any recognizable genre of photography at all. A gray background is accented by two cut-outs of blue and yellow and a thin sliver of a light glare. The different colors of the two shapes confuses the figure-ground relationship of the image. If they were the same colors, I would be able to see them as both the background of the image and the foreground. Instead, I am forced to accept that the gray matte color is containing the two ambiguous shapes (one of whose edges are more hand-cut than the other). This photograph reminds me of James Turrell- a light artist who has held my attention since seeing one of his exhibition's last year. In the past he has created enclosed rooms with ceilings that open to the sky. "Skyspaces".

These spaces leave a small shape of sky to be seen and contemplated, which is how I think of Diane's blue and yellow cut-outs. Through contemplation my perception changes how I view the image & I start questioning my eyes' discretion.

I think it was a good decision to pair this photograph next to a painting by Catherine Murphy called "Her Bedroom Wall". Larger in size, this is a painting of photographs of faces pinned to a wall. The title makes me think that the wall belongs to someone close to Catherine. The painting is divided by four corners where each of the picturese of faces are. They are all smiling. A couple of them have ripped edges as thouh they were torn in two or out of a magazine. The faces are cut off at the edges of the painting, which distorts the smiling faces in a strange way. The people in these photographs have a certain hostile edge to them in their piercing eyes and the jagged glares of light hitting their fake skin. The girl in the bottom right corner looks like she is actually engulfed in flames. Unlike Diane's piece which is containted within the borders of the photograph, Catherines painting emphasizes cropping. The placement of these two pieces next to each other causes me to wonder about the artists' intents compositionally. The two are united because both compositions are so simple (to the point of uneasiness) and intentional, though in regards to content they are drastically different.

Interview with Taos

Taos is a scupltor working with different types of metal and wood, large and small. He also makes and sells his own jewelry from sterling silver.

Taos: This was my final project for sculpture-II. It’s made from steel and enamel, and it was influenced by Robert Smithson and Richard Serra.

Me: Was it site-specific?

Taos: Yea, it’s heavy. I set up at the LAB. I was happy with this piece. It was helpful for me to really convey the ideas I was trying to convey about space and connections and the relationships that make up a whole. It’s about the single units that all combine together to create a cohesive piece in space.

Me: Why did you choose the blue color?

Taos: Because I had access to that material; there was a lot of that enamel paint.

Me: So do you work with found materials a lot?

Taos: Yea, you kinda have to. These materials are so expensive on their own. This is all salvaged steel.

Taos: This was an installation I did at LAB last year. I used the same concept of connections, points connecting and making up a whole. I did drawings beforehand. The theme of the project was tension. I anchored it to the celing, and then I drilled anchors to the floor. 

Taos: This is some of my metal working, made form steel.

Me: How do you bend the steel?

Taos: That stuff is pretty thin. It’s a sheet, pretty malleable, so I can actually bend it with my hands. I cut off the steel with a plasma cutter and then did a few different welds together, then just used force to put it together. It’s all cold fusion – no heat or soldering techniques. Its all bending and twisting. Again, it depends on the metal. Sterling is a pretty soft metal as opposed to something like steel.

Taos: This is some of my earlier work – a relief project. This is about sacred geometry. A lot of architecture is based off these ratios that also exist in nature. And that’s something I’m really fascinated with in my work. It’s a huge inspiration to me. I studied a lot of european renaissance architecture; there are a lot of cathedrals particularly built off this formula.

Me: Would you say that you try to create work that is representational, abstract?

Taos: Recently I’ve been moving towards more abstract ways of working. I initially had trouble with abstraction when I first started out with painting, but I learned how to deduce and learned more about abstraction, and that allowed me to go in the route I felt that my work needed to go.

Me: Do you always draw first?

Taos: No, I have different ways of working. Sometimes I’ll draw things out and I’ll do sketches. I’ll have a pretty cohesive idea of what I want to do. Other times, like with the blue metal piece, it’s more conceptual for me. I had an idea about these forms and this space I wanted to create, and I just worked and the piece kind of built itself. I worked in a different way than I’d ever worked before. And it was successful in my opinion.

Me: For me, sculpture seems like it’s more about the process than the end result. The process of working with the physical materials.What do you think?

Taos: Absolutely. I mean there are so may materials available. These are material objects; it’s not a painting on the wall. It’s something cohesive that you can touch, so I think proess is very important – being able to see process is important.

Taos: This is a wall relief, built out of a chair. The back of the chair is jutting out of the wall. It was representational of a landscape.

Me: I like the shadow it creates. Is lighting a big issue when it comes to your work?

Taos: I spent a lot of time lighting this piece, but that’s not the case with all my work. With indoor work yes. But I’ve been doing a lot of big projects outside. That’s what ive really been drawn to, which is a whole different animal.

Me: What kind of work do you think youre steering towards right now?

Taos: Right now the work that I want to be doing is related to formalism and some of those ideas about the deduction of a piece down to the pure essence of form and color. Nothing less and nothing more, and that’s just simple. It’s a way that Ive been recently drawn to as far as understanding abstraction.

Me: You mentioned Richard Serra as an influence. Other influences?

Taos: Robert smithson. Smith, however I disagree with some of his work.

Me: Beyond working with the space of an area, what would you say youre trying to say with your sculptures? Are you still exploring right now?

Taos: I’m absolutely still in exploration. I’m still learning a lot about my work, myself, and the ways in which I work. I think I want to go in the direction of processed-based work.

Me: Do you thnk you’d ever incorporate your jewerly-making into your sculptures?

Taos: Yea, I’ve tried to bridge the gap between my jewelerly and my sculpting career several times. My mentors are highly against it. They say that I’m too familiar with this medium. I know it well like that back of my hand, so it restricts some of my potential for creating better sculptures.

Me: I agree with that. I think these are really beautiful and wearable, but with your installation pieces you can go in so many different directions. Do you think sculpture offers you an outlet that another medium couldn’t, such as drawing?

Taos: Absolutely. The process, the building, the physical manifestation of an idea into a concrete piece is a very beautiful thing to me. It’s awesome to start with single idea and work through weeks or months, or however long it takes to exectute that idea. It’s very rewarding to have a substantial physical object to show for not only the time and effort but the original idea.