The Sublime (e-resources)

Idris Khan is a UK artist who uses other photographers and artists (Bernd and Hilla Becher, Karl Blossfeldt, Caravaggio and others)images to create a new image. He rephotographs archive of images of Bernd and Hilla Becher's standardized industrial structures such as gas reservoirs and water towers and by digitally multi-layering them creates a single composite piece.

Idris Khan

''Every...Bernd And Hilla Becher Spherical Type Gasholders''
2004
Photographic print
208 x 160 cm
(image from: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/idris_khan_becher_gas.htm)

Kahn's work is often considered as controversial as he uses other artists work to create his singular images which raises many questions as regards originality, autorship and copyright. However Kahn's relationship to photography is very different, '' it's obviously not about re-photographing the photographs to make exact copies, but to intervene and bring a spectrum of feelings - warmth, humour, anxiety - to what might otherwise be considered cool aloof image''(http://the-artists.org/artist/Idris-Khan/), says artist and all images are copies with no originals which is a postmodern idea.

Idris Khan
“Blossfeldt…After Karl Blossfeldt ‘Art Forms in Nature’”
2005
Digital c-print, mounted on aluminium
258 x 192 cm

(image from: http://photoslaves.com/idris-khan%E2%80%99s-multi-layered-photos/)

Kahn's powerful images reminds me of childhood pavement drawings smudged by the rain. Ghostly outlines, denesly compacted details successfully creates the feeling of constant state of flux. The opacity and contrast is adjusted to ensure each layer can be seen and has a presence giving the image effect of an impressionistic charcoal drawing.
I've been familiar with Kahn's work for a number of years and I've always thought about it as something highly aesthetic but fearful at the same time. However my experience was quite disappointing when I came accross the article about Kahn's exhibitions in Victoria Miro Gallery in London(2006) as it was very evident, superficial and felt more like a short description greatlly lacking in depth.


Source:

Williams, E. (2006). Idris Khan: Victoria Miro Gallery, London and inIVA, London. Art Monthly [online], Issue 300. [http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aft&AN=505180984&site=ehost-live] (accessed online 11/03/12)

Other resources I looked at:

Demos, T. J. (2006). Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography. London: Phaidon Press.

http://photoslaves.com/idris-khan%E2%80%99s-multi-layered-photos/ (accessed online 12/03/12)

http://the-artists.org/artist/Idris-Khan/ (accessed online 11/03/12)

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/idris_khan_resources.htm (accessed online 11/03/12)

The Digital Composite (books)

Pedro Meyer ‘Truths & Fictions’

Pedro Meyer’s book is full of digitally altered images, photos that have been created out of other photos using post – production software. The main theme that runs throughout the book is contemporary United States and native culture of Oaxaca. Mexico.

Some images are supported with relevant quotes by other photographers, artists and film makers. At the end of the book there is an interview with Meyer and photographers own comments and explanations about how he created some of his images.

Live Broadcast, San Juan Mixtepec, Oaxaca, 1990/93. Pedro Meyer

This week I looked at Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer’s work. His collection of work in book ‘Truths and Fictions: a journey from documentary to digital photography ‘ at first was quite confusing experience as every image kept me guessing if it’s ‘real’, perspective trick or product of digital special effects.
I also realized how much we trust pictures because they’re pictures. That is crazy because it takes away our responsibility to investigate the truth for ourselves to approach the images with care and with caution. Meyer’s images maintain sense of narrative and surrealistic ways. With his collection he creates relationship between space and time which is a creative way of strategy for producing a documentary image.

Mexican Serenade, Yuma, Arizona, 1985/92. Pedro Meyer.

Meyer’s ‘Truth & Fictions’ series are commonly called digitally – altered images but which Meyer refers to as found and made images. He does not change his images to mislead but to point out things we might otherwise not see.
Meyer describes his images as being documentary truthful and ‘real’. That sounds absurd and impossible as digital composites are used to create the wrong impression, to shock the public and mislead the public and we come across that every day by different media such as press, campaigns and News. However Meyer thinks that with his digital composites he will ‘open’ the viewers’ eyes and make everyone look more critically towards all flow of information.


References:

Meyer,P (1995) Truth & Fiction: a journey from documentary to digital photography, Aperture Foundation, New York.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG6Bu8gpoYg (accessed online 05\03\12)

Image from : http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=pedro+meyer+live+broadcast&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1680&bih=896&tbm=isch&tbnid=mHhImfKwh7Wk5M:&imgrefurl=http://qaysi.livejournal.com/&docid=Un4aNy4lObJe3M&imgurl=http://pics.livejournal.com/qaysi/pic/00005dba/s320x240&w=320&h=225&ei=jQVWT_HDCfSA0AXTnITzCQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=612&vpy=163&dur=369&hovh=180&hovw=256&tx=139&ty=122&sig=117773917198373748374&page=1&tbnh=152&tbnw=199&start=0&ndsp=30&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0

Still life and play (journals)

Corin Hewitt Corin Hewitt is a New York-based artist who is best known for his manipulation of homegrown and store-bought materials through cooking, sculpting, heating and cooling, eating, and photographing. At first glance Corin Hewitt's still lifes are reminiscent to a classic 3D still life painting and although Corin Hewitt's still lifes don't look quite playful I think they are experimental and still I'd say in his work there is playfulness in some kind of experimental way (suspended cabbage and pan in untitled #32)
The artist has a great sense of humor. Through his food setups (I do not just want to call them still lifes as they're not classic still lifes as we used to) he creates that playfulness.
With his still lives he combines aspects of performance art. Hewitt's 'Seed Stage' series has this theatrical feel that gives his images rustic style.
The light is also very important in his food setups, 'Often in the photographs I want to create the feeling of light that is pressing against the objects. I try to make light that urges or suggests the objects inevitable entry into the background', says artist.

Untitled #32, November 9, 2008 from Seed Stage

© Corin Hewitt

(image from: http://theexposureproject.blogspot.com/2010/02/corin-hewitt.html)

Untitled #13, November 9, 2008 from Seed Stage

© Corin Hewitt

(image from: http://theexposureproject.blogspot.com/2010/02/corin-hewitt.html)

Source:

Blind Spot #41



Other sources I looked at:
http://theexposureproject.blogspot.com/2010/02/corin-hewitt.html) accessed online 05/03/2012

(http://globallightingblog.com/tag/seedstage) accessed online 05/03/2012

The Mugshot (web)

Roland Fischer

In the series of 'Los Angeles Portraits' (1989 - 1993) Fischer's headshots depicts men's and women's faces of various ages. They are serene and the sitters facial expressions are quite odd and maybe even ambiguous but present and distinctive.
Certain details reminds me of mugshot type photographs as Fischer uses this idea of standardazation. All women he photographed are beautiful, they all are photographed in swiming pool with the same blue background and he only takes a picture of the head and shoulders. Te title of the series, blue background and the fact that all the women he photographs are beutiful gives his images a Hollywood type feel where everything is about the beauty and wealth.
Fischer is firstly interested in the “contrast between the surface with an almost mathematical character of the photograph and the natural shape of the human face.

'Los Angeles Portraits' (1989-1993) by Roland Fischer.

Source:

(http://www.mudam.lu/en/le-musee/la-collection/details/artist/roland-fischer/)






Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin
Glyn Jones is an engineer for Photo - Me International who services machines in Cornwall area. When I came accross this image I started finding out more about the photo booths that we all have used to take this mugshot type self-portrait. Photo booths across Britain are serviced weekly to maintain Home Office standards as they regulate the format and style of passport photographs. The engineers are required to make test portraits of themselves and send them for approval to head office.

Glyn Jones, Photo-Me Engineer, Cornwall, UK. © Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin

(images: scanned from Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Fig.)

Sources:

Broomberg, A.; Chanarin, O. (2007). Fig. Brighton: Photoworks.

http://www.photoworks.org.uk/programme/publications/fig




Taryn Simon 'The Innocents'

American photographer Taryn Simon's self-portrait that plays with our brain confusing our ability to identify and proves that distortion is constant in our eyes. Changes in photograph are easily detected by the brain when the head is the right side up. Identical changes are difficult for the brain to process when the head is upside down.

Self-portrait (rotate 180° to view)

(image from: http://www.blindspot.com/artists/index.php?id=simon_taryn)

Simon's self-portrait links in with the series called 'The Innocents' where she photographed men and women from accross the United States who had been wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit. With these series she investigates photography's ability to blur truth and fiction and it's influence on memory which sometimes can lead to lethal consequences. For the men in these photographs the primary cause of their wrongful convictions was mistaken identification.

'The Innocents' touches the theme of photography offering the criminal justice system a tool that transforms citizens into criminals and the criminal justice system fails to recognize the limitations of relying on photographic identification.
Taryn Simon photographed all the wrongfuly convicted at places that came to particular significance in history of their convictions - the scene of arrest, the scene of misidentification, the alibi location and even scene of the crime.


Faces are funny things. And it's interesting how we are able to recognise, identify people by certain features such as the shape of the eyes and size of the nose. But it's very easy to make a mistake and misidentify when you're trying to identify somebody by memory and even photograph.



Sources:

http://www.mocp.org/exhibitions/2005/08/taryn_simon_the.php

http://blog.ted.com/2009/09/24/photographing_s/

http://tarynsimon.com/video_innocents.php

The Body As A Political Site (journals)

Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin’s controversial and intimate portraits of friends and lovers document her involvement in the New York City post punk new wave musical climate of the 70s and 80s. The main themes of her early pictures are love, gender (gay and transvestite subcultures), domesticity, domestic violence and sexuality. Usually made with available light.

Nan Goldin ''Nan after beeing battered'' 1984

(image from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/goldin-nan-one-month-after-being-battered-p78045)

Personal is Political

It could easily be all about ''me, me, me'', as Goldin puts it and her detractors have charged, but the personal world she captured had a political edge, holding up a mirror to wider society. She says women all over the world have told her how important the self - portrait, ''Nan One Month After Being Battered'' (1984), has been in helping lift the lid on domestic violence. Goldin explains that she only took and kept this photograph so she could remember what Brian did to her and would not go back to him.

Her pictures of the gay scene in New York took on an added dimension as the world came to terms with the impact of AIDS.

Nan Goldin wrote:'' AIDS changed everything. The people I feel knew me the best, who understood me, the people who carried my history, the people I grew up with and I was planning to get old with are gone… I don’t believe photography stops time…I still believe pictures can preserve life rather than kill life. The pictures in the Ballad haven’t changed. But Cookie is dead, Kenny is dead, Mark is dead, Max is dead, Vittorio is dead. So for me, the book is now a volume of loss, while still a ballad of love.''

For many years Goldin was photographing people's external behaviour, their realationships, their sexuality and their gender identification. She has many friends who live between genders and she thinks that there are many varieties of gender and she has been obsessed with that all along so she photographed them and their lives and how happy and proud they were of their bodies.

“Misty and Jimmy Paulette in taxi'' by Nan Goldin (1991)

(image from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/goldin-misty-and-jimmy-paulette-in-a-taxi-nyc-p78046)

Most of people Goldin photographed in 'The Ballad' died of AIDS. Her series ''The Cookie Portfolio'' shows her friend photographed from 1976 to her death from the syndrome in 1989. After Cookie died Goldin just wanted to isolate herself and it made her very detached from people as they were very close friends. She photographed some of her friends who were ill to try to keep them alive, to leave traces of their lives but then after some of them died she realized how little photography could preserve.

More recently, Goldin's found herself clashing with contemporary taboos about the depiction of children - especially in Britain - whom she has shot throughout her career ( ''The Ballad'' includes a sequence of seven images of children).

Reserching photographers for my theme (body as a political site) I realized that body has become seen as a political site within the recent years and it is shaped around politics and culture.
We live in a society that is very much obsessed with the body, there is a constant unspoken and sometimes spoken push for us to be normal/normalised and any kind of bodies that are seen as not normal are really excluded from society.

Goldin's work has always been misunderstood. It seems to be about drugs, sex, transvestites and parties but it is about the condition of beeing human, the pain, the ability to survive and how difficult that is, real life. Everything that Goldin saw on television had nothing to do with real life. She never wanted to be a aprt of a normal society so she wanted to make a record of it. She carried camera everywhere she went and recorded every aspect of her life and life of her friends. Camera functioned partially as Goldin's memory.
Goldin's approach to photography is very personal as she often puts herself at the centre of her own work. Photography is her way to communicate and 'to survive when she goes through something
scary or traumatic', she says.

Sources:

British Journal Of Photography - August 2011, Volume 158, issue...pages 27 -35, Interview with Nan Goldin.

Other resources I looked at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUX5rR5d4oQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xKDsrMH-Sg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ9-aSRvdf0