Visiting Artist #3: Robert Crumb

Due to my enrollment in a Counterculture Literature class here at VCU I had the unbelievable luck to get to see the Robert Crumb lecture last night at Richmond’s Centerstage. He was there to discuss his most recent book, a fully illustrated version of Genesis, based largely on Robert Alter’s 2004 translation. If you’re interested in comics, you already know who Robert Crumb is. Françoise Mouly, who would be interviewing him at this event, might not have the same name recognition as her more controversial subject, but her contribution to the world of comics is substantial. Together, after a brief introduction, these two giants of comics took the stage at the Carpenter Center on a rainy Tuesday night to discuss Genesis and all things Crumb.

When I say Crumb “took the stage” I could more accurately say “hit the stage,” as he made his entrance with a perfectly executed pratfall — a trick he’s apparently been working on of late. Crumb is not someone who’s known to be particularly interested in interviews, book tours, etc. so there was certainly some discussion before-hand as to how engaged he might be in the discussion to come. He addressed this head-on, semi-sarcastically remarking, “It’s an ordeal, but I’m a nice guy! It’ll help sell books….” Françoise began by suggesting that she’d be attempting, through the interview, to disabuse the audience of what she feels are some inaccurate perceptions that people generally have about R. Crumb: “People think they know you.”

The final — and most lengthy — topic of the Mouly/Crumb interview portion of the evening was a discussion of Genesis. In one of the more memorable moments of the interview, Françoise had brought along with her a stack of complaints The New Yorker had received after publishing an excerpt of the book, and she began reading them to Crumb. People’s grousing ranged from letters tersely complaining that the work was “salacious and adolescent” to a lengthy multi-page diatribe from a Hebrew scholar who was apparently quite upset about a single word in the text, which he felt had been inaccurately translated. On the general topic of translation minutiae, Crumb said, “The people who are into this stuff don’t even agree on what it all means. And people kill each other over this thing!” Another letter complained that the Crumb Genesis excerpt “didn’t add anything” to the original text. Responded Crumb: “I didn’t want to add anything. I just wanted to illustrate it.”

I found his work to be crude, yet, intriguing at this it’s best. He not an artist that I would necessary follow, however, he is defiantly of a type of mild amusement. The types of people that he brought out did not surprise me, neither did the price of the tickets…

10/26/09 Artist Post: Merry Alpern

In 1995, with the unexpected help of an NEA rejection, Merry Alpern became notorious for her photo series "Dirty Windows." Shot covertly across an airshaft, through a bathroom window on Wall Street, Alpern's photographs of female prostitutes and high-powered businessmen are strange and indistinct. Captured yet elusive, these images are more startling in their voyeuristic magnetism than they are shocking. The viewer must try to make sense of them, to cull stories from blurred lines and sheds of fabric. The viewer was shown images of blow jobs, strip teases, coke snorting, and a bunch more of other types of activities.

Alpern herself said:
“Reoccurring characters gave these pantomimes a soap opera quality and I'd try to decipher plot lines and guess the next scene. These minidramas and their unvarying props-- condoms, tattoos, silicone, crack-- filled my head and I began to think about the windows all the time. They found their way into my dreams.”

She captures absolute strangers in intimate situations. Her quest is the unadulterated, immediate moment and not a pose struck by someone aware they are being photographed. The persons captured in her camera’s viewfinder do not become suspicious, nor do they later discover their role in Alpern’s photographs. But then these are not portraits or photographs of persons but rather pictures of actions. Alpern’s final shots are such that her subject’s face – and thus identity – remains concealed.

Alpern’s images are incredibly invasive which is something that I strive for. The way that she frames the windows and catches these acts blows my mind. I think that the grainy quality of her images makes them even stronger. It helps you feel just like your peeking in, which is exactly what she was doing. While the images that I am working on now less and less have to do with these types of images I am still trying to find the perfect opportunity to arise where I am able to capture images like this, not exactly like these but with the same intrusive quality.

Gallery:
http://www.bonnibenrubi.com/Merry-Alpern_12_artworkdetails.html

Interview:
N/a

Website:
N/a

I was having a difficult time looking for information on Merry Alpern. She didn’t have a website and I couldn’t find any interviews either.

10/22/09 Word Post: Surveillance

Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people and often in a surreptitious manner. It most usually refers to observation of individuals or groups. Surveillance maintains social control, recognizes and monitor threats, and prevent/investigate criminal activity.

Some supporters of surveillance systems believe that these tools protect society from terrorists and criminals. Other supporters simply believe that there is nothing that can be done about it, and that people must become accustomed to having no privacy. As Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy said: "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”
Some groups fear that society is moving towards a state of mass surveillance with severely limited personal, social, political freedoms, where dissenting individuals or groups will be strategically removed.

I have pretty much just been doing surveillance on people. Watching them as they walk by, trying to see what they are up to when they think nobody is watching. My last attempt at this was using a rearview mirror and trying to photograph the people in the cars behind me. This feat is actually difficult and I am having a hard time doing it.

Ethier, Jason. "Current Research in Social Network Theory" (in English). Northeastern University College of Computer and Infomation Science. http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/perrolle/archive/Ethier-SocialNetworks.html. Retrieved 2009-03-15.

Jensen, Derrick; George Draffan (2004) (in English). Welcome To The Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control. Chelsea Green Publishing Company. pp. 131. ISBN 978-1931498524.

Ressler, Steve (July 2006). "Social Network Analysis as an Approach to Combat Terrorism: Past, Present, and Future Research" (in English). Homeland Security Affairs Volume II (2). http://www.hsaj.org/?fullarticle=2.2.8. Retrieved March 14, 2009.

10/19/09 Artist Post: John Pfahl

“John Pfahl is an exemplary post-modernist landscape photographer. He is in love with the sensuous qualities of unspoiled vistas, and with the detailed transcription of them that a traditional view camera provides. But he is too self-conscious and historically aware an artist to give in to what tempts him, so he puts a conceptual frame around every picture he takes.” John Pfahl's work is a tireless investigation of our perceptions, encompassing a variety of approaches but always with a keen awareness of the interaction of vision, images, and nature. His series "Picture Windows" (1978-81) framed the way we likely spend the most time seeing, on a daily basis. Below is Pfahl’s artist statement having to do with his “Picture Windows” series.

“While making my "picture window" photographs, I came to think that every room was like a gigantic camera forever pointed at the same view. In the dictionary, of course, the word camera in Latin means chamber or room.
I searched the country for these cameras and their views: the more unusual or picturesque, the better. It was often hard to tell from the outside what could be seen from the inside, so I was usually surprised when I discovered a scene in its new context.
Strangers with puzzled looks were amazingly cooperative in letting me into their rooms with my photographic gear. They let me take down the curtains, wash the windows, and rearrange the furniture. Often, too, they expressed their desire to share their view with others, as if it were a nondepletable treasure.
I liked the idea that my photographic vantage points were not solely determined by myself. They were predetermined by others, sometimes years earlier, and patiently waited for me to discover them.”

I am currently trying to discover the formal components of the window and what exactly it means. I am not sure what exactly it means but John Pfahl was using it as a frame for what was outside the window as opposed to what the window means. He has a very formal way for his images and I hope that this becomes clear in my images as well.

Website:
http://johnpfahl.com/

Interview:
N/A

Gallery:
http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/search/artist_work_e.jsp?iartistid=4295

Artist Lecture #2: Brian Ulrich

Brian Ulrich (born 1971) is an American photographer known for his photographic exploration of consumer culture. Born in Northport, New York, Ulrich lives in Chicago, Illinois. In 2001 in response to a national call for citizens to bolster the American economy through shopping, Ulrich began a project to document consumer culture. This project, Copia, is a series of large-scale photographs of shoppers, retail spaces, and displays of goods. Initially focused on big-box retail establishments and shoppers, the series expanded to include thrift stores, back rooms of retail businesses, art fairs and most recently empty retail stores and dead malls.

I must say that there is defiantly something about his work that I just can’t get enough of. I rather seem to enjoy the pieces that do not have people in them more. I found his lecture to be thorough and Ulrich to be an intriguing speaker with a great sense of humor. He defiantly knew how to draw the crowd in to listen to what he had to say. I think his images that were the strongest were defiantly those in which they were on accident. However, looking at his website his Trashcam series is defiantly intriguing and I just can’t get enough of it. You can tell by viewing Ulrich’s images that he has a lot to say of America’s over consumerism. Even in the above spilt milk image, you can see that somebody dropped a case of Pepsi on top of the Faygo, most likely because it was a lot cheaper. This is defiantly an artist that I want to keep tabs on.

Website:
http://notifbutwhen.com/

Interview:
http://www.lostateminor.com/2008/09/10/brian-ulrich/#more-9605

Gallery:
http://www.artnet.com/artist/424468234/brian-ulrich.html

10/15/09 Word Post: Privacy

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group of people that seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. The boundaries and content of what is considered private differ among cultures and individuals, but share basic common themes. The right against unsanctioned invasion of privacy by the government, corporations or individuals is part of many countries' privacy laws, and in some cases, constitutions. Almost all countries have laws, which in some way limit privacy. Privacy may be voluntarily sacrificed, normally in exchange for perceived benefits and very often with specific dangers and losses, although this is a very strategic view of human relationships. The concept of privacy is most often associated with Western culture, English and North American in particular. According to some researchers, the concept of privacy sets Anglo-American culture apart even from other Western European cultures such as French or Italian. The concept is not universal and remained virtually unknown in some cultures until recent times. Linguists sometimes regard a word “privacy” as untranslatable. Many languages lack a specific word for "privacy". Concerning privacy laws of the United States, privacy is not guaranteed per se by the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States has found that other guarantees have "penumbras" that implicitly grant a right to privacy against government intrusion.

In the case of some technologies, such as the printing press or the Internet, the increased ability to share information can lead to new ways in which privacy can be breached. Privacy uses the theory of natural rights, and generally responds to new information and communication technologies. In North America, Warren and Brandeis’ assertion that privacy is the “right to be let alone” (Warren & Brandeis, 1890) focuses on protecting individuals. This citation was a response to recent technological developments, such as photography, and sensationalist journalism. Warren and Brandeis declared that information which was previously hidden and private was now shouted from the rooftops. Privacy rights are inherently intertwined with information technology.

“Each individual is continually engaged in a personal adjustment process in which he balances the desire for privacy with the desire for disclosure and communication of himself to others, in light of the environmental conditions and social norms set by the society in which he lives.” - Alan Westin, Privacy and Freedom.

The intrusion of privacy is exactly what I am going to be doing in



Tim Wafa (January 2008). "Internet Privacy Rights - A Pragmatic Legal Perspective". Berkeley
Electronic Press. http://works.bepress.com/tim_wafa/. Retrieved 2008-08-17.

Quinn, Michael J. (2009). Ethics for the Information Age. ISBN 0-321-53685-1.

Westin, A. (1968). Privacy and freedom (Fifth ed.). New York, U.S.A.: Atheneum.

10/12/09 Artist Post: Kohei Yoshiyuki

Mr. Yoshiyuki was a young commercial photographer in Tokyo in the early 1970s when he and a colleague walked through Chuo Park in Shinjuku one night. He noticed a couple on the ground, and then one man creeping toward them, followed by another. “I had my camera, but it was dark,” he told the photographer Nobuyoshi Araki in a 1979 interview for a Japanese publication. Kohei Yoshiyuki’s Park series are taken between 1971-79 and documents sexual encounters in Tokyo’s Shinjuku, Yoyogi and Aoyama parks. Researching the technology in the era before infrared flash units, he found that Kodak made infrared flashbulbs. Mr. Yoshiyuki returned to the park, and to two others in Tokyo, through the ’70s. He photographed heterosexual and homosexual couples engaged in sexual activity and the peeping toms who stalked them. If the social phenomena captured in these photographs seem distinctly linked to Japanese culture, Mr. Yoshiyuki’s images of voyeurs reverberate well beyond it. Viewing his pictures means that you too are looking at activities not supposed to be seen by other people. We line up right behind the photographer, surreptitiously watching the peeping toms who are secretly watching the couples.
For that show the pictures were blown up to life size, the gallery lights were turned off, and each visitor was given a flashlight. Mr. Yoshiyuki wanted to reconstruct the darkness of the park. “I wanted people to look at the bodies an inch at a time,” he has said.

Karen Irvine, curator of the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, said Mr. Yoshiyuki’s work is important because “it addresses photography’s unique capacity for observation and implication.” She locates his work in the tradition of artists who modified their cameras with decoy lenses and right-angle viewfinders to gain access to private moments. “Yoshiyuki’s photographs explore the boundaries of privacy, an increasingly rare commodity. Ironically, we may reluctantly accommodate ourselves to being watched at the A.T.M the airport, in stores, but our appetite for observing people in extremely personal circumstances doesn’t seem to wane.”

When viewing Yoshiyuki’s images of his Park series, I can’t help but hope that my images are even half as successful. The way that he takes these images with the subjects remaining unknowing is something that I am striding to succeed at. We are both worried about remaining anonymous for the mere success of our images. If he subjects had known he was there, it would have completely altered the way that they acted and his images would not have contained the same image. This is defiantly something that will impact my images as well.

Gallery:

http://www.yossimilogallery.com/artists/kohe_yosh/

Interview:

http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/03/interview-nobuyoshi-araki-in.html

Website:

N/a

10/8/09 Word Post: Voyeur

Voyearism is the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors. These intimate behaviors could include dressing or undressing, sexual activities, or even using the restroom. Anything of a private nature. Voyeurism is a psychosexual disorder in which a person derives sexual pleasure and gratification from looking at the naked bodies and genital organs or observing the sexual acts of others. The voyeur is usually hidden from view of others. Voyeurism is a form of paraphilia. A variant form of voyeurism involves listening to erotic conversations. This is commonly referred to as telephone sex, although it is usually considered voyeurism primarily in the instance of listening to unsuspecting persons. The person being observed is usually a stranger to the observer. The act of looking or peeping is undertaken for the purpose of achieving sexual excitement. The observer generally does not seek to have sexual contact or activity with the person being observed.

“It has been claimed that some individuals who engage in "nuisance" offenses (such as voyeurism) may also have a propensity for violence. Voyeurs may demonstrate some characteristics that are common, but not universal, among sexual offenders of all types including sadistic or violent offenders who invest considerable time and effort in the capturing of a victim (or image of a victim); careful, methodical planning devoted to the selection and preparation of equipment; and often meticulous attention to detail.”

I feel that voyeurism has a lot to do with what I am doing with my project. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t feel as if my want to catch people doing something inappropriate is a problem that I need to deal with psychologically, it is just something that would make a great image. I would really like to catch some people in compromising positions because I feel as if it will make my image that much stronger.

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Fourth edition, text revised. Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2000.

Gelder, Michael, Richard Mayou, and Philip Cowen. Shorter Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Kohut, John J., Roland Sweet. Real Sex: Titillating but True Tales of Bizarre Fetishes, Strange Compulsions, and Just Plain Weird Stuff. New York: Plume, 2000.

Wilson, Josephine F. Biological Foundations of Human Behavior. New York: Harcourt, 2002.
Read more: http://www.minddisorders.com/Py-Z/Voyeurism.html#ixzz0TNDAGIUg

Artist Lecture #1: Penelope Umbrico

I went to the visiting artist lecture the other day with Penelope Umbrico and I am so glad that I went! I absolutely fell in love with her work. Her series that have to do with honeymoon brochures and the sunsets that they show in the windows as well as the discolored television sets. I think that I like these images so much because of the saturated colors in them. I think it is hilarious that we are supposed to believe that the sunsets shown are actually natural. I also never would have thought to find such beauty in television sets being sold on craigslist. I also really enjoyed the images that she took from home magazines where she pulled the windows and doors out and then blew them up to life size. It was funny to see what these ad agencies thought were a “natural” setting.

I usually have a big problem with appropriation. However, I could not be more impress by how Umbrico responded to questions about it. She mentioned that she dared somebody to go up to her sunset piece, the one where she pulled all of the images from flickr, and find their sunset. She has a point. I doubt anybody could because they have been so distorted in the blowing up process that your own personal sunset would be pretty much unrecognizable.
Although I did not find Umbrico to be a strong speaker, I still couldn’t help but to fall in love with her work. This is one artist that I will continue to follow and see where her ideas take her next.

Website:
http://www.penelopeumbrico.net/

Gallery:
http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/retrieve.pl?section=review&issue=issue01&article=LOVELESS_PENELOPE_UMBRICO_131319

Interview:
http://www.penelopeumbrico.net/Essays/5.html

10/5/09 Artist Post: Sarah Stolfa

Sarah Stolfa was working as a bartender at McGlinchey's bar while she was studying photography.
In her series "The Regulars" she manages to portray exactly how these people presented themselves on an almost daily basis. Each person that is photographed is sitting individually at the bar with whatever it was that they had sitting in front of them whether it was the type of drink they were sipping on, the cigarettes and ashtrays, car keys, etc. In these images Stolfa managed to find the detachment and intimacy from a person that is found sitting at a bar. Although these people kind of stride to be seen a certain way, the things that they surround themselves with may say differently. I am seeking to show this type of thing in the images that I am shooting. Although the people in my images may be doing one thing, the things that surround them in their room may show something completely different. This is where I hope to be successful in my images.

Gallery:
http://www.gallery339.com/html/ArtistResults.asp?artist=22

Website:
http://sarahstolfa.com/

Interview:
http://www.featureshoot.com/tag/sarah-stolfa-interview/

10/1/09 Word Post: Paparazzi

Paparazzo is a term for photographers who take unstaged and/or candid photographs of celebrities caught unaware. They tend to take pictures of celebrities when they are not expecting people to notice, things that they would think they could do without being bothered. Many media outlets will pay a high price for unique photographs of celebrities, such as shots of them in more candid or vulnerable moments. Many paparazzi try to get naked photographs of celebrities, always a hot item with more sordid magazines. Others catch them on bad hair days, wandering the streets of the supermarket, or socializing with friends and families. The paparazzi may break onto private property in the quest for a perfect photograph, or crash private events.
The photographs are legal if they are taken from a public spot and the celebrities (who need the entertainment news media and generate the nipple slips and pantiless vehicle exits) are public persons in the news (meaning not for commercial purposes like advertising or product endorsements).
"The rule is that if you're in the magazines you're alive and the public will know who you are," Tiegel explains about celebrities in the media. "Once you're not doing anything and you fade away from all these tabloid magazines who fight every week to produce the same stories most of the time, you disappear -- which means you're not popular anymore."
"Celebrities need a higher level of exposure than the rest of us," says Peter Howe, author of Paparazzi, which chronicles the history of the trade. "So it is a two-way street. The celebrities manipulate the paparazzi too."
Seeing how people look at paparazzi is probably going to have an impact on how I take images for this project. I do not want to be seen as a nuisance but I want to be able to take images of people without them being aware. I feel like the process is just as important as the images that I end up with in the end. I still haven’t been able to find the legalities that are attached to this topic but I feel that as long as I am on public property I should be ok legally because how else would paparazzi be able to take pictures?

1. Is Everyone a Journalist?, Tony Sonenshine, American Journalism Review, October 1997.
2. Have celebrities finally snapped? The Guardian May 4, 2009.