11/23/09 Artist Post: Justin James King

“Justin James King radically intervenes in the common spectacle of the tourist vista by removing the view itself in his series And Still We Gather With Infinite Momentum. A lone figure stands on a promontory gazing out into the utter void. Commenting on the reflexive act of looking (and by extension, on the rich traditions of landscape photography), Justin says,

“Perhaps all we see when we stand in front of the landscape are archetypes: preconceived notions and pre-experienced viewsOur perception grows out of how we have seen the landscape represented and how it has been delivered to us historically and in popular culture.”

By removing the sweeping natural view, Justin undercuts the entire premise of the conventional landscape, pulling off the tricky business of making a photograph about the invisible.”

Although I had a hard time finding information on Justin James King I really enjoyed his work. For series And Still We Gather With Infinite Momentum, it portrays loneliness even though that is not his direct intent. Same with his series Flat On My Face At The Edge Of The World.

Website:

http://justinjamesking.com/index.php?/news/

Interview:

N/A

Gallery:

N/A

11/19/09 Word Post: Propaganda

prop·a·gan·da [ pròppə gándə ]

Noun

Definition:

1. Publicity to promote something: information put out by an organization or government to promote a policy, idea, or cause

2. Misleading publicity: deceptive or distorted information that is systematically spread
Propaganda is a form of communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience.

I was told that my work needs to be influenced by propaganda more then what it is because what I am trying to say is not as obvious as it needs to be. The pictures that I am currently shooting definitely make it more obvious that loneliness is the main theme. I think that it has definitely become clearer.

Defining propaganda has always been a problem. Garth Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell have provided a concise, workable definition of the term: "Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist” This definition focuses on the communicative process involved -- more precisely, on the purpose of the process, and allows "propaganda" to be considered as a neutral activity, which can be seen as positive or negative behavior depending on the perspective of the viewer.

Artist Lecture #6: Diego Sanchez

I attended the Diego Sanchez lecture at Page Bond gallery and although I did not find much of his work that intriguing there were a few that caught my eye. However, his playful mannerisms are definitely what pulled me in. When talking about his work he mentioned how he fell in love with formal architecture and although he has never been to Rome but how he is going to work with the Coliseum until he is sick of it.

When preparing his work, he usually starts his panels by staining it with color. He builds surfaces, however, since he is not much of an organized person he uses grids which keeps him grounded. He then just takes his time and just studies the surface of the panels until something hits him. Sanchez’s work is very dependant on the surface of his images. When asked about the drafting lines that show up in his images he said that “they are sometimes planned and sometimes they just show up.”

Sanchez has been trying to find the tie between representation and nonrepresentational of elements. He is interested in how people view representation. He creates a realistic space and then comes back and vacates it. You get a major sense of space and depth when viewing his painting.

When talking about the difference in subject matter between his images of the Coliseum and that of an “underpass,” his latest painting, Sanchez stated that “Art is about recording history as you are making work. Artists can give importance to everything in life. Good thing about being an artist is you can look at something mundane and make it important.” He also mentioned how much you can tell about a person by the types of chairs they choose to purchase when speaking about his images of chairs.

Artist Lecture #5: Mary Scurlock

I got the luck of going to visiting lecturer Mary Scurlock at Page Bond Gallery. I have a great obsession with trees and that is her main source of imagery. The reason that she decided to use trees is because it is a metaphor for her personally. A couple of years ago she needed to get surgery on her leg. When she went to see the doctor, they mention how “one leg feels like glass, one feels like wood.” She saw this as a good metaphor for things that happen in our lives and decided that a tree was a good choice for imagery for this.

When making her paintings, it is an evolving process. She works in mixed media. Scurlock builds up about 5 layers of gesso and then continuously digs into it. She then uses oil paint and wax, which tends to take away some of the oil paint. She carried her old style of using writing in her paper paintings to using it in her panel paintings, which she mentioned is just a good aesthetic. Scurlock states that she “doesn’t want her images to be super realistic. A memory is a good way to put it.”

Scurlock mentioned when asked about the point of view of the trees she has painted that she “wanted there to be a depth to the trees and that is why she picked that point of view.” He work is defiantly more about the process but it is also a conscious, formal decision for every mark that she makes on her panels.

When asked about her scale of her images, I couldn’t help but disagree with another viewer who said they wanted to see them large. I feel like that petite size of her panels if perfect for all of the intricate details that are seen throughout. I feel like if they were too much larger they would be overwhelming. Scurlock mentioned how incredibly times consuming these images are and that they might be too much if done in a larger size.

My favorite image of her that was shown tonight was one that was at the back of the gallery. Most of her tree images were done in a very neutral, cool color pallet but this image was done darker. I instantly fell right in love with it because the color is more engaging. I really enjoy her other images but I just could not stay away from this one. It is her latest work and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

11/16/09 Artist Post: Jeff Wall

Epic and luminous, the work of Jeff Wall has overturned nearly every convention of photography. Meticulously staged and theatrical in scale, Wall’s images have more in common with the grandest history painting of the 18th century and the flickering mesmerism of cinema than with the fleeting, documentary style of much of modern photography. Forty-one works of the Vancouver-based artist, who pioneered the use of the light box as a vehicle for displaying photographs, are included in this major retrospective exhibition, previously installed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Although Wall’s images are well planned out, they hold a very documentary style of photographing. This is the type of style that I want my images to hold. His images are incredibly planned out, when it is clear that mine are not, but they have this style that I can’t help but admire. Wall said that every image that he produces is to replicate a real gesture that he saw. He has a very voyeuristic style to his images, like his subjects done necessarily know that he is present, another thing that I admire.

Gallery:
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/jeffwall/infocus/section4/

Interview:
http://www.museomagazine.com/issue-0/jeff-wall

Website:
N/A

Review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/magazine/25Wall.t.html?_r=1

Artist Lecture #4: Shimon Attie

Upon seeing Attie's work, he focused his presentation on an underlying theme that collective memory is the root of history, stating that he articulates relationships between place, memory and identity through imagery that both originates in and is superimposed upon marginalized communities whose histories are in the process of being forgotten. His haunting art made the forgotten again visible. Attie himself described it as a "peeling back the wallpaper of today to reveal the histories buried underneath."

Attie created a five-channel video installation and a body of still photographs to re-imagine the Welsh village of Aberfan. In 1966, the village became known the world over when a coal waste tip slid down a mountainside and buried the village's only primary school. Nearly an entire generation of the village's children as well as many adults lost their lives. Within hours of the disaster -and ever since- the village lost its privacy as the worldwide news media descended upon it. Having become "famous" as the village that lost its children and forever identified with the disaster, Aberfan -and places like it the world over- has found it difficult to move on. In 2006, on the disaster's 40th anniversary, Attie was invited by the BBC to come to Aberfan to see if it was possible for a contemporary artist to help the village move on. Over the course of several months he invited villagers into his studio and asked them to assume statuary poses that would reflect their social or occupational role within the village while he filmed them on an unseen slowly revolving stage. The Attraction of Onlookers thus lies at the intersection between the static and moving image. Individuals were illuminated by a complex lighting set up that created a delicate and beautiful play of light and shadow reminiscent of Old Master paintings. No actors, digital effects, slow motion, or still photographs were employed. Villagers 'performed' being themselves, with the resulting 'cast' including: the fish-and-chips man (the 'chipper'), the ex-coal miner, the headmaster, the minister, the boxer, the male choir singers, their conductor, the bartender, and so on. By consciously playing on iconic Welsh tropes, Attie created an artwork, which might help Aberfan, take its rightful place, 40 years on, as a Welsh village among other Welsh villages.

I really enjoyed this series. I just could not drag my eyes away from the people that are shown. It defiantly took me by surprise when one of these “static” people would move something minor, like blinking an eye or something like that. I personally believe that it made these videos stronger.

Website:
N/A

Interview:
N/A

Gallery:

http://www.artnet.com/artist/1730/shimon-attie.html

Http://collections.mocp.org/info.php?f=maker&type=browse&t=objects&s=Attie%2C+Shimon

11/12/09 Word Post: Emotional Detachment

Detachment is an inner state of calmness and being uninvolved on the emotional and mental planes. It is definitely not indifference. People who are indifferent do not care about anything, and are not active and initiative. On the other hand, people who possess emotional and mental detachment can be very active and caring, though they accept calmly whatever happens. Such people accept the good and the bad equally, because they enjoy inner balance and peace.

Emotional detachment can mean two different things. In the first meaning, it refers to an inability to connect with others emotionally, as well as a means of dealing with anxiety by preventing certain situations that trigger it. This detachment does not mean avoiding the feeling of empathy; it is actually more of an awareness of empathetic feelings that allows the person space needed to rationally choose whether or not to be overwhelmed or manipulated by such feelings. Although you will still have feelings for those persons, places and things from which you have become detached, you will have given them the freedom to become what they will be on their own merit, power, control and responsibility. Emotional detachment in the first sense above often arises from psychological trauma and is a component in many anxiety and stress disorders. The person, while physically present, moves elsewhere in the mind, and in a sense is "not entirely present", making them sometimes be seen as preoccupied or distracted.

"Letting Go"
* To "let go" does not mean to stop caring; it means I can't do it for someone else.
* To "let go" is not to cut myself off; it's the realization I can't control another.
* To "let go" is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.
* To "let go" is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
* To "let go" is not to try to change or blame another; it's to make the most of myself.
* To "let go" is not to care for, but to care about.
* To "let go" is not to fix, but to be supportive.
* To "let go" is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
* To "let go" is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
* To "let go" is not to be protective; it's to permit another to face reality.
* To "let go" is not to deny, but to accept.
* To "let go" is not to nag, scold or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
* To "let go" is not to criticize and regulate anybody, but to try to become what I dream I can be.
* To "let go" is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
* To "let go" is to not regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
* To "let go" is to fear less and love myself more.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/14712-developing-detachment/

Barlow, David H. (November 2002). "Unraveling the mysteries of anxiety and its disorders from the perspective of emotion theory". American Psychologist: 1247–63. http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/55/11/1247.pdf.

Ohman, A. (2000). Fear and anxiety: Evolutionary, cognitive, and clinical perspectives. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.). Handbook of emotions. (pp.573-593). New York: The Guilford Press.