1. Is it a goal for your work to make a political statement? If so, why?
2. How did your interest in trash/waste/consumerism develop? Is this of personal interest?
3. You've spoken about what gets thrown away and forgotten about. Do you want to make people remember these things or force them not to forget them?
4. Are you worried about the aesthetic appeal of the images slightly concealing the underlying reality?
5. Does your work apply equally well to another country? Is it universal? (and is this a critique on American capitalism or is it about a broader of wastefulness?)
6. Do you see your work as documentary/photojournalism? Why or why not?
7. When I think of your images of the recycling facilities I can't help but wonder... There is a danger that one ends up with something that looks like it could be in a National Geographic magazine. Is this something you are concerned with? Why or why not?
10/11/10
Julika Rudelius summary
What artwork/proposals did you present?
Rudiments of Thought and Joy Untroubled (pets)
What topics did you discuss? What was the nature of this discussion?
decaying of society, exclusiveness, prohibition, 1950s America, control.
The photographic styles of William Eggleston and Martin Parr
What were the critical reactions/ suggestions to your ideas/artwork?
Williams Eggleston keeps popping up. I've heard many references made to his work.
the landscape/space images rely heavily on their titles, which is fine, but they need to be more dry and less ironic.
Is this work National Geographic or something else?
What was a suggested plan of action?
classifying my images by grades of sensibility and styles
What insights / new questions / ideas did you take from the meeting?
should i take my compositions in one direction? casual or formal? Are they kitschy, casual or over composed? Is there an access point for the viewer?
Is this work basically witty but boring? Its funny but its already been done. The moment they get funny they become problematic.
How did this meeting affect how you will proceed with your project / proposal?
I need to bring it home with this project. I need to work on the titles, make them less ironic. I may need to dumb down the images. And I need to make a decision about the compositions.
10/11/10 Monday
for his "Mute" series
Statement:
"I was once left in a car at a young age.
I don't know when or where or for how long, possibly at the age of four, perhaps outside Tesco's, probably for fifteen minutes only. The details don't matter. The point is that I wondered if anyone would come back. It seems trivial now but in a child's mind it is possible to be alone forever.
Around the same age I began to feel a deep affinity with animals - in particular their plight at the hands of humans. I remember watching TV and seeing footage of a dog being put in a plastic bag and being kicked. What appalled me most was that the dog could not speak back. It's muteness terrified me.
I should say that I was a well-loved child and never abandoned and yet it is clear that both these experiences arose from the same place deep inside me: a fear of being alone and unheard. Perhaps this is a fear we all share at some level, I am not sure.
The images in this series explore that feeling, both in relation to myself and to animals in general. The camera is the perfect tool for capturing a sense of silence and longing: the shutter freezes the subject for ever and two layers of glass are placed between the viewer and the viewed: the glass of the lens, the glass of the picture frame and, in this instance, the glass of the car window further isolates the animal. The dog is truly trapped.
When I started this project I knew the photos would be dark. What I didn't expect was to see so many subtle reactions by the dogs: some sad, some expectant, some angry, some dejected. It was as if upon opening up a box of grey-coloured pencils I was surprised to see so many shades inside.
I hope that these pictures are engaging and perhaps a little amusing. I want to show that there is life in the dark places within us.
I will stop writing now and you can stop reading. Words can only get us so far. After all, we are all animals."
I chose this work mostly for the artist's statement, specifically the text in bold italics. I think this is a perfect example of projection. The artist is projecting his own emotional response to being left in a car as a child onto the dogs. He gave these dogs specific emotions and feelings. While animals are capable of feeling, he has no way of knowing how each of these dogs actually feel when they are left in the car. He assumes human expressions to these animals. Its easy to make those assumptions, especially when we feel sympathy for an animal but I think its a very idealized and sentimental project. There are problems inherent in this series. I wonder if he got away with this without major criticism.
Bio:
"Martin lives in central London where he has his photographic studio.
He started his photographic career after a number of years working as a creative director in children's TV (which included dressing up as a furry white alien). Before that he studied psychology at Edinburgh University and then animation at Glasgow School of Art.
Martin thinks there is something magical about looking through the lens and capturing a bit of the world. 'You see an interesting array of shapes - people passing in front of a strangely coloured wall and -click- its yours forever. Its so easy it shouldn't be allowed'.
When Martin isn't photographing he is either rockclimbing (he is too heavy to pull himself up), meditating (he can't do the full lotus because he has bad knees) or he is writing his novel (he is stuck on chapter 3 - not having finished Ch.s 1 or 2).
If you care to know more about Martin's work then please go to the portfolio section and look at the 'projects' link. If you are interested in Martin's meandering thoughts you might enjoy the blog and for information on upcoming exhibitions keep an eye on the news section on the front page."
He is not represented by any galleries. However, here is a list of some recent exhibitions of his work:
2010: MUTE: photographs of dogs in cars, theprintspace, Londo, (solo show)
Large scale prints of dogs looking out of car windows shot at night. Solo show at theprintspace, East London.
2009: Taylor Wessing award, the National Portrait Gallery, London, (group show)
Portrait selected for Taylor-Wessing award in the National Portrait Gallery, London. "Tiger, Rag, Johnny and Emma"
2009:'Unordinary People', PYMCA youth culture portraits, Royal Albert Hall, (group show)
Portraits from nightclub series selected for group show to represent PYMCA image library at the Albert Hall.
2008:'I've lived in Hoxton 81 1/2 years', Candid Arts Gallery, London, (solo show)
Portraits and words about Joseph Markovitch, the original face of Hoxton
2008: Boombox, Beto Reginik Studios, Sao Poalo, Brazil (group show)
Portraits from the infamous Hoxton nightclub, presented in Sao Paulo alongside photographer Beto Riginik
Website: http://www.martinusborne.com/index.php?page=home
Reviews:
MUTE Exhibition by Martin Usborne. http://dog-milk.com/mute-exhibition-by-martin-usborne/ 10 September 2010.
Forlorn Pet Photography. http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/martin-usborne 23 September 2010.
I'm disappointed in all the reviews I read. People are suckers for cheesy, cliched well photographed pet portraits. Once they're romanticized people tend to become blind followers of the work. All they can see is this "tugging at my heart strings" (insert emotion here) pet. In this case, a dog who is experiencing heartbreaking loneliness and is expressing it just like a human would. One of the authors actually stated in their review "Who can say they're not an "animal person"?" Its like this work or the pets themselves hypnotized them.
10/6/10
10/7/10 Thursday
Lucy, the epilogue
I am interested in the idea of how nonhuman animals understand and form trusting relationships without spoken language. How do they bond with their social companions. And in the case of pet/owner relationship, how much of the bond really is a reflection of Jung's projection and how much of their communication is two-way. Is there real intimacy between the two species?
10/3/10
Monday 10/4
Alan, Boston (South End), MA 2005
Bonni, Boston (Beacon Hill), MA 2005
Alan, Boston (South End), MA 2005
Mameve, Cambridge, MA 2005I liked his series of work, Dwellings, because of his exploration of identity and domestic matter. He attempts to create portraits of unseen people just by photographing the materials and items in their homes. What do these items reveal about the person who owns them? What does it say about their moral values, personalities and behaviors? I think this idea could be imposed on my work. The idea of what keeping pets says about an individual is interesting. It speaks about what they value, what's important to them, how they relate to the world around them, etc.
Bio:
Robert Knight was born and raised in Boston, MA. He received his BA in architecture and economics from Yale University in 1995 and expects to receive his Masters in Fine Art from the Massachusetts College of Art in 2006. His work has been shown nationally in numerous juried exhibitions and is held in private collections. He is currently an instructor at the Mass College of Art and has an budding practice as a commercial photographer.
Statement:
My recent work has focused on the calculated choices people make in the objects they own. What do they care about? How do they allocate their resources? Their domestic decisions are both moral and aesthetic: what does one choose to own and how do they choose to display it? My photographs do not so much attempt to compare classes, or scrutinize one class, as simply attempt to represent identity through the lens of people’s personal spaces. I ask the viewer to consider objects I have seen and selected, in the context of an unseen subject’s material interests. Whether at one time purchased, received as a gift or inherited, things “shape the identities of their users. Man is … a reflection of things with which he interacts” (from Csikszentmihalyi’s The Meaning of Things).
My passion for photographing the material interests of others is largely driven by the childhood experience of being psychologically stretched between the prodigal extravagance of my mother and the Puritan frugality of my father. In the Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard describes a viewer who is “‘reading a room’ … and starts to think of some place in his own past”. Similarly, I see my explorations of other’s dwellings as subjective interpretations. I photograph the things that hold signification for me, that resonate with my background, education and upbringing. The word “dwelling” denotes both a tangible physical structure, a home, as well as an internal process of lingering reflection. Thus, my photographs can be seen as both of others’ dwellings and a dwelling on my own memories and past.
Beneath the surface, my work reflects a lack of faith in photography’s ability to objectively portray an other. Roland Barthes, in Camera Lucida, suggests that photography has lost (or never had) the ability to convey authentic meaning. The inherent subjectivity of the artist leaves all interpretation, and thus content, in the hands of the photographer and the viewer. Inevitably, this “failure” of photography applies to my surrogate portraits as well, rendering the absence of an unseen subject not a truer portrait of an other, but perhaps merely a truer portrait of myself.Represented by Jen Beckman
http://www.jenbekman.com/robertknight/index.html
http://robertknight.com/
9/29/10
9/26/10
9/27/10 Monday
Colleen Rudolf
http://www.colleenrudolf.com/
"There are a lot of dogs represented in these drawings, and in the painting section. I find the relationship between human and canine to function as a synthesis of larger issues; such as evolution, behavioral science, cognitive science, cross species communication and adaptation.
This made the shelter dog of particular interest. Reasons sited for surrendering of companion animals are often behavioral and are as a result of a dog who is misunderstood. I see this as a direct result of the extreme egocentrism that humans practice."
Artist Statement
My work focuses on natural forms and systems, both figurative and non-figurative. There is a sense of play through both choice of materials, process and subjects depicted. I see my work as collaborative and my job to assemble parts into a whole that effectively communicates my own critical perception of the world around me. I am interested in the environmental context of the work and I see the human experience greatly enhanced by the process of making things and experimentation.
Biography
Colleen Rudolf is a sculptor, painter, public installation artist and new media explorer. Born in 1981 in New York City, she later earned her undergraduate degree from Skidmore College in 2003 with departmental honors in Fine Art. After three years of traveling and working, she decided to refine her practice and earned a graduate degree from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2008 where she was awarded the Fellowship Juried Prize honorable mention and the Justine Cretella Memorial Scholarship. She currently works out of her studio in Philadelphia, PA.
Isn't currently represented by any gallery.
Review: http://theartblog.org/2010/04/shapes-and-animals-at-tiger-and-grizzly/
"Rudolf has constructed an interactive installation where the audience is encouraged to participate and be a determining factor in the work’s life. Consisting predominantly of sculptural objects, the included pieces attempt to explore various methods of communication. Using the animal kingdom and modern technology as inspiration, the viewer is challenged to consider exactly what it means to “connect” to another entity."
Colvin, Vincent. "CON⠂NECT" Colleen Rudolf. http://grizzlygrizzly.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/connect-kuh-nekt-colleen-rudolf/ 30 March 2010.
"Rudolf is both perceptive and playful in contrasting animals’ straightforward and instinctual manner of relating to each other with humans’ inability to give our full attention to any single interaction. Rudolf believes that humans’ lack of focus is a recent development, due to the barrage of technological communication to which we are increasingly exposed.
The theme of Rudolf’s exhibit is illustrated most clearly in a series of three works on pedestals. On one pedestal is A Moment, a delicately wrought sculpture of two penguins facing each other. On the pedestal on the opposite end is Cellular Phones, two cell phones standing so close together that they, too, seem to be huddled in intimacy."
Kantor, Becca. Shapes and Animals at Tiger and Grizzly. http://theartblog.org/2010/04/shapes-and-animals-at-tiger-and-grizzly/ 11 April 2010.
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