urban renewal # 1 - a new kind of ku

Throughout my commercial photography career, I specialized in 'creating' creative solutions to tell a client's 'story'.

Virtually all of my commercial work depended upon controlling every detail in a photograph - models, props, locations, sets, lighting, etc. In the commercial world the last thing we depended upon was the 'contingient features of the actual world'. I can't tell you how many hours I spent picking and arranging peas (as an example) for food photography but, you know what? - I enjoyed it.

Since I have been (and still am) a proponent of landscape photography that is true to 'the spirit of fact', I never thought to bring that commercial sensibility to my landscape photography. Jeff Wall's work has opened up a new awareness in me of 'the spirit of fact' - that the 'fact' does not always have to be about the literal 'contingient features of the actual world'.

There is meaning and narrative that is also 'fact' and those 'connoteds' might sometimes be best served by selectively arranging 'referents' in order to better convey those "spirit of fact(s)'.

The Adirondacks without the APA • click on photo to embiggen itThe bitch of it is though, I can't bang these photographs out like I can (and will continue to do) my 'contingient features of the actual world' ku. Urban renewal kus need lots of planning/photographing and lots of post pro-filmic moment(s) work - what Lee Bacchus labeled 'artistic rigor and craft'. If I really apply myself, I might be able to create 3-4 urban renewal kus a year.

PS - the self-referential particulars of urban renewal #1 are; Stanley Kubrick - 2001: A Space Oddessy , Jerry Uelsmann - everything he has ever done, Jeff Wall, and a tip-o'-the-hat to Terry Gilliam and the road scenes in Brazil.

Featured Comment Joel Truckenbrod wrote; "...One of the problems that I'm running into, is that it looks like a constructed image to me..."

publisher's question: Joel, could you please explain this in a little more detail?

Update on Wednesday, March 7, 2007 at 01:29PM by gravitas et nugalis

Joel's response to my request can be read in in the comments. Joel basically stated that he could see 'artifacts' of digital creation in the image - mainly related to spatial and light relationships. In fact this image was created from separate photographs that were not pre-planned in order to maintain flawless blending characteristics. I was just playing around with an idea and exploring possiblities with existing photographs.

That said, I have been showing this photograph around in print and on online forums. The absolutely remarkable reaction by everyone who has seen the print is; at first - they immediately accept it as a photograph of a real place. They spend a great deal of time trying to figure out where it was taken. Failing that, they then start to ask questions like - what happened to the pavement? Did runoff/melting snow from the mountain have anything to do with it?

Online responses have run something like these; "Wonderful light and colors ... Another example that there is beauty everywhere if you want to see it." and "...What a fantastic photo. I love it. The colors are superb. Especially love the water gushing by in the trench. Easily a 10 from me." No mention of fakery at all.

Interestingly, no one asked about the gravestone. I wonder what that's about?

Also interesting, is the fact that the only ones who immediately recognized it for what it was were 2 teenage girls, my step-daughter and her friend. My step-daughter's immediate reaction (after only a few seconds) was; "You made this didn't you?"

Teenagers are such smart-ass know-it-alls.

urban ku # 38 - Q&A

Eric Fredine, in answer to my question - Is it possible in the Art world for a photographer to be 'invisible' and let the photograph 'speak' for itself? - wrote; "Yes. There seem to be many of them in fact ... I don't see it as an either/or proposition."

Eric also mentioned an example of a photographer - Alec Soth who lets his photographs of the 'contingient features of the actual world' speak for themselves. Eric gets no argument from me on either point - there are many photographers who let their photographs speak for themselves and Alec Soth is certainly one of the many.

I also don't see it as an either/or proposition, but I do think that Jeff Wall has raised the bar or, at the very least, validated a big change in the photography game. Here's how -

Eric Fredine, Alec Soth, myself, and 'many' others are adept at 'seeing' and at translating that 'seeing' into a vision which produces pictures which both illustrate and illuminate, BUT...that vision is almost entirely dependent upon the 'contingient features of the actual world'. In a sense, they also rely heavily on that age-old photography bug-a-boo - making (by means of the machine) 'copies' of 'contingient features of the actual world'.

Now, don't misunderstand. They deliberately and intuitively use all the 'apparatus' of the medium - mechanical, cultural, intellectual, et al - to great effect and affect. Wall, on the other hand, uses the same 'apparatus' but he is not constrained by the 'contingient features of the actual world'.

Instead of skillfully and artistically 'capturing' (or copying) found 'pro-filmic moments', Wall adds (and most probably, subtracts)/creates 'contingient features of the actual world' to his cinematically constructed photographs as he see fit in order to strengthen and convey meaning. His MO is much more like that of a - I'm going to hate myself in the morning for saying this - painter. Wall uses Bits and Pieces of the 'contingient features of the actual world' and assembles them on his photographic 'canvas'.

In an Art world where a single - not part of a 'defining' body of work - photograph, un-tethered from or anchored by words, is considered to be without intrinsic meaning or narrative, Wall is free to create one-off photographs in which meaning is more direct. Many critics have pointed out that his photographs can be appreciated and 'understood' by a large audience even though they are not versed in (or even aware of) the arcane Art history and theory that underlies them.

IMO, Wall has validated and given momentum to a new photographic genre - an emergence also acccelerated by the digital domain. Label it something like, The Cinemtaic Photograph, or, The Narrative Photograph - a genre in which photographers 'make' as much as they 'take' picture-wise.

I intend to explore this terrain but, unlike Wall, my self-referential nod will be to the history of photography not painting. At least that way I'll be able to live with myself in the morning.

Featured Comment Ana wrote; "Hmm... new? Can we say "Rejlander?"

publisher's response: Ana - yes, as I have mentioned recently, there really is nothing new under the sun. There is probably a list as long as my arm (but not much longer) of photogs who have worked this approach as opposed to 'the many' mentioned by E. Fredine. However, very few have pursued it with the 'artistic rigor and craft' of Jeff Wall and only the most recent have had the tools of the digital domain at their disposal.

urban ku # 37

Yesterday's snowstorm dropped 8 inches of wet, heavy, heart attack inducing snow. Today dawned sunny and warm - temps are in the 50s. My hands have started to sporadically and spontaneously assume a golf grip position so I'm having trouble buttering toast. Times are tough.

The Colorama - early Jeff Wall-isms?

The Art World has obviously given Jeff Wall the Keys to the Kingdom, but where was it for the last 57 years?

It's been that long since Kodak started hanging pro-filmic constructions - 18 × 60-foot Coloramas - that would have positively dwarfed Wall's "large" photographs. But, of course, when Kodak launched Coloramas on the world - Wall was out of diapers (not by much) - there were no 'Walls' to dwarf.

Question: Are the Coloramas now Art?

Like Wall's work, much conceptualization and control/construction of the pro-filmic moment/event went into their creation. Like Wall's work, many of the Coloramas addressed 'the indeterminate American look' of the era in which they were created. Like Wall's work, or much of it, Coloramas were transparencies displayed on light boxes.

I would also suggest that, like Wall's work, the Coloramas, many of which picture people picturing (Caution - Colliding Realities: in essence, fictive pro-filmic moments of fictive pro-flimic moments), have much to say about the medium itself.

Unlike Wall's work, the Colorama's were created without a nod to Art history and Academia was not involved (no Modernist/Avant-Garde theory here). Unlike Wall's work, the Coloramas were displayed in public places, not galleries or museums. Unlike Wall's work, the Colorama's were seen by millions of Tom, Dick and Harriets, not just the Art crowd.

So, I am seriously wondering if a bit of revisionist Art History is called for. Is the Establishment willing to give credit where credit is due?

In all of his written and spoken Art/Art History speak has Jeff Wall ever mentioned or paid homage to many photographers who over the years were involved in creating Kodak Coloramas? (Honest question, maybe he has).

I am also wondering (on a less serious note) if Kodak, which has been through some recent tough financial times, could dust these suckers off and cut some of their losses. They churned the Coloramas out at the rate of one a month which, over the 40+ years they were being produced, means that they have approximately 4x the inventory of Jeff Wall. At $1,000,000 a pop, that's more than half a billion dollars we're talking about. Kodak used to have an extremely generous Employee Suggestion Program (it made near-millionaires of some) - I wonder if I could at least get a 'finder's' fee?

PS the above Colorama depicts 'the indeterminate American look' of tourism in the Adirondacks in the early 50s.

urban landscape - what I really think about Jeff Wall, or, more accurately, what I really think about his work

The Genesse river, Rochester, NY • click on photo to embiggen it - It's my photo, not Julian Frank'sI'm going to ask you to put your thinking cap on for this one - please read and comment.

The recent Jeff Wall Affair stirred up the photography waters quite a bit, although I am certain that, for some, it elicited little more than a yawn. From the yawn POV, it appears that it is just more of the same-o,same-o, pointy-headed intellectual, effete art/academic establishment, dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin jetson and flotsam.

To a certain extent, I agree.

Others think differently - Len Bacchus wrote; 'I feel Wall will one day claim equal space in the history of art alongside Breughel, Bernini, Caravaggio, Vermeer, Valesquez, Manet, Goya, Cezanne and many other "masters." The criteria here being (other than his own artistic rigor and craft) the "wholeness" of his experience (by that fuzzy term I mean his faithfulness to "what he has seen" — or "the painter of modern life", as he borrowed from Baudelaire) and his large role in changing the course of art following the advent of modernism and the avant-garde.'

To a certain extent, I agree.

From the Yawnist perspective, the JWA is little more than Chapter MCMXCVIII (and counting) in the long standing art world's insistence - formally declared as early as the 1600s - that Art must be distanced from the contingient features of the actual world and exhibit the presence of an active intellegence, aka, the creator of the Art; the painter, the sculptor, the photographer, et al. Yeh, right. Blah, blah, blah...just show me the pictures...

Or, in other words, create it, don't just copy it.

From the Equal-Place-in-the-History-of-Art Department, like his results or not, Wall's work emphatically exhibits the presence of his active intelligence - months and months of pre/post-filmic moment work devoted to conceptualizing and then controlling/constructing every detail of the pro-fimic moment/event. This near-herculean effort in the medium of photography, what Bacchus calls 'artistic rigor and craft', is what endears Wall to academia, curators (an extension of academia), and the purveyors (ever beholden to academic/curatorial benedictions) of Art.

In other words, the man has done his homework (a degree bearing Art historian) and played to the dictates of the High Art world. Cynics in the crowd might suggest something about 'sucking up'...

Yeh, right. Blah, blah, blah...just show me the pictures...

For me, while I appreciate Wall's work and effort - start to finish, his nod to Art history, and his clarity of concept, I still want to see the pictures. And this is where I appreciate Wall's academically perverse attitude - despite the fact that Wall expresses a great admiration for Modernist/Avant-Garde theory and practice which emphasizes concept over content or the connoted over the referent, he still admits to 'liking pictures' (if you can take it, you can read Wall's thoughts about 'liking pictures' here).

Apparently, for Wall, content and form still matter.

If his concept is (simplified) constructing photographic 'realities' that address 'the indeterminate American look', then I think, to my eye and sensibility, he's doing a good job of it. I like most of what I have seen of his photography. I like the look and feel of his photographs and, dispite their constructed artifice, his photographs connote a feeling of 'the spirit of fact'.

An aside - NO, I don't think that his 'fake' photographic constructions in any way undermine the legitimacy of photography as a medium of 'truth' or the 'real', because, make no bones about it and unlike the Wizard of Oz, he wants Dorthy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion to pay attention to the man behind the curtain.

And therein lies my question to you. Has Wall raised the bar? Is it no longer enough to be, however insightful and skilled, just a 'shooter' of the contingient features of the actual world? Is it possible in the Art world for a photographer to be 'invisible' and let the photograph 'speak' for itself?

Or, in other words, what's it all about, Alfie?

FYI - an open invite

The boy and I are going to NYC for a Rangers v Penguins game on March 19th. Our plans also include seeing the Jeff Wall exhibit and, most likely, a photo gallery crawl. If anyone is interested in hooking up with us. let me know.

Woodwards Ruin ~ Julian Frank

Woodwards Ruin • click on photo to embiggen itI love surprises and this one showed up in yesterday's email. It was from Julian Frank, aka Lee Bacchus and Brian Graham - partners in photographic crime, so to speak. Under the collective nom-de-photograph of Julian Frank they are producing, of all things, postcards of Vancouver, Canada. They're creating the photographs using and 8×10 view camera and color negative film - men, or is that a "man", after my own heart, photography-wise.

About the project, Lee Bacchus wrote; "About my landscape. It is one part of a partly finished, partly thought-out project on the visible and invisible within the city. While trying to eschew a purely aesthetic surface (eye candy, to put it simply), I'm trying to "think" through the form here and not over-determine it beforehand. It is open-ended, so that it can suggest and address all that a site like this can: history, memory, progress (or lack thereof) and a kind of upheaval in the geological consciousness (the surface) and unconscious (underground).

I do feel this shot is slightly over-aestheticized (the dusky sky is there as a kind of symbolic end-note, but it still exudes a kind of "beauty"), but unwrapping meaning from the "picturesque" is difficult."

urban ku # 36

Betty Beaver's Truck Stop & Diner - the big picture • click on photo to embiggen itJust thought that I'd throw this into the Jeff Wall pot - Joe Reifer wrote (on civilized ku #12: "Can I borrow your Godzilla? As soon as I'm done with my MFA, I'm going to painstakingly recreate a replica of your living room in my studio. The twist is, everything will be a replica of your house except for the Godzilla, which will actually be your Godzilla.

In the meantime, I recommend that the future viewers of this work get an advanced degree in film, with a specialization in Japanese monster movies. That way you can understand the exact placement of the Godzilla in my photograph. It really wasn't until I read Baudrillard that I was able to grasp the complexities of Mothra's role in Destroy All Monsters.

The images will be presented on a Godzilla like scale. The transparencies will be printed at a size of 100 stories tall and mounted to the side of skyscrapers. They will be backlit by having all the lights in the building turned on. Special bulbs will be used in every lighting fixture.

Every person in every office will be replaced with someone from central casting who looks startlingly like the person they're playing. I will hire a photographer that looks like me to take the photograph. When my hired replacement says "Action," the actors will turn on all the lights in the building for exactly 15 seconds."

publisher's response: Joe, just let me know when you're ready, MFA in hand. In the interim, I'll get every Japanese monster movie I can lay my hands on and see if I can enroll in a Film Studies program soon.

I assume I'll receive a nice discount on the $2,000,000 (artflation) price tag for your art-using-photography since I supplied the godzilla.