crafted ku # 20 - pigeon regulation n˚ 1 (made by me, not Di Liu)

Pigeon Regulation n˚ 1 ~ Chelsea, NYC • click to embiggenAs mentioned, one of the exhibits I found very interesting was reGeneration2: tomorrow's photographers today - a group exhibition of the work of 80 picture makers selected from the top 120 photography schools around the world.

According to the exhibition's organizers, curators from Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland, the aim of the exhibit was stated as:

As the study of any artist's career makes clear, early works contain the seed of the mature artist ... [B]y taking a young photographer at the outset of his or her career, we would have an idea, however imperfect, of what he or she could be doing twenty years hence. And by taking a significant number of photographers ... it just might add up to a tantalizing glimpse of what form or forms photography might take when the museum's fiftieth anniversary come around.

Only time will tell us what "form or forms photography might take" 30 years hence, but nevertheless, the exhibit certainly did feature a wide ranging diversity of genres and genre-bending pictures. That fact was what made this exhibit so interesting to me.

While it is unquestionably true that I am a devotee of "straight" picture making, I also appreciate most other genres of picture making. Hell, my own flesh and blood, AKA - The Cinemascapist makes cinematic inspired mise-en-scène ("constructed") pictures that blur the lines between fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, and what is and what isn't. And add to that the fact that I am in the process of creating / crafting, for a summer exhibition, 3 more pictures in my life without the APA series - pictures that are each made up of 3 (or more) reality-based pictures blended together to create an imagined, but very realistic, "reality".

I mention constructed / crafted pictures because about 1/2 of the 80+ pictures in the reGeneration2 exhibit were constructed pictures. FYI, "constructed" includes staged pictures wherein an "event" is pictured in any entirely straightforward manner but the event itself is orchestrated. The pictures, which I like very much, from Tereza Vlckova's A Perfect Day, Elise ... series (the first 8 pictures on the page) would be an excellent example of staged events.

On the other hand, many constructed / crafted pictures usually are made from separate images or parts thereof which are blended together to create an imagined reality. Some imagined realities have the look of the real - the blending is virtually undetectable, while others stretch the look of the real into regions of pure and visually obvious fantasies. The pictures from Di Liu's Animal Regulation series are an excellent and, to my eye and sensibilities, a very interesting example of stretching to the breaking point the medium's characteristic of being a cohort to the real.

It is interesting to note that, of the other exhibits I viewed, there was a similar division of straight vs. constructed pictures. To be precise, about 2/3rds of the exhibits were of straight pictures while other 1/3 were of constructed pictures.

And, just to be perfectly clear, I pick and choose which pictures I like based upon whether or not, independent of genre, I like a picture or series of pictures. My reasons for liking a picture or series of pictures is often predicated upon many factors but rarely is it dependent upon genre.