civilized ku # 2146 ~ whimsical juxtaposition of commonplace objects

Chopsticks and carrots ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenIt is not an uncommon occurrence, upon the death of a prominent or near prominent picture maker, that notice is given on one photo blog or another. However, that was not the case upon the death of Jan Groover, a picture maker whose work has rather fallen out of fashion, and nearly out of view, in an era of near fetishistic preoccupation with Conceptual Art, photography division.

One of Groover's - she began as a painter - mottos was "Formalism is everything". For those unfamiliar with Formalism, it is "the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form — the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content. In visual art, formalism is a concept that posits that everything necessary to comprehending a work of art is contained within the work of art. The context for the work, including the reason for its creation, the historical background, and the life of the artist, is considered to be of secondary importance"(from Wikipedia).

The flip side of the Formalism coin is the concept of Conceptualism - art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns ... In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art (from Wikipedia / Sal LeWitt).

IMO, Groover's pictures, especially her most well known still life work, occupy a somewhat middle ground, albeit most certainly tilted toward Formalism, between the two extremes. Without venturing into a long theory laden essay, suffice it to state, there was obviously a driving concept behind Groover's work. In the constructing, lighting, and making (with the all of the control of a large format view camera) of her still life pictures, Groover did not create her Art without malice of forethought, so to speak.

John Szarkowski, who believed that "a work of art lives and has its meaning exclusively within the chalk-lines of its own playing field, not the journals or saloons in which it is discussed", wrote (at the time of Groover's exhibition at MOMA) that he was "interested in her work because she is so fastidious about excluding from her art any overt reference to autobiographical, much less confessional, materials .... her pictures were good to think about because they were first good to look at." I have always appreciated Groover's work, ever since I encountered it in 1980, for exactly the same reason, re: "her pictures were good to think about because they were first good to look at" - a notion which is one of the driving concepts in the making of my own pictures (see here and here).

Some might see some kissing cousin similarities between Groover's still life pictures and my the life in my kitchen pictures. Others, I am fully aware, might not. However, and IMO, despite the obvious differences - such as, Groover's still-lifes are carefully constructed and orchestrated whereas mine are mostly "found" (although, I am not opposed to the minor shifting about of some of the objects in my found still life scenes) - what I believe to be their overarching similarity is this concept ...

...the apparent whimsical juxtaposition of commonplace objects suggests a rethinking of our relationship to the physical world and its portrayal via the image.*

At least, that's how I see it.

*a phrase borrowed from Lesley M. Martin, as penned in describing the work of Sam Fells (aperture 205 / Winter 2011)

Comments

[Kent Wiley]

Thanks for the notice about this, Mark. Didn't know about her. 68 is too young to leave (although it is a year older than when H.S. Thompson checked out). She gives me some ideas about something to do with my tools.