civilized ku #2532 ~ art

Recycling / concept art ~ New York, NY • click to embiggenAs mentioned, while in NYC, we - me, the wife and Cindy H. (my pictures+words collaborator) - visited Chelsea to view some art and get some creative juices flowing. Of particular note, photography -wise, was an exhibit by Yang Yi, Uprooted and one by Martin Parr, Life's a Beach.

Yang Yi's work (read about it here) was both visually and conceptually interesting. Referents aside, his pictures were conceptually very much along the same thought line as my Life without the APA work. While my pictures reflect my nightmare vision (a dream state) of what might be, Yang Yi's pictures are instigated by his own dream state about what actually is:

"One morning, I don’t remember when, I woke up in a sweat, my heart pounding in alarm ... [I]n my dream, I appear, clothed; I come and go along these familiar alleys. I revisit my old school, the dazzle of lights emanating from the cinema, the riverside where I used to swim, the rooftops where I once went to get a breath of fresh air, the winding pathways… all is in darkness, unattended, there are no friends or relatives to be found anywhere. Where do all of these bubbles and floating objects come from? It becomes difficult to breathe, I fail to grasp anything, I scream but no sound can be heard…"

Yi's C prints are big - 41 × 59 inches/105 × 150 cm or 28 × 39 inches/70 × 100 cm. The larger size is priced in the $11,000-15,000US range. The smaller size in the $6,500-7,000US range. Nice prices if you can get it.

Martin Parr's beach pictures are anything but a dream. Instead, they illustrate ("steering a perilous course between objectivity and voyeurism") a reality about which he claims, "A day at the beach is the same the world over." As Susie Parr writes:

The beach is the place where public and private worlds intersect, a curious mix of defence and intimacy. Here, unstructured space is staked out and temporarily transformed, through artefact and ritual, into personal territory. In close proximity to others doing the same thing, a bit like being on a long haul flight, people let down their guard, revealing the secrets of their bodies, habits and relationships to anyone who cares or dares to look, as they dream and doze on the sand. read more here

Parr's exhibit was riotously visual and very entertaining. So much so that I purchased his book (signed by Parr) The Last Resort. Highly recommended.