pictures + words ~ pictures 1-4, words a-d

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# 4 • click to embiggenAs previously noted, the pictures + words project was introduced to the gallery-going public on Saturday last. The work from this nascent project, a collaboration between myself and a writer, Cynthia Hecht, was exhibited in a group show at a gallery in Phoenica, NY. At this early stage of the game, we were grateful for the opportunity to exhibit the work and garner some feedback - a kinda "taking the show on the road" in order to polish the act sorta thing.

Our work, which was exhibited alongside a broad range of artwork, genre wise, was most definitely the most demanding work in exhibit. That is to write, if one were to "get it" or even just try to "get it", it required a concentrated effort in assimilating both the writings and the pictures (diptychs) and addressing the notion of how there are related. Add to that endeavor the thought involved in determining how the individual pictures in each diptych are also related* ... it takes a fair amount more than a glancing look to get into the work.

That written, a reasonable number of attendees did take the time to get into the work (favorite comment = "This is serious work."), especially so considering the fact that there was prodigious amount of cheap wine swilling, homemade finger food munching, and socializing afoot.

In any event, Cynthia and I came away from the event feeling good about the work and energized to "keep on truckin'", project wise. (FYI, that last phrase was influenced by the fact that, with Phoenica's very close proximity to Woodstock, the gallery audience was heavy weighted toward the well-age 60s counterculture - aka, hippy - crowd).

FYI, the pictures in the exhibit are exhibited as a grouping which is separate from the grouping of the writings. As previously noted, the writings and pictures are not related to one another, as in, specific writings are not caption-wise related to specific diptychs. It is our intent to let the writings and pictures stand as independent thought invoking entities. Although, it is our hope that observers of the ADjoined / COjoined works will make the connection between the two seemingly different works.

*As a kinda visual helper, I did include one diptych in the exhibit in which the individual pictures were quite obviously connected - a diptych which provoked some laughing-out-loud reactions. Don't know if the diptych will remain as a permanent part of the project.

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diptych # 37 ~ (on seeing) the possibilities of form and color

W23 / restaurant ~ New York, NY / Digby, Nova Scotia • click to embiggenDuring my recent visit to NYC I purchased a used book - Robert E. Sheehan Color Photography 1948-1958 - which was published in 1987. I had never heard of Robert Sheehan and I doubt that very few others have as well. However, a quick glance thorough the book convinced me it was worth acquiring inasmuch as I gleaned that Sheehan was an early (pre 70s / New Color era) practitioner of color picture making.

As it turns out, the book is a great look / insight into the early days of serious non-commercial use of color film. A time when color picture making was considered to be an amateur-snapshooter-only practice - if one was interested in making serious (fine art) pictures, the predominate aesthetic of BW was the only way to go.

While a number of name BW picture makers gave color a try, the technical limitations of that era's color film were considered to be insurmountable for serious picture making. Nevertheless, Sheehan was one picture maker who ignored the prevailing picture making paradigm and made color picture making his life's work (a life shortened by alcoholism), pursuing what he called " the possibilities of pure color and form".

From the book:

I am not seeking a completely purified image in the painter's sense. Rather, I abstract my area from existing matter, designing it from edge to edge in the viewfinder ... it is their (the referents) selection and arrangement which makes the complete picture. If the subject matter happens to have unique qualities, then the effect is greatly heightened by incorporating it with an absorbing design."

IMO, that statement is yet another short-and-sweet how-to on the the notion of so-called composition.

diptych # 36 (rain # 58-59) ~ catapulting the impermanence and awkwardness of a snapshot to the permanence and artfulness of painting.

Downpour / light rain ~ Brooklyn, NY / Hoboken, NJ • click to embiggenWhile in NYC, one non-photography exhibit which caught my and and attention was Chrisa Biddy's Mobile Uploads - see pictures here / read about it here. While the exhibit was comprised of small 4×6inch (on average) realistic oil and watercolor paintings, what I really liked was the fact that the paintings were created using vernacular photographs culled from Facebook and other social media networks as their inspiration.

If you don't read the short PR announcement linked to above, about all you need to know about the work is contained in the following paragraph from the announcement:

Voyeurism, exploitation, subversion, sexual exploration, etc., are all words that can be associated with Biddy's work. At the end of the day, it is simply a boy painting girls, all the while ignoring the trappings of the femme fatale and political correctness. The subjects have allowed themselves to enter a world wide web of unknown onlookers and the artist has catapulted the impermanence and awkwardness of a snapshot to the permanence and artfulness of painting.

I found the small paintings to be visually very mesmerizing and emotionally / intellectually very stimulating (keep your mind out of the gutter). And like the PR piece states, I found the exhibit to be "Like watching a train wreck; you just can't divert your eyes." Really good stuff.

diptych # 33 (ku # 1242-43) ~ leaving a shape belonging not to the subject

Seaweed and rock ~ Blue Rocks - Nova Scotia, Canada • click to embiggenJohn Szarkowski wrote, when writing about The Frame as one of the medium's five inherent characteristics:

The edges of the picture were seldom neat. Parts of figures or buildings or features of landscape were truncated, leaving a shape belonging not to the subject but (if the picture was a good one) to the balance, the propriety, of the image.

IMO, not a whole lot more needs to be written / stated about the subject of good "composition".

diptych # 32 (civilized ku # 2524-25) ~ my thoughts on taking or making

A sign of things to come ~ Peggy's Cove - Nova Scotia, Canada • click to embiggenIn a recent blog entry, Termin -al -ology on TOP, Mike Johnston wrote about the concept of the taking v. the making of pictures. For the most part, the entry and subsequent comments revolved around the idea that depressing the shutter button constituted the taking of a picture and that the making of something (for display of some kind) from the raw material is, by definition, the act of making a picture.

I disagree.

Not that, at least in one sense, Mike's assertion is wrong. However, IMO, while the act of taking may be limited to the mere pressing of the button, the making of a picture - as opposed to the making of a print or viewable jpg file - starts and essentially begins and ends in the head of a picture maker. That is not to write that various printing techniques which might be employed in the making of a viewable presentation plays no part in the making of a picture. No, not at all. However, what I am writing is that the choice of referent and the technique employed in realizing that vision at the moment of image capture is where any subsequent making is primarily determined.

To wit, if a person with a camera does not apply considerable attention to Jon Szarkowski's 5 elements (as proffered in his seminal book The Photographer's Eye) of photographic vocabulary - The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, and Vantage Point - the resultant pictures will indeed be merely taken and not made. And regardless of how much time and attention is employed in the making of a picture's presentation, I don't think that it's possible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, or, in more crude terms, turn shit into shine-ola.

Consider this from the way-back machine:

The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labour employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it. As this principle is observed or neglected, our profession becomes either a liberal art or a mechanical trade. In the hands of one man it makes the highest pretensions, as it is addressed to the noblest faculties: in those of another it is reduced to a mere matter of ornament ... ~ Sir Joshua Reynolds Director / Royal Academy, c. 1768

Could not have written it better myself.

diptych # 31 (civilized ku # 2522-23) ~ not my eyes that see / pictures + words project

Waterfront planks and stuff ~ Blue Rocks - Nova Scotia, Canada • click to embiggen

It was something in the street and it moved a little in the wind, as a leaf would. A wrapper? Something about it. It's beautiful, I thought. Did I... just think trash was beautiful? This was a strange place. A place where veils were lifted. Not only did I see a thing but I saw it as something beautiful; I saw its curve and shape; I saw the light in it. I nearly wept. My eyes, I thought, they keep changing. But it is not my eyes that see. ~ Cynthia Hecht

Update on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at 01:09PM by gravitas et nugalis

FYI As I think about it, the thought comes to mind that a fitting subtitle for the pictures + words project could be, in the words of the "Human Jukebox" (aka, Sleepy LaBeef*), It ain't what you eat, it's the way how you chew it.

I am also coming to the conclusion that a proper working title for the project is simply On Seeing.

*I would really like to see Sleepy one more time before he's not around anymore.

diptych # 30 (civilized ku # 2518-19) ~ good things come in/from small packages

Pot still / Pear Eau de Vie with the Pear in the Bottle ~ Lunenburg, Nova Scotia / Canada • click to embiggenAs promised here is a fully processed version (slightly different view) of the picture - a quick iPad processed one - as presented in the entry, civilized ku # 2504.

FYI, we brought home a variety of products from the Ironworks Distillery, to include an rather incredible rum and an very unusual rhubarb liqueur.

diptych # 29 ~ country mouse / city mouse # 2 - Babes and Bitches: the femme fatale with her historical, mythical and biblical origins and her afterlife in popular culture

Children's books / Halal Meat ~ Keeseville, NY - in the Adirondack Park / Queens, NY• click to embiggenSo I'm tinkering with the idea of a picture making project based on an academic paper, Babes and Bitches: the femme fatale with her historical, mythical and biblical origins and her afterlife in popular culture, written by Liesbeth Grotenhuis*. Liesbeth is from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where I assume she both lives and teaches.

That written, my mental tinkering primarily revolves around my desire to undertake a constructed-picture (as opposed to found pictures) project. I have nothing against constructed pictures per se. After all, I made a living and commercial career out of making constructed pictures for advertising and marketing. However, making them for fine art sake is whole nuther kettle of fish.

As most know, I have spent virtually all of my personal picture efforts in the cause of making straight (found) pictures. My M.O. has been both discursive and promiscuous (also see here), although, not entirely without focus inasmuch as I continue to flesh out as many as 9 individual theme-based bodies of work.

Nevertheless, there has been an ongoing low-level background murmur, an itch if you will, which keeps nagging me to make some made pictures. While I'm certain that part of that murmur/itch is a throw back to my commercial picture making days, there is also a very strong desire to give making fine art made pictures a go.

The whole thing is kinda like Jeff Wall's statement (see his MOMA exhibit here), only in reverse:

“I think my relation to photography is changing. For a long time it was necessary to contest the classical aesthetic of photography as too absolutely rooted in the idea of fact, and the factual claim made by photography both within and outside of art. I accept that claim, but I don’t think that it itself can be the foundation for an aesthetic of photography, of photography as art. The way I thought I could work through that problem was to make photographs that put the factual claim in suspension, while still creating an involvement with factuality for the viewer. I tried to do this in part through emphasizing the relations photography has with other picture-making arts, mainly painting and the cinema, in which the factual claim has always been played with a subtle, learned and sophisticated way. This was what I thought of as a mimesis of the other arts, something that could uniquely be done as photography. What I began to realize later was that this mimesis was of course taking place on the foundation provided by photography itself. So, slowly, it was possible to turn toward photography itself, as an equal player in the mimetic game. Now I see the possibility of developing a mimesis of photography, as photography.” ~ Jeff Wall

I'll keep you posted, re: my mental tinkering on this subject and its possibilities.