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This blog is intended to showcase my pictures or those of other photographers who have moved beyond the pretty picture and for whom photography is more than entertainment - photography that aims at being true, not at being beautiful because what is true is most often beautiful..

>>>> Comments, commentary and lively discussions, re: my writings or any topic germane to the medium and its apparatus, are vigorously encouraged.

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Entries in pictures + words project (15)

Wednesday
Jul022014

pictures + words project ~ picture 11 • words j - apostate visual artists

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picture 11 • click to embiggen
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words j • click to embiggen
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time that I am not enamored of/by the Academic Lunatic Fringe (ALF), Photography Division. IMO, they are an ipso facto testament to Susan Sontag's notion regarding the revenge of the intellect upon art inasmuch as the ALF has turned the notion of meaning into a fetish. So much so that meaning reigns supreme over both the depicted referent and visual qualities to be had in a picture.

And, as the ALF would have it, the more self-absorbed the picture maker the better. Or, as one critic wrote: many photographers are like .... characters whose adventures, much like that of Oz in this telling, track like therapeutic journeys (follow your dream of self-actualization) instead of transcendent excursions (just dream!). The "I" is exalted and all important.

I am not alone in my feelings and thoughts regarding the ALF. Consider this from John Rosenthal:

Unfortunately, art in America has become an elitist preserve. This is partly the fault of a critical establishment which abandoned the enduring search for a common language - the language of love and loss and sorrow and remembrance - and began to speak, almost exclusively, in a specialized and opaque language that few can understand... speak primarily to a small New York audience. Outside of this extroverted realm ... the quiet, free-standing work of art is given little respect ...

Around the age of thirty it struck me that a continuous self-focus was an act of gossip - about oneself, to oneself. Turning one's gaze within might be an effective antidote to the national faith in material redemption, but by itself this habit of inwardness would only encourage a chattering of selves.

And then consider this - combination of commentary on and artist statement about a body of work:

....(he) investigates the family photo album employed as the visual infrastructure for the flawed ideology of the American Dream. Frustrated by the lack of images that document the true and sometimes troubling nature of his own familial history, he set out to create a new archive ... [U]sing photographs made over the last decade, and altered amateur photographs ... [I]n my story, these characters exist at the intersection of domestic duress and spirituality ... [T]hese images are a tangible manifestation of fantasy, memories and experiences acquired during my journey to adulthood, and function as a supplement to the family album assembled by my parents.

My very first reaction to reading - even before viewing the pictures - the above commentary / statement was that I hoped the picture maker is seeing a therapist. If he is, it's possible that the therapist might have suggested the picture making project as part of the therapy. Or, perhaps there is no therapist and the picture maker is just following his dream of self-actualization or whatever.

In any event, the B&W pictures made for this project are nice enough but ... for the most part, they employ a hodgepodge of tried-and-true image-altering techniques and imaging making styles. Throughout the sampling of work I viewed, there were hints and nods to the work of Jerry Ulesmann, Sally Mann, Diane Arbus, Duane Michals, and Alec Soth to name a few. None of which is to write that the work in question is either trite or valueless, but ....

... to be honest, for me, the artspeak is so annoying as to be off putting when it comes to viewing the actual pictures. But, of course, as is the wont of the ALF and so many of the MFA 'educated' picture makers, they just have to artspeak it up to make (annoying) manifest, direct and control, and embellish their precious idea of meaning. And, it seems to me, the commentary / statement artspeak is also serves to distract viewers from the fact that the pictures in question are most often very derivative in technique and style. Which is to write that, visually, there is very little that is new or unique on offer.

All of that written, I must admit to not knowing why I am, at this particular moment, seemingly so obsessed with the ALF and their MFA offspring. Most likely it has something to do with John Rosenthal's conclusion that:

...quiet, free-standing work of art is given little respect, apostate visual artists find themselves longing for an absent American discourse.

Tuesday
Apr292014

pictures + words project ~ picture 10 • words i / what is a photograph? # 10, OR, civilized ku # 2700 ~ what's the point?

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picture 10 • click to embiggen
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word i • click to embiggen

Round and round, up and down. Again and again. What is ...? What is .....? What is .......? Mirage-like, an answer appearing - like the sun reappearing on the morning horizon giving way and hope to yet another new day - the perceived wisdom dissolves beyond a curtain of fog and mist. Why? Why? Why? The ornate carousel ride goes round and round and up and down and covetous clawing hands grasp at air and thin hope. And the golden ring hovers, tantalizing and teasing, just out of reach. What if...? What if.....? What if .........?

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What is a photograph # 10 • click to embiggen
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the point / POV Oblio imitator ~ Toronto, CA. • click to embiggen
As the Rockman states "... that's the central issue I'm putting down for you cats: you gotta open your mind as well as your eyes .... "

Monday
Apr142014

picture + words project ~ picture 9 / words h

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picture 9 • click to embiggen
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words h • click to embiggen

Silence. A tree in the forest. Noise and sound into the void. Falling. Deeper into the abyss. A wall, thick and dense, a filter built from years of accumulated deadening debris and detritus, deflecting all which is without. Beyond caring. Beyond comprehension. Beyond knowing. Damning up the liquid flow of life giving and affirming sustenance of daily bread which grows moldy in the isolated dank cupboard of neglect. The tree falls and the forest decays leaving nothing but ashes and the bittersweet taste of things which will never be.

Tuesday
Dec102013

pictures + words project ~ picture 8 / words g

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picture 8 • click to embiggen
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words g • click to embiggen

Thoughts. Ideas. Synaptic pings reflected from the gravity-free weight of a thousand days and nights, whistling by the graveyard on threadbare treads of lost wisdom. Free association obstructed and obfuscated beneath the digital-noise whine, unrelentingly crashing and breaking on the extracranial barriers of prejudice and assumption. Convoluted contradiction competing with the light and darkness for attention and adulation. Never ending, always working. Never ending, always working. Restless thoughts and vague ideas.

Friday
Nov082013

pictures + words project ~ picture 7 / words f

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picture 7 • click to embiggen
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words f • click to embiggen

Floating and drifting in a peyote-like cuban leaf and kentucky spirit dream state, the medicine man sat in his elevated tower being pulled ever deeper into his life braced labyrinth of mind and thoughts. The child. The woman. The man. Conjuring and embracing thoughts of what might be, what could be, what should be and, what is.  In a heart and soul pounding rain, dreamed tears of sadness and joy enveloping like a soothing balm, he explored the sustenance giving rightness of many things. And then there was beer, rice and chicken pot pie.

Sunday
Nov032013

pictures + words project ~ picture # 6 / words e

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# 6 • click to embiggen
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e • click to embiggen

Wednesday
Jul312013

pictures + words # 5 ~ diptych # 5 / words e

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# 5 • click to embiggen

Walking to work, reading, fondled by breezes, my mind has been swimming in perplexities following a Japanese tale in circles, listening to clairvoyant sisters with Greek island names. Murakami speaks to me.

Tuesday
Jul232013

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

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# 1 • click to embiggen
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# 2 • click to embiggen
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a • click to embiggen
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b • click to embiggen
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c • click to embiggen
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d • click to embiggen
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# 3 • click to embiggen
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# 4 • click to embiggen
As 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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# ? • click to embiggen