According to Roland Barthes “a
text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning
(the ‘message’ of the Author-god), but a multidimensional
space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and
clash…” Barthes denies the concept of originality and authenticity
just as other artists such as Sherry Levine thought to explore. I however
am not interested in proving my originality or disproving it. Sherry
Levine’s art “explores the possibility of expressing oneself
using the ready-made expressions of someone else…” It is
true that you can utilize the words or artwork of someone else to express
yourself but I think even in doing so you are having a unique experience
of your own. Just as I am using photographs from the past that were taken
by someone else, my experience with these photos are different. I started
this project (using the found photographs from my basement) before I
was very familiar with appropriation and the artist’s of the past
who have made art along these same lines. I was initially concerned with
bringing those pictures to light. I am in a sense taking the place of
the original photographer.
I have looked at the work of John Baldessari and found him to be a starting point
or a fork in the road for my own work. I manipulate as a tool or a technique
just like a painter uses oil paints on a canvas. I am either changing using the
camera and film directly or in the dark room or with chemicals or cropping, as
a means to get a desired effect. Each effect is different for each individual
photograph. Simply appropriating my images without any change would give them
a different meaning than I am after. I believe that would force the focus on
issues of ownership and originality more than the actual photographs and what
I have done to them and why. Baldessari believes that “…a good artist
can make a harder truth by manipulating forms or pushing paint around. It fascinates
me how I can manipulate the truth so easily by the way I juxtapose opposites
or crop the image or take it out of context.” I am more focused on the
processes I use in producing these final products or in the story behind each
photograph since they are from a time I am unfamiliar with. The manipulations
or distortions I make are a way for me to express myself onto an image. Right
now what I am intrigued by are the old pictures of my mother and because I am
an artist, simply looking at them is not enough.
Another artist that I find similarities with is Diane Arbus. Arbus is intrigued
by “freaks,” or the unusual, as I am interested in what is unique,
hence my photographs are from a different period of a life I do not know. Our
subjects are clearly dissimilar but I think we both share the same intensity
for a need to find a connection to what we do not know, but would like to explore.
It is the mystery of the unknown that entrances me; for instance, I know my mom
but I also don’t because I was not there when she was growing up and so
I did not experience what she did and using photographs of her is a way to identify
with her more and learn more about her and get closer to her.
I have been fascinated by the inexplicable and the unknown for a long time and
have been photographing a haunted insane asylum since high school, so this theme
has been present for me since I first had an interest in art. The subject of
my work from the first semester is of people that have already passed. Death
is obviously one of the biggest mysteries of life and arouses my curiosity like
anyone else’s. The idea of not knowing what is to come or what has come
to those that have died is something that intrigues me and reminds me of works
by Christian Boltanski. Boltanski said that “We hate to see the dead, yet
we love them, we appreciate them. Human. That’s all we can say.” I
am looking for something that sends a spark in my mind and makes me want to frantically
work on piece after piece. I was in the dark room last night and had an idea
of what I wanted to do but as soon as I got in there that all changed and a new
train of thought took hold and I got idea after idea that I had not even considered
before. The idea of improvisation is important to my process because many of
the unique effects I get in each photograph happen initially by accident or from
experimentation and discover something new, or a different way of printing that
I was not familiar with before. That is where my best work is done, when I am
not thinking too consciously about formal issues or aesthetic concerns but I
experiment with wherever things take me.
My ritualistic experience in the dark room is very important to me. I enjoy the
hands on involvement I get from working in the wet dark room. I feel more of
a connection to my photographs when I have had a direct effect on them with my
touch. Each time I enter a dark room my experience is different. Each set of
chemicals and mixtures are my own. Maybe because I am appropriating images I
feel a need to make the work I am producing uniquely mine and a wet dark room
experience is a better means of having that hand on working feeling than pointing
and clicking a mouse on a computer. I honestly would not feel as much ownership
of my photos if I used a digital means because I want to make sure I have a direct
affect on my photographs and working purely in the darkroom facilitates this
better than a digital means which I believe places you a step further from your
work. It is less intimate when a computer is manipulating your work rather than
you. It is less intimate procedure when a computer is manipulating my work rather
than me.
Jerry Uelsmann was a pioneer for wet dark room work. He made very intricate pictures
that would appear to be done by a computer, not by hand. He did “digital
manipulation before the technology was invented.” He would manipulate and
distort and overlay images to bring about all kinds of different affects. He
used imagery designed to “fool the eye,” where he would make one
picture appear as if what was being shown was truth such as a house growing out
of a tree, when really he has manipulated several images to look as though they
are one, all with his hands and the tools in the wet darkroom. I am not necessarily
interested in the same kind of manipulation of prints but manipulation is a key
factor in my work no doubt.
I started off my senior year manipulating oil paint and therefore many of the
artists I have looked at have been chosen because of my background as a painter.
Gerhard Richter is an artist that I feel a connection to. I find it hard to articulate
accurately what it is that I am trying to get at with my art, and in part that
has to do with the fact that I follow my intuitions strongly. I am overwhelmed
with some kind of an artistic feeling about a subject matter or a process, and
I follow that feeling or impulse. This does not mean that I do not meticulously
think out subjects. It is important for my own expression to include the fact
that I and many artists’s whether they would like to admit it or not leave
much of their initial decisions to chance. Often I stumble across a new way of
printing an image or even stumble across the image itself. I did find all of
the images of my mother by chance in my basement and it is very relevant to my
work to include that element in my work.
There is a fuzzed out photographic quality in many of Richter’s paintings
that can be seen in my photographs. They are mysterious in a way because not
too much information is divulged. I feel that it is partially this quality that
draws you in to an image. Not everything is given to you as with a very clean,
crisp painting or photograph. This makes you search throughout the photographs
and that’s when you find the intricacies such as bubbles of light or distortions
and slips in the negatives, which are an important part of my process.
In an attempt to reconnect with my mother through a photographic ritual I am
interested in her life before I or even my father was a part of it. I am not
only interested in her but in the elements that surround her (old cars, trees,
paint cans etc.) I have taken my focus inward just on my mother to do an examination
of her using the photograph. This entails zooming in and taking snippets of individual
images from the mundane or random to really focusing in on her face. I will include
part of my process somewhat subtly by leaving words from the copy machine that
was used to re-photograph the images. I also included words that appeared directly
on the original image in one photograph. I changed my style from last semester
which involved a lot of chemical manipulation to doing more direct changes to
the prints and also going back and re-photographing the already re-photographed
images thus taking my process a step further.
I have shown variations and repeats
of a single image. This decision will depict what it is like when I am looking
into these pictures and scanning them for what intrigues me, and feels important
to me. I am interested in instances and mistakes that occur along the way in
creating these prints. They are purposefully included just as Julia Margaret
Cameron did in her photographs. I make no effort to remove specks and scratches
that happen in the original images because they enhance the photographs and make
them more real and less aestheticised than if I edited out the “flaws.” They
add some kind of depth in a weird way. For instance the photograph of my mother
seated on the Russian Wolf hound with all of the specks around the image. They
add a mysterious quality and a point of interest to the photograph. It is important
that I take out snippets of photographs or replicate them over and over because
it makes people think of why I made the decision to emphasize certain areas and
they then examine each picture more extensively just as I did in the darkroom
initially. This is a conscious decision on my part to include the viewer in on
my process.
When I boil it down I am making works of art about my mother out of admiration
and curiosity. She has lead a very captivating life and these pictures embody
the stories that I have been told as I was growing up. When my mom first saw
my installation she first walked by all of the pieces and looked up close into
them and didn’t say anything. The second time she walked through the installation
she started telling me even more back-story about the places and things in the
photographs. She talked about how in order to get to her vacation house they
would have to canoe across a river. She talked about all of the Russian wolf
hounds that her family bred and showed and how they would have up to ten at a
time throughout her childhood.
It is hard to explain in words what kind of an added depth I have gotten out
of this means of exploration about my mother. I cannot sum up my body of work
with one specific lesson; I think it goes deeper than that. Working with photographs
is really a way for me to extend my relationship and connection with my subject
matter further than just through verbal communication. My work with photography
is a means to take the connection to a different level because you can look at
a photograph for hours and study every inch of it. It is a different kind of
an understanding that I get from working with this artistic vocabulary. You can
only take so much from hearing stories about someone’s life, but when you
take that story telling to a visual level (that of photography) there is a new
kind of looking and comprehension you get.
Bibliography
1. Art Cyclopedia, www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/close_chuck.html, 9-24-03
2. Art Cyclopedia, www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/hopper_edward.html, 9-24-03
3. Photographs: Annie Leibovitz 1970-1990, http://book.lowpriced.net/0060923466.html,
9-26-03
4. After Modern Art 1945-2000, David Hopkins, Oxford University Press, 2000
5. Framing America a Social History of American Art, Frances K. Pohl, Thames
and Hudson Inc. 2002
6. Secret Knowledge rediscovering the lost techniques of the old masters, David
Hockney, Viking Studio, 2001
7. Essential History of Art, Lucinda Hawksley, Parragon, 2000
8. Edward Hopper, The Art and the Artist, Gail Levin, W.W. Norton & Company,
New York, London, 1982
9. John Baldessari, Coosje van Bruggen, Rizzoli International Publicatons,
Inc, New York, 1990
10. Women Artists, an Illustrated History, Nancy G. Heller, Abbeville Press,
New York, London, Paris, 1997
11. The Magic Image, The Genius of Photography, Cecil Beaton and Gail Buckland,
Pavilion Books Limited, London, 1989
12. Munch and Photography, Mara-Helen Wood, Newcastle Polytechnic Gallery
13. Ivan Albright, Portrayer of Darkness and Decay, Barbara Joyce, www.winnetkahistory.org/Gazette/Winnetkans/ivan_albright.htm
11-3-03
14. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ivan Albright: Magic Realist, www.tfaoi.com/newsmu/nmus40b.htm
11-3-03
15. Christian Boltanski, Tate Magazine, www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue2/boltanski.htm
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