Hilary Wiech    ST. MARY'S PROJECT 2007
 

 

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While working on my St. Mary's Project this year I looked at a number of sources that were influential on the eventual outcome of my work. In my research I first found artists whom intrigued me, and forced me to find new ways to photograph the landscape. I also looked at conceptual sources that helped me contemplate the ideas about the landscape and how it relates to artwork. This file is a PDF version of my annotated bibliography of my research through out the entire year of my St. Mary’s Project.

See PDF Version of Annotated Bibliography

1. Mann, Sally. Deep South. New York: Bullfinch Press, 2005.
The images in this book are some of the images that have inspired me to believe that landscape photography can be very moving. Also the text, which goes along with the images, is some of the most moving and subtly yet effectively politically charged artistic material I have seen. I hope that my images will be able to foster such strong feelings as these images can. What has come to my attention is her use of a camera that limits and controls her work. This being the idea of using an old camera with scratched glass plates that do not allow her to have the perfect print she knows how to make. She treats scratches, over or under exposures, and out of focus areas as beautiful mishaps in the work.

2. Mann, Sally. What Remains. New York: Bullfinch Press, 2003.
The focus of this book, death, is a hard subject for me to deal with. On the other hand the images are so beautiful that I find myself continuing to want to look at it. What has drawn parallels for me to this work is her use of tools that make her work more complicated and less controlled. This in particular interest for me in her quest to make beautiful pictures out of ugly subject matter, such as dog bones and decaying human corpses.

3. Goldsworthy, Andy. Andy Goldsworthy: a collaboration with nature. New York: H.N.Abrams 1990 (New) In a small writing by Goldsworthy in the beginning of this book he attempts to describe his work and his interactions with nature. For me the true quality of the work did not come across. What was interesting was seeing his way of titling, simply listing what it was, maybe how he did it, and the weather or lighting that surrounded him while he crated the work. Seeing these titles made me realize how his work could be taken into effect in a gallery and how it exist in the art world.

4. Weintraub, Linda. In the Making Creative Options for Contemporary Art. New York: Distirbuted Art Publishers Inc., 2003. (New) In my search for resources on Cooper I have found this to be the most beneficial look into his work that ahs been able to be found. Weintraub allows for a very democratic look at his work without opposing much opinion about his work. I find it gives the most comprehensive look into the work by touching on everything he works with; landscape, history, and geography.

5. Bellingham, David “Thomas Joshua Cooper – an interview with David Bellingham” Source February 1998. (New) David Bellingham is an artist who assists Cooper in his work. I found this interview online and although brief it gets to core quick points about the artists work. You can sense the strong repertoire these two have and you know that it reaches the points Cooper wants to discuss with in his work and about criticism he has recived.

6. Goldsworthy, Andy. Andy Goldsworthy Rivers and Tides Working With Time. Docurama: 2004. (New) This documentary allowed me to see the real sense of Goldsworthy’s work. You see his passion for nature, how precarious it is to make the work, and the way he seems to become involved with his surroundings. Something that I found interesting in the documentary is a scene where he walks around his hometown and collects various objects to make an artwork. The work he makes is inspired by what he finds on his walk, a very spontaneous way to crate, but reminded me of how I choose a place to walk and then choose to photograph it.

7. Cooper, Thomas Joshua Thomas Joshua Cooper: Point of no Return London: Haunch of Venison, 2004. Having this book enabled me to look at an extensive amount of some of Cooper’s most recent work. It was helpful to see his the extent of perfection in the images and the way he uses formal elements to affect the photographs. Looking at this massive amount of photographs also made me realize how a body of work must be cohesive.

8. Roulet, Laura, ed. Ana Mendieta Body Tracks. Kunstmueseum Luzern, 2002. This book on Mendieta has many articles written about her and her work. Much of the pieces attempt to explain how her work fit into her Hispanic culture and the time period she was working in. It is helpful for learning more about an artistic process and ideas behind the images of a work. I was interested in how Medieta related to the natural world and the experience she created in the landscape.

9. Viso, Olga M, ed. Ana Mendieta Earth Body Sculpture and Performance, 1972-1985. Washington DC: Hirshhorn Muesuem and Sculpture Garden, New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 2004. This book on Mendieta has a massive amount of images of the documentation of her work. These images are very inspiring to me because of their simplicity; that they are a documentation of something, yet they are full of artistic choices that were made about the performance of the work. I looked at Mendieta’s work through out the fall semester of SMP.

10. Adams, Ansel Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs Boston: Little, Brown, 1983. Looking at this book helped me look specifically at what I kept describing as the grand view. Reading the descriptions of how each image was made allowed me to understand and appreciate the work that goes into making one of these beautiful images. Being able to see many different images made at different time periods gave me a broad understanding of his work. Conceptual Source

11. Lippard, Lucy R. The Lure of the Local senses of place in a multicentered society. New York: The New Press, 1997. This book has been the most influential source thus far in my Smp. I believe that this is also the first critical art theory I have ever read and felt that I had similar concerns with how my art could be created and perceived. This is in particular relation to the idea that I have grown up with aware that the cultures I have experienced have been extremely different.

12. Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and Place the Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977. Space and Place was crucial to read before I opened The Lure of the Local, this is because it allowed me to open up to theories of how and why different spaces can affect us. The most interesting points for me have been how this develops for a child and how children learn about their own sense of space.

13. Thompson, George F, ed. Landscape in America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995. (New) This book has a particular section in it about Landscape as art, which has various writings by artist about how landscape has affected them and how the way they look and think about the landscape has affected their work. This was helpful in following a discourse about landscape art instead of looking at particular artist work. The readings were intriguing and gave me ideas of how other artist look at landscapes and how an audience might view work about a landscape. I think it has also helped me realize that there are many variations of artist who feel a connection to landscape and how we view it.

14. Andrews, Malcolm Landscape and Western Art. Oxford: University Press, 1999. Because this book discusses a long history of landscape artwork it has helped me look at my work objectively. It allows me to remind myself of what the audience knows about landscape art and what they are bringing to the work. This was very helpful in identifying the idea of a grand view.

 

     
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