Artist Research for Mon. February 8th

www.thomasstruth.net

"In the mid-1980s, Struth began a series of color and black-and-white portraits of individuals and family

groups, using the same large-format camera he employed for his cityscapes. This series grew out of an earlier but never completed collaborative project with psychoanalyst Ingo Hartmann, Familie Leben (Family Life, 1982), in which Struth and Hartmann analyzed family snapshots that Hartmann�s patients brought with them to therapy. Giles Robertson with Book, Edinburgh (1987) and The Hirose Family, Hiroshima (1987) exemplify Struth�s belief in photography as �a tool of scientific origin for psychological exploration� rather than a voyeuristic or fetishizing medium. This ongoing series explores the personal and cultural dynamics that condition how we see ourselves and others as well as how our individual and collective identities condition such perceptions. With unyielding gazes, Struth�s subjects confront the viewer, forcing him or her to participate in this dialogue." (www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_149A.html )

The thing I find most compelling about Struth's work, besides the direct gaze of the adults in the image. Is the way the families match their environments. I am wondering if this was something that Struth intentionally did or whether it was a happy accident. I'm betting that it is something Struth arranged and possibly something I would like to employ myself. Once again I am interested in the way the families interact with their own environment and with the clothing choice here they almost seem to become apart of their home.

These images also interest me due to the rage of emotion on the families faces. Although they are all looking directly at the camera and in turn the viewer there is such a mixture of emotions from boredom to happiness. This is interesting and may say a lot about the individuals in the group.

The thing I will take away from Struth's work is more in his interest or meaning behind these family portraits. That they are intended for more of a scientific study than to be voyeuristic.