Showing posts with label Artist Lecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Artist Lecture. Show all posts

Sunday, February 21, 2010

2nd Artist Lecture for Spring Semester

No website found.


I found the Paul Pfeiffer lecture quite interesting. Although he uses acquired images something, I am still not 100% excepting of, I feel the way he used them to not only relevant but unique. He compares his early work using these acquired videos to work of still photography due to the fact he loops his videos so there is no beginning and no end similar to the effect of a still image. In later work he again makes the comparison to still imagery with the help of small dioramas. During his talk he explains he likes the absurdity of using a technology meant to capture a moving image and make it capture a still image or something as close to still as possible (white house hallway piece).

I felt special when he filled us in on various pieces of information he normally doesn't share about his work, but I feel this information confused me, or rather confused the fact he doesn't normally share this information. The main piece that I am talking about here is his 24 Landscapes. In them he has removed Marilyn Monroe from various seascape portraits he had found of her while digging through an archive. What is left is a seemingly unconnected series of seascapes some of which are completely blurry due to the original focal length used for the photo. Without knowing that the same person was removed from all 24 of the images I'm not sure if I would understand or even come close to appreciating the work and I definitely wouldn't get that the underlying thread was to be one of identity.

There are two pieces that really stuck out to me in a good way the first (top image) was of a small mirror sculpture he had built into a wall so when you first walked into that gallery you saw nothing but white wall with a small square in the middle. Then if you were brave enough to look in you found an amazing geometric design. One thing I really appreciate about the piece is that it is something that only one person can experience at a time and therefore it is a very personal and intimate moment between the artist and the viewer. The other piece of his that captured my attention was his Morning After the Deluge- which is a 20 min video and both a sunrise (normal view) and a sunset (flipped upside down) the sun never changes location on the screen but the duel horizon is what moves across the screen. I find this interesting and couldn't take my eyes off the screen during the question and answer session, because I was trying to study the slow movement of the sun and trying to see if I could actually see the horizon move. I never did, but it still seemed to progress.


Saturday, February 20, 2010

1st Artist Lecture for Spring Semester

Honestly I went to this lecture not knowing a thing about Alec Soth, except that the turnout to his talk was supposed to be unreal. When I got there I was disappointed in the turnout as the theater was only half full. When Alec started talking about how we, as photographers, are essentially wasting our time it depressed me even more. These are words that I have heard other photographers say and that we have discussed in classes more than once. That there are so many new images everyday and most of them equally good to what we can do as professionals, what's the point in taking more pictures at all. I thought for sure he would be an appropriation artist, but was happy to find out he was not.

I enjoyed the concepts he put forth and the way he was able to story tell about the way he approached story telling in his work. I found his story and image of the most beautiful woman in Georgia ( http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/georgian-spring-alec-soth ) to be humorous because he found her and was not able to take a picture of her face. So all we have of proof that she exists is a quick snapshot of her back in a small group.

One thing I really liked about his lecture was all the reading he suggested for us. I can't wait to find Paul Graham's “Shimmer of Possibilities” which Alec deemed the most important book to read. As well as look at all the many artists he suggested. Finding "How to story tell on radio." by Ira Glass on Utube is what I will be doing as soon as this post is up.

I was glad to hear that by the end of Alec's talk he was still positive about the photo industry even with the millions of images we are bombarded with everyday and relieved to know that even in this digital age he saw hope for us as a profession if we find our way to tell our stories through our work.

www.alecsoth.com