Artist: Sara Cwynar

I was originally struck by this one particular image "Dead Alive Alive Dead" because I feel my work is so visually similar to this without me ever seeing it until after making the images I see as so relatable to this. I have mixed feelings about my work looking so similar. Part of me is frustrated that originally ideas seem to be hard to come by. That is not entirely true because each artist's perspective brings a uniqueness  to an idea... but I'm not sure that's enough. The similarity also serves to be somewhat inspirational by showing me that my aesthetics and ideas can be successfully and interesting to other people. 

Dead Alive Alive Dead, 2010

Quotes:

“I love the colors that you find in old printed matter; I love a faded emerald green or a nice salmon pink. I love the idea of finding someone’s discarded personal archive. I hoard this kind of stuff and then try to incorporate it into various projects.”

"When you know what you might do if you could do anything, it becomes a lot easier to take a brief and work with it.”

Both quotes from: http://imprint.printmag.com/editors-picks/2011-nva-winner-sara-cwynar/

artist's website

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Trevor Paglen Questions/Response

How is photographing hidden government sites legal? Have you run into major issues with this?


Define the line between art and documenting your research.

Artist: Laurel Nakadate

Laurel Nakadate is of interest to me because her work about being lonely is a good reference for me when thinking about how to communicate my own ideas about loneliness in my work. Her approach is usually straight forward and easy to communicate to her viewers, which I'm assuming is a large part of why she is so well known. She is honest and fearless when creating her work. I admire her willpower and commitment to her practice.

Quotes:
" In general, I wait to be approached. I want to be the one who’s hunted, I want to be the one who they take interest in—because if they’re not interested in me, they’re probably not going to be interested in being in a video. I also like the idea of turning the tables—the idea of them thinking that they’re in charge or that they’re in power and they’re asking me for something and then I turn it on them, where I’m the director and the world is really my world."


" I feel like it was student work, but something I needed to do to get past the fear. There’s a certain rush that comes from making these pieces, because I’m putting myself in a situation where I really have no control: going out there and being at the mercy of whoever opens their door to me. I think it’s a really good thing to put yourself in a situation where you feel really uncomfortable because I think things can come out of that discomfort."


(both quotes from interview cited bellow)

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Laurel Nakadate Questions/Response

Is your work about connecting with others actually helping you connect with others now that you have completed multiple pieces about it?

Is it wrong to assume these works about about yourself?

Idea: Separation

Separation is a new word I'm using to help describe my concept. "Isolation" was not  working the way I had originally intended, so I feel it's important to rewrite my artist statement and reword the way I describe my work in critiques. In my photographs I want to show the idea of something there that no longer is, something that was whole that is now separate... 

Bibliography

Clark, Sharon, PhD, Symons, Douglas, PhD. Representations of Attachment Relationships, the Self, and Significant Others in Middle Childhood. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry; 2009, Vol. 18 Issue 4, p316-321, 6p, 2 Charts

This study examines the effects of positive and negative attachment and relationships among children and their caregivers. It suggests that these relationships have a direct effect on the individuals self worth and effect his or her relationships with others. 

Quotes from study:

"When needs are met either inconsistently or in an angry fashion by parents, children come to expect that they are not worthy of care. When needs are met consistently, children come to expect they are worthy of care and they can count on others in times of need, which is an element of secure attachment."

"Insecurity manifests itself as negative social behavior."

"More needs to be known about how attachment relationships are related to children's thoughts and feelings about themselves and their interactions with social partners within those relationships."

Maia Flore

from the series Mia Och Flore

This work is particularly interesting to me as a twin. When thinking about separation, I think a lot about being a twin and what it means to be part of a whole (I mean we started out as one embryo...) and what it means now to soon be living eight hours away.

Kathy Rose: Questions/Response

Initial Questions:
Working with new media (video, performance), have you encountered difficulties with presentation (how to best play a video, how often to perform a piece) within a gallery/museum setting? If so, in what ways did you overcome these challenges?

Would still images be able to convey your concepts? Why performance, video, animation, etc.?

Response:
To be completely honest, it was hard to sit through the Kathy Rose lecture. I thought I was going to learn more about her concepts behind her video work that I became familiar with by going through her website before I attended the lecture. Instead I learned that she is an artist that works largely without concept, but takes inspiration from Asian culture and dance. I found it shocking that an artist with no concept could attain so many reputable grants, teach at a university level, and garner so much attention without even communicating a message. As we watched each video, I took avid notes about what I thought the message was in the piece, always feeling like I must be missing something because I found most videos to be about nothing. I was not missing something, Kathy Rose's work was what was missing something. I was completely uninterested in her wacky videos with seemingly random costumes, dancing, and content that reminded me of a bad undergrad film students' first attempt experimenting with new technology. How is it that this work has tricked so many people into thinking this woman is talented?

My second question I proposed before attending the lecture was answered: "Would still images be able to convey your concepts? Why performance, video, animation, etc.?" The answer is: She has no concept so the medium could not possibly matter. I have no new questions.

I left with feelings of frustration towards the art world/market. I felt discouraged that I will ever be able to market myself amongst people making work of this nature that is being eaten up by the higher powers of art institutions.

Artist: Juergen Teller

Juergen Teller is always in the back of my mind when creating my work. I've never encountered an artist that has inspired me more. He is the best photographer I've ever seen. No other photographer has even come close to his images. They have a beauty and energy and edge that is truly unique. I aspire to make work that shows myself in a way much like this. His dedication to they way he does things, even if they are widely considered unskilled or unconventional is admirable. He continues to listen to himself and do exactly what he wants, and it's gotten him extremely far. 

Bio: (from gallery website)

Juergen Teller was born in Erlangen, Germany in 1964. He studied at the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt fur Photographie in Munich, Germany before moving to London in 1986.


His work in influential international publications such as W Magazine, I-D and Purple  nurtured his own photographic sensibility which is marked by his refusal to separate the commercial fashion pictures and his most autobiographical un-commissioned work.  Teller has exhibited at Le Consortium in Dijon, The Tate Modern in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Photographers Gallery in London, the Kunsthalle Wein,  and the Fondation Cartier Pour l'art Contemporain in Paris among others.  In 2003 Teller was awarded the Citibank Prize and in 2007 was asked to represent the Ukraine as one of five artists in the 52nd Venice Biennale.

Juergen Teller has been working with Marc Jacobs on his advertising campaigns for the past 11 years, the work has been collated into 'Marc Jacobs Advertising 1998 – 2009' published by Steidl.  Juergen has also had long collaborations with other designers and fashion houses over the years including Helmut Lang, Yves Saint Laurent and Vivienne Westwood.

Quotes:
"Juergen Teller's photographs make me desire what's there. They also make me wonder what's just outside the picture; they make me wish I were there myself."
-Cory Reynolds, Index Magazine


"Some people just don't see it, but I think some of those pictures are exquisite portraits."
-Juergen Teller speaking about his work 
I like this because it's true, many people don't see why his work is beautiful, but he does... and he doesn't care... and he keeps doing it. 

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Artist: Jan Maarten Voskuil

Jan Maarten Voskuil interests me because he considers himself a "painter" but pushes himself to find further satisfaction from painting by almost escaping it with processes not traditionally associated with painting. This is something I try to do with my photography.

Quotes:

(When asked: Are you happy at the prospect of working on this practice for the foreseeable future?)That's a good question. I do see my work as a constant flow of possible solutions for artistic problems. I recently made a work called One Way of Squeezing a Rectangle Into a Corner and of course there are endless ways to squeeze a rectangle into a corner, both in size and shape. How many do I intend to execute? When do I stop? I don't know. I discussed this with my colleague and friend Jochem van der Spek who makes beautiful real time drawing machines (www.dynamica.org). He creates endless and continually changing drawings. So he doesn't have to choose. The machine simple starts making everything and never ends or concludes. Maybe the only reasonable answer to your question is that I stop when I get bored.

-Jan Maarten Voskuil in interview with HUH. Magazine

Speaking about collaboration process with Christine Rusche:

We both see our selves as pure painters and at the same time we are not able to find a satisfying solution to just paint a canvas. Somehow we have to legitimate all we do and since there is no legitimation for painting we argue it, reduce it, escape it, attack or find legitimation in the location. We both don't know what to do with colour; it's so personal, subjective and narrative. I mean it's beautiful, but anything goes.

-Jan Maarten Voskuil in interview with HUH. Magazine

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Idea: Paper

In my last meeting with Paul he suggested I start experimenting with different kinds of paper for printing and for cutting my circles out of. I've started to think about all the different options there are with paper types, and it's almost overwhelming how many choices there are.

Letha Wilson

"Granite Tumbler" 2010. C-Print, Frame, Plexiglass, rubber. 30"x13"x3"

"Wall Cross Horse Shoe Canon" 2010. Digital C-print, Drywall, Joint Compound, paint. 28"x24"x3"

This artist has a process I could learn a lot from. She mixes sculpture and printing.

"My artwork uses images and materials from the natural landscape as a starting point for interpretation and confrontation. My work creates relationships between architecture and nature, and the gallery space and the American wilderness"

(Wilson, Letha. "P.S.1: Studio Visit: Letha Wilson". P.S.1, MoMa. New York, New York. 2009.
http://ps1.org/studio-visit/artist/letha-wilson)

"My interest in the relationship between interior architecture and the natural world has also led to recent work that juxtaposes reclaimed drywall into outdoors and site-specific installations."
(Wilson, Letha. "Hot Picks: Letha Wilson" SmackMelon.org. 2009
http://smackmellon.org/index.php/contact/hot_picks/letha_wilson1/)

Artist: Philipp Schaerer

Schaerer's work is attractive to me on a purely aesthetic level, but also poses interesting questions that make me think about the concepts of my own work. He examines the difference between reality and the image. He creates fictional architectural forms specifically to photograph and modify in order to challenge his viewer. I like to think of my process in a similar way. 


Bio from Schaerer's website:
After graduating from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL) as an architect in 2000, Philipp Schaerer (1972) worked as an architect and knowledge manager for Herzog & de Meuron in Basel (2000-2006). During his four years working as a research assistant at the chair of Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) at the Faculty of Architecture (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich) under Prof. Dr. Ludger Hovestadt, he was able to continuously develop his knowledge in the area of digital image processing. Working as a freelance architect and image creator today, his main interest lies not only in design and in the execution of small scale projects, but also in creating images of architecture and the built environment. His work comments on this issue.


Quotes:
"The main focus of my interest lies in the creation of images which try to reflect a built, exaggerated reality. Today, digital image editing allows the creation of images which are nearly impossible to distinguish from a photograph. But what other image strategies and esthetics can be pursued with the help of digital image techniques – image strategies which are not only aimed at the most exact realization of photographic rendition? Working with images, I am interested in the creation of images which in fact are based on a photographic language, but which can be abstract, model-like and exaggerated and try to reformulate the question of the differentiation between reality and image."
-Statement from Schaerer's website


"I really love 'BILDBAUTEN' the architectonic photograph series by Philipp Schaerer. The series of images with the title "Bildbauten“ deals with the effect and the claim to credibility of images of architecture that appear to be photographs. It further questions the medium “photograph” as a documentary piece of evidence depicting reality.
Frontal views of fictional architectures serve as an example. By means of their exaggerated and orchestrated way of representation, they model themselves on the object-like appearance and the formal language of contemporary architecture in a rather ironic way. All images try to reproduce a reality. They are not a photograph; instead, they were newly designed and constructed from scratch by means of image synthesis and digital image editing."

-(http://www.triangulationblog.com/2010/09/bildbauten-by-philipp-schaerer.html)

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Idea: Sculpture

Sculpture:
noun
the art of making two- or three-dimensional representative or abstract forms, esp. by carving stone or wood or by casting metal or plaster.
• a work of such a kind : a bronze sculpture | a collection of sculpture.
• Zoology & Botany raised or sunken patterns or texture on the surface of a shell, pollen grain, cuticle, or other biological specimen.
(Oxford American Dictionary)


As I experiment with physically cutting out sections from my prints and play with mounting them away from the wall, I am thinking more about traditional presentation methods, and what it means to break them. The dictionary definition is interesting to me because they define sculpture as either 2 or 3 dimensional, when I've assumed most people consider sculpture purely 3-d. Can prints of photographs be sculptures when raised from the wall and their traditional flat plane interrupted by cutting? I'm not so much worried about finding a word to define my potential process, but I am interested in thinking about sculpture to further inspire my transformation of my prints and enhance my representation of my blocked out areas in my existing images.

Eva Hesse, Untitled (Rope Piece) 1970

One of my favorite "sculptors" who has served as a constant inspiration to me. She often worked in ways that did not normally pertain to sculpture.

Eva Hesse by Lucy R Lippard would be a good text to read to think about how sculpture is perceived, and how sculpture that pushed boundaries of its time was criticized and interpreted. 
"Lucy Lippard’s Eva Hesse combines biography and criticism, formal analysis and psychological readings, to present a complete portrait of the life and work of this complex and compelling artist."


"Sculpture is a three-dimensional object with a message... Painting is an object with a three-dimensional message." (Bob Brendle)


"I say that the art of sculpture is eight times as great as any other art based on drawing, because a statue has eight views and they must all be equally good." (Benvenuto Cellini)

Artist: Sea Hyun Lee

Sea Hyun Lee's process is something I can relate to in my own work. His paintings show landscapes of North and South Korea, but do not aim to be political. They deal with his own sense of loss and put forward ideas about nostalgia and utopia. I like to learn about artists who are dealing with subject I can relate to but use processes to express there ideas and create that are visually very different than mine. 


Quotes:
"Lee is of course concerned with vanishings; these are paintings of a lost past, of disappearing landscapes and eroding memories. “The landscape no longer exists, and so I have to paint it,” Lee explains. But his paintings are never simply about the longing to recover the past. They are, instead, about the very process of reconstitution itself. They are concerned with a trauma that is not necessarily located in the past, but that is perhaps instead located in the endless attempt to recapitulate the past."
-from Union Gallery's website


"This is where the emotional power of Lee’s paintings resides - in their depiction of trauma, but also in their depiction of the devices we use to refute the fact and the evidence of that trauma. The human compulsion towards narratives of wholeness and totality is rendered with an acute awareness of its futility, as well as its potential to achieve a kind of grace. Lee represents both the landscape of fragmentation and the restored landscape of completion in equal measure."
-from Union Gallery's website

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Denise Markonish lecture questions/response

Initial Questions:
What jobs in the museum field did you have before becoming a curator?

Were you ever a practicing artist? If so, how has this affected your job as a curator?

Response
I really enjoyed this lecture. I would love to have Markonish's job one day. I liked learning about this museum as I am preparing for a move to Connecticut and am interested in new places to visit and possibly work in the future. I liked her "Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape" exhibit. She seems to have good clear ideas and successful ways of executing them. Her extensive study of contemporary Canadian artists was also extremely interesting. She is choosing topics that she has not seen addressed before and therefore inspiring interest from viewers who want to learn and see something new. I was surprised at how small the staff is at Mass MoCA. Makes the job market seem daunting.

My questions were not really answered, although I did get the feeling she was never a practicing artist. I am now more interested in knowing how she got the jobs she did, and what she recommends to other people trying to find jobs in her field.

Artist: Georges Rousse

An artist who successfully inserts a circle into his photographs! Couldn't have asked for a better example of a way to improve on something that was mentioned as a weakness of my work during my last critique. I am also interested in his philosophy, and why he uses geometric shapes. This artist truly inspires me. Wish I would have discovered him sooner. 


There many examples of his work I would like to reference. Unfortunately the artist's website forces you to save the images with this bizarre template around them.

Quotes:


He has invented 'Geometrism' in space, at once knowing and strange. And it has an amazing subtlety: there are no accidents in his work. Everything is planned, from its very inception to the final snapshot.
Philippe Dagen, Le Monde, January 1, 1986.


The idea that drives my work, that I hope to push to the extreme, is to make an intervention on an entire building.. I would make a whole sculpture out of the building's mass and photograph it, then the building would be destroyed.
Discussion with Jerome Sans in Flash Art, Spring 1984.


In Georges Rousse, we see an actor in search for another mode of spatial experience, based on his critical analysis of space. A sensibility of deconstruction emerges in these settings, in the tension between inside and outside, between floors and ceilings, between direct and reflected sights, in this aesthetic of chaos, confusion and imbalance.
Isabelle Alzieu in "Georges Rousse : Plasticité des espaces déconstruits" in Espaces transfigurés - À partir de l'oeuvre de Georges Rousse, PUP 2007.


I use white because it symbolizes light and black because, on the contrary, it represents earth's darkness.
Georges Rousse


His use of maps of cities, buildings, shifts from the memory of landscapes through which he has travelled, towards a memory of their own history. Excerpt from the interview "Georges Roussse -
Philippe Piguet" in the exhibition catalog at Chateauroux museum, 2003.


Constructions are organized entirely around a partition: a continuity/discontinuity between painted space and real space, a remotely geometrical expanse in which colour plays the abstraction game fully. Michéle Moutashar, "L'esprit des lieux," in Georges Rousse Arles, Editions Actes Sud, 2006.


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