Alec Soth: Artist Lecture

Lenny, Minneapolis, Minnesota 2002

I was excited to attend the Alec Soth lecture on Wednesday as there was a general buzz about him around the department. The large drama department theater was quite filled and a strange movie played for ten minutes before Soth himself took to the stage. His first discussion about "democratic photography" was interesting and I felt like it was an engaging way to start out the lecture. I agreed with a lot of his ideas about the over saturation of images and the difficulty of standing out in the photography crazy world. While this topic is extremely important just discussing it and basically saying that it is the unavoidable end to photography I feel is not the best way to handle it. A student lecture should be inspirational; "so what if the world is over saturated? There is always room for the creative to stand out" would have been a better response. I'm not saying to be blindly optimistic but to just trail off and speak bleakly about the future really has no place in a student lecture. There was definitely a theme from start to finish in the lecture in that each thing he talked about led into the next, much like his work. While he made some interesting points early on, I felt like as the conversation progressed the lecture went down hill in terms of his presentation and general demeanor.

At one point in the lecture he showed a project he called the "loneliest man in Minneapolis." I felt like this project was in its own way a strange metaphor for his body of work as well as the lecture itself. His worked claimed to be about this journey, a photographic adventure through the US, but all I saw was a lonely man trying to come to terms with his work and life. His images totally mirrored his personality: dry, cold and drowsy. His presentation was so lackluster that in a strange way it motivated me to realize that my own life is not so bad. What kind of artist gives a photography lecture to a predominately photography major student crowd and basically rants about how the art is dead? It just felt strange to me. I did enjoyed some of his work, but for the most part I felt like his attitude was so negative that it was hard to really relate to or enjoy the majority of his pieces.

Who really is the loneliest man around? The nurse strip club patron or the man talking to his dog and singing alone in a hotel room? If the video was going for charm, it failed, if it was going for comedy, it was creepy. If it was going for seriousness then I don't really know what to say. It was bizarre, out of place and awkward. Based just purely off of his images alone I may have been interested but throwing in his attempted sense of humor, negative attitude and lackluster uninspirational speech I just plain was not impressed. I've been to all of the lectures that I have been able to go to so far and I have to say that this one was definitely stood apart from the others. Very eye opening.

Markéta Othová

Czech photographer Markéta Othová is known for her simple yet deeply conceptual black and white photography that communicates a sense of the temporary and looks to challenge the visual world itself. Often her photography seems snapshot like, only relieving a glimpse of a moment in a given time and space. Early works were more narrative and attempted to tell a story using simple step by step imagery. One such work (no pictures found) included two images: a fallen ceiling tile laying broken on the floor and the other a shot of the roof with a tile missing. Through this short narration we are forced to assume the act that took place and accept her story when really all we really receive is the surface of reality.

In her untitled flower series she photographs the same flowers in front of both dark and light backgrounds giving the illusion that the flowers are lightly colored in the first shot and darker in the second. In this she challenges the very nature of photography and how objects can be easily skewed and misinterpreted.

Untitled, 2008; 2 gelatine silver prints each 100 x 70 cm; edition of 10

Othová's other series documents her travels from that of her native Prague to cities all around the world. The images are taken from cars, trains and simply from walking around on foot. She shows fleeting moments, events that are there at one point and gone the next. Through her use of multiple images per piece she shows the slight changes that can occur over a very small period of time or a minor change in position. Children in a yard or even something as simple as a pile of dirt can never be fully understood for only one angle at one moment.

Utopia, 2000; 9 black and whit photographs; each 110 x 160 cm; edition of 5

Ghosts, 2005; 4 b/w photographs; each 110 x 160 cm; edition of 5

VMFA Replacement

I could not find a suitable fellowship entry, so instead I entered into a juried show at a gallery in NYC.

Chelsea gallery space
International Juried Competition

https://www.chelseagalleryspace.com/index.html

Show #2

Alpan International 2010
http://www.alpangallery.org/

Show #1

Project 30 January 2010 exhibition.
http://www.projekt30.com/

Paul Elledge

The Museum of Contemporary Photography based in Chicago is where I have found several of my artist bloggs recently so I decided to check there again for someone new. I found a long list of photographers under the MPP section (Midwest Photographers Project) and just started clicking at random to see what I would find. I have to say that I must have clicked 25 times before I found one that could hold my interest for more then a few seconds. Now is this a statement on my, as well as current American attention spans? Or is this the realization that fine art photography has just gotten plain boring?

You would think that it would not take 25 clicks to find something worth wile, but it did and Paul Elledge is what I ended up with. While his images are generally something that I would not be interested in, they literally jumped out at me when compared to what they were up against. His images are violently colorful and dramatic. Over stylized and over the top. They represent a new form of photography that I have seen emerging recently; one that pushes the boundaries of reality and photoshop, fact and fiction.

The shots are not groundbreaking and revolutionary, but they possess a certain freedom and understanding that plain documentary photography that we see so much of now days is just well, boring. The images may be a little far off in the other direction of to crazy, but I don't really care. I'm tired of lackluster, unexciting, suffocated photographs that only cause you to reach for that back button in your browser. Straight and documentary photography have their places, and I love and practice them myself, but spitting out the same thing that people have been practicing for decades is getting us nowhere. Remembering the past and building off the masters is important, but at some point there needs to be a break away, a separation.

In conclusion, you go Paul Elledge. You make bizarre, wild, yet well crafted images so that more will follow. I know I will.

Idea

I was MIA over Thanksgiving break and did not have access to the internet, but here were my thoughts during that time.

A simple pizza run with my father on Wednesday night turned into a fairly serious conversation about, of all topics, my life. I really can't say enough how much I respect my parents. Ever since I decided to go to art school and peruse a photography career they have been right there supporting me. I've been through friends experiencing falling outs with their parents over there choices, and even seem some quit. I consider myself very lucky to have parents that are as understanding and supportive as mine are. While my parents will see me through anything, I know that at the same time they look out for my future and want to see me succeed, and this was the basis for my conversation between my father and I.

My Dad has a way of just coming out and saying things, but not being offensive in the process. So that's basically what he did; he came right out and asked me what my plans for after college and more specifically how I would handle things like health insurance. He knows what my rough outline for my after college life is, but we never really talked about it face to face. I told him that I plan to go to New York and make it as a photo assistant for a while, then eventually become my own photographer. While I know that I could do this, things like health insurance were something that I never really though about. Knowing that I will not receive such benefits from a photographer, is it possible for me to achieve such things and be a mostly full time assistant?

Then there's Grad school. It's something that I have not given much thought to yet, but my Dad really pushed it on me. It definitely makes sense for the long term but right now I really have no desire. And if I did go, would I want to go for photography? How about something else like business? If I do go, I would definitely want to take some time away form school at least for a little while and assist. One of my favorite photographers that I met in NY gave me some advice that I see as being very valuable. He said assisting is extremely important, but you have to know when to cut it off. Assisting can get you a steady income, but once you get to the point where you are not learning anymore, its time to move on. He said the jump from making a sustainable income to trying to start your own business is a harsh one, but crucial in the end. I personally met someone who had been assisting for eight years, which is somewhere that I really don't want to end up.

So what do I make of all this? I feel, though it sounds disgustingly cheesy, that I need to find myself. I need to put a little distance between school Patrick and real world Patrick. I may go to NY and find that I hate photography, or I might find it to be exactly what I want. Either way I'm going to do it, and attempt to make the best that I possibly can out of it.