The Washington Post Business section comes up with an interesting story today on one portrait artist who is grossing 200K a year through painting portraits here in Northwest Washington. Want to jump on that train? Annette Polan spends a lot of time working it, including membership in exclusive clubs, throwing dinner parties with prospective clients, and generally making herself known. You can read about it here (registration required, but still, sadly, free).
ARTOMATIC: STUFF I DIG
July 3, 2009OK, I know, I’ve been a total blog slacker recently and all this stuff is piling up. It’s a sad state of affairs when you look forward to a good July 4th weekend and you are happy to be staying home and catching up on personal work. But such is life,folks. I’ve chosen this glamorous gig, and I’m gonna do right by it. For those of you kind enough to comment on the book, I’ll do the drawing by Monday, so if anyone new wants to comment – go for it and you to might win a beautiful hard bound book by a bevy of world-famous [in their own minds at least!] photographers, and i might be so generous to throw in a few other flat file trinkets.
I’ve finally had time to digest a few great floors of the 9 floor extravaganza that is DC’s ARTOMATIC, a democratic non-juried 800 plus artist showcase located conveniently next to Nationals Stadium. I’ve eyed a few pieces I’m going to acquire. I hate top ten lists, such an arbitrary number, so I’m therefore just going to highlight some stuff that caught my eye – Like I said, I haven’t made it to all the floors yet, so it’s not representative of everything at all. I’ll also vent a little about some stuff I hate, so keep reading to the end for the full rant.
In no particular order:
Yes, nary but a few steps away from a dungeon and dragon playing crazy cat lady, I love the animals. And I love Lord of the Rings. I think this is why I was drawn to Tracey Clarke’s New Mythology series of paintings which contain animals in fantastical ways. My dream is to own a llama, though the one she has depicted here she says is a sheep, so I’m not sure what is going on with that, awfully long neck if it is. But hey, it’s how you read it. And to me, it’s a llama. A ver:
All images © Tracey Clarke.
This picture actually reminded me of something from Nina Buesing’s awesome equus photos. So it’s a shout-out for her.
The scrappy Washington Glass School always gets a ton of attention, they are like an Artomatic-trope unto themselves, but I have to say – the sculptural artists I’ve seen do kick ass. Allegra Marquart’s designs are quite beautiful. Unfortunately, my lifestyle is not one conducive to collecting glass, unless you like expensive broken glass. Much better for me things that can be secured safely to a wall, since I cannot afford to hire a museum guard, and things can get quite kinetic in casa Raab. If you however live in a less tenuous situation, check out Ms. Marquart’s work below:
© Allegra Marquart
Also dig the attention to detail in WGS’s Sean Hennessy’s work. He’s got mini eiffel esque towers embedded in his piece.
© Sean Hennessy
Perhaps you’d like to see some photography. Erin Antognoli reappears with a marvelous installation of her signature holga panoramics printed in contact print form. Diminuitive is bold.
All © Erin Antogloni, and yes, my photographs suck, there is a lot of glare at artomatic.
OK, I tire. So I’m just going to expound briefly on the democratic nature of the artomatic. People say, it’s not curated, it’s not juried, there is so much shit there. Yes, there may be, and it is precisely this that I love. It makes me feel better about myself, I must admit. Do admit, you feel the same way. And there is some stuff there that while not technically good, is so beautiful and soulful you want to cry. Case in point the series of paper lunch bags with cartoons written on them, that a recently divorced dad created every day for his son so that he would know that he was loved and cared for. I really hate most of the nude photographs, for me it is really so tired. And there is an inordinate emphasis on tatooing and tatooed people in photographs. I could live without all that. Also the HDR. The best was the photographer who did the triumvirate for me of contemporary photo cliches: the HDR-Canvas-Gallery Wrap. Could it get any worse? But people, the audience eats it up. Reminds me of one of my mom’s first artistic investments: an uninspired oil painting depicting a wintry New Hampshire – a five feet stretch of canvas two shades away from that born-again boozer, Thomas Kinkade (would’ve been cool if it was TK – kaching, that shit would be on the secondary market right now!) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the audience is no bargain either. So give the people what they want.
For my own part, I would just like to leave you with photographer Will Mallon’s inspired work, Stuffed Animal Crime Scenes, it’s like low-rent Furry Kama Sutra by Michael Cogliantry. It really just doesn’t get any better than this:
Mousetown Massacre © Will Mallon
The Passion of Snoopy © Will Mallon
More to come . . . .
Feeling Bookish? You could win a beautiful hard-bound!
June 24, 2009OK, I’ve been pretty busy lately. Working on the final exhibition prints for my show next month in Milwaukee; a full-plate of assignments (thanks Evan, Lonnie, Jake, Randy, Melissa and Kate!); and finally trying to put together a book dummy for the Blurb book contest and just to create a dummy to shop around (love to multi-task). It’s a lot of work, but fortunately, I am not alone. I am enlisting the help of fellow Bobcat, the genius Jody Sugrue – who is so incredibly talented she may well drive me to therapy for insecurity.
I attended EnFoco’s portfolio review last weekend up in NYC and had the good fortune to meet with Denise Wolf, one of Aperture’s talented staff. She gave me some good feedback to consider about creating a book. Though she acknowledged that she usually works on a book for a year, and I have like two weeks – she suggested that I might consider putting my Off-Season and Consumed works together. I’ve gotten this feedback before, and just as often affirmations to the contrary (anyone else familiar with this conundrum?). Well Jody took this idea and ran with it. We decided to put the work together, but in the spirit of democracy we want to keep them separate but equal. Hardcore traditionalists may hate this look, I dunno, but I’m a big believer of the theorem: “Be bold and strong forces will come to your aid.”
I am submitting for your approval two design ideas for the cover and some page layout ideas. You can click on the individual frames a couple times to enlarge. Would love your feedback gentle readers, so please leave a comment. And to show that no good deed goes unpunished I’ll be happy to forward one lucky winner the book, A Better Time, which is a beautifully printed hardback book published by Cartiere del Garda, and is an offering of great photographs from around the world on the subject of leisure time, including an opus by yours truly from work in Peru (still updating that component of the website), and with work from other great photographers like Kathryn Cooke, Silvia Morara, Matilde Gattoni, and more. Go ahead, leave a comment (not on facebook please but in the comments field here on wordpress), it won’t hurt.
I’ll put all the comments in a hat in a week or so and draw the winner who will get a copy of A Better Time delivered straight to your mailbox. Employees of Susana Raab Inc. are ineligible (this means you Teddy Roosevelt!).
Salient Words from Martin Parr
June 16, 2009
(screen grab from Martin Parr’s website © M Parr)
Our great chronicler of consumer culture was another big highlight of the LOOK3 festival of the photograph for me. Love him or hate him, I believe M. Parr to be a great advocate of photography. At LOOK3, he also proved himself to be an articulate speaker whose vision has method to its madness. While I don’t think words are necessary to understanding a photograph, they often augment, and I find it maddening when photographers can not speak engagingly about their work. Here, in no particular order are some nuggets from ParrWorld:
1. I disguise my images with humor. I am a concerned photographer. I feel a responsibility to not photograph nostalgia. To make it palatable you bring in irony to make it susceptible.
(for my own part, I call this the Mary Poppins/spoonful of sugar method – a method I attempt to employ in some of my own work, most notably Consumed & Off-Season)
2. You’ve got to change and push forward – you can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again. Commercially yes, but not the work you do for yourself.
3. Photographers are inspired by books, [and the book as an object is ever more critical today]
Truth be told, I will never love any of his work more than The Last Resort, but I appreciate his worldview and his obsession with collecting. When pursuing some of my projects, I often think of myself as a detective, locating clues that will unravel a larger mystery. Parr follows a similar avenue, looking at his picture taking as a kind of collecting.
OK, I lost the rest of my notes, but I’ll leave you with the one nugget I was able to claim from the train-wreck that was Gilles Peress conversation:
“As a viewer you process the image and make it yours.”
and another one I just found online, when searching for his non-existent website (who needs one when you have Magnum?)
“I don’t care so much anymore about ‘good photography’; I am gathering evidence for history”
Well that modality may work for a photographer emeritus like G. Peress, but I strive to both gather evidence for history and am very concerned with making a good photograph (whether or not I am succesful or not I will leave it to you to decide since you are the viewer processing the image and making it yours). I guess it just depends on how you define a good photo and your POV. I don’t think they have to be mutually exclusive, history making and good photography. Comments, pro and dissenting, as always are welcome.
LOOK3: Highlights
June 15, 2009Intermittent rain showers which cooled the summer Piedmont humidity did not detract from the goings on at LOOK3. Now that I’ve been to my share of photofestivals I will say what LOOK has going for it that few of the others that I’ve been to have is the compactness of the venue. Most events take place either along Charlottesville’s downtown pedestrian mall or just a few blocks from. The events are scheduled so you do not have to pick and choose, you can attend them all, as none overlap. The mix-up of presentations, slideshows, workshops would make Goldilocks quite happy as it feels just right.
from Bankrupt © Phillip Toledano
Despite the event being organized by Geographic staffers and contributors the offerings are not all strictly traditional photojournalism. For this reason I was able to be delighted and inspired by “Mr. Toledano” aka Phillip Toledano’s presentation, who had the unenviable position of being the first in a line-up of four. Messr. Toledano showed work from several series: Bankrupt (empty offices after the dot com bust), Phone Sex, and some new work on plastic surgery. Some salient quotes from Philly Toe:
1. “I see my photographs as unfinished stories.”
I remember when I signed up for the Peace Corps and one of the requirements was a high tolerance for ambiguity. I had it in spades, and I admire it in photographs as well. Unfinished stories and ambiguous meanings are the stuff where creativity can thrive.
2. “For me photographs are like when you walk into a house and the phone is ringing and you pick up the phone and someone starts talking to you.”
3. “When I work on a series it is like making a piece of music.”
4. “My ideas are gate crashers.”
5, “The project determines the style not the other way around. All my projects are different stylistically.”
Here, here! I adore photographers that adapt and change, stretch themselves – there is value in pursuing the single minded theme throughout one’s life to be sure, but for peripatetic types like myself, I appreciate people of ideas, good and bad – and the risk-taking that comes through changing it up with each project.
Mr. T enjoyed a 10 year career in advertising before pursuing photography full-time. He is responsible for the Blue in JetBlue and for making the phrase “vigorous shaggery” an addition to my lexicon (in describing some noises made by his Phone Sex workers subjects, lest you get the wrong idear.) If you are not familiar with him, check out his Days with My Father project on the website. Phillip also enjoys writing accompanying in his photos, and I find his personal notes accompanying the last days of his father to be poignant.
More to come!
From Days with My Father © Phillip Toledano
Behind the Curve
June 11, 2009I’ve been so single-mindedly focused on preparing for my upcoming solo show of “Rank Strangers” at the Dean Jensen Gallery next month (If you are in Milwaukee, or even Chicago! come on down!) that there has been very little brain juice left over for blogging and other diversions. Today I head down to the LOOK3 festival in Charlottesville where Consumed is being projected Saturday night along with other friends and colleagues like Amy Stein, Hank Willis Thomas, John Trotter, and Todd Hido (!). I am hoping to resume some light blogging from the fest as my screen-addled brain is not ready for heavy lifting. George Orwell, you were right. Stay tuned -
Urban Nature Magazine
June 4, 2009
© Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee
Straight from Chicago, photographer Ryan Hogdson-Rigsbee (say that ten times fast), is debuting the fourth issue of Urban Nature Magazine. Ryan was that undergrad kid in all my grad classes who was kicking all our old cynical asses. The last class we took together had him work on a long-term project about the closing down of the projects in Chicago. I’m glad to see he is still working it there – and staying true to himself. Check it out – what one man and an idea can do.
Issue #4 contains four stories:
-The Return: Looks at the transformation of Winter to Spring in Chicago
-Urban Characters: A collection of photos from the past year of urban objects that have all the character of an urbanite.
-Music Festival Season: Looks at past covered music festival in anticipation of the start of 2009’s festival season.
-From the River (sneak peak): A glimpse into next issue’s story on Chicago from the river.
Urban Nature Magazine looks to explore the merging point between nature and urban man in the hopes of cultivating new appreciation and insight into our relationship with the everyday and each other.
Chinese Sentiment
June 3, 2009My friend Shen Wei has two pictures from his new series, Chinese Sentiment, for sale on Jen Bekman this week. I’d love to curate a group show along the idea of lost homelands/horizons. Very romantic, I know, but my own project on Peru, soon to be unveiled, explores a similar idea, and I know of several other good projects along the same theme.
Blessing over the Rice Machine, Guiyang, Guizhou Province (30″x40″) by Shen Wei
From Shen:
After leaving China for almost a decade, going back to photograph China has been an emotional process of integrating my retrieved memories and my desire of seeking. My passion for this on-going project is to observe and rediscover the affecting moments in Chinese daily life, both in the private and in the public.
Chinese Sentiment is a personal journey for me to reconnect with the authentic Chinese living and culture. I intend to look pass the materialistic surface, pay appreciation to the concinnity in China; finding the poetic tradition, the romantic serenity, and the inherent beauty of China. My goal is to reveal China from a personal perspective, let the audience experience China internally and see the realness of China.
