Are you starting to see what I am talking about? Does anyone out there have a few thousand extra dollars to give for a project?
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This image by Troy Paiva reminds me of how the image/photograph has had such an immense effect on how the west is viewed by so many of us. The original image of this sign that made it famous has only been around for about thirty years. When David, Sam, Todd, and I went by a couple of years ago the letters had long since been stolen. Nothing remains but the poles that once held the letters. Even the mistakes that have been made here have been used for something.
The letters were virtually worthless until an image gained popularity and a monetary value. Once the photo gained value the letters were suddenly worth something whether or not it was monetary. Now they are probably sitting in some photo fan's living room or basement.
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I recently read Jeff Ladd's review (5B4) on Lee Friedlander's latest offering. Published by Radius books, Darius and company have put together a beautiful book.
Jeff's question about the book was, "Is it necessary?" I can't answer that question and I think only time will tell.
The question that bugged me the most while I was looking at the book and nagged me for the next few days was, if this book had been published by someone else, someone who didn't have a name in the photography world, would I have given it less of a chance. The answer is yes. I looked at this book a few times, waiting for it to reach out and grab me. It didn't . I put it down and came back to it a few days later thinking I would see it in a different light. I still didn't.
So what does it all mean? I thought that maybe because I have lived in New Mexico for the last thirteen years that it had an effect on the way I viewed the photographs. In my estimation, after thirty some odd books over his career, the bar has been set pretty high for Friedlander. I hold him in high estimation and this book let me down a little. Great photographs yes. Would have been better twenty five years ago, but now...
I still love Friedlander's work and he still has an amazing talent for making photographs that use the frame like no other photographer. The fact that this book accompanies the corresponding show has a lot to do with its publication I assume. If in the end you need it to complete your Frielander collection, then buy it. If you only have one or two of his books and want more then there are better titles out there.
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I came across a conversation on another blog between a literary professor and a San Carlos Apache native. The Apache man had a lot of interesting things to say about the modern view of the Native American.
The most prominent thing that stood out to me was how he explained that the Whites often come to the reservation and lament for their lost way of life. He explained that the 21st century would have come, no matter what, and life would have changed for them anyway. My personal favorite was when he asked the professor would he be interested in meeting an old medicine man who could give him insight in to the Apache way of life. The professor answered yes he would be. The Apache then told him that HE could also give him much insight to the Apache way of life but from a different angle. I found it a useful insight that most of the modern day Native Americans do not see themselves in that light anymore. They are connected with their history but intent on moving forward. Yet at the same time we want to return them to their old lifestyle and give back to them what our ancestors took from them. Their culture is still thriving today but unfortunately when we look at them all we can see are the images of the past and not the ones of their future.
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I have been thinking a lot lately about the way photography has changed the way we see things. I know that the age old argument of photography as truth is long since dead, at least for me, but nobody ever bothers to ask what is the truth? Define truth, and then get back to me on that argument. Aside from that, historical images like the Edward Curtis image above have had a profound effect on our assumptions of the West and what defines it. Here is the proud Native American, yet at the same time this image was taken years after we had stolen most of their land and put them on reservations. I know Curtis was simply trying to preserve what little was left, but did he do the Native American a dis-service by showing them in this light?
More on this to come. Much much more.
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I am from a small town in Iowa named after the great Chief Keokuk. There is a statue of him in the park and history looks kindly upon him as he was "wise" and signed the peace treaty with the whites instead of causing an uproar like many Natives wanted to.
Both of these images are of Chief Keokuk. The first is a Daguerrotype and the second is a painted image that often stood in for Chief Keokuk. Notice any difference?
These are the kinds of roles images play in history and two completely different takes on the same person. The painted images is obviously not close to the photograph. But what can the photograph tell us? Other than this is what Keokuk looked like at one particular moment in time, not much else. Is this the true Keokuk? Maybe he was dressed for this image and set up by the camera man to cater to what he thought Keokuk should look like. Perhaps not.
Either way images have an immense ability to foster our ideas about a person and a place.
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Well the typologies show is up and running. I wanted to write something about it but in the end I didn't want to direct people too much in their reading of the show.
So instead I decided to write something over here.
The whole purpose of the typologies show was to see how far the limits of that genre of photography have been stretched and whether or not it is still a valuable and critical tool for contemporary photography. Now I am no rocket scientist, but I do know that the definition of a typology lies more in the hand of the artists who want to work with it than it does in some dictionary. Like a ball of clay, it can be molded and formed by the artist into a million different things.
I tried not to give to much of a definition of what it was in the call for work because I knew that the artists who think they are working with it would know what it was. It was a whole case of the the "if you have to ask, you'll never know." I received a wide range of entries. Some sent in many different varieties. I picked three as the number because, well it is the magic number, and also because it is enough to get the idea without being overwhelming and due to constriction size of a website.
I tried to arrange it in a manner that flowed, but to be honest the work covered such a wide variety that it was quite impossible. But that very problem got me thinking about the wide range and instead I decided to focus on that range. Everything from portraits to landscapes. Even performance was represented.
Now I know the typology has come a long way. Even before the Bechers. The typology, before it was even defined, was used for racial and social profiling in the 1800's. At the time, physiognomy and phrenology were quite popular as science. Scientists would use the photograph to define characteristics of criminals and try to predetermine the facial structures that could predict certain sorts of social misfits. While in the end, the experiments turned out to be a failure, the typology became a part of photography.
In the end, I felt like the typology has become almost a gimmick. Not that there aren't good typologies out there, there are, but from the amount of entries I received and the overall quality, I wonder if artists use it as a guaranteed way of being taken more seriously? I can remember going through school and seeing these pop up quite often in critiques.
I still think the typology is a viable tool for contemporary artists. We just need to learn to move the dialogue and the genre forward. It like most things in contemporary art suffers from a staleness.
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Throughout history artists have often come back to the same theme, a singular idea of paradise. Where does it exist and how to capture it has been tackled by painters and photographers alike. Think of Casper David Friedrich's "Monk by the Sea" or "Wanderer Above the Mists". Look at Ansel Adam's "Mount McKinley and Wonder Lake, Denali National Park" or any one of the half million photographs that now exist of Antelope Canyon. Artists are obsessed with paradise. We all do it. We can't help it.
National Geographic’s latest book Visions of Paradise tackles this very theme and offers exactly what you have come to expect photographically over the years. Geographic employs some of the most talented photographers in the world and they have the photographs to prove it. The list of names goes on and on, from documentary photographers to photographers who are considered fine art by most.
This book is in essence, a conglomeration of many different ideas of paradise. A simple idea, yet one that delves into varying complexities. Each photographer was asked to provide their own ideas of paradise, some were sheer beauty, some more spiritual. In the end one wonders if it is possible for there to ever be a singular and spectacular paradise. I, for one, have never been a firm believer in a single paradise. If it existed, everyone else would be there.
The book is divided into three different sections; land, water, and air. While I sometimes appreciate having lines drawn for me, in some places during the book it makes the photos seem rather redundant. Each section has an introduction written on the theme, though the intros are thought provoking and meaningful recitations on the current situation of the planet, they seem to be incongruous with the photos and the theme of the book.
What is most interesting to me about this book is that approximately 80 photographers were asked to share their vision of paradise and very few images of cities exist within the book. Everyone has a vision of paradise but according to the images, very few of us live there. What seems to make up paradise is a lack of people, a lightly treaded upon wilderness. Does this mean that our existence in great numbers negates the vision of paradise? After thumbing through this book one would begin to believe that this is the case. Maybe in the end our vision of paradise is still biblical in nature.
National Geographic has always been to me a purveyor of the unaltered image. They have begun to break from that stance ever so slightly and include images that, while are not heavily Photoshopped by any means, are moving into the realm of not being a “straight documentary image”. Colby Caldwell’s image St. Mary’s City, Maryland, is an image with the appearance of being taken by a plastic camera. The photo is listed as being an inkjet print mounted and hand waxed on wood panel. Caldwell is quoted, “heaven is in the process of making photography”. While I wouldn’t expect Geographic to take this sort of photographic approach on a story in the magazine, I do applaud them for finding a place for something different.
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