Monday a.m. Artist Post 3/30

Swiss-born artist, Beat Streuli, was born in 1957 and is currently basing his work out of Düsseldorf. Represented in several galleries world wide, Streuli’s photo and video work has helped him establish a name for himself in the world of American Photography. In an article written by Vincent Katz with heavy thoughts and ideas from Lewis Mumford, Katz describes Streuli as a photographer who has been said to “capture people wandering aimlessly or pressing ahead, all seemingly oblivious to the disaster that surrounds them. Of course as individuals they are not at all oblivious.”
One of Streuli’s notable collections is his series was one completed in New York City in 2001 and 2002. This collection, like the others, exhibits a variety of cultural background and the photographs track each subject’s movement in the particular time Streuli is shooting. This New York City collection has been explained as one that has the capability of “taking in the diversity of life’s moments” (Katz). Streuli pays a good amount of attention of what is going on inside the frame and does feel voyeuristic in his photographing process. Much of the attention Streuli puts on his images is in the foreground and the background is merely a background with very little importance; but yes, it is considered.
Characteristics of Streuli’s style consist of a few simple but solid thoughts. Streuli engages in empathetic response and because his use of the telephoto lens is somewhat voyeuristic, he finds great compositions in photographing people passing by when he is able to distance himself from the subject. He captures his subject in their natural environments and highlights the subject’s graceful normality as opposed to their failures to maintain composure; if that is the case. Because of all of these factors, Streuli’s work has been characterized as Renaissance’esq when depicting movement and doing so with classical compositions. Katz spoke later on in the article about how Streuli’s images “inhabit the moment in which awareness and absorption are seamlessly blended.” I feel that this statement applies very much to what I am trying to achieve in my work that is taken from specific moments that occur during my performances. I intend for all of those specific moments to blend together even though there is a different action occurring in each frame.
Compared as a predecessor to American photographer Robert Frank, followers
of the "epoch cool" that began in the 50’s and continued on into the 60’s, have found that Beat Streuli came after that epoch. “That demeanor determined that people can arrive in pictures as individuals, with social specificity that can be appreciated, but with no reducible message” (Katz). While Robert Frank was known for photographing the nation in the 50’s and 60’s with heavy post-war influence, he also portrayed the outsider’s view of American Society. Streuli’s large format installations have very much of the same effect however span across the world and not solely just the United States.

Beat Streuli's Website
Vincent Katz Article

Thursday a.m. Idea Post 3/26

My self-assignment from last Saturday involved wearing my camera around my neck from the time I woke up til the time I went to bed; a sort of bizarre documentation of my days events. There were several instances when I felt myself hesitate to do something because of the somewhat weighty camera hanging from my neck. Those activities included brushing my teeth, using the bathroom, driving a car, buffet lines, eating at a restaurant, and undressing. These were a few of the definite struggles I encountered that day.
When looking through the images none of the struggles that I appeared to be having came through in the images. The pieces of evident struggles that were going on around me however did. That same day, I attended a baby shower that was comprised of a room full of 25 women and one small boy (the son of one of the women) whose subconscious attempts to balance out the insane amounts of estrogen filling the room was unsuccessful. Needless to say, there are a lot of side-glances that women are quite sneaky about and usually go unnoticed. However, I did find some interesting expressions from the shots I took at hip level. I was pleased to see something revealed to me that I did not notice while caught up in the soiree.
I chose to do this assignment because recently I have hit a creative wall and have felt very stuck. I have felt uninspired and very distant from my performance work. After reviewing these images I got a feeling of revival when looking at the interactions between all of the subjects in the frame. For my upcoming shoots, I would like to concentrate on challenges that I observed from the image study. For example, there was a struggle I noticed and immediately I had a visual of how I could portray that struggle in one of my performances. I saw a single room, a person feeling confined within a small space, and struggling to deal with the space and all that is inhabited in that space. I would like to depict this struggle by having the figure moving throughout the image (multiple frames combined into one complete image) and trying to maintain sanity in the confined space by keeping his/her mind busy with material objects and distractions. I feel like this set up is very similar to a feeling I got from some of the pictures at the shower where there were so many distractions in such a small space. I enjoy the anxiety that I saw in those pictures and really want to pull that out of my next series.

Monday a.m. Artist Post 3/23

Photographer and video artist, Pablo Zuleta Zahr, was born in Vina del Mar, Chile in 1978. Recently, Zuleta Zahr was a master student at the Düsseldorf Academy under famous German photographer Thomas Ruff who also studied at the Academy alongside Bernd and Hilla Becher. Lambert Krahe as a school to teach drawing techniques founded the Academy in 1762. However, in the 1850’s the Academy became internationally known with students coming from all over the world; places such as Scandinavia, Russia, and the United States. Some of those students were Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter. Currently, Zuleta Zahr works and lives in Berlin and is said to have his workspace in a subway under neutral lighting working on his most recent collections that involve public spaces and the people that inhabit these spaces.
Zuleta Zahr has been a part of several group exhibitions and a good amount of solo exhibitions as well. In 2003 Zuleta Zahr had a solo show at Galerie der Stadt Remschied. Following three more solo exhibits in the next five years; one being a show at Gallery September in Berlin titled “Butterfly Jackpot” which was a video installation. This solo show was a very first of the Gallery September and opened on December 7, 2007 and showed through January 12, 2008. Some group shows Zuleta Zahr has participated in include one in 2005 at the Galleria Sozzani in Milano and another in 2006 at the Studio La Citta in Verona, Italy.
Zuleta Zahr’s collections deal heavily with people in their every day environments and Zuleta Zahr just happens to capture them on his video shooting or in his photography. A collection of his that is very interesting is one that he has been completing in an underground setting; underground by the subway in Berlin. Zuleta Zahr sets up a video camera that faces a monochromatic wall and each video session lasts 10 hours. From each of these 10-hour video sessions Zuleta Zahr captures tons of people going back and forth and he then uses those people in his projections that he composes after making deliberate selections from the videos. For instance, he says that in all of his videos, no one is forgotten (all of the people that cross the camera are somehow used), no one is manipulated, and no one appears twice. Also he bases his final flat work or “scores” on rhythm, forms, and colors and sees them as the “meeting of appearance and being.” Also, his work has been characterized as snapshots from the viewer’s initial impression and then as the eye works around the work the viewer let’s it see the compositions in depth and see the minute details that make up the complexity of Zuleta Zahr process work. In an excerpt from him he explains that his work addresses fashion, mass-produced goods, trends, and stereotypes.
When looking at these collections I very much saw the fashion and trendy side to these pieces but at the same time I felt very connected to the aesthetic and compositional choices that Zuleta Zahr made in order for his display of the work to be a success. Because lately I have been milling over how I will present my most recent body of work, I enjoyed looking at the choices he made because they are very similar to how I think I am going to present mine once completed. His use of color and movement throughout each piece seems so striking to the eye and really helps lead the viewer from the beginning to the end of the photograph.

Studio La Citta Website
Artist Website & Contact
Dusseldorf Academy Website
Wiki Page on Thomas Ruff

3/18 Artist Lecture: Trevor Flynn

Interior design lecturer, Trevor Flynn, spoke about returning back to the basics and paying close attention to how drawing can strengthen all work; especially architecture. His talk was described as one that “illustrates the workings of visual analogies; the kind of suggestive magic of using one thing to represent another, and demonstrates ways that the act of drawing can trick the mind into letting down barriers that rational thinking put in our way.” Trevor Flynn currently teaches life drawing in Media Studies at the Architectural Association and is an Associate Lecturer at Central St. Martins College of Art and Design. He also teaches Total Drawing and Portfolio Sketchbook workshops at St. Martins. Along with his teaching, Flynn is a creative consultant for organizations she as The National Advertising Benevolent Society, The British Museum and The Victoria and Albert Museum.
During his lecture, Flynn brought up several valid points when looking and studying drawings by established artists. He spoke extensively about how when draftsman pay close attention to parts of the natural world they will realize how much you can gain from the natural forms and structures to then incorporate them into drawings and architecture. He showed quite stunning before and after pictures from several different architects. One was a progress drawing of a large architecturally sound airport that was being built. Then he showed the slide with the finish product and how the armature within the airport strongly resembled lines and angles in this picture he had of a leaf. It was very interesting to see him make that correlation and it helped me better understand how he is efficient and produces such great drawings in his work.
At the very end of his lecture he made a seemingly profound statement about why he does what he does and why he feels that having a solid drawing basis one can create very strong and sound work. “Use drawing as a way of visual interrogation, not merely just copying something you see.” I enjoyed this statement because it put into words exactly what each artist does every day. We study and examine and interrogate things that are visually strikingly pleasant and I felt good that I could make a correlation to my work from an artist who works in completely different media and has a completely different background and technique.

“I am convinced that we should not be defined narrowly as people by what we do for a living. What we do for a living can only enable us to develop satisfactorily as people if the culture at work permits.” Trevor Flynn

Thursday a.m. Idea Post 3/19

I was out for a run the other day and found my mind in an absolute clear. My feet were pounding the pavement beneath me and my thoughts seemed so rational and open. I decided what better time to contemplate new ideas than when my mind is this free from outside thought so I began to ponder new directions for my work. What next? I have been asking myself this question for the past two weeks and have had a difficult bout getting around to the answer. Where will I shoot next and what is going to be the basis of the shoot revolving around one central struggle? Lately a good amount of my focus has been put on finding struggles and presenting them in my performances. However, when those ideas ran out I am left feeling very confused, lost, and extremely frustrated as to what and where I should be taking my work.
The sun was pretty low in the sky and positioned to the left of my body painting a very accurate shadow of the challenge I inflict on my mind and body several times a week. Can I keep up with myself? Can I continue in this endeavor that I have been making my body accustom to for quite sometime now? The shadow next to me said it all without having my obvious figure and expressions in the frame. If I slowed down, my shadow slowed down. It was a complete mimic and I found it almost as a competition with myself. Being very preoccupied with how my form was while running, I found myself overly paying attention to how my motion became part of the pavement’s surface.
After thinking and attempting to comprehend the significance between my movement and the very stationary pavement beneath me I want to try a new approach to photographing these experiences that I have been calling struggles and challenges. My next self assignment is to wear a camera around my neck from the time I wake up till the time I go to sleep that night and to photograph everything around me sporadically all day. As difficult and as awkward as this could be, to have a somewhat heavy object weighing down on you all day, I am very interested to see what images I can get from this day; images that leave me, the one who is taking on the struggle/challenge, out of the frame. Knowing that each day is filled with numerous struggles, hopefully when I review the images taken and I will be surprised by what challenges showed up in the images that I was not aware of when they were taking place.

Monday a.m. Artist Post 3/16

Donna Karan, esteemed designer and accomplished business entrepreneur, was born in Forest Hills, New York on October 2, 1948. Her stepfather was a busy tailor and her mother was a working model putting Karan in the center of the fashion world. Karan began selling clothes at age 14 in Cedarhurst on New York’s central avenue. She graduated from Hewlett High School in 1966 and began to school at Parson’s the next semester. She attended Parson’s for two years and then dropped out to work full time for Anne Klein. Karan spent a good amount of her early career under the Anne Klein label and built a strong relationship with Anne. Karan became head of the Anne Klein design team until 1984. She gained a lot of business knowledge working under Klein who acted as a mentor for Karan’s early years in the fashion world. Because of the experience Karan got from working as head of Klein’s design team, by 1985 she was on her way to founding her company Donna Karan and by 1988 had Donna Karan New York (DKNY) well on its way.
Along the way Karan has achieved numerous awards and has been recognized as a strong icon in the fashion art community worldwide. She received the COTY American Fashion Critics Award in 1977 and then again in 1982. The COTY award is seen as the “Oscars” award in the fashion world. She was inducted in the COTY Hall of Fame in 1984. The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) named her Menswear Designer of the Year in 1992 and Womenswear Designer of the Year in 1990 and 1996. In 2004 she was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the CFDA. Donna Karan is a very popular designer in the fashion art world, but has not had the greatest reputation with the members of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). After many PETA protests have gathered at locations where Donna spoke on several occasions, she has announced that her Fall 2009 collection would be fur free and all of her collections in the future will be fur free as well.
Karan has split her company into many different lines to help meet the different likes and needs of the every day customer. From her mission statement, Donna explains that she “created the collection to appeal to women’s senses on every level”. DKNY, a collection based upon the solid colors navy and black with flares of neon color splash, is a design that is geared toward the young contemporary customer. The Donna Karan Menswear collection is for the contemporary business savvy man wanting clean lines and crisp designs for an every work day or day of leisure. Her Children’s Apparel lines are designs geared toward active energetic children who look bright and colorful while wearing practical young designs. Donna Karan’s 2009 Spring collection design inspiration came from a vision of loosely fitting clothing that evokes fluidity and freedom. The design’s color palette consists of green, beige, light charcoal, and brown. The garments fit loosely around the body and drape across the form with minimal embellishments. The DKNY 2009 Spring collection design consists of dynamic neon flares while bringing the “wearing your husbands jacket” aesthetic.
Karan keeps her options open and ideas broad to fulfill the wants and needs of the customer. Just like any artist, she works to appeal to not only one audience but multiple ones. Her creative energy is pumped through the while staff including those who work at the retail store; they are essentially like gallery owners who work to promote the art. I have found that I admire Karan’s ability to take her designs to heart and make all of her work very personal. In my work, I am very much personally attached to it and feel that I try to pump the same amount of heart and energy into each new part of my collection similar to Karan.

Donna Karan Bio
PETA Article
PETA Release
DKNY Website
Donna Karan Collection

Thursday a.m. Idea Post 3/12

I walked into my interview feeling prepped and ready to state that I wanted the internship and why I was qualified for the position. However, in the moments before my shpeal the human resources coordinator questioned how my photography background could aid me in the fast paced fashion world. I felt that my on the spot answer consisting of words like visual art, composition, framing, balance, and passion fulfilled the requirements of what she expected from the query.
Later that day, after recovering from the interview, I started thinking about how the question was so relevant to a great amount of thought that I have mulling over concerning my approaching graduation and earned degree. How can I connect two things that are somewhat similar but make up two different parts of the art world? And in terms of my present work, how can I successfully connect performance art and photography together to make a clear working body of images?
For my current work, I am using photography solely as documentation for my performances. When I input the photographs into Photoshop I minimally change the exposure and crop but the subject matter and movement made throughout the performances is what I want to keep at the forefront. It is what is most important in the work and what I am using to portray my concept to my audience. My performances are moderately planned but my intentions do not include performing for the presence of a camera. I feel that I connect the two art forms in that the photography portrays the movements that I make in the performances in a flat but very select manner. It portrays the movements very differently than a video camera would and I feel very drawn to that static aesthetic when working with an art form that is very flat and still and another art form that is dynamic and lively.

Monday a.m. Artist Post 3/09

Dan Graham, a multi media artist, was born on March 31, 1942 in Urbana, Illinois. Graham started his career by opening the John Daniels Gallery in New York in 1964 at age 22. This gallery was also the site of Graham’s first solo show four years after the opening. Graham’s work has been described as a combination of performance art, sculpture, video art, installations, and photography. A good amount of Graham’s early work from the 1960’s was performance and film based that explored how the audience would react when incorporated in the artwork itself. Graham’s early work has been described with minimalistic qualitities where the work is focused on the experience the artwork creates for the viewer. His currently works mostly with sculpture and architecture. His current work with glass and mirrors continues to explore that same idea of the audience being integrated into the structure.
Graham’s recent structures, what he calls his pavilions, are usually constructed out of wood lattice, mirror, glass, and steel. 1981 marked his decade long stint with his “Two-Way Mirror Cylinder Inside Cube and Video Salon.” Working with fellow architects Mojdeh Baratloo and Clifton Balch, the three designed this rooftop urban park project-taking place in Chelsea, New York. An article from the Dia website describes the pavilion “a two-way mirrored glass, the walls of the pavilion shift between transparent and reflective states as the intensity of light changes, creating changing and complex visual effects with the sky, surrounding landscape, and interactions with people on the roof.” In an article by Lynne Cooke on the Chelsea Rooftop Project, she explains how Graham’s minimalist past reverberates through this project and said that “its origins lie as much in Minimal art of the sixties, which was often aligned with the purely formal characteristics of the physical contexts in which it was devised and displayed, and as in Modernist architectural styles and (earlier) architectural typologies that range from the gazebo to the pergola, from the conservatory to the contemporary atrium”. This project has become one of Graham’s most well known works.
Graham has had several solo exhibits and has won a great amount of awards throughout his art career. His solo exhibits consist of the Kunst-Werke Berlin, in Berlin in 1999, the Storefront for Art an Architecture in NY in 1986, a solo show at P.S.1 in New York in 1981, and a show at the Stedelijk Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven in 1977. Graham received the French Vermeil Medal from the City of Paris in 2001, the Coutts Contemporary Art Foundation Award in 1992, and the Skowhegan Medal for Mixed Media from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in New York in 1992.
Graham currently has an exhibit showing at the Moca Museum in Los Angeles. Titled “Beyond” is his “first North American retrospective of the art of Dan Graham, examining his entire body of work in a focused selection of photographs, films and video, architectural models, indoor and outdoor pavilions, conceptual projects for magazine pages, drawings and prints, and writings” (from the MOCA.org website). The exhibit “traces the evolution of his practice across each of its major stages, while asserting ongoing themes, most notably, the changing relationship of the individual to society as filtered through American mass media and architecture at the end of the 20th century.”

MOCA L.A. article
Marian Goodman Gallery NY
Dia Article
Lynne Cooke Article

Thursday a.m. Idea Post 3/05

Tonight when I was eating dinner at the dining hall I realized after taking three bites of my pasta there was a short dark rather curly hair embedded in my swirled noodles. Like most people would react, I immediately became sick to my stomach and lost all traces of my once very hungry appetite. I proceeded to throw my dinner away and head home. On my drive home I began to think about how I am very aware that I probably eat lots of hairs and other unappetizing things daily because I don’t spot them each time. However, when I was confronted with it visually it sincerely bothered me to the point where I got up and left the scene. The more I thought about this idea of how I am ok with eating something with hair in it as long as I am unaware vs. how I am completely against and disgusted with the thought of eating that when I am visually confronted with the obvious.
In my performances, the viewer is very aware of me, my struggle and my strong presence through out the whole piece. I found myself comparing the very obviousness of my presence to the viewer to how I felt when I was confronted with the very obviousness of the hair in my meal. Is my presence overwhelming and discomforting for the audience? After researching Eleanor Antin’s work, I have found that her performances do not have a very strong personal presence. In her body image performance Antin’s face is so obscure that her expressions are not visible. My expressions and body movements are very apparent in each one of my series and I am considering choosing a more subtle approach to how I present these struggles to my viewer.
One way I could get my point across to the viewer is them having an idea that it was the artist but that fact would be pushed to the back of their minds and it would not be as visually obtrusive when presented. The other way is how I am dealing with presentation right now. It is the hair in the pasta that you are blatantly seeing, no viewer confusion. I ask myself what do I remember more; the times I have eaten and haven’t found anything disgusting, or the times I have found something gross in my meal? Those questions coincide with the type of artwork that generally sticks out in my mind vs. those pieces that I quickly forget about. I feel the more memorable moment is the one that is jarring and visually puts an image out in the open.

3/04 Artist Lecture: Amy Stein

Shooting with a Mamiya RZ on a tripod, Amy Stein described her most recent series as one where she approached her subjects by jumping out of her car and running right up to the folks stranded on the side of the road. Stein’s thesis piece for graduate school titled “Stranded” is focused around finding a unique style of portraiture when dealing with people and their vehicles broken down on the side of the road across the country. This exciting collection began after Stein lost her job in the Internet business and decided to go back to school in her thirties. Attending the School of Visual Arts in New York, Stein earned her MFA in photography and began her new career path in the arts.
Stein’s early project, “Women and Guns”, was shot on the eastern shore of Maryland during the time of the D.C. sniper. She traveled through this area of town and photographed women who use and recreate with guns. Growing up in an area where gun use was very violent and abnormal, Stein took a great interest in these women who found true enjoyment taking their guns out and going hunting for the afternoon. Stein shot this series with her Mamiya 7 and found a channel into her next series titled “Domesticated” with one of the last photos she took while out in Maryland.
Moving towards work with taxidermy, Stein got involved with a community in the northern part of Pennsylvania and began working closely with a taxidermist named Dave Clarke. Stein spoke very highly of Clarke and he helped her get all of the materials and animals needed to carry out her shoots for this series. Stein spent a lot of time in the community talking to everyone and began to take note of all of their “animal stories”. She then used those stories as inspiration for each of her images for the “Domesticated” series. She said that each of the images was her interpretation of the stories that the community had share with her. For example, her image titled “Howl” was about a story of coyotes that stalked the Target parking lot in the late hours of the night. Target employees were hesitant to walk out to their cars once off of the late shift because the coyotes would be out howling at the large lights that lit up the parking lot. Stein figured the large parking lot light was similar to the light that the moon radiates. Stein took a taxidermy coyote out to the Target parking lot and shot him howling up at the light with beautiful light and composition.
I thoroughly enjoyed her lecture today and felt like I could relate to her struggle to get to where she is today. Listening to her speak was quite an inspiration for me and a true encouragement to keep up with my work and stay motivated in the arts.

Amy Stein Photography

Monday a.m. Artist Post 3/02

Judy Pfaff, world-renowned artist and art professor, was born in London, England in the year of 1946. At 12 years old, Pfaff traveled over to the U.S. where she would stay and go to school. She earned her BFA from Washington University, Saint Louis in 1971 and earned her MFA from Yale in 1973. Pfaff is mostly known for her integration of painting and sculpture into her work and making the two art forms function as a single unit. Pfaff’s sculptures and installations involve landscapes, architecture and color while aiming to achieve an overall organic feel. Much of Pfaff’s work is site specific and moves from being two to three dimensional once installed in its space. One thing Pfaff and I have in common is that both of our work has about 50% planning and 50% improvisational decision making. But her main goal in the completion of a piece is that all the elements work together and develop on one another.
Pfaff just concluded a show at Ameringer and Yohe in New York titled “Judy Pfaff: Paper.” The show consisted of several pieces of mixed media and paper large-scale installments, eight feet by eight feet. In the show’s press release dated January 15, 2009, Pfaff’s paper work is looked at as pieces that serve to add new purpose to every day materials while using her unique “collage” aesthetic. Also in the press release Pfaff is described as” one who creates worlds with paper. Small delicate drawings celebrate unfolding expansive ideas. Large works wrestle to compress entire Pfaff installations into low relief. The viewer is invited to journey through a myriad of creative suppositions and baroque space” (1).
Pfaff’s collections of prints and drawings I have found to be quite striking and somewhat sequential in their subject matter. A part of the Tandem Press, associated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Art, Pfaff and other artists carry out experimental printmaking workshops. Pfaff’s “A Day or Part of A Day” is one of her prints made on the Tandem Press in 1999. The simple black and white printing technique to this one has helped the image function horizontally reading as a sequence or narrative. Also her piece titled “Naaimachinemuziek” has a very similar layout to my most recent work and is also created by the Tandem Press. The sequence it forms for the viewer is quite romantic and delicate in its own way.
Currently, Judy Pfaff is the Richard B. Fisher Professor of the Arts, Milton Avery Distinguished Professor of Art and Co-Director of the Studio Arts Program at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson. Pfaff is the recipient of the John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation Award in 2004, the Bessie Award in 1984, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Award in 1983 and a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1986. Pfaff considers her work and processes greatly influenced by artist and her previous graduate teacher at Yale, Al Held. His abilities as an abstract expressionist painter encouraged Pfaff to work in both the two and three-dimensional spaces. Right around the time of Held’s death, Pfaff dedicated her show at the Ameringer and Yohe titled “Buckets of Rain” in Held’s memory and all the knowledge he filled her with.

PBS Art 21
Ameringer & Yohe Website
Judy Pfaff Homepage
Tandem Press
Pfaff Article