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.