Wednesday 28 May 2014

Rythms & Patterns

Produce at least 2 photographs, one should convey rhythm, the other pattern:

The Natural History Museum was a perfect place to find some rhythm and pattern although to be honest I was hoping to find some triangles.  I think it is quite fitting to have visited here since I currently think a great deal about human nature and how, for all our 'civilisation', we are basically apes without hair who evolved from lizards and before that fish and before that cells and goop.  The various levels of socialisation seemingly only go so far to protect us from those less sophisticated impulses.

Pattern 1: I have cropped this tightly to create the illusion of a never ending pattern although not sure I succeeded.  Nevertheless I like the pattern created.  I think the Natural History Museum is a great place to be looking at pattern and rhythm as those two words do sum up life, be it plant, animal or mineral (not sure about the whole sub-quantum physics dimension as from the one or two documentaries I've watched there is little pattern and rhythm down there at all... if I understood it correctly!) ISO 1250 f2.8 1/60

Pattern 2:  This is a more definite infinite pattern than the first but may be too abstract for some tastes.  I love the reflections and am grateful to museums for creating such interesting spaces to take your camera and have a play. ISO 6400 f2.8 1/60

Rhythm:  It's not very original to take a slow shutter speed photograph of a busy main entrance in a museum and I have certainly taken more than one.  A really interesting photo with slow shutter speeds that I saw (not mine) was taken at Liverpool Street Station and all the people were out of focus but a number of clocks in focus.  I like that the dinosaur tail is in focus but the much tinier homo-sapiens all blurred.  I think the photo captures the rhythm of a busy day during half-term at said museum which was pretty hectic and busy.  I do suspect the brief was looking for a different sort of rhythm and may look through my photos from yesterday and see if any others suggest rhythm in an a different way.  ISO 800 f16 1sec

Sunday 25 May 2014

Gallery Visit: Richard Hamilton, Tate Modern, 21st May 2014


I am interested in co-incidences and synchronicity: in how and why we project our inner world onto our outer world and the how we make sense of, or try to fathom, those two positions, as well as the interplay and tensions between our conscious and unconscious minds. 

Is it a co-incidence that I keep going to see work by people who work with the idea of montage, with collage or simply cutting out and pasting shapes, physically and by placing different styles and media together? 

I did not notice the date when I set out on the 21st of May.  However, it was in fact my late father’s birthday and he would very much have enjoyed visiting the exhibition with me despite his painful feet and inability to stand for very long. 

I mention my father because his death seems to have been the trigger for the beginning of my photographic odyssey.  Shortly before he died he mentioned how much he admired a photograph I took, and which was framed for me by my ex-husband.  The night he died, unbeknownst to me at the time, I dreamed that that photograph was no longer on the wall and in the dream the sense of its absence was overwhelmingly troubling to me.  Utter nothingness where once there was something. The next day I rang the police when I could not get hold of my father and they discovered that he had died in quite strange circumstances less than 24 hours previously – the night I had had my very powerful dream.

Photography, my father’s death and the new direction I have taken in life are all in my mind connected. 

What is more, Richard Hamilton’s work spans from the late 40s to 2011.  My father was born in 1939 and died in 2011. Because Hamilton’s work can, I think, be read as a ‘social documentary’ of those years, as a commentary on British preoccupations, mood and changing attitudes, it seems intrinsically connected to the world in which my father lived.

                                                                           ******

Although Hamilton is not primarily a photographer, he was interested in and utilized photography in his work, not only in preparatory work but also as a medium in itself.  There are lots of photographic works in the exhibition, which contains over 200 altogether, and also includes installation, painting, print, film and sculpture.  I tend to focus on installation in this written work.


Hamilton was born in 1922 and died in 2011.  He was English but more than any other British artist, ‘associated with international colleagues’[1], ‘a champion of Marcel Duchamp in the post-war era, he befriended and collaborated with American and European artists from Roy Lichtenstein to Dieter Roth.’[2]  Hamilton studied at Slade following a succession of jobs in advertising, design and production after leaving school at 14.

I know virtually nothing about Pop Art (to be honest I’m beginning to comprehend that I know virtually nothing at all and have a growing awareness of a hideous sense of ignorance which with everything I learn becomes grows greater and can’t possibly be overcome sufficiently in the remaining 30, maybe 40 years if I’m lucky, that I have left – it’s annoying; my fractured un-education is annoying.) Hamilton is, I have read, understood to be the founding father of this movement – I think I might have assumed it was Warhol but perhaps he is merely the most populist of the pop artists.

There is an enormous body of work in the exhibition – it really is quite prolific - so I will discuss a small selection of those that I found most interesting here:

Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different and appealing? 1956, which was a collage to be used in the catalogue representing an installation called, The ‘fun house’, one of twelve in the This is tomorrow exhibition held at the Whitechapel gallery as part of a collective, referred to as ‘the now infamous icon of Pop Art’[3](although I have struggled to discover why infamous), instantly reminded me of Hoch’s work (again!) which I’d seen at the Whitechapel a few months ago.

The collage for me contains a great deal of humour with its pastiche of Adam and Eve, and contains a number of contemporary aspirational objects such as a vacuum cleaner, tape player, television, and a tinned ham (I remember eating that!).  I’m not sure if the ham is meant to indicate what I see as the ‘ theatrical hamming’ physicality of the couple but if so, I can’t help reading a kind of ridicule of all the very materialistic desires of modern ‘keeping-up-with the-Jones’ habits and sentimentalities.

“Like Hamilton’s exhibition strategy, the image was complied from a tabulated list of image requirements…”[4] which served to outline and determine a basic foundation for Pop Art itself: Popular, Transient, Expendable, Low Cost, Mass Produced, Young, Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, Big Business.

Hamilton worked alongside artist, John McHale and architect John Voelcker.  “Their installation consisted of an a-symmetrical, dramatically angled structure, the ‘Fun house’, covered with an over-sized image of Marilyn Monroe which, along with a large scale replica bottle of Guinness, mimicked the monumental scale of city hoarding and cinema advertising, although an aesthetic tension was set up between these mass –culture images and the mass-consumption poster of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers hung on the wall as a work of Art”[5].  I have to say when I first returned to England, aged 16 (having been born in the UK but emigrated to South Africa aged 6 weeks) I was struck by the visual bombardment of advertising in London.  It had a definite impact on me and contributed to the sense of cultural shock I experienced for some years.  Although I returned in the 80s and not in the 50s, that cultural trend probably began with such alacrity three decades earlier and Hamilton and his collaborators’ commentary on it resonates profoundly with me.

I am also struck by the irony of the title, which in retrospect becomes a joke – This is in fact yesteryear but also a comment on the future impact of materialism.

There was a jukebox playing music from the era which was incredibly evocative.  I do think that sound-scapes and music in a gallery is an immensely powerful means of communicating and creating a mood.  It harks back to my experience in theatre and I’m tentatively and perhaps a little bashfully drawn to the idea of creating art that is almost a 'production' of sorts.  I know this is not right for all art and think often such a collage of aural, visual, and spatial sensations is likely to be overwhelming and undermining of the individual aspects in many cases – but for me I think it might be something to think about as my appreciation of what is possible grows.

The Critics Laugh, 1968 is not covered in the catalogue book a great deal which means I must try to make sense of it alone.  The work encompasses several photographs, actual items, design drawings and and an advertisement and it really struck a chord with me.  Hamilton’s work is intrinsically tied up in modern design and engineering.  He seemed obsessively interested in the detail of design and this preoccupation runs throughout the exhibition.  I suppose what stood out for me with this work in particular is the humour and Surrealist nature of it.  The utterly ridiculous fake set of false teeth (a memento his son bought back from a seaside holiday) is attached to the handle of a Braun toothbrush.  Hamilton always admired Braun and did a lot of related work around the design of Braun items.  To me Braun has always been around in the background of existence I suppose but I’ve only ever seen it as a logo on functional and quotidian objects in the home.  Hamilton sees the beauty of design but by attaching it to the teeth creates an hilarious and bizarre object that has some sort of feedback loop on itself – a toothbrush that shakes and rattles a set of false teeth.  There is something about the ridiculousness of human sexuality here which made me laugh out loud when I watched the very funny advert, a spoof of overtly sexualized advertising which has been so prominent in our media.  I thought this was one of the highlights of the whole exhibition but perhaps that is because I have an infantile sense of humour.  I do, however, like the Surrealism – sex, death, inner worlds colliding in fantasy and dreams with outer worlds.  And humour is immensely powerful.

Treatment Rooms 1984 is another installation but one that is very different in tone and temperament to the one discussed earlier. Although there is an innate criticism about commercialism and materialism in This is tomorrow, there is also a sense of optimism and hope.  This is utterly gone by the time Hamilton created Treatment Room for the Arts Council Group exhibition titled Four Rooms in 1984.  There is an Orwellian sense of despair and oppression in the austere, unhappy rooms.  Hamilton “found the spirit of the 80s to be one of contrasting ‘depression’, and determined his room would be ‘inspired by the bleak, disinterested, seedily clinical style of the establishment institution”[6].

In one of the rooms there is a hospital bed/table and a less than comfortable looking blanket strewn upon it, just underneath a TV monitor, which plays silent footage of one of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Political party Broadcasts.  ‘The installation dealt with the workings of power through surveillance (the monitor reminding the viewer of CCTV cameras in Public spaces) and indoctrination (the patient cured by the image of the leader”[7].  What I am struck by is the foretelling and warning about the growth of mass surveillance, and the critique of what that might do to individuals in society, possibly robbing them of something precious and fundamental to life.  Whilst the accompanying literature sardonically talks of indoctrination ‘healing’ the patient I of course read the image as one where the patient is in fact killed off – empty hospitable beds with crumpled bedding seem symbolic of someone having been removed.  Nothingness where once there was something.

I wonder what my father would have made of this installation – an avid Thatcher supporter and defender. 

Finally, I was struck by Lobby, 1988, another installation (seems I like such things) which is a work inspired by a postcard Hamilton owned of the German hotel lobby.  It is a room: at the back of the room covering the entire wall is a painting of the postcard, containing a pillar, which is covered floor to ceiling in mirror.  Then the lobby is recreated in actuality in the room, a pillar covered from floor to ceiling in mirror.  A set of stairs in the postcard is also there, although in the real room you’re standing in, the stairs of course lead nowhere.  Dotted about the room are smaller paintings of the lobby plus drawings.  The carpet in the painting is on the floor of the actual recreated lobby.

Even though the sense created by Lobby is one of loneliness, isolation, disorientation and detachment I found it a magical work.  You are able to step into and walk around the artwork and it reminded me of Broadway Danny Rose, a Woody Allen film where one of the characters steps out of the film – reality and fantasy merge.  Here the same thing happens only the other way round, and the fantasy is a pretty miserable one at that.  The mirror maintains a sense of never-ending blurring between the two dimensions and this blurring is something that interests me a great deal.  I was really quite over-awed by this particular work.

I must end otherwise this may be the longest Gallery Visit write up ever, but wanted to say there were so many works which I have not had time to mention here which I found interesting and compelling.  I am not sure what my father would have made of Hamilton’s view of the world – perhaps too left wing and bleak for him, a bleak, despite his profession as a comic, but right wing individual.  He would have certainly appreciated the intellect, Hamilton’s immense knowledge and broad use of media.  While some of the work did not immediately draw me in, there was much that did, and I have found his use of so many different styles and media inspirational and fantastic to see.

I think there was so much unconscious ‘stuff’ about my decision to visit the Tate on the 21st, and I think it will take me a while to think about and make sense of it.  But I am very pleased I went because I sense I am beginning to appreciate just how much of an impact art can have, and in a way that I haven’t done before.

Hamilton’s relationship with Surrealism and then pop art suggest to me that he was dealing with the tension between our inner and outer worlds, connections, projections and the various levels of reality we humans must contend with as we navigate through life both as individuals and in terms of the state.  I think I will be considering some of what I picked up on during this visit for a good while to come.














[1] Richard Hamilton, 2014 Tate Modern exhibition accompanying handout – Introduction.
[2] Richard Hamilton, 2014 Tate Modern exhibition accompanying handout – Introduction.
[3] Page 73, Richard Hamilton catalogue, Published by Tate Modern Publishing, 2014 originated by Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia and TF Editores, Madrid.
[4] Page 73, Richard Hamilton catalogue, Published by Tate Modern Publishing, 2014 originated by Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia and TF Editores, Madrid.
[5] Page 73, Richard Hamilton catalogue, Published by Tate Modern Publishing, 2014 originated by Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia and TF Editores, Madrid.
[6] Richard Hamilton, 2014 Tate Modern exhibition accompanying handout – Room 12.
[7] Richard Hamilton, 2014 Tate Modern exhibition accompanying handout – Room 12.

Thursday 22 May 2014

Gallery visit: Matisse The Cut-Outs 14th May 2014, Tate Modern



I went along to see the Cut-Outs exhibition last week as I’d found myself watching a documentary about the exhibition a few months ago and was completely drawn into it which surprised me.  Matisse was one of those names that existed in my mind as someone who was terribly important in the world of art, but about whom I knew next to nothing.    I have to admit that if anyone had asked me about him I might have put him in with the impressionists rather than a Modernist.  I really have known very little!

I am learning a great deal about art the moment and I don’t think there is enough time in the day to take it all in (given that I nearly fell asleep this evening doing bedtime for my youngest child, it must be true that there really aren’t enough hours!)  Matisse in particular is a huge subject just by himself and I am currently reading a book about him, but since I should try to keep up with these entries and am behind a little, I will give a very brief account of his life before discussing my response to the exhibition.

Matisse was born in 1869 and died in 1954.  His life covers an incredibly active and extraordinary time from our history.  He was born at what seems to be the beginning of modern life, before all the inventions that propelled human existence into something quite unlike anything that has gone before; cars, planes, trains, industrialization and modernism[1].  The changes when looked back at from the present seemed to have happened so speedily and I have often wondered what it must have been like for people to live through all these changes, not to mention the extreme violence and political upheaval, two world wars, revolutions, nation and empire building as well as the dismantling that occurred.

Matisse’s work “Open Window was exhibited at the landmark Salon d'automne of 1905, where Matisse and other fauve painters were greeted with critical skepticism and public disdain. The "fauve" (savage beast) label itself originated in the art critic Louis Vauxcelles' newspaper review of the exhibition.”[2]  Matisse’s work seemed to blatantly defy tradition and culturally excepted norms in art, and was instead shockingly primitive in form with huge brush strokes and broad colours.  However be became on the of the grand names of Modernism and produced an enormous body of work continuing to paint, draw and sculpt throughout all the social upheaval that happened during the first half of last century. 

Thirteen years before the end of Matisse’s life he nearly died but survived although in great pain, often consigned to a wheel chair and as he described ‘mutilated’[3].  During this time and despite his ongoing health problems Matisse invented a new way of working.  He no longer painted but instead began to cut out coloured shapes with a huge pair of tailor’s scissors.  With the help of assistants he pinned these shapes to the walls around him and created art that was vibrant, significantly more primitive than his earlier work and also difficult for contemporaries to accept.  In fact there were those that thought he’d gone quite mad, cutting bits of paper out.  He understood that the world would not appreciate and understand this work until much later: ‘the creators of a new language are always 50 years ahead of their time’[4].  The new language he created went on to be used in models for stained glass windows, theatre and book designs and an entire church including liturgical vestments.

I am not surprised that people found the work difficult to understand.  It is not easy work in my mind and the departure from any notions of ‘classical’ painting must have made it hard to comprehend as ‘art’ when you consider the context in which it was first produced.  Nowadays we are used to seeing beds with sheets crumpled up and stuffed sharks and dots and blurry photographs described as art, so we are probably less hindered by the classical conditioning people may have been in the 40s and 50s.  However, even so, I did not respond to the exhibition as I did others I have recently been to.  

I can appreciate the primitive colours and patterns, the playfulness and intensity, the bravery of how broad, bold and ambitious the cut-outs are, to a sense of creativity that is utterly without classical conditioning, that says, ‘here, I am’ so stridently.  I see that the patterns he created are extraordinarily rhythmical and alive, containing a sense of explosiveness, which is wonderful to be surrounded by.  But the art is so very primal that I actually find it quite difficult to access.  Maybe I am 50 years behind my time!

I am, however, immensely grateful to the universe for a bizarre co-incidence, where I have attended several consecutive visits to exhibitions that concentrate on cutting and pasting, or pinning in Matisse’s case, as it has demonstrated to me that these artists, Hoch, Matisse, William S Burroughs and most recently Richard Hamilton were, in much of their work, having fun.  I do not mean the work was not serious for I truly believe it was, and that with the work came pain and distress and difficulty.  Nevertheless the artists I have looked at this year have repeatedly shown me that artistic activity can be made with whatever medium you choose, provided you commit, are dedicated to it, to fulfilling the expressiveness of what you’re exploring.  Does any of that make sense?  I’m just beginning to see the possibilities and perhaps am still forming the words to explain what I am becoming aware of.

I should also say that my companion at the Matisse exhibit, my 2-year-old son, evidently had a much more visceral, uncomplicated response to the cut-outs than me.  He told me towards the end that he was scared, the paintings were scary and that he wanted to go home.  This surprised me but they are really big and bright and intense and so I can begin to see what he was saying.  It’s helpful having an unadulterated, unconditioned, uncomplicated small person with you sometimes.

Some links:








[1] http://www.henri-matisse.net/artofmatisse.html
[2] http://www.henri-matisse.net/artofmatisse.html

[3] Page 5, Henri Matisse, A Second Life, Alastair Sooke, Penguin, 2014
[4] Page 8 Henri Matisse, A Second Life, Alastair Sooke, Penguin, 2014


Monday 19 May 2014

Some reflection on where my photography might be going... ???






I realise I have not written much or perhaps even anything under the heading of reflection on this learning blog during assignment 2.  This is not because I have not been reflecting:  I have been but rather than witter on as I usually do I have needed and wanted to allow my thoughts to swim around in the cluttered place that is my mind for a little while if that makes any sense whatsoever.  


I have in the past spent quite a lot of my time looking at photographs by other photographers on Flickr and sharing some of mine there too, although not as much as I used to.  Now I also read and look at books and sites about other photographers which is of course a very good thing.  Nevertheless I have found Flickr educational and enjoyable, and during a stressful time last year distracting, perhaps even therapeutic.  (For anyone who isn’t aware Flickr is a community of people at all stages of their photography education, and from any different style and genre you can think of.)

One of the ways Flickrites identify themselves and their work is by joining different groups. Recently I was invited by someone whose work I have followed, commented on and liked for about a year and half now. William Keckler, a poet and arty kinda guy, invited me to join a group he set up called I was Alive Today.  I have to admit I was pretty flattered to find myself associated with these tricky and rather ‘edgy’ on screen photographers (shallow of me perhaps??).  But what was more satisfying was that I also became aware of photographers whose work I hadn’t stumbled upon before, some of it incredibly interesting indeed.  (I might add that William Keckler has generously also pointed me in the direction of websites and photographers that I really should know about, so thank you!)

This is how I came across Bill Dane, amongst others. I didn’t know who Bill Dane is – this is not surprising and says more about me than Bill Dane! I don’t really know very much to be honest and find myself learning now in the same way I do everything - in snatched, brief, hiccups of activity in between the never ending task of loading and unloading the dishwasher, shovelling sheets that have been on our beds for too long into the washing machine, making sandwiches for school lunches and changing dirty nappies.

I was pretty thrilled then and surprised when the other day Bill Dane invited little me to join a group he started on Flickr.  Not to begin with, because remember, I didn’t know who he was but when I read some of the commentary another group member had added there I realised his background is impressive in it’s own right,  and this super accomplished artist has worked with Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander too amongst others. I have to admit that they are all names that have only begun to settle into my consciousness over the last two or three years.  I am sometimes overwhelmed by how very much there is to learn - in amongst the dirty laundry I must deal with daily.  But now I have another name to add to the list – as well as beginning to understand what informs his way of working and broadening my appreciation of what's out there.

Bill Dane has been taking photographs since the early 60s and has collated an enormous body of work all of which he makes available to everyone now online at his site billdane.com. Up until 2007 he chose to make postcards and sent them to a mailing list of people, which he did in an exercise of democratisation and de-sanctification of art.   By sending the postcards out he made his art available in a way that art isn’t usually; he demands no hushed reverence in a stuffy art gallery for people who might want to appreciate the way he sees and renders his world for us. He has though had plenty of shows and one of his first I think was at MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York).  I thought his approach was really interesting especially after reading the argument for removing Rothko from the Tate Modern for being too populist a location by Jonathan Jones in The Guardian the other day, which I re-tweeted. (Listen to me; I was one of the last few people in the world who insisted tweeting was something only birds did until roughly two weeks ago!  But ‘branding my online presence' for commercial purposes was something I read about recently, so signed up and will discuss here a little further down.)

The point about Jonathon Jones’ argument and Bill Dane’s approach to his art is that I suspect there is more than enough space in this world for both those philosophies. Hushed reverence as well democratic sharing.  What both these positions bring up for me though is a question about elitism and art.  Photography is a tricky art form (as is Rothko's work) – and I think possibly one of the most difficult to understand and appreciate hence the continuing rhetorical question, is photography art?  This potentially makes it inherently elitist because in some or many examples there needs to be at least a basic level of education to appreciate it in any meaningful way unless the viewer is one of those lucky human beings who simply responds instinctively in an unadulterated way to life.  I’m not one of those people, and have found that as my own immersion into this photography world I am discovering continues, I can begin to appreciate work I look at more and more deeply, but feel there is great distance yet to travel before I will really begin to get to grips with some of the work out I'm interested in.  There is of course some work, which is instantly impactful in a way that is accessible for most of us and some which is harder to tackle.  I think Bill Dane’s work falls into the more difficult category along with work by Lee Friedlander and Diane Arbus (who is fast becoming a hero of mine).  There is a level of sophistication to this work which makes it difficult to understand.  And so the democratic way in which Bill Dane shares his work and always has done is countered by the very nature of the work.  But I like that he refuses to patronise anyone – it appeals to something in me.

The point about me feeling flattered and excited that I was invited to join the group is that I have no idea where I’m going as a photographer and feel daunted sometimes by the endless amount still to learn about every aspect of it, but it was a bit of nice external validation even if I was only invited because I happen to like, comment and copy some other people’s pretty cool work on Flickr – work that, to quote the Bill Dane Flickr group's headline, is ‘edgy and poignant’.  I have not added anything to the group and I am a little tentative about doing so to be honest, but perhaps in time the confidence to do so will come. 


As far as my own photography is going: I had a little hiatus in April ‘work’ wise.  I say work in speech marks because work is something that makes you a living I think and I am far from that point just yet.  Hang on, I work really hard at the job of being a mum and that is unpaid altogether (although there may be someone who disagrees!) so maybe the meaning of work is rather ambiguous in relation to my photography, and is difficult to define for now.  

Nevertheless I am driven by the need to reach a point where I am making a living of some description in the future if at all possible because I have three children, and the complications of post-divorce fiscal responsibility loom large in my life.  So I take risks which may seem tiny to some but are huge to me putting myself and the ‘work’ I do out there in order to try and generate some kind of career path that I might follow.  Having taken a useful albeit worrying and not exactly planned breather in April I was beginning to wonder what the next step would be and how to continue the momentum, building contacts and ultimately getting work that pays.  I stumbled across an article which talked about how important it is to build an online presence in today’s world, and that that doesn’t entail simply popping examples of your work on the internet but requires a conversation with the world about who you are and what you’re doing.  So I started using Twitter to do this and have sort of semi-consciously decided to be upfront about my learning process and interests and see where that takes me.  I also read the actor, Stephen Mangan’s comments, who when asked what one of the most important things he has learnt was, said, ‘the realisation that everybody is just making it up as they go along’.  This made me think, oh, thank goodness, because that is what I have begun to grasp – you have to just make it up as you go along.  I have no idea what I’m doing with the whole thing and am sure I will screw up at times leaving me feeling like I have a metaphorical train of loo roll hanging from my metaphorical knickers as I stride across the internet dance floor but so be it.  It seems to be working though because I posted something online and received over 50 responses which was pretty exciting given that I often feel like I’m posting things just for the benefit of my mum – who dutifully likes pretty much everything I chuck up there!  Thanks, mum!

Right - that's enough photography for now.  I'm off to tackle the laundry basket although no doubt will be thinking about photographing people at an event and the technical requirements I need to consider in order to ensure I get it done as best I can.


Links:
William Keckler
Bill Dane
Diane Arbus
Garry Winogrand
Lee Freidlander



.

Sunday 11 May 2014

Implied lines

Find the implies lines in the following two photographs:

I'm not sure I've got these right.  All the curves seemed like implied lines to me but I'm not clear about it.

The implied lines are probably between the horse and the man, the looking, the man's hand out with his whip. I was having a dim moment - It was hard to work out if 'implied lines' meant the ones that didn't exist but might have, but in retrospect I think that is of course what they mean. 

The find any three photographs of your own and do the same thing:



I really liked the circular line that this photo creates, even though the little girls face is facing away (although it would have been better if it had been ever so slightly more in view).  I also like the loving look between the mum and dad.  Two lines!


I wasn't sure about this one.  I wanted to get some implied lines with movement but not sure I achieved it or not.  I can definitely see lines but they're actually there, although the lines of movement created in the background by the very slow shutter speed (and perhaps I was moving too) might pass as implied... not sure!

This is an eye line again.  I liked the mood but perhaps have put too much shadow over his eye looking at it now.  Maybe it makes it more sinister than it might be, I was trying to make more of the light from the skylight on the baby .  I liked this though because it showed a real moment as opposed to the usual baby shots.  They didn't choose it!

Plan and take two photographs, one with an eye-line and one with lines that point:

Getting these kids to model is painful so I might stop using them for planned photos.  But at least there was one out of many with an eye-line.  The oldest is looking at the middle child and he is looking at the youngest, who is of course looking at me.

I kept looking at this climbing frame for days when ever we went to the play ground with this project in mind, and wondered what I'd be able to make of it.  I wanted to lie underneath it and photograph up but it was so busy the first time I thought about it so I didn't. It would have been covered in people and I'd have felt embarrassed.  Then it was a bit grey when we went another time so I had a chance.  I have put quite a heavy vignette on it to emphasise the converging lines and light behind them and also made the sky more dramatic than it was.  Are they converging or collapsing in on each-other? 

Wednesday 7 May 2014

Gallery visit: Baily's Stardust, National Portait Gallery


I went along to see David Baily’s Stardust exhibition at the National Portrait gallery earlier this week. I went because I sort of felt that I ought to.  I like photographing people; DB is one of the most, if not the most, successful British portrait photographers during the second half of last century.  Certainly, he is iconic and huge in terms of status and reputation: an almost mythological figure that grew out of the legendary 60s, and who took photographs of extraordinary characters such as the Crays, Jean Shrimpton, Twiggi, along with pretty much every single rock star spawned during that iconic decade. 

I looked forward to the exhibition but was also somewhat uneasy about the whole celebrity angle.  I’m not all that interested in fame as such, although of course, these figures are beguiling and compelling regardless.  It would probably be tricky to find a passport snap of Kate Moss uninteresting, never mind David Baily’s beautiful portraits of her.  Perhaps that’s what troubles me - the fact that we are (read I am) so easily drawn into stories and fables about people we don’t really know, people who seem so exciting, untouchable and unreal, but who are ultimately just human beings like anyone else.  And even though Baily and some of his subjects see and are aware of the ‘absurdity and poignancy of the human condition[1]’ I find the current obsession with focusing on and attempting to emulate such people irritating at best but otherwise an immensely destructive and shallow part of our collective culture.   I’m not the only one as the following description of Baily’s thoughts on his portraiture indicate he sees the work as,‘[2]a subtle mixture of subjectivity and objectivity, and (with) an understanding that images of glamorous individuals were potentially both powerful and empty”.

Contemporary criticism was a little more scathing: [3]Malcolm Muggeridge, for the Observer, said “The camera, the most characteristic and sinister innovation of our time, has ushered in – perhaps, better, crystalised – a religion of narcissism of which photographers such as Mr. Baily are high priests.”

It’s difficult not to see Mr. Muggridge’s words as reactionary, somewhat old fashioned and a little extreme especially when you compare David Baily’s extraordinarily well-crafted work with today’s tsunami of blurry and wobbly selfies, but perhaps there is something about his alarm worth considering, if only about the direction of our society.  I have just read Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbells book The Narcissism Epidemic, which focuses mainly on American culture but is relevant to all Western culture to a greater or lesser extent, and argues that today’s rampant culturally indoctrinated narcissism (my son declares “I am Awesome" under his handle on his twitter account and thinks this is normal) started in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s: [4]“The American flag of self admiration slowly began to unfurl in the 1960s.” and “By the 1970’s the communal goals of the ‘60s had dissipated and only the gaudy, empty shell of self-focus remained.”

It is of course unfair in retrospect to see David Baily as the high priest of any cultural narcissistic malaise especially as he seems to explore, question and critique the phenomena rather than merely celebrate it.  Nevertheless meandering around a room filled with enormous images of famous faces made me feel a little disconnected and empty as I wondered what I was going to talk about for this blog entry.  Even the more anthropological images didn’t grab my attention and I’m fascinated by most things ethnography related.

Happily, I learnt that David Baily is about a great deal more than celebrity and I was soon made aware of this during my visit.  My interest was sparked when I entered the room where his family portraits are displayed.  These are in the main of Catherine Baily, his wife and muse since the early 80s, but include many of his children too.  Certainly any of the photographs of pregnancy and the birth are appealing but then such scenes always make me emotional.  What was so powerful about this family’s collection was that there were so many of them, placed seemingly sporadically (unlike the uniformity of images in the other rooms), small and large and if I remember correctly mostly in black and white.  There were images of tiny newborns being held by older siblings, and his wife in the act of giving birth along with a picture of her just yelling, her hands stretched out in such an unmistakable way.  There is something about these photos that makes them incredibly intimate, touching and for me very beautiful.  They were like a window into a family.  The style is far less contrasty than the large square formats of famous faces.  I recall them being mainly low key although that may just be an impression.  There is no glare, none of the usual in your face brashness.

The other photographs I found really compelling were the ones of other photographers and artists.  I don’t remember there being a special room for these, perhaps I am wrong.  I just remember being struck by images that were striking and surprising, as they seemed to stand out from the others.  The commentary in the books talks of empathy and there certainly does seem to be much of this, especially with images of Man Ray, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Fancis Bacon, Brassaï, Bill Brandt, Jaques-Henri Lartigue, André Kertész and of course Brian Duffy, one of his cohorts from his early days.   But as well as empathy there seems to be a deep comraderie, a connection and a palpable conversation that I didn’t find in the other portraits.  I notice that these photographs are all of men and there is something very grizzly and male and separate from me, a woman, about them. Not necessarily a bad thing, just something tangible that I noticed.  In any event these images really stood out for me. 

The East End photographs also had an authenticity that struck me.  I found the Rio Club, 1968 extremely interesting and unusual.  The composition is so daring and the TV set looks like it is about to fall on the man sitting below and crush him.  He looks so innocent.  I also thought The Dragon Club, Whitechapel 1968 showed us something foreboding and dangerous, the black shadow that cuts into the image seems to be suggesting something will devour the rest of the scene soon, is already eating into it, into the black and white image of innocent children on the wall, which are captured and frozen in an earlier photograph.  Again the composition is bold and although rigorous it is not an easy composition, putting us on edge.  These photographs were part of a series of coloured photographs for the Sunday Times Magazine in 1968 for an article called East End Faces.

Finally, I was touched by the photographs of Sudanese children, taken when other famous faces from the celebrity world used their reputation and influence to raise funds and awareness for LiveAid.  [5]There has been some criticism in recent years of this well known project and some of the arguments are difficult to dismiss but when I looked at the photographs taken by Baily I was, even today after we have been inured to such images due to the frequency with which we are shown them, filled with horror and anger that we humans can allow starvation like this to occur.  In particular, the photograph of a hand next to a tiny starving infant is simply shocking and horrifying, and it was these images that contributed to the groundswell of Western abhorrence.

One of the images did trouble me.  A tiny starving child with a skull for a head and a skeleton for a body is rendered beautiful by the lighting, tones and composition.  This is a perennial question – is it right to use someone else’s suffering for the purposes of art?  Photographers in particular are ‘guilty’ if indeed one believes it is morally questionable to create artistic expression out of misery and suffering. 

Baily has always been interested in skulls, has always taken photographs of them and there are several still life images featuring skulls in the exhibition. [6]“‘We end up as art, as sculpture, in a funny sort of way.  It’s the ultimate self-art.  It’s like “destruction art”, isn’t it?’ Baily observes.”  I couldn’t help but make the connection between his fascination for skulls in one room and the photograph of an ephemeral child made to look hauntingly beautiful whom in all likelihood died from starvation soon after the photo was taken.  Did she unwittingly end up as art as she was dying.

Tim Marlow in his introduction to the book Baily’s Stardust printed by the National Portrait Gallery includes a quote that talks about Baily’s fondness of relying on ‘The accidental nature of the universe” much like the [7]Dadaists and Surrealists.  It was an accident that I read a book about our narcissistic culture which looked in some detail at the current obsession with celebrity and where this started, and then went to see one of the icons whom, it could be argued, contributed in some way, good or bad, to the beginning of this current trend.  But what I have learned whilst visiting this exhibition is that David Baily is about a great deal more than his celebrity photographs.  He has a broad and eclectic collection of work behind him and before him if he keeps working, which I believe he plans to.  Whenever I mentioned I’d been to see his work to friends, they commented on how good looking he once was.  He cannot be separated from that early image, the 60s icon, one of the very few in reality who were actually there on the King’s Road or in Carnaby Street making legends.  (I think that particular 60s only happened to a handful of people at most.) That history feeds into how we see and perceive his work and him, but I have learned that he is a hugely rounded artist and a pivotal recorder and photographic commentator of late 20th century culture.

Incidentally, I have and continue to take photos of actors some of whom may well be famous one day if they’re not on their way already.  Not sure yet if family or actor’s headshots and publicity is the way forward for me, perhaps both, who knows?  Either way though, I make myself laugh with my slightly disdainful stance on celebrity!

 

 

 



[1] Page 12, Baily’s Stardust, introductory essay by Tim Marlow, published by National Portrait Gallery, 2014.
[2] Page 12, Baily’s Stardust, introductory essay by Tim Marlow, published by National Portrait Gallery, 2014.
[3] Page 192, Baily’s Stardust, Box of Pin Ups section, published by National Portrait Gallery, 2014.
[4] Page 60 & 62, The Narcissism Epidemic Living in the Age of Entitlement, Jean Twenge PH. D. and W. Keith Campbell PH. D., Atria Paperback, 2009, First Paperback Edition, 2013
[5] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/24/g8.debtrelief Here one of a number of voices expressing doubt about how much good Live Aid and subsequent similar activity has actually done for Sub-Saharan Africa, which is poorer now than ever.
[6] Page 261, Baily’s Stardust, introductory essay by Tim Marlow, published by National Portrait Gallery, 2014.
[7] Dada & Surrealism, Matthew Gale, Phaidon, Page 63, about Hans Arp ‘The most revolutionary of Arp’s collages were those made “according to the laws of chance”’.