Film: Black, White, & Gray

I recently watched an interesting 2007 documentary "Black, White, and Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff & Robert Mapplethorpe." Informative film about both characters and their influence on the photography field with numerous interviews with Patti Smith. The film also brought to attention the importance of photographic (or any art for that matter) collections - what do large bodies of collected work reveal about the collector, society, and history? In my own current work, I find this question of collecting interesting as I gather various images/portrayals of Hawaii.

http://www.blackwhitegray.com/

Photographer Ori Gersht on Beauty and Repulsion

NY Times Article: Beauty, Tender, and Fleeting Amid History's Ire
By Hilarie M. Sheets
August 26, 2012

“When the explosion happened, you had the sense that that entire building was collapsing,” Mr. Gersht said in an interview at the museum, adding that he found associations with Sept. 11 unavoidable in this context. “But someone can look at it and be mesmerized by the sheer beauty of the event,” he said. “I’m interested those oppositions of attraction and repulsion, and how the moment of destruction in the exploding flowers becomes for me the moment of creation.”

“Ori grew up amidst fear and violence in a land of stunning physical beauty and great history,” said Al Miner, who organized the exhibition for the museum, where he’s an assistant curator of contemporary art. “At the heart of Ori’s work is this intersection of beauty and violence. It’s an almost subversive approach to using aesthetics to lure a viewer into dealing with subject matter that’s very difficult.”

Article: On (Digital) Photography: Sontag, 34 Years Later

Great NY Times Article by A.O. Scott, Published May 6, 2011
Capturing a Single Moment of Perfect Stillness: Amid a blizzard of digital images, what is the worth of one photograph?

Film "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry"

This past week, I went to see the documentary "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" by Alison Klayman.
Film website: http://aiweiweineversorry.com/

Which comes first, politics or art? Does art evoke change? How does technology (Internet, social media, Twitter, etc) act as a medium for today's artists? This film provides an informative portrait of the Chinese conceptual artist and activist Ai Weiwei.  An inspiring quote by the artist, "I am now more of a chess player than an artist, waiting for my opponent to make the next move. If we don't push, nothing happens. Life is more interesting when you make a little effort." If you haven't already, this documentary is worth seeing.

Recent Readings: Catherine Opie & Richard Misrach

Opie, Catherine, Nat Trotman, and Russell Ferguson. Catherine Opie: American Photographer. New York, N.Y: Guggenheim Museum, 2008. 

Misrach, Richard, and Susan Sontag. Violent Legacies: Three Cantos. New York: Aperture, 1992.

Misrach: "But I've come to believe that beauty can be a very powerful conveyor of difficult ideas. It engages people when they might otherwise look away. Recent theory has been critical of the distancing effect of artistic expression - 'create solutions, not art.' But the impact of art may be more complex and far-reaching than theory is capable of assessing. To me, the work I do is a means of interpreting unsettling truths, of bearing witness, and of sounding alarms. The beauty of formal representation both carries an affirmation of life and subversively brings us face to face with news from our besieged world." (90)

Horizons cont.

Inverted horizons

Since I often find myself going into the water to photograph, I've become interested in looking at the water line below the surface as an inverted horizon line. I researched Hiroshi Sugimoto for my first comparative analysis paper and I keep coming back to his Seascapes where he captured the horizon line above water. Here are a few initial samples working with the idea of an inverted horizon.

New work: Horizons

I've been experimenting with long exposures photographing late at night. I keep coming back to the horizon line. I know it is the meeting point of air and water, but it is often difficult to make out clearly, to really SEE it. Vast, unknown, intriguing. I also like the idea of extending time using long shutters and having enough patience to make an image with very little light. The images are around 3-10 minutes each.

Artwork I'm looking at

1st comparative analysis paper is coming up due this month. I'm looking at the work of Richard Misrach and Hiroshi Sugimoto. In particular, I will be comparing the two photographs below.

1. Untitled

By Richard Misrach

2002

 49 x 111 inches

2. Seascape: Sea of Japan

Hirsohi Sugimoto

1997

Current Readings

The Sublime by Simon Morley

The American Technological Sublime by David E. Nye

On Hawaiian Thought & Art

Quote by Meleanna Aluli Meyer

"The responsibility that comes with the making of art is profound in that we are challenged to envision with all of our senses, not only for ourselves, but for those past, present, and to come. Art is the most natural extension of self with Akua [living essence, spirit, god] , with the inner and outer, and to all things seen and unseen. By actively creating, we become stewards among many things... of nature, of our thoughts, hopes, and expressions, of community ethos, of cultural representations, histories, etc."

Recommended texts:

• Cazimero, Momi, la T. D. J. De, and Manulani A. Meyer. Nā Maka Hou: New Visions : Contemporary Native Hawaiian Art. Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2001. 

• Charlot, John. Chanting the Universe: Hawaiian Religious Culture. Hong Kong: Emphasis International, 1983.

• Forbes, David W. Encounters with Paradise: Views of Hawaii and Its People, 1778-1941. Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1992.

• Yoshihara, Lisa A. Collective Visions, 1967-1997: An Exhibition Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Art in Public Places Program, Presented at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, September 3-October 12, 1997. Honolulu, Hawaii: The Foundation, 1997. 

Local artists I am interested in learning more about:

• Maile Andrade
• Ke'alaonaonapuahinano Campton
• Herman Pi'ikea Clark
• Kapulani Landgraf
• Meala
• Meleanna Aluli Meyer
• Macario Timbal
• Yvonne Cheng
• Francis Harr
• Anne Kapulani Landgraf
• David Ulrich
• Allyn Bromley
• Tadashi Sato
• Murray Turnbull
• Keichi Kimura
• Wayne Levin
• Hiroki Morinoue
• Mark Hamasaki
• Jan Becket
• John Wisnosky
• Stan Tomita & Karen Kosasa
• Paul Kodama
• Franco Salmoiraghi
• Alan Leitner
• J. Halley Cox
• Les Biller
• Laura Ruby
• Boone Morrison

Mentor Meeting with David Ulrich

I just finished my first mentor meeting with David Ulrich (www.creativeguide.com.) Although David and I have known each other for a few years now, today marks our first official meeting with AIB’s mentor program. I am very fortunate to be working with David again and to also have an experienced mentor, educator, and artist living and working locally in Honolulu, HI.

I’m walking away from our first meeting with a number of ideas. David suggested a list of pertinent literature about Hawaiian contemporary art and philosophy that I will post soon. He mentioned the importance of recognizing my unique location here on Oahu – I am an artist/student living within a melting pot of both Western and Eastern philosophies. While I am engaged in an MFA program based on the east coast of the United States, I am living and working within a community in the Pacific influenced by a rich Polynesian and Hawaiian culture.  As I study the notion of sublime, it is important to acknowledge the very idea of sublime as a Western cultural construct. In relation to Hawaiian and Polynesian culture, the sublime is in fact embedded into every dimension of life. Thus, in an effort to better understand the sublime and how it relates to both the people and landscape of Hawaii AND my own approach to making artwork here, I need to read up on number of local literature and artists. I will be researching how other local artists look at, understand, work with, and portray the notion of sublime.

David had a chance to browse a book I am currently reading, Simon Morley’s “The Sublime.” An important quote by Morley in his introduction on the discourse of sublime reads, “Methodologically, the sublime may be invoked performatively in some texts, while at the other extreme it will be analyzed through the abstract and detached lens of philosophy. Several texts can clearly be located with a residually religious, mystical, or spiritual discourse, while others take a more sociological and even Marxist perspective in exploring the centrality of the concept of the sublime to postmodern culture as a whole. Some texts approach recent history as itself a sublime experience, while others address problems posed by science and technology. All these perspectives are deepened by the application of psychoanalytic theories, and by revisions of received knowledge and belief arising from feminist, ethnic, and non-Western critique. Ultimately, the sublime is an experience looking for context.” (21)

Morley acknowledges evolving understandings of the sublime, and most pertinent to my work (and location), he suggests “ethnic and non-Western critique” as important contributions to the discourse. This is where gaining a deeper understanding of Hawaiian and Polynesian cultures may come into play as approach the broad and massive topic of the sublime.

Morley concludes, “In the pre-modern period, this context [of the sublime] was mostly provided by religion. From around the Romantic era onwards, some forms of art took on this role. And more recently, spectacle and mass media have given the sublime a new if not unproblematic home. The sublime is an experience that can serve many interests; it is now for us to decided what it holds for the future.” (21)

Work-wise, David and I discussed the importance of staying open to multiple strains of thought and exploring many projects this fall… although it is already apparent that threads exist between ideas. Currently, I am looking at:

•                Constructed/commercialized sublime in Hawaiian tourism industry

•                Escapism

•                The sublime (…broad and massive topic here but keeping this theme open for possibilities)

•                Water & air experiments (& perhaps how these relate to sublime experiences)

Photojournalist Hugh Gentry Talk

I attended a lecture tonight by Hugh Gentry at Pacific New Media and was reminded again of how rapidly the fields of photography (in this case photojournalism & commercial) are changing. Powerful SLRs, camera equipment with video capture, the Internet, iPhones have all change how we approach image making and  image viewing. Overall, I enjoyed Hugh Gentry's talk and I was especially interested in hearing about his underwater work shooting the Ironman. It was fun to step away from the modern fine art world and walk into the fast-paced action of photojournalism and diverse assignment and travel shooting.

Quick bio pulled from Pacific New Media website:

"Hugh Gentry is a freelance photojournalist and videographer working as a stringer for Reuters and the Associated Press as well as the major television networks. His client list also includes National Geographic, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, and Land Rover. He started his career as a TV news cameraman and in 2003 transitioned into digital photography. By combining both skills, he can deliver multiple content formats to a diverse range of clients. He specializes in shooting underwater, surfing, and adventure sports."

Website: http://www.gentrypro.com/

Vintage Postcards: Depictions of Hawaii

Went down to Bailey's Antiques and Aloha Shirts down on Kapahulu today (http://alohashirts.com/)  to start some research on vintage postcards of Hawaii. With ideas of escapism and tourism in mind, I'm interested in what kinds of postcards visitors were sending back to friends & family. What types of images were portrayed and even better, what were visitors to the islands writing about their experiences, vacations, or deployments? What role did/do postcards play in the exoticism of Hawaii?

I talked to the store owner and learned that in the last 15-20 years vintage Hawaiian postcards have become really expensive, anywhere from $5-100 a piece!!! Whoa, that's a bit out of my league at the moment. I did have a chance to browse a handful of albums with vintage postcards and it was fascinating to see old landscapes and cityscapes. So much has changed and developed.  It's clear now why these seemingly mundane objects have value as historical documents of a time and place.  I found interesting that most of the postcards (at least at this shop) were simple images without any text - many were straight photographs. Seems to me that nowadays many postcards have some kind of cheesy tagline like "Mai Tai Time" or "Aloha from Paradise!" Perhaps, over time the tourism industry started including text when it realized that postcards are an ideal source of free advertising.

http://postcardparadise.blogspot.com/2010/11/were-off-to-hawaii.html

    

http://www.janesoceania.com/hawaii_vintage_postcards10/index1.htm

As far as budget is concerned, I may have to stick with representations of Hawaii in modern-day postcards. Next stop for postcards: ABC Store in Waikiki.

I did find and purchase a $2 United airlines postcard and will scan it shortly. One line from the caption on the back reads "For most people, a visit to Hawaii is not just a routine trip but fulfillment of long-held expectations." This phrase caught my eye because in David Nye's "American Technological Sublime" he considers Clarence Dutton's views on how initial expectations play into, or disrupt, our experience of the sublime. Nye writes,"Ideally, it might seem that the sublime should be an unexpected encounter, a largely unmediated experience of discontinuity between the self and the startling natural object. Because the travel is so prepared in advance, the sublime may seem to be swallowed up by representations in the mass media. Only a prolonged reexperiencing of the site can overcome the egotistical demands of the informed visitor." (15)

Food for thought!

2 Sketches: Motion in Air

While I was traveling back home and spending time in the Pacific Northwest, I stumbled upon a few children jumping into a lake. At the time, I wasn't planning to make images, but I was intrigued with how beautiful the motions in the air looked against the (almost) cloudless sky. I cropped out any hints of the diving platform and avoided shooting the horizon. These two shots feel like sketches or brainstorms for something to explore in the future. They also feel similar in many ways to my work in water - the human form in a sort of weightless, surreal world. I'll have to look into experimenting with more images of freefall and/or jumping.