Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Blog Assignment #3 New York visit, Megan Combs

I visited both the International Center of Photography (ICP) and the Museum of Modern Art (the MoMA) while on the New York bus trip. There were quite a few interesting exhibits being shown at each of the sites. As a studio major with a photography concentration, I mainly focused on the photographic exhibits, but I did view other works as well while at the MoMA.

The first location that I visited while in New York was the International Center of Photography. Of the many photographic exhibits on display in ICP, the work of one photographer in particular caught my eye. Pinar Yolacan had a series of five large photographic prints on display. These images were portraits of five different women in front of a black background. Upon first glancing at the series from a distance, it appeared to be an ordinary, well photographed edition of chemical prints. However, what is not evident when viewing these photographs from afar is the key element in each of the images and perhaps what makes them so interesting and almost taboo—each woman in the display is draped in some type of animal innards.

As I read the artist statement, I learned that Yolacan visited Itaparica Island (off the coast of Brazil) and while she was there she met and took snapshots of the women that appear in this series. First, she took snapshots of these five women and then later revisited them to make these portraits after having designed garments for them using animal products and based on Portuguese fashions. She shopped at local market places to find these parts and mixed them with rich materials such as velvet to create these shockingly strange articles of clothing.

The women are posed in similar ways, always very direct and proud as if they are completely comfortable and content. Their eyes address the viewer in a somewhat startling way that seems to say: “There is nothing strange about this.” Each photograph in the series is well shot and well printed, with neutral colors and strong contrast. The arrangement of the photographs (as you approach the series from right to left) starts out with the less shocking of the images, the photograph with the most subtle animal innards incorporated, and then transitions into more obvious and startling photographs. I found this exhibit to be especially interesting. I was drawn to the photographs at first and then I became extremely interested in them when I realized that I was not looking at ruffles on a woman’s collar, but rather animal intestines. I thought this approach to the conventional portrait was very creative and unique.

I was also very interested in the work of a German photographer, Thorsten Brinkmann. He photographs himself wearing rather strange costumes created from cast-off clothing and salvaged household objects either found in the street or flea markets. This series is another example of a unique take on classic portraiture. His figure is often presented in conventional ways, mimicking many familiar portraits, however; his face is always masked entirely by some type of clothing or everyday item. Brinkmann uses a very diverse color palette, employing the use of both highly saturated, bright colors as well as very neutral, almost painterly, classic colors. His photographic work is displayed in a very unique and interesting way that creates an environment for the viewer. He does this by filling the entire space from wall to floor with found objects including a door, wallpaper and a bookshelf (to name a few). He also frames his photographs with salvaged frames. I very much appreciated Brinkmann’s self-created environment, which brought photography and sculpture together in one display.

At the MoMA, I first visited the New Photography exhibit. The work of six artists was on display in this section, which frankly I was not thoroughly impressed by. The New Photography exhibition included color photographic prints and collages. I did appreciate some of the collage images, the work of Sara VanDerBeek for example; however the rest of the exhibit underwhelmed me. One artist whose work I could not even begin to imagine why it had been selected by the MoMA was Leslie Hewitt.

Hewitt’s images were of mundane subjects and seemed very much like snapshots. However, the only seemingly interesting characteristic of this display of five photographs was that they were all turned upside down. Although this was obviously a unique way to display one’s work, it also seemed completely ridiculous to me. I hoped to find some amazing clarification of this while reading the artists statement and one sentence did come close to justifying this display of photographic prints, “destroying the illusion that photos are windows onto a particular world.” This I understood. The series seemed to have a solid foundation of intent; however, in my opinion it was not executed well. Although I completely understand one’s desire to take a photograph and remove it from our very literal and direct visual world, I do not think that taking pictures of bland subject matter and flipping them over as if it somehow makes the images more intriguing was a great way to go about this. I found this body of work extremely unsuccessful.

Also at the MoMA, I walked through the other photo exhibits where the work of photographers such as Richard Avedon was on display. Unlike the New Photography exhibition, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I also ha d the chance to view the paintings on display on the fourth floor which showed works by artists such as Picasso, Dali, Pollock and others. I found it fascinating to see such well known works in person and get a real sense of their scale and overall appearance. I also found the Erotic Object: Surrealist Sculpture exhibition to be rather interesting. There were sculptures on display by artists such as Man Ray, Alberto Giacometti, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp and several others. It was fascinating to see sculptures by so many different artists who are more well-known for their paintings or photography than for this type of artwork.

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