Artist Lecture no. 6: Paola Antonelli

This lecture was incredible. I was exhausted from a very long day of portfolio reviews, and as I scurried into the Grace St Theater about 5 minutes late I realized the only free seat was in the very front row. It had a coat on it, and I asked the woman next to it, "may I sit here?" to which she replied, "it is the speaker's seat, but you may have mine," as she, Paola Antonelli, got up to shake hands with the woman whom had just introduced her. So I had just taken Paola's seat, and was ready to be awed. The room was filed not with students but very professional, and older, listeners- this was obviously an important person. She was trained in architecture, and is currently the Senior Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art. She was recently rated as one of the top 100 most powerful people in the art world by Art Review. She has taught design history and theory at UCLA, Harvard, and across Europe. 

She spoke eloquently, and had brilliant ideas. Her most recent project is an attempt to acquire a Boeing 747 for the MOMA, and discussed the idea of things being owned by the public, but used privately all over the globe for free, like this symbol: @ 

I was impressed with an analogy she made, saying you have to keep an open mind, leave things open ended, for more room for interpretation, and eat lard with honey. By combining unexpected flavors you can create wonderful concepts and ideas.  She was very funny, explaining the difficulties of curating design shows, saying that the MOMA is where Americans go to get their dose of Matisse and Picasso, so luring them into design exhibitions needs to be craftily done- as if sticking mosquitoes to tape.

Competition Entries

I entered the Anderson Gallery Juried Undergrad show, all 3 of my images were accepted and received the Sculpture + Extended Media Department's award.

 Sometimes my computer refuses to work with me.  This shall remain upside down.

I posted this already, but for the sake of consolidation- I also entered the Communication Arts Annual Photo competition.

I entered the Art of Photography show.

Research no.9 : Presentation 04/08/10

I have been trying to figure out how to present my thesis, and I really see them as individuals. One, they evolve constantly, and I see this semester as an exploration of different ideas and techniques rather than a concrete cohesive body. So I think each piece should be seen on it's own, to be explored intimately. I am working out the logistics, and how they would be lit, but I'd like to build "tunnels" but they would be rectangular prisms, and you would put your face up to them to see the images at the end, emphasizing the space, depth, etc. 

I initially thought they would be printed large and plain, but now I think they should be small and private almost, rendering an almost voyeuristic watcher.

Perhaps they are 3x4 at the end of foot long tunnels. I don't know how I would light them then however. maybe three sides affix to the wall and the top edge of the structure is left open to allow light to illuminate the image. Maybe they are printed on Duratrans and illuminated from behind? 

Unaffiliated Posting

"It is very important to be prolific."
Wendy Maruyama

Artist Research no. 9: Michael Napper

This guy is eloquent and lovely. He reminds me a lot of George Ballen, who is obviously a favorite. Below is an interview off too much chocolate ( http://toomuchchocolate.org/?p=2496 ) that is just ( I know I already said it, but) Lovelllly. 

Michael Pigneguy: In an email just prior to this interview you threatened me with Heinrich Mahler… if things got a little “weird”. Besides henchman, can you explain how Mr. Mahler figures within your work and life. Is he aware of your quote “Doubt……[that] is a particularly instrumental and inherent aspect of what the work is about. The same can be said about life in general.” Can you explain more fully why ‘doubt’ plays such a pivotal role in your work and life ?

Michael Napper: Heinrich Mahler is an imaginary friend and muse, born in Poland to poor potato farmers but ran away to Berlin at an early age….made strange musique concert compositions, which have inspired me visually. He’s a sort of “polar opposite doppeldanger” to myself, he depressed and dark Northern European, me, born in all-too-sunny Southern California.

Doubt, well, I’m not sure. Doubt is with me all the time….having had no formal training in the arts of photography besides my own autodidactic strivings, I’m never sure if the path I’m on is right. Never sure if the pigment is the right consistency, if the framing is good on a particular photograph. Doubt either leads to paralysis or a determination to keep looking. Doubt is man’s best friend after fear. It keeps one humble. That’s important for me.

Michael Pigneguy: If Heinrich is an imaginary friend are we viewing self portraits taken by you ? And is Heinrich as imaginary a friend as Jesus Christ ? And to what extent does faith play with playmates such as ‘doubt’ and ‘fear’ at the party ?

Michael Napper: Yes, they are self-portraits, but self-portraits of a particular facet of myself, one of desire for a “rootedness” that I’ve always felt a yearning for. Heinrich Mahler has a rich history and ancestry that, as an American, is not something I possess. He has a scarred and complicated history behind him, which shows up in the portraits, full of blurs and scratched film and graininess.

As regards Jesus, a case can be made that he is not imaginary, that he was a historical figure, before the mythic Christ figure emerged. He was probably an interesting guy, albeit probably a bit too earnest . Might be the sort you’d want to leave off the guest list for parties. Faith “plays” with doubt and fear in an interesting way….Faith scares certain people, on both the left and on the right. It scares the lefties as they can’t “prove” the existence of a over-riding spiritual power and suggests something irrational, and it scares the righties as they think of hell as something that exists on a different, future plane. Faith, doubt, fear….all necessary components for mystery. Take any one of those components out of the equation and mystery is deflated. What you are then left with is the worst and most banal aspects of contemporary Western society……Aren’t you going to ask me about film speeds and f-stops?

Michael Pigneguy: Easy fella, easy! I’m a Londoner, we like a bit of foreplay, a bit of banter before we steam into the acrobatics, besides, shouldn’t we leave f-stops and film speeds to the professionals ? Anyways, I’m glad you cleared up the faith issue. Far too much zealotry in the U.S for my liking, and I wanted to prepare myself in case Heinrich metamorphosed into another form of savior.

You touched on ‘rootedness’. Many of your constructions have the appearance of makeshift domiciles, itinerant dwellings or disaster relief shelter provided by some perversely benevolent nation.  The shot above, in particular, brings to mind “Spirit of the Beehive” a film made in the time of a regime already in advanced decay. Those barren empty landscapes symbolized a form of isolation. Can you talk about the symbolism, if any, behind your constructions and the role of photography in that process ?

MN: Forgive me for rushing in like that, it appears you’ve retained your Old World ideas of courtship and foreplay, kindly see my trampling and fondling as simply an impassioned eagerness to respond to your pointed queries….nevertheless, thank you for introducing me to the film Spirit of the Beehive, a film I hadn’t heard of before. I must see it. Upon reading a synopsis on-line of the film, I’m fascinated that it uses the original Frankenstein film as part of the plot. Frankenstein is one of my favorites, and I would even go as far as saying that it has elements that are pivotal and influential to my own photography, namely black and white film, a certain texture of primitive fables, and most importantly aspects of “the other” and the emotion of enchantment.

I could go on at length here about enchantment, a word that has gotten sullied and stained by the new age movement over the years, but that in it’s original meaning, to influence by charms and incantations, bewitch, is at the heart of intention in both my photography and painting. Enchantment, if I rounded up all my favorite books/films/paintings/travels/relationships/experiences, is at the core. And I believe everyone is looking for that moment, and there are various ways to get there, through drugs, alcohol, sex, art.

As regards symbolism in my constructions, and the role of photography in that process…Hmm, well, I can’t say that I consciously construct these little structures and devices with a specific meaning to be conveyed. I come across certain materials, often found on the street, or ones in my studio (abandoned drawings or canvas’), and the history of them starts to suggest certain ideas to me. The material, the fragility of found wire, the pentimento of old sketches of mine, glue, tape, stains, dust, disintegrating rubber, string, etc., is for me incredibly rich with an unknown and ridiculously insignificant history. I then assemble all these orphaned bits into something. I find myself enchanted in the process of building these little shrines, as when in childhood, growing up in a predominately Mexican-American neighborhood, I would attend the little church Our Lady of Guadalupe, or visit a friends house and see his Mother’s little home-made shrine to the Virgin Mary.

I’m certainly what would be considered a “more than lapsed” Catholic, but the rituals still intrigue me. Any ritual is fascinating on a certain level, whether it be the collection a homeless person assembles, the sand paintings of Buddhists, or the objects of certain fetishes. It seems as humans we have a great need for certain rituals, a desire for mystery. I would say on a basic level all my work symbolizes this desire…then it goes out from there for the viewer to construct a little kernel of meaning for themselves.

Michael Pigneguy: Yes, the monster can be found by simply closing one’s eyes. I noticed you capitalized ‘Mother’ when speaking of your childhood friend’s house and her shrine. Was that intentional ? Did you grow up in Los Angeles ?

Supposedly the best way to overcome stereotypes is to encounter the ‘other’. Do you think Los Angeles achieves this ? And i know you had a gallery show a couple of nights back how did that go ?

Michael Napper: No, the capitalization was unconscious, and here I fear you’ll run off into an Oedipal related thread…but really, if anything deserves capitalization, shouldn’t motherhood (and you’ll notice that the concept “motherhood” I didn’t capitalize….I prefer actuality over concept)?

Yes, I grew up in Los Angeles, the suburbs, and I’m still getting over that. Fled home early to live farther away from people and closer to the sea. Surfing and sailing kept me sane for quite some time, but then the leash for surfboards was invented, and the water became increasingly crowded with people who now didn’t have to swim for their boards when they fell off. Why that min-tangent just erupted I’m not sure….but I do love the ocean. I miss surfing, but surfing here in Southern California now, it would be like trying to listen to Bach inside a Wal-Mart. You’d still here the strains of Bach, but you’d get overwhelmed from the smell of hot dogs and caramel corn.

I’m not sure what Los Angeles achieves, let me go fix another espresso quickly and think on that. OK, I’m back…Los Angeles is an odd mish-mash of cultures, and it’s inherent sprawl is the very thing that I think prevents it from achieving what it might. I love big cities, I love getting lost and just wandering in large crazy cities like Manhattan, Calcutta, Paris. But those are places where you can walk through various neighborhoods and see the culture change. L.A. is so spread out that you can’t traverse neighborhoods and cultures without getting in a car, and that inherently puts a distance between oneself and the culture. And the car culture here I believe insulates people from one another….there is a social discomfort and awkwardness amongst strangers here, that in other cities where you have to deal with people in close proximity (buses, subways, walking) on a daily basis I don’t feel as much. So, I’m not sure what this place
“achieves” as regards stereotypes. I think the film industry and television have become so powerful in this country that they are in charge of what most people think of stereotypically. Yes, I had some work in a group show the other night. It went well.

Exhibition receptions are odd little moments….it’s one little fragmentary conversation after another. I’d rather be in my studio working, but I did meet an interesting fellow who runs a small little gallery and makes shoes! A shoemaker! I love shoes, not so much to collect or to wear, but some shoes, particularly women’s shoes, are incredible little sculptures.

Michael Pigneguy: Motherhood get’s past capitalization when placed at the beginning of a sentence. We could mention parole but probably best to not go there. Speaking of things Oedipal tho’, I came across one of your posts on “Filmism” which left me wondering if you do indeed believe your camera collection’s a “neurotic defense against pre-oedipal trauma….?” And to which one’s skirt hems do you cling to most ? And whilst we’re here, i’d like to mention Tichy, the venerable old perv we share a common admiration for. What is it exactly, beyond women’s shoes, that you admire in his work ? And how do you reconcile this admiration with His Perviness ?

Michael Napper: Well, I love my camera collection, although it has been pared down significantly over the last 2 or 3 years, but unlike most photographers who downplay publicly their feelings about equipment and don’t want to be seen as geeks or fetishists, I have embraced that part of myself. My collection, or what’s left of it, gives me joy to look at. The old film cameras, some that were made for now-defunct film formats, have a presence as a tool that I don’t see in digital cameras now. I won’t go off on an anti-digital rant here, but film gives me something much more tangible than the digital imaging devices have to offer.

Miroslav Tichy’s work is problematic at times, but the saving grace to his work is that he creates the images with a home-made camera so ridiculously crude that the “perviness” is muted a bit through layers of distance and blur. Imagine if he’d taken those shots with a Nikon digital SLR! We wouldn’t be interested in them, but the cops would be! My affinity with him is almost more with the cameras that he makes, they are in themselves wonderful and poignant works of human desire. The photos themselves with their idiot savant framing and embellishments are hit and miss for me. God bless that musty old nutter.

Michael Pigneguy: Amongst the number of film processes, and chemistries that you experiment with, is there one particular process you are most fond of …or intimidated by ? And is there one piece of work that has shaped the way you currently work or plan to work ?

Michael Napper: Lately I’ve tried to go pretty straight forward with the on-going series I’ve been working on, Structures & Devices. Medium format, either the Mamiya C330 TLR, or the monster, the Mamiya RB67. Usually either Plus-X, or if I want a touch more grain in the image, Tri-X or Fuji Neopan 400. HC-110 developer or Rodinal.

But for another series, The Beautiful and The Lost, I pick up various other cameras, from 99 cent store cameras to an Olympus Pen FT half-frame camera, loaded sometimes with film that I have randomly damaged, then beat the hell out of the film during processing with high temperatures and odd forms of agitation. One of my favorite dinosaur cameras to use is the Conley Kewpie 2A Box camera, made in the 1910-1920’s, for a long-gone film format 616. I’ve modified the camera to take 120 film in it, and sometimes I use close-up filters to shoot with. For a camera made almost 100 years ago, it is amazing.

When I first started working with photography a few years back, I went all over the place with films, developers, cameras, but lately I think the concept of the two series has settled me down a bit. With the Structures and Devices series in particular, the objects that I’m creating and shooting hold my attention enough that I don’t feel any need to embellish the work with some of the methods I’ve used in the past.

I think a pivotal piece for me was either the Widow or the Alembic image. They started me off on the Structures & Devices series, and I felt like I was getting that feeling of invention and enchantment that I get in the best moments of painting. I think that some of the works from that series, even though they are structures or devices, have a sort of personality akin to a strange kind of portraiture, a kind of anthropomorphic feel.

Michael Pigneguy: I’ve enjoyed this very much Michael, thanks for playing. Any last thoughts, words of wisdom, recommendations  ….. film, book, music, ladies’s shoe stores, or the perfect crime ?

Michael Napper: Likewise, Michael, thank you, Heinrich and I have enjoyed ourselves, and through this process gotten to know each other a little better. Oh, words of wisdom? Hmmm… How about, keep looking? And there are many books and films that I could list, but the thought of reading “Against Nature” by J.-K. Huysmans while listening to Tetsue Inoue with an espresso at hand seems like a good time. Shoes? If it’s still open, Tootsie Plohound in NYC. Perfect crime?…Well, it wouldn’t remain perfect if I told you.

Research no. 8: 04/01/10

"I’m never sure if the path I’m on is right. Never sure if the pigment is the right consistency, if the framing is good on a particular photograph. Doubt either leads to paralysis or a determination to keep looking. Doubt is man’s best friend after fear. It keeps one humble. That’s important for me."

"The idea that comes to mind when looking at the some of the best paintings and drawings, the best work really in all sorts of art forms, is that they embody an acknowledgment of their own imperfection. And this suggest humility, humanity, honesty. Life is off-kilter, unfinished, damaged...so, in a way, the best works are a manifestation, a mirror, of these aspects of life: not an idealization of one aspect (perhaps beauty), but an amalgamation of the mistakes and corrections of a journey or process."

Atmosphere.
Buried and exhumed.
Fragility.
Broken-ness.
Phantom systems.
Layers, erasures, mistakes, retractions, regrets, exultations.
Manifestations of doubt.
An incident in a bucolic field.
Distilation. Dispersion. Decay. Delineation.
Alchemy.
Artifacts, terrain, amulet.
Blood, earth, ash, moss, mud, milk.
Subterranean.
Gray, the color of doubt.
Enchantment.
Seepage.
Fissure.

Michael Napper


What will be the physiognomy of painting, of poetry, of music, in a hundred years? No one can tell. As after the fall of Athens, of Rome, a long pause will intervene, caused by the exhaustion of conciousness itself. Humanity, to rejoin the past, must invent a second naivete, without which the arts can never begin again.
E.M. Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born

I am drowning. 

Artist Research no. 8: Alexa Meade 03/29/10

::Thanks to Sara D for pointing me towards this artist::
Alexa Meade is a painter based in Washington DC. Her work is incredible, she paints directly onto her subject, and then rephotographs the "painting" to take it from the 3D sphere to the 2D.  This is her statement pulled from her website. I have had a hard time trying to describe what I want my work to say, and this I think sums it up beautifully, "experiences cannot always be interpreted at face value; seeing is not necessarily believing." It is such a simple idea, but it is illustrated so carefully in her work. 

"The reverse trompe l’oeil series is Alexa Meade’s spin on reality. Alexa has invented a painting technique that makes 3 dimensional space look flat, blurring the lines between illusion and reality.

Typically a painting is an artist's interpretation of the subject painted onto another surface. In Alexa's paintings, she creates her artistic interpretation of the subject directly on top of the subject itself. Essentially, her art imitates life - on top of life.

By wrapping her subject in a mask of paint, she skews the way that the core of the subject is perceived."

Research no. 7 : Yarn 03/25/10

In a more attenuated attempt to unlock the meaning of my string I will investigate the etymology of it itself. I have been using the word "string" but in actuality I am utilizing knitting YARN to construct the forms, and using sewing string as "scaffolding" 

Yarn

narration: the act of giving an account describing incidents or a course of events; "his narration was hesitant"

A twisted strand of fiber used for knitting or weaving; Bundles of fibers twisted together, and which in turn are twisted in bundles to form strands, which in their turn are twisted or plaited to form rope; A story, a tale, especially one that is incredible; To tell a story

An informal name for a long, rambling story--especially one dealing with adventure or tall-tales. The genre typically involves a strong narrative presence and colloquial or idiomatic English. The tone is realistic, but the content is typically fantastic or hyperbolic

O.E. gearn "spun fiber," from P.Gmc. *garnan (cf. O.N., O.H.G., Ger. garn, M.Du. gaern, Du. garen "yarn"), from PIE base *gher- "intestine" (cf. O.N. gorn "gut," Skt. hira "vein," Gk. khorde "intestine, gut-string," Lith. zarna "gut"). 

Hernia -late 14c., from L. hernia "a rupture," related to hira "intestine," from the same root as yarn. 
Related: Herniated (1879); herniation.


I think it is really interesting that I want these structures to be symbolic of a bundle of memories, thoughts, ideas, embodying a person in themselves, and the etymology references intestines, guts,  and secondly, the idea of stories. I have heard the word used to imply someone "spinning a tale" or telling a tall tale of some sort, usually implying that it is not true, or exaggerated. Even in it's most literal definition a fiber twisted becomes a strands, which becomes a rope, thus emphasizing the idea of a snowball effect within stories or myths, or even the way memories can become something else entirely over time, changing and evolving.

Artist Research no. 7: Scott Hove 03/22/10

 Scott Hove is a self taught artist residing in California. His work explores both the sculptural and painting mediums and he is interested in traditional crafts and material studies. He references the balance between the natural world and the mechanical within his pieces. His rope work is spatially interesting and has lovely formal qualities. They create a nest of objects and architectural environments. He also makes really weird cakes.

Things I've done

I submitted work to Anderson Gallery, the three images I showed during my mid term crit from last semester. All three were accepted, I will document this during the opening next Thursday.

I submitted an image to Communication Arts, my dollhouse image, which I have titled "Stand-in"

Research no. 6: What is it? 03/11/10

I have been trying to nail down an artist statement and I need to figure out what the string is representing, what is it? I keep saying I want it to have a narrative feel, as if it could change itself, evolve, even within one image. I also agree that the first doll house image I made it seems to have a character of its own. I have begun to realize the string is a stand-in. For a person. Any person. Maybe they are me, self portraits, I'm not sure yet, but the string represents life, human life, memories and ideas. It is a receptacle, a container, a place holder. With the evolution of the images being within homes, and ideas of place versus space moving into the images I begin to see the string as little notations of existence. A book mark in time? This is an evolving thought, but I feel as if it represents something almost stagnant, in a moving environment. This thing will not change perhaps? Whilst everything else moves around it.

Artist Lecture no. 5: Erik Brandt 03/03/10

This was easily one of the strangest lectures I have attended. Erik Brandt is a eccentric graphic designer with seemingly no control over his limbs, he jumped around, hopping from one side of the podium to another, and from thought to thought, switching from English to German inserts of thoughts, flipping forward and backward through his keynote presentation. Everyone had to wear newspaper hats, albeit only 2 folks kept them on the whole lecture. He spoke as if the only people in the lecture were designers, therefore leaving me a bit out of the loop. I guess GD is a bit of a closed venue, all wrapped up in their font decisions and letter spacing. We looked at his student's work, and a few interactive sites he has made, filled with jarring roll overs. He spoke about how our economy is awful and we better all be ready to enjoy poverty level living, and how to make things from nothing. He showed a beautiful design crafted entirely from what could be found in the closest trash can. I admire this in artists, refusing to be limited by cost and materials. He also made us sing a song encouraging Socialism. I envied his energy.  I really liked this statement he made about how much we should care....

He was talking about being ready to graduate, nearing the end of school, and that if you've done it right,  

"You should be completely emaciated and totally elated." 

All images copyright Erik Brandt unless otherwise noted

Brandt didn't make this poster but it was what was advertising his lecture, event poster by john malinoski, 2010. photo: john dixon, 1997. the rabbit lives! 

 

Ampersand for SOTA's Font Aid IV.

Warm New Years greetings from frozen Minneapolis

  Facebook poster for the sea of green

New tÿpø illustration for the New York Times Sunday book review. 

These four photographs from opolis are being exhibited by the hong kong chingying institute of visual arts.

Research no. 5: Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience By Yi-Fu Tuan 03/03/10

I have begun reading Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience by Yi-Fu Tuan, and it is incredible. He breaks down concepts of space -freedom, and place -security, by explaining our evolutionary progress from infant to adult. Each of our senses allow us to comprehend our environments differently, collectively creating our understanding of our surroundings over time. Tuan compares our physical abilities with those of other creatures, flexible ears on wolves allow more directional hearing, carnivore's olfactory senses create a spatially structured world letting them distinguish distance and direction while tracking prey. The book progresses into the development of an infant, explaining how their sense of space expands as their eyesight focuses. They only comprehend the permanence of objects relative to their sight of it, once something recedes from their vision it no longer exists essentially. The kicking off of a blanket equates the first sense of freedom and space. Most fascinating to me is the common terms and sayings we use everyday are examined closely in order to understand their root meanings.

All text copyright Yi-Fu Tuan 

Artist Research no. 6: Uta Barth 03/08/10

 Uta Barth creates images of nameless places, almost at the point of no longer being spaces, comprised of a strong use of blur and light. It seems silly to say her images are comprised of light, as that is the essential makeup of any image, but her photographs seem to radiate an ephemeral glow, almost as if they could function as light sources themselves. Her images convey a meditative emotion, as if one could stare into them long enough and change the depth of field as our eyes adjust in our own world, or if you waited long enough, the sun would move the window light across the image. Her photographs have a lot of warm tones which seem to resonate with the feeling of the sun seeping into empty rooms. She seems to be influenced by the Light and Space movement and Minimalism. I am interested in the way she utilizes diptychs to convey space, but I wonder, does she consider her images to be of spaces, or places?

I had a hard time finding titled images of her work, and many of the links I found were no longer active, i.e 4 out of 5 of the links to her work on UC Riverside's faculty info page were down.

All images copyright Uta Barth

The below text is taken from the Journal of Contemporary Art, I found it very helpful in understanding Barth's work.

Uta Barth's recent project examines the conventions of photographic presentation. Over the past three years she has created two series, Ground and Field , which consist of blurred images generated by focusing the camera on an unoccupied foreground. These unframed, empty images present only background information, implying the absence of subject and referring to the function of images as containers of information. The untitled images of Ground show landscapes and interiors and make reference to the compositional conventions of still photography and painting. The images in Field , Barth's latest series, mimic cinematic framing conventions in a subtle query of the visual structures that imply movement or activity in the foreground.

Sheryl Conkelton: In each of your series, beginning with your earliest work, you have explored the formal and cultural conventions of image making, drawing attention to problematic aspects encountered in the production of imagery and in the reading/response to it. Your early work was confrontational in its conception and its presentation; I'm thinking about the early photographs of you under an interrogating gaze that were shown at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art (LAICA) as well as the mix of optical illusion, abstraction and photographed vignettes from the Untitled series shown in Deliberate Investigations at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1989. The Ground series is much more seductive (as are the Fields ). Would you talk about your moving from a somewhat aggressive stance in the earlier series to this more unified and quieter imaging in the latest series, and about the affect on the viewer you are exploring?

Uta Barth: Actually the shift was not dramatic. One body of work literally grew out of the other. The very first "background" images appeared within the groupings you mention, juxtaposed with optical painting, large monochromatic fields of color and other photographs. I became very interested in them and started a separate series of landscape backgrounds which were based on vernacular conventions/snapshot photography of people in front of scenic landscapes. At that time I had made a very conscious decision to produce several projects that were formally quite different yet linked by addressing different aspects of vision, thereby bringing the activity of looking to the foreground as the common denominator. I wanted these three formally and structurally quite different projects to be exhibited simultaneously so it would be evident that the territory of the work was at the point of intersection. Previously people tended to get easily lost by the formal aspects of my work or became preoccupied by reading a certain "politic of the gaze" as the overpowering and singular "meaning," and I wanted to confuse and complicate that reading and shift into larger questions that could cover more territory. At a certain point I felt that the background images, in and of themselves — in a much simpler way — did what I wanted my work to do for a long time: they quite literally inhabit the space between the viewer and the piece hanging on the wall and they do transfer one's visual attention beyond the edges of the picture, onto the wall it is hanging on, into the room as a whole, to the light in the room and even outside again... Their scale and composition is vaguely familiar, reminiscent of other pictures we may know. I am interested in the quietness of the new work and how that allows these associations to be noticed.

Conkelton: The spectator plays a very active role in arriving at/determining meaning for your work. Could you elaborate on that role in terms of what you intend as well as the larger (aesthetic or philosophical) significance of the viewer's participation?

Barth: It seems to me that the work invites confusion on several levels, and that "meaning" is generated in the process of "sorting things out." On the most obvious level, we all expect photographs to be pictures of something. We assume that the photographer observed a place, a person, an event in the world and wanted to record it, point at it. There is always something that motivated the taking of a photograph. The problem with my work is that these images are really not of anything in that sense, they register only that which is incidental and peripheral implied. Instead, there are some clues to indicate that what we are looking at is the surrounding information. (The images lack focus because the camera's attention is somewhere else. Many of the compositions, while clearly deliberate and carefully arranged in relation to the picture's edge, are awkward, off balance and formally suggest a missing element.) Slowly it becomes clear that what we are presented with is a sort of empty container and it is at that point that people begin to "project" into this space. It begins to read as an empty screen. A second aspect might be that many people relate to the pictures in terms of memory. They are pretty saturated with the formal conventions of portraiture and one has a sense of inescapable familiarity when looking at them. What comes to mind is an entire inventory of other pictures seen. The point of engagement that perhaps interests me the most, though, has to do with one's perceptual reorientation in relation to the pictures when trying to decode the space described. If the "subject" is not fixed within the image on the wall, but instead is indicated to be in front of that, then the "location" of the work hangs somewhere between the viewer and the wall, in that empty space we are looking through. In some images, when you locate the camera's point of focus, you will find it to be that of an extreme closeup. The location of the implied subject is pushed so far forward that it aligns itself with the very place one is standing in front of the picture. So suddenly the imagined "subject" and the viewer are standing in the same place. The dynamic brings to mind one of the traditional questions raised about minimalist art: what has happened to the subject/where is the subject located when you are looking at an empty room or a seemingly blank wall? The answer, of course is that the viewer is the subject in/of this work.

Conkelton: I am interested in the notion of confusion, in its usefulness — even power — as a mechanism that triggers or motivates a viewer's response. I think it relates to minimalism, too, in this way: that minimal art proposes that a viewer relocates her or his self in relation to the object and its space, presenting a confrontation or a confusion of subject and object.

Barth: A certain kind of confusion or questioning is the starting place of confronting much of the work. Certain expectations are unfulfilled: expectations of what a photograph normally depicts, of how we are supposed to read the space in the image, of how a picture normally presents itself on the wall (contained and enclosed by a frame that demarcates the area of interest and separates it from all that surrounds it in the room), etc. This kind of questioning and reorientation is the point of entry and discovery, not only in a cognitive way, but in an most visceral, physical and personal sense. Everything is pointing to one's own activity of looking, to an awareness and sort of hyper-consciousness of visual perception. The only way I know how to invite this experience is by removing the other things (i.e., subject matter) for you to think about. I think all of this adds up to the conflation of subject and object that you are asking about.

Conkelton: I also think that the confusion/relocation of subject is key to the work in terms of actual and discursive spaces that the pieces work in. I am interested in the oscillation of "subject," or more precisely, in the relocation of the meaning between photography's referential, phenomenological aspect and its discursive, ontological aspect. In both the Ground and Field series there are multiple possibilities: to respond to the photographs as images of something, as objects in a room with particular visual and physical relationships, and as critical inquiry into the nature of photographic reproduction and its limits. I see this tension as a site of engagement and power in your images. There is also an effective tension in the relationship of your images to abstract painting in terms of a shared formal character. That is obviously intentional. Is there a particular aspect, whether it is a subversion of expectation or even a reference to past conceptualizations about these media — painting and photography — that is compelling to you?

Barth: I think the relationship to abstract painting exists most in the interiors. I am not sure how intentional this was at the outset of the project, but at a certain point I realized that my process of selecting, framing and composing these photographs which had no central subject shared much of the territory of, and produced pictures that look similar to, certain minimalist, abstract painting. It is an odd intersection of two projects that at a certain point share a similar investigation. I am interested in this intersection and what it may tell us about the relationship of the two. I obviously invite and acknowledge it, by even the titling of the work: "ground" as in foreground/background, but also figure/ground or even the physical material/surface a painting is made on. I am interested in looking at the interplay between these photographs and particular issues of painting, but I am not using one medium to simply reenact the qualities and characteristics of another. It is not my project to make photographs that "look just like paintings." I think the idea of producing photographs that would simply imitate, mimic or in other ways aspire (implying some odd hierarchy) to be "just like paintings" would be rather problematic and pointless. I know that this is an aside to what you are asking about, but it might be a place to address a related question about all of the Ground and Field pieces which I hear frequently. What I am thinking about is the reading and description of the use of blur in my work as "painterly." I think this is quite inaccurate. Blur, or out-of-focusness due to shallow depth of field, is an inherent photographic condition; actually it is an inherent optical condition that functions in the human eye in exactly the same way it does in a camera lens. It is part of our everyday vision and perception, yet for the most part we are not very aware of it, as our eyes are constantly moving and shifting their point of scrutiny. We do not "see" it unless we make a conscious effort to observe the phenomenon. The camera can "lock-in" this condition and give us a picture which allows us to look at (and focus on) out-of-focusness.

Conkelton: I'd like you to talk about the superficial resemblance of your work to some of Gerhard Richter's efforts: it seems to me (and to others) that Richter is interested in the spectacle of the photographic image of paint and in the reproduction of reproduction, and in the critique of modernism implicit in both these things, whereas your work has always been tied to an investigation of the physiological act of seeing — more immediate, about sensation and allusion; about locating oneself in relation to the work and then to a conceptualization that is not necessarily critique. Would you talk about these ideas?

Barth: I get asked about Richter very often, and while I am a great admirer of his work I am not sure that I can see much, if any, relationship in what we are doing. The comparison is always based on the use of blur, on a similar look to the work. I do think we each end up with this for very different reasons. In my work much of the information in the picture is out of focus because what is depicted in the image lies behind the camera's plane of focus. This has been a device for indicating a foreground, for implying the information not depicted and for lifting that plane off the wall toward the viewer. I think that originally Richter's use of blur came about through creating numerous generations of source material, working from photographs that had been printed in newspapers, then Xeroxed, often repeatedly. The information of the original image became more and more diffuse with each generation and he hung on to the look of that in the paintings, even exaggerating it more. The primary effect of this blurriness in both of our work is that the image becomes generalized, almost generic. Specificity of time and place drop away and one starts to think about the picture, as much as what it is of. I think Richter and I are both making pictures of and about other pictures. I have never been interested in making a photograph that describes what the world I live in looks like, but I am interested in what pictures (of the world) look like. I am interested in the conventions of picture making, in the desire to picture the world and in our relationship, our continual love for and fascination with pictures. I want my work to function on two levels: to elicit the sense of familiarity of looking at an image that has the structures and conventions of a history of picture-making embedded in it, to make you aware of that, and at the same time to shift your attention to the very act of looking (at something) to your own visual perception in that particular moment, in the particular place that you are viewing the picture in. These two things are related.

As far as your question about a "critique of modernism," I think that this critique is so deeply embedded (and embraced) in much of the work that I see being made these days, but it is seldom at the forefront. Maybe it is an argument that has been made, something that we know and work within at this point in time. In looking back it appears that some of the dividing lines between modernism and postmodernism are blurring and some of the areas of investigation that were thrown out are being revisited and rethought. Even thinking about Richter's work, it seems to me that his current painting, in its choice of subject matter, is moving through an archive of what I see as quintessential German imagery, German cultural iconography... I read this as an analysis, an act of collecting and examining, of listing, but not necessarily as a critique.

Conkelton: An important aspect of your work, particularly in the images of interiors in the Ground series, is affected by site-specific installations that recreate the relationship of image and exhibition space. This concern in some way overrides the conceptualization of the images as containers. Do these interiors, in fact, function very differently from the landscapes in the Ground and Field series?

Barth: Yes, I think you are absolutely right about that. The interiors, by sort of laying claim to all of the surrounding space, indite the whole environment, whatever room they are shown in, as part of the work. The project becomes architectural in some sense and, I think, to some degree the space itself becomes the piece and functions as the site of engagement. The Field s are very different in this way. They line up on the wall, in the same scale and screenlike format, spaced irregularly in a way to give the empty wall area as much importance as the actual pieces. They are clearly pictures of other places, outdoor scenes and at best double as a screen within the gallery environment. They are more optical, do not have a static composition of the Ground s, and imply movement both by the camera and whatever activity that is motivating the image. One has a sense of being made aware of one's peripheral vision, of what you see when you turn your head toward something, of what you might see while in motion.

Conkelton: How do you choose your subjects for the individual pictures. Do you have an actual (existing) film image or photograph in mind? Are you working from a typological model (for which you might have a list of types of images that you are trying to exhaust)? Or is it more intuitive and experiential?

Barth: The first images of the Ground series were chosen by seeking out the stereotypical, vernacular, visual vocabulary of what might constitute an ideal scenic or picturesque backdrop. They are almost a listing and reenactment of the most commonly found choices. Most of the images in this series are of nature, some are based on the backdrop conventions of portrait-studio photography — but even there most of the references, while sometimes abstracted, are still of an idealized nature (as in the mottled blue seamless background paper used in yearbook and drivers license pictures to mimic a sunny blue sky). The references to existing images in the interior works become much more subtle. At a certain point of that project, I realized that one of the images I had made ( Ground #30 ) had the exact same proportions, layout of the room and quality of light as that of a Vermeer painting [ The Milk Maid , 1658-60] that I had spent much of my life looking at. This was unintentional on my part when I made this photograph, but it seemed that Vermeer was the perfect subtext for this body of work, and as a reference I made an additional image in the series [ Ground #42 ] which included, in the background, the two small Vermeer reproductions I had grown up with in my home. I have obviously spent much time looking at various periods and styles of portrait painting and photography, ranging from the very self-consciously posed to casual family snapshot images. Early black-and-white Hollywood glamour photography is very interesting for example. Many of these images were made on white sets and the information in the background was created purely through the use of light and shadow. The shadows were often cast by objects and simple geometrical shapes arranged to create some kind of compositional balance in relation to the individual posed for the picture, and these objects are not visible in final photograph. Many of the recent interior images I have made consist almost exclusively of shadow information.
Some other pieces are loosely based on observed imagery that has been overused to impart meaning through context: the large bookcase behind the seated interviewee imparts intellectual authority, the woman posed by the spray of cherry blossoms assumes their beauty and fragility...once you become aware of these clichés you see them everywhere, in the pictures of authors found inside book jackets, on the evening television news and interview programs, etc. These are very clumsy ways to assign meaning. I find them amusing and interesting and have used them in several images of my own. The images in the Field series work much the same way. Most are based on some visual device I have observed in a film, but they are not literal recreations of a particular scene. I think I do have certain styles of filmmaking in mind when I go out to photograph. I end up driving around various neighborhoods of the city looking for a place that is general, neutral enough to not interfere or visually compete with what might take place in the foreground...it is kind of like location scouting. It is not random: I am definitely looking for a place that has very particular, "atmospheric" characteristics.

Conkelton: Many of your installations of works from the recent series are predicated on an ensemble of images working within the confines of a particular space, and you are now in fact working on two projects in which you work very directly with a specific space. How do you proceed with a site-specific project in terms of creating or selecting the images that it comprises?

Barth: The 1994 exhibition at domestic setting [a Los Angeles gallery] was the beginning of the interior project and it was a site-specific piece. This gallery existed in an empty house, and many of the early interior images were photographs made in and for this space. Much of the show consisted of photographs that were pictures of the very wall they were hanging on and the series as a whole was designed for that space. I imagined the space as a home and made pieces that would double for the kind of pictures one might find there. Therefore all of the pieces from this series are different sizes and formats. They were hung in small clusters and pairings throughout the house, in corners and hallways, above the fireplace, much as a collection of family portraits and other pictures might exist in a home. When pieces from this project were installed in other exhibition sites like the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, or the Rooseum in Sweden, they still retained some site-specific quality. Most empty corners and doorways do look alike, so when a picture of a corner is moved to a new space it still tends to read as relating to that particular location. Recently I was commissioned by the Wexner Center to make a work based on their exhibition space, which is a very visually assertive building by Peter Eisenmann. I looked at many floor-plans and photographs of the space before I flew out to see it, and when I spent some time inside the galleries I decided that what I wanted to do was not so much reiterate or even address the overt aspects of the architecture, but instead find a way to articulate the space the viewer would occupy in this very spectacular kind of building. I wanted to find a way to redirect the attention. The piece is simple and consists of three very large photographs of two opposing walls in the north gallery. Two images depict the empty exhibition wall and part of the glass work rising above. The third image is of the opposing wall and it includes, at the very edge, a partial view of a pillar which is located in the center of the gallery space. This pillar is the only information that is depicted in sharp focus in these photographs, thereby articulating the center of the gallery space — the place where you might stand to view the art or the building — as the arena of investigation. The end result of the piece is that these three large photographs of empty walls are actually pointing at and describing the center of the room.

Conkelton: What other projects are you working on now that expand the themes we've been talking about or move you in a new direction?

Barth: Looking back, I find all of this work linked by an interest in visuality and perception. Light has been a theme throughout: in early instances it appears as invasive, interrogational and blinding. In more recent images it is atmospheric and all engulfing. My primary project has always been in finding ways to make the viewer aware of their own activity of looking at something (or in some instances, someone.) The highly optical pieces did this in a rather jarring, confrontational way — inviting voyeurism and at the same time hindering or frustrating your ability to see and decipher an image; the current work by straining your perception of things that are barely visible, in some instances depicting pure light itself. For many years now I have been collecting pictures in which the background interests me, sometimes for purely formal and compositional reasons, at other times because the type of location or subject matter or even some odd relationship occurs between background and subject. Mostly I find them in newspapers and magazines and I cut and crop out the section of interest to me and pin it to my studio wall. I have never directly recreated or reproduced any of these found pictures, but have made images based on them. Recently I have become very interested in this collection of small clippings in and of themselves. They have served as source material, yet function in a very interesting way on their own. Most of them include a small section of a figure that has been cut away. They have a shoulder, a hand or part of a face at the very edge, but because of the way I have cut them, the center of the pictures, the place we are trained to look at, is now empty. I am currently working with a small collection of these images which started out as notes and source material ad using them in a recently published small sketchbook-like portfolio.

This interview was conducted between mid-August and November 1996.


Text: © Copyright, Journal of Contemporary Art, Inc. and the authors