Artist Blog - Robert Polidori

Interview: http://bombsite.com/issues/99/articles/2883

Gallery: http://www.arthurrogergallery.com/dynamic/artist_media_and_press.asp?ArtistID=57&ArtistCVAttributeID=305

The reason that I have chosen Robert Polidori as the artist this week is because he has taken what I am trying to do to another level that I can only hope to reach. Polidori's images are "beautiful", they draw the viewer in to inspect the space that he has photographed.

"Polidori is unapologetic about the beauty of his photographs. 'I don't think a photograph should be worse than what you see, but better. Otherwise why even bother doing it. Just go and look. ' "

(Many Rooms of HIs Own, Border Corssings, Nov. 2008, Vol. 27 Issue 4, pp 23-24)

(Lauren, I am having problems with blogger. I had to take my new laptop to have a data transfer done from my old laptop and haven't gotten it back yet. I am hoping to get it back on Monday 9/13 sometime. I have put up what I could but I'm not used to a PC which is what I am using at the moment to get what I can posted. When I get my new laptop back I will finish the post.)

Idea Entry- 9/9/10

Verticality: 1. Being or situated at right angles to the horizon; upright.

2. Situated at the vertex or highest point; directly overhead.

“A house constitutes a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions of stability. We are constantly re-imagining it reality: to distinguish all these images would be to describe the soul of the house; it would mean developing a veritable psychology of the house.”
“To bring order into these images, I believe that we should consider two principal connecting themes: 1) A house is imagined as a vertical being. It rises upward. It differentiates itself in terms of its verticality. 2) A house is imagined as a concentrated being. It appeals to our consciousness of centrality.”

(Bachelard, Gaston, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print, pp. 17)

“Finally, the house that Bosco describes stretches from earth to sky. It possesses the verticality of the tower rising from the most earthly, watery depths, to the abode of a soul that illustrates the verticality of the human being.”

(Bachelard, Gaston, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print, pp. 25)

Bibliography:

Bachelard, Gaston, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print.

This term (verticality) Bachelard uses a lot throughout the first chapter of The Poetics of Space. He uses the term to explain the way the house represents the human soul. I am going to start experimenting with this through my photography. I am going to start paying closer attention to the vertical lines of the houses that I am photographing.

Artist Entry- Todd Hido

2260, Todd Hido
1928a, Todd Hido
1913, Todd Hido
1637, Todd Hido

BORN
1968
Kent, OH

EDUCATION
1996
M.F.A., California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA

1991-1992
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

1991
B.F.A., Tufts University, Medford, MA
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

(http://www.wirtzgallery.com/bios/bio_hido_frame.html)

I have chosen Todd Hido and his work on foreclosed homes. Even though Hido specifically seeks out foreclosed homes, the presence that his photographs gives of the homes is very similar to what I want to achieve with my own photographs. The main difference between what Hido is doing and what I want to portray is the foreclosed vs. the abandoned. I have still chosen this particular body of work because the the questions that people start to ask about the homes when looking at Hido's photographs.

"Hido’s images contain traces and impressions of lives previously having been lived in the now-empty homes. His potent and surreal photographs of empty spaces evoke a longing for the time when things were better in those homes. What went wrong? Who used to lived there?"

(Hido, Todd. Witness Number Seven. Vol. First. Portland: Nazraeli, 2009. Print.)

"Hido doesn't dwell on the sociological, however: his interest, indicated by the care with which he modulates light and color, lies in the haunting quality of these spaces. In a sense, the photographs duplicate the banks' seizure of the houses by repossessing them in the name of art."

(Grundberg, Andy. House Sitting: The Photography of Todd Hido, Artforum, May 1998.)

Artist website:

http://www.toddhido.com/

Gallery Representation:

http://www.wirtzgallery.com/bios/bio_hido_frame.html

Interview:

http://seesawmagazine.com/roaming_pages/roaming_interview.html

(Lauren, I am not sure what exactly you were looking for with the biography. Artist biographies have always been more lists than anything of substance. I will ask you in our meeting on Thursday but just wanted to let you know that I am a little stumped on what exactly it is you are looking in regards to the biography)

Idea Entry - Anna Tingle

TOPOPHILIA: "love of place"

"Of course, thanks to the house, a great many of our memories are housed, and if the house is a bit elaborate if it has a cellar, and a garret, nooks and corridors, our memories have refuges that are all the more clearly delineated. All our lives we come back to them in our daydreams. A psychoanalyst should, therefore, turn his attention to this simple localization of our memories. I should like to give the name of topoanalysis to this auxiliary of psychoanalysis. Topoanalysis, then, would be the systematic psychological study of the sites of our intimate lives." (Bachelard, Gaston, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print., pp. 8)

"And so, faced with these periods of solitude, the topoanalyst starts to ask questions: Was the room a large one? Was the garret cluttered up? Was the nook warm? How was it lighted? How, too, in these fragments of space, did the human being achieve silence? How did he relish the very special silence of the various retreats of solitary daydreaming?"

(Bachelard, Gaston, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print. pp. 9)

Bibliography:

Bachelard, Gaston, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print.

This book was the exact thing that I have been looking for. I haven't read that far into it, but have already

can tell that this is exactly what I have been trying to say. Bachelard has poetically put into words when I have not been able to. I have a really good feeling that the more I read the better I will be able to explain what I feel about my series. I also think that I will have a better understanding myself and will have a new found appreciation for what it is that I am doing.

Michael Eastman - Isabella's Two Chairs

Artist Lecture, Wendy Maruyama

What a very inspiring woman. I absolutely love her work. I never realized that even woodworking had such interesting stories behind them and that it is not an art where the artists try to do something new and different. Maruyama says that "place" determines the way that her work will go. She says that the physical and historical place has effected her work. Physical place being the places that she has visited. Historical place being her ethnic background and the histories of Japan and China. She also stated that her color palettes are influenced by where she has been. Maruyama is also influenced by other artists that she admires such as, Betye Saar, Alison Saar, Roger Shimomya, etc. Maruyama has also started a project with the I.D. tags of the Japanese/Americans from the camps. I am very intrigued by this work, since she has requisitioned help from various schools to help with the project. I think it is awesome that she wants the younger generations to be involved in the history of her project. This is also another artist who has merged other medias with her own. Maruyama has used photography and video in conjunction with her woodworking. Will there come a time when there is no differentiation between the medias?

Hank Willis Thomas

I really enjoyed Thomas' lecture. By the way that he talked about his work you could tell that he was very proud of his work and where it has gone. Thomas has taken advertisements and used them to show the stereotypes of the African American community. I thought that his work with the master card was very interesting when it was displayed on the side of a museum. The way that people reacted was what I expected. I think it is weird though that he does not care to know how people react to his work. I would think that with a subject like racial stereotypes that he would want to know how people react. Maybe, he already knows how they will react? I also thought that it was interesting that master card did not push to sue him for using their brand. I wonder if they would have sued a white man for doing the exact same thing? I was very moved by the video he did of his cousin's murder. Knowing the background I think made it even more emotional, but would others who don't know the background be as emotional? I know that Thomas wants people to question, but what does he expect to happen through his work? I don't know if I will ever know the answers to these questions, but I am going to continue to follow Thomas' work in hopes to find out.

Artist Lecture, Paul Pfeiffer

I enjoyed parts of Paul Pfeiffer' but not all of it. I really enjoyed his work but found it very hard to figure out what it is exactly what he was trying to accomplish and how he feels about his current work. I don't know if I consider his work sculpture. I think that a large part is video, but think that the arts are merging together. What I got from his lecture is that he is exploring how iconic images and videos meant one thing when they were first shown and can mean something entirely different today. What these things meant then and what they mean now, I don't know. I also know that he left it up to the viewer on how long they were to engage the videos. I can relate this to traditional sculpture work as that it is entirely up to the viewer on how long they will look at a sculpture. Other than these two things I really didn't get much from his lecture. I find the questions that I came out with very intriguing and wanting me to explore more.