Artist Blog - Kent Klich

Artist Website:

http://www.kentklich.com/

Interview:

http://www.foto8.com/new/online/blog/1134-gaza-photo-album

Gallery:

Quotes:

"The pictures of empty home interiors scarred by the then-recent attacks of “Cast Lead” are beautifully photographed, perfectly lit and and seem eerily deserted. Gaza’s cinder block houses look so gray from the outside that the color of many photographs becomes quite striking, too. People led normal, happy lives in these rooms, the yellows and purples - as well as the everyday objects in the rooms - seem to say. But now that these homes appear to be abandoned, and time has stopped in a moment of horror, we find ourselves searching for clues. Who lived here? How did they spend their time in these rooms? Were they in the house when the attacks took place? Did people die here?"

(Baumann, H. "Kent Klich." The New Inquiry. 5 May 2010. Web. 30 Sept. 2010. .)

"In this series I was struck by the peaceful and sad spaces I found when I entered the houses and mosques; the furniture left behind witnessed of the stories of people who once lived there… I felt I knew those people; I knew their taste in furniture, colours, fabric, clothes that covered the ground etc. You imagine stories of how they lived, how they used to gather at night all together, how they laughed, argued etc… How they hid from the bombs and how they fled the war, if they ever managed to flee the war… Their spaces and lives were completely violated and I related to that, I wanted to document that. The war had turned their private spaces into public in few seconds and it was very disturbing."

(Baumann, H. "Dalia Khamissy." The New Inquiry. 18 June 2010. Web. 30 Sept. 2010. .)

The first quote says it all. This is what I have been thinking and the questions that I have been trying to invoke in others who look at my photographs. I love the way Klich has photographed the rooms. I am trying to photograph the rooms of the houses that I visit the same way. However, I also want to take photographs of objects up close to accompany the ones of the over all rooms.

Idea Blog - Immensity

Immensity:

1 :the quality or state of being immense

2

:something immense

(immense: marked by greatness especially in size or degree;especially : transcending ordinary means of measurement; : supremely good : excellent)

I have chosen the word immensity because this is what I strive for in my work. I also chose this word because it is what describes my "daydreams" of the houses that I photograph. I strive for people and myself to use this term when talking about my work and to have immense daydreams when looking at my photographs.

"In analyzing images of immensity, we should realize within ourselves the pure being of pure imagination. It then becomes clear that works of art are the by-product of this existentialism of the imaging being."

(Bachelard, Gaston, Maria Jolas, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print. pp. 184)

"Immensity is within ourselves. It is attached to a sort of expansion of being that life curbs and caution arrests, but which starts when we are alone."

(Bachelard, Gaston, Maria Jolas, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print. pp. 184)

Bibliography:

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

Artist Lecture - Miguel Palma

I don't have much to say about this lecture because Palma was not using the microphone so it was really hard to hear him. He never once changed his facial expression so when he made a joke it was just that much funnier. Unfortunately the videos that he showed the sound was not working and the tech could not get it to work. This being the case Palma just explained what his pieces were about and not much on why he made the piece or where his inspiration came from. The main thing he said was: "I just want to be myself." Not only did I not get much from Palma himself but it was very hard to find images and videos of his work online. So for this I am just going to use what little description he gave about some of the pieces he showed and speculate on what I think he is trying to say. The head of sculpture stated that Palma's work has a lot to do with technology and how we interact with and how it interacts with us. For the first image Palma said that he built this car which he then drove. I think what he was trying to do was show that we are the masters of the cars and that they are not our masters. Also that there is a sense of freedom and accomplishment when building something and then using it. I am not sure what the second image is supposed to mean. All that Palma said about the piece was that the bigger drill was better. The first video "HearSaab" Palma attached medical monitors to register his heart rate, breathing, and tension levels. Once the medical monitors were attached to him he drove the car and as the car goes faster and louder there is a direct correlation to the medical monitors. Even though a car is an inanimate object they can still effect us in a way that we are most likely not aware of. All Palma said about the second video, "In Image We Trust", was that the camera moves very slowly towards the objects. I didn't know what to think about his video until I watched it myself. The video has a barbie wearing a superman costume holding missiles. At first you can clearly see the barbie and the superman costume, which signify strength, beauty, and verity. As the camera moves ever so slowly towards the barbie you eventually notice that she is holding missiles which contradicts barbie herself and the superman costume she is wearing. I think what Palma was trying to say here is that what you see isn't always what you get. There was a another image and video that I wanted to post but could not find. The image is of a chair where the wood is being eaten by worms, the title is "Value". What Palma said was the the chair was loosing value. Everything eventually looses value. The video was of him taking a huge oriental vase and smashing it. He then proceeded to take the pieces and put the vase back together. He said that once the vase was all put back together that it was much more interesting than it had originally been. When you see the vase by itself without knowing the story behind it it poses questions and makes you look. You can clearly see that it was at one point broken but is now fixed.

Artist Blog - Felipe Dupouy

Artist Website:

http://www.felipedupouy.com/

Interview:

http://uclaextensionvisarts.blogspot.com/2009/04/instructor-interview-felipe-dupouy.html

Quotes:

"My surroundings have a deep effect on me. My art is inspired by a genuine curiosity

about the world in which I live, and more specifically, the city I inhabit. For me there is a
sense of urgency to visually record the rapidly changing landscape. My work is as much
about my personal exploration of Los Angeles as it is about the final prints. The process
is intuitive, and the resulting photographs are the product of the unique interchange that I
experience between the city and myself. The emotional quality of my images is a
reflection of the depth of my own personal attachment to our past and future. Portrait Los
Angeles is a record of the historic architecture in Downtown, an attempt to preserve the
details for posterity."

(?. "The Icon: Photographic Imaging." Counterintuity - Creative Marketing Made Fresh. Web. 28 Sept. 2010. .)

Biography:

Dupouy born in Santiago, Chile and now in Los Angeles is a graduate from Art Center of Design in Pasadena. Felipe Dupouy has shot for “Los Angeles Times”, Los Angeles Magazine”, etc. Dupouy teaches at UCLA Extension, teaching classes such as, “Photographing Places” and “Environmental Portraiture”.

(http://www.felipedupouy.com/index.php#mi=1&pt=0&pi=2&s=0&p=0&a=0&at=0)

I was so happy when I found Dupouy's work. His images of the insides of buildings around Los Angeles are at the caliber that I want my own work to be at. When I read the quote that he made about how his surroundings affect him I felt as though he was able to put into words what I have not been able to.

Artist Entry- Steven B. Smith

Artist Website:

http://www.stevesmithphotography.net/

Gallery:

http://www.sashawolf.com/Exhibition_AnnaSteven.html

Interview:

http://cds.aas.duke.edu/books/weatherinterview.html

"The idea I had of using conservation methods as my language helped me step up to the plate and work with a subject matter that had been explored a lot, and well. While I felt a little nervous about photographing in a similar vein, I also felt there was something more that needed to be said"

(Sims, Christopher. "Interview with Steven B. Smith." Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Aug. 2005. Web. 28 Sept. 2010. .)

Biography

"Steven B. Smith is a photographer whose work chronicles the transition of the Western landscape into suburbia. For this work he was awarded the First Book Prize for Photography by the Honickman Foundation and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. His book The Weather and a Place to Live: Photographs of the Suburban West was published by Duke University Press (2005). He has received Guggenheim and Aaron Siskind Fellowships. His work has been widely exhibited and can be found in many public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Smith received his BFA from Utah State University and his MFA from the Yale School of Art. He has taught photography at Yale and Brown University and currently lives in Barrington, RI, where he teaches in the photography department at Rhode Island School of Design."

(Sims, Christopher. "Interview with Steven B. Smith." Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Aug. 2005. Web. 28 Sept. 2010. .)

Unfortunately I was unable to find anything about Smith's "Close to Nature" which these photographs are from. I know that from the title of the series that he is trying to get people closer to nature. Through the lines and paints on the interiors of the buildings it replicates nature. I like the emptiness and bareness of the interiors. Unlike my own photographs these photographs speak to me in somewhat the same way. Where is all the stuff? Is someone going to live there?, etc.

Idea Entry- "Corner"

Corner:

"The point of departure of my reflection is the following: every corner in a house, every angle in a room, every inch of secluded space in which we like to hide, or withdraw into ourselves, is a symbol of solitude for the imagination; that is to say, it is the germ of a room, or a house."

(Bachelard, Gaston, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print, pp. 136)

"...being becomes manifest at the very moment when it comes forth from its corner."

(Bachelard, Gaston, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print, pp. 138)

"And all who live in corners will come to confer life upon this image, multiplying the shades of being that characterize the corner dweller. For to great dreamers of corners and holes nothing is ever empty, the dialectics of full and empty only corresponds to two geometrical non-realities."

(Bachelard, Gaston, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print, pp. 140)

"In an earlier chapter devoted to houses, I said that a house in an engraving may well incite a desire to live in it. We feel that we should like to live there, between the very lines of the engraved drawing. At times, too, the phantasm that impels us to live in corners, comes into being by the grace of a mere drawing."

(Bachelard, Gaston, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Print, pp. 145)

Bibliography:

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

As I was reading I wasn't sure if this section of The Poetics of Space was going to help me with my work at all. I kept reading and found the quotes that I have posted. Not only do the quotes describe me as a person in a way but also describe some of the feelings that I would like the viewers of my work to feel. Bachelard writes: "...is a symbol of solitude for the imagination...". I don't ever remember spending much time in the corner when I was a child, I don't think i got into trouble that much. However, this quote said something to me since I suffer from depression. When ever I was having a really bad day I would seclude myself to a corner and there my mind would wonder on whatever it was that was bothering me. This leads me into the next quote where things are not so much clear in a corner until you come out of that corner is it that whatever it may be shows itself in a true light. I was particularly taken by the last quote when Bachelard talks about how in a drawing the fantasy of living in the corner is more concrete in a drawing. This is a feeling that I would like to come out in my work.

Artist Lecture- Wafaa Bilal

Before the lecture I did some "googling" on Wafaa Bilal and visited his website. When looking at his website there were so many links that I didn't know what to do at first. I decided to just start clicking on the links to see what would come up and found that a lot of the videos had been removed so I wasn't able to see a whole lot before the lecture. I was confused at first by what most of his work was about. I found some things that had to do with his brother and how he was killed in bombing in Iraq but nothing further.

I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture. I don't think that If I had heard Bilal speak about his work that I would have the same appreciation that I do now about what it is that he is trying to accomplish through his work. There is one problem that I have with a piece of his. When he took the video game The Night of Bush Capturing: A Virtual Jihadi and rendered himself in the game, Bilal stated that his work is to bring awareness to the American public on the Iraqi viewpoint. I feel that even though there hasn't been any violence as an outcome of his video game there was protest. I am afraid that that is where the violence starts is with protesting.

Unfortunately my second question about his work with famous paintings I was not able to bring up since he didn't touch on those works.

I thought Bilal's response to a question by one of the people in the audience was interesting. Someone asked him in so many words what he thought about turning Iraq into a democracy. Bilal stated that he thought it was a good thing, however that he thinks it is going to take 25-50 years before Iraq will be able to stand on it's own as a democracy without U.S. forces over there to help with the violence.

Even though Bilal thinks what the U.S. is trying to do in Iraq is a good thing he still uses his work to show the American public the other side, the Iraqi side.

I hope for his sake and the American public's sake that he accomplishes what he has set out to do.

I want to say that I was mostly impacted be his piece "Domestic Tension", where he places himself in a gallery for 30 (31) days and can be shot at by a paintball gun controlled be viewers on the internet. I don't remember ever hearing about an artist making a piece to help themselves emotionally get through a traumatic event, such as that of loosing a loved one. I'm not sure that it completely helped since some professionals have told him that he now suffers from PTSD but apparently from what he says it did help him with the death of his brother. I can only hope that my work will in the future be able to help me deal with "life's unexpected casualties".

http://www.wafaabilal.com/index.html