Artist Blog - Hannah Collins

Website:

http://www.hannahcollins.net/home.html

Gallery:

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=21268&roomid=4700

"Space and scale are important considerations in Collins’s work - the space created by the piece, the space it occupies physically and how it relates to the space in which it hangs. The human figure is deliberately absent in much of her work. “The human figure would fix the overall scale of the image and would fix your relationship with the image. I want one to be able to move into the image.”"

(New Works by Hannah Collins at the Irish Museum of Modern Art." Welcome to IMMA | Irish Museum of Modern Art. Press Office. Web. 11 Oct. 2010. .)

"The enterprise Hannah Collins has undertaken is ethical - in that she is dealing with our present - and modest at the same time, since the language she develops is in no way closed in on itself but rather an open infinity of virtualities."

(Collins, Hannah, and Hannah Collins. In the Course of times ; A Worldwide Case of Homesickness : Sala Parpalló, Centre Cultural La Beneficència. Valéncia: Diputació De València, 1997. Print.)

I am not really sure what I think of Collins' work since I have not been able to find much online about her work. I really like that her photographs are black and white and think that they add to the feeling of "old world", the past, and devastation that I think she is trying to portray. I have found what I think is a book entitled "Conversations with Photographers: John Baldessari, Hannah Collins, Axel Hutte, Gonzalo Puch, Wolfgang Tillmans, Jeff Wall" and as soon as I can get my hands on the book I will be adding to this blog.

Idea Blog - Nostalgia

Nostalgia - homesickness, longing for something far away or long ago

"But nostalgic longing for a past is always also a longing for another place. Nostalgia can be a utopia in reverse."

Huyssen, Andreas. "Nostalgia For Ruins." Grey Room 23 (2006): 7. Print.

"...historian Charles Maier's pithy pronouncement that nostalgia is to memory like kitsch is to art."

Huyssen, Andreas. "Nostalgia For Ruins." Grey Room 23 (2006): 8. Print.

"In the case of ruins that which is allegedly present and transparent whenever authenticity is claimed is present only as an absence; it is the imagined present of a past that can now only be grasped in its decay. This makes the ruin subject to nostalgia."

Huyssen, Andreas. "Nostalgia For Ruins." Grey Room 23 (2006): 12. Print.

Bibliography:

Huyssen, Andreas. "Nostalgia For Ruins." Grey Room 23 (2006): 6-21. Print.

Nostalgia was brought to my attention, it was not a word that I considered myself to describe my work. I would not consider myself a history buff but love to hear stories from people that lived in the time. I would love to be able to hear the stories of the people that lived in the houses that I photograph but have been unable to get anywhere when contacting them. So I guess in a way "nostalgia" is the perfect word to describe the way that I feel when photographing the houses.

Lecture - Julika Rudelius

Rudelius was trained in a publishing house and went into art because she didn't want to be in an office. She works with video because there she can manipulate the truth.

Her subjects come from anger and discomfort. As she got older they became more layered and less angry.

Her work entitled "Train" is of three young men of which you can only see their mouths between the headrest and seat on a train. The men are talking about women that they have had sex with. The things that the men were saying was very vulgar and crude. Rudelius wants us to wonder whether they are really on a train, are they really saying that? She also said that the mouths become and "erotic object".

"Highest Point" Rudelius wanted the women that she interviewed to explain how they reached and orgasm. They would keep their clothes on but explain with words and movements. She referred to this work as slapstick. She wanted this to be somewhat funny.

"Tagged" was about young Morrocans in Holland. These young men always seemed to be dressed really well. They wore designer clothes. In the film they talk about how the clothes make them feel and how they feel about what others are saying about them. In Holland the Dutch dress badly, therefore having these young Morrocans dress really well makes them outsiders. This film was brought on by Rudelius being mugged in Holland by a couple of Morrocans. She wants to bring up the questions of did they steal the clothes? Did they rob someone to get the clothes?

"Your Blood is as Red as Mine" is a film about prejudices and how they are not true. Rudelius interviewed several black men in Holland and asked them questions like: Why are black men attracted to lighter skinned women? The response she got was completely different with the black men she interviewed in Holland than she would have gotten from a black man in America.

"Economic Primacy" was a film about capitalism and money. Here she interviewed several wealthy men. She said that she came across a checklist for psychopaths and said all the things on the list were the same things that you needed to be successful. She said that trying to get the interviews became a sport. The rich don't care at all what others think about them, they are oblivious.

Rudelius said that in most of the films she was directing some of the people on what to say. This is where I can see the manipulation of truths that she speaks about. However, she has directs some of the people on what she thinks about the subjects. This is a manipulation of her truth not truths.

In one of the interviews she was talking to what I assume was a black preacher. He asked her what she wanted from her work after she dies. And she said that she wanted to people to take it places. This confused me because in the end she said that the reason there are only loops of her films on her website was because people were downloading them and she wanted to be in control of how her films were showed. How is she going to be in control when she dies?

The other questions that came to mind after the lecture was why should we care about how she views the truth? Not everyone sees the subjects that she films the same way she does. Why not film the subjects based on someone else's truth?

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.