Alexandre Singh- Lecture Questions/Response

You, like a lot of contemporary artists, work in varied mediums for each piece. When you exhibit your work in all of its forms in one space, how important is each material and the viewers experience with each. Are you using the different mediums as a tool to control the audience?

As you star in your own performances, how important is your own presence/personality to these performances, is it related to the messages you are trying to convey?



       I am constantly surprised by each visiting artist. Just when I think I know what to expect I find out I had no idea. Alexandre Singh's work isn't something you can just read about or see pictures of, it is something you must experience. I am very fortunate to have seen him present his art because I feel like without this opportunity I would not have been interested in his art. The presentation, for lack of a better word, was fascinating because I knew I was being manipulated from the beginning, I knew I shouldn't believe everything I heard, but I felt like I didn't have any control over what was happening to me. That was art like I have never experienced. Singh helped me put in to perspective that there are things that I can't make sense of, no matter how much sense they should make.
        My first question was answered but my second one I am still kind of curious about. His work didn't seem to be very personal or emotionally based which is sometimes hard for me to relate to, but I did see connections with his world travels and diverse background. I don't think lack of personal connections is important to work like his though. To me, Singh's work had a lot to do with education, his past education, his continuing education through his art, and his education of his viewers. Singh's work is observant and ask us to be observant back. 

Show Submission-Photographers Forum

Contest Details:


Winning photos will be published in the May 2011 issue of Photographer’s Forum and entered into Nikon’s Emerging Photographers Hall of Fame. All contest finalists, top 8% of all entries, will be published in the hardcover book Best of College Photography 2011.


FIRST PLACE GRAND PRIZE
$2,000 Best B/W or Color
PLUS Nikon D90 camera and lens system
(or equivalent)


SECOND PLACE
$1,000 cash grant
PLUS Nikon D90 camera and lens system
(or equivalent)


THIRD PLACE
$500 cash grant


5 FOURTH PLACE AWARDS
Five $100 grants


100 HONORABLE MENTIONS
All Honorable Mentions will be listed in the May 2011 issue of Photographer’s Forum magazine and will receive a certificate of outstanding merit.


Here is the payment confirmation screen and my submissions:

Show Submission-HumanKind (NY Photo Festival)

This is the show description:



HumanKind - A visual exploration of the human condition


Throughout history, every generation of theorists, scientists and artists has grappled with the ultimate quest: to understand and define the human condition.


Now our turn has come: We are looking for images that encompass the experiences of being human in a social, cultural, and personal context. Images that tell the story of what it means to be part of  HumanKind - the bad, the good, the beautiful, the ugly, the exotic, the mundane, and everything in between.


Drawn from online submissions, 120 images will be selected and exhibited at The powerHouse Arena in Dumbo, Brooklyn.
  HumanKind - presented by the New York Photo Festival - will be on show from December 17 to January 20. 




I submitted three images, here is the page that shows I uploaded the images:

It would be so exciting to be selected for this and say I have a piece in the  New York Photo Festival!

Artist-Elina Brotherus

Bio:

"Elina Brotherus (b. 1972 Helsinki, Finland), works in photography and video. Her early work delt with subjective experiences, the presence and absence of love. She then moved on to more formal issues in her series The New Painting. Her current work is centered on the relation of the human figure and landscape, and on the gaze of an artist on his/her model. Elina Brotherus lives and works in Finland and in France."

I am happy to Elina's subject matter relates so closely to my own. Even just the few sentences in her bio above sum up my own work also. Her images speak to the human condition, they show loneliness and are sometimes scattered with odd pairings of people. There seems to be a tension present in some of her work, sometimes sad, sometimes peaceful. While researching her I came across a criticism of hers that made me somewhat worried:

 "There is one particular reason why some people tend to get itchy when confronted with 

seemingly casual but simultanuously deeply touching self-portraits - again especially if the 

object is a fragile and beautiful young woman. The responses are rather well-known. This 

style is too easy, it is too insular, focusing only at the joy of navel gazing. And, they might 

add, who really is or even should be interested in the psychological traumas of another cute 

little lost girl somewhere out there."

This makes me afraid for my own work. I don't want to be too insular, or a "cute little lost girl". I don't want people to stop caring about my work because of this so I just need to be conscious of my communication to avoid this kind of criticism. Apparently Elina Brotherus has successfully worked around this issue. 

Quotes:

"Have you ever tried to portrait yourself in such a way that the photo directly and without any 

whatsoever mercy or aesthetization pictures you in the state of burning lonelyness? Hmmm, I do not know about you, but what I do know and see is that Elina Brotherus does it, and does 

it very often and coherently."

 "It is a kind of lonely unhappiness that fills the emptiness, not asking for permission, and not negotiating but with force confiscating and filling every corner every second and every tiny particle of air that is left to breath. Lonelyness that rules and fulfills the empty spaces as in the natural phenomenas."

Bonne nuit mon amour, 80x102cm | Year: 1999 | Edition:6

Deux personnages au bord de la mer. 105x133cm | Year: 2005 | Edition:6

Der Wanderer 5, 105x136cm | Year: 2004 | Edition:6

Der Wanderer, 80x100cm | Year: 2003 | Edition:6

Les Oranges, 40x50cm | Year: 1999 | Edition:6

Nu endormi, 80x100cm | Year: 2003 | Edition:6

The Dog IV, 40x50cm | Year: 1999 | Edition:6

I really enjoy her titles too, especially the fist one translated is "Good Night My Love"

Artist

http://www.elinabrotherus.com/photography/index.ph

Review

http://www.elinabrotherus.com/assets/pdf/articles/hannula_girlwho_en_00.pdf

Gallery

http://www.gbagency.fr/

http://www.martinasbaek.com/

Grad School Application- RISD

Rhode Island School of Design interested me because they offer two different types of grad programs for teaching in the arts. The department is called Teaching + Learning in art and Design and you can get one of two degrees, Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) or Master of Arts (MA) in Teaching + Learning in Art + Design. Their approach to art education seems very current and just the way it should be. They believe teachers must first be artists and practice everything they teach. Their program stresses community involvement and their graduates often get jobs at very large prestigious teaching museums. I am also interested in their photography program because they offer opportunities to teach undergrads at the school, and I am very impressed with their undergrad work.

They have amazing faculty who I would be extremely excited to work with.  Professor Deborah Bright's work interested me and she has quite an impressive bio.
"Deborah Bright is an internationally known photographer and critic whose work has been exhibited and collected by the Victoria and Albert Museum, Whitney Museum, Fogg Art Museum, Museet for Fotokunst, Copenhagen, Museum Folkwang, Essen; Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography; Vancouver Art Gallery; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Addison Gallery of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, among others. Her work is represented by the Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston. She has received fellowships from the Bunting Institute, National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She is the author of The Passionate Camera: photography and bodies of desire (1998) and professor of photography and art history at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2005-06, she was the Shirley Carter Burden Visiting Professor of Photography at Harvard."

“Heaven.” Being & Riding series, 1996-99

“Wild Secret Girl.” Being & Riding series, 1996-99

I was more intrigued by the undergrad student work than I was with the grad student work. I was interested in 2006 MFA grad Thaddeus Russell, here are some of his images.

Thaddeus Russell

Thaddeus Russell

Thaddeus Russell

Even though it is the number one Art program in the country and the number 3 photo program, I would seriously consider applying there.

Simon Tarr Lecture Questions/Response

Questions:

You seem to have a wide range of interests or subject matters in your work, most relating to popular culture and or science fiction. Also the audience seems very carefully considered as you often pose direct questions in the work or present it in a way specific to a certain kind of viewing experience. What are your main motivations behind making your work? Are you using it as a kind of PSA? 

Your use of sarcasm and humor creates a strong sense of ambiguity in your films. I wonder what the intended viewer reaction is supposed to be, is it unusual to see people laughing out loud, confused, or scared? 

On a personal note, how did you end up teaching at the University of South Carolina? 




Response:
I need to be honest, I just don't get "video art." I am ashamed to say this because I feel like there is just something I'm missing. Almost every time I see video work I think, 'okay, I'm going to try really hard to understand this this time, go!' and I always disappoint myself. I also thought that the more I watched, the more I would start to understand. That's not happening either and I think the problem is, I don't know what to look for. Do video artists want me to see concept? Do they want me to get visual cues? What am I supposed to think of the sound? Am I supposed to be confused or trying to figure things out? I don't know how to view it as an artistic medium partly because I have no experience using it myself, and I have never learned how to talk about it. I feel like this is a problem I need to talk to someone about before I get out of school, I'm too old for this, I need some video art guidance. 


   With all of that said, I could tell that Simon Tarr was smart, and that he knew a lot about what he was doing, I just did not. He didn't give conceptual explanations for any of the pieces or talk about his inspirations, so I don't know if that is supposed to be important. I am trying to figure out if I am supposed to be entertained by the same image flickering on the screen for twenty minutes, or is the point that I become bored and then as a result introspective? I watched his films with an open mind and could understand how he was passionate about what he does and how he does it. I wish my questions were answered, but I just assumed my confusion was due to my own lack of knowledge in the field and didn't want to bother everyone else with that. He was nice enough to answer my questions afterwards about working in South Carolina, as my family all went to University of South Carolina and I was curious about the art scene. 

Critique Video Response

This critique seemed to be a mostly positive one for me, which was a relief, so I wasn't nervous to watch my recording. In the past, critiques have gone by in a haze of nerves for me where I get internally defensive and therefore don't always get the most out of them or remember suggestions, but not this time. I was surprised that I remembered most everything that went on without the tape and was able to be very open to suggestions. This is probably because of the new open feeling to my work, which seemed to put my viewers and myself at ease. The work is also still in the developmental stage, so I was more eager to make changes and hear how my concept is being received. I was also relieved to see that the discussion didn't fall flat when I put my work up like it has in the past. People were able to see my concept and relate to it in a way that encouraged them to talk about it, which is my ideal outcome. 
   While I was very pleased with the responses of my classmates, I do have some criticism for myself. I did not seem to be as on point with my language as I usually feel. This is the first project I've worked on where I don't have a script of things I want to explain to people, which puts me out of my controlling element. I seemed to ramble a bit when explaining my work after everyone had read my artists statement and had some difficulty answering questions in a clear way. I seemed a bit tired, which is not an excuse, but it's something I regret because I really do care very much about the work I am making and I want to appear excited to talk about it. I think my lack of certainty is a result of me trying to be more open about my artwork and less controlling with the way I want my audience to see my concept, but I may have taken it too far and now is the time for me to come up with answers. I feel as though I usually am confident speaking in front of groups of people but it didn't show this time. I need to think more about what I want to say to people in the most concise way possible and expand my language and terms further than "alone" and   "island." My critique really helped me feel confident in moving forward but gave me great suggestions for improvement and things I hope to implement. 


New images from crit:

16x24 in, Digital C-Print

top-12x18 in, bottom-2 6x9 in Digital C-Prints

Artist-Vee Speers

Bio:

"Vee Speers was born in Australia and studied Fine Art and Photography at Queensland College of Art. Her timeless portraits have been exhibited and published world-wide and are part of many private and museum collections including the CB Collection, Tokyo, Elton John Collection, Michael Wilson Collection, George Eastman House and Clerici Collection, Italy. Vee Speers’ recent solo exhibitions were at Galerie Acte2, Paris, Jackson Fine Art and Singapore International Photography Festival."
http://www.jacksonfineart.com/Vee-Speers-3388.html#

"Her most recent work, The Birthday Party, is a series of short stories linked by the theme of an imaginary birthday party. In a conceptual and technical departure from her previous work, it is partly a self-portrait, sometimes woven with threads from her own childhood."
http://www.lostateminor.com/2010/03/26/vee-speers/

Quotes:

"Looking at these photographs, Speers strikes a chord within us to trigger our own concerns in relation to today's paranoid society. The emotive responses to her work divulge more about the viewer than the viewed."  -Laura Noble

"Initially, I thought, on an obvious level, boys play with guns, even if we tell them not to. Take the gun away and they’ll get a stick. They just do that - they are impulsive. Then I started thinking about the way they might protect themselves and dress up. They fight and they play war games: Cowboys and Indians. It’s all about that kind of human nature, what we are really like and what we learn to control and kind of put away. Not violent, but I guess anarchy in some ways - individual expression, anarchy and spontaneity."  -The Artist, http://www.lesphotographes.com/2010/03/06/the-parisian-life-of-vee-speers/

Since my work has taken the turn towards self-portraiture, traditional and non, looking at the work or Vee Speers makes me excited about the possibilities. She captures a look that can't be forced or faked, the look of her subjects hooks the viewer and makes them feel all of the emotions of the subject. the first quote I have included sums up a feeling I would love to achieve in my own work. I am being self reflexive with my work, but I would also like to encourage my viewer to be self-reflexive just by looking at my photos. I obviously am drawn to her technical qualities also, like her minimal color palette that removes extraneous information and allows you to feel raw emotion, and her centered minimal composition. 

Immortal #7, 2010. 26 x 34.5 in Cibachrome Print, Edition of 8

Immortal #4, 2010. 26 x 34.5 in Cibachrome Print, Edition of 8

Vee Speers, Untitled #4, Cibachrome prints, 20" x 24", 2007

Vee Speers, Untitled #5, Cibachrome prints, 20" x 24", 2007

Untitled # 21 (The Birthday Party) 90 x 72 cm, C-Print, 2007

Untitled # 30 (The Birthday Party) 90 x 72 cm, C-Print, 2007

Untitled (The Birthday Party) 90 x 72 cm, C-Print, 2007

Artist:

http://www.veespeers.com/

interview/ review:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kimberly-brooks/vee-speers-birthday-party_b_164694.html

Galleries:

www.jacksonfineart.com

http://www.galerie-beckers.de/

http://www.acte2photo.com/

Zoe Beloff Lecture Questions/Response

You work with a great amount of different artists and mediums, how important/influential are other people on your concepts, and when working with other people and so many different projects are you concerned with retaining certain important conceptual elements and themes throughout your oeuvre?

You are often referencing historical events or people from the past in your work. What connection do you feel to these past events that are sometimes far before your time, or why do you feel the need to make work that brings these events to the present and represent them in a modern way? Do you make personal connections with these figures from the past?


Response:


      Both of my questions were answered within the first ten minutes of the lecture. This was one of the most informative artist lectures I have ever been too. Zoe Beloff gave the lecture in the style of a teacher, explaining every element and its history before actually talking about the art work its self. Little did I know, that the explanations and histories were essential to the art because they were the art. I was so stunned after learning all that information was fabricated, but I was stunned in a great way.
     I wasn't so sure if I was going to be able to relate to this artist or not. Her website had so much information on it about so many things that I thought the art wouldn't be accessible or comprehendible, but Zoe presented her lecture in a clear and interesting way. I am kind of confused about what was true and what was exaggerated, but the way she delivered her information was an art in its self. I admire the scope of her artistic career and her use of so many technical mediums. Beloff's concept of the unconscious has expanded in to so many different forms that there was a lot to cover. Her work with dreams and fictional characters was the most interesting to me. It was funny when someone asked her if she kept her own dream diary and she said yes, but we didn't know at the time the character was her all along, so it was always her dream journal.
     I wish we could have watched the videos at the end for longer. They were captivating. She didn't explain what they were or what part of them were her own creation until after we watched them, but I enjoyed having a pure surprised reaction when watching. Her use of old home movie clips and adding her own meaning to them was smart and insightful. Even though her use of theatrics and the moving image was not really something I would normally be in to, I enjoyed this lecture and felt  it was a privilege to learn from an artist of Zoe Beloff's caliber.