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That's really the question isn't it? The vernacular vs art, the camera technician vs the photographer. Is what we're doing a flat recording of reality or is it, by the various choices we make while composing and lighting a photograph, a conscious work of art?
There used to be a very clear line (perhaps only in my mind) between these two types of photography. On one hand you had the carte de visite of the local shop on the corner and on the other the pictorialism of the educated upper crust. You had the portraits of Karsh or the mug shots of the anonymous police photographer. But in the last couple generations there has been a bleeding between the two worlds. Serial work and typology is the new art of photography. August Sander's German archetypes trying to maintain their place in the chaotic world after the Great War are now assumed to say far more than "this is what farmers look like, here's a baker". Bernd and Hilla Becher with their water towers are no longer rather eccentric collectors of architectural variations, they are the spiritual parents of a vast movement in photographic art that includes the deadpan portraits of Rineke Dijkstra, the hotel signs of Arnaud Maggs, and the restaurant meals of Stephen Shore.
Documenting and assembling multiple images of the banal is now art. This may have its roots in the reaction to pictorialism which sought to make photography look like painting. With the idea that a photograph ought to look like a photograph came a search for "photograph" which may have sucked the botany illustrations of Karl Blossfeldt into abstract art, the snapshots of Lartigue or the news photos of Weegee into social commentary and even the anonymous police mugshot into a portraiture of the other. The overriding question is always "what is a photograph?" A subset of the larger question "what is art?"
I'm working on my own search for an answer and one way is to ask myself if it is possible to take the photographer out of the equation. Just how far can we remove the "artist" as the automation of the camera continues to increase?
The photo here was taken by a camera that was set up to shoot at 20 second intervals. The model simply kept moving while the camera captured her at various poses. There was no photographer involved, it was all done by "the machine". How responsible am I for this image? I set up the situation, made the set, instructed the model, and selected the shot. I did not "take" the photograph, my finger was nowhere near the shutter and my eye was far away from the viewfinder.
Is this a more, or less pure photograph than one that I composed and pulled the trigger on? Is it any different at all? The serial shots here are absolutely a typology, they are in fact a series, a stop motion video of the model's performance. Is this more or less artful than the careful positioning and lighting of the Bechers when they shot their houses, winding towers and blast furnaces? This camera never moved, nor did the lighting change at all.
I'm seeing a dialogue here not between the camera technician and the photographer, but between the camera itself and the photographer.
Time and Space
Maggie Groat
February
1 - 25, 2008
Opening Reception: Friday, Feb 1st
Moving / Passing
Digitized Super 8mm & 8mm Film
2007
Time and Space features the work of Maggie Groat, the youngest member of St.Catharines-based collective CRAM.
Working entirely with found images, Time and Space looks at the overlooked or in-between moments of captured memory. This multimedia exhibition includes video, light boxes, photographs, and 35mm slides. Each work has been created through subtle manipulations of appropriated imagery, both personal and foreign. The moments chosen are linked by themes of everydayness, banality, routine actions, insignificant events, and nostalgia.
Maggie Groat lives and works in Toronto, Canada. In 2007 she received her BFA at York University.
The
CRAMplex
24 James Street - 2nd Floor
downtown St. Catharines - The Garden City of Niagara
between Christopher's Magazines & Smoke Shop and The Office*
Ontario, Canada
Contact:
Tobey C. Anderson
Mobile: 905.380.3910
http://www.cramart.ca
info@cramart.ca
Hours: when the sandwich board is out and by appointment.
CRAM is Canada's smallest and hottest gallery, and a growing concern. CRAM promotes and encourages local investment and support of contemporary art produced by the regional artists who live in Niagara or have strong ties to St. Catharines and the CRAM collective.
The
CRAM Collective includes, naturally, the traditional fine art mediums
and constructions as well as installation, audio, music, mixed media,
video, multi media, writing, and new media by the following
practitioners: Tobey C. Anderson, John B. Boyle, Carolyn Wren, the
Judy Bowyer, Alice Crawley, Sandy Fairbairn, Alan Flint, Dave Gordon,
Ernest Harris, Jr., Marinko Jareb, Ed Aoki, Melanie MacDonald, John
Moffat, Richard Purcell, Stephen Remus, Kevin Richardson, Dennis
Tourbin, Nadia Laham, Hayden Booth, Peter S. Wing, Cassie Kent, Kyle
Bishop, John Venditti, Maggie Groat, Rena Burns, Sheldon Rooney, Joe
Stable, Pam Maw, Mark Elliott, Krys Kaczkan, Scott Waters.
The School of Visual Arts at the University of Windsor welcomes
visiting speaker Diane Borsato
Thursday Jan. 31 at 12 PM LeBel rm 115
all lectures are free and open to the public
The School of Visual Arts is located on the SW corner of Huron Chrch and College Avenue.
more info about this lecture and future events:
call: (519) 253-3000 x2829
email: art@uwindsor.ca
web: www.uwindsor.ca/visualarts
Diane Borsato is a visual artist working in performance, intervention, video, installation, and photography. She has exhibited nationally and internationally with exhibitions and performances at galleries and museums including Skol, and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Montreal), Gallery TPW, the AGYU, and the The Power Plant (Toronto), eyelevel (Halifax), TRUCK (Calgary), Saw Gallery (Ottawa), Artspeak (Vancouver), and a residency at Villa Arson, National Centre for Contemporary Art in Nice, France. Diane Borsato is Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary studio at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario.
La
Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario (GNO)
presents
Rachelle Bergeron
L'inconnu
Curator
: Cheryl Rondeau
Reception Friday January 25 at 5 pm
Exhibition January 25 to March 8 2007 - Tuesday to Saturday 12 to 5 pm
at
174 Elgin, Sudbury
Rachelle Bergeron's photographic work explores the possibilities of portraiture and its remarkable potential to capture a fleeting moment, singular emotion or complex sentiment. In her current body of portraits, Bergeron locates the confident and austere in subjects who are sometimes aged and thoughtful or youthful and boisterous.
Bergeron functions within a studio setting using a consistent colourless environment devoid of props, costume or extraneous detail. As a result, her work is built as confrontation with an almost-larger-than-life gaze and accentuated posturing. Her subjects are tightly framed as they engage the lens often presenting only head and shoulders or even simply, an arm or hand. She can transform the subtle into grand and the monochromatic into something vivid.
Bergeron was born in Sudbury where she has worked in photography for almost twenty years. Her work has been presented on numerous occasions and has been published in many books and cultural magazines.
Come
meet the artist and curator at the opening reception.
Admission is free and the public is welcome.
This exhitibion is sponsored by Collins Barrow. Our season sponsors are
CBON, la Première Chaîne, Espace musique and Radio-Canada
Television.
Conctact Person : Danielle Tremblay, Director
174 Elgin Street, Sudbury Ontario
1877 358 6615 or (705) 673-4927
website
at www.gn-o.org
e-mail info@gn-o.org
Biographies, 2002 DVD installation
Courtesy of the artist, Cali, and Galería Alcuadrado, Bogotá
IMPRINTS FOR A FLEETING MEMORIAL
January 24, 2008 – March 1, 2008
OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY, JANUARY 24 FROM 7 TO 10 PM
TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION (BY MUÑOZ AND ROCA): THURSDAY, JANUARY 24 AT 7:30 PM
OSCAR MUÑOZ MAKES A LASTING IMPRESSION
Internationally renowned Colombian artist, Oscar Muñoz, will be in Toronto to present his first major solo exhibition in North America. Imprints for a Fleeting Memorial, curated by José Roca, is a compilation of Muñoz’s life’s work, spanning more than three decades. The exhibition is travelling internationally, with its first North American stop at Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art.
Muñoz is recognized as one of the most significant contemporary visual artists in Colombia. He applies traditional techniques to fundamental elements (water, air and fire) in photography, printmaking, drawing, installation, video and sculpture. His innovative processes combined with the use of unusual surfaces allow spectators to share in the creation of art.
Imprints for a Fleeting Memorial will exhibit 12 imaginative works celebrating Muñoz’s career by investigating the status of the image in relation to memory. A variety of materials are used for the exhibition including glass, sugar cubes, coffee, Plexiglas, cigarettes, newspapers and mirror.
Works to be exhibited include the Narcissus series, consisting of Narcissi in Process (1991/2007), Narcissus in Process (2001–02), and Narcissus (2001–02), depicting the progressive deformation of an image floating in water; Project for a Memorial (2004–05), a video installation inspired by images of deceased persons found in local obituaries, emphasizing the process of “dis-remembering”; and Re/trato (2003), in Spanish meaning “portrait” or “to try again”, documenting a self-portrait painted with water on a stone slab. Paistiempo (Newspapers) (2007) is Muñoz’s newest work, currently in progress.
Muñoz’s creative processes have also been applied to Ambulatorio (1994–2003), Pixels (1999–2000), Biographies (2002), Palimpsest (2003), Intervals (While I Breath) (2004) and Line of Destiny (2006).
Imprints for a Fleeting Memorial will be displayed at Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, located at 401 Richmond Street West, Suite 124, Toronto, in association with YYZ Artists’ Outlet, Suite 140 (located in the same building). The exhibition opens on Thursday, January 24, 2008 from 7 to 10 PM. Muñoz and Roca will provide a tour of the exhibition at 7:30 PM. The show runs until Saturday, March 1, 2008.
About the Artist
Oscar Muñoz resides in Cali, Colombia. His work has recently entered the collections of the Tate Modern, L.A. MOCA, the Miami Art Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Fundación La Caixa in Barcelona and, most recently, the Museo Extremeño e lberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo in Spain, among others. In 2007, he participated in the 52nd Venice Biennale in Italy. Muñoz’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions internationally since 1994. Imprints for a Fleeting Memorial is Oscar Muñoz’s first solo exhibition in Canada.
About the Curator
José Roca is a
curator based in Bogotá, Colombia, where he heads the temporary
exhibitions program at the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango. His
recent
curatorial projects include Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence,
Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá, a travelling
exhibition
co-produced with ICI (Independent Curators International), New York
(2007–09); Botánica política, Sala Montcada,
Fundación La Caixa, Barcelona (2004); Traces of Friday,
Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
(2003); TransHistorias, survey of the work of José
Alejandro Restrepo, Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá
(2001); Define “Context”, APEX Art Curatorial
Program, New York (2000); Ruins; Utopia,
survey of Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa, Biblioteca Luis Ángel
Arango,
Bogotá, Bronx Museum for the Arts, New York and Museo Alejandro
Otero,
Caracas (2000–01).
He co-curated the Trienal Poli/gráfica de San Juan, Puerto Rico
(2004) and the 27th São Paulo Bienal (2006).
Roca is currently the Artistic Director of Philagrafika, a
quadriennial of contemporary printmaking to be held in different venues
in Philadelphia in 2010. He edits Columna de arena, an online
column on art and contemporary culture.
About Prefix
Prefix
Institute of Contemporary Art is a public art gallery and arts
publishing house based in Toronto. A registered charitable
organization, Prefix fosters the
appreciation and understanding of contemporary photographic, media and
digital art.
Acknowledgements
For their support of
Imprints for a Fleeting Memorial, Prefix
gratefully acknowledges Alcuadrado Gallery (Bogotá) and Sicardi
Gallery (Houston). Prefix
also acknowledges its Official Catering Sponsor, à la Carte
Kitchen,
and Official Hotel Sponsor, the Sutton Place Hotel. Lastly, Prefix acknowledges the assistance of the
Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.
For more information please
contact:
Chantal Rousseau
Operations Manager
Prefix ICA
T: 416-591-0357
E: info@prefix.ca
There are several blogs online that the more commercially minded photographers and illustrators out there might want to check out.
Here's a PDF ebook, just released today from ED McCulloch http://success.edshoots.com/ You'll find links on that page to his blog and his portfolio.
For those into the advertising game, check out Ihaveanidea.org which has an annual worldwide portfolio review night.
PORTFOLIO NIGHT 6
With each passing day we get closer and closer to Thursday May 8th, the day that’s like Christmas, the Super Bowl and a wedding all rolled into one for us. Of course we’re talking about Portfolio Night 6, the largest portfolio review in the history of the planet!
As you know, DDB will be returning as a Global Partner, and we already have the following cities from last year ready to go:
Auckland Hosted by DDB
Sydney Hosted by DDB
Melbourne Hosted by DDB
Singapore Hosted by DDB
Hong Kong Hosted by DDB
Barcelona Hosted by Complot
Sao Paulo Hosted by DDB
Miami Hosted by DDB
New York Hosted by DDB
Montreal Hosted by Sid Lee
Toronto Hosted by DDB
Chicago Hosted by DDB
We'd also love to welcome a new city to the mix:
Buenos Aires Hosted by Circulo Creativo
It also looks like we're pretty close to adding:
Johannesburg
Istanbul
Amsterdam
Boston
Los Angeles
Now this sounds pretty impressive, but trust us, we want to make this even bigger, bringing together even more of the world's greatest creative directors and aspiring creative talent. While there are many sponsorship opportunities available, as well as opportunities to become a host city and add your city's name to this growing list, time is running out.
For any and all questions, please visit the website or directly contact Jay Thompson, ihaveanidea's VP of Stuff, either by email at jay@ihaveanidea.org or by phone at 1.416.655.6546
I think I already mentioned A Photo Editor for the editorial shooters, and for the stock shooters there's Thoughts of a Bohemian
A good place to see what's happening where and to whom is Marketing Photos and Jackanory has a good Q and A with a photographer in London England about the business. Don't forget our own profiles on photographers in 180 magazine.
There's a photo assistant website for those who want to assist.
And finally, if you just want to have your daily look at fashion photos, check out FotoDecadant
Don't forget to check out the links on those various blog pages.
Two new exhibitions open at the Varley Art Gallery this Sunday
John
Reeves: Surfacing for Atwood
and
Buddha Composed
January 20 to March 2
Unionville,
ON
- The first two exhibitions in the Varley Gallery's exciting 2008
schedule explore new media and new subject matter in appealing,
imaginative and dynamic ways. The exhibitions are curated by Gallery
Curator Katerina Atanassova. The opening event for both shows takes
place at the gallery on Sunday January 20 from 2 - 4pm.
Buddha Composed
This intriguing exhibition offers a three-fold interpretation of centuries-old Buddhist philosophical and cultural traditions. Featuring original works by Julie Oakes, in collaboration with other artists, the audience is led on a journey through well-known and familiar Buddhist symbols contrasted against a backdrop of contemporary images. The context in which the new and the classical are juxtaposed is innovative and refreshing. The exhibition opening on Sunday January 20 includes an opportunity to meet many of the artists as well musical performances and a Buddhist prayer ceremony for peace, harmony and prosperity.
Artist Julie Oakes leads a free public tour of Buddha Composed on Sunday March 2 at 12:30, followed by tea (free with admission)
Special programs being offered in conjunction with Buddha Composed include:
Chinese
Brush Painting workshop with artist William Ho Sunday January
27, 1-4pm
Cost: $30 (some materials provided)
Explore the essence of Chinese Brush Painting with William Ho, an
internationally renowned professional artist. He recently received an
award from the United Nations MDG One Heart Beat Award (2007). To
complement the program and celebrate Chinese New Year, Orient Dance
Company will perform traditional Chinese dances in the exhibition space
at 2pm and 3pm
Tibetan
Thangka painting workshop with artist Gyurme Sonam Sunday March
2, 2-4:30pm
Cost: $25 (some materials provided).
Learn the basics of Thangkas, decorative Tibetan scroll paintings on
cloth that express Buddhist ideals and principles from a qualified
Thangka painter trained according to ancient tradition in Dharamsala,
India.
John Reeves: Surfacing for Atwood
John Reeves is an internationally known portrait photographer whose work is collected by individual collectors and public galleries across Canada. In this exhibition, Surfacing for Atwood, Reeves moves to an entirely new realm of photography by exploring different textures, colours and surfaces. The 24 images are in stark contrast to his famed portraits of artistic, literary, and musical icons but they drew inspiration from an early photograph Reeves took of Margaret Atwood, as well as from her most acclaimed early book, Surfacing. Reeves explains: "I had become intrigued with extending my straight black-and-white photos into multi-image suites of prints that involve some forceful digital manipulation. In early 2007, I began to re-think my "surfaces" photos. Surfaces brought Atwood to mind."
John Reeves will share the story and impetus for this newest art creative project during an Afternoon Tea & Talk on Sunday, February 3 from 2pm - 4pm at the Gallery (free with admission).
The Varley's tenth anniversary exhibition F.H. Varley Portraits: Into the Light continues its national tour and is currently on display at the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton.
Contact:
John Ryerson: Director, Varley Art Gallery
jryerson@markham.ca
(905) 477-9511 x233
The Varley
Art Gallery of Markham is located at 216 Main Street in
historic Unionville
T: (905) 477-9511 F: (905) 477-6299 www.varleygallery.ca
Winter
hours: Open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am-4pm, and Sundays 12-4pm
Adam Lodzinski: The Music of Light
January 19 -
March 22, 2008
Opening Reception, Saturday January 19, 2-4 pm, Artist Talk, 3 pm
Gallery hours: Wednesday - Friday 11 - 5 and Saturdays noon - 4pm
Rails End
Gallery & Arts Centre
23 York Street, Haliburton, Ontario
705-457-2330
Media contact: Laurie Jones or Daniela Pagliaro 705-457-2330
info@railsendgallery.com | www.railsendgallery.com
Going Beyond Conventional Ideas About Photography
The Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre is pleased to present The Music of Light, featuring Adam Lodzinski's series of photographic abstractions. Through his photographic investigations, Lodzinski helps to illuminate how photography can contribute to abstraction on its own terms, challenging conventional ideas about photography and what a photograph should be of.
Modern and post-modern photography typically seeks "to reveal and celebrate reality", as called for by late American photographer, Berenice Abbott. Lodzinski's photography challenges the "window on the world" paradigm, creating entirely non-representational images. In fact, Lodzinski's work is entirely created in a controlled studio environment. The series of abstractions that he has been working on since 1999 are created by photographing paper sculptures from multiple vantage points and then superimposing each image to create a single composite image. The result is a body of work that reveals a world wholly created in the camera, rather than discovered through it.
Like every great composer attempting many versions of a score with alternate layers of melodies and harmonies, Lodzinski takes much care and time making decisions about which images he will further develop into a work of art. He must decide which image will be paired with another and whether to use colour filters or keep the photo monochrome. He also decides whether to use artificial light or natural light, sometimes waiting for hours for the sun to be in the right position for capturing his images.
The most important ingredient is light. "Light is everything," he states. "Light defines the form and lines of my work and it is the essential element of photography." The result is magical and mysterious and the work is beautiful without being pretty, a refreshing reprieve from the world of conceptually driven art.
Whether it is natural or artificially introduced, light is the tool and the real subject matter for Lodzinski and, in a sense, he is sculpting with it. Using just light Lodzinski transforms the paper constructions into lifelike lines. This is most evident in his monochromatic works like Monochrome Abstraction #16 and Monochrome Abstraction #50. The transitions in tone are so even and liquid-like, that the forms seem to move gracefully and breath quietly. The lines are simple and sensuous. The addition of colour, as in Abstraction #50 and Abstraction #61, make the image burst with life. In multiple colour images like Abstraction #55, you can almost hear the harmonies.
It is not uncommon for great music to elicit visions of colour and form to the avid listener. No doubt the same goes for Lodzinski's creations. If a symphony could have colour and shades, these photos would be those symphonies.
Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre is grateful for the ongoing support of the Municipality of Dysart et al, our volunteers and community organizations. Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre receptions are generously sponsored by The Old Country House. The Old Country House is located on Highland Street in Haliburton.
Rails End
Gallery & Arts Centre
23 York Street, POB 912, Haliburton, ON K0M 1S0
www.railsendgallery.com | info@railsendgallery.com
Well it looks like working for little or nothing (doing editorial shoots for fashion magazines) is the way to the top of the money making pile for models at least. There's a story on The Imagist blog about a new list for top model earners. In case you're wondering, the top ten list will be out on MDC (Models.com I'm assuming).
The next question for me is whether or not this applies to photographers. That of course leads to the discussion of photographers taking the food out of everyone's mouths because they shoot editorial for free, and it will continue I suspect.
Here's something to consider, are the top paid models (the "give it away" editorial types) making more money in total (number of models times earnings) than the catalogue (work for pay only) models? Do the total incomes of the top photographers who do editorials add up to more than the total income of those guys who never give away an image?
Assuming that there are vastly more wedding and local commercial shooters who never do editorials, and who, as a whole group make more money than the combined top ranks who do the editorial work... and assuming that the editorial group is, on an individual basis, better paid than those who don't do high end editorial work, which group do you aim for?
Damned if I know what, but I continue to look for something... if I knew what I suppose I'd just do it. A new lighting method? A new colour? A new way to look at the nude? Just a new pattern of light? I really don't know but I know I'm looking because it feels like a search.
Kim Taylor, straight from the camera
Here's a bunch of LED lights and a strobe (a real strobe, that '80s refugee from a disco, not a studio flash), two apple boxes, and a couple of diffusers for overhead fluorescent lights. Pretty simple stuff, set the white balance to tungsten and you've got your lovely blue light.
The long exposure and the strobe means you really aren't in charge, there's a lot of chance in these shots so I obviously continue to take my thinking self out of the system as much as I can.
I'm enjoying the trip even if I don't know where we'll end up.
Alison Brady in Group Show Evil be Gone
SATURDAY Jan 12 6-9
JAN 12
OPENING Saturday Jan 12
-- FLEET WING Gallery
OPENING SATURDAY JANUARY 12th 6 to 9 pm Fleetwing Gallery www.fleetwinggallery.com "Four emerging artists from New York present emotionally-intense work focusing on the arresting visual image. An installation artist, a painter, a photographer, and a video artist create complex and bizarrely logical compositions cast in a surreal, nightmarish vein." |
|
| FLEET WING Gallery
|
|
| Fleet WIng Gallery 12 North Main Street Lambertville, NJ 08530 Saturday Jan 12 from 6-9
|
|
| Fleet Wing Gallery info@fleetwinggallery.com aliee.son@gmail.com
609.460.4369
|
Click here to read Alison's 180 story
Who knew?
I just read a comment on a blog where an employee of an online publication stated that he didn't feel it was proper to be asking professional photographers for free shots, and he didn't feel it was right for a commercial enterprise to be paying money for a 300 pixel shot to be displayed on the web, so he goes to file sharing sites and gets a shot with a creative commons license (I think that's something that lets other folks use your stuff for free if they credit you).
OK this shot is 300 pixels wide:
Kim Taylor, straight from the camera
So this is worthless, but if it's the same size in a print magazine, and I supplied it as a 30mb tiff (it just took me less than a minute to convert this same shot to a 10" wide, 600 dpi tiff that came in at 75mb) than it's worth serious money? And if I print it out at 60 inches wide by handing it to a lab and saying "print this up for me at 60 inches wide on archival paper" than it's worth even more?
Amazing, the value added from the 300pixel shot above, to whatever I can get for a giant red print of a nude at a big name gallery is... well actually "infinite" if you calculate it... so give me a dollar for the 300 pixel shot and give me $300 over my cost for the print in the gallery for the five footer. Now 30 seconds work sending the file by email to a lab got me a 300% increase in value. Pretty damned good value added, that's $299 x 120 = $35,880 an hour.
And what did it cost me for that first dollar that I'll charge you for the image above? Well that cost me many years of experience and whatever artistic merit you're willing to give me for that shot. Plus the time it took the model and I to shoot it, plus the expense of my equipment...
In other words, the creation of the image cost "everything" and that value is, for all practical purposes, the same whether that image is at 300 pixels for you to see above, or if I give you the 75mb tiff, or the 5 foot wide print.
It's a strange and highly artificial pricing scheme from stock companies that makes the 75 mb tiff worth more than the image displayed above, which incidentally, I can see perfectly well, and even better if I reduce the screen size on my computer. It's also a rather strange and "interior decorating" sort of mentality that makes this shot more valuable as a five foot print than as something I can see on my computer monitor.
Having said all that, let's go back to minimalism or colour field painting shall we? I think one of the big complaints by the general public is that if you're going to pay millions for a piece of art, it had better have a lot going on. Three stripes of paint just aren't going to do it, you'd better have a bunch of boats and a sunset or some other combination of stuff to show that it took some serious time to paint. I'll say "whaaa?" at $30 million for a Salvador Dali, but I'll write an angry letter to the editor at the same price for a Barnett Newman.
Similarly, it used to be really difficult to make a five foot wide photographic print, so let's pay more for it. 5 by seven or four by six inches? Hell I get that back from the lab for my snapshots... why would I pay a hundred dollars for that, let alone thousands?
Big file? I can use it to print a bigger print so it must be worth more yes?
Folks, a creation is worth what it's worth, no matter what medium and what size. The difference in cost between an 8"x10" print and one 30 times that size isn't the difference you pay at the gallery. A 300 pixel file is exactly as expensive to produce, edit, store, sell and deliver as a 75 mb file.
Susan Bozic
The Dating Portfolio
January 12 – February 23, 2008
Simon Fraser University Gallery, Burnaby Campus
(Burnaby, British Columbia)
Opening + Book Launch: Saturday, January 12 from 3 to 5pm, SFU Burnaby
Artist Talk: Wednesday January 16 at 7pm, SFU Vancouver
Dating is one thing that we all have had in common – everyone’s done it, post-modern humour has made fun of it, and with this exhibition, viewers can see a whole other way of going about it!
The characters in Susan Bozic’s The Dating Portfolio resemble any other couple meandering through Vancouver. In these photographs, Bozic shows us the gradual development of their relationship through a series of romantic activities. However, given that the male half of this couple is a mannequin named Carl, Bozic’s character seems blissfully unaware of her date’s stiffness and his lack of engagement. There is something unsettling about these performances – is this relationship heading for disaster or will it all work out in the end?
Like William Wegman in his canine performances, Bozic uses humour – in her case, to challenge the illusions and fantasies of courtship that we are spoon-fed by television, the advertising industry and cinema. In a world where the internet has some 45 million people “looking” at any given moment, many – including Carl and his girlfriend – succumb to false advertising and unrealistic expectations. With the film Lars and the Real Girl, perhaps even Hollywood has now caught up to Susan Bozic’s critique of dating rituals in post-modernity.
Susan Bozic completed her BFA at Concordia University in 1998 and currently lives and works in Vancouver. The Dating Portfolio was recently exhibited at Art Mûr in Montreal (2007) and will travel to the Arbetets Museum in Norrköping, Sweden (2008).
Opening + Book Launch: Saturday January 12, 3 to 5pm (Burnaby)
The exhibition is accompanied by a 64-page catalogue with texts by Gordon Hatt and Bill Jeffries, co-published with the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and Rodman Hall Arts Centre (Brock University). The catalogue includes the first five images from part two of this project, The Dating Portfolio: Meeting the Parents. The artist will be in attendance.
Artist Talk: Wednesday January 16, 7pm (Vancouver)
SFU Vancouver Campus, 515 West Hastings Street, room 1600.
FREE PARKING: Saturday January 12 only. This media release, a printout of the Bozic page from our website or the exhibition card is your parking pass in any Visitor Lot at SFU (face up on dash or hand to attendant).
The SFU Gallery is located at the Burnaby Campus, 8888 University Drive, AQ3004, Burnaby, British Columbia | Hours: Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat 12-5pm | Closed holiday long weekends | Tel: 778-782-4266 | Email: gallery@sfu.ca | Web: sfu.ca/gallery | Contacts: Bill Jeffries or Veronika Klaptocz
Image credit: Susan Bozic, Carl takes me to the nicest places, 2005, C-print, 30” x 40”
PASSAGE 1-9
| PASSAGE | VIDEO STILL | 18 X 24 CM | 2007
PATRICK
MIKHAIL GALLERY presents EPHEMERA, a new
multi-media exhibition by photo artist CHERYL PAGUREK
Exhibition:
EPHEMERA
Artist:
CHERYL PAGUREK
Dates:
January 9, 2008, to February 3, 2008
Artist
Reception:
Friday, January 11, 2008
5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Artist Talk:
Sunday, January 20, 2008
3 p.m.
PATRICK
MIKHAIL GALLERY is pleased to present EPHEMERA, a new
multi-media exhibition by Ottawa photo artist CHERYL PAGUREK. The solo
exhibition—which features new photographs, video, and video
stills—presents images of contemporary domestic life, often set against
footage of pre-Holocaust Jewish communities.
In EPHEMERA,
Cheryl Pagurek investigates the interrelated concepts of
time, memory, and history. The exhibition unfolds in two parts: the
photographic series entitled REFLECTIONS, and the video entitled
PASSAGE and its accompanying video stills. The elusive “Reflections”
photo-works offer glimpses of time and place and present layers of
simultaneous narratives. In the play between surface and depth, the
images evoke a contemplative sense of looking into a different time and
space, the present and past coexisting. Oscillating between
representation and painterly abstraction, the works propose a space of
introspection and reflection on our individual place within a temporal
and spatial continuum. The ephemeral quality of the video “Passage” and
related video stills interweaves multiple, coexistent narratives,
contemplating present-day experiences in relation to the past.
Referencing the artist’s familial history through archival footage,
separate yet connected narratives unfold. Contemporary domestic footage
is set against black and white archival footage of pre-Holocaust Jewish
life in Eastern Europe, and the immigration of some to ghettoized urban
life in North America.
Cheryl Pagurek is a photo-based and video artist living and working in Ottawa. She received an M.F.A. from the University of Victoria. Her work has been shown extensively across Canada, including exhibits at Carleton University Art Gallery, the Ottawa Art Gallery, Gallery 44, Vu Centre de diffusion et de production de la photographie, Eastern Edge, Floating Gallery and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, as well as in a 2004 project for Prefix Photo magazine.
“Friday
Morning,” a video from 2006, was recently screened at Centre de
production Daimon in Gatineau, QC, and the video “Passage,” will also
be screened at the Ottawa Art Gallery in 2008. In addition to the
current exhibition at Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ms. Pagurek will be
presenting a solo exhibition at the Ottawa City Hall Art Gallery in
June 2008. Her work can be found in numerous collections including the
Canada Council Art Bank, the Library of the National Gallery of Canada,
the Ottawa Art Gallery, and the City of Ottawa. Ms. Pagurek was a
finalist for the 2005 Karsh Award for photo-based work, and has
received grants from the City of Ottawa, the Ontario Arts Council, and
the Canada Council for the Arts.
The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of the City of Ottawa,
the Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts in the
production and presentation of this body of work.
IN OTHER GALLERY NEWS…
WIL MURRAY appears in “Brawl of the Beast” a solo exhibition at the Bilton Center for Contemporary Art in Red Dear, Alberta, from January 5 to February 2, 2008. Mr. Murray’s boldly textured and vibrantly coloured canvases challenge the traditions and perceptions associated with painting as we know it. The paint oozes, bubbles and drips off the surface, spilling onto the line between painting and sculpture.
FRANK RODICK’s photographic work entitled LOVE, has been purchased by the Brooklyn Museum of Art for their permanent collection. Mr. Rodick appears in ICY: Clear Views 02, a group exhibition at the Minnesota Center for Photography from February 16 to April 27, 2008.
Opening next
at Patrick Mikhail Gallery…an exhibition featuring new
paintings and a site-specific installation by artist Paul Fortin. From
February 6 to March 2, 2008.
For more
information:
PATRICK
MIKHAIL GALLERY
2401 Bank Street
Ottawa Canada K1V 8R9
Tel. 613.746.0690 TF: 1.800.388.3298
E-mail: gallery@patrickmikhailgallery.com
Web: www.patrickmikhailgallery.com
Over the holidays my project seems to have been to invite a rusty bolt I found in a parking lot along on the visits. Yesterday I put the bolt back where I found it. Not quite in the same place though, I put it on a parking sign so it would be up off the ground and less likely to be scuffed around. While walking away I decided I did that partly because I had some sort of sentimental attachment to it. It had bounced along with me in my coat pocket for 2 weeks so it was more than a casual stranger. I also took care because I had some thought in the back of my mind that I really should be keeping this bolt in case I want to extend the series or in case posterity wants to see the bolt.
The bolt in a coffee shop in Stratford Ontario. Image by Kim Taylor
Keep it for posterity? It's a rusty bolt, the project is over because the holidays are over, and my shots are ephemera at best. That's when I think it hit me, a way to understand performance art from an artist who won't photograph his work, a way to understand Marcel Duchamp and his readymades. A way to understand my attitude toward my negatives from 30 years ago, or the thirty thousand files sitting on hard drives in front of me, not backed up anywhere, just waiting to disappear forever before I even look at them.
It's all ephemera and it really should be. The art isn't in the object, it's in the creation of the object.
OK duh, but hey, I'm slow to catch on. It's not the destination, it's the journey. If Marcel Duchamp buys a urinal and signs it, it really is art. It's art because of his declaration that it is, and for no other reason at all. To be "art" that chunk of porcelain doesn't have to have any meaning, it doesn't have to imply a comment on the nature of "what is art", it doesn't even have to exist. The act of creation is the art, not the object.
My love of creating (ideas, images, seminars, conversations, all the rest of it) is exactly the same as my love of iaido, a Japanese art consisting of pulling a sword out of a scabbard, cutting with it, and putting it back in. There's
no point to iaido, nothing to learn, nothing to gain, you just get hooked on it and do it for decades.
The universe doesn't have to have any meaning, our art doesn't have to have any meaning, the idea is to play, to swim in the sea of existence until we get tired and sink back out of sight.
When did I forget that?
www.torontoimageworks.com
gallery@torontoimageworks.com
Assuming for the moment that photographic prints which bring the record high prices have an intrinsic meaning to art, the art collecting world and to me, what should I make of this set of records (all links are to stories on the PDN website).
- Latest Richard Prince Auction Record: $3.4 Million
- March 7, 2007: $3.3M: Gursky Print Sets Another Record
- Nov. 29, 2006: Gursky's "99 Cent" Prints Fetch Millions At Auction
- Feb. 15, 2006: Steichen Photo Breaks Auction Record
- Nov. 9, 2005: Prince Print Sets Auction Record For Photography
Next an Edward Steichen photograph of a pond in the moonlight fetches $2.9 million and later in 2006 Andreas Gursky's shots of a 99 cent store display sells for well over $2 million... twice
Then shortly afterward in March of 2007 Gursky takes the record with $3.3 million for the same print.
Finally, in November of 2007 Prince reclaims the record with $3.4 million for another re-photograph of a Marlborough Man ad.
So what can I learn from these sales? Well prior to the first Prince sale the records were for historical images from Dorothea Lang, (White Angel, Bread Line), Edward Weston (The Breast), Man Ray (Glass Tears) and an 1842 daguarreotype by Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey. All black and white, all historical shots so not much I can do with them really, although I can take photos of breasts, homeless people and girls with glass bits on their faces for sure.
The Steichen print is also historical, being tinted gum bichromate layers on platinum. At that same sale were two other prints that went for over a million, both by Alfred Stieglitz of Georgia O'Keefe, (Nude and Hands).
The recent records, by living artists Prince and Gursky, are for colour shots. Since I'm alive and I shoot colour maybe I should take special attention here, so what's the common thread? I suppose it would have to be Big and Red. The first Prince print is mostly blue, but the rider and horse is red, and it's 50 x 70 inches in an additon of two. His new record print is definitely red and it's 100 by 66 inches.
The 99 cent Gursky shots are red, as most packaging tends to be, and are over 22 feet wide, big indeed.
So there you have it, I'm now going to start shooting big red torso nudes... well, come to think about it, I'm going to get out some old Playboy magazines and re-photograph them. Look for a billboard sized breast from Miss June 1956 coming to a museum near you.
Footnote: Umm, know what, I'm too lazy to go dig up that magazine so make this post a conceptual art piece and just give me the money. To explain the piece, since all conceptual art needs an explanation, I was born in June 1956.
More discussions on copyright in the internet age, check out A Photo Editor and Thoughts of a Bohemian
I don't have much more to say about it, certainly nothing new so go check those sites out.