"Robert Heinecken: Myth and Loss Reimagined" (2017 - 2018)

Robert Heinecken, Vanishing Photograph, 1973

In 2017, I was awarded the Photographic Arts Council / Los Angeles Research Fellowship at the Center for Creative Photography to study Robert Heinecken, a 20^th century visionary whose work speaks strongly to 21^st century practitioners. My intent was to document objects from his archive that comment on the growing gap between the analog and digital era and how accumulation is changing at a time where collecting is less common and experiences dominate. I wanted to learn more about Heinecken’s Vanishing Photographs and his cremated ashes stored in a salt shaker as they are the most poignant examples that bridge the gap between analog and digital. These ephemeral items are enshrouded in myth and they contribute to his legacy and I wanted to hold them in my hands.

Robert Heinecken, Paste-ups for Periodical #5 and Periodical #5, 1971

Despite our radical differences in subject matter, Heinecken is instrumental to my artistic process. His disregard for what he considered a photograph to be, his use of appropriation, his employment of guerilla tactics in the distribution of altered magazines, and his experimentation with three-dimensional presentation first drew me to him in undergraduate school. While in the archive, I made a discovery which altered my course and caused me to reconsider everything I thought I knew about him. While perusing fourteen VHS tapes of a 1995 seminar and two interviews as far back as 1975, I began to notice his memory loss and how it would eventually lead to Alzheimer’s. I lost count of how many times he said “I don’t remember” and watched in shock as he struggled to recall who was standing before him when the daughter of an old friend surprised him while being videotaped. 

Jacinda Russell, Vanishing Photograph: Me, 2017-2018 [imprinted digital negative on unprocessed silver gelatin paper]

My plan to create a contemporary version of his Vanishing Photographs shifted to objects in his archive that implied or overtly suggested absence. Evidence of his declining memory would redefine my series yet still comment on the shrinking role of analog practices.

Jacinda Russell, Robert Heinecken TV Still from 1975 and TV Stills from 1975 and 1995, 2017 - 2018 [archival pigment prints]

I approached the archive open to discovery, letting the objects dictate my direction, and the series grew to include three additional pieces. A diptych of stills from television screens references his cameraless photographs of newscasters from the 1980s. An image of his ashes printed as a positive and negative on transparency film sandwiched in Plexiglas is after Venus Mirrored (1968). Archive Remains is a photogram of a bottle containing the detritus that fell onto the white paper where I examined his possessions that the CCP staff allowed me to keep on my final day.

Jacinda Russell, Archive Remains, 2017 - 2018 [silver gelatin print]

I am captivated by the idea of legacy and mythology defined by the things left behind. This experience was life-changing and will undoubtedly be unveiled in a myriad of ways in the years to come.

Arizona Inn Encore

I haven't met a location in the Autobiography in Water series that is as troublesome to resolve as the Arizona Inn in Tucson. I returned in October for a wedding and stayed there for the first time in my life. I recorded every moment I was in the pool, trying to swim multiple times a day. I made sound recordings of a very unusual bird song and swatted dozens of mosquitoes.

I even saved all the towels I used in the hotel room and documented them before returning them to the cabana laundry bin. I am hesitating on how to properly tie all of this together but on the bright side, I will be returning soon. May the answer come quickly as visiting all the locations in this series is coming to a rapid close.

Earthworks Road Trip Through the Binoculars

The theme that keeps on giving...

Two versions of the Ant Farm's Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas.

Chinati Foundation, Donald Judd's Concrete Sculptures (so blurry it hurts)

Marfa Lights Observation Building at Sunset (these are the only Marfa Lights we saw and they were photographed from a telescope)

Imagine Walter De Maria's Lightning Field at sunset here.

Very Large Array, Socorro, New Mexico

South Kaibob Trail, South Rim of the Grand Canyon

Wupatki National Monument, Arizona

Michael Heizer's Double Negative with and without scale reference.

Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels (ideal for the format)

Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty

Petrified Forest Encore: "Bad Luck, Hot Rocks"

When I saw the signs at the Petrified Forest about not stealing the rocks, I adhered to that rule but I wondered about all the locations outside of the park that sold pieces that looked like they once lived in the national forest. I was depositing Camden's Rock in many of the locations we visited, for once, taking the opposite approach.

I first learned about Bad Luck, Hot Rocks in a New Yorker slide show and I was intrigued. The link above describes the collection as: "more than fifty specimens from the conscience pile, along with some of the letters of apology that accompanied their return. Collecting petrified wood on park grounds has been strictly prohibited for years. It is punishable by fines, and large signs near the park exits threaten vehicle inspections. Until recently, a display in the visitor center warned that rocks were disappearing at a rate of twelve tons per year, meaning that soon none would remain for future generations. (The park’s current administration has backed away from this estimate.) In case that emotional appeal failed, the display also included letters from repentant thieves, referring to a curse that would strike anyone who moved the petrified wood. The result was a self-fulfilling mineralogical prophecy: people ascribed any post-visit mishaps to their filched rocks, and they returned them by mail as quickly as they could."

This publication reminds me the rocks many of us collect and the stories they tell. When we are gone, those memories are lost and a pile of stones in a drawer will mean very little to our ancestors.

I wanted to see how this book documented the importance that people attach to the objects they take from the land. Where are these rocks now? Tossed back into the park after being coveted and rejected for so long?

I could not recommend this book more highly and cannot wait to delve deeper into its pages.

Arizona: From Chambers to the Hoover Dam

 Chambers, Arizona Days Inn drained swimming pool (ongoing theme)

First visit to the Petrified Forest (and I was impressed)

Perhaps Mars could look like this without vegetation?

Jasper Forest in the Petrified National Forest

My favorite dinosaur at the Rainbow Rock Shop in Holbrook

The horribly named Wigwam Hotel on Route 66 in Holbrook produced some good subject matter despite its questionable connotations.

We interrupt this program to show you that I was rear ended at the entrance to the Grand Canyon.

An hour and a half after that ordeal, what better place to produce a panorama?

Whipping out my best Lewis and Clark pose at the South Kaibob Trail. If it wasn't for the looming rain clouds, the four of us would have hiked further than a few bends past Ooh Ah Point.

South Kaibob Trail shortly after Ooh Ah Point.

Yaki Point at sunset - the Grand Canyon proving that it does look like a Thomas Moran painting. Someday I would like to visit the North Rim as I will return to this place over and over again.

Another interruption (in several ways): snow in Flagstaff. This looks minor but it turned into a full fledged whiteout later on while driving north to Las Vegas.

Wupatki National Monument - the first Native American ruins of the trip for those of us that visited Lightning Field first.

Sarah demonstrating that the blow hole at Wupatki National Monument can resemble a Marilyn Monroe photograph.

 The most humorous door in Flagstaff at the Visitor's Center.

It was too cloudy to see the San Francisco mountain range in Flagstaff so here is a detail of a mural where we ate lunch.

The sadly diminishing water at Hoover Dam marked by the white bath tub ring.

"Performance: Contemporary Photography from the Douglas Nielsen Collection"

From the Center for Creative Photography's website:

"This exhibition gathers more than 100 works from the private collection of Douglas Nielsen, choreographer and professor at the University of Arizona School of Dance. Featuring photographs and photo-based prints by artists as diverse and provocative as Diane Arbus, John Baldessari, Jo Ann Callis, Nan Goldin, Bruce Nauman, Richard Renaldi, and Cindy Sherman, the exhibition’s unique installation draws out the dramatic and physical tension that can result between photographer and subject, the observer and the observed. Among the exhibition’s highlights are focused displays of images by Nancy Burson and Jimmy DeSana, as well as compelling works by lesser-known artists such as Todd Gray and Noah Kalina, all of which are presented in ways that are by turns whimsical, meditative, and revealing about a fundamental aspect of the art and nature of photography."

Every time I return to the Center for Creative Photography, I remember how fortunate I was to attend school at the University of Arizona and to be able to bring my students to world class exhibitions directly across from the Art Building. My tour guide was Cass Fey and she explained the background information in presentation and installation. We walked through discussing our favorites, remarking at how well the objects fit with the photographs, and the salon style hanging (and even incorporating the circular columns). I most enjoyed seeing Noah Kalina's video Everyday in the context of a museum rather than a viral link found online.

Until the next visit, Arizona!

Arizona Inn - October 2014

The week before leaving for Arizona, I kept thinking about the most important pools that informed my experience of living in Tucson. The Arizona Inn featured many attempts to float a cake in 2010 and is the epitome of a pool one would want to sneak into (as this action is often a topic of conversation in the summer time). I began to look at satellite views and made prints the day before leaving.

Even after soaking all of them in the pool that is featured in the satellite view, I am more interested in the warped, smudged and dried original (not so much the photograph above). Still thinking and collecting...

The water was murky but inviting. Unfortunately, I have a far better image of this noodle on my iPhone but this is the best one from the digital SLR.

I left a souvenir from the 2010 cake float (back then all the chairs were covered with yellow fabric).

 

Here are the prints drying in the back seat of the rental car.

 

The two other pools that made a lasting impression on my time spent in Tucson. I did not trespass and photograph them during my visit which is leading me to believe that there is something more significant to be made by this act of capturing the image rather than visiting the location itself.