If A Then B: Postcard Collective Spring 2016

Because Stalking Artists: In Pursuit of Home never dies...

With a behind the scenes photograph by Amelia Morris (and special thanks for watching my back during this ridiculous affair).

A Very Short Analysis of "Aperture Remix: A Sixtieth Anniversary Celebration"

The Aperture Remix exhibition is currently on display at the Ball State Art Museum. I was awarded the prize for "most use" the other day when I admitted, in front of a large audience, to visiting it three times with all my classes. I plan on returning before it closes to peruse the small library thoroughly (sounds like a Saturday afternoon well spent).

The premise of the exhibition explores contemporary photographers looking through the archives of Aperture magazine and responding to their influences. Several of my favorites, both young and old, are represented.

Penelope Umbrico, Moving Mountains (photograph courtesy of Ball State University)

Umbrico was paired with the Masters of Photography series. I was less interested in the original mountain images because I had viewed many of them while working at the Center for Creative Photography in graduate school. Umbrico's work was an unexpected homage to the original yet the presentation still maintained her signature style using low technology as an art form.

Someday I hope to see Sunsets (from Flickr) installed in a gallery space. After looking up this link, I am reminded how very few sunsets I see in one year and how that needs to change.

Stephen Shore and Doug Rickard (image courtesy of Ball State University)

I am thrilled every time I get to see a Stephen Shore print in person, let alone his original Amarillo postcards (below). They were just as mundane and dated as anticipated (hard to believe the world looked like that the year I was born).

Stephen Shore, Tall in Texas, 1972 (image via)

Doug Rickard, Mallard Cove Resort, Lake Sutherland, Port Angeles, Washington, August 27, 1973 (image via)

Doug Rickard's internet search results to find photographs that responded well to Shore's  reminded me of scenes straight out of Mad Men. Of particular interest was the above photograph with two compelling formal combinations: interiors and exteriors and warm and cool colors (particularly blue and yellow).

Images of Alec Soth's video, Summer Nights at the Dollar Tree, in response to Robert Adams's Summer Nights (above two images courtesy of Ball State University)

Unfortunately, the most disappointing part of the exhibition centered around two of my most loved photographers. Maybe there weren't enough of Adams's prints in the exhibition or perhaps it was Soth's casual statement:

"Making night pictures, twenty years later, was a struggle. I just couldn't get the blood pumping through my veins. The world I was looking at didn't feel new. It felt like Robert Adams's world. I had a new camera with a video option that I'd never used. I didn't really know what I was doing technically, but that was an asset. It felt good to be a bit lost."

I should review the video away from the space and in the comfort of the living room because I would like to change my mind.

Robert Adams in Astoria, Oregon

Robert Adams, Apples on the Kitchen Table, Astoria

Robert Adams, Front Yard, Astoria

Robert Adams, Front Yard, Astoria

Robert Adams, Nasturtiums in an Alvar Aalto Vase in the Front Window

Robert Adams, Workshop Window, Astoria

The view from the Adams' house in Astoria, Oregon

[All images are from This Day.] 

Where the Mountains Meet the Sea: The Sea (2013)

 Elger Esser, Undine

Becky Comber, fog to cloud, 2012

Robert Adams, Nehalem Spit, Tillamook County, Oregon

Phil Chang, Sea #1, 2011 (an unfixed photograph that gradually changes when exposed to light)

Luigi Ghirri, Amsterdam, 1981

John Gossage, The Auckland Project, 2011

Robert Adams, Benson Beach, Oregon

Elijah Gowin, From Of Falling and Floating, 2006

Richard Misrach, Untitled #586-04, 2004

Asako Narahashi, Jounanjima #3, 2002

Robert Adams on Autobiography

Robert Adams, Umatillo County, Oregon

Tonight I read and scanned images from
this
this
and
this.

The above images are from the retrospective catalog and struck me as another way of looking at the Autobiography series. Alas, the three volume tome is out of my price range but the exhibition will be forever burned in my memory.

Photographs of Paintings (or painterly photographs) Part 3

Alexi Hobbs, Untitled, 2010

Bruce Wrighton, Yonda's Bar, Binghamton, NY, 1986

Lara Shipley, Creatures
 

Lori Nix, Museum of Art, 2005

Phil Jung, 588-Verbanes on the Desert, 2008

Robert Adams, Longmont, Colorado from What We Bought, 1970-74

 Yola Monakhov, Hotel, Perm, 2004

Yola Monakhov, Sign, 2010

Robert Adams: The Place We Live, A Retrospective Selection of Photographs

Ever since visiting the Robert Adams retrospective at Yale University over Fall Break, I have been thinking about this post. Why do I love his work so much? The answer boils down to this: he is a perfect combination of writer and photographer and the understated subtleties of his photographs make it all the more powerful. It also doesn't hurt that the majority of his images come from the West and very specific locations that I like to call home.  Seeing this exhibition on the East coast felt very far from the Northwest which introduced feelings of homesickness on several occasions.

I believe the wall text came from his publications because of its familiarity. Here are two contrasting pieces - one of which could describe where I live now and the other where I lived once before.

Here are two favorites from The New West series.

Adams' photographs are very small and the curators successfully incorporated his books throughout the exhibition. Above was a favorite method of this display and this Anselm Kiefer piece sprang to mind upon my initial encounter.

This page from Adams' journal is sparse. I wondered if this was typical.

The big surprise was the objects included in the exhibition: cottonwood bark cut from a tree in Longmont, Colorado, a bird wing carved from boxwood in 2001 (above), and "a book made with hand tools by Adams in 2000 from an old-growth plank brought up from the beach fifteen years earlier" (below).

I was introduced to many books that I hadn't known about before and immediately placed several on interlibrary loan including the hefty three volume catalog (things I wish I owned but are too expensive to justify).

From the exhibition wall text in a room on the top floor in a quiet space away from the crowd below: "As I recorded these scenes, I found myself asking many questions, among them: What of equivalent value have we inherited in exchange for the original forest? Is there a relationship between clearcutting and war, the landscape of one being in some respects like the landscape of the other? Does clearcutting originate in disrespect? Does it teach violence? Does it contribute to nihilism? Why did I never meet parents walking there with their children?"

Adams' art is thought provoking and quiet; his attitudes about the land run close to my heart. This exhibition is one of my favorites of 2012 and happily marks my first visit to Yale University. There were free posters in the lounge in front of the gallery. I hope I wasn't greedy when I chose two: one to be kept untouched in my closet and the other to hang at school.

Clouds: Part 3

Spencer Finch, Taxonomy of Clouds


Nichole Frocheur, From She Said Yes


Mark Morrisroe, The Sky, 1986


Diane Rosenblum, Clouds for Comment

From Rosenblum's website: In the series Clouds for Comment I post my photographs of skies in social media such as flickr.com. People make written comments on the photos, and I superimpose a selection of their words on my prints."


Cai Guo-Qiang, Clear Sky, Black Cloud, 2006


Ben J. Madden, Clouds #3514, The Walking Poet, 1 block from Minneapolis Institute of Arts/MCAD, from my top floor window, facing S, approx. 35° up from horizon, at 1:07:36 PM CST Oct 26, 2011


Robert Adams, From Gone? Colorado in the 1980s


Irina Rozovsky

Zachary Davis, Sweet Spot Drift, Digital Video Projection

Click on this link for Anne de Vries, Forecast.