Three Dioramas at Talbot Rice

On Thursday night I showed my virtual reality film "Three Dioramas" as an installation at Talbot Rice Gallery. The piece was part of "Terror and Beauty: Artistic Responses to John Akomfrah’s Vertigo Sea," curated by The Tides Group. The show featured works by Zoe Guthrie, Doug Mackie, Stephanie Wilson, and my VR film.

Above: "Three Dioramas" virtual reality installation in "Terror and Beauty," Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Jan 11, 2018.

Meta

Robbert Flick photographs curator Tim Wride during the opening reception for the "Street Sight" exhibition at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, Saturday, June 25, 2011. The show includes work by Flick as well as Adam Bartos, Darryl Curran, Bevan Davies, John Divola, Judy Fiskin, Dennis Hopper, Graham Howe, Grant Mudford, Jane O’Neal, Marvin Rand, Seymour Rosen, Ed Ruscha, Julian Wasser, and Terry Wild.

Standard Stoppage

A dog and owner attend the opening reception for the "Street Sight" exhibition at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, Saturday, June 25, 2011.

California Museum of Photography

Sant Khalsa explains her photographic practice while California Museum of Photography Director Colin Westerbeck listens during the opening reception for "Riverrun: Sant Khalsa's 20-year Journey with the Santa Ana River" in Riverside, Calif. on Saturday, May 7, 2011. The exhibition will be on display until August 13, 2011.

Riverrun

Sant Khalsa explains her photographic practice while California Museum of Photography Director Colin Westerbeck listens during the opening reception for "Riverrun: Sant Khalsa's 20-year Journey with the Santa Ana River" in Riverside, Calif. on Saturday, May 7, 2011. The exhibition will be on display until August 13, 2011.

Turrell at Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh

Patrons examine the work of James Turrell during the show "Gestures: An Exhibition of Small Site-Specific Works" at The Mattress Factory Art Museum in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, April 19, 2011.

See also: Turrellean Blue.

Various Futures

I recently attended a panel on The Future of Investigative Reporting.

Held at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in connection to the exhibition Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century, the panel strayed from photojournalism into a discussion of new models for journalism, and, as I blogged here didn't address the question I thought was implied in the context of the Cartier-Bresson show.

Don't get me wrong -- it was a very good panel, with:

David Cohn (http://spot.us)
Robert Rosenthal (http://centerforinvestigativereporting.org)
A.C. Thompson (http://propublica.org)
Lola Vollen (http://exonerated.org)

and documentary photographer

Susan Meiselas (http://susanmeiselas.com/).

But I wanted to know: what would Cartier-Bresson do today?

It's easy to forget, as we celebrate individual works from HCB and discuss "the decisive moment," that he was a magazine photographer, and that his approach was generally that of a documentary photographer.

Today, the long trips (with an investment of time and money), the multi-page spreads, the public interest in world events beyond live coverage -- well, some would say that's all gone. Others might say it still exists, but for very, very few photographers.

So, would HCB be blogging? Posting clips on YouTube? Working toward a book, a documentary film, a museum exhibition?

More importantly: where would he take things next?

Two Turntables, No Microphone

Went to see the Christian Marclay: Festival exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

It was entertaining enough, and we happened to catch it during "Screenplay" -- a performance with two turntabilists performing with a video work. Not sure I see enough of a distinction from an organist playing with a film -- or a pianist, or a theremin player -- on this one. There's just not enough of an aura to playing a turntable, in my opinion, to push this piece into the "needs-to-be-in-a-museum" category -- though it would be a fine match for any performance space.

At Least Until The Next Time

Above: Baldessari revisited at The Whitney.

Looking at Looking

I mentioned Kohei Yoshiyuki's "The Park" photographs last week. Today the New York Times has a serious look at them titled Sex in the Park, and Its Sneaky Spectator.

The exhibition, and the article, do a nice job of bringing up the issues of voyeurism and observational recording that seem inherent in photography.

Karen Irvine, curator of the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, said Mr. Yoshiyuki’s work is important because “it addresses photography’s unique capacity for observation and implication.” She locates his work in the tradition of artists who modified their cameras with decoy lenses and right-angle viewfinders to gain access to private moments. Weegee, for example, rigged his camera to capture couples kissing in darkened New York movie theaters. Walker Evans covertly photographed fellow passengers on New York subways.

A long while back I wrote about my own experience at a photo workshop photographing photographers as they took photographs.

29th Street and Southish

I had friends in from out of town today, so I returned to Chelsea to complete the round trip of all the galleries.

In Chelsea on a Saturday

Took a trip to the Chelsea galleries. An honest appraisal: most of what I saw was weak, bad, or a retread. But not everything, and I get as much out of seeing things I don't like as those I do. Sometimes more. What I do recommend:

Kohei Yoshiyuki: The Park

"For these photos, taken in Tokyo’s Shinjuku, Yoyogi, and Aoyama parks during the 1970s, Mr. Yoshiyuki used a 35mm camera, infrared film, and flash to document the people who gathered there at night for clandestine trysts, as well as the many spectators lurking in the bushes who watched—and sometimes participated in—these couplings."

That continues at Yossi Milo Gallery (525 West 25th Street) until October 20th.

Jeon Joonho

"Jeon has created his first multi-channel work for this New York debut. The 527 West 23rd Street space features a 5 channel video installation; each of the 5 computer animations exist on their own, yet, when presented together take a different shape both literally and figuratively. In one, an anime character is left crying after a brief encounter in a hotel room, the score resembling the music played in a Hitchcock film just before the climactic moment. Another shows a line drawing of General MacArthur, notorious leader of the United Nations Command Force, repeating the same phrase ("I shall return")."

The highlight for me was the ice skating toy soldiers of "Hyper Realism (Statue of Brother). The show continues through October 13th.

I also enjoyed and recommend both shows at Yancey Richardson Gallery (535 West 22nd), but should note I'm not an untirely unbiased observer. The photographs of Laura Letinsky illustrate an interesting point for me, as well: some photographs work differently at web-presentation size than at full size on the wall. The gentle dashes of color in the large white and grey expanses of these images need to be seen at full scale.

As well, I recommend Candida Hofer's work at Sonnabend (536 West 22nd Street), but I've seen this work a number of times already in other venues . If you haven't, though, definitely take a look.

Of course, since we were just there as a quick trip, we left about half of the galleries undone. Next trip.

And Water is Wet

Enjoyed the Guggenheim's show The Shapes of Space.

Still, I want to be perfectly clear so that future generations don't think we were all fooled: Pipilotti Rist is boring. I know many of my generation and a number of institutions have been fooled, and once fooled can't go back on their investment. It's clear though: her work is boring.

The museum's didactic text claims:

"The work simulates a dimly lit interior cluttered with found objects—retro furnishings, piles of books and magazines, assorted bric-a-brac—seemingly in casual disarray, but in fact carefully arranged by the artist. Videos from hidden projectors are cast onto the surfaces of various static objects, animating them in uncanny ways: on a side table, the artist presses her face against a windowpane; a lamp is lit by a close-up view of the open mouth of a woman standing in the snow; liquor bottles atop a 1950s-era bar glow with tiny films of an athlete and a landscape."

It is worth noting that the way the work simulates a dimly lit interior cluttered with found objects is by being a dimly lit interior with found objects. It is also worth noting that the "hidden" projectors are not. And that the ways of animating the static objects are canny. Also, the piece is not good. Just to be clear.

Ah well, mine is a minority opinion. Next thing you know they'll be showing Tracey Emin in major museums.

Txt Me L8r: Say GoodBye

This is the last assignment in the Spin 3: Txt Me L8r exhibition at Houston Center for Photography. See the Flickr site for all the photos in the show.

Txt Me L8r: Photograph Something Growing

This is the sixth assignment in the Spin 3: Txt Me L8r exhibition at Houston Center for Photography.

The museum sends text messages to the artists in the show, and then we respond and send in cell phone photographs. These are posted on a Flickr site and will later be projected in the museum.

Previous assignments:

assignment one
assignment two
assignment three
assignment three, part two
assignment four
assignment five

Txt Me L8r: Photograph Your Baggage

The fifth assignment for the SPIN 3: Txt Me L8r show.

Photograph the First Body of Water You See

The fourth assignment for the SPIN 3: Txt Me L8r show.

Photograph Your Next Destination, Part 2

Another take for the SPIN 3: Txt Me L8r show.

What Does the Weather Look Like?

My second assignment in the SPIN 3: Txt Me L8r exhibition is posted.The Flickr group for the show has images by all the participants. (Remember, these are made with cell phones.)

The image above was made on Friday after rain swept through Manhattan, revealing the Chrysler Building reflected in a puddle at Lexington and 43rd.

The Feed for Txt Me L8r Photos

The Txt Me L8r exhibition RSS Feed is available.