Final Project Critique

Due to hard drive malfunctions I cannot upload photographs of my work for tomorrow however they are all on my website:

www.wix.com/rosensamantha/samantharosenphotography

They are listed under "portfolio"

My artist statement is on there as well but here it is again:

Samantha Rosen

Artist Statement

I am interested in the behavioral patterns that emerge from the relations of heterosexual partners whose physical intimacy lacks emotional substance. These instances tend to leave the women in particular with a sense of emptiness and melancholy. Derived from recent observations of youthful relationships, these photographs are formally constructed in a manner that refers to this psychological void. I use a shallow depth of field to draw the viewers into the space of the photographs, forcing them to become directly involved in the scenes depicted. The soft lighting brings about a calm feeling while the subdued colors help to evoke the feeling of sadness resulting from these situations. The individual photographs are not sets in which an audience watches the action occurring; instead they are scenarios that the audience can experience. Conceived as a series, no one photograph can stand alone. The photographs are presented as diptychs and triptychs to reference narrative structures while also creating a level of disjointedness that relates to the emotive content. They are not to be viewed as staged scenes, but instead, snapshots of a longer story. The subjects are deliberately abstracted and anonymous, the women symbolizing the embodiment of the void felt after having these ultimately empty interactions.

Comics in Museums

http://blog.artic.edu/blog/2012/04/19/comics-in-the-museum/

I read an article about comics in fine art. I thought it was interesting especially since in most of our classes in the art and art history department we discuss what art is and how it is designed. I fully believe that comics are a form of fine art. While I do not necessarily believe that Archie and Betty and Veronica quite make the cut for fine art I do believe that the artists mentioned in this article such as Neal Adams and Geofrey Darrow are artists. I think it takes a particular skill set to be able to create these drawings to go along with the stories they are attached to. I thought it was somewhat humorous reading about different panels for comic books. Some of the stigma attached to comic books has disillusioned me a bit but all in all I do think that artists who draw for comic books are still artists and can still impact the world in a similar way through their art.

google reader

This week I saw a post about an art exhibit in which each room exhibited an object that resembled parts of the objects that have geometric principles and use color in a new and interesting way. I loved the pictures because they reminded me of formalism. I think it's refreshing to see formalism done correctly nowadays. All too often people use formalism as a way to get out of attempting content instead of realizing that formalism is just another content based way to do art. The form is the content in full. I really wish I could actually go to this exhibit.

question

What's your main way of discovering contemporary photographers? Do you use a call for artists or word of mouth or browsing, etc.?

Google reader

This week I watched a video on Art21 about William Kentridge who cuts out figures out of newspaper and other found paper. In the video he discusses how his need to do this is equally as important as having a meaning behind the work. He talks about trying to have a meaning before he makes the work while some people make the work and then add meaning to it. I think there is a definite back and forth when it comes to creating my photographs. There starts with a content that I want but as the work progresses my idea morphs and the photographs and the content form together. It seems as though William Kentridge has this mentality as well but must force himself to start with a content because he feels a need to cut this paper and make this art so he must push it in a certain direction.

Samantha Rosen

Artist Statement

March 13, 2012

I am interested in the behavioral patterns that emerge from physically intimate situations that lack emotional substance. These instances tend to leave the women in particular with a sense of emptiness and melancholy. Derived from recent observations of youthful relationships, these photographs are formally constructed in a manner that refers to this psychological void. I use a shallow depth of field to draw the viewers into the space of the photographs, forcing them to become directly involved in the scenes depicted. The soft lighting brings about a calm feeling while the subdued colors help to evoke the feeling of sadness left from these situations. The individual photographs are not sets in which an audience watches the action occurring; instead they are scenarios that the audience can experience. Conceived as a series, no one photograph can stand alone. The photographs are presented as diptychs and triptychs to reference narrative structures while also creating a level of disjointedness that relates to the emotive content. They are not to be viewed as staged scenes, but instead, snapshots of a longer story. The subjects are deliberately abstracted and anonymous, the women symbolizing the physical embodiment of the void felt after having these ultimately empty interactions.

google reader response

I read an article about Entre Nous: The art of Claude Cahun about the artist Claude Cahun who was part of the French avant-garde movement in the 1920s and 1930s. She took self portraits in which she dressed as men and women and androgynous people. She created the photographs at home and weren't seen that much until after her death. There are feminine undertones that were not being explored at the time yet so the images are very interesting.

The two images of the wooden floor really get to my point for a few reasons. The first would be the desaturated color. On both images there is a lot of desaturation however the hue is very different. Another aspect that gets to my point is the placement of the hand next to the legs. The fact that the figure is anonymous gets to the fact that the women are representational and not part of a story.

I adjusted the saturation and the hue and some brightness and contrast in bridges. Just the addition of more cyan creates a completely different tone to the photograph. I think it is interesting that both images can work for the series but in very different ways.

google reader response

I read a blog post about Nanna van Blaaderderen. This is her website below. She specializes in textiles. She knits these beautiful scarves and sweaters with very large thread so the design comes through. Her photographs show the scarves and the models have braided hair that mirrors the design of the scarves and sweaters. I love soft lighting and black and white photographs so I really love it. The photographs are beautifully put together and lit.
http://www.nannavanblaaderen.com/about/

Blog

On blog.arcademi.com there is a post about BRICS. It is a fashion line mixed with photography to create images of simplistic minimalist articles of clothing utilized in photographs to create images. I like the images however I feel as though they are very trendy at the moment. I enjoy the images but I do not respect them much as original art at the moment because I think there are not very many risks. But they are definitely aesthetically pleasing and appeal to the "instagram" trend that is occurring right now.

Blog

I found a blog called "Pro Photo Life" which had a really cool article about a photo shoot involving taking photos of facebook friends. The photographer contacted old facebook friends and took photos of them. In part one he talks about how it made him understand more clearly whether or not facebook was slowly devaluing the meaning of the word friend. He found that in actuality it was making the value higher and that more than anything facebook was bringing people together. I really liked the fact that through a photography project the photographer was learning about his life and things in it. I feel that I really am learning a lot from my project as well and I love that aspect of photos. Through documenting the life around you, you are actually learning and seeing things you never would have otherwise.

google reader february 3, 2012

I read a article in art21 called "Notes on Silence: A collage" about homosexuality in art. It was a very interesting article. It discusses how aspects of homosexuality such as coming out and staying silent affect art. The art discussed in the article is interesting and brings up the idea of "ekphrasis" which is a Greek word meaning literally "out speech". All of the art in the article exemplifies this idea of out speech or publicly speaking out and coming out. Homosexuality holds such a broad spectrum of things to make art about. I think it's a very politically and emotionally charged subject and I really enjoyed reading this article because the work discussed was extremely powerful and content-based. One of the pieces was featured in time square on one of the electric billboards which give the art this extra purpose of which was very cool. I really liked the article.

list of artists

1. Florian Maier-Aichen
2. Sally Mann
3. Richard Billingham
4. James Casebere
5. Paul Graham
6. Jeff Wall
7. Robert Heineken
8. Garry Winogrand
9. Helen Van Meene
10. Zoe Strauss

Chapter 1 Response

I thought that the chapter was somewhat hard to read. There was a lot of information given. However the two parts of the chapter that interested me the most were the part discussing Susan Sontag relating the power of a photographer to that of someone in the military with a gun, and the part relating photographers to writers.

I myself think that Sontag had a point in saying that the camera is like a gun in terms of wielding power when it comes to documentation but less when it comes to art. I feel this way because the camera can document things people may not want seen and therefore has immense power through possibly exposing the intricacies and private parts of life that people do not want seen. I also think it has the power to let the photographer show a reality in a way that may not be true but seems true because the photograph is so real. A photo can crop something out and create a completely different shot. However I do not think we can compare artistic photographs to that of a gun because the power is internal. The photographer holds the power of persuasion but it is not a forceful power instead it is a much more subdues suggestive power.

As for the part about photographers being like writers I completely agree. I have even been told to try writing the stories and scenes I want to show before I do shoots. I love the idea of thinking of the clues and codes that photographers use to portray what they want to get across. In some ways photography is easier to use to portray realities and explain situations however sometimes it can be far more complicated because writers can write down what they want and photographers have to rely on codes.

I liked the post I read in the Art21 blog with pictures of an installation called "I give you all my money" by Cathy Wilkes. It involves mannequins in different poses by cash registers. One mannequin has a cage around her head and scraps of fabric draped around her. I think read it as an interesting take on how money and capitalism can be controlling and overpowering. I am interested to look further into the pieces because the blog doesn't talk much about them, it mostly just shows pictures.

Top Three Chapters

I am interested in looking at chapter 4, 1, and 7.
Chapter 4 is about objectifying the subject matter. It deals with voyeurism which my photography project for Senior Seminar deals with. My project also deals with risque subject matter and I want to make sure I stay away from any pornographic or lude imagery which I think this chapter can help me with.
Chapter 1 is about some of the history of photography which I have always been interested in. We talked about it in Contemporary Art and Theory a little.
Chapter 7 is about the electronic aspects of photography. I think it's interesting separating photography from other electronic aspects.