John Baldessari: "Luckily I Got Into It When There Wasn't Any Money"

I came across a terrific interview with influential artist John Baldessari that originally appeared in Art Review Magazine. I quite enjoyed this one. Hopefully you will too.

Stonehenge (With Two Persons) Orange, 2005

Raffael Waldner

Raffael Waldner is yet another photographer treading the line between documentary and fine art practice. His series Industrial Landscape pictures ambiguous locations under the artificial lights that color the nocturnal landscape. Waldner follows in the beautifully formal and anonymous footsteps of previous European photographers who have explored similar subject matter.







From Top To Bottom:

Basel, 2002

Stratford, 2003

Hackney, 2002

Photographs from the series Industrial Landscape

All Images © Raffael Waldner

Jem Southam's Upton Pyne

I had a chance to see Jem Southam's Upton Pyne exhibition at Wellesley College's Davis Museum and Cultural Center yesterday. I had previously only seen Southam's work online and in book form, both of which don't remotely do justice to his images. Seeing his prints hanging on the wall reinforced just how truly beautiful an object a photograph can be.

The Upton Pyne series chronicles the evolution and transformation of a small pond near Southam's home in Cornwall, England. Photographed over a 7 year period, the images track a specific passage of time while also addressing the contentious relationship between humans and nature. Structured into three sections, the series takes on narrative qualities through the repetition of objects and places that continuously reemerge to inform previous works.

Anyone in the greater Boston area should make the trek out to Wellesley to see the show. If nothing else, after seeing the Upton Pyne exhibition you'll be hard-pressed to find more beautifully rendered prints. The show will be up until June 8th.

In closing, you can find a terrific interview with Jem Southam here.









All photographs from the series Upton Pyne.

All images © Jem Southam

Cine Stills: Nói

I just watched Dagur Kári's film Nói (also called Nói Albínói). Shot predominantly in the winter landscape of Iceland, Nói tells the story of a complex and often bleak adolescence. Beautifully photographed and wonderfully acted, this subtly tragic film distills the searching desire for a different, perhaps better life.

You can find great interviews with both Tómas Lemarquis (the actor who portrays Nói) and director Dagur Kári here.

Still from Nói, 2003. (dir. Dagur Kári, cine. Rasmus Videbæk)

My First 20 X 200 Print!

I purchased my first 20 X 200 print this evening. After sifting through the available 8.5 X 11 prints I decided on Brad Moore's Dutch Club, Anaheim, California. I'm not sure why I haven't bought more of these. For $20 a piece they're kind of hard to resist.

Dutch Club, Anaheim, California (2006)

Image © Brad Moore

On the Steps of Stephen Shore: A Rephotographic Survey

Numerous rephotographic projects have emerged over the last 30 years examining the evolution of both photographic and geographic history. The photographers of the Third View: A Rephotographic Survey of the American West have endeavored to revisit the sites where Timothy O’Sullivan, William Henry Jackson and Eadweard Muybridge made their grand images of the West. Similar projects have been done recently surrounding the work Eugène Atget and Bernice Abbott. For his project New York Changing, Douglas Levere rephotographed 114 locations from Bernice Abbott's Changing New York.

Most recently, Stephen Shore has been given rephotographic treatment. French photographer Valéry Denis has retraced Shore's steps across America in an effort to rephotograph the sites from his landmark project Uncommon Places. It's interesting to see the transformation, or lack there of, that has taken place in the locations that became iconic representations of the vernacular American landscape. Denis' project On the Steps of Stephen Shore: 30 After Uncommon Places, although geographically accurate, was photographed with Black & White film and a medium format camera. The result is less an homage to Shore's vision and more reexamination of land use.










From Top To Bottom:

Stephen Shore, U.S. 10, Post Falls, Idaho, August 25, 1974
Valéry Denis, 98 U.S. 10, Post Falls, Idaho

Stephen Shore, Fifth Street and Broadway, Eureka, California, September 2, 1974
Valéry Denis, 92 Fifth Street and Broadway, Eureka, California

Stephen Shore, Holden Street, North Adams, Massachusetts, July 13, 1974
Valéry Denis, 61 Holden Street, North Adams, Massachusetts

All Images © The Artists

An Image A Week: Shimon Attie

Shimon Attie's work references history in incredibly specific and juxtapositional ways. Many of his photographs incorporate on-site projections, where historically significant images are infused back into a contemporary landscape. For his project The Writing on the Wall, Attie projected pre-World War II photographs of residents of the Jewish Quarter in Berlin onto the walls of the same locations where they were originally taken. The result is an unusual compression of time, one concerned with cultural identity, memory and place. The integration of connected but disparate histories lends a certain melancholy nostalgia to Attie's work that reinterprets the function of the photographic document.

Finistere Medine/Die Schrift an der Wand, 1992/93

Image © Shimon Attie