Work In Progress: New Photographs by Anastasia Cazabon

All Images © Anastasia Cazabon

Victor Burgin's Office At Night

Conceptual artist Victor Burgin's series Office At Night, inspired by the iconic Edward Hopper painting of the same name, explores the politics of gender relations in a decidedly patriarchal society. In an essay written by Burgin entitled "The Separateness of Things", the artist discusses the impetus behind the series and shares some of his thoughts on the politics of Hopper. In the catalog which accompanied the Office At Night exhibition, Burgin wrote this about Hopper's Office At Night:



"Office at Night may be read as an expression of the general political problem of the organization of Desire within the Law, and in terms of the particular problem of the organization of sexuality within capitalism – the organization of sexuality for capitalism. Patriarchy has traditionally consigned women to supportive roles in the running of the economy, subject to the authority of men. The ‘secretary/boss’ couple in Hopper’s painting is at once a picture of a particular, albeit fictional, couple and an emblem, ‘iconogram’, serving to metonymically represent all such couples – all such links in the chains of organization of the (re)production of wealth. Such coupling for reproduction must of course contain its sexual imperative. The family functions to contain, restrain, this imperative in so far as it is directed towards the reproduction of subjects for the workplace. The erotic supplement to the biological imperative cannot however be contained in the family. It spills into the place of work, where it threatens to subvert the orders of rationalized production. [Hopper’s] painting, clearly, may represent such a moment of potential erotic disruption in appealing to such preconstructed meanings, items of the popular pre-conscious, as are filed under, for example, ‘working late at the office’. At the same time the painting stabilizes the situation by providing a moral solution to the problem of the unruly and dangerous supplement. That the morality is patriarchal goes without saying."

Burgin then had this to say in regard to his own work:

"My point of departure for the photographic work I made in 1986 was the position of the woman in Hopper’s painting. The woman in the painting is there to be looked at, an object of sexual curiosity.

My aim was to transform the role of the woman from object of curiosity to that of subject of curiosity – to transform showing into knowing, exhibitionism into epistemophilia. In an interview recorded at the time of my ICA exhibition, I described my own Office at Night in the following terms:

The office in Hopper’s painting is a very enclosed space. Most of the elements in my piece are derived from elements within that space. The fantasy is that the woman explores the space of Hopper’s painting, appropriates that space for herself. The pictograms [are] added as a counterpoint, in a sort of ‘möbius strip’ action – in that the pictograms refer to the inside of the office, wrapping around that enclosed space, but at the same time are continuous, in formal and thematic terms, with what’s happening outside the office. I thought of the ubiquitousness of that sort of symbol system in the contemporary environment: Walk/Don’t Walk; Stop; No Entrance; Passport Control. It’s the very index of the omnipresence of control, authority. For me, the pictograms serve as a sort of analogue of the universe surrounding the office."

All photographs from the series Office At Night

All Images © Victor Burgin

Mike Fleming

Philadelphia based photographer, and friend of The Exposure Project, Mike Fleming's work isolates photography's ability to unite seemingly disparate subject matter. Similarly to how Jason Fulford's images find photographic harmony through pairing images that share compositional or contextual equivalences, Fleming's photographs read very much the same way. There is a stream-of-consciousness quality to his work that finds its cohesion, not only through how Fleming approaches his subject matter, but also through the repetition of signs and symbols found in our social landscape.

There is a lot of work on Fleming's website, which I would recommend taking the time to sift through.











All Images © Mike Fleming

Graphic Intersections: Artists Announced!

Hey Everyone! So, after spending the better part of the last week going through all of the submissions we received for Graphic Intersections, we are excited to be able to announce the selected photographers. First, I would just like to genuinely thank everybody that submitted to the project and extended encouragement and support for this venture. We had an incredibly difficult time curating Graphic Intersections due to the overwhelming diversity of great work that we received. We hope that this project continues to gain momentum and that there will be the opportunity to curate an entirely new group of artists to carry out this photographic Exquisite Corpse at some point in the future. For now, however, you'll find the inaugural participants below:

Ben Alper
Anastasia Cazabon
Thomas Damgaard
Scott Eiden
Grant Ernhart
Jon Feinstein
Elizabeth Fleming
Alan George
Hee Jin Kang
Drew Kelly
Mike Marcelle
Chris Mottalini
Ed Panar
Bradley Peters
Cara Phillips
Noel Rodo-Vankeulen
Irina Rozovsky
Brea Souders
Jane Tam
Grant Willing

We are extremely excited about Graphic Intersections and truly can't wait to see what unfolds. In an effort to facilitate a completely uninhibited result, however, we will not be posting the images from the project as we receive them. There will be updates when appropriate regarding the final manifestation of this endeavor. Thanks again to everyone who showed enthusiasm. We couldn't have done it without you.

Upcoming Auctions

Exposure Project members Ben Alper and Anastasia Cazabon will have work for sale in a few upcoming photographic auctions. The In-Sight Photography Project, a Vermont based organization, provides a creative outlet through the visual art of photography for the youth of Windham County, Vermont regardless of their ability to pay.

ARTcetera is a biennial contemporary art auction created and supported by a unique partnership between the visual arts community and AIDS Action Committee. This year, ARTcetera features 246 works of contemporary art donated by artists working in a variety of media.

The In-Sight Photography Projects 10th Annual Silent Auction
Friday, October 3 - Wednesday, October 29
45 Flat Street, Brattleboro, Vermont 05301

ARTcetera
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Boston Center for the Arts/Cyclorama
539 Tremont Street, Boston

Both of these auctions benefit excellent causes, so if you're in the New England area and want to support these organizations, think about investing in some contemporary art.

JH Engström's CDG/JHE

Swedish photographer JH Engström's project CDG/JHE is an exploration of Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. This specific place was highly influential in the artist's youth, providing the first point of contact with the world outside his native Sweden. However, the images also seem to speak to the architecturally and socially imposing nature that airports have taken on in the past few decades. Airports have become synonymous with restriction, security and fear, leaving in the past the historical notion of them being gateways to exoticism and adventure. In his statement, Engström asserts:

"For this photographic project I spent three weeks in this particular zone, isolating my self in an airpirt hotel, and spending the days in and between the terminals.

With fiction, poetry and mystery I observed the airport. Raising questions on its social, urban and architectural dimensions.

The airport becomes a new place to observe identities and the history of relations."

Steidl recently published CDG/JHE, which you can preview and buy here.











All photographs from the series GDG/JHE

All Images © JH Engström

Ed Ruscha's Concerning Various Small Fires: Edward Ruscha Discusses His Perplexing Publications (1965)

So, it seems that the all too frequent question (Is Photography Dead?) was presciently addressed by Ed Ruscha long before the digital photography revolution was even a technological possibility. In his text "Concerning Various Small Fires: Edward Ruscha Discusses His Perplexing Publications" (1965), the artist explores whether photographic representation can ever overcome technological determinism. This text is particularly interesting in light of all the discourse that has surfaced surrounding the impact that digital media has had on the medium. Historically, photography has, and most certainly continues to wage war against the inherently mechanical and reproducible part of its nature. This conflict, or resistance to change perhaps, seems ultimately fruitless and somewhat arbitrary. To paraphrase Doug Nickel, a photography critic and historian, 'digital' has existed since the 1860's; it is only recently, however, that it has manifested itself with such sophistication. The passage below, in which Ruscha discusses the photographs from 26 Gasoline Stations, clearly outlines the artist's photographic ideology:

"Above all, the photographs I use are not 'arty' in any sense of the word. I think photography is dead as a fine art; its only place is in the commercial world, for technical or information purposes. I don't mean cinema photography, but still photography, that is, limited edition, individual, hand-processed photos. Mine are simply reproductions of photos. Thus, it is not a book to house a collection of art photographs-they are technical data like industrial photography. To me, they are nothing more than snapshots...

I have eliminated all text from my books-I want absolutely neutral material. My pictures are not that interesting, nor the subject matter. They are simply a collection of 'facts'; my book is more like a collection of Ready-mades..."

Images & Text © Ed Ruscha