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A Second 1st.

On June 5th, 2014, I decided to give the Santa Barbara 1st Thursday a second chance – a “second 1st.”  My expectations weren’t set too high; my first experience with the Santa Barbara organized art night was fraught with room-temperature sparkling water served in styrafoam cups, side-glances and concerned looks towards my informal appearance (wielding a skateboard in one hand and an apple in the other), and forced conversations with gallery participants, exhibition curators, and featured artists.  Except for one guy – he was surprisingly down-to-earth.  And he had a thing for triptychs. That was cool.

No, this time I was going with a purpose. I had been invited by a friend, or rather an acquaintance, to attend a pseudo art show/fundraiser for the Goleta Skateboard Movement – a grassroots organization seeking to “enhance the skateboarding heritage in Goleta Valley” in providing recreational opportunities for the community and its youth.  Their most recent endeavor has been raising awareness and petitioning plans to invest in a skateboard park in the Goleta Valley area.  GSM representative Elliot Rebuck and coworkers collaborated with young artist Inga Guzyte and local coffee shop The French Press to host an exhibition to showcase many of Ms. Guzyte’s recent pieces.

Her artwork fit appropriately into the skateboarding-based theme of the event; she utilizes and recycles heavily used skateboards and constructs elaborately detailed multi-layered sculptures.  These sculptures – little imaginary characters reminiscent of Cartoon Network animation – are simplistic in features, yet rich in design.  They reflect a personal style of Inga’s, one that connotes child-like innocence and genuine purity.*  Some of her pieces even embodied a sort of indigenous aesthetic in pattern and design. Particullarly impressive is the way in which Inga masterfully incorporated curvatures of the warped maple wood into the natural contours of her characters. Her visions of layering go beyond my artistic comprehension.

Upon arriving at the coffee shop, my apprehension of superficial conversations quickly dissipated; there were very few people, the atmosphere was tranquil, and Ms. Guzyte was moseying amongst the crowd comfortably.  I decided to purchase a coffee to calm my nerves and enter into the vibe.  I gave my greetings to a few familiar faces and made my around the gallery, even speaking with Ms. Guzyte for a moment.  I did not want to take much of her time, but engaged in brief conversation with her.  Her interests in the skateboarding culture stem from her international upbringing in Germany, where she befriended local skateboarders.  Ever since, she has used skateboarding as her “anchoring point,” and has traveled back and forth between California, the birthplace of skateboarding, and Europe in regards to her artwork.  And with that our conversation was politely interrupted by a friend of hers.

 I returned to myself.  The peaceful environment of the show was a breath of fresh air.  I was able to fully engage myself in Inga’s artwork without feeling rushed nor in the way.  Having hopped on a skateboard at the age of 12 and actively participated in skateboarding culture since, I have been exposed to lots of artwork using recycled skateboards as the medium (e.g. clocks, furniture, etc).  That being said, I found that Inga’s work was truly original; her series of characters and sneakers utilized all parts of the skateboard deck (including the grip tape – the sandpaper plastered on top of the skateboard - for which she used as shoelaces) and were imbued with a sort of light-heartedness that I found in Ms. Guzyte’s personality.

And so there I was, outside on the patio sipping on coffee.  As the sun went down, the gallery began to fill.  To top off the pleasant afternoon, a group of friends projected Yellow Fever, their recently released local skateboard movie, on the patio wall.  I listened to the sounds of scrapes and slides mixed with the ambient murmur of the crowd inside, and I was at peace.  I felt like I was where I needed to be.

Yeah, these 1st Thursdays are… alright.

  *conceptual interpretations of Inga’s artwork are based solely on my opinions and feelings and do not reflect her influences or motivations

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a classical push

a classical push.

enjoy.

2014

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a classical push press release: letter

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final werds

My final project – a classical push – came together, to my surprise, smoothly.  The concept was to compare and contrast what is considered high and low art through a video montage mash-up of classical music and street skateboarding.  This past quarter, I’ve been drawn to this complex and, at times, ambiguous discussion about what our community sees as retaining some type of cultural value and/or significance.  My original intentions included recording/filming a pianist performing the classical piece; I would have then used the audio and the visuals from both performances to edit the short film.  Looking back, had it been that the musicians and resources were available at the time to collaborate, I would have had much more flexibility in post-production to create a visual space of dialogue, of the “grey area.”  Nonetheless, I was able to choose a musical piece – Franz Liszt’s “Years of Pilgrimage” – that conceptually, historically and musically matches the skateboarding.  Overall, the project was fun to write about, and even more fun to produce, film and edit.

Most of the readings that were assigned I felt had something pertinent to say about the class, the current art scene, or the contemporary society in which we exist.  Two that particularly stood out to me were Scott McCloud – both of his excerpts – and Daniel Hickey.  For obvious reasoning, McCloud’s pieces were most effective in conveying their message; the abstractly complex ideas and theories regarding symbology and semantics were easily digestible by way of its presentation – clear writing mixed with cartoon imagery.  Also, I genuinely enjoyed Dave Hickey’s harsh analysis and critique on Santa Barbara’s lack of culture and community.  In the past three years living in the Santa Barbara area, I have recognized this sense of false security, a lack of urgency that leads to complacency.  This is not only reflected in the student community of Isla Vista, but in the entire county of Santa Barbara.  Things are too slow, people are unnecessarily nice and not much is happening.  Despite the physical attractions that the land has to offer, I do not see myself living a motivated and meaningful lifestyle out here.  I got your back, Daniel Hickey.

The Writing for the Visual Arts class has been one of many firsts for me.  Things include the first time utilizing Tumblr as a means to share thoughts and opinions, the first time constructing and composing engaging art reviews and (most importantly in my opinion) the first time sincerely focusing on learning to explain my own ideas and my own art using concise language.  Personally, concision is particularly difficult and, as a result, a fly-by assignment for others became extensively time-consuming for me.  The lax structure of the class became a blessing and a curse: the ambiguity of the assignments opened doors to creative expression, expression that I would spend hours trying to articulate.  This is not a problem with a class, rather it is a personal matter that I was both pissed and pleased to confront this past quarter.  The key is to create, create and create a substantial amount of work, fine-tuning and resharpening edges on the way. Somewhere in the midst of all these creations will your style come to light. This is what I need to work on.

My only recommendations for ways in which to improve the quality of the class are:

constantly update coursework/reading material to encompass new relevant topics and theories

spend more time on hashing out Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

structure the in-class discussions so more participants are involved, or have more incentive to become involved

expose the class to more artists (links on Tumblr or in-class)

take advantage of the full 1 hour and 15 minutes to fit as much dialogue, lecture, presentations, etc. into the class

***Forgot to mention Marinella Senatore's lecture, as well as the artists panel, as some of my favorite conversations/presentations of the quarter. Having heard first hand the totally diverse experiences of these artists was engaging, inspiring, and yet foreboding. Their explanations of the cold, cruel art world makes me question my personal endeavors into a similar market. But at the same time, their recommendations and observations about what art can potentially do politically, culturally, economically was fascinating to me.

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"style is the answer to everything."

bukowski, in all his glory, on style.

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Final Project_proposal

A Classical Push: An exploration of the “gray area”

I am intrigued by the definitions, or lack of, describing high and low art.  Is it defined by the meticulous brushstrokes used to shade the underside of a woman’s chin? Or is it the biblical references alluded to via still life paintings of fruit?  After extensive research, I’ve come to find that the only obvious factor differentiating the two fields lies within the monetary value pinned to each piece, however much that may be.  And even then, who holds the authority for handing out these obscure price tags? What about when that piece is a concept, beyond its physical existence?  And what about that phrase “beauty lies within the eye of the beholder?”

It seems to me that the ongoing endeavor to separate the two spheres – between the mass and the class – is irrefutably futile. In fact, the very existence of art is to question our value system of what we “see” as art; the constant cycling of artistic movements throughout the centuries produces emerging artists who, in a general sense, push the boundaries of these well-established notions and value systems.

Recognizing the futility regarding specific distinctions between high and low art is the first step.  The duality is as simplistic as good versus bad, life versus death, black versus white.  But what about the gray?  All of the ambiguity, or in other words – gray area, between the two spheres is where new perspectives are gained and new meanings are formed.  This gray area is characterized as a sort of tug-of-war dialogue.

For my final project, I am looking to explore this gray area, the negotiation between these two spheres by juxtaposing the iconic art of the bourgeois class - classical music - and the often frowned-upon art of street skateboarding.  I wish to mix the two art forms visually and aurally through video and sound.  I plan on setting up an intimate environment with dramatic lighting and filming/recording a pianist play a selected classical song.  On a separate occasion, I plan on filming a skateboarder pushing through downtown Santa Barbara; instead of focusing on single skateboard tricks and maneuvers, I wish to capture the essence of the “push” and the inherent nature of the skateboarder in adapting to his/her surroundings as he/she weaves in and out of traffic, pedestrians and other obstacles. This mastery in sight-reading is an intersection point of these two art forms, crucial to the execution of a quick glissando or an ollie up the curb. With finesse and form. 

In postproduction, I will attempt to harmonize both visual and aural components by mimicking the musical intonations of the classical music with editing – fast and slow cuts, regular and slow motion, graphic matches, color versus black and white, etc.  As a final product, I wish to convey the exhilarating experience of both art forms in the most effective way possible, without the spectator having to lay finger on the piano nor step foot on the skateboard.  In this sense, the two art forms – which one may classify as characterizing high and low art - are in dialogue and, instead of working to define themselves against one another, demonstrate their inherent element of pathos in a new light, in a different context.

Sometimes it is necessary to step back and view the bigger picture in which the smaller picture is placed.  Context triumphs content.  High and low art are attempted reflections of the ephemeral society in which we live and both need to be acknowledged, recognized and taken into account.  In doing this visual/aural experiment, I hope to achieve a type of cultural register where skateboarding isn’t categorized as the public nuisance and judicial crime. If not, at least it’ll be somewhat enjoyable to watch.

(inspiration drawn from Cheryl Dunn's documentation of professional skateboarder Mark Gonzales' performance piece in a German fine art museum)

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Symbiotic Spheres: An Exploration of the “Fine Line”

“I’m a little blackbird looking for a bluebird,

You’re a little blackbird and a little lonesome too.”

-Florence Mills[i]

The fine line between “high art” and “low art” is in constant dialogue.  What constitutes this divide?  And who holds the authoritative voice discerning when and where this line is drawn?  A general definition places “high art” within an “educated, cultivated and even wealthy clientele, who [buy] objects – paintings, sculptures, prints, even photographs – for their own collections[ii].” Can it be that monetary value is the only deciding factor that separates class from crass?  Once Marcel DuChamp, along with other Dada and Futurist artists, began to question the traditional notions of fine art during the 1920’s, they also challenged the nature of art itself; they “asserted that the artist’s selection of an object could transform anything into art[iii],” including a public urinal.  Concept began to dominate content.  Nearly fifty years later, pop artists, such as Andy Warhol, further pushed the parameters of fine art with the inclusion and replication of household commodities in their works.  And approximately fifty years after, the definition between these two spheres is still up for grabs.

The Modern Art of Rio’s newest exhibition “Josephine Baker and Le Corbusier in Rio: A Trans-Atlantic Affair” looks to highlight the little-more-than-serendipitous 1929 rendezvous between American-born actress and performer Jospehine Baker (1887-1965) and world-renowned Swiss architect and forerunner of the Modernist art movement Le Corbusier (1906-1975) aboard the Lutétia en route to Bordeaux, France.  Le Corbusier fell head-over-heels for the then-infamous cabaret dancer who was widely known for her live performances flaunting nothing but a thin skirt of artificial bananas.  Despite the individuals’ social reputations and marital statuses, they pursued one another out of pure emotion and wild desire.  The exhibition works within this historical context, but does little in terms of drawing a historical biography of both artists.  Rather, curators Inti Guerrero and Carlos Maria Romero look to highlight the impact of the temporary affair in its disregard for categorization – of “high” and “low” - and its “direct and indirect legacies through a constellation of documents, dance, cinema, performance and contributions from popular culture[iv]” including visual artists such as the late Mario Montez and Maria Tavares.

Of one of the many live performances held is the infamous “Surra de Bunda,” translated “Bashing of the Butt,” performed by notorious baile funk artists As Tequileiras do Funk.  The group consists of Beatrize Fantine, Claudinha Vulcao and Debora Sabatine – all three, curvaceous Brazilian divas, who customarily sport bright skin-tight costumes.  Or, sometimes, little-to-no costumes.  The “Surra de Bunda” was popularized by the trio, having performed the subversive ritual onstage at concerts and in other more intimate venues.  It involves the participation of a female performer and a male volunteer.  The male participant sits on the ground, facing the female; in push-up position, the female mounts her ankles on the shoulders of the now-sitting participant, using this leverage to literally bash her bottom-side into the face of the male.  This is done repeatedly, typically following the rhythmic beat of the baile funk baselines. 

The mere inclusion of such a performance at the MAR venue caused much commotion amongst the art community as well as the general public, all asking the same question: is this (modern) art?  And if so, is this “performance” appropriate for the formal museum setting?  One of the curators, Columbian dancer and actor Carlos Maria Romero comments,

In her time, Josephine subverted central questions with the way that we perceive gender, sexual orientation, class and specifically race.  The invite for the Tequileiras to open the event happened because, in the Brazilian context today, we see a similar spirit in [Josephine]’s protests[v].

In addition to the vigorous choreography, the music “discusses feminine empowerment to perform an inversion of the relations regarding domination between men and women[vi].”  Looking at the performance from this macro-perspective, the concept, rather than the content, questions what specific pieces gain and retain a reputation and why we place those in museum venues.  Do these pieces function politically, to critique the society we live in?  The very existence of the “Surra de Bunda” stems from deeper roots: ones that reflect the major wealth disparity amongst Rio de Janeiro’s population that lead to development of hillside shantytowns called “favelas”, ironically where the baile funk genre originated.  It is only necessary to provide a platform for these movements, equally artistic as they are social, to be showcased.  What better venue than the Modern Art of Rio?

It is recorded in his personal journals that Le Corbusier deplored “art” that belonged uniquely and exclusively to the domain of the elite[vii].  This is clearly demonstrated in his professed admiration for Josephine Baker, her dedicated work ethic and raw and innovative artistry as a singer-performer.  As Josephine Baker sang the lyrics, “I’m a little blackbird looking for a bluebird,” to Le Corbusier in the private confines of his first class cabin aboard the Lutétia, much more was at stake than racing heartbeats and marital promises.  Their affair signified a mixing of both spheres, of “rich and poor art,” characterized by a symbiotic relationship that influenced the work of each artist for the remainder of his and her lives.  Instead of honing in on a new delineation separating mass from class, this encounter symbolized an acceptance, resulting in a truly successful dialogue between both ends of the spectrum.  It is in this way that the question of the “fine line” is not more narrowly defined, but rather deconstructed and widened, offering other contributions, alternatives and definitions to what falls under the umbrella-term of art.

[i] Nicholas Weber Fox. Le Corbusier: A Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. Print. 309.

[ii] Michael Desmond. 1968 / Canberra, ACT : National Gallery of Australia ; Port Melbourne, Victoria ; New York : Distributed by Thames and Hudson, c1995. 37

[iii] Ibid. 38

[iv] "Exposições Atuais." Museu De Arte Do Rio. Rio Prefeitura, 2013. Web. 13 May 2014.

[v] Rodrigo Ortega. "Funk Abre Exposição E Divide Opinião De Fãs Do Museu De Arte Do Rio." Globo Pop & Arte. N.p., 15 Apr. 2014. Web.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Nicholas Weber Fox. Le Corbusier: A Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. Print. 314.

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3Galleries in less than 30Minutes

1st Thursday Art Shows in Santa Barbara, May 1st 2014

Armed with nothing but a brochure, a skateboard and an apple, I embarked on my first, and maybe my last, “1st Thursday” Art Show in downtown Santa Barbara.

I arrived at the downtown bus station ecstatic about the artists and art community with whom I would have the chance to share the splendid spring afternoon.  I had already mapped out three specific galleries that were hosting artwork I found appealing (or at least by their description): Oliver and Espig, Captured Spirit Photography and Artamo Gallery. 

 I quickly pinpointed my first destination:

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An Incomplete History: Women Photographers from Japan 1864-1997

A Visual Studies Workshop Traveling Exhibition

Curated by Noriko Fuku

Opening at the Visual Studios Workshop Gallery in Rochester, NY (June 26th through August 8th, 1998)

  “Great photography is not a gender issue.”

  This compilation of film photographs, dating from as far back as the mid 1800’s all the way to the end of the 1990’s, is an attempt at highlighting major photographic works undertaken by essentially unknown Japanese female photographers.  The traveling exhibition, which had its opening on June 26th, 1998 at the Visual Studios Workshop Gallery, is composed of 143 photographs displaying the distinct styles of nine independent photographers who each differ in subject matter, artistic process and time period.

From portraits to buildings, abstract to documentary, the featured photographers offer a rare glimpse into the different realms of Japanese visual culture from a feminine perspective.  Whether from within the domestic space – a space that defined and restricted alternative modes of living – or from outside, “these women, often overcoming numerous obstacles to study and practice their craft, challenged their expected roles, studied abroad, and paved the way for other photographers.”

Much of the significance imbued in the photographs is drawn from the personal lives of the photographers.  By no means do the photographs exemplify a monolithic and homogenous history.  Instead, the photographs take on auterial characteristics. The issues they deal with - both personal and social - are “distinctly Japanese and universal at the same time: the position of women in society and the work place, the roles that individuals adopt and what it means to be an artist.”

In particular, Miwa Yanagi stands apart from the rest of the collection.  Her intriguing take on the role of clothes in the public workspace works to question dominant ideologies regarding social codes in modern Japanese culture.  Her series portraying Japanese “elevator girls” includes surreal life-size photographs of these elegantly made-up and exceedingly formal service girls in sterile department store settings.  Her original intent in creating this series – to criticize the role of the “elevator girls” as well as a society that, in general, commodifies women – became conceptually muddled.  As a result, she reconfigured her critique.  She states simply, “How can one deny the pleasure of being looked at for one’s own beauty?”

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Cyclicism in the Digital Age: Is Modern(ism) really that Modern?

The circle is arguably the most prevalent icon, more specifically a symbol by McCloud’s definition, in existence.  It is present to us in the physical realm, the world made up of tangible and touchable things, out in nature and within the urban.  Its physical manifestation is overwhelmed, however, by its ubiquity in the conceptual, often represented by dichotomies in its purist and most crude form.  As simple as old and new, yin and yang, life and death. And yet sometimes it is not as clear-cut; the free agency of individuals, cause-and-effect and chance work to muddle these set binaries.  And it is through these inconsistencies that established dichotomies are questioned, flipped, reversed and ultimately accepted as the current dominant ideology, the modern status quo.

McCloud speaks on the paradoxical conflict between resemblance and meaning, or rather between the picture and the word.  He explains that traditional perceptions of classic literary and artistic works are distinctly separated from one another, and that the grey area in between, at the point of synthesis of both picture and word, is frequently characterized by “crass commercialism.”  However, as time moves on, as newer generations succeed the older and cultural traditions, societal norms and aesthetic preferences adapt to changing environments, a shift in this dichotomy occurs: instead of working against one another, the picture and the word seem to converge.  Ultimately, the result is that of imagery escaping resemblance, becoming abstraction, and of language becoming direct.  The polar opposites attract.  This gradual shift is represented by no other than that circle.*

This cyclical shift is most exceptionally exemplified by the ongoing clash between film and digital.  There are purists on both sides of the spectrum who stand behind their medium of choice by any means necessary.  In the primal stages of digital photography and cinematography, the quality of the digital image produced was undeniably inferior to that produced by a film negative.  Film buffs harshly criticized this new medium, boasting the film image quality as unrivaled.  As McCloud notes,

 “… the curse of all new media.  The curse of being judged by standards of the old.  Ever since the invention of the written word, new media has been misunderstood.  Each new medium begins its life by imitating its predecessors.”

McCloud is explicitly referring to comic books in this quotation, yet this concept can be adapted to any new media/medium.  What we see today, ironically enough, is the rapid advancement of digital equipment to the point of coming full circle, no pun intended, in matching film’s “timeless” quality.  New 4K Ultra High Definition technologies are on par with the projected film negative’s 36x-expanded image.

So why not openly embrace all new and innovative technologies, art movements, traditions?  Couldn’t the entire process of adapting to “modernity” be facilitated if we simply accepted it?  Personally, as a proud product of tradition and advocate of the good ol’ fashioned physicality of photographs, movies, books and so on, scrutiny always precedes acceptance.  I would prefer to see close criticism, or what McCloud terms “judging by standards of the old” before total transformation.  I believe that it is through this strict inspection that emerging ideologies, which may just be recycled notions of the past, gain more concrete definition and contextual significance in their existence.  These critics act as modern-day devil's advocates; just like any other form of authority - government, telecommunications, Hollywood - technology absolutely requires checks and balances.  In the current shift to the digital, the world of binary code, I sincerely hope that personal consent does not become manufactured like the artificial products it, the digital Capitalist system, produces.

 *McCloud uses the imagery of a triangle to prove this point.  However, I find this is better represented by two arrows following one another in the shape of a circle – re-cycling. 

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On the Surface: An Artist Statement on a Series of Proposed Portraits

Portraiture, to me, is its own entity. It stands alone as one of the remaining charms of photography that still holds its authority over all who dare to glance its way.  It may cause fear and disgust in one spectator and utter excitement in another.  If done properly, it begs for a reaction.  And that reaction comes from the most salient of all subject matter: our own species – human beings. 

In a recent trip to Brazil, more specifically Rio de Janeiro, I was pitched into a concrete jungle of postcard beaches and economic disparity to excavate my own niche.  The exterior stimulus of the city was overwhelming: there were innumerous opportunities arising left and right, and yet my task was to sift through the vast landscape of urban, and rural, culture to find my own.  I found that in my assimilation and transformation - a slow and strenuous personal process - I not only achieved fluency in language and rhythm of life, but unintentionally delved deeper within myself to explore and question my own identity.  It took me having to start over as a blank slate of a personality (due to my initial under-proficiency in Portuguese) to rethink the ways in which I interacted with others.

We spend so much time searching beyond – halfway across the world or halfway down the block – in the quest for more knowledge, in the hopes of finding answers to our existence as human beings.  It took me a year abroad, forgetting my self, and intimate interactions to truly grasp a new meaning of humanity.

There exists an interesting and basic conflict in the world of photography:  there are those who define themselves by means of the photographic equipment they use and, on the other end, there are those who use their photographic equipment to define themselves.  In other words, those film buffs and digital technicians who allocate more time in studying the medium by which they propose to display their work to the public eye base their identity and meaning between the fine lines of camera brands, lenses, and, as of the past decade or so, digital or film formats.  On the other hand, there are those artists that seek to use, and occasionally abuse, the wide range of readily-available photographic technology in any way, shape or form to capture, render and share their personal feelings, opinions and views in a physical and tangible form.

Despite this general dichotomy of photographers, the “portrait” simply doesn’t apply.  Portraiture contains the unique ability in transcending any and all forms of camera technicalities; rather it is the one behind the lens – the person with whom the subject is conversing, interacting and reacting – that is more important.  It is the photographer that elicits the emotions and expressions captured by the objective camera. The final product of a photograph is merely a small glimpse into the manifestation of a relationship, good or bad, established off-camera.  Surely Richard Avedon’s 4x5 black and white, larger-than-life film portraits have created a level of iconicity in aesthetics that is difficult to match.  Yet it may be that a National Geographic journalist creates a series of portraits depicting indigenous tribes with solely the *CLICK* of the artificial iPhone shutter that upholds just as much, if not more, visual authority that suspends a viewer in disbelief, granting little, but not all, access to that persons’ narrative.

With this photographic philosophy, I have been creating not a multi-media, but rather multi-medium series of photographs, namely portraits. I intend to use various cameras to photograph different people, choosing the format depending on the subject’s personality, appearance and feeling.  I hope that through the element of multiplicity, with both camera and subject, I will be able to deliver a different perspective on portraiture as a form of storytelling.

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In the age of an all-powerful media, three artists convene with Holywood. This show calls attention to celebrity and corporate worship, by reproducing the essence of the magazine genre into the encyclopedia format. Volume after volume, the artists have created a painstakingly detailed account of...

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my artist statement.

Through my work I attempt to examine the phenomenon of CatDog as a metaphorical interpretation of both Pablo Picasso and perambling. What began as a personal journey of Dipshitism has translated into images of Thai food and left quadriceps that resonate with Filipino people to question their own Amberness. My mixed media abomasum embodies an idiosyncratic view of Jim Bakker, yet the familiar imagery allows for a connection between Philip Seymour Hoffman, zones and tater-tots. My work is in the private collection of Aaliyah who said 'Flubber!, that's some real crunchy Art.'  I am a recipient of a grant from Folsom Prison where I served time for stealing mugs and tie clips from the gift shop of The Reina Sofia. I have exhibited in group shows at Chick-Fil-A and at Kris Angel's latest stunt, though not at the same time. I currently spend my time between my living room sofa and Berlin.

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Richard Avedon’s "In the American West"

“A portrait is not a likeness.  The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photo.  All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.” – Richard Avedon, 1985

This quotation from world-renowned portrait photographer Richard Avedon is an excerpt from a longer explication of his own methodology in creating the series In the American West.  The 1985 exhibition in the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas displayed large, black and white 4x5 portraits of working-class citizens that Avedon had photographed while surveying the American West in the summer of 1979.

The selected excerpt (photograph above) may be understood as Richard Avedon’s artist statement for this particular series or, quite frankly, for the portraiture he culminated throughout the span of his professional career.  The statement is, to say the least, complex.  But the duality that Avedon invokes brings further profoundness to the simplicity of the portraiture..

In terms of an official artist statement, this quotation does not fit into the normal mold: he does not use exquisite diction nor syntax, he does not include personal quips, nor does he seek a definitive answer to the significance of his work.  Rather, this artist statement belittles, ironically, his phenomenal photographic work, asking the onlooker to approach these intimacies with a bit of scrutiny.

Avedon is conscious of the emotional outcome that comprises his final work.  It is this often emotional reception and oblivious acceptance of the truth that the viewer sees as intrinsic to the photograph that Avedon is trying to undo.

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#Filter

Filters change a photo drastically. Before filters, many photographers would use “lenses” and various lighting techniques to make it have a different effect compared to just a regular photo. By having a filter, it can change the emotions that the photos are supposed to portray. We took a photo of a single tree masked with the darkened, more ominous filter of a pair of sunglasses. The filter we used mimics that of a neutral density filter, lowering the brightness and contrast of the original image and improves the viewer’s ability to gaze.  The filter allows us to focus a lot more on the tree through lowered contrast of unwanted shadows, drawing more to the symmetry of the three trees than that which surrounds the tree. It also emphasizes the absence of the leaves of the tree a lot more in the filter than the picture without the filter.

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The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical REproduction, REcycling and REception

Reponse to Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

The work of art is not only in the “age of mechanical reproduction,” but also of mass mechanical production and reproduction, recycling and reception.  At the time that Walter Benjamin voiced his opinions on the emerging innovations of sound technology accompanying the moving picture in 1935, the tools needed to produce artwork to be later mechanically produced was not readily available to the common people.  Benjamin quotes Severin-Mars in his critique of the early movie camera: “Only the most high-minded persons, in the most perfect and mysterious moments of their lives, should be allowed to enter its ambience.” 

Nowhere in Instagram’s Terms of Service agreement does this ideology present itself.  Rather, Instagram’s service is available to all amateur photographers who seek it, and for a very costly price: free.  It is apparent in today’s digital world of omnipresent screens that these tools – film camera, video camera, editing software, etc. – can be easily purchased and utilized by the most common of man and woman (and grace of illegal internet downloading, by the financially incapable as well).  Using literature as an example, Benjamin states, “literary license is now founded on polytechnic rather than specialized training and thus becomes common property.”  This polytechnic in the modern context is clearly exemplified by the prolific and omnipresent iPhone.

  Benjamin constantly reiterates the fact that as time proceeds and social contexts transform, the relation between artwork and the masses constantly changes as a result.  This begs the question, where to draw the line between low and high art?  Who, in this day and age, is considered a photographer and/or cinematographer?  Who has the authority to decide such distinctions?  Does simply having an Instagram or Flickr account, or rather a forum by which your material is publicly exhibited, validate such a title?  Does the title even matter?

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#firstworldproblems

The hashtag has become omnipresent.  It is most commonly used for social media purposes in acutely searching specific subject matter.  For the consumer, the producer or even the advertiser alike, the # serves the vital purpose of mass communication within the global village that modern technology has so significantly fostered.  Besides its digital prominence, it has even seeped into oral language, becoming a more-than-common word thrown around in the quotidian and, as a result, joining the ranks of other Internet-generated speak such as LOL and meme.

  For this assignment, I have chosen the hashtag #firstworldproblems.  Fairly self-explanatory, no?  Unsurprisingly enough, #firstworldproblems on Instagram rendered a variety of square-format pictures depicting actions and situations characterized by unnecessary complaining, sympathy-fishing, blatant lazing and even crafty and creative problem-solving.  Examples range from an empty toilet paper roll replaced by that of a kitchen paper towel perched on top of a normal household toilet to a bunched-up and unmercifully-tangled set of Apple iPod headphones to an unflattering selfie of a tired middle-aged woman with a caption describing the intolerable pain caused from her abscessed tooth.  “This week SUCKS.  DAMN IT,” she writes. “I woke up with an abscessed tooth today… Half my face looks like the cartoon Droopy.”  

The list goes on, maybe infinitely.  There are occasional repostings of iconic memes and/or motivational quotations that present ironic truths to everyday thoughts and encounters.  But the countless number of close-up shots shamelessly showing paper cuts on one of the five distal digits definitely outweighs these commodified and often unoriginal “re-Insta’s.”  Quite frankly, I prefer it that way; snapshots of commonplace situations that present a

  So, what is the value of hashtagging #firstworldproblems?

  By merely snapping, posting, and [hash]tagging Instagram photos with #firstworldproblems, we consciously justify our unimportant daily activities as retaining some type of noteworthy value, often comedic, that is, to the average middle-class American.  The phrase itself connotes that the person from whom it was voiced is aware of the obvious insignificance of his or her situation and/or action in comparison to the “third world problems” that the majority of human beings in the world are simultaneously enduring.  Surprisingly enough, when sifting through results of #thirdworldproblems, many of the Instagram posts are an almost-mirror image of what #firstworldproblems yields: ironic and comedic situations relatable to the middle-class American.  

It is worth considering the bias of such a hashtag as #firstworldproblems, and in this case #thirdworldproblems, and the results that are produced.  First of all, the phrase is limited to English-speaking or reading persons, eliminating the possibility for those outside the Anglosphere to add their personal material to the search feed.  Perhaps searching #problemasdelprimermundo,  #problèmesdupremiermonde, or #पहले दुनिया की समस्याओं will produce more insightful, and even confusing, images.