Artist Lecture
Stephen Shore
Artist Lecture
Stephen Shore
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| Photography by Stephen Shore |
Professor Cardinali and Professor Holcombe told our class to “Walk not run” to Stephen Shore’s artist lecture at MassArt on Feb. 23. So I did! Unfortunately with the combination of my lack of GPS technology and class letting out at 5:00 Rossi and I managed to sprint into the Pozen auditorium just as Shore finished answering the last question of the session. But despite the fact that I was driving like a mad woman with my window rolled down screaming at passerbys on the street; I am still grateful I was present for his last few words.
Stephen Shore is regarded as the father of color photography. When he was twelve, yes twelve, Shore sold his photographs to Edward Steichen the curator of MOMA. He is most well known for his deadpan images of American Life. He was an influential factor in the works of Nan Goldin, Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth.
One of the things Shore said that stuck in my mind as a soon to be Alumni of UNH is “I learned to do it so I can make it.” This was in reference to the technicalities of developing and printing in color photography. I take this to heart because I feel from here I must take it upon myself to find the resources to learn what I want to learn instead of passively gaining an education through going to class everything. If I want to become a better photographer I must learn it so I can do it.
Artist Lecture
Michael Cardinali
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| Photograph by Michael Cardinali |
It was inspiring to hear Michael Cardinali’s struggles and successes as an artist and to see the development of his style through his career as a photographer. Cardinali describes that he has always been inspired by the things which are close to him; this intimacy shows in his photographs whether is be a spot in the park, skyline of New York or portrait of his wife.
In the early half of his career, Cardinalli used a large format 8X10 camera to produce stunning palladium prints. Living in New York at this time, many of the photographs portrayed the astounding mood of the city through nighttime shots of architecture. The quality of the palladium prints really captures the millions of lights sprinkled through out the city and the details of the buildings. Michael spoke of a print he has obvious fond memories of called “Fireworks,” where the spark of the far away fireworks in the sky was mimicked by the fireflies in the place he was watching from the train tracks.
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| Photography By Michael Cardinali |
After moving to Boston with his wife and beginning a new chapter at Mass Art, Mike’s style began to change. He describes feeling as though he was in a rut and not satisfied with his works. It was color film that removed him from this rut when he took the picture “Ear and Hair.” Michael said in his usual eloquent manner “You can change one aspect and the whole world becomes new again.” Which is did.
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| Photography by Michael Cardinali |
From there Michael began to work with a 4x5 baby deerdorf camera and focused on the beautiful Boston parks for a subject. From a New York cityscape to Boston greenery, Cardinali brings the same precision and intimacy to his pictures. It was a pleasure to be taught by Michael Cardinali.
Artist Lecture
Michel Chickwanine
April 2011
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| Michel Chickwanine Speaker for Organization Me to We |
Michel Chickwanine was child soldier from the Democratic Republic of Congo. This country in Africa has been in a state of war and mass atrocities for 25 years. The rebel soldiers in the Congo that commit the horrible crimes Michel talked to us about are fueled by the money to be gained through minerals natural to this area of Africa. These minerals are used in everyday consumer good like cell phones, laptops and other necessities in the world.
The violence in the Congo is largely driven by the use of rape as a weapon. Soldiers will brutally rape women repeatedly forcing them to become sex slaves for long periods of time. Because of lack of education these raped women are often ostracized from their society. Therefore rape is used to breakdown the structure of their culture. Another tool of violence is “child soldiers.” The rebels will kid children and force them to commit horrible crimes against their will.
The story Michel told challenged every person in the audience to face the horrible reality of genocide going on in today’s world. He is a man not much older than me but has lived through pain no one should ever have to. At the age of 8 the soldiers took Michel. They cut his wrist and filled the wound with cocaine and gun power driving him to insanity. He was blinded and a gun placed his hand; the command was to shoot his best friend.
After a week being a child soldier Michel made the brave risk of running away and finding his way back to his family. A battle many children in his situation struggle with finding themselves lost in the vast forests of the Congo never making it home. In the next fifteen year Michel would watch his father, his role model, die from poisoning and watch his sisters and mother brutally rape and forced from his village. Both of his sisters were forced into sex slavery and birthed children of the rebel soldiers. One of them in the past few years was murdered; the other Michel is trying desperately to bring to North America.
As Michel tells his story I wondered what he was feeling. He did not reveal any hate in his tone. When asked what the resolution was his response was to build schools. He made is plain that forgiveness and education will be two of the most important tool in ending the great war of Africa.
Genocides are not just happening in the DRC but other places like Sudan and Burma as well. It is important to listen to stories like Michel’s and others. If you want to take your emotions a step further to take action and help in the prevention of genocide write a letter to your senator or university telling them you support them in pushing for the translucency of mineral supply to electronic companies and the maintenance of USA international humanitarian aid to Africa.
Learn more at: http://www.standnow.org/
MOMA
March 2011
Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography
Staging Action: Performance in photography since 1960
Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures
I made my way to the Big Apple during the last weekend of my senior spring break. Because it was a rare 70 degree day in March, I decided to walk the fifty blocks uptown to see these fabulous MOMA exhibits. After pretending to be the big city girl I am not hustling on the busy sidewalks of NY I was excited to slow down and absorb the some great photography.
“Pictures by Women” was an inspirational and chronologically arranged history of the women photographers from Julia Margaret Cameron and Anna Atkins to Sally Mann and Cindy Sherman. It was a pleasure to experience in person these iconic images, which influenced photography in a significant way.
| Helen Levitt "New York" |
Reflecting back one of my favorite works was pictures of New York by Helen Levitt. Perhaps it was situational and feelings like I could relate to the hilarious street scenes I had witnessed in the past few days, but Helen really captured the city in a humorous and detailed manner. The series included an old woman with an umbrella on the sunniest of days, a cat being walked on a leash, an obviously
confused foreign woman on a pay phone, and a hairy-backed man sporting nothing but swim trunks and a cane. All of these scenes were on the streets of New York, their background painted with discarded tires, chipped paint and store fronts.
| Helen Levitt "New York" |
My favorite in this collection was a picture of two old men standing on the sidewalk in front of convenient shop with a green awning. The hunched over, suit and hat-wearing men stare at their watermelon with scrunched expression as if examining for ants in the fruit.
“Pictures by Women” was saturated by amazing photographs I could write forever about. It took me about two hours to go through and I still feel ask though I was rushed.
“Pictures by Women” leads you in to the exhibit “Staging Action: Performance Photography since the 1960s.” I had a hard time swallowing this exhibit especially after the inspiration I had just seen. The collection was displaying the long history of performance art not only being used for film but also in photography, but entering the room it seemed like all the performance art was dark and concerning violence. It was hard to appreciate t
| Mathew Barney |
I came upon one series of gelatin silver prints by Ai Weiwei of giving the middle finger to the iconic tourist locations of the Eiffel Tower, Mona Lisa, the White House and Tiananmen Square. Everyone who came upon these pictures laughed. I wondered to myself “Are we supposed to be laughing?” Then I realized, the audience needed that release from the tension and unease of the other photographs. Or maybe I just did, so I laughed with them.
My visit at the MOMA ended with the frabjous “Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures.” As a slight skeptic of the overly admired Andy Warhol’s pop art I was shown a new light. The exhibit was a large 5X7 foot screen that displayed up-close film portraits of mostly celebrities such as Susan Sontag, Allen Ginsberg and Dennis Hopper. These four-minute films introduced you so intimately with the subject; as though he or she were your best friend and you were silently just staring at one another. When the subject smiled or laughed I did too and when they were serious I was serious. Each subject was different in the way which they addressed the camera: some directly looked at the lens while other looked off the to side and some fidgeted non-stop while other stayed stone still. Almost all the portraits used hard lighting shining directly from the side. I would be a liar if I said sitting in front of these large moving portraits did not remind me of the Fat Lady’s portrait in Hogwarts. I need to mention the final portrait of a man receiving a blowjob, unlike the other 4-minute films, this film was 41 MINUTES! Wow.
If you are in the Big Apple definitely head to the MOMA to see these great exhibits!
Conversations
Photography from the Bank of America Collection:
MFA
Walking among the photographs at the MFA “Conversations” exhibit was like being at the Hollywood walk of fame. The collection included 1850s albumen prints to inkjet prints. Edward Weston, William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Cindy Sherman, Sugimoto, and Gustave le Gray are just a taste of the many historically influential photographers in the exhibit.
This photograph below by David Hilliard stuck in my memory. The work, titled “Dad” made in 1998 is one of Hilliard’s many multi-paneled photographs. Hilliard’s works are focused on the New England landscape and a figure within it. His vertical images I found the most enjoyable having a sort of pin hole effect. The compilation of three photographs vertically gives the illusion of a very long depth of field.
As I observed the numerous vivid and enormous cibachrome prints at “Conversations” I wanted to know more about this process which made such impressive quality. Cibachrome is now called “Ilfochrome” and is a dye-destruction positive-to-positive process used for the reproduction of slides on photographic paper. This process is known for its resistance to fading and color intensity. The difference between it and other slides processes is that the dyes are embedded in the paper and selectively bleached out during the process. The dyes in the paper are called Axo-dyes.
Finally another photograph that stuck in my mind was John Murray’s print and wax negative of the Taj Mahol. Aesthically the juxtaposition of the negative next to the positive was pleasing. My favorite aspect was that the photo cuts off the tomb and focuses on a minaret. This is interesting because the time frame of this mid-late 1800s print came when photographers were traveling and photographing for the purpose of replicating tourist sites; this photo did not adhere to that norm.
I could not be happier that I made a visit to “Conversations,” it felt like walking through the history of photography. DO NOT MISS IT, the exhibit ends June 19, 2011. As Professor Cardinelli would say “RUN don’t walk.”
MOVIE: "War Photographer:"
Jim Natcheway
"Testimony"
"There has always been war. War is raging throughout the world at
the present moment. And there is little reason to believe that war will
cease to exist in the future. As man has become increasingly civilized,
his means of destroying his fellow man have become ever more efficient,
cruel and devastating.
Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behavior which has existed throughout history by means of
Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behavior which has existed throughout history by means of
photography? The proportions of that notion seem ridiculously out of
balance. Yet, that very idea has motivated me.
For me, the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke a sense of
For me, the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke a sense of
humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity, then photography can
be perceived as the opposite of war and if it is used well it can be a
powerful ingredient in the antidote to war.
In a way, if and individual assumes the risk of placing himself in the middle of a war
In a way, if and individual assumes the risk of placing himself in the middle of a war
in order to communicate to the rest of the world what is happening, he
is trying to negotiate for peace. Perhaps that is the reason why those
in charge of perpetuating a war do not like to have photographers
around.
It has occurred to me that if everyone could be there
just once to see for themselves what white phosphorous does to the face
of a child or what unspeakable pain is caused by the impact of a single
bullet or how a jagged piece of shrapnel can rip someone’s leg off – if
everyone could be there to see for themselves the fear and the grief,
just one time, then they would understand that nothing is worth letting
things get to the point where that happens to even one person, let
alone thousands.
But everyone cannot be there, and that is why
photographers go there – to show them, to reach out and grab them and
make them stop what they are doing and pay attention to what is going
on – to create pictures powerful enough to overcome the diluting
effects of the mass media and shake people out of their indifference -
to protest and by the strength of that protest to make others protest.
The worst thing is to feel that as a photographer I am benefiting from
someone else’s tragedy. This idea haunts me. It is something I have to
reckon with every day because I know that if I ever allow genuine
compassion to be overtaken by personal ambition I will have sold my
soul. The stakes are simply too high for me to believe otherwise.
I attempt to become as totally responsible to the subject as I possibly
can. The act of being an outsider aiming a camera can be a violation of
humanity. The only way I can justify my role is to have respect for the
other person’s predicament. The extend to which I do that is the extent
to which I become accepted by the other, and to that extent I can
accept myself."
http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/
