Overall the book Camera Lucida was a good read, but there was one part in particular that stood out to me. It is on page 63 and 64, when the author is looking through pictures of his mother, shortly after she died. He mentioned how if he showed these to friends, these photographs wouldn't really "speak" to them. However, they would always "speak" to him, for he had a personal and close connection to the subject. This made me think of what kind of photographs spoke to me. Of course ones of family members and friends will always speak to me but there are photographs of people I may not know, but when I look at them, they move me and make me feel something inside. An example of this is a series that was done by Barbra Davidson on gang violence in Los Angeles. The series recently won her the Pulitzer Prize, which goes to show how much these photographs spoke to the viewers, including me.
http://framework.latimes.com/who-we-are/barbara-davidson/
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Cultural Event #3
ArtRAGEous Art Show
The student led group, RAGE (Rape Awareness and Gender Education) here at the University of Denver, is a group whose goal is to educate the DU community about sexual assault, rape, and gender identity. They recently organized and hosted an art show in the Driscoll gallery here on the DU campus, called ArtRAGEous. The mission of the show was to exhibit student art that expressed that artist’s rage about topics relating to rape, sexual assault, gender issues, and body image. The art was done by DU students and was open to all forms such as photography, painting, drawing and sculpture. I decided to not only attend the opening, but also submit a piece of my own, a photograph. At the opening, there were many interesting works of art, but there was one piece that stood out to me, which I am going to compare and contrast to my photograph that was in the show.
The first piece, my piece, was a 13”x 11” color photograph. With this photograph, I choose to express my rage about body image and the way women are constantly told they need to be skinny and perfect by the media. The subject of my photograph is a Caucasian woman. The only part of her that is shown in the photograph is her stomach and chest area, with the main area of concentration being on her stomach. The stomach is exceptionally skinny looking, with her skin stretching tight across her ribs and her waist concaved inward. The woman is lying down on top of a bed of Cosmopolitan and Seventeen magazines, all of which are addressed to women and young girls. On the front of the magazine’s there are cover stories on how to achieve your “perfect body” such as, “Get Your Best Body Ever!”, “Flatten Your Belly”, “Look Cute Now”, “Curb Your Cravings”, “Lose Weight While You Eat”, and “Flatten Your Abs Fast”. The photograph grabs your attention, with the bright colors from the magazine and the emancipated looking body in the center.
The next work of art, done by an anonymous artist, is also a color photograph and similar to the previous one has a woman as the main content. The woman is Latino and unlike my photograph, her face is visible and she is staring directly at the camera with a seductive look in her eye. It is a powerful gaze, enforcing the message the picture is trying to portray; the message of dismissing shame of one’s body and self-image. To support this message, the artist has written across the woman’s bare chest the words, “Caress My Chaos”. The woman is wearing a vibrant red cloth around her breasts and her hands are up in her hair, which is unruly and framing her face.
The two photographs are similar because they express their rage about body image and use the female body to express this rage. They both use words as an aid to enforce their messages, yet the ways these words are shown in the pictures are different, for one is written on the body and the other on magazine covers surrounding the body. They are also different in the amount of body that is shown. In my work of art, I choose not to include the face of the woman so her body could represent all women who feel the pressure our media puts on our culture to be skinny and perfect. When the artist included the woman’s face in the second photograph, it became more personal and more about the story behind the woman in the photo. This exhibit was interesting to go to not only as a viewer, but also as an artist in the show, for I was able to find interesting comparisons between my photograph with other works of art there and see how powerful messages can be portrayed through art.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Culture Event #2- RedLine Gallery
On a recent outing to the RedLine Gallery, here in Denver CO, I found myself being pleasantly surprised with the vast amount of work that was featured there, each one evidence of talented local artists. RedLine is a non-profit art gallery that’s mission is to connect artists with the community. It allows artists to present their artwork to the public and even houses studios for artists to come work out of. They are currently serving as the main gallery for the Month of Photography here in Denver, with three unique exhibitions; Thought Objects, Discoveries, and Modern Alternative. There was a broad spectrum of subject matter and styles from artist to artist, varying from a photograph of a little city made of Jello, to a collage of old pornographic magazine covers. Among all the work featured there, two photographs really caught my eye and drew my attention in from across the room.
The first photograph was a black and white one by artist Tina Kazakhishvili called, Untitled. The subject in the photograph is a naked woman sitting with her back to the camera on a bed. She is leaning to her left, but it appears there is a large gust of wind that is sweeping her long dark hair up to the right, exposing her bare back. The hair in this photo is what demands the most attention and in my opinion makes the photograph as powerful as it is. It seems the photographer has caught that perfect moment; that moment that every photographer desires to capture, with the hair blowing gracefully out to the side. Even though the content in this photograph is rather simple, with just the single women in it, and with a plain white background, it expresses a great deal of secrecy through her body position, with her back to us and the flight of her hair. I find myself wanting to know what her face looks like and what caused this great gust of air to come sweeping through her hair.
The next piece was part of a series done by Judy Haberl, called Hidden Agendas Unutterable. There were four photographs that made up the series, but I will focus on one in particular, Purse 6. The subject of this color photograph is a close up of a translucent lady’s purse or “clutch” that has been placed against a white background. Inside this purse, it appears that liquid has been frozen and in the frozen liquid is a black hand grenade and a pearl necklace, which is slightly wrapped around the grenade. These objects within the purse are two complete opposites, which is what caught my attention and drew me to this piece. The grenade is very masculine and associated with war, explosions, and death and the pearl necklace is very feminine and is seen paired with beautiful dresses or other formal wear and associated with wealth, yet they are seen close together, concealed in a woman’s purse. This is extremely interesting to me and I find myself forming my own interpretation of who the owner of this purse is and the story behind why she is hiding a grenade in her purse.
The apparent differences between these two photographs are that the first is in black and white and that the second one is in color, and the subject in the first one is human and the subject in the second photograph is an object. The two are similar in the sense of mystery they portray. There is mystery in the first picture because the woman’s back is to the camera, hiding her face and making her anonymous to the viewer. The second one brings about a sense of mystery through the placement of contradictory objects inside a purse, making the viewer curious as to why these objects are together and who the unknown owner of them is. Both photographers did a good job at conveying this sense of mystery, for it is what attracted me to both their photographs and kept me intrigued and wanting to know while I was observing them.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
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