On my way to Tokyo to participate in the second Tokyo Photo fair where I'm sure there will be much to blog about. In the meantime, this is my favorite of the pictures I took on my visit last year. Just some unknown hipster at a little nightclub mesmerized by the light show and his own shadow. Love the purple!
I'm back!
And tomorrow (Friday) we open our show of Christopher Bucklow's photographs. 6 to 8 p.m. for those who would like to attend the opening.
Bucklow's work is one of the pillars of the British "cameraless" photography movement which you'll be hearing a lot about this fall. It's at once luminous, spiritual, scientific, and metaphysical. And did I say gorgeous?
Bucklow's other-worldly photographs of radiant men and women set against grounds of color are made through a multi-step process that is both complex and laborious. Bucklow begins by projecting the shadow of his sitter on a large sheet of aluminum foil and tracing its outline. He then makes about twenty thousand small pinholes in the foil silhouette (one for each day of the average human lifespan). Using a contraption of his own device that places the foil over a large sheet of photographic paper, Bucklow wheels his homemade "camera" out into daylight and pulls the "shutter" to briefly expose the paper to direct sunlight. Thus each finished picture becomes a kind of photogram silhouette composed of thousands of pinhole photographs of the sun. The intensity of light on a given day and the length of exposure create unique color variations on how the resulting piece appears.
Following the artist's particular ground rules, and connecting Bucklow to the mystical tradition of British artists, in particular to the work of William Blake, Bucklow does not picture anyone he has not dreamed of. In this way, the works connect more deeply to both the artist's unconscious and the unknown. Part quantum physics (in particular the light bending phenomenon of the double slit experiment) and part zen philosophy, the thousands of suns not only shine out from the paper but are a window into the soul or anima of both subject and artist, and an appreciation of the individuality and preciousness of each day.
Bucklow's explorations into avoiding the negative are both literal and figurative, connecting light and art, with the Other. We may not readily associate photography and the mystical or spiritual, but Bucklow's work asks us to start by appreciating the surface and then to dig down into all the layers that lie underneath. It's a journey worth taking.
Christopher Bucklow's show mid-installation.
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Sugimoto by Brown
One more show to point out before I take a real summer break. It’s a show I saw in Los Angeles a few weeks ago and was incredibly impressed with. And it’s up until the end of the month.
Showing at the Robert Berman gallery in Santa Monica, it’s the work of Hugh Brown – an artist, and as you’ll see an obsessive chainsaw collector and aficionado. The show is comprised entirely of Brown’s appropriation of famous artworks into which Brown has inserted a variety of chainsaw references from the obvious to the subtle.
So we have Brown’s version of photographs by such heavy hitters as Diane Arbus, Harold Edgerton, Walker Evans, and Robert Mapplethorpe and painters like Matisse, Ed Ruscha, Jackson Pollack and dozens more. The works are so convincing that many mistook them for authentic pieces when shown last year at the California State University Fullerton Grand Central Art Center.
While the images stand on their own, there is humor and wit and intelligence behind every image. Take Brown’s Hiroshi Sugimoto piece entitled “Vista Theater (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2)”. For this image Brown rented out the theatre and used a large format camera and an extremely long exposure to capture the entire film, just as Sugimoto did in his photographs of old American movie palaces and drive-ins.
A photographer, printmaker and assemblage artist for over 35 years, Brown has exhibited widely on the west coast, but claims his standout achievement was his prize in the “Design a Chair for Barbie” competition – not because of the second place finish but because the entry caused a fist fight amongst the judges!
Ruscha by Brown
Hockney by Brown
Arbus by Brown
Edgerton by Brown
As you may have noticed, I'm on something of a summer hiatus, but I'll try to post a few things from my summer break. In the meantime, this Canadian ad takes full advantage of high-def slow-motion.
Sent to me by Jim Krantz, the highly talented photographer who is one of the original Marlboro photographers (and much of whose work was borrowed by Richard Prince). This ad promoting the launch of the Polaroid SX-70 reminds us of one of those magical moments when it seemed like the future had arrived and it was all good. What's particularly surprising is the degree to which the history and art of photography is referenced. And while photography is much more appreciated, studied, and written about today - it's highly unlikely that a digital camera would be promoted in this way.
An anonymous but knowledgeable tipster points out that in lighter prints of the Bill Dane image, Garry Winogrand can be seen in the background.
This can be verified by looking at the clearly recognizable figure on the right in the variant image below.
