new landscapes

capa

in case you missed it. from the new york times today...

The Capa Cache


“The Falling Soldier” by Robert Capa

The discovery has sent shock waves through the photography world, not least because it is hoped that the negatives could settle once and for all a question that has dogged Capa’s legacy: whether what may be his most famous picture — and one of the most famous war photographs of all time — was staged. Known as “The Falling Soldier,” it shows a Spanish Republican militiaman reeling backward at what appears to be the instant a bullet strikes his chest or head on a hillside near Córdoba in 1936. When the picture was first published in the French magazine Vu, it created a sensation and helped crystallize support for the Republican cause.

Doubts about the photograph have persisted. In part this is because Capa made no pretense of journalistic detachment during the war and was known to photograph staged maneuvers, a common practice at the time. The discovery of a negative, especially in the original sequence showing all the images taken before and after the shot, could end the debate.

Photo: Robert Capa/I.C.P. Collection

betty

I recently had the pleasure of seeing six Gerhard Richter paintings in the same room at the St. Louis Art Museum. Anyone who has the chance should go see them. You can get right up to "Betty" without the alarms going off and four of the gray abstraction paintings are up right next to her. The focus on the twist of the shoulder is so tight it really is amazing.

Last semester I wrote a paper for a contemporary painting and sculpture class about "Betty" and Richter's collective body of work. I was really intrigued by the idea of subverting painting or rather saying that painting has become redundant because of what Richter has accomplished.

The bottom image is from Tim Davis' "Permanent Collection" series. I don't know what I think of it.

6 new photos

men

Candidacy happened and my project is changing. I decided to stop doing a few things and start doing others. I'm stopping the cloning, the self portrait thing and the post-apocalyptic theme. Instead, I'm taking it out of complete fiction and putting it closer to reality. It's about masculinity and the rituals that help them escape from everything else. I'm writing my artist statement soon but I think the pictures are so much clearer.

apocalypses

So I kind of made a decision to go back to an idea that I pushed aside last year when things kind of got out of hand. Somehow the word "post-apocalyptic" got attached to my work when I started thinking of a narrative to drive the photographs. I think it's kind of a trendy and clutch word to describe a landscape that isn't right now and that's void of humanity. The photos up in this post are from the southern California fires in October; if my photos were apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic, I think they would look a little more like this:




So, when and what is really happening in my photographs? Well, They exist somewhere in the past and are actually more autobiographical than anything else. The figures (myself) are using narratives about exploration, youth, and violence (to a point) in hope of starting to critique certain traits of masculinity that are present in American culture. I'm thinking that by talking about it this way it'll help me get out of this little rut I'm in.

web show

Humble Arts Foundation has a new group show with my work in it (group show no. 20) Check it out at: humbleartsfoundation.org/groupshow/groupshow.html.

Fellow Columbia student Allison Grant is also in the show and the piece they picked is one of my favorites for sure.

Allison Grant