State of the Arts Category Archive: Photography

Gazing into "The Minnesota Eye"

Posted at 3:00 PM on October 29, 2009 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Photography

UV set inks on lacquered cherry veneer MDF, Courtesy of John Marshall

Opening tomorrow night is small little show with a big goal. The College of Visual Arts presents "The Minnesota Eye: Contemporary Photography." The exhibition features the images of 17 different Minnesota professionals, and indeed it's a lovely grouping.

Sometimes it takes putting a bunch of artists in the same room to make us realize just what our community has to offer. There's Alec Soth, Paul Shambroom, JoAnn Verburg, Stuart Klipper, and Tom Arndt, just to name a few. These are now national and international names, who gained their particular visual sensibility through their time here at home.

Ink on paper, Courtesy of Pace/MacGill and G. Gibson Gallery

I stopped by the CVA gallery just as the final piece was being hung. I recognized much of what I saw, and was pleasantly surprised to see some relatively new names whose images I really enjoyed (Carrie Elizabeth Thompson and Cory Prahl in particular).

But as I walked around the room, I felt that something was missing. While each image was lovely, as a whole the exhibition felt very calm - almost too calm.

Archival pigment print, Courtesy of Carrie Elizabeth Thompson

What this exhibition lacks is a real sense of energy and diversity. If someone were to base their impression of contemporary Minnesota photography on this particular show, they would miss out on a ton of exciting and important work. Where's Wing Young Huie? How about Xavier Tavera? How about Angela Strassheim?

Instead what this exhibition presents is a staid, more traditional view of Minnesota photographers. The curator, it should be noted, asked to remain anonymous, but it's not hard to guess who put the show together when you look at who provided the images (six of the photographs were loaned by the same gallery).

Inkjet print mounted to cintra, Courtesy of Weinstein Gallery

One of the major reasons the CVA is mounting this show is to immerse its students in the work of professional artists in the community. That is a great and noble idea (of course this exhibition only runs until November 14, so it's more of a quick dip than a meditative soak).

What might serve the students even better is to mount a second exhibition in a few months, this time with a different curator. Because what I think we would find is that the Minnesota photography scene is so rich, another person with an equally trained eye could pick out his or her favorites, and be able to fill the gallery space all over again. And it would be a totally different show.

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A new home for Twin Cities photographers

Posted at 4:57 PM on October 27, 2009 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Photography

Mpls Photo Center's main studio space

If you're not into photography, you probably missed a major change that happened last year in the local scene. The Minnesota Center for Photography, longtime home to shutterbugs, closed its doors. And one month later the Mpls Photo Center opened new ones.

Same people under a slightly different name? Not hardly. While the Minnesota Center for Photography was a non-profit that relied on grant support, the Mpls Photo Center is the brainchild of Orin Rutchick, and is a private, for-profit venture. Yet the two organizations' missions are quite similar: to nurture, educate and strengthen the local photography scene.

Rutchick hit upon his idea in 2007, when the five other photographers sharing his lease decided the expenses weren't worth the hassle. Rutchick realized he could either go back to printing out of his home, or he could hold on to the warehouse space in Northeast Minneapolis, and create something much bigger. At the time the Minnesota Center for Photography was still in operation, but its primary function was as a gallery, with studio time and classes relegated to evenings. Rutchick wanted to create a hangout that was available 24/7, where photographers could feel at home, and be with peers.

"What's happened now is digital has created these silos where you capture your image, you go back to your computer, you process your image and you print it on your digital printer. And so there isn't a lot of opportunity for interaction. And that's really one of the reasons for the center too is to at least bring people with a common interest together."

Mpls Photo Center's founder Orin Rutchick

The Mpls Photo Center boasts a large studio, classrooms, a digital print lab, two darkrooms, lockers, a kitchen and a lounge. Membership to the MPC starts at $12 a month, and runs on up to $235 a month, depending on the level of access a photographer wants.

Mpls Photo Center's digital print lab

Rutchick compares the current world of photography to the Wild West. It's a world in which talented wedding photographers are losing clients to Uncle Bill and his Canon Powershot.

I think with the advent of the digital camera in the last three to five years, and the quality of the images that come from it, most anybody can take a reasonably good photograph. Of course there's a difference between "taking" a photograph and "making" a photograph. That's one of the things they lack - the understanding of making a photograph.

Rutchick says too many people are taking hundreds of pictures, and then just deleting the ones they don't like, rather than thinking about the image they have in mind. While many love the ease that digital photography has given them, Rutchick believes film, and the discipline it inspired, served a purpose.

I really feel that people have abandoned film for the wrong reasons. We find that our younger members are interested in it because they've grown up in the digital world, and the idea of a print coming up in a developing tray is fascinating to them.

The whole idea of film is that even if you have a certain time down, and process, every print is different than the last. So each one is unique, whereas with digital files, everyone's the same. While there's a lot of craft in editing a fine digital photograph, you can't really feel that accomplished as you can coming out of the darkroom with an analog print.

That's why Rutchick is so proud of his two darkrooms. He compares their large sinks to family dinner tables, around which stories are swapped and ideas shared.

One of two darkrooms at the MPC

Rutchick says he hopes to use the MPC to bridge the gap between the analog world and the digital one, by encouraging fans of both to mingle. Beyond that he says his goal is to raise the quality and understanding of photography in the region by giving people access to classes, tools, and a place to show their work.

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"Strange Victory" challenges expectations

Posted at 2:54 PM on October 2, 2009 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Film, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture

Photograph by Matthew Bakkom

Artist Matthew Bakkom isn't one to lay it all out for his public.

"We're a really highly educated audience now," he said in conversation earlier this week at Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis, "and we don't suffer lightly being told what to think."

Chambers' Burnet Gallery is presenting an installation Bakkom designed specifically for the space. It mixes together pieces from previous his bodies of work, along with new material, to create a setting that's both elegant and unsettling. The installation is called "Strange Victory."

Photograph by Matthew Bakkom

The inspiration for the installation comes in part from a 1961 surreal French film called "Last Year at Marianbad," but you wouldn't necessarily pick that up from walking through the room. The biggest clue comes from a panel on which is written a summary of the film's plot.

Bakkom says he thinks there's a constant tension at play between an artist, the artist's audience, and each of their own expectations about what art should be. Bakkom says he's a follower of DuChamp in that he believes he only does half the work when he creates a piece of art - it's up to the viewer to do the rest.

The room is dotted with images of a baroque chair, a slide of an old painting, and hand gestures. They're each quite suggestive, but suggestive of what? Curator Jennifer Phelps says of Bakkom's work:

I am drawn to work that is composed of various levels... that does not reveal itself to the viewer at first glance. Work that twists and surprises me. I feel Matthew's show does all of this for me. I want to spend time in the gallery trying to absorb his stories and the stories that are generated within me by his artwork. I also find his images quite serene, though they involve a scanner and gestures and information that can not be clearly deciphered.

Photograph by Matthew Bakkom

Bakkom says he has many ideas, trains of thought, and sources of inspiration that go into his work, but ultimately that background information shouldn't be necessary for the viewer to enjoy the work. What is necessary is an open mind, and a willingness to explore some foreign terrain. The story you come up with will be all your own.

"Strange Victory" will be on display at the Burnet Gallery through November 8th - the opening reception is tonight from 6-9pm.

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Happy photo, happy heart

Posted at 5:34 PM on September 29, 2009 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Photography

It's an act of affection and intimacy. You're saying good-bye to a loved one or friend, and you give them a peck on the cheek - a simple gesture to let them know you love them.

Barb luvs Bonnie

Photographer Bonnie Fournier took a photograph of herself standing with her sister, and at the last second her sister turned and gave her "a smooch." The photo wasn't great - the camera was heavy, and so the angle was off - but the photo stuck with Fournier, and became a source of joy for her. Thus, "The Smooch! Project" was born.

Claire luvs Jerilyn - All in the Family: Moms luv Kids

Fournier calls The Smooch! Project "a reminder to all of the enduring human capacity to love and care for another." Parents and children, brothers and sisters, best friends, lovers of all ages - they all volunteer to step forward and show their affection for one another. And it's not just limited to humans - many people choose to smooch their pets (or have their pets smooch them) in front of Fournier's camera.

Gabe luvs Tara - Animals & Their Humans

Buddhist by practice, Fournier says her photo essay, now in it's fourth year, is about love, tolerance and gratitude. And it's about sharing that moment when the heart is uplifted.

Yvonne luvs Victoria - All in the Family: Moms luv Kids

Fourier has based all of her work in Minnesota thus far, setting up regular smooch-fests for anyone to attend (you can find out about her upcoming shoots here). But her goal is to collect 10,000 images from around the world. So now Fournier is attempting to get some major backing to take The Smooch! Project global. That backing, she hopes, will come from Ellen Degeneres.

Elena luvs Ellen

Fournier is inviting folks to line up to kiss an image of Degeneres. She'll then compile the images and send them off to the media star in the hopes that Degeneres will find the project worthy of her funding.

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How photography reveals and obscures the truth

Posted at 12:16 PM on September 28, 2009 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Photography

Taryn Simon likes to photograph things most people never get to see. Things like the piles of food seized at customs, glowing capsules of nuclear waste, or a copy of Playboy Magazine - in braille.

Playboy, Braille Edition
Playboy Enterprises, Inc.
New York, New York

Simon says the biggest obstacle to doing her work is gaining access, something she was denied by - of all places - Disneyland.

Photography threatens fantasy. They [Disneyland] didn't want to let my camera in because it confronts constructed realities, myths and beliefs, and provides what appears to be evidence of a truth. But there are multiple truths attached to every image.

Simon often uses her camera to battle the "untruths" told by other pictures. An entire series of her work consists of portraits of men convicted and sentenced for crimes they didn't commit. In most instances, the men were identified by witnesses in photo albums, often after they'd been passed over in a face-to-face line-up. Often times witnesses later admitted that they'd seen so many faces that they could no longer properly identify who they remembered from the crime scene.

CALVIN WASHINGTON
C&E Motel, Room No. 24, Waco, Texas
Where an informant claimed to have heard Washington confess
Wrongfully accused- Served 13 years of a Life sentence for Murder
2002

Many of these wrongly convicted men ended up serving a decade or more in prison before a DNA test led to their acquittals. Simon photographs her subjects either at the location of their alibi, at the scene of their arrest, or sometimes at the scene of the crime (in some cases a place the subject has never seen).

Looking at Taryn Simon's work, and hearing her talk about the process involved (she spends most of her time writing letters asking for permission to visit places) reminded me of the work of local photographer Paul Shambroom. Shambroom also likes to depict places most people don't ever get to see, but in his case his work has revolved around American military might and national security.

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Music for the birds

Posted at 12:54 PM on September 16, 2009 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Music, Photography

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

Jarbas Agnelli was reading a newspaper when he noticed a picture of birds on electric wires. Immediately he noticed they looked like sheet music, and decided to find out what song they were "singing." Above is the result (the music actually only takes up a fraction of the video), along with the photo by Paulo Pinto.

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Graffiti that needs no clean-up

Posted at 1:37 PM on September 2, 2009 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Photography

Detail of image "sparkling fire circle" by LAPP

It's the perennial fourth of July favorite past-time - to draw pictures or words in the air with your sparkler. Take that idea about a thousand steps forward and you have "light graffiti," the art of creating surreal, sci-fi-esque images in the night using all sorts of lamps, flashlights, glowing wands, and fireworks.
Combine those lights with choreographed movement and long exposure cameras, and the result is similar to seeing a UFO landing.

Detail of image "cold" by LAPP

LAPP (Light Art Performance Photography) is the German group responsible for these photographs. On their website they state the images are each the result of one long exposure, without the use of any computer enhancement.

Detail of image "the guardians" by LAPP

It's interesting how knowing that these images were made by hand, and not using digital manipulation, gives them an extra "cool" factor. Why? Does it really matter either way?

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We are what we eat. And we eat a lot.

Posted at 5:00 PM on August 25, 2009 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Museums, Photography

© Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com from the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

The Bell Museum of Natural History has announced it's hosting the exhibition "Hungry Planet: What the World Eats" this fall. The exhibition grew out of the book by the same name. Like the book, the exhibition explores how different cultures consume food: what type of food they eat, how much of it, and how much they pay for it.

© Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com from the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

The Bell Museum's exhibit focuses on 10 cultures, many with ties to Minnesota, and lets visitors "shop" for global produce from world markets and track that food as it travels from field to fork. The exhibit features special sections on the rise of fast food culture, the evolution and history of food plants, current and ancient agricultural methods and the practice of raising and eating meat.

© Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com from the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

Since many people these days are interested in "greening" their lives and households, they might be particularly interested in witnessing the difference in packaging from one culture to the next. Some cultures appear to live entirely without packaging, while others seem entirely dependent on it.

© Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com from the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

Other issues raised by the exhibition are nutrition, obesity, sustainability, and the "locavore" movement. "Hungry Planet: What the World Eats" opens at the Bell Museum in Minneapolis on October 17 and will run for 6 months.

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Understanding our impact, one pixel at a time

Posted at 7:00 AM on August 11, 2009 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Photography

Chris Jordan's digital images are simultaneously aesthetically pleasing and thematically disturbing. From a distance you detect a pattern, and colors. It's only upon close inspection that you recognize the subject matter.

Jordan was recently profiled on Bill Moyer's Journal. He sees himself as half artist, half activist, always walking a fine line inbetween the two without veering too much to either side. His latest body of work, "Running the Numbers," uses digitally manipulated images to tell the story of our daily consumption. He writes:

Exploring around our country's shipping ports and industrial yards, where the accumulated detritus of our consumption is exposed to view like eroded layers in the Grand Canyon, I find evidence of a slow-motion apocalypse in progress. I am appalled by these scenes, and yet also drawn into them with awe and fascination. The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity.

The pervasiveness of our consumerism holds a seductive kind of mob mentality. Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences. I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits.

As an American consumer myself, I am in no position to finger wag; but I do know that when we reflect on a difficult question in the absence of an answer, our attention can turn inward, and in that space may exist the possibility of some evolution of thought or action. So my hope is that these photographs can serve as portals to a kind of cultural self-inquiry. It may not be the most comfortable terrain, but I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake.

Jordan doesn't limit himself to consumption, he also takes on more social commentary. In this work, he depicts 2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005.

Other images depict the number of people who die from smoking, the number of elective breast surgeries performed monthly, and the number of emergency room visits each year related to misuse or abuse of prescription pain killers.

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Celebrating Hmong artists

Posted at 8:41 AM on July 11, 2009 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Painting, Photography, Printmaking

Photographs by Pao Houa Her

Last night I attended the opening of a group show by Hmong artists at Homewood Gallery in North Minneapolis. The show has become an annual event, organized by the Hmong Arts Connection (HArc). It includes photographs, prints, paintings and drawings. Dyane Garvey is with HArc; she said HArc is trying to encourage artistic expression amongst Hmong people. In traditional Hmong culture art is incorporated into everday life, but is not necessarily respected as a career in its own right, she said.

Happy by Galea Vajxyooj

While at the opening I talked to John Kong, one of the artists. Kong is particularly skilled in animation, and used to dream of working for Disney. He said it took a long time to convince his parents that being an artist was worthwhile, but after he won several art competitions they changed their mind. Ultimately their support became extremely important in getting him through art school, Kong said.

Gao Zoua Pang by Kao Lee Thao

According to Dyane Garvey part of the goal of the HArc exhibition is to boost the work of Hmong artists within their own community. Last year she went door to door in the neighborhood, inviting families to attend the show. John Vang responded to the invite, and left a note saying how much the exhibition meant to him as an art student. This year, his work is on the walls.

White Trees in Autumn by Mai C. Vang

The exhibition also serves as a window into Hmong American culture and identity. In "White Trees in Autumn" by Mai C. Vang (seen above), Vang adds the following text to her painting:

Sometimes when snow covers everything in Minnesota I stare out my bedroom window and sigh. Childhood passes us so swiftly, fall becomes winter when we blink, oh I wish that I could always have white trees in autumn.

"New Directions in Hmong Art" will be on display at Homewood Gallery in North Minneapolis through July 31st.

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Hootenanny: A Community

Posted at 11:43 AM on June 23, 2009 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Music, Photography

Every Friday night in the basement of Java Jack's a bunch of musicians get together for a "hootenanny." It's been going on for three years now, and photographer Tony Nelson decided to capture the event on film. His profiles of the Mad Ripple Hootenanny musicians (including Billy Bragg, above) are on display at The Gallery @ Fox Tax in Minneapolis (yes, they do your taxes AND hang art on the wall). It's up through July 24th.

If you want to hear what the Java Jack's hootenanny sounds like, take a listen to a piece MPR's Chris Roberts did.

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Documenting life as a Somali-American

Posted at 2:53 PM on June 22, 2009 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Museums, Photography

Photographer Abdi Roble has been following Somalis for the last several years. He's tracked them from refugee camps in Kenya to shopping markets in Anaheim to offices of power and influence in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is known as "Little Mogadishu" amongst Somalis, and is home to some of their greatest success stories. Below is a slide show of just a sampling of the photographs now on display at the Weisman Art Museum, with narration by Roble.

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Is your home your castle? Your fortress? A wasteland?

Posted at 9:45 AM on June 13, 2009 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Photography

Last night I went to the opening of an exhibition of four McKnight photography fellows at Franklin Art Works in Minneapolis. While all four have very interesting and different things to say with their work, I was particularly drawn to the juxtaposition of the images of two of the photographers, Anthony Marchetti and Tom Wik. Both deal with personal space, although one looks at the walls we put up from the outside, while the other haunts the sad interiors we leave behind.

Palm Beach Shores 2, 2009

Tom Wik explores Floridian estates with an eye for the absurd. He finds houses and hedges that are often out of proportion with one another. The beauty of a brightly colored stucco home comes across as plastic, and poorly executed. These are houses that appear inpenetrable, but make you wonder just what kind of person lives there.

Riviera Beach 3, 2009

5-325 BR, 2009

Anthony Marchetti is what is called a "turn painter." He comes in and gives an apartment a new coat of paint before the next tenant moves in. His photographs capture the "inbetween moment" when the apartment still holds the residue of those who've just left.

7786-2, LR, 2009

You can read more about Marchetti's work, and see more of his photographs in a story by MPR's Chris Roberts.

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A builder of floating worlds suddenly finds himself in one.

Posted at 3:20 PM on June 10, 2009 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Museums, Photography

MPR's Euan Kerr reported this morning on Tomas Saraceno's new exhibition Lighter Than Air at the Walker Art Center. Saraceno likes to create floating worlds that challenge our notions of what can and cannot be. What didn't make the radio story was an account of the natural world taking Saraceno by surprise. He had travelled to Bolivia to shoot a movie out on the salt flats, and it started raining.

We were super tired and I was falling asleep in a small tent that was like a swimming pool - it was all wet, very shallow - two or three centimeters of water. A friend of mine said "come come!" I said "what's going on?" We ran outside and there was no moon - all the stars were reflected on the water and you couldn't see the water anymore. It was super crazy - stepping on the three Marias and the cosmos! It was the best 3D massive cinema I've ever been in - in real scale. It was a super great experience.

By day the salt flats became an immense mirror to the clouds and blue sky, and Saraceno found himself walking around in the floating world he so often tries to create through his work.

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Beautiful photography aimed at changing the world

Posted at 8:59 AM on June 5, 2009 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Film, Photography

Photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand is both a talented aerial photographer and a devoted environmentalist. At a recent TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conference, he joked he'd have to kill a Frenchman once he got home in order to offset the carbon he produced taking the plane. But in truth, Arthus-Bertrand is using his artistic talent to make the greatest impact, by showing what humanity has done to the planet.

His work is an example of how artists use their skills to help people make connections with emotions and ideas. National Geographic's David Griffin talks about the particular power of photography to connect people here.

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