NOTES

1-10-18
NOTES

Brief History of the Photography Postmodernism in Photography (1839-1970)

• Louis Daguerreotype 1838
• first known candid photograph in history
• first conception of photography
• photography was first an experimental process
• 150 different methods
• number of devices
• ex. pinhole camera and camera obscura
• light hits hole and image projected upside down after amount of exposure
• in medieval times, used to trace images
• 1826 the window at Le gras by Niepce Niepce
• made first chemical photograph made with chemical after exposing plate for 8 hours
• first permanent image in history/was hardened embedded in plate
• when washed, image revealed itself used by the contact print
• after creating of process, he used compound silver
• invented the silver, collaborated Louis Daguerre
• beginning of black and white photography (exposing the silver to iodine paper and mercury fused which made a glass negative, produced in chemicals)
• William Fox Talbot (1800-18877) and John Herschel Calotypes 1841
• first photographers were scientist, created glass negatives (liquid light coated)
• made two positive prints of plants
• Talbot patented process in 1841to general public
• Photography becOMES POPULAR DAGUERROTYPES, CALOTYPE AND TINTYPES
• readly available to middle class and upper class
• everyone wanted to take their portraiture 
• but calotype and tintypes (metal plates making image more durable and permanent, and much more clear) 
• George Eastman in 1880s
• kodak camera went on a market in 1888 and after the invention of brownie in 1901, photography became so popular
• invented the roll of film, very convenient to photograph
• Brownie camera invented, 35mm camera invented
• responsible for creating the digital photography movement
• lasted until the digital revolution
• Color Photography (1861-present)
• the first color photography using three color method suggested bgy James Clerk Madxwell and taken by Thomas Sutton 1861
• chemist/artist
• the first color photography in printed in paper 1872, wasn't available until 20th century
• kodiac spent money to develop color prints in 1907 called Autochrome (first commercially color process)
• First commercially viable color film, Kodachrome in 1930s (by kodiac)
• Introduction to photography in the early 20th century
• Eadweard Muybridge, Thoroughbred bay mare "Annie G." galloping, Human and Animal Locomotion, plate 626, 1887
• incorporated artistic practices
• photography gaining reputable creditation in forms of scientific method
• Henri Cartier-Bresson, Behind the Gare St. Lazare,1932
• He considered as a pioneer of photo-journalism
• decisive moment aspect, convention of the medium
• Alsfred Stieglitz, the terminal, photogravure
• created pictoralism
• early artists used photography to create inspiring paintings/printmaking
• candid photography was invented
• What transformed perception of photography
• photographers were radically affected by industrialization, political revolution an d warfare, motion pictures, radios, airplanes, automobiles
• everything started to be industrialized, what should be or not be in photography began to develop
• ex August Sander disabled man 1926
• ex) August Sander Secretary at a Radio Station Cologne 1931
• what germans were supposed to look like. different occupations/different races
• Postmodernism..........in the 70s
• hard thing to define
• a period after modernism or to movements which react to the philosophies and aesthetics of modernism
• Rene Magritt's Painting, Pipe
• Robert Frank, Parade 1955
• our understanding of the history or current events adds a sense of identity/culture/social movements 
• which is increasingly seen in photography
• artist start interacting and working with photographs
• manipulates the truth with representational delusions "life is presented"
• cynical/mockery themes are presented
• Italian novelist and semiotician Umberto Eco should say that his vies is somewhat cynical
• shaping our psychic mentalities/moment comes when the avant-garde(the modern) can go no further
• anyone who does not understand the game can only reject it, but with the postmodern, it is possible not to understand the game and yet to take it seriously
• subjective/situational photography
• produces truth, which creates a narrative
• gives photographers to freely explore ideas and subject matter
• Pop art was formed/used signs and symbols of mainstream/commercial culture, and in fact appropriated them quite directly
• ex) Andy Warhol was a big pop artist in the 70s
• Edward Weston 1970s
• provided greater meaning and interpretation through mundane subject matter
• utilizing the excitement by the products and cultural wants
• "she's a working woman, but still a woman underneath"
• great authority of power and independence
• economical changes in history 
• Frank Majore: Blue Martini 1983
• sleek, mysterious, elegant tonality 
• breaking convention of what is called high art in photography
• Duchamp also played with concept
• Frank Majore: Bollinger advertisement
• people compare their lives to picture in magazines
• Appropriation
• most popular used by postmodernism
• taking an original piece of art work, and mimicking the artwork by interpreting in in your own tastes and vision
• all about content and context in artwork
• Richard Prince
• blew up real size images
• rethought about displaying art
• recreating aesthetic act/images were loaded with symbolism
• western/Marlboro images symbolizes the rugged interpretation of the American man
• freedom/conquer whatever they desire "Marlboro Man"
• Sherrie Levine
• "Walker Evens" first photographed the woman and man's body
• these pictures stopped belonging to the artist/belonged to culture
• signified the attributes of poverty, gender, society

01-17-2018

NOTES

Post Modernism Review

• cannot be defiantly defined
• different interpretations and styles
• the digital revolution completely changed in the 1960s
• new ways of creating photography
• in an image worked overflowing with images and layered with history
• it is impossible to "take" pictures with a fresh and innocent eye: all pictures are seen only through other pictures-pictorial intertextuality relationship
• photography in postmodern era was impacted by the IMAGEWORLD.  
• THE WORLD HAD BECAME SPECTACLES
• contemporary visual culture is a spectacle disseminated through photographic forms, reproductions of reproductions, simulacra o reality that never existed
• photography became no longer introduced in capturing realism (Robert Frank, Ansel Adams, Cartier Bresson, etc) but was concerned with re-creating images of images "Photography"
• Mark Klett
• Moraines on Clear Creek, Vally of the Arkansas, Colorado
• very famous - picture taken by american explorers of the west
• Mark Klett and JoAnn Berburg for the Rephotographic Survey Project 1977
• Clear Creek Reservoir, Colorado
• Klett's work creates a delicate complexity and depth of meaning built upon layer after layer of recovered human and geological narratives
• the results of these carefully recovered and repositioned layers are representations that blur both time and space
• reconstructs and juxtaposes multiply images to render a collage
• metaphorical for timelessness and historical preservations
• Cindy Sherman
• played with cinematic aspects
• performance artist - stages and dresses up herself as a protagonist to create the stereotypes of how women are presented by mainstream media
• creates nuance in all of her work; photographs are not considered self-portrait
• raising awareness about domestic violence, sexuality, etc
• everything is a representation in Sherman's work
• "Men watch women and women watch themselves being watched by men...ultimately women begin to present themselves in way they believe men want to see them.  The end result is the loss of self."
• many different interpretations in Sherman's work
• Conceptual Photography in the postmodern era (1970s-90s)
• conceptual photographer is trying to bring some message to the viewers whether it's political, social, commentary, emotional zeal...the image itself is not a concept, but general expression of the idea of the photographer
• it follows then, that a great deal of conceptual photography concerned with 'nature of representation
• how photographs picture the world - or how the world can be pictured in a photograph
• how the world can be pictured in a photograph
• how the photograph represent the world, how much do we believe photograph as reality, how much memory do we believe as real that is represented in photograph
• Kenneth Josephson
• pioneer in conceptual photography; originally a mathmatician
• mentored under teachers who created pictorial experiments; reflecting romanticizing scenes in the three-dimensional world creating a pictorial illusion through flatness in his work (illusion of depth)
• abstraction of the material world; philosophical world
• John Pfahl
• Altered Landscapes (1974-1978)
• redefined sense of illusion in landscape space
• Zeke Berman
• American, born in 195, L'Orange, Canada
• worked with illusionary space
• he is also a sculptor
• pioneer of constructed photographer; defies all sense of gravity and space
• Georges Rousse
• Born in Paris 1947
• creates optical illusion by transforming architectural space
• made installations in abandoned spaces by projections, then paints over them
• "The convergence of these spaces goes beyond a visual game; Like a hall of mirrors, enigmatic and dizzying, it questions the role of photography as a faithful reproduction of reality; it probes the distances between perception and reality, between imaginary and concrete."

01-24-18
NOTES

Postmodernism Review cont.

• David Hockney
• English, American, born Bradford 1937 England
• loved to photograph swimming pools
• created 2d format referencing movement and time
• Bigger Splash, Los Angeles 1962
• Pearblossom Highway 1972
• representational format, blurriness of movement, illusion of reality
• explored collage technic
• Vic Muniz
• Brazilian, born 1961
• addressed representational perspective in spaces
• played with how sculpture interacted with space
• works with unconventional matireals
• Valentine, The Fastest. From "The Sugar Children Series." (1996), Gelatin-silver print 20x16
• captured Brazilian slave that worked on sugar or coffee plantations
• "sugar is attacking the human health"
• many different interpretations
• Big James Sweats Buckets 1996 
• "Images are like microbes...an image works its way into your subconscious because it connects you to a memory, feeling, or idea.  But in a negative way because the viewer is intended to realize that the illusion is purely, and often poorly, crafted.  I'm always looking for what I call 'the worst possible illusion'."
• Yasumasa Morimura
• Japanese, born in Japan 1951
• transforms himself as main character in famous master pieces
• Manet's Bar at the Folies Bergere
• works with different mediums
• all painted and pain stakenly detailed
• his work questions about shifts in perspective
• "cultural commentator" how art history is created
• pushes cultural boundaries, re-questions how master pieces are chosen as significant in art
• why start with teaching western art
• fascinated with the aspect of 'looking' and 'seeing art' and the interpretation
• HE DEMANDS THE AUDIENCE TO SEE THE IMAGES
• who is the audience?
• Carrie Mae Weems
• American, born in Portland 1953
• works with photograph and text
• how is the image infomed by text
• portrays the race and color correlated with the stereotypes (names and nouns)
• sign is a signifier of a word called language
• "Colored people" series 1989-1990
• black and white photograph - color = know the context of the work
• identifying identity
• "From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried" ((1995-96)
• used red filter
• 'an anthropological debate'
• uses photography to seduce and inform society

01-28-2018
NOTE

Postmodernism Review Cont.

• Lorna Simpson
• American, born in 1960
• uses color and text to discuss racial issues in constructed images
• Is Simpson's work considered portrait work?
• showing people without their face
• use of language and fragments defines social structures
• "good twin, evil twin"
• reading of image
• text has more power? or picture has more power?
• totally identical in portraiture and text
• Time Magazine
• OJ Simpson looks darker because he is put in front of white background
• in the past, there was a rule to not put dark skinned people behind background
• text changes the experience and perception
• changes sizes of text
• text is powerful, paired together manipulates perception of image and text relationship
• changed experiences of how we perceive race in America of the things we see
• Gillian Wearing
• English, born in 1963
• "uses signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say" 1992-1993
• uses people, and tell them how they feel at that exact moment
• a type of documentary photography
• captures people as most objective and raw
• post-modernisms uses showmanistic qualities to gain audiences attention
• performance is the best way to criticize society
• mainly between 80s and 90s
• "Wearing"
• capture people in political way
• portrait work/raw snapshot/unflattering photograph?
• clear idea of who they are as people
• Shizuku Yokomizo
• Japanese, lives in London
• "Dear Stranger 1998-2000
• sent letter to stranger and asked stranger to stand in front of camera at certain time
• can where whatever they wanted, if not, they could close the window and turn off the light in their house
• Aberaldo Morell
• But I know you but you don't know me -title
• waits for the right moment in room, documents life (7-8 hours)
• created time in photograph
• constructs objects in photograph
• exterior and interior merge, room mimics camera projections
• Adam Fuss
• makes photographs without camera
• camera-less photography
• utilizes photogram technique
• solid moving object in front of the light to capture time
• abstract, spiritual work
• transforming into different visual "monster"
• "We're so conditioned to the syntax of the camera that we don't realize that we are running on only half the final alphabet...It's what we see every day in the magazined, on billboards and even on television.  All those images are being produced basically the same way,  through a lens and a camera.  I'm saying there are many other way to produce photo imagery, imagine that a lot of theme have yet to be discovered."
• "Ghost"
• "My ghost is a series of photographs begun in 1994.  They represent a personal expression...an attempt to express in visual terms an emotional presence...that is now absent.
• Susan Derges
• She says that she was fed up with 
• takes flashlight, and captures the intensity of the natural light hitting the colored constructed paper
• captures the movement of trees/uses the landscape as an enormous darkroom
• letting go of control in camera-less photography

Fabricated Photography

• staged photography/included in postmodern photography
• Hyppolyte Bayard, 1840
• "Tableau photography"
• Photographs are 'constructed' rather than 'taken'
• makes a statement that he was not included in the pioneer of photography
• sets the tone of fabricated photography
• he places himself in the photograph as a dead man
• images can tell a lie or the truth
• records things in the matter of no artistic appearence
• Ralph Eugene Meatyard
• American, 1925-1972 in Ohio
• non main-stream work
• photographed family with masks, created horrendous/spooky scenes
• full of darkness to criticize society and generality of desperation after the war
• Less Krims
• American, 19420-present
• "The incredible Case of the Stack O Wheats Murders of the Stack O Wheats Murders
• fabricated crime scene: stack of pancakes equal the number of victems
• represents feminism/anti-feminism
• making controversial statement
• Arther Tress
• American, 1940-present
• "Flood Dream, Ocean City New Jersey (1971)
• "Stephen Bretch, Bride and Groom New York (1971)

80s and 90s Staged and Fabricated Photography

• start of mass media and technology
• bombarded with masses of images 
• created attractive method for postmodernism
• characterizes basically directed nature of its subject matureness and identity, repression and power of the images
• tableau photographers are actually aware that the fictive can be presented within the matrix of photographic truth.. and that photographic truth may indeed be fictive
• by embracing the real and artificial in their work, they shift attention from how a photograph 

1. the photographers have expanded their traditional role
2. Because they ad useful detachment about photograph that enables them to use the medium in a way the pure photographer may not be able to

3. Rather, that are keenly aware of just how effectively photography can function as a carrier of information...and it's usually information they are trying to deliver in their work


1-31-18 & 2- - 18
NOTES

Wasteland - Vic Muniz

• "greatest artist alive"
• came to America by getting shot in the leg
• using everyday objects and incorporates it in his images
• "sugar children" was his most important work in his career
• captured children from the Carrabien
• "the sweetness was taken away from them"
• New York Times Wrote an article about it
• wants to change a group of people's perspective by utilizing an everyday objects
• mixing art with social projects; "form of classicism"
• Vic goes to Rio's biggest landfill
• meets the workers, aka pickers
• the culture impacts how vic wants to help the pickers gain money for recycling centers
• "DANGER RISK OF DEATH" sign at the entrance of the wasteland
• Vic photographs the people associated with the wastleand
• the cook
• the women
• the men
• the president
• captures the people's lives, and what they experience in their home life
• photographs the people, and recreates their portrait out of the garbage in the wastland