The Mall - take II

Someone mentioned the work of Brian Ulrich in connection with my quest for Mall photography (though that wasn't who I was thinking of).

I've been meaning to post on Brian's work for a while. I think he takes a broader look at consumerism than just "the mall", but has some very good (excellent in fact) work on the subject none the less (some of it reminds me of a softer, gentler version of some of Martin Parr's "consumerism" work - I know at one point Brian showed his work to Parr).

There's a good interview with Ulrich on Conscientious, and here's a few selections from his work for now.

BTW, I think the existence of draconian regulations and restrictions (as one commenter put it) on photography in such places as malls and stores is all the more reason for photographers to be doing some good work there.

Here's Ulrich's comments on a bit of that (I've no idea if he has permission from any of the stores?): "With the Copia pictures, most people have no idea they've been photographed. I'm using a waist level viewfinder and am actually very close. They might notice me with the camera and ask about it. I try to say something simple along the lines of 'oh this is just a new camera, I'm trying to figure out how it works' or something along those lines. Again I'm not trying to deceive here, I just know that if I really try and get into a discussion on a larger idea, people will make assumptions on that idea. Kind of like when you tell someone an idea for a photo project and they shoot it down, well it's just an idea and the picture is going to be very different. I'd much rather have a discussion over the finished picture than a concept. I have 'found' some of the people in the pictures and they've all either cared very little, or thought it was really funny. The older couple with the motorized cart, I later found out, is a good friend of my Grandparents. I sent them and her each a print and they were going to blow it up and put it on their front lawn!"

The Mall

Here's the poem I mentioned yesterday by Evelyn Lau (and here) from The Walrus:

THE MALL

Today I choose it over the ocean.
Over the trees, their fall leaves
a flock of orange parrots perched on branches.
Over the chandelier of sunlight broken
on blue waves, over flowers
shaped like teacups or trumpets,
over the jade garden where once I dreamed
I wore a green velvet dress
clasped tight at the waist
like the grip of a man’s hand.
I walk towards it like a Zombie,
this strange planet suspended in time,
a space station in the rainforest
inhabited by teenage girls wearing glitter eyeshadow
and slippery lipgloss. I skate
along its arid walkways
as if on an invisible track, away
from my life. Here it could be day or night,
the walls stripped of clocks,
music moaning a mindless refrain,
not a window in sight.
The stores hold their mouths open
like seductresses, radiating heat and light
and a bright array of wares,
a sorbet rainbow of merchandise
delectable as pastilles.
Outside, the lives of grasses
and insects and breezes go on.
After a day at the mall,
stepping back into what’s left of the world,
the sunlight will sear your skin,
and the gallons of fresh air
will pour over you like pain.

- Evelyn Lau


For me it perfectly captures the spirit (or lack thereof) of Malls. I find them deadening, soul destroying places. I don't know if it's still the case, but West Edmonton Mall used to be the largest mall on the planet - entering there on the rare occasions when I have to (such as when a visitor to town really wants to see it...) is like entering one of Dante's levels of hell. Although I haven't worked out precisely which one yet.

My question is, where is all the good "mall photography"? (Obviously I don't have any, I had to go with the next best/worse thing: sub-arctic Walmart). A huge portion of the lives of North Americans is spent in malls. In fact, not just N Americans, but increasingly Europeans and others - when I was in Nicaragua a few years ago, malls were being built in the centre of the still earthquake damaged Managua.

Much "classic" street photography - as it is often still practiced - seems like a sort of quaint anachronism when put alongside the life of the mall. I recall someone on the Streetphoto list at one time was doing some good work along these lines (I've lost the link...), but what else is there out there being done? I haven't come across much, but maybe it's out there.

Featured Comment: from Adrian Tyler:

"it's gonna be difficult, firstly because every mall in every town in every country in the world is the same, and (as william bouroughs says) so are the people in them. secondly cameras are prohibited. i got a commercial project which involved photographing a mall, i thought "bingo" but the contacts where as nullifingly boring as the mall itself.

So to your question where are all the good photographs? well in the age where the "white noise" of contemporary photography reaches almost everywhere, perhaps it's because the image processing software program to make those places real and interesting just hasn't been invented yet!"

Or as Rem Koolhaas put it, "Close your eyes and imagine an explosion of beige" (I recently heard on what was ostensibly a comedy show, a design company trumpeting their greatest achievement as the invention of the colour greige - which was far too close to the truth to be funny...)




(Photo: Walmart, Yellowknife. Tim Atherton)

Edward Butynsky in The Walrus

Well, back from my sojourn at the cottage (19kbps connection on neighbors phone line - gave up after a couple of attempts. The web is just not designed to work on dial up any more...).

But, I did take a pile of books and magazines to read.

One of them was the current edition of The Walrus (a sort of Canada in Harpers). Ed Burtynsky has the cover (one of his newer marble quarry photos) and a two page essay inside. I found two points interesting.

First, he comes out pretty clearly as being opposed to massive unsustainable development - of the sort that much of his photography depicts - and rather green. Albeit in a mildly Canadian way.

Secondly, says many of his photographs were intentionally ambiguous. He wanted to leave their meaning open ended so as to enable him to continue having access to the places he wished to photograph. While he excuses this on the ground of disliking polemics and cliches, I think some of his work suffers because of it.

(He also said he gave up early on trying to photograph "just" the Canadian landscape because of what he calls the gravitational pull of cliches. But I've seen a bit of this work, and I think it's some of his best - I wonder what would have happened had he pursued this?)

An interesting read if you can find a copy - in fact the magazine is nearly always worth reading. There isn't usually too much obvious CanCon (aka "Canadian Content" - a federal regulation for TV funding) in most issues - this one has a rather good poem by Evelyn Lau called The Mall.

(photo is one of Burtynsky's earlier Carrera images)

Hiedegger's Hut

I've been reading an interesting little book recently - Heidegger's Hut (or Hütte). As the blurb says, "This is the most thorough architectural 'crit' of a hut ever set down, the justification for which is that the hut was the setting in which Martin Heidegger wrote phenomenological texts that became touchstones for late-twentieth-century architectural theory."

Apart from a rather obtuse Intro and Prologue, the book itself is actually quite straightforward. What it does do is give an intriguing insight into the importance of this structure and place in the Heidegger's life. Indeed, it seems intimately interwoven with his thought and philosophy. (Nor does the author gloss over the various contradictions in Heidegger's life, especially his still unresolved relationship to nazism).

It's not especially photo oriented, but for anyone interested in understanding place, this is an interesting read. Indeed, Heidegger's short essay Building Dwelling Thinking has influenced contemporary planning and architecture to such a significant degree that anyone interested in the modern city and urban condition is probably being influenced by Heidegger whether they realise it or not.

"Here is a fascinating backdoor entry into Heidegger’s (in)famous hut — that mythologically and ontologically so easily over-invested dwelling place in the Black Forest mountains of Southern Germany — from its architectural ground plan and local wood shingles to the loftier reaches of the philosopher’s thought. Author-architect Adam Sharr gives us no fawning laudatio, but a revealing, nonpartisan, demythologizing reflection on the relation between place and thought. In the process he casts Heidegger’s reflection on building, dwelling, and thinking into a new, cooler, and wider light — reaching beyond its specific locale to questions of provincialism versus cosmopolitism, localism of sustainability versus global technological society, authenticity versus agency". Pierre Joris

Here is Paul Celan's enigmatic poem (translated by Pierre Joris) written after a visit to Heidegger at die Hütte in 1966:

TODTNAUBERG

Arnica, eyebright, the
draft from the well with the
star-die on top,

in the
Hütte,

written in the book
- whose name did it record
before mine - ?
in this book
the line about
a hope, today,
for a thinker's
word
to come,
in the heart,

forest sward, unleveled,
orchis and orchis, singly,

crudeness, later, while driving,
clearly,

he who drives us, the man,
he who also hears it,

the half-
trod log-
trails on the highmoor,

humidity,
much.

(Photo Digne Meller-Marcovicz)

Andre Kertesz

When I'm travelling I often like to take one or two of the little Phaidon 55 or Photo Poche books with me to leaf through in a quiet moment.

One I brought with me this time was on Andre Kertesz. Kertesz has always been on of my favourite photographers. His pictures often have a grace and gentleness to them and yet they so oftain remain dynamic.

In some ways, I think he embodies a certain 20th Century "quick with the eye" aesthetic far better than say Henri Cartier-Bresson, who seems much more of a cool (even cold) virtuoso. To me Ketesz is much more human.

Last year I got hold of a copy of the very small book of pictures selected from the many early contact prints in the Kertesz archive - Andre Kertesz:The Early Years and found it to be a gorgeous little jewel of a book.

Whenever I return to Kertesz's work it is always something of a refreshing inspiration.

Looking-Glass Editions - Print #3 - new print

As I'm going to be heading out into the Prairies soon, I've selected the third print for my Affordable Art Editions. It's from - Peripheral Vision - The Yellowknife Project and the picture is "Slow Children". This will be the last print for at least two or three weeks, so this is one you don't want to miss.

(Click on the picture for a larger view)

There no longer appears to be a clear division between the suburbs and either the urban or rural environment. There now seems to be a generic suburban condition that may be a potential quality for all inhabited spaces. This extended suburban condition does not easily show up on maps, it is in many ways more of a suburban state of mind than a topographic location.

Yellowknife - a city perched on the Canadian Shield and surrounded by Boreal forest is like an isolated specimen of this condition - the idea of the suburbs. Wherever you are in Canada (or indeed, North America) there is a mundane, yet reassuring familiarity to the suburbs and the strip malls and the big box stores that results from the pressure of market forces and from blunt expediency. And while each place often displays subtle individual differences, the movement is away from difference towards similarity and the success of homogenization. What dominates is the generic.

In photographing this I find myself looking at things that are somewhat off centre,
off to the side - a peripheral vision. Things that are often unnoticed and just below our level of perception. Things seen that are in plain sight yet so familiar or obvious they are usually ignored, unseen, and their existence barely registered - attention no longer paid to them.

Phyllis Lambert, Architect, Curator and Founding Director of The Canadian Centre for Architecture had this to say about the work from the project (she also has a number of prints from this project in their collection): “This intelligent and sensitive group of photographs establishes a landscape that is so familiar - whether it be in the outskirts of Montreal or Yellowknife - the"urban/suburban condition that is ubiquitous. The prints are remarkable.”

This picture is the third of the Looking-Glass Edition affordable prints and is available for only US$25.00 until the edition of 100 is all sold out - print is 7 1/2"x9 1/2". The first print is already selling rather better than I expected...

Simply click on the link below to buy - 25.00 + 9.50 shipping to wherever you are.(If you are in Canada, email me at the link in the sidebar, as shipping is a bit cheaper. I will also take USPS International Money Orders - again, email for details.) NOTE: I'll be shipping during my travels back and forth - or at least my "support crew" will be... so don't hold back on ordering...!

John Szarkowski 1925-2007

Checking in from the boonies I was saddened to see that John Szarkowski died this past weekend (I know he had a stroke earlier this year, but he appeared to be recovering).

Over the last few years John had been very generous to me with his encouragement and constructive criticism about my work and I will always value my correspondence with him - especially, but not only, his humour.

A massive influence on twentieth century photography, as well as a personal influnce.

He will be sadly missed

Lartigue - The Invention of an Artist

I've been reading an interesting book called Jacques Henri Lartigue: The Invention of an Artist by Kevin Moore.

I've always liked a few of the "classic" photographs by Lartigue, but I've never been entirely wowed by his work (in the way I have by, say, Kertesz). But I came across this book in the Library and have found it quite interesting. Lartigue certainly had an "eye" - the results of which can often be quite telling. But he was not perhaps quite as unique as we have generally been led to believe.

Basically Moore makes a fairly strong case that Lartigue as the "naïve primative" child of Modern photography, as a sort of savant, is pretty much a myth.

He goes into quite a lot of intriguing detail setting out how Lartigue was actually very much a person of his time, part of a wider grouping of similar photographers and that he grew up in a home atmosphere which was saturatd with photography and "amateur" scientific tinkering and that by the time he was a young man - when most of his better known pictures were taken - he had a thorough understanding and training in photogrpahy at the hands of his father. (For example, the famous racing car with the "oval" wheel was a not uncommon style of image at the time)

The book then goes on to argue how, when he was "discovered" by the MoMA in his 60's, he was essentially co-opted in order to be one of the foundations of their mission to develop an authentic history for Modern Photography.

Fascinating stuff, included some interesting sections on photography at the beginning of the 20th century as well as the whole myth-making process around Lartigue's first exhibition in New York - indeed some widely accepted "facts" about Lartigue do indeed appear to be pure myth...

PS - A story comes to mind - a photographer friend of mine once had Lartigue to stay when he was across in his 80's for an exhibition - apparently he was a delightful house guest. The old man took some photos of the sons of the family and prints were duly sent back bearing the Lartigue signature -however, they were it seems, rather ordinary.

Gone fishing...

Well, actually I don't fish (though I do help my 6 year old collect bugs, water beetles and frogs).

I'm going to be back and forth over the next couple of weeks, so it's going to be quiet on here.

BUT do keep ordering prints...! (I will be checking gmail and shipping).

And I may make the occasional post here and there. Happy Canada Day ( and Fourth of July)

I want to be here - Julian Thomas

I see Julian is selling prints of one of my favourites of his pictures.

I want to be here - sat in a cafe, drinking espresso and nibbling pastries and reading Pessoa and Berger and Carlos Williams and Calvino...

I guess I'll have to settle for northern Saskatchewan and mosquitoes as big as small helicopters :-)

Melissa Catanese's "Jungle"

Ms. Catanese seems like a woman after my own heart, with a love for the visual messiness and confusion of forests and woodlands.

I would love to see these as physical prints. She has other interesting work on her site as well

They also remind me a little of Thomas Struth's Paradise pictures

Robert Polidori's Stop Smoking/Katrina ads

"Your Body is Your Home. Don't Smoke" is the slogan - there has been a little (but not that much as far as I can tell) discussion about these adverts from an award winning Anti-Smoking campaign in Brazil - here and here.

The intriguing thing is that they use images of domestic devastation from work that Robert Polidori made in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast post-Katrina.

Now, there was already a little bit of uncomfortableness over the Katrina devastation work being displayed as "art for sale" in galleries (I don't have too much problem with that, though I'd have to wonder about individuals - as opposed to institutions - that would buy it...)

(and there was also a spirited discussion of Polidori's Katrina work on Alec Soth's blog)

Then Bill Griener wrote some fairly angry posts about photographs that Polidori made of a victim of Katrina who had died in his own bed. Bill felt it was a terrible invasion of privacy and a fairly awful thing to do (I felt conflicted about it - a big part of me agreed with Bill and completely understood his reaction, but I also wasn't quite sure what was that different about Polidori's photographs and the probably hundreds or thousands of intimate photographs of the dead and injured from wars and disasters around the globe - oft times in their own hones - about which we tend not to make so much noise in terms of ethics. I think that it was in the USA somehow brought home the potentially callous nature of such photography).

Which brings us to these recent photographs - or rather the use to which they have been put.

First, they are quite intimate photographs shot - I'm guessing - in many cases without the permission of the homeowners (?), showing the devastation wreaked by hurricane Katrina in ordinary homes.

Then, they are taken entirely out of context (in fact, for the ads to work the context of the photographs needs to be essentially unknown) and used as a sort of metaphor for the internal destruction smoking causes to our bodies.

A good idea, and even though this is for something of a "good cause", is this, I wonder an appropriate use for such images?

I'd also be interested to know, did Polidori donate the use of these images, or was he actually paid a standard advertising usage fee? I think it might make a difference, but I'm not sure how much? Is it, as one commentator has put it - simply not in good taste?

(I'd also be interested to know if the property owners gave their permission for the images to be used?)

below - a non-ad Katrina photo from Polidori - at least so far. Roofing Contractor anyone?

The Fantasy World of Ryan McGinley

A somewhat pointed critique from Slate - Does Photography's Hot Young Thing Deserve All The Hype (follow the slideshow and article), about Ryan McGinley and his roadtrips with a couple of vans of models and crew - which, after comparisons with Larry Clarke, Nan Goldin and Wolfgang Tillmans, concludes:

"What's striking is how easily McGinley's signature style translates from one platform to the other. His shots of naked twentysomethings riding bicycles through the countryside mean more or less the same thing on the walls of the Whitney or in an ad for Puma. McGinley has essentially created a successful lifestyle brand—a stylish fantasy of youth, beauty, and hedonistic fun. It's great for selling sneakers and cell phones. But I think we can expect more from art."

At what point, I wonder, does it just become The Simple Life?

(p.s. - have you ever actually tried riding a bike naked... ouch)

Bernd Becher redux

Following up on the news of Bernd Becher's passing, Sightandsound has re-posted a very good interview with the Bechers that took place in conjunction with a retrospective of their work:

"If against all expectations, Wim Wenders were to make another good film, set on dusty highways, in cheap motels and provincial coffee shops – these could be his heroes: two strangers in Alabama, sometime in the seventies, lovers, driven by one obsession. They've been waiting for the right light for weeks, just the right amount of cloud, to photograph the recently closed blast furnace at the local steelworks, just as they have photographed a hundred other blast furnaces before. It's a fight against the sun and the clock. In the evenings the man stands in a windowless shower room of a seedy five-dollar motel and develops the films while the woman prepares dinner on the gas stove. And again they'll have to wait for a day when the sun burns less mercilessly, a day, they fear, which could come too late.

The blast oven is up for demolition any day, only a lone trade unionist who they met the previous evening at the bar in "Logan's Roadgrill", seems still to have any hope. The government, a new investor, any one could step in at the last momentand save the region from decline. The strangers know better: the only thing that will remain are their pictures.

Bernd and Hilla Becher have taken thousands of them over the last 50 years. Photographs of winding towers and cooling towers, of silos, lime kilns and blast furnaces, of coal bunkers and gravel plants. They are the souvenirs of a world recently lost...." more here

The most influential work of modern art

From Clare Margetson at the Guardian Art Blog - The most influential work of modern art, commenting on a Newsweek feature (worth reading btw). For once, they seem to have came up with a pretty good answer: Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (a stunning and revolutionary painting based, in part, on a photo postcard...):

"The new edition of Newsweek asks a familiar question, Which is the most influential work of art of the last 100 years? The answer, according to Peter Plagens: Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

No great shock there. I can still remember the first time I was shown the slide of this extraordinary work by my history of art teacher and told this was the painting that changed modern art. It seemed brutal, extraordinary, ugly, yet exciting, to my untrained eye. My teacher certainly never mentioned Marcel Duchamp's Fountain - the chilly looking urinal, marked R.Mutt, that in a survey of 500 artists and curators, beat Picasso to the top spot (Les Demoiselles came second, Warhol's Marilyn Diptych third).

Tyler Green on his blog today makes a good case, on the other hand, for Matisse's Blue Nude, although Matisse didn't figure at all in the artists' survey. Should Matisse have been there? Or should he forever play second fiddle to Picasso?

And, if you were to think of the most influential work of the last 20 years, what would that be? Sharks, beds, white blocks ... I suppose it is too early to say."

Or Damian Hirst's diamond skull... nope

Ha - real or fake...?

Take this auto desk test and see if you can tell which images are real and which are computer generated (via Mrs Deane - although I was actually targeted with an email from them about it which I didn't bother to read).

Thankfully I got 9 out of 10 - but I'd love to get my mum to try it (if she actually used a computer that is...) and see if she could tell.

Who needs product photographers anymore....

(of course I'm probably just contributing to autodesk's advertising posting this)

Covering Photography

(Lee Friedlander)

A while back Alec Soth wrote and interesting piece about photography and book covers

(Atget)

Then today I noticed a post by Mary Virgina Swanson about "Covering Photography" a sort of database and archive of photographers and book covers. You can search by photographer, author, publisher etc. It's surprisingly interesting. Especially intriguing is what photographer is matched with what book - sometime rather incongruously so. And how many of my favourite photographers find their way onto the covers of books of poetry...

(Roger Fenton)

(oh, and Alec mentioned Covering Photographs in his original post, but I never clicked on the link...)

(Robert Adams)

POSTSCRIPT - Drew commented on this cover for the Iliad - cool...:

Looking-Glass Editions - Print #2 - affordable art

So, the people have spoken (sorry Mel).

I've selected the second print for my Affordable Art Editions. It's from - Traces: Alleyways and Spandrels my current "work in progress" and the picture is "Alleyway #5 - 83rd Street"

(Click on the picture for a larger view)

"The alleyways of the city and suburbs provide a sort of unnoticed network of alternative routes and pathways. They are usually ignored and unnoticed, often uninhabited, especially during the day. I look for traces of things - of people, of memories – clues. I often find myself led from one thing to another, often like following evidence. I photograph to make sense of things around me, to try and understand what I see - these traces, these clues give rise to more questions, and to looking more closely."

I recently started to send some of this work out to some trusted colleagues and curators and I am already getting very positive feedback from them - probably more so than any of my work to date, the the project as a whole is still pretty raw right now.

This picture is the second of the Looking-Glass Edition affordable prints and is available for only US$25.00 until the edition of 100 is all sold out - print is 7 1/2"x9 1/2". The first print is already selling rather better than I expected...

BTW - if you actually frame this - as opposed to sticking it on the fridge with a magnet - it looks really good with an over-sized matte.

Simply click on the link below to buy - 25.00 + 9.50 shipping to wherever you are.(If you are in Canada, email me at the link in the sidebar, as shipping is a bit cheaper. I will also take USPS International Money Orders - again, email for details.)

Bernd Becher 1931-2007

The wires are reporting Bernd Becher passed away in Rostock.

Becher, working alongside his wife Hilla was known for his industrial typologies. As a professor at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf , he was also known as the influential teacher and mentor of most of the members of what has become known as the German Scool - Struth, Gursky, Esser, Höfer, Ruff and many more.


(Hilla and Bernd Becher - Photo by?)

Becher was probably one of the major influences on contemporary photography.

(Link to NY Times obit)

Atget at the BnF

La Bibliothèque nationale de France currently has a rather good online exhibit about the work of Eugene Atget (as far as I can tell, only in French?). It seems pretty easy just to click around on it and enlarge various images, which are collected together in different themes Le vieux Paris, parcs et jardins, zone et banlieue etc as well as section on the Albums, Atget himself, some you can zoom right in on and so on.

There are certainly lots and lots of pictures on here to enjoy (almost every image on any page can be clicked on and enlarged)

The actual physical exhibition itself is only on until July 1st - so if you are lucky enough to be in Paris, hurry along there before it closes.