Friday 7 May 2010

YSL/ Camilla Akrans

I found these photos by Camilla Akrans, it's a tribute to Yves Saint Laurent for Man About Town magazine.




Thursday 6 May 2010


Larry Sultan


When I did research on Stephen Shore I found out about Larry Sultan. He photographed his father and family over a ten year period spanning the 70s and 80s as part of an elaborate project that included his parents own photos, home movies and statements. This was the Reagan era which preached the values of family life, a version Sultan didn't recognize.

He said: “Photography is there to construct the idea of us as a great family and we go on vacations and take these pictures and then we look at them later and we say, ‘Isn’t this a great family?’ So photography is instrumental in creating family not only as a memento, a souvenir, but also a kind of mythology.”




His photos possess a certain quality of hard-edged California light, heightened color, and optical precision. His photos also contain some kind of domestic familiarity that influenced some recent films like A Serious Man, The Savages and Punch Drunk Love.



Sources:

-http://www.artfacts.net/en/artist/larry-sultan-18189/profile.html

-http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-17/larry-sultans-california-dreams/


Monday 3 May 2010

YSL


The last exhibition I went to while in Paris was a retrospective of Yes Saint Laurent at the Petit Palais. It's still going till the 29th of August, if you have the opportunity to go you really should. The exhibition represent forty years of work through three hundred pieces chosen among five thousand. In the beginning of the expo are two rooms, the first one representing his real studio and the second one representing his inspiration and thought process. He is influenced by art, movies and the big modern figures.


He revolutionized the woman's wardrobe by borrowing the men's smoking and the tailored pants. That was his way of passing power attributes from a sex to the other. Inspired by the streets he created the Scandale collection in 1971, inspired by his dialogues with Art he made dresses resembling pieces from Mondrian, Picasso and Matisse, inspired by his imaginary travels he created costumes reflecting countries such as Russia, China, India, Spain, Japan and Marocco.



Here is a small video about the designer himself and the exhibition:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcmzbi_exposition-yves-saint-laurent-au-pe_creation


Sources:

-http://www.yslretrospective.com/

-http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcmzbi_exposition-yves-saint-laurent-au-pe_creation


Friday 30 April 2010


Feminism



From what I read online feminism is a philosophy in which women and their contributions are valued. It is basically an equality issue, may it be political, social or economical. It is also said that anyone can be a feminist, male of female.

Feminist art emerged in the 70s, Linda Nochlin published in 71 her groundbreaking essay Why have there been no great women artist? Which reflects on the social and economical factors that have prevented talented women from achieving the same status as their male counterparts.

While I was in Paris, I also went to the Centre Pompidou, the permanent exhibition was all and only woman artist. And the first piece was the big poster about the Guerrilla Girls.


I think it is a bit dumb, feminism wanting equality but then this whole year the permanent gallery is only female artist. Does that not defeat the point of equality?

In the exhibition, a lot of the pieces were naked women or them having sex, maybe that was part of the “First Wave” feminist art, where women artist reveled in feminine experience, exploring vaginal imagery and menstrual blood, posing naked as goddess figures.





One thing I did like is this:


Sources:

-http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=103

-http://www.centrepompidou.fr/

-http://ezinearticles.com/?What-is-Feminism?&id=507805

-http://www.lilithgallery.com/arthistory/feminist/

Wednesday 28 April 2010

IZIS : Paris des Reves (20th january - 29th may 2010)




During my Paris trip I went to a photography exhibition by Jewish-Lithuanian photographer Israëlis Bidermanas (1911–1980). He arrived in France in 1930 to escape anti-semitism and also to become a painter. Three year later he directed a photography studio. During the second world war he had to leave Paris, being a Jew and went south where he adopted the name Izis. Arrested by the Nazis and then freed by the Resistance he became an underground fighter. In that period Izis took a series of portraits of Maquisards which later became published.

Once back in Paris he became friends with Jacques Prévert. He took photos to go along poems written by his friend and other artists. Izis quickly took an important part in French humanist photography and is grouped with photographers like Brassaï and Doisneau. He is known for taking poetic photos of cities and people. He also worked for Paris Match for twenty years, choosing his topics.


At the exhibition they showed the cameras he used (a Leica and two Rolleiflex) and I was amazed, thinking that he needed to get really close to his subjects to be able to take his photos without them noticing. I also liked that most of his series are related to dreams.



In the video you can see some of his work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W70Du5vX6w4


Sources:

-http://arts.jrank.org/pages/10792/Izis-(Israëlis-Bidermanas-1911–80).html

-http://www.photographiz.com/biographie/izis/

-http://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/izis/



Monday 26 April 2010


Stephen Shore



Edie Sedgwick!


Stephen Shore started photography at an early age. When he was six he received a photographic darkroom kit and three year later, he began experimenting with color photography with a 35mm camera. He was strongly influenced by “American Photographs”, a book written by Walker Evans, which was given to him in 1957. One thing I think is really cool is that he met Andy Warhol at the age of 17 and was inspired to photograph the artist's studio. Frequenting Andy Warhol and the Factory must have been an amazing experience. That I think is what makes him an interesting photographer, because of the opportunity he had, being able to hang out with Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick (I recomend you watch the movie “Factory Girl”).

Here are some photos from that period:




Later in 1972, he was attracted to the American landscape and began taking cross-country road trips and documenting them. He first documented his trip using a 35mm camera and was asked to take the trip again using a 4x5 camera. Most of his American landscape photos can be found in the “Uncommon Places” book. He, along side of William Eggleston is recognized as one of the first color photographers.




Sources:


-Uncommon Places: The Complete Works, Stephen Shore.

-http://wwar.com/masters/s/shore-stephen.html

-http://www.jenbekman.com/stephen_shore_bio.html

Saturday 17 April 2010


Philip Lorca diCorcia


I didn't know who to pick from the list of photographers, because we've talked about most of them numerous times. Anyways, here is another post on Philip Lorca diCorcia's.

Every time I hear about him he seems to be known only as the brilliant photographer which finds a location, then looks for a person in the street and pays him to pose for him.

DiCorcia did no limit his career to fine art photography, he was also a commercial photographer. In the early 1980s, after his graduation from Yale, he assisted numerous professional commercial photographers. It is said that he was drawn to this type of work and started making a living as a freelance photographer for various magazines such as Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times Magazine and many more. He did not always comply to normal standards of commercial photography but instead added to his work his own unique way of looking at the world. Only later on in his career as a photographer did he do more fine art oriented photography. That, is what I think makes him an interesting photographer, his professional development. Unfortunately I counld not find any of his commercial work to post on the blog.

Now, he is mostly known for his signature style which is the use of highly dramatic, cinematic lighting and his carefully composed photographs. They might look simple but are in reality highly staged fictitious scenes. His most well known series of images “Hollywood 1990-1992” shot in Los Angeles strongly reflect his signature style.

Here are some photos of his that I quite like.







Sources:

-http://www.brain-juice.com/cgi-bin/show_bio.cgi?p_id=151

-http://www.cmoa.org/international/the_exhibition/artist.asp?dicorcia