How art works?

This asks 'what really matters?' and at least presents some solutions.

Zarina Bhimji

Zarina Bhimji is an artist whose work is close to my heart. My heart, my family's heart and the hearts of possibly 80,000 other asians who were expelled from Uganda in the latter part of 1972. Idi Amin, the infamous military dictator decreed in the August of that year that all asians should leave the country and hand back all their assets to the Ugandan people after a military coup earlier that year. Amin was the peoples ruler and wanted to correct what he saw as the inequalities of colonial legacy that did the Ugandan people out of what was rightlfully theirs. Of course it is claimed that he asserted his ideas at the expense of thousands of lives, through a rule of terror and tyranny.


My family's presence in this country is as a result of this history. I was 3 years old when we came here. September 27th 1972. All I have are some memories from past recollections, old photographs and family discussion. I can only imagine our life in Uganda through these stories and domestic reminders of how life was before we came to the UK.

copyright Zarina Bhimji, 'Bapa Closed His Heart, It Was Over', 2006, from the series 'Love'

Some of Bhimji's photographs and video work offer an insight into this past. She might not like that though. I went to hear her account of her work today. Although it is a starting point for a sensory and very personal experience of asian life, migration and colonialism, she positions it outside of testimony and documentary. She doesn't want to present the facts of what happened. After all, what are facts? - just an account of a truth. She also maintains that she wants the work to be open-ended and doesnt want to offer an interpretation. I get this. But its difficult for me and maybe other ex-Ugandans to not be immersed emotionally and factually into her imagery based on their own experience. I look at her work and I feel a sense of what I cant remember.

Zarina Bhimji's exhibition is on at the Whitechapel Gallery until 9th March 2012.

Taryn Simon - A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters

Taryn Simon is an artist whose practice typifies a kind of journalistic engagement with documentary photography. Simon’s work has consistently relied on a concept realised through heavy research and systematic ordering and presentation. Her latest work: ‘A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters’ consists of a four year long project of research, documenting and compiling eighteen stories of individuals whose circumstances have affected the fate of their genealogy or bloodlines.

JR - The InsideOut Project

An inspiring project combining 'street art' with photography and more importantly, its direct engagement with the people it depicts and its ability to work outside of the art establishment, and corporate/commercial interests and backing.
More information can be found here and on JR's website here.

Who killed Walter Benjamin?

This is an interesting documentary about the mystery surrounding the death of Walter Benjamin. He was one of the greatest 20th Century multi-disciplinary theorists and his life came to a tragic end in 1940. He had travelled to the small town of Portbou, Spain attempting to escape the Nazis and leave Europe for the US. It shows how the lack of official documentation leaves open questions of what makes legitimate testimony and asks where is the truth?

update 27/01/2012 - Original video removed from Vimeo, so here is the first 10 minutes.

Kefalonia 2

'swimming pool at dawn', Kalokeri Apartments, nr. Fiskardo, Kefalonia

Aaron Schuman on photography and education

I came across this by Aaron Schuman on the Foam 'Whats Next' feature.  Its a refreshing take on a photographic education.


'I think photographic education has reached a crossroads.  One direction leads down the vocational route - whether that's training people to be jobbing photographers or art careerists - and there's a lot a pressure for it to go this way, promoting photography as a commodifiable skill.  The other direction, which I think could be much more promising, is that instead of the focus being on a career in photography, the focus could be on the subject of photography itself.  This medium is rapidly becoming one that parallels the written word in many ways - it's embedding itself within culture, and within digital culture in particular, as an important form of communication, with its own vocabularies and variations, its own visual languages, dialects, grammars, accents, applications, and so on.  But when people choose to study subjects that centre on the written word - Literature, Classics, Philosophy, and so on - their intention is not always to be the next great novelist, philosopher or epic poet; their interested in trying to understand how a particular medium has been used to communicate ideas.  If this approach could be applied to the photographic medium, both in terms of its historical and critical studies and in relation to students' own practice, it could be incredibly liberating.  Instead of it being a discipline, photography could become a fully-fledged subject.  I think that expectations would change dramatically if it was approached in this way, but of course it's scary for institutions to promote a visual medium as something other than 'Art'.  For me, it possesses incredible promise as a subject - just because it's a visual discipline doesn't mean that it has to sit exclusively within a fine-art educational construct or context.' - Aaron Schuman

Jeff Wall in conversation

This conversation coincided with the launch of a new book on Wall's 'Picture for Women' by David Campany, published by Afterall. The talk was held at the new Central St. Martins College of Art and Design campus in Kings Cross, a magnificent conversion of what looks like an old textile mill. Wall's equally magnificent work is well known for its groundbreaking effect on art photography and its relationship to the museum. It takes on 19th Century painting's pictorialism in the form of a tableau within the single large format photograph. Walls work represents a turning point for museums adopting photography into the canon of high-art. Pictorialism and photography are often discussed together in the context of early attempts at making photographs look like impressionist paintings, but this pictorialism is concerned with the depiction of a scene, creating an extended narrative or narratives which, in Wall's case are subject to some considerable interpretation.

'Picture for Women', Jeff Wall, 1979.

David Campany's book focuses on the single work that is 'Picture for Women', as the book series is called the 'one work' series. However, in the talk Campany displayed slides and image detail from a range of Wall's works. The carefully selected questions coaxed out from Wall a great deal of information on his thoughts, ideas and processes. Wall definitely comes across as a photographer, I say this because in a lot of conceptual heavy work, there is separation between the act of taking a photograph and the thinking and building processes behind it, such that photographer becomes photographic artist. Wall maintains that his process is simply extended over a long period and that he still makes all the decisions and performs all the work that any photographer might do. He has to select the content, compose, frame, expose, process and print, albeit stretched over a longer period. To reinforce this he stated how Cartier-Bresson's 'decisive moment' is still valid in his process. 

'Mimic', Jeff Wall, 1982

Another thing of note was Wall's attitude to art. He said how it was not important for him to consider an art that satisfied only himself (his ego) or one that was created solely for the viewer. He is only interested in his critical position to art itself, it was only this that allowed him create  what he does - his feelings on "what art should be..". In Wall's work we see his distinct interest in various aspects of contemporary life, moments he discovers and then chooses to transform into images. At the same time, he is creating a fiction with realist medium and yet he claims that as the event has actually happened it is not fiction, implying that there is always something real about a photograph regardless of it being staged. It seems to me that photography is the perfect medium in which Wall can deploy his ideas as it inherently has the paradoxes and ambiguities that he believes should be questioned in art (or photographic art) itself. Its also interesting that how in the 40 years or so his work has been produced it has not changed much in terms of style, process and arguably content, although each of his works are fairly autonomous and have a life of their own. Incredible stuff.

'A woman with a covered tray', Jeff Wall, 2003

'Picture for Woman' by David Campany is published by Afterall Books, 2011. Jeff Wall is currently on show at the White Cube Gallery in Masons Yard, London from November 23rd 2011 to 7th January 2012.

Paris Photo 2011

Paris Photo this year was held in the very grand, Grand Palais in the heart of the Parisian tourist centre. As essentially a photographic art fair primarily concerned with sales, it has the effect of removing photography from the more usual gallery and book setting and highlights the photograph as a very serious, collectable art object. Despite this, the event sits alongside many other smaller shows and fairs which make for an interesting excursion outside of academic work or personal practice. Here are some photos from my iphone:

There were  always lots of people around In Sook Kim's 'Saturday Night' 2007.

From 'Suburbia', Bill Owens

Tereza Vlckova

'Positiv-Negativ', Robert Kusmirowski, 2011

Images of Jupiter taken by Voyager, NASA

Apollo take-off, NASA

Asako Narahashi, from 'Half Awake and Half Asleep in the Water', 2003

'Untitled', Jean-Claude Pondevie

'Breath', Tomohide Ikeya, 2008

Liz Hingley, 'Under Gods'

Atsushi Fujiwara

Vincent Fournier, from 'Space Project'

Xavier Veilhan

Xavier Veilhan

William Klein, 'Roma'

from'Nobody belongs to anybody', Rogerio Reis

Kristaq Sotiri

Andrea Graziosi

Walid Raad, from 'Lets be honest the weather helped', 1998-2006

Allan Sekula artist talk

Damn, I recently missed an interview with him at Paris Photo. Here is one from 2009 by The Renaissance Society. His work is introduced well, he discusses camera and frame formats, his relationship to his work, the image text relationship and his project at that time: Polonia and Other Fables.

Allan Sekula Artist Talk from The Renaissance Society on Vimeo.

John Berger quote

"I have said that a photograph bears witness to a human choice being exercised. The choice is not between photographing x and y, but between photographing at x moment or y moment. . . . What varies is the intensity with which we are made aware of the poles of absence and presence. Between these two poles photography finds its proper meaning. ... A photograph, while recording what has been seen, always and by its nature refers to what is not seen. It isolates, preserves and presents a moment taken from a continuum. ... Hence the necessity of our understanding a weapon we can use and which can be used against us." - John Berger

Kefalonia

Morning roadside, nr. Fiskardo, Kefalonia, Greece, September 2011.

Untitled, no.2

Absence of Presence pv video

Video of our recent show produced by Screencult

The Steve Jobs quote

Through some difficult times back in 2006 I came across this quote by Steve Jobs. It helped give me a push in the right direction and I havent looked back since. RIP Steve Jobs and thanks for this advice.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."
Steve Jobs, Commencement speech at Stanford University, 2005.


Sunday 9th October, 2011
Seems to be quite some ethical backlash on SJ's business and approach to marketing. I think its equally naive to hold such a person in a godlike status (because he invented and mass produced popular digital technology) as it is to denigrate him as a cold, manipulative business tycoon who will stop at nothing to succeed. See here. Isnt this pretty much how global corporate capitalism works? 

Office Space

'The Director's Office'

This is potentially a new commission for a legal office in Poland. I visited Poznan in June this year and whilst I was there I took some images of the space whose walls I will work with. The new office was just finished at the time and is already a busy place. I just need to work out a proposal for the wall space; images, sizes, framing, mounting etc. Which images will go here? The approach is less to reflect any business ethos through the images and more to provide an abstraction or formalistic distraction. Any progress will be posted here first of course!

'The Conference Room'

'The Computer Room'

Alpine days

'Downhill skier' from the series 'Alpine days'

Two birds, one stone. Pictured here are two friends amongst many that I've spent time with in the Alps on various trips throughout the years. These mountains will form the backdrop for fictional narratives that I intend to create through the series 'Alpine days'. These stories are far from the reality my friends and I experienced however, the mountains for us and many others represent escape, the sublime, fantasy, stories and fables - much like they did for the folk who lived below the Alps before they were conquered, believing that dragons existed high up. A contemporary subtext exists on top of these narratives, that of humans conquering this landscape for the purposes of leisure and tourism, and its affect on the environment.

'Chalet girl' from the series 'Alpine days'

Don McCullin

Aesthetics and photographing famine

"Aesthetics have no place in photographing famine" webinar with David Campbell and Jon Levy from OPEN-i (Open Photojournalism Edu on Vimeo.

Absence of Presence review

Last month I was one of a group of photographers who put on an exhibition called Absence of Presence – Photographic Studies of Identities in Flux. The show was held at the Rag Factory in Brick Lane, London and it started with a private view on the 21st July followed by a weekend of display lasting until Sunday 24th July 2011. This was the first time I had taken part in organising such an event and the first time also being a featured photographer in a group show. It was an amazing experience and here is a description of how it all worked out.

Exhibition overview. photo:Tania Olive

It all started back in January, as a module requirement of my BA course (at the University of Westminster), a group was formed, reluctantly and I was full of apprehension of what debates, arguments and nightmares that might follow. Being a photographer is often a solitary, personal and highly subjective experience and to throw seven of us together, all of us rookies, all of us with our own ideas and preferences, it would be an arduous task pulling together a show. The group consisted of seven photographers: Sherry Cuttler, Caroline Doran, Peter Hoare, Laure Martineau, Sarah Janes, Tania Olive and me. After deciding what we would show it quickly became apparent that all our projects were different in terms of content, style and meaning. This would leave us two approaches to the group show: either we use this difference to promote seven different works of seven emerging photographers or we identify a common theme which would bind our work together as a coherent whole. Whilst we deliberated over the theme, it occurred to us that ‘identity’ was a common factor in all our works. In fact, I’m pretty sure you can take any body of photographic work and align it with some concept of identity. Being particularly interested in this development I started to draw together interpretations of our work which could be considered together as a theme. It was based on the idea of a common misconception around the photograph: the belief that it is capable of capturing a person’s identity. This contentious and interesting photographic topic is full of holes and paradoxes. The idea that a single photograph represents the character of a person seems ludicrous, yet we tend to believe that it does. So much investment is taken into the image of ourselves and others: from passport ID photographs or snapshots uploaded and tagged onto Facebook or even surveillance camera frame grabs on CCTV. Bearing this mind we would suggest that although photography can be used for identification, it can at best attempt to represent the change in our identity. A changing identity based on our possessions, experience and environment is nearer to the truth of who we are and what shapes us.

After various group discussions and a couple of debates it was agreed this would be an interesting angle. There were issues around creating an exhibition title and this carried on for a bit longer than it should of. Also, it was not until April that we finally managed to assign individual roles and responsibilities. I was given the responsibility of text editor and due to my IT skills, I would also take a lead in the web/media role. In addition to this I would have to prepare my work for exhibition, help curate the show and generally support the team in various other activities, all of which were incredibly time consuming, sometimes highly frustrating but always necessary. I won’t bore you with the detail but everyone had their own responsibilities in addition to holding down the day job.

From the series 'The Waiting Game, photo: Sunil Shah.

Publicity through the press release and invites was done electronically. It’s probably worth mentioning how ‘good’ and ‘bad’ this can be. In our case we had set up an email address, web url, web blog, Twitter account and a Facebook page. This electronic presence is great and ensures a professional and efficient way in which to publicise your event. However, I must mention how you risk being ignored as spam or seen as pedalling your self-promotion a little too much, and so perhaps there is a fine line in getting it right. We did well through this although, it may have worked against us, as I think at times we might have been ignored, especially without the endorsement of certain industry ‘insiders’ who with a simple ‘Retweet’ or response might have helped our cause considerably. In retrospect, I think you need to ensure you cover all bases and allow time to remind people without forcing it down their throats.

Establishing layout, photo: Tania Olive

Back to the exhibition planning, I chose to show ‘The Waiting Game’, a project I photographed in spring 2010 featuring a soldier returning from Afghanistan. Rob, a friend of mine, completed his second tour and returned home for six weeks leave. He gave me permission to photograph him over that period; a project I consider my first serious documentary work. With this being its first public airing, I needed to think carefully about how to present it. Previously, I had incorporated the picture and text frame together whereby the Facebook captions where appended directly beneath the print using the Facebook font and colours. Although this married the image/text relationship to the social media very well, I felt there was always something contrived or too forced about it. I decided to work with a presentation dynamic which might help reinforce the drama and intimacy of the pictures and this was to create a selection of images placed in a cluster at different sizes. The framing and layout would help convey a homely feel and the sizing would encourage the viewer to move in relation to the image size creating a disruption to an otherwise linear movement across the room. The captions would be re-worked, this time shorter and leaving more to the imagination. One thing I have learned with this project is that it’s often better to leave some images open ended allowing more room for interpretation.

Final layout, photo: Tania Olive

The curation of the work along the long gallery space of the Rag Factory was performed by Sherry, Laure and Peter, with input from the rest of the team. Due to the varied nature of our work, it was quite easy to place work against each others however there were other challenges. Individual layouts and mounting/framing decisions were the responsibility of the artist. Costs generally kept the work to A2 size which was a concern initially as we envisaged large amounts of white space not being filled in the gallery space, not to mention the general feeling of inadequacy, as most photographic exhibitions these days display huge large format prints. With the posters, vinyl lettering and drinks purchased we were ready to rock and the final two days of setting up the display really proved how much we ‘gelled’ as a team. Each of us helped each other and I have to pay special mention to Tania here for helping get my work on the wall, before which I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and also a shout goes to Peter, who’s skills and experience in literally everything helped us and especially me in areas as diverse as DIY and English grammer.

At the Private View, photo: Tania Olive

The private view was possibly one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time. The exhibition had surpassed all our expectations and looked very professional. Whether we really succeeded is not for me to say but we all had some good feedback for our work and I guess that was one of the most important things: to get the work seen and to receive some response to it. It was also a huge learning experience in terms of curating, mounting, framing, publicity, sponsorship and many other aspects of putting on a photographic exhibition. So many friends, family and students supported us. We even saw one or two university tutors. It was all truly heart-warming and encouraging. Big thanks to all our team, the AOP Collective, we did an amazing job on our first show. Thanks also to Screencult: Ben, Catherine and Komal for the interviews and video work (coming soon), Silas and the Rag Factory, Heather Barnett and Silke Lange and everyone who came. Biggest thanks to my closest: Alinka, Basia, Tim, JW, Will, Michal and Kuba, love you all.

A riots perspective

A riot is a war on civilised society. Like with any war, morality and thought is replaced by a primal outpour and individuals capitalising on the situation. It is self-destruction and pointless and the knowledge of that only comes later. What is true is that this was inevitable and we have to accept our responsibility in ensuring we live in a society that listens to those that are unheard and who need to resort to these acts in order to be heard.