tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21628224553342496162024-03-13T07:34:19.052-07:00Art ProperA new perspective on the San Francisco art communityKate Nicholsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01289818598141179995noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2162822455334249616.post-10662499047457606872007-02-28T12:55:00.000-08:002007-02-28T13:51:07.739-08:00Todd Hido: The Clash of Interiors and Portraits<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/ReXwEA1ukgI/AAAAAAAAACY/pGNbSNVQw9U/s1600-h/images.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/ReXwEA1ukgI/AAAAAAAAACY/pGNbSNVQw9U/s320/images.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5036695710019260930" border="0" /></a><br />Known for capturing the desolate sadness mixed with the regularity of suburban homes, Todd Hido, with his new work, <span style="font-style: italic;">Between the Two</span> enters inside the home. His interiors have the same isolation as his earlier work, maybe even more so as we see the small details of someone’s life splayed before the camera’s eye. These details are infected with a heavy sense of depression. The rooms are mostly vacant, yet they contain the stale leftovers of life. They resonate with dashed hope and beginnings that have definitely ended and the images are successful because they leave the viewer wondering – what life inhabited this space and what has become of it?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/ReXwMg1ukhI/AAAAAAAAACg/JJxgMgbSg8c/s1600-h/1332_t.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/ReXwMg1ukhI/AAAAAAAAACg/JJxgMgbSg8c/s320/1332_t.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5036695856048149010" border="0" /></a>Unfortunately Hido answers his own questions by interspersing portraits of woman in various states of undress in his installation at the <a href="http://www.wirtzgallery.com/exhibitions/2007/2007_01/hido_2007_frame.html">Stephen Wirtz Gallery</a>. Vacant women stare back at us, not quite beckoning, not quite challenging – just blank. I suspect this approach might work if Hido hadn’t included strictly women, but as installed, these women appear as sex workers or nude models with no conceptual theme linking them. You don’t wonder who they are as much as why are they allowed Hido to photograph them – or even worse, why are you looking at them? As portraits, the images don’t go beyond the physicality of their bodies reclining on or near a bed. And, their inclusion strips away the murky psychology that makes Hido’s work so engaging.Kate Nicholsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01289818598141179995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2162822455334249616.post-1474952353526340412007-02-09T14:34:00.000-08:002007-02-09T14:57:25.712-08:00Hiroshi Sugimoto Lectures about his 30 year Photographic Career<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/Rcz6U7EgFxI/AAAAAAAAACM/yEn95ircnoY/s1600-h/images.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 316px; height: 240px;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/Rcz6U7EgFxI/AAAAAAAAACM/yEn95ircnoY/s400/images.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5029670121226901266" border="0" /></a><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Hiroshi</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Sugimoto</span> bears witness to the inevitability of change with his photographs. As Susan Sontag states in her book, <span style="font-style: italic;">On Photography</span>, <blockquote>"all photographs are memento <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">mori</span>. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt."</blockquote> In his lecture last Friday – co-sponsored by <a href="http://www.photoalliance.org/index.php?option=com_extcalendar&Itemid=91&extmode=view&extid=41"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">PhotoAlliance</span></a> and the <a href="http://www.thinker.org/deyoung/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?exhibitionkey=658"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">de</span> Young Museum</a> – <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Sugimoto</span> spoke about his 30-year career in photography and shared his perspective on capturing time.<br /><br />While <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Sugimoto</span> started the lecture with a video on his work that encapsulated his photographic practice, it was when he stepped up to the podium and shared slides of his work that his acerbic wit and contemplative wonder truly emerged.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/Rcz5lbEgFvI/AAAAAAAAABg/RJtMFAKOoWk/s1600-h/images-1.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/Rcz5lbEgFvI/AAAAAAAAABg/RJtMFAKOoWk/s200/images-1.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5029669305183114994" border="0" /></a>His seascapes, introduced with ancient Japanese renderings of the sea that influenced him, are simultaneously a study of a moment and of eternity. Similarly, his Theater series allows us to see in one frame the duration of a movie, folding time back on itself and re-presenting it. In his lecture he revealed a few titles of the movies, which, while hilariously <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">incongruent</span> to the serene photographs, added little to the rigorous concept fueling them. If you’re wondering, yes he did get permission to photograph inside the theaters, but only after a lengthy discussion on copyright infringement. (ha!)<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/Rcz4FrEgFrI/AAAAAAAAABA/Dl-JQ3dfDOc/s1600-h/images-2.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/Rcz4FrEgFrI/AAAAAAAAABA/Dl-JQ3dfDOc/s320/images-2.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5029667660210640562" border="0" /></a>His images of the Natural History Museum’s dioramas, which at first appear tangential to his aesthetic vision, are in fact in sync. They allow us to see a specific instance in our history, yet they float above reality precisely because of their hyper-reality. In looking at the Polar Bear hunting its prey, we can see through all that clarity that the image could never be “real”.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/Rcz50rEgFwI/AAAAAAAAABo/YXa06cKdRsE/s1600-h/images-3.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/Rcz50rEgFwI/AAAAAAAAABo/YXa06cKdRsE/s200/images-3.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5029669567176120066" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />In the Color of Shadows series, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Sugimoto</span> further unveils the notion of passage. As shadows cast their mark, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Sugimoto</span> is there to capture them with a complex simplicity that reveals the sublime. The <a href="http://www.fraenkelgallery.com/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Fraenkel</span> Gallery</a> is currently exhibiting this work (up until March 31, 2007) and on July7, 2007 the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">de</span> Young Museum will open <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Sugimoto</span>’s retrospective.<br /><br />While certain of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Sugimoto's</span> photographs can appear as the "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">emperor's</span> new clothes," the images that are successful function to heighten the viewer's awareness of the essence of what surrounds us every day.Kate Nicholsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01289818598141179995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2162822455334249616.post-82158803748054076302007-01-29T15:43:00.000-08:002007-01-29T19:32:15.283-08:00SECA Award Exhibition at SFMOMA<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/Rb6G-U3KLjI/AAAAAAAAAAs/j9zG8m-cuhA/s1600-h/Ezawa_HardcoreUncensored.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/Rb6G-U3KLjI/AAAAAAAAAAs/j9zG8m-cuhA/s320/Ezawa_HardcoreUncensored.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5025602639502126642" /></a><br />Every two years, one of the <a href="http://www.sfmoma.org">San Francisco Museum of Modern Art</a> auxiliaries, <a href="http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=252">SECA</a> (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art), recognizes a handful of remarkably talented local Bay Area artists culled from hundreds of artists nominated by professors, curators, gallerists and other recipients. This Saturday, January 27th, SFMOMA held the opening for their SECA Art Award Exhibition honoring Sarah Cain, <a href="http://www.hainesgallery.com/Main_Pages/Artist_Pages/KEZA.bio.html">Kota Ezawa</a>, Amy Franceschini, <a href="http://www.ratio3.org/pederson_a.htm">Mitzi Pederson</a> and <a href="http://www.jackhanley.com/id331.htm">Leslie Shows</a>.<br /><br />With a stunningly diverse range of media, these artists prove the vitality of San Francisco artists. I was especially excited by the landscape collage-paintings of Leslie Shows, with her adept handling of materials and understanding of scale, and the stylized re-creations of Kota Ezawa. His re-interpretation of the Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee sex tape is not to be missed.<a href="http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=252"></a>Kate Nicholsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01289818598141179995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2162822455334249616.post-6180509488187131432007-01-22T20:17:00.000-08:002007-01-24T18:56:49.769-08:00Review: Clinton Fein at Toomey-TourellClinton Fein<br />Toomey-Tourell<br />January 4th – January 30th, 2007<br /><br />As much as <a href="http://www.clintonfein.com/">Clinton Fein</a>’s photographs in his show at <a href="http://www.toomey-tourell.com/index.asp?/artists/united-states/clinton-fein/?2007">Toomey-Tourell</a> (49 Geary St, San Francisco) are about torture and politics, they are more captivatingly about reversing what we see imbedded in the images. Certainly Fein is drawing viewers into a political debate on the abuse of prisoners in the Iraqi prison, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prisoner_abuse">Abu Ghraib</a>, by re-presenting those now infamous images first published in April 2004. However, by re-photographing them with stylized, hyper-real clarity Fein is giving the viewer permission to look at what was shunned in the originals: the details and the psychology revealed in them.<br /><br />Fein furthers the idea that evidence of this atrocity is not only worth preserving (as the original captor-perpetrators did with their snapshots) but that it is also worth re-examining. Whether from image fatigue or short attention spans, Americans seem to have moved passed the initial horror invoked by the images three years ago. What Fein has effectively done is employ photography to critique the role of the original photographs. Whereas the original images were grainy and fuzzy, Fein’s images are sharp and precise, begging the question: which is more real? The viewer is left wondering.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/RbWQXk3KLhI/AAAAAAAAAAU/fjJEwxGJ3lI/s1600-h/2007-fein02-large.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_9Dy_ZOkzwJw/RbWQXk3KLhI/AAAAAAAAAAU/fjJEwxGJ3lI/s320/2007-fein02-large.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5023079694108077586" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-style: italic;">Number Ten</span>, Fein’s re-staged version of a simulated sex act among hooded detainees elevates the sexualized undercurrent of torture by offering for inspection each detail in a way the original grainy and blurred photographs did not.<br />His use of stylized, dramatic lighting indeed amps up these perversions to bring that agenda to the forefront and draws our attention directly to it. He has intentionally conflated aesthetic experience with shocking imagery. One could argue that Fein has aestheticized the grotesque with this approach. One could also argue that he simply intended to present an uncensored version. However, his intention is as blurred as his images are sharp. After all, he did include fictionalized re-staged scenes in this exhibition. While these photographs are well realized, their presentation is not as carefully crafted as the images themselves. There are a few fairly obvious cut marks and some buckling and this, unfortunately, interferes with Fein's well crafted aesthetic.<br /><br />That said, there are many thought provoking questions raised by this exhibition and San Francisco is fortunate to have an ambitious gallery willing to mount it. Among those questions: is Clinton Fein appalled by the images he re-presents? Is he investigating the abuse of power? Is he dignifying the grotesque, making it allowable to view? In his statement, he addresses many issues in terms of using art as a social tool, however his images seem more layered with multiple meanings than he lets on. He leaves questions dangling, which is far more titillating than if he would have offered concrete answers.<br /><br />(Coming to the Bay Area: <a href="http://www.art-for-a-change.com/blog/2007/01/abu-ghraib-botero-exhibit-in-berkeley.html">Fernando Botero</a> exhibition of his Abu Grhaib paintings at the University of California, Berkeley’s Doe Library, from January 29th to March 25th, 2007)Kate Nicholsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01289818598141179995noreply@blogger.com0