tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44619634827252025342024-03-08T11:51:29.073-05:00Tim ConnorLooking at visual cultureTim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.comBlogger536125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-27031487476804361182015-01-24T11:07:00.002-05:002015-01-24T11:10:44.832-05:00Thomas Struth: Striving for the big picture<span style="font-size: x-small;">Review by Tim Connor</span><br />
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As a photography student at <span style="background: white; color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Kunstakademie<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Düsseldorf</span></em></span> in the 1970s, Thomas Struth learned to create
big, highly detailed pictures with his classmates – now photographic luminaries
-- Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff and Candida Hofer. At the time their teachers, the
legendary husband-wife team, <span style="background: white; color: black;">Bernd
and Hilla Becher</span>, <span style="background: white; color: black;">taught a
technically rigorous system to “objectively” document disappearing German architecture.
</span><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">According
to the Becher system, subjects must be captured serially with a </span><span style="background: white; color: black;">large-format camera </span><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">using black-and-white
film under a cloudless sky. All subjects must be shot from uniform distances
and heights, printed with medium contrast at a prescribed size and shown
together to facilitate comparison.</span></div>
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In his current show at the Met we see Struth’s homage to
this exacting style -- a wall-sized grid of black-and-white prints showing
well-known New York City intersections in 1978. Older New Yorkers may treasure or
rue these pictures as memories, but the more salient point is that, soon enough,
nobody will be alive to remember them. Still, there is much to admire in the
way the pictures treat, not only the streets and buildings , but everything -- every
parked car, overloaded trash can and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>random walking-through-the-shot human -- with exactly the same crisp, non-judgmental
clarity. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/16345184925" title="CrosbyStSoho1978_struth by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="CrosbyStSoho1978_struth" height="422" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7519/16345184925_fd67d6c2eb_o.jpg" width="600" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Crosby Street, Soho, 1978," Thomas Struth, All rights reserved</span><br />
This is Struth’s first major project. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Afterward, his career moves on fast. Without
abandoning the discipline and technique he has acquired from the Bechers, he begins
to take on large ideas and issues. It is his willingness to do so that animates
this show.<br />
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In the 80s Struth continues to shoot architecture and
landscapes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: black;">Like his schoolmate Gursky, he takes up
color and begins to use photoshop to assemble from multiple viewpoints single
images of large locations and structures. But, unlike Gursky, who over the years
steadily creates more and more gigantic prints of larger and larger events,
(the Chicago Board of Trade, the Olympics)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Struth’s big pictures seem uninterested in spectacle. Gursky
wins worldwide acclaim by moving farther and farther away from what he
photographs. Struth moves closer. His pictures, though still large and complex,
become more and more about the people present or implied within the frame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They radiate emotion that can be felt
by anyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">These qualities
are best seen in the pictures the Met has collected from Struth’s three ongoing
series – roughly titled, “Museum,” “Paradise” and “Technology.” <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Struth’s “Museum”
series comes from a simple idea. He photographs people looking at art and
history in museums all over the world. Strictly realistic, rendered in
sumptuous colors, these large, calm compositions at times resemble the Old
Master paintings that appear in many of the prints. Yet the unrehearsed modern tourist
crowds are always there too. Some museum-goers are reverent. Some are playing
with their iphones and thinking about their lunch. They bring a </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">here-and-now immediacy to pictures meant
to last. </span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/16157615868" title="MuseumStruth by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="MuseumStruth" height="499" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7533/16157615868_170f1e4e03_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-size: x-small;">"Art Institute of Chicago,1990," Thomas Struth, All rights reserved</span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/16344331792" title="struthbigMuseum by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="struthbigMuseum" height="519" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7508/16344331792_02692b8021_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">"Museo Del Prado 7, 2005," Thomas Struth, All rights reserved</span><br />
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">The balance
between large ideas – the present and the past, the material and the spiritual,
for example – makes me wonder if Struth is aiming for the cusp between them? Or
do his museum pictures – like many of the old religion-based paintings depicted
within them –incline toward moral lessons? If so, the messages are hard to
recognize, extremely subtle. Yet the question continues to rise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">Asked about the
Museum series, Struth said “… the ineffable spills into the ordinary and the
spiritual aspirations of our ancestors intersect with the needs of the
present.” It’s clear that with these works Struth is gesturing toward something
beyond their quotidian content. In fact – like every artist -- he is imbuing
lifeless materials with human energy. Where does that energy come from? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">We get to decide
for ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">One thing I think
we know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Museum series the
goal of this energy is no longer the same as it is in the old paintings. Unlike
the paintings, the energy of the photographs is not directed at individual salvation.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We might think of its heaven as
salvation for all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/15722779724" title="familyofartistsretouchersTStruth by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="familyofartistsretouchersTStruth" height="449" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7503/15722779724_e15d81fab0_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;">"Art Restorers at San Lorenzo Maggiore, Naples, Italy, 1988," Thomas Struth</span></span><br />
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">I think this
becomes clear in Struth’s Paradise series. Photographed at ground level in
various rainforests in Japan, Australia and South America, all the images in
the series are called “paradise” and numbered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only one, “Paradise 13, Yakushima, Japan 1999,” is included
in the show. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, from this
picture and others I have seen elsewhere, “paradise” seems a very odd title for
Struth to have chosen.</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br />“Paradise 13,” for
example, is shot deep inside a low, wet, dark forest strewn with fallen trees
and moss-covered boulders. It is certainly no Eden. Struth is well-known as an
ardent environmentalist, and it’s hard to imagine him resorting to cheap irony.
Some of the other forest “interiors” in this series are tangles of dazzling
green, flooded with transforming light. They are beautiful to look at and, as we
know, vital to the health of our planet. </span> <span style="background-color: white;">But – come to think of it – real rainforests are always unrestrained
riots of hungry competitive life. They are always difficult for humans. Struth
is making a difficult point. Our human instinct is to transform them to meet our needs. But the Earth too needs salvation.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/16169494427" title="Paradise17-TStruth by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Paradise17-TStruth" height="199" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7326/16169494427_b67db40d45_o.jpg" width="253" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Paradise 13," Thomas Struth</span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/15722797424" title="thomas-struth-growth-09-690x568 by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="thomas-struth-growth-09-690x568" height="527" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7473/15722797424_bbd8660b2e_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">"Paradise 9," Thomas Struth, All rights reserved</span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">With the
“Technology” series, Struth asks: Does the human genius for technology threaten
our species? Does technology also offer hope? These too are ultimately
spiritual questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Struth’s “Hot Rolling Mill, Thysen Krupp
Steel, Duisburg, 2010,” takes us into the silent interior of a gigantic
industrial machine. By choosing an old German steel mill and associating it
with the name Krupp, Struth is deliberately evoking Hitler’s Third Reich and the
murderous weapons with which Germany came close to conquering the world. And the
picture itself -- a vast brutal wall of machinery in semi-darkness,
grime-encrusted, its khaki greens punctuated with the faded, reds and oranges of
catwalks and cables -- is indeed terrifying. Even worse, a thick chain is
bolted to the steel-plate floor in the only area lit by a window. </span><span style="background-color: white;">It took bravery to make this picture. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Struth
knows exactly what he is alluding to. </span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/15729950944" title="5. Hot Rolling Mill,ThyssenKrupp Steel, Duisburg_Thomas Struth by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="5. Hot Rolling Mill,ThyssenKrupp Steel, Duisburg_Thomas Struth" height="538" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8681/15729950944_3dc18a5e45_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Hot Rolling Mill, Thysen Krupp Steel, Duisburg, 2010," Thomas Struth</span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">If “Hot Rolling
Mill” balances past and present, the most astonishing picture in the Technology
series presents itself literally as a fulcrum between present and future.<span style="color: black;"> </span>Called “Figure 2, Charite, 2013,”
the picture shows a woman strapped to a medical gurney suspended in mid air. Looping
in from piled machines and monitors are dozens of wires, tubes and cables, all
of which attach to her body. At first, we recoil from the image. It seems to be
a Frankenstein-like experiment or perhaps some hideous torture. Then we notice
that the room is spotless, the light is clear and the woman is young and blonde
with beautiful skin. <span style="color: black;"> </span>We are
confused. What are we looking at?<br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/16319284386" title="Figure2,Charite, 2013 by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Figure2,Charite, 2013" height="416" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7550/16319284386_a21e83bb32_o.jpg" width="584" /></a><br />"Figure 2, Charite, 2013," Thomas Struth, All rights reserved<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">It’s an operating
theater in Berlin, where this anaesthesized young woman is about to undergo surgery
to remove a brain tumor. With the woman’s full permission, Struth has
photographed the moment before the doctors and nurses enter to begin. We learn
in a caption that the woman survived and, two years, later is living
comfortably. Still, we wouldn’t know that if we hadn’t been told. Is Struth
intentionally frightening us with scary technology that is actually built and
used to save lives? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">I don’t think so.
I think he is making full use of his freedom to challenge us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some things that at first seem
repellent are beautiful. Struth’s mentors, the Bechers, photographed water
towers, silos and blast furnaces they judged beautiful – and safe to photograph
– in a defeated, divided Germany after a vicious war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, more than a half century later, Struth again finds
beauty in our still dangerous and increasingly complicated – but perhaps freer – world.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He makes big pictures for the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>This review appears in <a href="http://www.nyphotoreview.com/NYPR_REVS/NYPR_REV4069.html" target="_blank">The New York Photo Review</a></i></span></span></div>
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Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-76041390725245365362014-12-20T22:08:00.000-05:002014-12-20T22:09:48.467-05:00REM sleep disorder<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/15389623094" title="REM by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="REM" height="640" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8624/15389623094_36d2ce047a_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"In the tunnel," Tim Connor, All rights reserved.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">More photos on </span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/" style="font-size: x-small;" target="_blank">my Flickr site</a><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-90023582906272604382014-12-20T22:00:00.000-05:002014-12-20T22:01:09.160-05:00The madonna and the whore<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/16067824645" title="PerfectMadonna by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="PerfectMadonna" height="640" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8568/16067824645_3a0f28e21d_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Madonna," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/16042035526" title="Water Bearer by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Water Bearer" height="640" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7517/16042035526_cf2627e323_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Water girl," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">More photos on <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/" target="_blank">my Flickr site</a>.</span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-44862998794440345732014-12-13T15:16:00.002-05:002014-12-13T15:19:37.426-05:00Women of New York<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/15881254485" title="Sidewalk of love by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Sidewalk of love" height="640" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7490/15881254485_65ed612696_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Sidewalk of love," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/15693949040" title="Read your cards? by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Read your cards?" height="640" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7492/15693949040_6ba350b40d_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Tarot card reader"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14961762591" title="Basketball girl (color) by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Basketball girl (color)" height="640" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5581/14961762591_503efb465d_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Basketball girl," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14582339754" title="Lively lunch by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Lively lunch" height="640" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5584/14582339754_be1ee66fc2_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Lunch in Union Square," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/15713725460" title="Topknot by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Topknot" height="640" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7491/15713725460_36369d29d7_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Top knot," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/16001753195" title="Coffeehouse by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Coffeehouse" height="640" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7496/16001753195_71a6373b35_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"A clean, well-lighted place," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-26232821197926731212014-12-13T12:59:00.002-05:002014-12-13T13:01:19.736-05:00Self Ps<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/16001057172" title="GoldSelf by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="GoldSelf" height="640" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8622/16001057172_340f3f55cd_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Alexander the Great," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/15875114206" title="Greenheart by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Greenheart" height="640" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7469/15875114206_e5ed8cb3d1_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"A growing boy," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-74272002392526211392014-12-13T10:35:00.000-05:002014-12-13T12:54:03.595-05:00Random art<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/15816063317" title="TaggedButterfly by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="TaggedButterfly" height="640" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7461/15816063317_ea65e2340e_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Butterfly enhanced," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/15986103936" title="Collage2 by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Collage2" height="640" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7532/15986103936_657daf2af5_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"LA Live," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-61664333652758568752014-12-11T22:19:00.000-05:002014-12-11T22:20:35.611-05:00Back to the blogWe all dream of immortality. Is Google eternal? Perhaps for a few years. In any case I want to start posting my photos here again. Here are a couple. More to follow.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/15379554824" title="TwoBaldMannequins by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="TwoBaldMannequins" height="640" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8568/15379554824_bb9d55d21a_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Mannequins, Manhattan," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/15814549160" title="CUMannequins by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="CUMannequins" height="640" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8672/15814549160_9ef0f5118e_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Black haired mannequin, Manhattan," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-26401977466989529002014-08-13T22:31:00.002-04:002014-08-13T22:37:13.942-04:00Critical mass: Writing something a lot of people are thinking <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14725820889" title="WorldsFair64_Winogrand by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="WorldsFair64_Winogrand" height="375" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3901/14725820889_7022f19f5b_z.jpg" width="560" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"New York World's Fair, 1964," Garry Winogrand, All rights reserved</span><br />
<br />
To conclude his review of the Garry Winogrand show at the Met (<b>editor's note:</b> Winogrand's images are mostly unplanned shots of strangers going about their lives, like the example above), New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz wrote the following:<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 26.25px;">"Something we’ve been missing also becomes evident here. The whole world is now filled with incredible images—especially on Instagram and other social networks—that owe something to Winogrand’s, documenting life, change, and all the rest. Yet the art world and museums are not. Instead they tend to show oversize, very still pictures or images that investigate formal properties and ideas of display and presentation. I love many of those pictures, but what’s happening online on social media deserves far more serious scrutiny than it’s getting. If the art world doesn’t admit more of this sort of deceptively casual-seeming work, the outside world will reject more so-called art photography than it already does. That’s a divide that we don’t need to reestablish and widen."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 26.25px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 26.25px;">About time.</span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-32151042585969515362014-08-10T10:34:00.001-04:002014-08-10T13:14:39.091-04:00Fruit season<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14853330906" title="Fruit 1 by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Fruit 1" height="640" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5571/14853330906_d794327ff0_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Court St, Brooklyn 1", Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14873872204" title="Fruit 2 by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Fruit 2" height="640" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3887/14873872204_96886055a7_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Court St, Brooklyn 2," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">See more daily photos at <a href="http://instagram.com/timpconnor">http://instagram.com/timpconnor</a>.</span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-41377868673287579342014-07-19T23:09:00.000-04:002014-07-19T23:41:46.479-04:00Garry Winogrand: Mundane mysteries, clearly stated"Six" by Garry Winogrand at Pace McGill Gallery<br />
<br />
Review by Tim Connor<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14508917307" title="Winogrand_ElMorocco,NY_1955 by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Winogrand_ElMorocco,NY_1955" height="336" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5586/14508917307_f355aca603.jpg" width="481" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"El Morocco, New York City, 1969" by Garry Winogrand</span><br />
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Pace McGill’s Garry Winogrand show, “Six,” might be thought
of as a kind of Cliff Notes for the full-dress Winogrand career retrospective running
this summer at the Met. At Pace
McGill, Winogrand’s well-known prints are large and crisp, and the crowds are
minimal, but how much, after all, can one learn from an outline? </div>
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<br />
Six images have been chosen for each of six categories -- Animals, Public Relations, Street, Women,
Central Park and Texas. Aside from
providing the title for the show, this 6 X 6 arrangement seems arbitrary and
unimaginative for work that openly – even ferociously -- eschews any kind of
shot-list mentality or after-the-fact categorization. But perhaps curation is beside the point. These are Winogrands, and Pace McGill wants to sell them (11”
x 14” print prices range from $5,000 to $65,000 – most are around $10,000).</div>
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<br /></div>
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To me, those prices don’t seem terribly high in this crazy
art market. After all, John Szarkowski, the great photographic critic and
kingmaker of the 1960s and 70s called Winogrand “…the central photographer of
his generation.” To be fair, this
was by no means a universal assessment at the time – nor is it today. But I
agree with Szarkowski, at least to the extent that Winogrand personified, more
than any of his contemporaries, a major attitudinal shift toward photography
that is still underway.</div>
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14715317183" title="BandagedfaceDriver by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="BandagedfaceDriver" height="419" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3853/14715317183_f007f21a43_z.jpg" width="635" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"New York City couple" by Garry Winogrand</span></div>
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Winogrand’s career developed within and against the ideas of
an earlier generation of documentary and photojournalistic photographers who
believed the best of their work could accurately describe social and historical
truth and sometimes even change it. From Lewis Hines through W. Eugene Smith
(and continuing today) their theory goes: shine a bright, public light on
injustice, and you begin to attack and eliminate it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This theory was underpinned by optimism. We are all humans
with shared needs, problems and joys. And great photography proves it. This was the
message of “Family of Man,” the legendary exhibit curated by Edward Steichen,
mounted at MOMA in 1955, and then shown around the world.<br />
<br />
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In fact, Steichen selected two of Winogrand’s pictures for “Family of Man.” But, from the
beginning of his career, it was clear Winogrand was not that kind of
photographer. His passion was for the photograph itself -- not for what it
represented or could do. He was interested in human stories, but his stories
resisted moral judgments. They
could be ambiguous. It was as though he invited viewers to provide their own captions. </div>
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He went out in the morning to make great pictures but had no
idea what they’d be. By way of journalistic intention, he followed his
interests and obsessions. He went to places and events that he thought would
serve him, then, instead of “covering,” them, reacted to whatever caught his
attention. He felt no imperative to ask permission before or take moral
responsibility after taking a shot. His frames were always sliced from reality,
but they took no credit for <i>being</i>
reality. Szarkowski called Winogrand’s images “figments of the real world.” First
and last, they were<i> pictures</i>.</div>
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14693106774" title="garry-winogrand_KennedySpaceCtr_1969 by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="garry-winogrand_KennedySpaceCtr_1969" height="426" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3898/14693106774_e64b808707_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Kennedy Space Center, Florida, 1969" by Garry Winogrand</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Winogrand is famous for saying, “I photograph to see what
something looks like photographed.” And he meant it. The idea was not to take
sides or advance an agenda but to discover what his camera had seen. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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An example. Winogrand was against the Vietnam War. Yet his
best-known shot of the protests, “Peace Demonstration, Central Park, 1970,” displayed
in the exhibit’s Central Park section, shows a dark, gloomy day on Manhattan’s
Great Lawn. In the foreground is a spindly, leafless tree. Around it and
stretching to a horizon of East side buildings, a vast crowd of anti-war
demonstrators sits or lies huddled on the cold ground. The sky above the
protesters is thick with newly-released balloons that read as black in the black-and-white
print. Perhaps the real balloons were red, not black, against the darkening sky
that day. Or perhaps – let’s fantasize -- they were bombs falling. We really don’t
know from the picture, just as we don’t know why the crowd is so passive about
the spectacle</div>
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14508880938" title="garry-winogrand-peace-demonstration-central-park-new-york-c-1970 by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="garry-winogrand-peace-demonstration-central-park-new-york-c-1970" height="414" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3900/14508880938_0b144c3697_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Peace demonstration, Central Park, 1970" by Garry Winogrand</span><br />
<br />
As viewers 44
years later, the scene frankly looks sinister, almost apocalyptic. It goes
firmly against our received idea of what an anti-Vietnam War demonstration is
supposed to look like. Winogrand’s “historical” pictures are often different in
that way. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He was in fact a kind of anti-historian. In a 1971 picture,
again from the show’s “Central Park” section – and again in cold but snowless
weather -- a classic “straight” family of tourists (short-haired father in double-breasted
trench coat; wife with hair tied in a scarf; two boys wearing cheap street-bought
cowboy hats) stand gazing over five long-haired hippies (hatless, moustached,
shades) lounging on the frozen grass. What is the family looking at? Perhaps we're at the outskirts of another
demonstration. Why do the hippies so studiously ignore the family? Why do they –
the cool insiders -- appear so rattled? Could it be that, “Somethin’s happenin here but
you don’t know what it is…”? Could
it be that Mr. and Mrs Jones and
the kids don’t care?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14508914549" title="FamilyVsHippiesWinogrand by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="FamilyVsHippiesWinogrand" height="426" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3908/14508914549_509c1bd609_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Central Park, 1971" by Garry Winogrand</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Winogrand shot without thinking too much – more frames, more
rolls, than any of his contemporaries.
Then he edited , selecting
what he considered to be the best pictures, not the ones he thought would
please. For instance, the disturbing “Easter Sunday, Central Park, 1971” shows
three young people obviously tripping, surrounded by a curious, not necessarily sympathetic crowd. </div>
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<br /></div>
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One man is completely naked. His
hands are raised, as though he’s invoking the heavens. The other two, a man and
a woman, look agitated. There is no caption describing this scene, but the paranoid-ecstatic, staring eyes of all three trippers -- as though
they are seeing god and the devil at the same time – tell the tale. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14715496613" title="Trippers by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Trippers" height="440" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3918/14715496613_07793fce68_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">“Easter Sunday, Central Park, 1971” by Garry Winogrand</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, but why
are we looking at this picture? It’s not an anti-drug ad. It’s also not, in any coherent historical
sense, about the event that surrounds it. In the end it’s just a fascinating “figment” -- at a time when fervently
confused religious seekers in New York City might find Easter Sunday an
auspicious time to drop acid and attend demonstrations. I guess that’s
history too.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Supposedly, Garry Winogrand fell apart as a photographer
after he moved to Los Angeles late in life. He continued to shoot but stopped
editing, finally even stopped processing his film. After his death, no less a personage than his old friend and
mentor Szarkowski examined the massive take he had left behind – reportedly as
many as 300,000 unedited images – and pronounced them unremarkable. Since then,
experts at the Met have taken another look and are including some of the unseen
shots in their retrospective. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What’s the verdict? Did he lose it? Was he great till the
end? I hope so, but it doesn't really matter. Garry Winogrand’s open-minded, follow-your-instincts, shoot-what’s-there aesthetic
recorded the American 60s and 70s like no one else. His example has become the working
mode of many thousands of today's shooters – both pros and amateurs -- worldwide. I
think it’s safe to say that, working the way he did, these photographers intuitively understand Winogrand’s enigmatic dictum: “Nothing is more
mysterious than a fact clearly stated.”<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">This review also appears in the current issue of <a href="http://www.nyphotoreview.com/NYPR_REVS/NYPR_REV3935.html" target="_blank">New York Photo Review</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">To read more of my reviews of photography, other visual arts, books and movies, <a href="http://timconnor.blogspot.com/search/label/review" target="_blank">click here</a>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-67015709478676027302014-06-30T22:35:00.002-04:002014-06-30T22:37:26.676-04:00More park pictures<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14463351375" title="Girls asleep by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Girls asleep" height="640" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3886/14463351375_94db77a315_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Girls napping in stroller," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14461998052" title="Girl texting by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Girl texting" height="640" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3866/14461998052_3a3cf1d772_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Girl texting," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14459990821" title="Man on park bench by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Man on park bench" height="640" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5482/14459990821_21ee109f22_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Man working from briefcase," All rights reserved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">All posted originally on <a href="http://instagram.com/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>. You can search for me there as timpconnor.</span><br />
<br />Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-33817417729942266822014-06-18T22:01:00.001-04:002014-06-18T22:04:04.546-04:00Strolling in the park after work<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14475658843" title="Boy in fountain by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Boy in fountain" height="500" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2934/14475658843_5257cfd33f.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Boy," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14452135481" title="Glimpse by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Glimpse" height="500" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2911/14452135481_f16fc0ff4f.jpg" width="500" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Glimpsed girl," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<br />
<br />Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-74601814782806483642014-06-05T22:40:00.001-04:002014-08-10T09:37:18.234-04:00Truppe Fledermaus and the Carnival at the End of the World<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14169708640" title="GreenmanRowing by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="GreenmanRowing" height="332" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5313/14169708640_7f3e7e68ff_o.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Greenman," Kahn and Selesnick, All rights reserved</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Truppe Fledermaus & the Carnival at the End of the
World,” at Yancey Richardson, might be described as a performance of the
imagination. Concocted by two English-born, U.S. educated artists, Nicholas Kahn
and Richard Selesnick , the show creates just enough semi-plausible historical
authenticity to soften up viewers for the artists’ outlandish – but not
impossible – vision of the future. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kahn and Selesnick have collaborated before – for the past 20
years in fact – creating fictitious histories from both the past and future (on
both Earth and other planets) that
combine impeccable pseudo-erudition with no-limits weirdness. I have to
admit I’ve never seen anything quite like this work. The artists’ mastery of
photography, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and creative writing is matched
only by their showmen’s fervor to wow their audience. In fact, trying to think
of comparisons, I could only come up with the Monty Python Flying Circus –likewise
fervently theatrical, over-educated, British and willing to try anything.<br />
<br /></div>
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These guys are having fun.</div>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14376461663" style="font-size: small;" title="Der Letzte Mann(Last Man)_KahSelesnick by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Der Letzte Mann(Last Man)_KahSelesnick" height="800" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2913/14376461663_1031aab3fc_o.jpg" width="441" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Der Letztze Mann," Kahn and Selesnick, All rights reserved</span>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The world conjured by this show is framed by an invented
traveling theater of hustlers, freaks and spiritualists called “Truppe
Fledermaus” (Bat Troupe). Next to the gallery entrance, an entire wall is covered with posters and handbills advertising the
Truppe’s strange offerings. Stylistically, these ads -- with copy in
German – refer to everything from German Expressionist cinema -- “Ich bin Nosferatu” (I am the Vampyre)
-- to fanciful medical charts – “Tod Frucht” (Death Fruit) – to a colorful, full-figured
nude woman covered with roses that suggests P.T. Barnum via Manet -- “Das Tatowierte Wunder” (The
Tattooed Wonder). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m not entirely sure why these ads are funny, but they made
me laugh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The artists’ decision to
use the German language is part of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you’re a linguistically unsophisticated American (like most of us)
try booming out “Ich bin Nosferatu!” over and over in a small room and you’ll
know why. This prejudice is unfortunate and probably worse than that (I
remember my parents telling me about neighbors who refused to take Hitler
seriously because his speeches on the radio made them laugh). But, here, as
elsewhere in the show, Kahn and Selsenick seem determined to go with their guts.
Funny is funny. I’m sure John Cleese would approve.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14169608049" title="HieronoMan by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="HieronoMan" height="500" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3891/14169608049_57e71aab8e_o.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />"Demon man," Kahn and Selesnick, All rights reserved</span>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the room with the prints are a few sculptures – created, we
are told, from “…ceramic, wax, Styrofoam, paint, plaster, glass antlers and
silicone caterpillars.” Like the posters, the sculptures suggest a new world in
which genetic boundaries are exotically shifting. For instance, a bust of a
top-hatted man mounted on a tripod is densely covered with pitch black
feathers, as though he is morphing toward a new consciousness as a crow. By now, it’s clear this theme
will repeat throughout the show. Still, with the tangible three-dimensionality of the sculptures, the idea gains a special
kind of fetishistic power. I’m
guessing many people wouldn’t want this Crow Man to spend the night in their
bedroom. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The remainder of the show (five walls out of six) consists
of photographs. Taken in both black and white and color with an 8 X 10 view
camera, many of these are aesthetically superb (Kahn and Selesnick studied
photography together at Washington University). Their technical control makes
them wonderfully incongruous with the subject matter, which is primitive and
truly bizarre. It’s not clear if
the Truppe Fledermausers themselves are taking part in the activities or simply
witnessing them. “At the end of the world” I’m not sure it matters. </div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Human populations have collapsed. Individuals and small
groups of humans make their way on foot, by hand-drawn primitive wagons and
carts or in rough canoes, through a bleak, boggy, apparently drowning world of
rampant vegetation and mutant creatures. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they gather in groups it seems to be for the purpose of
creating strange tableux or engaging in wild revels of unclear purpose.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nearly everyone wears a mask. From Hieronymous Bosch alone, the
artists have stolen bird beaked, owl-eared and wide-eyed grinning demon masks. Furry
bat (fledermaus) masks are also popular and, in a pinch, simple Ku Klux
Klan-style bags with cut-out eyeholes, pulled down over the face, will do.<br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s a wild, wild world.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Climate change and rising sea levels are clearly the subtext here, although the artists’ invented future has little in common with what we might expect from a real post-warming planet. Instead of huge ruins and the ubiquitous trash of billions (whether or not killed off by plagues) -- we get deserted swamps, bogs, mudflats, dunes, beaches, rocky outlooks and placid bodies of water.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Apparently, we are returning forward to a world of harsh threats and magical remedies. In this world even the most basic technologies of the past have been erased. In response Nature Herself seems to be trying something new. Parts are somehow being swapped among humans, other mammals, birds, fish and plants to produce bizarre human-other and other-other hybrids. Among the shambling-bramble-plant-human mixes alone, for example, we see Yew Man, Lichen Man, Seaweed Man and the more generic Greenman, who starred in an earlier Kahn and Selesnick show, “The Pavilion of the Greenman,” in 1997.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All this may not convince as dystopia, but it thoroughly seduces as pure imagination.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14355413784" title="LadyHorns_KahnSelsenick by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="LadyHorns_KahnSelsenick" height="500" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5585/14355413784_7442734ac4_o.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />"Lady with antlers," Kahn and Selesnick, All rights reserved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll end this review by describing two favorite pictures. Both represent what to me made this show so unusual -- its willingness to go anywhere imagination might take it. We get jokes and parodies, horror and tragedy, winks and warnings, all blended into visual stories that range from dadaesque to heartwarming. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One: A young woman in Victorian dress is running away,
across a drab, wintry field, holding up her petticoats. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From her piled-up hair two giant antlers
rise against the sky. I can feel this woman’s distress. Suddenly, I realize it’s Jane Eyre
fleeing in tears from Mr. Rochester. I become a cynical English
Lord in love. My legs are twitching to follow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14354730292" title="LeafManPainting_KahnSelsenick by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="LeafManPainting_KahnSelsenick" height="498" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3922/14354730292_0825df5a12_o.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />"Leaf man painting Leaf man," Kahn and Selesnick, All rights reserved</span>
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Two: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Next to a
curving river, Leaf Man, the artist, sights over his brush at the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">plein air</i> portrait of his friend and subject, another Leaf Man. The
two Leaf Men appear to be having a jolly chat. What a pleasant way to make art, they are
saying.<br />
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Long live art! How do you say that in German?<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">This review also appears in <a href="http://www.nyphotoreview.com/NYPR_REVS/NYPR_REV3885.html" target="_blank">The New York Photo Review</a>.</span></div>
Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-27766586807435154322014-05-23T00:04:00.000-04:002014-05-23T09:07:45.239-04:00A photographer looks at Swoon<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14062047548" title="brooklyn-street-art-swoon-jaime-rojo-10-09-400x533 by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="brooklyn-street-art-swoon-jaime-rojo-10-09-400x533" height="533" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5537/14062047548_a2ee290f9f_z.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Street art by Swoon, Brooklyn, NY," Jaime Rojo</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 21px; line-height: 26.76959800720215px;">I saw my first street installation by the New York artist, Caledonia Dance Curry, known as Swoon, years ago in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn. Gowanus was then a mix of aging and abandoned low-rise factories, warehouses, loading docks and junk-filled lots. It was a favorite destination for taggers and graffiti artists, who took advantage of its off-hours’ emptiness to paint their rowdy bright-colored works on its many blank walls. For me Gowanus was a quiet place to walk on weekends and take pictures.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 26.76959800720215px;">Swoon’s street art in Gowanus and, later, in other parts of the city, always stopped me and made me look. Despite its obvious sophistication, the work has the intensity of a child. Her prints, made from drawings on paper, cut out and carefully wheat-pasted at selected locations, are stylized portraits that often morph from (or into) other creatures and places. They’re over-sized, but not too big — the figures a little larger than human. Sometimes, Swoon cuts out lines and wedges from the portraits or creates lace-like additions and lets the walls shine through the openings. Color is also used on the prints – but sparingly.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 26.76959800720215px;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14248702305" title="swoon by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="swoon" height="320" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5159/14248702305_b9010e6ec7_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="line-height: 26.76959800720215px;">"Two girls, street art by Swoon"</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 21px; line-height: 26.76959800720215px;">One of the things I always liked about these outdoor installations was that they are suddenly there; they are not signaled or heralded in any way. After mounting, they are left to the elements and the unpredictable mercies of passersby. Swoon makes sure to locate her prints where ordinary people will see them – and maybe not see them as art. Naturally, they are much photographed and subsequently circulated through photo-sharing sites to a potentially unlimited audience online. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 21px; line-height: 26.76959800720215px;">Dramatic and of-the-moment, the best of these repeatedly shared photographs – along with the offhand brilliance of the her art-name, Swoon – have no doubt done a great deal to spread Curry’s reputation and differentiate her from the other talented artists who use similar methods (I’ll mention, for example, Brian Adam Douglas — moniker Elbow Toe – whose work I also saw on Gowanus walls).</span><br />
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I know Swoon’s placement of her work is an expression of her conviction that art needs to move out of the studio and take back public visual space from advertisers and brand masters. It’s a conviction shared by Swoon’s British counterpart, Banksy, and thousands of other less-well-known artists worldwide. But, unlike Banksy, with his stenciled, laugh-out-loud provocations, Swoon’s approach is essentially romantic.<br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 26.76959800720215px;">This renders her outdoor prints especially vulnerable. Made of paper, they’re organic and destined to fade, fray and fall away under the constant onslaughts of wind and weather. This is exactly the opposite of the results the art world strives for and, arguably, the most radical aspect of Swoon’s work. It’s also the aspect, I’d argue, that excites street photographers, who approach these prints, not as precious art to be recorded, but as elements of a particular moment’s concatenation of light, shape, color and meaning.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="line-height: 26.76959800720215px;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14062126127" title="Swoon-Street-Art-London-18 by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Swoon-Street-Art-London-18" height="213" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5194/14062126127_e611e8fc60_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></span><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 26.76959800720215px;">"Street art by Swoon, London"</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 21px; line-height: 26.76959800720215px;">I was thinking about these ideas as I entered Swoon’s monumental installation, “Submerged Motherlands,” last weekend at the Brooklyn Museum. “Motherlands” fills a large high-ceilinged room, centered on a wonderful 60-foot-high fabricated tree covered with thousands of long strands of dyed fabric. The tree is flanked by a small charmingly decorated structure, called a “nest” or “hive,” where visitors can rest. “The Miss Rockaway Armada” and “The Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea,” two large ramshackle wooden rafts full of junk and tools turn out to be what’s left of Swoon-and-company’s amazing art-flotation adventures, on the Mississippi and the Hudson respectively, in the summers from 2006 to 2008. Swoon’s portraits in different sizes are spread throughout the space.</span><br />
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I didn’t get much from the exhibit notes, which adopt a sort of fantasy tone to suggest the show is about climate change and refer vaguely to Doggerland, a once-populated area between England and the Continent that went under as sea levels rose about 6,000 years ago. But it occurred to me that, even if the waters were rising outside the Museum, we would all feel cozy and well cared for in this exhibit. And, in fact, at that moment a museum guard politely warned me to not get too close to the art.<br />
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This show seemed to me a very long way from Swoon’s audacious collective raft projects of a few years ago – she has referred to the raft armadas as enactments of her childhood dreams. Perhaps the show is even farther from another kind of dream – say, a solitary print on a Gowanus wall as the February light is slipping away fast.</div>
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To confirm this, I looked more closely at the portraits that populate the show. Crisply reprinted in different sizes, many of them standing on their own, all are recycled. Perhaps this isn’t so strange. I’m aware that Swoon likes to repeat images and spread the notion of a kind of family around the city, but here, in a major museum show, in her hometown I thought she might show something new.</div>
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But there they are – Swoon’s mother and friends, portraits from Haiti and Mexico, a beautiful woman breastfeeding her baby, two grizzled toothless men with casts on their arms, laughing. Why do they feel so empty?</div>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 26.76959800720215px;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14268887033" title="SwoonBoyUnionSt2011 by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="SwoonBoyUnionSt2011" height="229" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5499/14268887033_2de8d1b43c_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif; font-size: xx-small;">"Boy looking up, by Swoon," Tim Connor</span><br />
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I think the answer is context. Here at the museum I’m part of a swirling, cheerful crowd in a magnificent high-ceilinged, sky-lit room. Everyone is talking. Everyone is taking pictures with tiny point-and-shoots and camera phones. It seems almost like an alternate to looking. As soon as shooters have their picture, they turn away and move on. A new normal?<br />
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I recognize a print of a black boy in a decorated tunic and shorts squatting on the ground, glaring upward. It’s an image I photographed on a heavily-tagged wall in Gowanus (on Union Street in 2011, it turns out). I remember crouching way down, almost to street level, to frame the picture. Afterwards, I looked at the boy for a long time. Alone on the street, I felt I understood his tense posture, his angry look. Not here.<br />
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Researching this article, I listened to Swoon talk on video about how her big collective projects had been exhausting experiences from which she needed time to recover. She called them “going outside” projects and said that afterwards she needed to “come inside” by accepting gallery or museum help to work on her own art.<br />
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That sounded (and sounds) reasonable to me. But, as I left this show, I really just wanted to urge Swoon to “go back outside” soon. </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This article also appears in <a href="http://www.nyphotoreview.com/NYPR_REVS/NYPR_REV3927.html" target="_blank">The New York Photo Review.</a></span></div>
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Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-41270437993013192432014-05-11T22:46:00.002-04:002014-05-11T23:19:29.882-04:00Raining cherry blossoms<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14142501686" title="Raining cherry blossoms (color) by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Raining cherry blossoms (color)" height="640" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2929/14142501686_7576691b70_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Under cherry trees in the rain, Prospect Park," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-70794102173845281402014-05-10T22:58:00.000-04:002014-05-10T22:58:46.314-04:00Lift and snap shots<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/13962540157" title="Man with shiny shoes by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Man with shiny shoes" height="640" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2908/13962540157_4cdcb076aa_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Man with shiny shoes, Chelsea," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br /><br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14153548502" title="Girls by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Girls" height="640" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2920/14153548502_446ea40e00_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Girls, Manhattan," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/" target="_blank">My flickr page</a></span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-30476450483775127422014-05-05T22:53:00.003-04:002014-05-05T22:55:02.539-04:00Irrefutably Spring<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14119187944" title="Definitely Spring - Carroll Gardens by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Definitely Spring - Carroll Gardens" height="640" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7037/14119187944_c65ce40b5c_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Spring - Carroll Gardens," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-86001926874031178922014-05-04T23:52:00.000-04:002014-05-05T22:50:02.873-04:00What remains<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/13923838508" title="Remains of love by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Remains of love" height="571" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7355/13923838508_527937f187_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"What remains of love," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
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I found this on a nondescript wall on Carroll Street in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn. Did the artist (unknown) partially rip his or her picture off the wall? Was it the heavy rain recently? Or did someone else do it?Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-67646405757159271112014-04-28T12:15:00.004-04:002014-04-28T12:19:58.897-04:00Pocket Park (2 versions)<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14071496923" title="PocketPark by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="PocketPark" height="640" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7210/14071496923_99a0a7cfaf_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Pocket park - Photoshop," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14028350296" title="PocketParkInstagram by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="PocketParkInstagram" height="640" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2931/14028350296_f33cd8fd9c_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Pocket park - Instagram," Tim Connor, All rights reserved </span><br />
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Volunteers replanted and put up this picket fence, among other improvements, in one of my favorite pocket parks in Brooklyn (5th Ave. & President St). There was nothing they could do about the peeling mural, but I still love it.<br />
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As in my last post, the top picture was processed using Instagram's on-phone tools. The bottom one was processed in Photoshop.Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-53252070102444465742014-04-28T00:11:00.001-04:002014-04-28T12:21:04.218-04:00Puppet contestPosting two recent photos. The first (top) shot was cropped and processed in Instagram. The second was cropped and processed to my aesthetic taste in Photoshop. I'm trying to decide what I think.<br />
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Dear Reader: Any opinion?<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14024735092" title="PuppetLady by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="PuppetLady" height="500" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7460/14024735092_f0354127e2.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Lady and puppet, Washington Sq.-- Instagram," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/14005185756" title="Lady and her puppet by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img alt="Lady and her puppet" height="640" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2922/14005185756_eec25e060f_z.jpg" width="465" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Lady and puppet, Washington Sq," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-81419817966818614402014-04-05T23:54:00.003-04:002014-04-06T00:00:33.674-04:00Girl in community garden, early spring, Brooklyn<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/13657724373" title="Girl in community garden by Tim Connor, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3807/13657724373_ac5bde667e_z.jpg" width="640" height="531" alt="Girl in community garden"></a>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Girl in garden," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
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Shooting with the iPhone exclusively now.Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-50258154115743445962014-04-04T23:56:00.001-04:002014-04-04T23:56:58.850-04:00Selfie seeking<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="500" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/13635967805/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe><br />"I see a red dress and I want to paint it black...", Tim Connor, All rights reserved<br />
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<br />Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-811636018490784262014-04-01T23:03:00.000-04:002014-04-01T23:05:19.085-04:00Naughty<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="500" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/13573127393/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Naughty," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
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Reflection.Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-18879916183241420232014-03-26T22:13:00.000-04:002014-03-26T22:13:10.783-04:00Mirrors and windows<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="500" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/13438105173/in/photostream/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Space cadet," Tim Connor All rights reserved<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="500" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/13417833455/in/photostream/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe><br />"Selfie with hole in the head," Tim Connor, All rights reserved<br /></span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461963482725202534.post-46907247501197034502014-03-25T00:31:00.000-04:002014-03-26T22:15:18.059-04:00Crossing Manhattan Bridge<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="553" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timconnor/13396797644/player/cd328b0147" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Crossing Manhattan Bridge," Tim Connor, All rights reserved</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>Tim Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093257932816782629noreply@blogger.com0