Alex Pranger
Susie and Friends. 2008
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/newphotography/
New Photography 1985
Judith Ross
Untitled, from Eurana Park, Weatherly, Pennsylvania
http://moma.org/collection
I chose the first photo by Alex Pranger because I have always found the advertisement of alcohol companies like that of Budweiser to generate this feeling that beer can deliver you from reality and transport you to a perfect land of beautiful people with no problems and worries. This position of happiness is a striking opposition to the realities I have experienced in my own life when alcohol becomes a way of life.
I chose the second photo by Judith Ross because I feel like it's socially awkward, that feeling like something is off or strange about the relationship of the people within the photo. This may be from the striking size difference of the man to the children.
Both of the works shown create a mode that is personified by the notion of an idealized reality. The first photo by Alex Pranger has the look and feel of a beer add where the women are created in the idea of what a woman should be as shown by the identical hair and body type, they all appear happy and enjoying the situation as if this one moment in time is the greatest moment and you can only join if you drink beer. The second work by Judith Ross show the extremes of body type as a very large man sits next to two young children who are very skinny, they sit on a park bench the two children in bathing suits the older man maybe in his 20s waers jeans and a plaid shirt. The photo seems almost to be looking at adults pressuring children to grow up, or maybe the embarassment of acting like a child when you are older. The children look as if they want to leave the photo and go back to what they enjoy.
Both of the photos are of people and both show a social situation in which people are socially engaged, the first photo it is with one another and in the second it is with the camera as the people in the second photo are looking back at the camera.
Karen Rosenberg is wrong?
In the post modern idea on authority of authorship as stated by Barths and Foucault allowed for a reconsideration of photographic practice and discredited pictures of the kind deemed original by virtue of individual expression. Based on these writings the idea of appropriation of the ready made work became a movement within the photographic community. The new photography exhibition that resulted from this movement is now 25 years past and again there is a "New Photography" show at MOMA. The writings in the New York Times by Karen Rosenberg about the show at first look to be sound but upon further consideration there appears to be holes in the ideas that are presented within her critique of the show. The first point I find interesting is the notion that there is no transgression with the new works, to me that alone is a statement of complacence, the idea that there is no further need to question photography and accept it for what it is. In a sense, though I feel that the artist may have accomplished this because the new show appears to be copy of the original 1985 show under the same name, re-introducing ideas that have long passed. It seams to me that although the artist may not realize the total nature of what they are doing within the construct of photographic history, because there are many similarity between the two bodies of work. Rosenberg makes a statement about the artists caring about visual literacy and not theory, this is a bit hard for me to wrap my head around, the whole notion of visual literacy is rooted in the idea or the notion of the photographs relationship to the real, and the discourse that is created from this relation, its ability to tell us something about a certain place in time. This idea of reality allows for the photograph to transcend its physical presence and instead be something that tells us information about the subject. The work in the show, as stated in the article by Rosenberg, wants the viewer to realize the photograph as an object or as she states the physical presence of the photographic object, speaking about the color of the work and the open idea of nostalgia. This is fine in and of its self but you cannot forget the photographic subject, and further the idea that these are appropriated images, it seams to me that all photographs are appropriations of reality or abstractions of it, and to take a photograph and represent it is not telling us something new about the subject with in the picture, but instead just removing it further from its orgin and recreating a new or different meaning. This is also an elaboration of the how images are consumed and then re-used over and over. Because of the original intentions of the New Photography Show in 1985 and comparing it to the 2010 show I don't find there to be a huge separation of concept from one show to another and instead seems to be a further elaboration of the original intention of the 1985 show, it is not telling us something new about photography nor is it telling us something new about the subjects presented (at least not in the extreme that it appears in Rosenberg's description).
3 Works by James
Custer State Park, SD
I chose this image because I have been interested in the idea or syndrome of what I like to call speed tourism, in this photo the man is looking to the side of the road as he works his way through the park but yet he does not stop, a few seconds of nature is all he will need to satisfy his desire to experience the magic of this place. It is at one end the American ideal of the road trip but at the other it is the speed of a culture that will not stop to fully understand anything.
Fort Robinson, NE.
This photo is of one of the guides on an "authentic" chuck wagon dinner, he was a good entertainer and the food was good, this photo is one that reminds me of that night and the fun we had up there. I also love how disengaged the two elder people in the photo are both from one another and from the festivities
Mount Rushmore, SD
This was speed tourism at its best only this time it was us doing the speeding, 30 min in and out, although I found the tourist there more interesting than the rock carving itself. This is one of the photos I took of random tourists, the girl holding the mountain, others looking at there LCD screens on there cameras, there was thousands of us there all in our bubbles ignoring everyone else, but than again I doubt that people are this crazy in "normal" places so for the observant it is a place of vast entertainment.
Susie and Friends. 2008
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/newphotography/
New Photography 1985
Untitled, from Eurana Park, Weatherly, Pennsylvania
http://moma.org/collection
I chose the first photo by Alex Pranger because I have always found the advertisement of alcohol companies like that of Budweiser to generate this feeling that beer can deliver you from reality and transport you to a perfect land of beautiful people with no problems and worries. This position of happiness is a striking opposition to the realities I have experienced in my own life when alcohol becomes a way of life.
I chose the second photo by Judith Ross because I feel like it's socially awkward, that feeling like something is off or strange about the relationship of the people within the photo. This may be from the striking size difference of the man to the children.
Both of the works shown create a mode that is personified by the notion of an idealized reality. The first photo by Alex Pranger has the look and feel of a beer add where the women are created in the idea of what a woman should be as shown by the identical hair and body type, they all appear happy and enjoying the situation as if this one moment in time is the greatest moment and you can only join if you drink beer. The second work by Judith Ross show the extremes of body type as a very large man sits next to two young children who are very skinny, they sit on a park bench the two children in bathing suits the older man maybe in his 20s waers jeans and a plaid shirt. The photo seems almost to be looking at adults pressuring children to grow up, or maybe the embarassment of acting like a child when you are older. The children look as if they want to leave the photo and go back to what they enjoy.
Both of the photos are of people and both show a social situation in which people are socially engaged, the first photo it is with one another and in the second it is with the camera as the people in the second photo are looking back at the camera.
Karen Rosenberg is wrong?
In the post modern idea on authority of authorship as stated by Barths and Foucault allowed for a reconsideration of photographic practice and discredited pictures of the kind deemed original by virtue of individual expression. Based on these writings the idea of appropriation of the ready made work became a movement within the photographic community. The new photography exhibition that resulted from this movement is now 25 years past and again there is a "New Photography" show at MOMA. The writings in the New York Times by Karen Rosenberg about the show at first look to be sound but upon further consideration there appears to be holes in the ideas that are presented within her critique of the show. The first point I find interesting is the notion that there is no transgression with the new works, to me that alone is a statement of complacence, the idea that there is no further need to question photography and accept it for what it is. In a sense, though I feel that the artist may have accomplished this because the new show appears to be copy of the original 1985 show under the same name, re-introducing ideas that have long passed. It seams to me that although the artist may not realize the total nature of what they are doing within the construct of photographic history, because there are many similarity between the two bodies of work. Rosenberg makes a statement about the artists caring about visual literacy and not theory, this is a bit hard for me to wrap my head around, the whole notion of visual literacy is rooted in the idea or the notion of the photographs relationship to the real, and the discourse that is created from this relation, its ability to tell us something about a certain place in time. This idea of reality allows for the photograph to transcend its physical presence and instead be something that tells us information about the subject. The work in the show, as stated in the article by Rosenberg, wants the viewer to realize the photograph as an object or as she states the physical presence of the photographic object, speaking about the color of the work and the open idea of nostalgia. This is fine in and of its self but you cannot forget the photographic subject, and further the idea that these are appropriated images, it seams to me that all photographs are appropriations of reality or abstractions of it, and to take a photograph and represent it is not telling us something new about the subject with in the picture, but instead just removing it further from its orgin and recreating a new or different meaning. This is also an elaboration of the how images are consumed and then re-used over and over. Because of the original intentions of the New Photography Show in 1985 and comparing it to the 2010 show I don't find there to be a huge separation of concept from one show to another and instead seems to be a further elaboration of the original intention of the 1985 show, it is not telling us something new about photography nor is it telling us something new about the subjects presented (at least not in the extreme that it appears in Rosenberg's description).
3 Works by James
Custer State Park, SD
I chose this image because I have been interested in the idea or syndrome of what I like to call speed tourism, in this photo the man is looking to the side of the road as he works his way through the park but yet he does not stop, a few seconds of nature is all he will need to satisfy his desire to experience the magic of this place. It is at one end the American ideal of the road trip but at the other it is the speed of a culture that will not stop to fully understand anything.
This photo is of one of the guides on an "authentic" chuck wagon dinner, he was a good entertainer and the food was good, this photo is one that reminds me of that night and the fun we had up there. I also love how disengaged the two elder people in the photo are both from one another and from the festivities
This was speed tourism at its best only this time it was us doing the speeding, 30 min in and out, although I found the tourist there more interesting than the rock carving itself. This is one of the photos I took of random tourists, the girl holding the mountain, others looking at there LCD screens on there cameras, there was thousands of us there all in our bubbles ignoring everyone else, but than again I doubt that people are this crazy in "normal" places so for the observant it is a place of vast entertainment.
Excellent blog!
ReplyDeleteHere is the press release for the first annual 'New Photography' organized by Szarkowski:
http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/6208/releases/MOMA_1985_0062_61a.pdf
The description reads very differently than the 2010 press release.
Great text and image work, too!