Nicole Eisenman

Just wanted to put some images up of painter Nicole Eisenman. I'll make sure to write a longer post on these later, but I feel that these images contain a great and relevent intersection between humor, impressionism, and (in the first two) feminism. I think this is an example of a painter finding a way to express herself without conforming to any specific paradigm or political/artistic platform.




"Alice in Wonderland"



"Durer, portrait of man with bra"



"Beer Garden"



"Untitled"

Show Review #2: Richard Avadon at SFMOMA

Richard Avedon began his photography career in the realm of fashion, but his unconventional style of portraits combined with his ability to find interesting and captivating subjects created a niche for him in the consumer-driven art world. This current exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presents a selection of work from his entire cannon, ranging from photos taken in the 1950s all the way to 2004, the year of his death. His work as a whole reveals the artist’s obsession with the human body (especially the face) as an aesthetized form. This review will address critiques of Avedon’s approach to photography and discuss whether he deserves a place within the realm of “high” art.

In Abigail Solomon Goddeau’s article “Art after Art Photography”, she notes that “the importance of photography within [postmodern art] is undeniable” and that post-modern photographers are successful because their “respective uses of the medium had less to do with its formal qualities per se than with the ways that photography, in its normative and ubiquitous uses, actually functions” (pg 2). Avedon’s work exhibits none of this critical analysis of methods of production, rather, he and his audience become engrossed with the subjects depicted in his work – here is an artist whose life work displays a fascination with persons and forms, not theories and experimental practices of art production. Because Avedon’s cannon exhibits a major emphasis on content, I will attempt to do an analysis of this alone in order to see whether or not Avedon is successful in producing anything other than glossy glam-art. If anything in the following three paragraphs sparks academic debate or conversation, then one must argue that Avedon’s work exists as something worthy of examination, even if he is not on the cutting edge of experimental practices.

What makes Avedon's portraits stand out is the dynamic combination of the slick professional black and white film and a real candid approach to his subjects which allows for the piece to be viewed simultaneously as an artistic composition and an examination of character. MOMA made the excellent decision to include both his portraits of famous people (such as Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, Bjork, and Janis Joplin, to name a few), as well as works from his book, "In the American West", in which Avedon traveled around the Western United States, photographing people in their place of employment. The two pieces from this collection featured below - entitled "Slaughterhouse worker on the kill floor Omaha, NE", and "Thirteen Years Old Rattlesnake Skinner, Sweet Water, Texas", were taken in Texas in 1979. I have purposefully put these two pieces next to the portraits of Bob Dylan and Marilyn Monroe in order to note Avedon’s examination of celebrity and anonymity in American life, celebrating the commonalities between those who enjoy (and suffer from) intense fame in our culture and those whose portrait otherwise would never become circulated amongst the larger community. This begs the question: for Avedon (and his viewer), does anonymity simply become another form of celebrity? What I mean by this is that the extreme anonymity of these people exists as a big draw for someone to pay to see or own one of these prints, in the same way that Dylan or Monroe’s fame pulls people in.

In this way, Avedon's work is highly utilitarian (if one were to ignore the glaring fact that he sells his pieces for a high price). For instance, the contemplative looks on the slaughterhouse worker and Bob Dylan are almost identical. Also, Avedon chose to shoot the slaughterhouse worker in his place of employment and Bob Dylan in Central Park, where he spent his formative years as a street musician. In this way, Avedon is presenting two distinct moments of contemplation by an anonymous member of society and one of the greatest poets of the 20th century as features of the same human experience, in which our life and work is defined by the place we inhabit, and vice versa.

I see a similar connection between the two lower portraits as well. Aside from the fact that both subjects are blond, there is a definite compositional parallel between these two pieces. Both of these portraits are examinations of the intersection between individual identity and the identity one assumes upon entering the workplace. For Monroe, this means hours of hair and make-up, and for the Rattlesnake Skinner, this means hours of gruesome work which informs his hair and appearance. Now this second point might be taking the comparison too far, but I am going to write it anyway: the lower half of each frame presents a secondary subject which is a cornerstone of each person's respective work. Yes, I am talking about the breasts and the snake. Both of these are organic entities which have become objectified for the purposes of each person's job - Monroe's breasts (and the rest of her body, to be fair) and the snake both become commodified in each respective workplace in order to achieve an aesthetically pleasing goal: the celluloid image of the breasts on one hand and the object of the snakeskin on the other.

Therefore, Avedon's work as a whole exists as an interesting look into the human side of both celebrity and anonymity in American culture. The black and white film and candid introspective moments which he uses and captures serve as methods with which the artist can level the playing field, forcing the viewer to look at these portraits as an examination of character and humanity in relation to specific work and specific places. In this way, Avedon’s work encourages discussion of history and American life as it relates to people, their faces, and the places they work (as well as the work itself). Of course, one could simply walk by and become immersed in the image with no critical eye, but the possibility of meaning through the juxtaposition of these portraits still remains. Is Avedon a successful post-modern artist? No, because he makes no attempt to situate himself within the language of post-modernity, and makes no emphasis on the modes of production. However, this does not mean that his work has no potential for a critical reading other than a dismissive one.

Cindy Sherman vs. Troy Brauntuch: Different approaches to a similar goal

Last week, we discussed the "Pictures" show from the late 70's, and I thought I'd elaborate on a comparison we touched on briefly during the lecture. Both Cindy Sherman and Troy Brauntuch are famous for highlighting the process of photography and mechanical reproduction in their pieces, as well as suggesting a larger narrative which takes place outside of the photographic frame. However, the two artists go about it in two drastically different ways. Sherman highlights the cameras ability to imitate, augment, or re-contextualize an image or point of view by utilizing dramatic angles, heavy make-up, a shutter speed which closely approximates the medium of film (film plays at 24 frames a second, and it appears that Cindy is shooting at around 1/15th of a second, which replicates the cinematic look), and back-lit projection, another common filmic trope. These images also suggest a larger narrative taking place; there is not a single one in which Sherman or her subject are looking directly at the camera lens. Instead, their eyeline goes away from

the camera lens (sometimes just by a little, like

in the top photo). This creates a feeling of anxiety and incompleteness, all of which has to do with Sherman's choice of medium, combined with the fact that by the 1970's, most people had an understanding (whether conscious or subconscious) of cinematic language upon which a certain horizon of expectations are built (for instance, that if a character is looking offscreen, the audience can rightfully expect to see what that character is looking at. Sherman denies her viewer this). All of this serves to heighten the viewer's awareness of photography as a medium, and the process of producing the photographic image is the real subject of these pieces.

In contrast, Troy Brauntuch utilizes photography in order to call attention to the look of

film itself when examined in either a zoomed in or fragmented form. We talked in class about his installation piece "Hitler Asleep in his Mercedes", in which Brauntuch re-appropriated an image from 1934 of Hitler's back, blew it up, displayed it next to a detail (blown up even more), and framed it with two images of stadium lights which themselves were blown up past the point of recognition. The image above uses this same approach, however the images themselves are reduced to a mere interruption in the white negative space. These images below utilize similar techniques which serve to distort the clarity of the photographic image, while still suggesting a larger story which could be happening outside of the frame. The picture at the bottom utilizes two different points of view (the birds eye of the town contrasted with the portrait), which engages the relationship between cinema and photography because these two images interact in a similar way as an establishing shot which cuts into a character.

In conclusion, both Sherman and Brauntuch utilize photography in order to heighte

n the viewers awareness of the medium itself and its capabilities, although they use drastically different approaches.

Gallery Review #1: “28”

Painting in the 21st century faces the challenge of occurring after an entire generation of artists abandoned it almost entirely, only to return to the medium in the 1980s, which in turn raised questions concerning the authenticity of painting in the postmodern era. Theorist Benjamin Buchloh declared painting in the late 20th century as an obsolete mode of production which did not “disappear but rather drift in history as [an] empty vessel waiting to be filled with reactionary interests in need of cultural legitimation” (Figures of Authority: Ciphers of Regression 55). In other words, due to mechanical reproduction and the imminent reproducibility of any image or sequence of images, what purpose does painting serve other than to communicate a socio-political agenda? “28”, a student art exhibition for second-year MFA students at the Claremont Graduate University, manages to display an engaging series of paintings that encourage reconciliation of the medium with the technological offerings of the digital age.
Because of the scale of this exhibition (as the title suggests, there work of 28 graduate students was on display), I will focus on three artists in particular who offer different approaches to the re-contextualization of painting in the age of digital reproduction. The first piece which will be considered is Kevin Scianni’s “Lost Clusters”, seen below:

















This acrylic on canvas painting engages the viewer with its emphasis on bold lines, and the flamboyant analogous color scheme certainly catches the eye. However, this piece also engages the debate concerning painting’s place in the digital age through the seemingly random arrangement of lines and negative space. The jagged lines in the right portion of the frame allude to digital representation of form. For instance, if one were to look closely at their computer monitor and examine the text in this review, they would find the exact same sort of lines in each letter of each word. In fact, this sort of line exists in every piece of technology which characterizes our time: Ipods, TVs, computers, digital advertising, etc. In this way, Scianni presents a form native to the late 20th and early 21st century, but blown up and placed into a context in which the viewer must examine it anew. The medium of painting exists as an important factor in this engagement, for this is what forces the viewer to see this type of line in a new way. Therefore content and form function together in this piece in order to re-contextualize a distinctly post-modern object – the jagged digital line.

The second artist which engages the prospect of painting in the 21st century is Azadeh Tajpour, an Iranian-American woman whose piece reproduces instances of her facebook homepage which contain correspondence concerning the June 2009 election fallout and violence:


(detail)


















These frames, printed digitally, appear to have been applied with broad brushstrokes, giving the piece a gritty spontaneous feel. However, the meaning of these pages juxtaposed against each other becomes obfuscated due to the fact that these sporadic brushstrokes effectively hide the content of each page. For instance, a close examination of one of these frames reveals that Tajpour is facebook friends with Mr. Mousavi, the reformist candidate who challenged the results of the election, but it is impossible to see exactly what he said on that day. Clearly, Tajpour wants to comment on the fact that communication during this strenuous event was almost entirely digital (even major news networks were about an hour behind network sites like Twitter), but she also seems to be focused on a lack, or negative space, in the communication. This could refer to the thousands of people who were being arrested and silenced during this period, but it suspiciously looks as if the brushstrokes merely exist to differentiate between the easily reproducible facebook pages and her art. In this way, the brush strokes enact Buchloh’s statement from earlier – they conveniently reference the medium of painting simply because it is so recognizable.

The final artist considered in this review is Allison Allford, whose paintings utilize a unique method of engaging the possibilities of painting as a medium:
















At no point in Allford’s process does a brush come into play: these compositions are achieved by carefully pouring the different colors on the canvas, so that they interact with each other organically. Allford, who was available for interview, stated that she was inspired by satellite photographs of landscapes from space, and these paintings clearly show an interest in the relationship between large-scale environments and the physicality of the medium of painting, which can create forms even with minimal and careful intervention from the artist. Also, because of the Allford's initial inspiration came from satellite photos, this piece confronts issues of digital and distinctly modern representation of Earth (the satellite photo) utilizing the painting medium.

Therefore, painting still has a place in the 21st century due to its ability to examine the possibilities and tenants of the digital age in a that distinctly modern forms of expression, such as photography, cannot.