I think I might of gone research overload on this particular piece of work, I found it so interesting that last night I sat for 7 hours flowering of on to how the artists where inspired and where they related there work too.
I have so much writing in my journal Im not quiet sure how to word it all, and stressing myself out, but i'm going to give it my best shot.
First i'm going to talk about Rut Lee Luxemburg, who's work is best known for the exploration of urban public spaces in the city, bringing to life the overlooked, dismissed and unforeseen and finding different ways of bringing
them to life. She was inspired by 17th centuries paintings such as ' Casper David Friedrich ' A painting called ( Chalk Cliffs of Rugen ).
In the painting shows Two characters studying the landscape and engaging with the space that sits in front of them, then you have the one character in the centre of the painting who almost pushes his luck & takes a daring
chance in his life to push his exploration to a new level by forgetting about the landscape that's in front of him and chooses a new view point that looks straight down, putting a whole new spin to the experience, taking part in true vertigo.
It looks as if the lady on the left is putting her hand out to say, don't go any further, your fall! Apparently Friedrich very rarely uses lady's in his work, maybe he used a lady in this particular piece of work because we have this idea that women
worry about safely and are less daring then man ( this isn't from my view, Im not sexist! ) but it gives you the idea of something new, a completely new viewpoint from the human eye. I think he wanted people to recognise the women's gesture of ' come away
from the edge ' to then point there eyes on the man suggesting to the viewer to get them to think outside the box and try new ways of see'ing things.
In her image ' Love song ( liebeslied ) - it makes me feel very uncomfortable, the colours are almost haunting. One of those places that you just shouldn't go at night.
The harsh black contrast veining its way through the walls creating such beautiful textures, it almost looks like the gates to heaven and hell, the dark organgey red leading
down to darkness & sorrow & the soft yellows leading to a better place. the writing on the wall top left is very intimate, it also looks like its been covered up, for what reason I don't know.
Its very different to graffiti, its to petite, maybe a very deep saying or piece of writing by someone who has strong throughs on the world, A constructed Communication in the city.
in a lot of her images, Rut blees based her photographs around poems sited by German Romantic Poet ' Friedrich Holderlin ' Reflecting on lines from his work & forming them into her
form of how it would look photographed, I find it really inspiring that you can be inspired by words and not just other photographs. since taking part in this particular blog post for some reason
Iv'e just been blown away by some pieces of writing, some parts just being small lines, have really helped me with what I want to produce for my final piece.
In the series ' Piccadilly's Peccadilloes ' Rut blees was Commissioned to photograph a series for Heathrow Airport ( Terminal 4 ) Tube station ticket hall, to celebrate 100 years of the Piccadilly line.
She photographed Holden's designs using reflections in the payments to reflect architectural Structure and frame his designs, I think its clever that she photographed them in his way
being the underground being ' underground ' again using her Vertigo style and almost twisting it all over the place, because she's looking down & up at the same time. again using her
fantastic & haunting styling of colours. and unmonumental moments as that puddle wont be there forever. using moments of time in life to take the opportunity to capture it as a photograph and lock it up.
Rut blees seemed to enjoy her walks, exploring places that seemed dead to the human eye, places that people had no interest in and are completely ignored. feelings like this always link to the type of person that you are.
how your brought up as a child, artistic families that are inspired by the world, how your brain develops to see the world in different ways, since i started taking photographs everything changes, sometimes i get
annoyed with myself for ignoring a photographic opportunity, sometimes I get annoyed with myself for taking to many photographs, you find yourself stopping at every chance to shoot something that may look interested
framed, I usually don't even take the time to take part in the moment at the time, I wait for the photo to come out & then think to myself ' why didn't I take the chance to enjoy that moment while I was there as well.
she explored the complex relations to modernity and communication in the city, how places told you what you was meant to do in that particular area, she used a tennis court as an example, how the lines on the ground
are gridded, telling you what your meant to do in that area alone.
I really like the image of the container sitting in the middle of a car park with just a chair & table inside, it really feels as if there should be someone sitting in there, which makes you start reading into the area around, what goes on here?
the container seems so out of place, it just looks like its been cut out and stuck on top of the photograph, the colours of it against Rut blees usual use of lighting and colours, it just jumps out the picture.
it makes looking at a common place more interesting and opens your eyes to more experiences & thoughts.
Richard Wentworth is known for his sculptural responses to everyday encounters, he created a series of images called ' making do and getting by ' which has helped me hugely with my environmental project. He's made
me really want to try something different, He changes the Values of every day objects found in the city and shows them performed in a different way. It made me feel a little differently about contemporary arts.
We went on a trip to the Royal college of art last year for a trip & I walked out after about 5 minutes, I'd never found anything so pointless in my life. But researching further into the reasons it makes sense.
Bottle stick is a very odd image yet so interesting, idea's start banging around in your head on how it got there, for what reason the person put it there & what was going through there head. Wentworth Relocates the sculptures he finds
and uses photography to capture it in such a form so that it comes across as a bit of a mind boggler. these moments don't happen for a longer period of time, Very similar to Street photography, capturing Special moments and making an image
so its not forgotten. ' Henri Cartier Bressons ' image of the man jumping over the puddle became so famous for the mire chance of ever being able to catch something so nice on camera. So see'ing & capturing these ideas of unknowing and ignored
moments to most humans eyes and then showing them as a Sculptural form is really nice.
I found a piece of writing on a Journal that reads " these moments only exist for a short period of time, but are replenished daily and on numbers of a massive scale, made unknowingly".
After looking at the rest of the images from the series ' making do and getting by ' the link is odd, most of the other images have a purpose, being it propping up a pool table with a book so it isn't wonky or using a bottle top as an Ash tray.
the only reason I can think of is they didn't want to think of themselves as someone that litters, so putting items onto a shelf or ledge, doesn't feel as if you are being so spiteful to the environment. its as if there is something about
the floor representing rubbish and littering but when it seems as if its been wedged or placed strategically it isn't.
when I look at the series, I don't really find myself looking at the images as images, but I think more about the reason to why he's photographed it & why it works so well with each other. it shows laziness of the human nature and how we
find the closest thing possible to us that makes our life easier. We are very good at using everyday items for the purpose of something else.
(another lazy looking one )
From reading about Wentworth, I then flowered of on Brassai, who made a series called Sculptures involuntarines, when I first looked at them, I though they was weird sculptural paintings made of the top of his head. I then looked closer & clocked
one was a type of ticket, the others I was still oblivious, I looked into what the items where & couldn't believe it, Making items of little significance in life look so intimate with how close & cropped they have been photographed, and how it just completely
throws of your concept on what your actually looking at. The pure blacks & textured contrast of the backdrops give it the unknown feeling plus the way the items have been laying up and positioned by the human hand plays part in there significances.
" Stalking, Cruising the urban landscape, each found sculpture marks the point of multiple convergences where the trajectories of the cities detritus cross the photographers path" , Susan Sontag.
Vera lutter works with Large-scale Camera obscura's, exposing light onto large pieces of photographic paper that hung on the back wall, which created fantastic negatives of the world that laid outside, recording every movement.
once perfecting her style she then went onto hiring containers so she could photograph at different locations of choice. I find her work quiet hard to read visually, I would love to see them on a proper scale as I just feel there is so
much more to see than the 3 inch by 2 inch photograph iv'e managed to find. The vast sizes in which she prints is the answer to really see'ing the passage of time and how the world transferred through light and fixed onto the paper shows the temporality or what goes on.
Its amazing because all her images are most definitely populated with people, but the people move so fast & exposures are so long that there not visible.
The image that shows more movement and time is A photograph she shot inside a aircraft shelter of a Zeppelin being build. Its a 4 day exposure if where Lutter is oblivious of whats going to happen, after 2 days they took the blimp out for a test run & then placed it back
which made the blimp almost ghost like. I think its so much more interesting to not know what the consequences of the photograph is going to be, it becomes multilayered stories happening over the timespan
and all placed into a single image.
Im not really sure what else to say about Vera, I have a mental block. I want to speak about Unmonumental, the word thats popped up in all the series which is what has been interesting me the post, it links them all together so well and Iv'e really enjoyed researching it.
plus some of the short sentences are really nice, for example. ( " Stalking, Cruising the urban landscape, each found sculpture marks the point of multiple convergences where the trajectories of the cities detritus cross the photographers path" , Susan Sontag. )
its always been about how we are so ignorant of the world around us and I really feel they are trying to make us to pay attention to the small things & use our eyes more, instead of taking everything for granted. To really appreciate the world that we've been so fortunate
to take part in but everyone has different perceptions on how it works and how they read it. I suppose there wouldn't be individual and original artists if we looked at everything the same.
