Prompt 1 (AY)

Igloolik Isuma productions

Nunavut. Our land, 1995

Still from episode 8: Avamuktalk

Documenta 11

The image caught my attention out of a wall of postcards in a museum giftshop. As opposed to what I had just saw within the museum, there was a huge choice to be made here among hundreds of images arranged randomly and with no rank or immediate information. This image stood out to me because of the strong relation the caption plays to the image. The font and format show us it was part of a movie, never it’s own moment. And yet the punctuation and the figure’s gesture take up more time than a single still moment, they communicate the whole message slowly, they take up as long as it takes to read the words as they would be yelled. In this sense I feel the image is almost moving, or shimmering.

Prompt 1 (RL)

My image is a photograph from Thomas Roma's 1996 book, Found in Brooklyn. A large, torn and marked metallic object lies on the sidewalk outside a gated cemetery under a wide open sky with a tall building in the background. The object juts out from the right side of the image. It looks for its shape and markings like a whale - the cuts in the metal towards the left form an eye and mouth. A bridge or above ground railway casts a shadow on the top part of the object. I like this image because it is the result of a photographer looking at the world in an unusual way. By putting 4 edges around a street scene that was probably unremarkable in and of itself, the photographer has made a new object, the photograph, that questions our preconceptions about the world around us and what it looks like.

Prompt 1 (EB)

I chose the work of Francesca Woodman called "Untitled" from 1977-78. This black and white photograph is an actual self-portrait of the artist that was taken in Rome. Like many of her other photographs, its an image of a nude figure represented against a monochromatic background together with an interior object, in this case a lily. I discovered Woodman as an artist last semester and was blown away by her works. Her photographs are fresh, dramatic, mysterious, perfectly composed visually and always have this feeling of nostalgia and intimacy. This work is no exception. I was impressed by an unusual treatment of the so-called "female" imagery and by the minimalist and geometrically balanced qualities within the composition of this work.

Prompt 1 (MA)

Frida Kahlo painting The Two Fridas, 1939

I admire Frida Kahlo and respect the contribution she made to art. When I see this painting I am reminded of the duality that is inherent in us all. I am inspired by her ability to display vulnerability and emotion with such raw intensity. I am mostly drawn to this painting because it makes me think of how all people are connected and how we are divided only by our respective cultures and the clashes between independence and interdependence. I suppose my main point is that when I see this image, it makes me think of things that I feel are important in relation to humanity.

Prompt 1 (AR)

Marcel Duchamp is one of my favorite artists, not only as a pivotal force in the history of art, but also as a thinker. "Etant donnes", considered one of his most important and final work of art, is one of my favorite images. I love this image because it is hauntingly beautiful and sublime (Kant's theory of the Sublime and the Beautiful applies to this piece). As an image, it's beyond definition, surpassing the mere description of what the eye is allowed to see. It generates a certain tension between story and plot by invoking a kind of narrative while at the same time omitting history all together. It also deals with sexuality from a morbid perspective, since the figure's genitalia, who seems to be female (she has breasts), is disfigured, or defiled, and even appears to be non-human, at once hinting at rape or murder or both. But that is not a viable attempt at any kind of description, since the figure is holding a gas lamp as though she is still alive. Is the figure relaxing or is she dying, having been tortured and left for dead? Since her face is not visible, her identity is denied, which means that she is a kind of representation of a representation: it could be any woman...

Aside from the aesthetic implications of this image, there is the emotional side one encounters. I could look at if forever, trying to decipher Duchamp's intentions, but at the same time i feel like he was laughing at us when he was making it. Another way i experience this image is by thinking about the fact that he did not make art for over 25 years, even though he worked on it in secret. that is fascinating to think about, and adds a philosophical dimension or layer to the piece. From the moment i saw this image, it never left my mind. i think that it never will. I always think about it in terms of art making practices, as an indexical image, and as a sublime work of art.

Prompt 1 (CR)

I actually have no background on this image. I have no idea where it's from, when it was made, or anything pertaining to the situation shown. But there's something about fooling conventions that really compels me. Our minds are trained to recognize certain images and distortions, that when something is off, it's interesting to see how we react. I actually prefer that I can't see the face of the guy in the blue coat on the left side of the image. I'd like to think he was un-phased, but imagine seeing that in real life; easier said than done. But this image is dark, but witty and kind of funny, but also a little disturbing. There's a beautiful contradiction between the top image and that moment of recognition, and the bottom image where that recognition becomes flipped upside down. It's just confusing and the library in the background is a nice backdrop, I think.

Prompt 1 (HC)

This scene is from the Woody Allen film "Hannah and Her Sisters." Throughout the film, Allen's character is trying to search for "the answers" in life by essentially trying out nearly every major religion or spirituality. He continues to become frustrated about his life, and his ultimate epiphany occurs in this clip.

I finally chose to send this as it resonates with me because I feel it illustrates a perfect image of how simultaneously beautiful and insane life is. I think it honestly hits at the fear of death and an anxiety towards the point of life, yet is a great definition of what it means to face that fear and still appreciate and savor life.

Prompt 1 (JT)

I have been thinking a lot about old photographs and about the people in them. Especially anonymous ones, people I don't know.The photograph is a fleeting moment in somebody's life. Does the photograph show the truth? Who were the people in them? What kind of lives have they lived? Happy? Horrible? My mind wanders and fills in their stories, the ones I imagine to be the reality behind the lie the image can show. To me that lie is the public persona of the person. This is what we are choosing to display on a regular basis.

I like to fill in the story of that person's life. I am not interested in researching the real truth. Their lives to me are like diaramas we build as children. The mystery needs to prevail for me to remain interested. I keep coming back to the image in hope I can uncover something true. I draw and paint the image because it allows me to intensively look and with each pencil stroke I establish an imaginary relationship. I slip into their story and live in their lives for that time period.

Prompt 1 (AA)

A moment of disappearance and reappearance in Yvonne Rainer's 'Trio A' (pirated).

Prompt 1 (DP)

Click here to view the video

It’s a small animation lasting for about 1 minute. Originally, this is an advertisement made for LIPTON mike tea by a group of people led by me. As an advertisement, it’s passing the New Year blessings through, including love, happiness and good fortune. The little boys and girls decorated in traditional ways put these three things into the lucky money pocket. And it turns out to be a cup of tea for everyone’s family and friends with all the blessings and wishes.

I find it compelling in several ways especially during the Chinese New Year. Put the last few seconds aside, ignore the advertising things first, it’s filled with the New Year atmosphere, the memory of special days striving for a certain goal and the respect for traditional art showed by the young generation in a time that traditional things are diminishing every minute.

This is a video made by very traditional Chinese art, paper cutting. In the old days, paper cutting is often used for decoration during the New Year time made by the village craftsmen. But nowadays, it varies and is used here. In paper cutting, every single element can become abundant, not only outside, but also inside. The patterns on the little, on the pot, on the cup are not just for beauty, but for describing the characters of everything, even a pot. Flowers, which can be seen in everywhere, represents New Year and happiness. Cloud represents peace and harmony, while coins represent lucky money for the children. I love these symbolized things, which give life to every characters, just like the facial makeup in Chinese operas. And they are beautifully organized in a very special way.

Jan. 23th is the Chinese lunar New Year, as a student living abroad alone, I’m more absorbed by the traditional art which brings me atmosphere of a new year and reminding me the feeling of beginning another lunar year. Maybe it also kind of represents family and friends, all the happy moment connected with tradition and reminded by tradition.

Although not being made by any famous artist, it’s still my favorite work till now. It represents the days all producers work together 12 hours a day cutting the red papers, studying traditional art and thinking about meanings and ideas. A special and precious memory is stored in this video, so it’s even more compelling to me.

Prompt 1 (BD)

The image I have chose is Andy Warhol's Jackie Kennedy, 1964. I am very heavily influenced by pop art especially Warhol. When I first became interested in Warhol, I bought a 48" x 48" print of this particular piece and it has hung in every place I have lived since until I moved to New York City last semester. I love this piece because it is very iconic, but not quite as well known as Warhol's portraits of Marilyn Monroe. It also invokes a feeling of home for me because I am used to seeing it in the context of my own living room.

Prompt 1 (ES)

Here is an image captured by Eddie Adams and reproduced by numerous publications.

It found me at a time in my life when I absolutely despised photography and photographers for holding places in the "Art World". I envied the use of a mechanical device to capture a physically representational image in an instant and reproduce this image more quickly than I could ever dream of doing so as a painter.

I was an elitist who subscribed to the hierarchy of artistic mediums that honored the supremacy of paint. And this was reinforced time and again with each museum visit and each new painting I discovered that reached inside of me to move my soul.

In early 2009 I stumbled into a Dumbo gallery show of Adams' work. It just so happened that a very intense debate over the merits of photography and photojournalism, in particular, had been raging within me. My writings on the topic were becoming more brutal with each session in my journals and on my keyboard.

I had entered the gallery reluctantly and pretty convinced that finally I would grow to completely loathe photography altogether.

Since seeing this image, the only time such anguish crosses my mind is in reflection of who I was and how I have grown.

The phenomena of capturing the instant when a man has lost his life, left me in tears before this image for why felt like an eternity. The ability to reproduce and share this image meant that an entire generation had known this photo and valued it enough to place it before me in a gallery that found me by mere chance.

I have since come to appreciate, value, and refuse no possibility of any medium finding a place in my work.

Prompt 1 (LK)

Prompt 1 (LW)

This is a picture of the photographer Sally Mann, an image I really love, because I recognize myself in it (there's a lot of pictures I do not recognize myself in it that I like) (I mean, I think so, but maybe I do and I don't know it, it may be unconscious, because I think most of the time people like things in which they find a piece of themselves, but that's another problem). I'm touched by her eyes, I love the gravity in her look and the fact that she's so young and that she can feel and make you feel this emotion. I find it beautiful but frightening though. I like the hands on her arms, the feeling of strength that the child exhales... The strength in her look responds to the strength that we can imagine the person holding her exercises on her.

I also like sepia pictures, a lot. And the movement of her hair, the texture of the two hands, the marks on her skin, her sloppy clothes, I actually like everything in this picture.

Someone recently told me they hated Sally Mann, that they found she was a pornographer, even a pedophile. That no one is allowed to do that to children. Trying to make them desirable, forcing them to have a woman's behaviour. And I don't know what to think about it, because I love her photography work but there are some pictures I find disturbing. I mean I like be disturbed in art, but not in anyway...

Prompt 1 (JW)

In the 90's Pamela Anderson was huge. Symbolizing a certain type of celebrity that seems the forerunner of today's prevalent stripper/porn culture. Chronic tan, extensions of everything physical; hair, nails, lashes, lips, cheeks, and breasts which were inflated, deflated and inflated again as she realized the importance of this asset to the level of attention she received . This image is so compelling to me because it seems to perfectly summarize the desperation associated with celebrity/power and it currency. Now in her 40's Pam Anderson is desperately holding firm, refusing to evolve her public image.

Prompt 1 (JOW)

Henry Ossawa Tanner’s The Banjo Lesson

Henry Ossawa Tanner’s The Banjo Lesson has always captivated me. I recognize the image because growing up Philadelphia, the place where Tanner once lived and was educated in, I would see this image in various places in my predominantly African-American neighborhood. The meaning continues to evolve for me as I grow and learn more about it.

Tanner was an artist who inspired me to create art. His pieces are masterfully composed and rendered, and are an excellent example of the American realist movement of the late 19th century. Growing up in a church-going family, I could easily relate to biblical themes of works such as The Annunciation, a depiction of Mary, mother of Jesus the Christ, being visited by an otherworldly entity.

I find the The Banjo Lesson especially compelling for various reasons. The image itself, a naturalistic depiction of an old man teaching a young boy to play an instrument, is endearing enough. Obviously, this would be a positive, dignified image in a troubled, working-class, African-American community. I, however, began to read into it more as I grew.

When I was a kid, I noticed how Tanner arranged the lighting so that the warm yellow-orange, the fire’s light, lit most of the young boy, and a cool bluish glow from outside lit a large portion of the old man. To me this represented the approaching last days of the old man and the promising future of youth. The painting was completed in 1893, so the old man in this image could have possibly been a former slave. The instrument, the banjo, actually originated as a similar stringed instrument in Africa. African slaves in America lost their freedom, identity, language, etc, but managed to retain some of their original culture. That culture, however, continually eroded with the birth of “free-born” Africans in America. So the actual banjo lesson, to me, represents the passing on of a morphing and fading connection to Africa. The young boy, who looks to be about 7 or 8, who’ll reach adulthood in the early 20th century, will most likely be considered a “New Negro” or a generation of free-born, free-minded African-Americans responsible for, among other things, the Harlem Renaissance. One could imagine the distinctly folksy American and African rhythms the young boy is learning to strum on this banjo being used in America’s first jazz bands.

The Banjo Lesson is also effective because of the subtle gestures of the two figures. African-American subjects, especially lower-middle-class, simply weren’t often depicted with this much humanity at that time.

Even now, as I continue to study African-American art, I discover more and more about the context of this image and the life of the artist. The meaning continually evolves. The piece is compelling for many reasons, and more than I would like to subject the reader to at this time.

Prompt 1 (ZK)

Wes Anderson's new film Moonrise Kingdom has stuck with me... The trailer has a certain balance, and caught my eye with its pleasurable color. Below please find a link to the trailer, and then a variation of the trailer below, which points out the symmetric quality of the clip.

Prompt 1 (CS)

I love raw nature, forests, giant waves, volcanoes, and so on, and at first I thought this was lava. It seemed like a beautiful photograph of a volcano, which I do like, but what really made me appreciate the image was finding out that it's NOT lava. It's nickel tailings, formed by industrial pollution and construction, and shows how man is completely changing the landscape around him. For me, art has always been primarily about aesthetics, which is why I like landscape photography - it's pretty, to put it simply. But this image is more than that, it's also a comment on industrialization and what we're doing to the world around us. I don't normally like political art, because I feel that most of it isn't visually/aesthetically pleasing, but this image somehow manages to combine both - it's strangely beautiful, but also has a message that I do agree with. We're changing the world and, though it may still look beautiful, like this photograph, the pretty colors are indicative of something very wrong.

















Edward Burtynsky, Nickel Tailings No. 34, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, 1996

Class 1: What is an image?

Image of Alice Neel paintings courtesy SeeThink Films


We discuss what it means to step forward and inhabit an artistic practice as Bob Dylan adopts persona in a duel with Donovan in DA Pennebaker's Don't Look Back; Hartley Neel asks "Why does anyone make an image--of anything?" in Andrew Neel's Alice Neel; and we question: What is an image? From the brain receiving messages from the eye's response to visual cues, to the expectation and interpretation of the viewer as a story unfolds, we brainstorm an answer to this difficult definition (which we will return to at the end of Spring semester):

WHAT IS AN IMAGE?

• An image tells a story
• An image is the eye's response to visual cues sending messages to the brain
• Perception is key to defining the image - what jumps out to the eye and the brain, what remains in the memory of an image?
• Does context change one's definition of image? What about expectations and interpretation of the viewer?
• Relationship of the image: the idea verses the reception of an image produces multitudes of variation
• Between the physical world and the mental world there is a vast space inhabited by imagination
• PAY ATTENTION: a space of attention is critical to receiving an image
• What about "blind images"? What images exist in the mind's eye that are generated by touch, not sight?
• The negative space, the space in-between forms and that slippery space in-between seeing and recognizing what you see
• Receiving/looking at an image involves a "selection" or editing process - the eye will pick up on and remember or prioritize certain details over others
• An image is a sign, it stands in for something else
  

Assignment 1: Email instructor Mary Simpson an image you find compelling, along with a few notes on why you are drawn to it; this could be an image you desire or one you detest, and either a still image or a link to moving images: due Tuesday January 24.