mrurbano

I thought it might not hurt to address the thoughts I recently outlined in Photography and Place, using a specific location as an example. Given the photographic representation of Appalachia has been very heavily discussed over the past few weeks (c.f. the Perpetuating the Visual Myth of Appalachia posts on Roger May's blog) I figured this particular region might provide a good jump-off point. Find the full piece here.

These photographs are from Jiri Makovec's Untitled ( for Jiajia ). I like them individually, but I also like how they work together.

“The world is one, a seamless whole, for those who can see it; for those who can learn to observe, to regard, to understand.”—Donald Richie

As I emerged from Kurenboh, a gallery tucked away in the Kuramae area of Tokyo, the words of Donald Richie, former Curator of Film at MoMA (1969–72), resonated in my mind. A few moments before, I had been sitting cross-legged, in silence, on the pristine white floor of the gallery. This miniature, minimalist space, run by Akiyoshi Taniguchi, is attached to the Chohuin Buddhist Temple where Taniguchi fulfils the dual role of priest and curator. It cannot be defined as a white cube, for every possible corner in the space has been rounded in the architect Makoto Yokomizo’s design. Standing in the gallery, it is as if you are in a limitless space, a seamless whole, to which there seems to be no beginning or end. On the walls of this serene void hang a careful selection of black-and-white photographs that comprise the current exhibition of Japanese photographer Chihiro Minato. In this intimate environment, where time seems to stand still, one’s perception is sharpened. As Taniguchi explains, “The gallery aims to calm the mind of the visitor, to enable him or her to concentrate entirely on the art at hand, to wander mentally within the universe of the artist, and through this, to have a little of the kind of transcendent experience that, following another path, people have sought to reach through the disciplines of Buddhist meditative practice.” The space allows one to contemplate the works with a degree of intensity and focus that I had never experienced within a gallery context. Taniguchi explained to me that the space was about much more than the work itself, that it allowed the viewer to gain a heightened experience of looking and understanding not only at artwork but at one’s self. He remarked that within this context the photographs function as mirrors, allowing the viewer to look inside themselves.

Throughout my recent trip to Japan with my colleague and friend Allison Tepper, my conceptions of time and space were continually challenged and expanded, both through my experiences of observing everyday life and through viewing artworks by a diverse range of Japanese artists. The initial impetus behind my trip was a desire to pursue a visual experience outside of my primarily Western one. My starting point was my understanding that time and space had historically played an important part in Japanese culture, from the tradition of Ukiyo-e prints, a genre of woodblocks of leisure scenes translated as “prints of the floating world,” to the slow movements of Noh theatre to fusama, the interchangeable sliding doors integral to interior architecture. I wanted to see how these concepts had evolved in the work of contemporary Japanese artists.

At Espace Louis Vuitton, a striking glass box-shaped gallery perched high above the Louis Vuitton store in Omotesando, we visited an exhibition titled Cosmic Travelers – Toward the Unknown, focusing on the recent work of five Japanese artists. One of the most intriguing pieces was Flowing Sky (2011–12) by Tomoko Shioyasu, an artist who works with synthetic paper. In the gallery, a long ream hangs from the ceiling, with the extraordinarily detailed papercuts that punctuate the sheet casting two separate delicate shadows across the floor. We met with the Director of Espace Louis Vuitton, Christine Vendredi-Auzanneau, who described Shioyasu’s meditative working process to us. She sits on the floor with a scroll of paper, rolling out one tatami mat-sized work surface at a time, meticulously cutting and piercing into the material by hand. In fact, Shioyasu herself had not seen the work in its rolled-out entirety until one week before the exhibition opened.

The traditional method of Kiri-e (the Japanese art of papercutting) is regenerated in Shioyasu’s hands. She never works from a strict plan; rather the patterns emerge intuitively, evoking natural forms such as leaves, running water, or intricate rock formations. The carefully controlled conception of space in the process of making the work is released and expanded in the exhibition space, now literally floating in the air. The shadows cast by the work overlap and encroach into the other works in the room, as if growing seamlessly out of or into them. Midori Nishizawa, curator of the exhibition, explains that the word “cosmic” in the exhibition title can refer to “limitlessness and infinity with diverse implications,” a notion that is perpetuated in Shioyasu’s work.

During a visit to print workshop Kido Press, Master Printer Hitoshi Kido showed us Kumi Machida’s most recent etchings from 2011. These were her first set of unique prints (all her previous prints were made after her paintings), and depict haunting creatures with delicate hand-applied additions, such as a white tissue paper veil draped over a head. Machida had explained to Kido that in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that took place in Japan last year, she had felt that a strong power from above was silently watching this horror and she wanted to create an “imaginative response” to this. Before 2011, Kido had never asked the artists he worked with to date their works, but since these natural disasters he has asked them to include this detail. A sense of specificity seems to have gained resonance in present day Japan, alongside more expansive notions of time and space.

As we wandered through Nakameguro later that day, we happened to pass a courtyard that opened out onto the pavement interspersed with waist-height tables adorned with recent publications. We were drawn off the street, and soon discovered that this display was an extension of the Magazine Library, a traveling exhibition of contemporary print media, magazines, and independent publications (many of which were also on display at MoMA as part of the exhibition Millennium Magazines). Magazine Library blurs the boundary of exhibition space and pavement, engaging the viewer by slowing their pace. The exhibition context claims a new conception of time and space, in a very quotidian setting.  

On my final day in Japan, we were extremely fortunate to visit the avant-garde artist and composer Mieko Shiomi at her home in Osaka. Amongst wonderful recollections of her childhood, she stressed how careful observations of gradual transitions of sunsets and moon cycles have provided the foundation for much of her work. The processes of nature seem fundamental to Japanese culture, in which time is merely defined by how long it takes for a cycle to complete itself. Even then, time is not confined, for the essence of a cycle is that it continues and repeats itself again as part of a seamless whole.

“To live naturally with time, says Asia, is to pay no attention to it. And Japan, despite its modernization, still subscribes to this ancient tradition.”—Donald Richie

 

Quotes from: Richie, Donald. A Lateral View: Essays on Culture and Style in Contemporary Japan. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 1992.

Photo © Michael Winnerholt

Photo © Simon Johansson

When Alex Arbuckle covered the Occupy Wall Street protests, he decided to show a straightforward view of the police. Instead, he found himself arrested. A few days ago, he was vindicated.

Photo © Michael Winnerholt

School near Minsk, Belarus 2010

Julien Goldstein (b. 1971, France) decided to pursue a career as a photojournalist  working as an assistant at Magnum. Drawing on his Romanian origins he explored its history and it’s transition from a socialist republic to a democratic state. He then went on to explore the  former Soviet Republics, a report later exhibited in Visa pour l’image in 2003. Being particularly interested in Turkey and the geopolitical issues related to the Kurdish people, he completed a five-year project entitled ‘Kurdistan, The Anger Of A People Without Rights’, for which he was awarded a Lagardere Foundation grant in December 2009. A book of this work was released in January 2012. His photographs are regularly published in the French and international press, including: Geo France, Le Monde,  The New York Times, Newsweek, Spiegel and others. He is represented by Reportage by Getty Images.

About the Photograph:

“This picture was shot during an assignment for Geo in Belarus. The general idea of the subject was to update the situation of the country on the eve of presidential elections in December 2010. This country is led by Alexander Lukashenko, long dismissed as the last dictator in Europe. His methods are annoying and intriguing the European Union and Russia. I went to a village near Minsk, to photograph a kolkhoz (agricultural cooperative where land, tools, livestock are shared). The kolkhoz was hardly a model example. My presence in the agricultural farm was quickly banned, so I decided to visit the village school which is also managed collectively. After I was forced to take a tour of the school, I entered a kindergarten classroom where the children were preparing to take a nap.”

Här kan ni se ett gäng osmickrande porträtt tagna av fotografen Tadao Cern. Kom nu ihåg att jag varnade er.

I had to go to The Spawn of Satan's Emporium yesterday.  O.K.  I didn't have to.  But I was looking for some wardrobe things.  I have had a few days off and, and I seem to be regaining a sort of vigor that has been lacking in me for about two years.  I think I am emerging from a long, functional depression.  So I am beginning to engage some of the chores that need to be done.  Like start the Jeep that is rotting in the front yard with a sticker on the windshield put there by the city.  Like graveling the driveways and re-sodding the yards and replacing the big ligustrum that were wiped out recently and tragically by a fungus in the soil.  I may even redecorate inside the house. Along with all of this, I've decided to do what I had always intended to do and change sets in the studio, at least from time to time.  I was lying in bed one morning, my body aching, my belly fat hanging, and I thought, "I'm too young to be this old."  I've been working on it ever since. So.  I needed some things.  I went to Target first to look for lingerie.  I've done this before, but it was always after work on a weekday and there were not many people around.  Saturdays, though, seem to be another thing.  I approached a lady's underwear section full of women, mothers, daughters.  What the hell, I thought, but as soon as I picked up a pair of panties, I could feel the blood rush to my neck.  Just then, I felt the phone buzz in my pocket.  It was a text from Red. "I'm in the lingerie section at Target.  I think the police will come," I wrote her. I couldn't find anything I wanted, a black camisole top, standard white cotton underwear.  Eventually I did, but they were all sized six and up.  Most of the women I shoot with are size 0.  Had all the small sizes been picked already, or is the average woman who shops at Target much bigger? "I can't find anything here," I texted again.  "I'm going to the children's section.  Wish me luck." "You won't need luck," she wrote back.  "You'll need a lawyer." She was right, of course.  Before I could look at anything, I got flustered by the look in a twelve year old's eye.  Glancing around to see if I was being followed, I made quick for the checkout counter with the two pairs of women's white cotton panties. "These aren't for me," I said to the fat hispanic lady who was checking me out.  She didn't even smile. My next stop was Party City, the only costume store in town.  I needed a new mask.  You would think it would be easy to find such a simple mask, but it isn't.  At least it hasn't been for me.  And once again, Party City had masks, but nothing like I needed. "I can't find any masks," I texted Red. "Go to one of the adult stores," she said.  "They have all sorts of things like that." "Sure," I texted back.  "You want me to pick up anything for you?" And that's how I ended up at The Spawn of Satan.  It is a big Adult Factory Outlet store that runs ads all the time on late night television.  They play cute little jingles and show happy couples smiling and laughing as the hold up "fantasy" costumes.  I don't know why it bothers, me, really. . . but it does. I know. . . hypocrite.  But I'm not.  I just have some confusion, that's all.  I'm conflicted.  A battle rages within. The Spawn is in a bad part of town, and I was enjoying the view.  I passed the remains of an old 1950's hotel that still had the original sign, though in bad repair, standing out on the highway.  I would come and make some pictures of that, I thought as I drove by.  All about were the skeletons of a time gone.  The road was perpetually torn up for repair, orange cones and blockades making traffic veer this way and that.  People stood in line at an old Dairy Queen that still served ice cream but was now called something else.  The people looked poor and miserable.  Everything including the people was in shambles.  This is what I should be photographing, I thought for the millionth time.  Here's life's story.  It's been chronicled to death, I know, but it needs a new chronicler. . . and I'm just the man for the job.  Really.  I will come back, I thought.  I will bring the Liberator.  It will cause the adrenaline to flow.  It will take a lot of time and effort. But not just now.  And of course, that's the way it always goes.  Nope.  I was on another mission.  And there it was, a big billboard atop the building announcing it:  The Spawn of Satan Adult Factory Outlet. Sure, I'm lying about the name, but that is what I felt pulling into the parking lot.  Jesus, I thought.  What if somebody sees me walking in? The inside was brightly lit like a new care showroom.  There was no hiding here.  I texted Red. "I'm here.  Holy shit!  I have to pee but I'm afraid to go to the bathroom." "Stop being a pussy," she said. "Oh. . . O.K.  Remember that later.  I'm going to get you a BIG surprise." "WTF?" "Like you said. . . don't be a pussy." I walked over to the costume section.  It seemed the safest place to be.  Who buys this stuff, I wondered, thinking guiltily about the "Lonesomeville" series.  But this stuff was inauthentic, cheap, sleazy.  Ho-ho-ho, I heard some invisible critic chuckle. Masks.  I was looking for masks.  The dizziness was starting to clear a bit.  My vision seemed to be returning.  I was coming out of the tunnel.  Here and there scattered about the crotchless panties and cat o' nine tails were leather masks without eye holes.  WTF? indeed.  There was nothing of any use to me here. I began to notice the other people in the store.  There were single men and a few couples.  I'm guessing that women don't come into these places alone (but I'm sure I'll be advised on this later).  I decided to look around since I was already here, already video recorded.  I walked over to a section that required batteries.  There were vibrating things and twirling things and things that went up and down and in and out.  Another section housed objects for penetrating any orifice you might have.  Next to that, there were stimulants and lubricants and pumps for both men and women.  I saw a fellow older than I looking at the penis pumps and wondered to myself what he was thinking.  Really?  Does he believe those things work?  Do they?  I don't know.  It was all too much for me to imagine. By now a store employee was following me.  I think.  She turned up on every aisle I was on.  I looked at her.  She offered no help.  Didn't even smile.  I guessed it was time for me to go. It was mid-afternoon by the time I pulled back out on the highway.  I'd spent the better part of the day on a fruitless search.  Worse.  I felt grateful, though, that things had gone as well as they did.  No public officials had become any way involved. Driving back by the old hotel with the sign, I decided to stop.  There was a vacant lot next to it with a curb cut leading nowhere.  I parked in the grass on top of the piles of litter there, grabbed my Leica, and got out.  Grainy black and white.  Maybe it would look good.  Nevertheless, it was the only camera I had with me. After walking around and snapping a couple frames, I noticed the few cars parked in front of some of the terribly rundown rooms.  I wondered who lived there, what their circumstances were, and why.  These were the stories, real ones, dangerous ones I assumed.  I used to know people with lives such as these who lived in bad places.  But not as bad as this.  There were some horrible addictions in there. I was beginning to walk away when a man came quickly toward me from the front office. "What are you doing, he queried?  He was a dark Indian man with a deeply lined face.  He was missing his top two front teeth. "Hey there," I smiled.  "I'm just taking a picture of the sign.  It is great.  There isn't much of this left.  My childhood was filled with things like this.  This place must have been built in the '50s." He was smiling a bit now. "Yes, the fifties," he said. "Well, it is great.  No worries man, I'm just a photographer and wanted to make some pictures of that." "Oh, O.K." he said and we waved to one another as I hurried back to the car.  But as soon as I was inside, I knew I'd blown it.  I should have asked him questions, I thought.  I should have gotten the story.  I'm out of practice.  I was trying to get out when I should have been trying to get in. Red was right, of course, but about the wrong thing.  I was being a pussy. As I say, I'm feeling good again.  Maybe not good yet, but better.  Depression makes the body hurt, I think, makes it old.  And all the self-medication doesn't help, either.  I am feeling more mobile again, though.  I feel like moving.  Motion.  Getting away.  Leaving the old fears and sadness behind.  I'll work on new sets in the studio.  But I keep thinking.  I must go back and talk to that man at the hotel.  I'll go with one of my other cameras and walk into the office to tell him I'm there and want to shoot in color.  I'll ask him questions.  There will be stories.  It will be something.

Great photos from Bukhara, Uzbekistan by photographer © Anzor Bukharsky who is also living in Bukhara. WATCH more photos by Anzor www.facebook.com/Bukharsky

Born(year): 1978 Lives in: Canada Latest exhibition: 2010 Painting, Liquidty Coming, planned exhibition: several in 2012 Inspiration (photographers):Hofer, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Inspiration (other): relaxing days Quote: "Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity." Website: www.ktoth.com, www.ntropy.us Photos © Kathy Toth

Photos © Alessandra Buzzoni

I just spent an hour connecting two news stories today in a very irreverent way.  The first concerned the desire of some Congressmen to spend tax payers' money to use propaganda on/against them.  The other was about tapeworms in the brain.  But the whole thing got out of hand.  I spent most of the time Googling images that I could use, propaganda posters and images of ethnic stereotypes from my childhood, and particularly gruesome pictures of parasite damage.  I freed myself to use every stereotype and epithet I could.  It was fun but ugly. I don't mind stereotypes at all, of course.  Nor epithets nor any irreverent things.  They are funny, but only, I guess if you are aware of the humor in them. Oops.  I just started giving examples again and had to delete.  It is not that I don't want to share, but I don't want to sully today's image with any of that.  It is a most perfect example on it's own, a gorgeous play on male desire and the chthonic power of the female figure that Camille Paglia wrote about.  The image is wrong which makes it so perfectly delicious if you get the joke.  And that's the deal.  Art is supposed to let you say things that you are not allowed to say outside it, to talk about things that are taboo.  This image presents the oldest taboo of all.  And at once it piques my prurient interests and assuages my guilt for having them because it is ironic.  Or is it?  And this is where the power of propaganda is of interest.  Who gets to say what about the image and whose saying will prevail.  The image is about power.  But so is any analysis of it, too.  It is all propaganda, this art and analysis, an attempt to make you see and agree. But I am instructing, lecturing. . . and being a bore.  I think I must have tapeworms in my brain.  I eat a lot of raw fish.  It can't be good. O.K.  Stop illegal immigration.  Save the transgendered whales.  Or, my favorite: Don't be evil.  Do good.