Look Down

Sometimes all you need to do in order to break out of a rut is to point your camera in a different direction. In this case, I was looking down and noticing the calligraphic qualities of some of the marks on the street. This little series reminded me of the work Aaron Siskind, one of the first 'art' photographers I discovered way back in my late teens. In the absence of scale cues, even an unmanipulated photograph can appear abstract.

Aaron Siskind: Pleasures and Terrors

Aaron Siskind died almost exactly 30 years ago, in February, 1991. I've been a huge fan of his work for most of my life; recently, that interest has been rekindled and I've been keen to take a deeper dive. Unfortunately, most of the information that is readily available is quite dated at this point. Perhaps a young art historian will take up the cause of re-assessing his output, but in the meantime I've picked up a copy of a biography written by Carl Chiarenza in about 1982. In addition to providing a huge amount of personal information, the portfolios show a wider range of photographs than I have seen in one place before. What is of particular interest is that he did some of his best work well into his 70s, and this work is new to me. It is interesting how artists get pigeonholed, with one or two images being widely exhibited and publicized, while other bodies of work languish in obscurity. Pleasures and Terrors is a great pick-up and comes highly recommended.

 

Pastiche or allusion?

At one time or another, I think we all feel motivated make art that pays respect to individuals who have had an impact on us. Homage and tribute are often used to describe this kind of work, but I'm not a huge fan of these terms because they harken back to Medieval notions of fealty. Not really my cup of tea, and not the source of my motivation either, if I'm being honest. The notion of a remix is not exactly what I have in mind either right now, although it certainly is a useful concept and I'm not bashing it. 

Lately, I've been taken with the notion of pastiche as being the most, dare I say, palatable, description of this kind of imitative way of working. Here is an example of a pastiche that tries to reference Winn Bullock. Just as with the original photograph, my image documents an apple that has been divided in two. The image was captured on film using the Rolleiflex SL66. Still life is a much more difficult genre to work in than one might expect, but on the other hand, no two apples are exactly the same.