Category: Uncategorized

John John Jesse – Cradle to the Grave (2005)

I feel like John John Jesse takes the worst bits of Klimt (the tendency to over encumber his paintings with decorative elements) and Ernst (decalcomania) filters them through the lust, depravity and mania of drug-fueled debaucherous punk rock themed orgies.

It’s like the first reaction to any painting is to move beyond the improbably ripped (and oft-ineffectively safety pinned shirts) revealing even more improbably perfect breasts and shift into a sort of Where’s Waldo spot the drug references–in this case: five (5) bottles of booze (Jameson in the right hand of the rabbit headed lady, some sort of cognac between the legs of the pink knickered woman at frame left, a bottle of wine in the knapsacke of the woman in the tank top, the Budweiser in her hand and then a bottle in the style of Jack Daniels of Die Young (presumably whiskey) that has been turned into an 80 proof alcohol IV), a big old Bill Cosby’s Secret Ingredient and two prescription bottles.

I’m going to completely gloss over the ghost/homunculus/fetal alcohol syndrome fetus with umbilical cord. (Like WTF-even?)

Now, by all accounts I’ve done more than my fair share of drugs in my life. Hell, I continue to enjoy a number of illicit substances. And really the in-your-face punk-rock flavored transgressive nihilism that Jesse trades in is unquestionably seductive to me.

But it’s easy to point to the sex, drugs or rock and roll-ness of the work as being what attracts and repels the viewer in equal measure.

What I keep coming back for is honestly the way he depicts women. It’s been noted repeatedly that most of the folks he paints are his friends. And to me that feels like the most important take away from his work.

I’m not sure what it says about me–probably more about my being born in the wrong time (New York’s Lower East Side in the 80s would’ve absolutely been my scene, you have no idea), but the way the women he paints can look simultaneously self-possessed, stoned to the gills, standoffish, available and maybe like they aren’t sure whether they are trying to feel something other than numb or numb their feelings, resonates with me in a way that leaves me entirely unnerved.

Source: punkpigpen

Erotobot – Dinks (2014)

I have a outsize obsession with visible texture. When it’s done right–it is like I can almost feel that which I am seeing, sliding beneath my finger tips through nothing more than the act of maintaining an attentive gaze.

With its gooseflesh, dirt, the black mirror-like water, water droplets on goosebumps and even Dinks’ hair, this would’ve had less impact if it had approached me out of a crowd and broken a baseball bat in half over my head.

It’s unquestionably pornography. And honestly being somewhat familiar with Erotobot’s work–all of his photos feature a discomfiting edginess. Shot in abandoned buildings or seeming post-industrial wastelands. It’s dark and sinister; explicitly and graphically depicts sex–frequently of a rather rough variety. Like just looking at the work, I worry a bit that he’s another in a long line of perverts making beautiful work through sometimes questionable disregard for consent, boundaries or interpersonal respect.

But despite how over-the-top the obscenity is in this image, my reading of it leads me in rather the opposite direction. Straight up there’s no way getting this shot didn’t take time. Evidenced by the goosebumps and the fact that Dinks would’ve had to get undressed and roll around in the puddle and dirt for this scene to have come about.

Yes, it’s possible that there were degrees of unseen coercion. And I don’t know if it’s because I want so much to like this–if you feel I’m wrong, please chime in (consent is just about the most important thing to me and if/when I fuck things up, I welcome correction)–but this feels consensual.

The way it’s played toward the camera. Dinks’ expression speaks of wanting so desperate it actually feels like a kind of physical pain that can only be assuaged by sating the desire. There is something here the resonates with an honesty that I find entirely unnerving. (I relate to this so hard.)

But there’s also a way in which Dinks (and maybe that’s not her name but I hope it is because it’s awesome) is presented as seductive but also maybe a little bit dangerous–as in while the image is presented so that the viewer can station themselves between photographer and subject–and thereby presume the show is for them and them alone; standing in such a position carries a lot of potential risk for harm, violence or some sort of untoward resolution.

Beyond that I only know three things:

  1. I am devastated this was not an photography I created,
  2. I wish it was a photograph of me, and,
  3. I suspect that the way that Art and Pornography can happily coexist has less to do with hybridization and a lot more to do with setting out to create something meaningful and evocative instead of easily salacious.

Vic Bakin – Parthenonas, Sithonia (2016)

[I]n the realm of ethics, politics, aesthetics it was the authenticity and
sincerity of the pursuit of inner goals that mattered; this applied
equally to individuals and groups – states, nations, movements. This is
most evident in the aesthetics of romanticism, where the notion of
eternal models, a Platonic vision of ideal beauty, which the artist
seeks to convey, however imperfectly, on canvas or in sound, is replaced
by a passionate belief in spiritual freedom, individual creativity. The
painter, the poet, the composer do not hold up a mirror to nature,
however ideal, but invent; they do not imitate (the doctrine of
mimesis), but create not merely the means but the goals that they
pursue; these goals represent the self-expression of the artist’s own
unique, inner vision, to set aside which in response to the demands of
some “external” voice – church, state, public opinion, family friends,
arbiters of taste – is an act of betrayal of what alone justifies their
existence for those who are in any sense creative.

–Isaiah Berlin, on the relationship between Romanticism and the rise of fascism /totalitarianism.

Source: vicbakin

Dmitry Chapala – Anastasia Scheglova from La Mégère apprivoisée series (2015)

The composition here is so muddled and dunderheaded that I don’t even feel as if I can weighing in on whether or not it qualifies as #skinnyframebullshit–maybe, maybe not? What is even with this perspective? Are we supposed to interpret that bed as positive space and the Ikea shelf–why does everyone I know have this shelf, it’s ugly af–floor and rug as negative space? :::shrugs:::

Why am I bothering with this picture then? More specifically: why am I bothering with Chapala’s work at all? (It’s not like he’s especially good at what he does… he lacks the edginess/audacity of Giancomo Pepe and there are times when I effing swear he’s genuflecting in Marcel Pommer’s general direction. (Not to say he has never produced interesting snaps… he has a handful that are almost good. I simply feel his work is nearly completely derivative. He seems to be this breed of image maker that insists upon himself and his ‘fine art bonafides’ and folks just go along with it because the work superficially conforms to some arbitrary median threshold…)

Again, why bother? Well, in this case, there are two reasons. First, it seems as if every snap from this session is available online–a sure indication of less than adequate editing rigor.

I want to circle around to two of the more widely circulated shots from this series; both echo each other as far as composition–far more sensible but it still doesn’t entirely work. In one the woman has her eyes open, in the other her eyes are closed.

As far as order goes there’s a sense that the picture above preceded the other two. The falling trajectory of her left hand across the three images suggests that the subsequent order is eyes open then eyes closed. (You’ll notice–also–that the other two have had the contrast dialed up compared to the one above.)

The angle of view and the position of the ugly Ikea shelf contribute a feeling that the viewer of the image has walked into a room with which they are familiar and have found a beautiful, naked woman comfortably stretched out on the bed.

The second image is Playboy softcore-esque; the third is more unsettling given the first and second image. It suggests that either the woman is no coyly pretend as if she’s napping or worse–that this is sort of an on the fly revision, a sort of masturbatory fantasy change on the fly. (”I walk in and she’s stretched out on the bed, gazing coquettishly at me. Wait, no… she’s alseep…” Yeah, I like that better.”)

Point number two w/r/t why bother with this image is despite the litany of flaws with the above image, it does actually do something a lot of fine art nude work fails stupendously at: aligning a candid perspective with actually candid body language.

I recently realized there’s a way to describe this as long as you don’t mind a minor digression. Okay? Cool.

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the few books I’ve actually had to read on three different occasions across years of schooling. As you’ll recall, Huck runs away, encounters Jim and then hears about a drowned body found on the river. He wonders if it’s his father so disguising himself as a girl, he approaches the abode of Mrs. Loftus to seek information.

Mrs. Loftus quickly puzzles out that something isn’t quite right and so she challenges Huck to three tests: she has him toss a lump of lead at a rat, thread a needle and finally the old woman tosses a lump of lead into his lap to note how he catches it. He fails each test. His aim is true with the rat, he thoroughly botches threading the needle and instead of opening his legs to let the material of his dress act as a trampoline to catch the lead, he slams his legs shut to avoid the potential of getting his gonads struck.

There’s a way in which supposedly candid shots always seem to have this demureness that undercuts the scene. As humans we carry and arrange our bodies different based on whether we are in public or in private. In public, we tend to favor decorum over comfort, in private, it’s the other way ‘round.

In other words: there’s a tendency with the sexualization inherent in the male gaze, frequently candid work features extremely stylized and self-consciously demure poses. In effect, there’s a tendency for the subjects in candid fine art nude work to make the same mistake as Huck–responding instinctively instead of naturally.

This doesn’t do that–which despite it’s numerous flubs–is actually to its credit. However, I will admit that the two subsequent images sort of screw with that by subverting the comfortable naturalness to the end of something that I can’t help by read as holding some sort of unsettling psychosexual implication.

I love your silence. It is so wise. It listens. It invites warmth. I love your loneliness. It is brave. It makes the universe want to protect you. You have the loneliness that all true heroes have, a loneliness that is a deep sea, within which the fishes of mystery dwell. I love your quest. It is noble. It has greatness in it. Only one who is born under a blessed star would set sail across the billowing waves and the wild squalls, because of a dream. I love your dream. It is magical. Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in your own enchantment. Life throws stones at you, but your love and your dream change those stones into the flowers of discovery. Even if you lose, or are defeated by things, your triumph will always be exemplary. And if no one knows it, then there are places that do. People like you enrich the dreams of the world, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are the unknowing transformers of things, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love.

Ben Okri, Astonishing the Gods

(via thelovejournals)

Source: thelovejournals

Alexandra Von Fuerst – [↑] Celine (2016); [↓] Test (2016)

High end fashion/commercial images with an undertone of surrealism.

Exceptionally astute use of color. I prefer Prue Stent’s outside-the-box audacity and preternatural instinct but Von Fuerst is seemingly just as interested in texture as hue. (You can actually see the skin’s grain in both images, and in the lower one you can even see the fine downy hair around the lips.

Another interesting thing is despite working in a studio setting with more less even lighting, Von Fuerst is ridiculously good at giving her images a 3D, almost sculptural effect–in her frames that aren’t close-ups, it’s as if you’re staring at a scene staged in a diorama.

Source: she-loves-adventures

Erwin Olaf – Reclining Nude No. 6 from Skin Deep series (2015)

By all accounts, Olaf shouldn’t be someone I dig as much as I do. He works primarily in fashion & commercial photography–not typically my thing.

His sense of lighting, however, is always so damn inspired and well-executed.

But the Skin Deep series appeals to me more than his other work. First off, because I’ve found that there is something deeply satisfying about any work of art that is so pared down to its most essential elements, that you look at it and think: this is simple enough that this really could’ve been made by an especially studious begging photography student–which is not the same thing as saying it looks like student work. (For example: I’ll watch anything Kelly Reichardt puts her name on. And while I certainly can’t say I’m in love with all of her films, I do adore Wendy and Lucy and of her film it is absolutely one that any student with access to equipment could have made themselves.)

Yes, with Skin Deep, Olaf most likely had a crew of designers and set decorators and assistants. People to do the heavy lifting for him so he can focus on the nitty gritty details of getting the shot.

But this shot in particular is something just about anyone could have made. Yes, Olaf likely hand picked the floor, the paneling and the wall paper. But if you break it down to it’s component parts, it’s an interestingly textured floor, two boxes, crates and a single over head light up and over (giving the sense of a circular pool of light) but angled slightly to provide separation between the left edge of the model’s body at the darking background. (There’s almost certainly a flag blocking spill to her immediate left, too.)

The exposure is perfectly suited to accentuating even skin tone and to make the bra pop.

But there’s something else about Skin Deep that is v. very on-point: Olaf is gay. The project includes both male nudes and female nudes–in equal measure. And it’s clear from not only the rest of his body of work but these works that he’s more enticed by the physical embodiment by his male models. But fucking-A, he’s the only one I can think of who makes an effort to provide a cross section of variously gendered attractive bodies in his work.

And really, I can only think of a few photographers that routinely make work that is this sexy about folks they aren’t attracted to personally.