Shooting Wide Open

Stephen Tamiesie

Vincent Fournier

Vincent Fournier

Gotta love it.

Jeremiah Barber
I Spend the Day Walking Through Clouds, and Walking the Earth, 2007
Photos by Greg Stimac

On the Yellowstone trip, I got to know Jeremiah a little. He’s a performance artist who just finished his MFA, and my first encounter with his work was when he rolled by inside a giant transparent cast of his own head. That’s an entrance if I ever saw one. I caught the tail end of the performance, by which time the sticks that constituted the frame of the cast were breaking apart and tumbling about in the head with him, and the impermeable plastic had made the interior hot and uncomfortable.

The video on his site is better than words, but being there was better than the video, which doesn’t really do it justice. Up close, the plastic shimmered in the evening light. The plastic was starting to tear. He was turning red. You get none of the feeling, at least for me, of wanting to help the man out. He’s sweaty, tired, and every step gets more and more difficult. A small crowd gathered around, following him as 4 or 5 photographers and videographers took footage. (Folks in the 3D imaging workshop I was attending took the opportunity to shoot some close up footage, and I’m hoping to eventually get my hands on that, or at least access to an edited version.) I want to run up and yell, “would you like some help!?” But in the context of art, I’m afraid that would spoil the piece. Maybe it’s about one man’s struggle? But then again, what if it’s about people not lifting a finger?

I cave and play it safe by standing back, but it’s hard to watch in person in a way that the video document is not hard to watch. The disparity stirs up my love of photography, of visual art. A person could make a life’s work out of translating that in-person emotional weight to film. Or flash media, as we may as well get used to saying.

Portrait of My Father Illuminated by Pounding Dry Ground (excerpt), 2009

Looking at his other work, I like the ones that use dust. Maybe it’s my interest in projection, but I love the little piece in which he pounds the earth at night (click image for the video excerpt). Not being very versed in performance art, it’s sometimes difficult for me to get past the production values of the documentation, but there’s something about the darkness, and the incarnation slowing appearing and warping that gets the physicality of the act across. I confess I’ve never pounded the ground, but I imagine it’s hard to think about much other than pounding the ground (given that you’re going at it with the appropriate fervor) while you’re doing it. Can you vigorously pound the ground and think brainy rational thoughts simultaneously? An excellent experiment to conduct, if I do say so.

I’ve been reading books on the contemporary art world and all of them can’t seem to stop from mentioning multimillion dollar price tags. It’s nice that the more performance-oriented art still seems less touched by commerce, despite Rirkrit Tiravanija’s pots and pans. The more polished the documentation, the less like documentation and the more like a commercial product it seems, though I can’t deny that well done documentation really animates the performance. For instance…

Shirin Neshat, Passage, 2001

Shortly after returning from the trip, I went to SFMOMA for the Fisher Collection preview and saw Shirin Neshat’s Passage, a video also containing people stirring up dust on the ground, this time by a circle of women dressed in black. There’s a bit more to the piece – fire! – and it has a polish that made the actions seem a little less visceral, but the score really drove the piece forward, giving it a sense of urgency and lending it an emotional tone that wouldn’t've been present without the music. After a bit I realized, of course! It’s Philip Glass. (On a tangent, a good documentary film: Glass: A Portrait of Philip in 12 Parts) The music and editing lent the video a structured cadence that you usually find in… well, music.

Another tangent… In an interview, Neshat says:

In Passage, the main theme revolved around a relationship between men and women (dressed in black) and the landscape (forces of nature). I needed to separate these two so that at all times the audience became aware of the juxtaposition of the two. If this film was shot in black-and-white, it would have had a totally different effect, where often the people got lost in the landscape and there would have been no separation. Here, the people seemed more like silhouettes against the changing and colorful landscape.

After reading this, a light bulb went on above my head. Earlier in the spring I had been trying and failing to explain why I like this Eggleston photo in color rather than black and white in Lukas’ book class. A couple of people thought that the graphic elements of black and white would be preserved in monochrome, but for exactly the reasons Neshat mentions, I like it in color!

William Eggleston, Adyn and Jasper

Remember this post about Princess Hijab? I was informed of this video interview and follow-around with Princess Hijab (who does appear to be a man, at least to my eye and ear). It becomes quite obvious in this video that the persona and performance is just as important to the princess as the graffiti work itself, possibly because, as PH says:

I don’t have any means, any recognition or money to provide for my projects. So I have to be clever and try the direct way. If you are doing something outside and your method is working, then you can get recognition much faster than with a traditional career.

PH also commented on the work itself:

The best advertising are those that highly inspire my character. But it’s also those that are the most difficult to get access to. But those images are protected by cameras. Somehow they are even more protected than the human being: the advertisements for luxury goods.

Take that as you will.

And to add a little dose of drama, the French passed a face veil ban last week.

There’re only a few more days to submit pictures to Alec Soth’s treasure hunt Flickr group. He’s created a group called From Here to There and members can post submissions to the first assignment by 9/27. His favorites will be posted to the Walker Center blog.

Assignment #1: The Treasure Hunt

A trick I use to find pictures is to create a list of things I’m curious about and then go and beat the bushes. Even if I don’t find what I’m looking for, it gets me out the door and moving around in the world.

For our first Flickr Project, I’ve created a list of 10 items to photograph. Shoot as many as you can and post them in our group pool, and then check out our "Discussions" pages to talk about your work. I’ll post some of my favorite images on the Walker Art Center Visual Arts blog. On October 1st I’ll pick my favorite treasure hunter and send them a signed copy of the From Here to There catalogue. You can check out an interview with me from this book here.

Here’s the list:

Pilots
Amateur Paintings
Unusually Tall People
Museum Guards
Sleeping Children
Neighborhood Bars
Supermarket Cashiers
Sheep
Sedans
Suitcases

Happy Hunting,

Alec

P.S. You’ll get extra points for combining pictures—I’d love to see an unusually tall museum guard holding a suitcase.

Anyone want a job in San Francisco as a public arts curator working for the city? (PDF) It sounds like there’s more working on the public art aspect of building projects than a curator position, but sounds interesting anyway… at least if you have a knack for diplomacy. From what I hear, it involves a fair bit of dealing with contractors, architects and artists to find acceptable solutions for all since sometimes contractors and architects are dismissive of the 2% requirement and want to put one giant costly piece of art in the lobby or plaza instead of integrating works into the design. Could be an exciting challenge:

JOB ANNOUNCEMENT: PUBLIC ART PROJECT MANAGER

Position Description

Filing Deadline: Oct. 15, 2010
Salary: $57,876 – $70,356 with full benefits

The Public Art Program was established in 1969, one of the first municipal percent-for art programs in the United States. San Francisco’s Art Enrichment Ordinance mandates that 2% of the construction costs of city-owned buildings, parks, transportation projects, above-ground structures and substantial building renovations be allocated for the acquisition of artwork.

The Public Art Project Manager (Curator II), under the supervision of the Public Art Program Director, provides all essential functions required to plan and implement both permanent and temporary assigned public projects. The Project Manager oversees approximately 15 to 20 public art project simultaneously at various stages of development, working with a wide-range of city departments, project architects, engineers, general contractors, and community representatives, in addition to artists and their subcontractors.

Minimum Qualifications

Basic familiarity with:
1. Public art history, policies, guidelines and practices.
2. Contracting, procurement and budgeting processes.
3. Art fabrication and installation techniques, materials and processes.
4. Contemporary art

Bachelor’s Degree required from an accredited four year college or university with course work in any of the following: Art, Fine Arts, Art History and Arts Administration. Course work in Public Policy or Business Administration is desirable.

Minimum of two years’ verifiable experience managing public art projects with a variety of budgets from inception through project completion.

Familiarity with some or all of the following computer programs: Word, Excel, Filemaker, Power Point, Photoshop.

Cyrille Weiner

Stas M

A friend (a “special friend” as my relatives would say, heh) made me watch Pump Up the Volume yesterday and I was surprised that I actually liked it. Well, mostly for Hard Harry’s show, at least the first half, before all the drama kicks in. In honor of making your friends watch movies about pirate radio, here’s the Leonard Cohen song prominently featured in the movie:

And a track by Delta 5 that I heard this week on the radio show of a DJ with a bit of Hard Harry in ‘im:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Don’t you just want a bit of that irresistable downbeat energy? I guess for most people without the musical touch, the music you make will never be as delicious as the music you love, but dear god, can’t I just have a piece of it at some point in my life? Just a taste, one lick…