Research – Andreas Fernandez

Cindy Sherman

05/11/2016 Andreas FLeave a comment

American photographer who started 1984 her photography career, working in series, using herself almost exclusively as the main character in the pictures.
Having an investigating touch to the pictures, questioning the role of women in society.

Starting with “Bus Riders”, followed by “Untitled film stills” and later even more provocative work such as “Sex pictures”.
As far as I could read is her intention that viewers can see themselves or plartly themselves in the pictures and by that start questioning their own role and the role of women in society, gender rather being a forged by society and the expectations it has than being a pure biological “phenomenon”.

Throughout her career, she has presented a sustained, eloquent, and provocative exploration of the construction of contemporary identity and the nature of representation, drawn from the unlimited supply of images from movies, TV, magazines, the Internet, and art history.(5)

From the videos
Loneliness, reality, often passiv, later on provocative, fashion has taken over sub-culture, infinite ideas and creativity, makes you think, explore boundaries, creating the ordinary, not the perfect. potentially changing art history. taking ordinary situations. two levels in her pictures. Studium and punctum clearly. Multiplicity of identity. Different faces. feminine roles and stereotypes.

Wendy McMurdo

03/11/2016 Andreas FLeave a comment

Recommended by Robert due to her work on the identity of children in society, their roles (Mask, MaskII) and the change of their lives in school (a more digital version and the widening of their lives from only family and school to now even more virtual places) and her exploration of children in the digital world.

An interesting view on just identity, not judging, just showing the different roles we play by using masks. It leaves space for your own interpretations and thoughts.
Often very simple pictures invite the viewer to make their own decision and have their own ideas

Jeff Wall

02/11/201602/11/2016 Andreas FLeave a comment

Recommended to look at by Robert in order to get a good introduction/refreshing to postmodernism in photography.

Had been done in the documentary course så here the short version.

Staged pictures to convey the idea. mis en scen.
Lightboxes and transparent pictures to give the impression of a painting, even on an emotional and sensual level.

Artist biography (taken from Tates homepage)

Wall was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. While studying art history at the University of British Columbia in the 1960s, he became interested in Vancouver’s experimental art scene and taught himself photography, seeing it as the best tool for expressing his conceptual ideas. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968, and his Master of Arts degree from the same university in 1970. From 1970 to 1973 he did postgraduate research at the Courtauld Institute, University of London. In 1974 he accepted his first teaching position, at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, subsequently teaching at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, 1976-87, and since 1987 at the University of British Columbia. Early group exhibitions include 1969 shows at the Seattle Art Museum, Washington, and Vancouver Art Gallery, and New Multiple Art at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 1970. His first one-man show was held at Nova Gallery, Vancouver in 1978. Other solo exhibitions have been held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1984, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1995, which toured in 1995-6 to the Jeu de Paume, Paris, the Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.Wall has said, ‘The only way to continue in the spirit of the avant-garde is to experiment with your relation to tradition’ (Artnews, Nov. 1995, p.222). In 1977, during a visit to the Prado in Madrid, he was moved by the paintings of Velázquez and Goya. He felt that, due to what he saw as the dominance of photography and film, it was no longer possible for modern artists to paint like the great masters. Seeking a new method to represent everyday life pictorially, Wall found a suitable medium in advertising hoarding lightboxes, and made his first backlit transparencies in 1978. Early works, such as The Thinker (1986) based on Rodin’s sculptureof that name, referred directly to great works in the history of art. Recently, he has more actively explored the literary and filmic aspects of his art. The majority of his pieces are set in Vancouver and contain references to art, the media, and socio-economic problems.

Video lecture on OCA

02/11/201602/11/2016 Andreas FLeave a comment

Robert Enoch in a series of video lectures on the aspects of photography.

Visual records:
https://www.oca-student.com/key-ideas-photography/video-lecture
who is watching whom? Cartier-Bresson

Confession
https://www.oca-student.com/key-ideas-photography/video-lecture-0
photographer as part of the subject, snapshotaesthetics. Nan Goldin, Richard Billingham (1, 2)

Constructed photography
https://www.oca-student.com/key-ideas-photography/video-lecture-1
constructed, staged, not documentary realism. Jeff Wall, Sindy Sherman. Often more levels, symbolism, associations and so on.

Art as license
https://www.oca-student.com/key-ideas-photography/video-lecture-2
License to come close, sometimes journeys, making contact, insights and innovations instead of cliches. (Bettina Von Zwehl link: http://www.bettinavonzwehl.com/untitled-1.html), able to explore things that might be off limit otherwise.
Cynanide/white powder picture of Robert, does knowledge of the substance change perception of the picture?

Interpretation
https://www.oca-student.com/key-ideas-photography/video-lecture-3