The exhibition “Dress Codes”at ICP New York showed some interesting photographs, among them a tableau of Yto Barrada called “The belt”  from the series “The smugglers”.

It shows a elderly marrocan woman who smuggles frequently fabrics from Spain to Marroco, hiding the smuggled items under her blue djellaba.  The tableau shows how she looks with and without the smuggled stuff, revealing layer by layer what the djellaba protects. A longer text on this and other exhibited works of “Dress Codes” can be seen here (check also Richard Learoyd with his room sized camera obscura, Lorna Simpson with her photo booth portraits or Hank Willies Thomas series “Unbranded”).

Found these photographs of Sigrid Jacob yesterday. Interesting topic, especially as in todays media everything is so much about thin, “convetionally beautiful ” people. Unfortunately, there are only few pictures online.

Her artist statement:

“This body of work has grown out of my interest in how men manage to create authentic identities in a world where masculine ideals are becoming ever more narrow and constrictive. The gay male subculture of bears – men who exalt in their large, hairy bodies – is an interesting mirror to our cultural obsessions. By blatantly defying the beauty ideals of both the straight and gay mainstream, bears have chosen to be outsiders twice over. Instead of hewing to pre-defined notions of masculinity, bears have blended a romanticized blue-collar aesthetic with a warm, inclusive way of interacting. With my images I want to reflect this complex identity, showing my subject’s delight in their bodies, but also the defiance or even melancholia that often accompany this hard-won confidence. As a straight woman who enjoys looking at these bodies my role is an unusual one. We are rarely given permission to look at large bodies, and when we do we are trained to look at them critically. I want to unsettle our viewing habits and make us see them with a lover’s gaze, as deserving of our desire. Ultimately, my goal is to contribute and to expand the ongoing discourse on how men look at men, women look at men and how we look at ourselves – the complexity of what happens when one human being looks at another human being. I find my subjects on bear-specific internet message boards and web sites. I collaborates with them on how they want to be depicted, which means sometimes re-interpreting standard ‘beauty poses’, sometimes coming up with a new visual vocabulary. The resulting images are frequently used by my subjects in internet personals ads and home pages.”

I did a post earlier on Winogrand (here) and everytime I see new videos of him working I am amazed again. He did many great pictures (and some of you might now that I’m hard to please with photo journalism / reportage style – but maybe he was just a documentary photographer?) though maybe even more his attitude, the way he works, the way his passion for photography dominated his life impresses (and shocks!) me most. He did what he had to do, and though it’s not easy to live a life like that it was probably the only way for him.

You find a transcription from both videos via this post at 2point8 blog.

Here are some quotes:

“I don’t lay myself down on the couch to figure out why I’m a photographer and not this or that. Whatever it is, I can’t seem to do enough of it. It’s a pleasure.”

“I think that there isn’t a photograph in the world that has any narrative ability. Any of ‘em. They do not tell stories – they show you what something looks like.”

“The nature of the photographic process – it is about failure. Most everything I do doesn’t quite make it. The failures can be intelligent.”

Related to the first Winogrand videos, see also this one of Joel Meyerowitz, with german comment only.

I recently found the series  “Vector portraits” of LA-based artist Andrew Bush that I find really really good.

These photographs were made when Bush was driving through the streets and freeways of Los Angeles, he had a medium format camera with a flash attached to his car and then photographed the other drivers, always writing down exact informations about where he took the photo at what speed at what time etc.

On his website, you can see the whole body of work containing not less the 66 photographs. I think some pictures are not that interesting so a slightly tighter edit would have concentrated the thing even more, but in the book it’s probably quite nice to have that much material.

Shot between 1989-1997, “Vector Portraits” is now finally available as a book called “Drive” (I like the original title way more.)

Some more infos @ YOSSI MILO GALLERY were Bush recently had a show with this work.

Also a longer article on Design Observer.

The way I find interesting material for this blog is that I just see things online or in an exhibition, do some research and post it. With Bruce Wrighton it was both: I saw pictures of him in a blog some time ago, and only shortly after that I saw his prints on the wall at the booth of Laurence Miller Galery at the Art Cologne. From that moment I have to say this photographer was and is one of my favourite photographers.

Bruce Wrighton (born 1950, died 1988) lived in Binghampton, New York, and there is only very little information on him and his work available online. He is not a well known documentary photographer (yet) and as he died way too young there is only limited material to show, but that what he produced is in my opinion really strong. At the Art Cologne I had the chance to speak to his gallerist and he told me that many years ago, he had shown Wrighton’s Car series in his gallery. And then only a few years ago, the gallerist approached Wrightons widow and asked if there were more photographs, so they “found” two more series, portraits and interiors. Laurence Miller Gallery then in late 2008 showed the “new” material and Bruce Wrighton obviously got some acclaim posthumously.

Here some of his portraits:

About his picture, Wrighton said:

“Yesterday I saw a parking attendant who had just the right look in his eyes. I didn’t even introduce myself, I said, “Can I take your picture?” And either because I was so forceful, or he was so open, or there was something in my sincerity, he just said, “Sure”.

He was a fairly young kid. Weeping eyes. Eyes that really spoke of the pain of having to struggle versus really wanting to find a home. As I chatted with him as I was making the picture–again setting up the 8 by 10 is not like the snap-snap of an SLR. It takes 15 minutes to get the whole thing together. It’s a commitment and it’s building a relationship.

I find that important because I need to develop some kind of rapport with these people. So during that rapport building session, he mentioned he was going in the army. I said to myself, gee that’s just so fitting. To me when a young kid tells me they’re going in the army and they’re working in some parking lot or something like that; I don’t know for certain, but I say this kid’s looking for direction. But in his eyes I got the sense that the direction had to come from within him.

Anyway the kid had a nice pink shirt and red hair and a red hat. There were aesthetic reasons as well (he laughs), the psychological and spiritual element have to be there, but as well a successful image for me has to be aesthetically balanced.”

-From an interview with Bruce Wrighton by Sean Phelan, August 2, 1988 for the Weekly Pennysaver

So I asked myself what is it that I like so much about these portraits? Why were they stuck in my head for the last months? Why did I seriously think about buying a print (soem portraits come in a new edition of 20 / appr. 12*18 inches with 2000 Dollar each – reasonable I think ) ?

I think Wrighton picked quite interesting characters for his pictures and composed them beautifully in their surroundings. The colors a really gorgeous and so natural, it just feels good to me to see the quality of these prints (made with a 8*10 large format camera) especially when you compare them to these bad, flat digital prints you see nowadays way too often. The guy in the second picture reminds me of a worker or miner in a Richard Avedon picture… In general I see a connection to the portrait work of Avedon, but also to August Sander e.g. Wrightons work is because of his early death not comprehensive enough to make him a real classic, but I’d say at the moment he his absolutely undervalued.

German publisher Hatje Cantz will, as far as I know, publish a book on Wrightons work later this year.

Here some more pictures from the interior and car series:

I finally found this one that was in an auction last year. Also a beautiful one.

What do you think about him? Post your opinion!