Identity - Fashion - The Sartorialist

The Sartorialist/Scott Schuman
By Steffen Francisco

The world of high fashion is often portrayed as a great bastion of unassailable density, approachable only by those anointed few that are deemed to have the ineffable qualities required.  Scott Schuman’s work is in direct opposition to the elitist default of that world.  He photographs people around the world in many situations, locations and outfits where the main thread that draws them together is that these are people living their lives and he showcases the fashion that exists in the everyday world rather than on the runways of the fashion capitals of the world.

On the Street…The Fortezza, Florence

The main thrust of this body of work, The Sartorialist, is a version of street photography that is centered on the fashionable everyday appearance of people going about their lives.  Schuman takes street photos, sometimes posed and sometimes candid, but always of people wearing what he considers to be striking styles.  In addition to the photos, each post contains a comment that is usually either positive or open ended in regards to the subject

The Sartorialist

The work is wonderfully shot with an eye to both fashion as well as lighting and technique.  What makes this blog especially interesting and has contributed heavily to the rise in popularity of the artist’s work is the overall positive tone.  Schuman eschews the highly critical and often abrasive nature of the fashion world with his blog. 

On the Street…Surface Texture, Paris

The photographer’s eye for lighting in natural situations and backdrops that complement without distracting from the subject are both techniques that I want to work on in my own photography.  The ability to walk up to people, talk to people and convince them to be in a photograph is something that I have been working on in street situations but I have yet to become adept.  Conceptually, I enjoy the artists message and his ability to take fashion out of traditional hallowed halls and move it to the new media of the internet.

Identity - Race: Hank Willis Thomas

Identity - Race: Hank Willis Thomas
J. Robison
               
Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual artist and photographer whose focus is identity, race, class, and commercialization. Thomas received a BFA in Photography and Africana Studies from NYU in 1998, his MFA in Photography, and an MA in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2004. He is currently the Distinguished Artist in Residence at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts [1]. His exhibition works include Branded, Winter In America, Strange Fruit, and Evidence Of Things Not Seen [2].

I was first introduced to his work when I viewed the 30 Americans exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The piece that struck me deepest at the exhibit was Priceless #1, an image taken at the funeral of his cousin. His cousin was shot to death because he was present at the robbery of a friend, whom the murderer targeted because he was wearing a gold rope chain.

Hank Willis Thomas. Priceless #1 (2004)

The depth of this piece is astonishing. Using MasterCard's 'Priceless' commercial concept as the basis for a commentary on inner city violence is a stroke of genius. With his recognition of commercialization and the effect it can have on race, Thomas pulls his viewers into a scenario unknown to most non-minorities with a hook that is instantly familiar to any television owner. Thomas skillfully associates the financial reality of our capitalist-based society with the social reality of our inner cities, where priorities do not often align with the sensibilities of museum patrons. Here, the streets are the marketplace and weapons are not only a commodity, but a way of life. Life frequently has little value and priorities, set by others, are distorted by despair - fleeting, forlorn, fearful.

Placing a price on human life is something most purveyors of the fine arts do not understand. In this light, Thomas shocks his viewers with an in-your-face display of pain and sorrow, ensuring that his viewers understand the senseless horror of a social construct where life is cheap and the community doesn't receive a budget.

By displaying raw emotion within a commercial context, Thomas forces viewers to confront their own privilege. Simultaneously, he puts inner-city dwellers on notice that their own actions in blindly attaching themselves to those trappings of wealth, without context to guide them, only shoves them down a slippery slope towards ruin.

Event Review - James Nares Lecture

In Conversation: James Nares

Saturday, January 28, 3:00pm   Lubar Auditorium, Milwaukee Art Museum
in conjunction with  Helen Levitt: In the Street | James Nares: In the City 
January 27 through April 16, 2017
by Ashley Doelger

  

Seeing James Nares speak about his art at the Milwaukee Art Museum brought me to tears. I saw him as He is smart, funny, and way ahead of the times. He was born in London and moved to New York City in 1974, where he continues to live and work. He investigates movements and gesture through his paintings and films. He showed us a video from the 1970s titled Block which I couldn't find online. In the video, shot at five frames per second, he records his arm moving against a New York City block wall. I really liked that video because it was I enjoyed the simplicity, but I noticed the  richness of the changing of the bricks, colors, cracks, lines, and shadows. I would have to say I love each and every one of his art pieces, from his videos to his paintings to his  and photographs. He doesn't have as many photographs, as he does videos and paintings but he showed us some of his "Chronophotographs" which he made in a dark room using a 4x5 camera. He caught a swinging pendulum in action by using a flash and keeping the shutter open.

His video "Street" is one of my favorite works by him:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2kMMpkN_F0

He describes it, "Moments within moments and "Little dramas"

  Globe:   https://vimeo.com/65406578

In Pendulum, made in 1976, he hung a concrete ball and recorded it swinging back and forth. He attached a microphone to the middle length of the cable to get the natural sounds.

 JamesNares thought of this video like, "A clock, time ticking away, things change"

https://vimeo.com/65406579

The video High Speed Drawings was made by his oldest daughter of his paintings. He creates these paintings by taping paper around a moving barrel. He creates his own paint brushes that let out a continuous amount of paint. He holds his brush up to the paper while the barrel is moving and gets these beautiful lines, each one different than the next. They are so simple, yet very so satisfying.

https://vimeo.com/105673651

https://vimeo.com/65681140

He made his Road Paint paintings using highway road paint which he describes explains as, "Brutal and elegant at the same time."

Identity - Feminist History - Martha Rossler

Performance Art

by Lainey

Semiotics of the Kitchen is a performance art piece done by Martha Rosler in 1975.  In the 6 minute film, Rosler  is seen standing behind a kitchen counter, where she then proceeds to name and display various items typically found in the kitchen, in alphabetical order. As she moves through the items, her actions demonstrating the functions of the objects get progressively more violent.

The letter “T” is the last letter to get an object assigned to it. Rosler uses her body to create the shapes of the final six letters of the alphabet. In doing so she is insinuating that her own body is an object in the kitchen.

The kitchen itself is relatively small and well stocked, like that of a kitchen a TV show host would use.

Among Martha’s other work is photography, video, and installation work, often dealing with media and the environment, especially relating to how they affect women.

The first time viewing Semiotics of the Kitchen, the underlying message may not be clear to viewers until the last six letters are acted out. Upon further examination, it's clear that the video performance is social commentary on domesticity and gender norms at the time of second wave feminism. 

I appreciated the cleverness of pairing kitchen lexicon with issues of gender roles and inequality. A lot of my work focuses on gender identity and gender expression, and to see a work of second wave feminist art is significantly different from my own contemporary work.

Questions to the class: How does second wave feminism relate to today's expression of gender identity, especially in regards to art? How can you relate feminist history to the other class subcategories (human form, family values, etc.)?

Identity - Fashion - Harley Weir

by Victoria

Harley Weir is a fashion photographer focusing on the ideas of youth and, most recently, boundaries. She attended Central Saint Martins college in London in 2010. In an interview with Bullet Magazine, Weir states her work focuses on eliciting reactions from people, "moving people" with any emotion: "It doesn’t really matter what emotion it is really... It’s so difficult to move people.”  In 2014, Weir was discovered through her Tumblr site and, since then, she has done commercial photo shoots for fashion brands including Calvin Klein, Stella McCartney,  Kendall Jenner (for Calvin Klein) and Maison Martin Magiela. She focuses on youth and beauty making her work perfect for the fashion industry. Weir's first solo exhibition titled Boundaries is currently on display at FOAM gallery in Amsterdam.

http://harleyweir.tumblr.com

Weir's website is minimalistic, offering images and only the occasional link. It is not effective at representing her as an artist because it lacks an artist statement, which would give context and understanding to her work. Her Tumblr is simple, but it is missing clarifying text. 

 Although she is able to create breathtaking images,depth is missing. Weir is more focused on creating an aesthetic than she is in conceptual ideas. In an interview with the NY Times she said that she experienced problems with her classmates at CSM because she wasn't creating conceptual work:  

“It was frowned upon to do something that was good looking or less considered, more intuitive,” she says. “But I don’t like the idea of coming to an art project knowing what you want — for me, I find photography a way of learning, to figure something out with an image."  

Weir does not find meaning until after she has made images or a body of work. This makes her work visually cohesive, but incoherent in meaning. It also explains her body of work Boundaries. The images from Boundaries achieve a similar aesthetic, but the motivation behind the work feels forced and  inauthentic, like an after though. Foam's website states:  

"But even as she crosses the lines of what usually holds people apart, on personal as well as political levels she is not out to make any statements. The exhibition therefore reads as a visual poem, open to interpretation."

 Why would she create work if she is not out to make any statements?  Even without concepts, Weir is a widely successful fashion photographer   because her images are intimate, creating a connection between the viewer and the figurative work she presents. 

Her photographs possess a quality of belonging to a time that is not past, present or future. Through her precise balance of soft, natural light and a warm color pallette she is able to evoke nostalgia.

Do you think it is valid to create work and then search for meaning? Is that "cheating"? Do you think there is distinct line between fashion photography and fine art photography?