Lehamnn Maupin Gallery

Juergen Teller



Paradis 2009

I might be bias towards photography but from all the shows in Chelsea, I found Juergen Teller's Paradis to be be favorite of the day. The print out for the show described a deep meaning from the dichotomy of the statues "perfect" form compared to the less- idealized physiques of the nude women. I preferred to ignore that and just admire the images themselves. What I found interesting in Teller's images was how the act of photographing these women immortalized them, similar to the statues. It seemed to be a play on photography, whether knowingly or unknowingly. The people who were sculpted are now held up high, placing their figures into a timeless space. Similarly, that seems to be how we use cameras now-a-days, to remember and glamorize our vacations and such.

But in the end, I guess what I saw into is what the print out says. Idolizing women (who may not have the "perfect figures") in photographs placed with idolized women who were sculpted (who had ideal figures for their time).

Two images that seemed to act as a diptych stood out to me.

(following two images act as a diptych)



They are two images taken in the same vicinity. One of which is a shot of a sculpture's legs and the other a shot of the same part of the sculpture but angled to make a nude model visible. I started to think about the space the photographer was in and how he took them but then I quickly started to compare the stature and the models figures. This diptych seems to be the most giving to his concept. In fact, this piece is the only in the exhibit that was very successful. What comes to mind is the following image:



I find it to be the lest successful of the body of work. Although his concept can be found in it, it is really only riding on the coattails of the other images. I can see someone arguing that without statues in the same environment as the models allows the models to act as sculptures themselves but, really, it is a weak image.

So although I did not fall in love with this exhibit I remembered it the most, I think, because it started a conversation with myself.

Zimmerli Visit

"The amateur status of artistic photography, unrestricted by professional conventions or censorship, allowed great creative freedom and presented wide opportunities for experimentation" - Zimmerli write-up





When entering the room to view Four Perspectives Through the Lens: Soviet Art Photography in the 1970s-80s you quickly start pairing the images with another exhibit on view, Seva's Blue Horizon: The Poet Seva Nekrasov and Artists of Unoffical Moscow, because they are placed so closely together. Both bodies of work are coming from Russian photographers, and although they are seperate exhibits, I find their differences to American/ European photography very interesting. Although I do not know very much about Soviet art photography, I can understand through the images that either they were distanced from the rest of the art world or they flat-out ignored it. Erik Bulatov's photograph named "Poet Vsevolod Nekrosov" is hand colored, which seems to be a shunned technique in the rest of the world, from the complete lack of images utilizing this technique. Other images featured are purposefully crumpled for the aesthetic which are in contrast to another photographer whom does seem to have similar aesthetic to American/ European documentary photographers.



Seva's Blue Horizon, similarly, shows the play and experimentation in Russian photography. Seva Nekrasov's images show an eye for geometry and angles. One image, Interior, shows a selected piece of a window displaying strong lines which turn the window into nothing more than rectangles. Nekrasov's play with perspective reminds me of some of Alexander Rodchenko's images with strong, awkward angles.

The Zimmerli exhibit, to me, seemed to really show Russian photography's strength in originality. The exhibit layed out a variety of techniques and photographers all working in the same grouping but with radically different ideas on how an image could look, perhaps ignoring how an image SHOULD look.

Intersections Intersected

The Photography of David Goldblatt

Goldblatt's images were displayed on two separate floors, one of which appeared to be more of a collection of works where as the second floor of the exhibit displayed a single series. The series spans the wall in a single string displaying a recent series of color images displaced with what appears to be past black and white images. Normally staunchly against the mixture of black and white with color images, I found Golblatt's series to work wonderfully together. The romance and nostalgia of a black and white image in comparison with the liveliness of the color images is the perfect dichotomy to strike up discourse of change in his own work and in Africa.

Seven Days in the Art World

"The Crit" - highlighted excerpts after reading

1. "Everything goes to pieces in the first year and comes together in the second year. Often the people who are making sense are the ones for whom it hasn't started working yet. They've still got all their defences up."

2. "Look over the resumes of the artists under fifty in any major international museum exhibition and you ill find that most of them boast an MFA from one of a couple of dozen highly selective school."

3."MFA stands for yet another Mother-Fucking-Artist."

4. I related to the one student stating "he certainly gives you enough rope to hang yourself."

5. I was interested in the varied responses to the question of what happens after art school. (teach, waitress, and exhibit)

6. "Most art schools turn a blind eye to the art market, but CalArts seems to turn its back."