Charlotte Cotton - The Photograph as Contemporary Art

This week we were each given a section of a reading for Cottons book The Photograph as Contemporary Art. Along with this we were each given the same set of questions to answer about the section of text. 

The narratives that are explored in this chapter of Cottons book range form the idea of paranoia with in society as well as the use of twisted plots on what would be seen as innocent fairy tale stories. 

Charlotte Cotton

Charlotte Cotton

Charlotte Cotton

Off topic wow factor - Lieko Shiga

Not at all L.A. related, but I came across the work of Leiko Shiga, who's won the ICP's Infinity Award for best young photographer (28 years old). I like work that confuses me a bit. Lieko's work feels like a bit of a mix between Ryan McGinley and Bill Henson with some mysticism thrown in. She definitely has something unique, dreamlike going on.

This is my forerunner for favorite find of 2009 thus far. A taste of her work below but I highly recommend a visit to her site.

I find this work exhilarating ! the images being controlled somehow, even though the lights, subject and atmosphere is beyond emotion across the images.

Contemporary art has no limit's, it can be progressed and evolve for our life time as we know the art.

Visual Exploration

We started off the week and the new project as a whole group talk on what we are going to be doing and the things we will need to do.
1000 words photography:

Chris Shaw began working in London hotels in 1993 and over a ten year period he created what would become life as a night porter which was published in 2006 by Twin Palms. 


     'Born in 1967, Shaw studied photography at the West Surrey College of Art and Design at Farnham, graduating in 1989, and has had solo exhibitions at the open eye gallery in Liverpool, GUP gallery in Amsterdam and 779 gallery in Paris. Shaw has also been shown as part of Paris Photo and arles photography festival in 2005.  He lives in Paris.'


There are few things that are subtle in Juliana beasley’s photography. But then, the fact that you don’t get to see stuff like that too often in our somewhat sanitized culture doesn’t mean that you’re looking at the fringes (as much as many people would like to believe that). 

'One night, I came into one of the clubs on my night off, out in New Jersey, and asked the manager if I could photograph a dancer on stage. I knew this could be a wonderful ploy to begin getting the expressions of the customers’ faces in the shots. Over the eight years of dancing, I went from photographing the dancers in the dressing room to finally, getting the chutzpah to ask customers in the club if I could get them in the shots at the stage.'

The formal impact of her imagery, she deconstructs the men lusting over the female strippers and involves the emotion and excitement of the drunk horny men.


http://1000wordsphotographymagazine.blogspot.com/
http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/a_conversation_with_juliana_beasley/