Interesting presentation by Stephen Shore

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Interesting, if rather long (1 hour and 15 minutes) presentation by Stephen Shore.

In case anyone reading this doesn’t know who Mr. Shore is, Wikipedia describes him as follows:

Stephen Shore (born October 8, 1947) is an American photographer known for his images of banal scenes and objects, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography. His books include Uncommon Places (1982) and American Surfaces (1999), photographs that he took on cross-country road trips in the 1970s.

In 1975 Shore received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1971, he was the first living photographer to be exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where he had a solo show of black and white photographs. He was selected to participate in the influential group exhibition “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape”, at the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House (Rochester, New York), in 1975-1976.

In 1976 he had a solo exhibition of color photographs at the Museum of Modern Art. In 2010 he received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society.

A couple of cars – snap!

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mercedes-1

Anyone reading this who may remember me during my time in Geneva, Switzerland may recall that the car above was my car, seen here with my late wife, Eirah in front of our house in Cologny. I loved that car, but unfortunately couldn’t bring it to NY when I moved. Fast forward 20 plus years or so. I was walking around in my village, Briarcliff Manor, NY when I came across the second car. It’s for sale too.

mercedes-2

The first picture was taken with a long forgotten film camera, the second with an Iphone SE II.

A visit to Dia Beacon – Artists I don’t care for, or don’t understand – Robert Smithson

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Robert Smithson

I first visited Dia in April 2014. When I came across these installations/displays I initially thought that they were unfinished i.e. that someone was in the process of building an installation. My tastes in art have evolved a lot since then but I still have problems understanding why a pile of broken glass, a pile of sand, a pile of cement and a couple of mirrors are important art. Clearly I still have a way to go. Having said that I do rather like some of his large scale exterior works such as Spiral Jetty and Broken Circle/Spiral Hill.

Wikipedia describes Robert Smithson as follows:

Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and museums and is held in public collections. He was one of the founders of the land art movement whose best known work is the Spiral Jetty (1970).

For (lots) more information see here.

Robert Smithson

Taken with a Sony A7IV and Samyang 45mm f1.8

A visit to Dia Beacon – Artists I don’t care for, or don’t understand – On Kawara

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On Kawara

Above museum visitors studying the work of On Kawara. Clearly I have to more studying to do too. I just don’t get it, but then I still struggle with conceptual art of all kinds. However, I seem to come across his work everywhere so apparently lots of people, gallery owners, museum owners, critics etc. must feel that it’s important. I must be missing something.

The Dia Beacon website describes him as follows:

On Kawara was deeply concerned with the ways humans experience and record time. Kawara began his Today Series of paintings on January 4, 1966, and continued to work on them until his death in mid-2014. Adhering to a rigorous set of rules that he established, Kawara required that each painting be completed on the date depicted on its surface and in the language and grammar of the country in which it was completed. In addition to these formal conventions, the Today Series paintings are stored in handmade cardboard boxes along with a clipping from the local newspaper. Occasionally these boxes are exhibited, and particularly in earlier works, phrases or text from the clippings would form part of the title as well. Combining the individual with the universal, the Today Series is both a deeply personal journey (asserting that I was here on this day), but also the story of humanity and struggles experienced on a much larger scale—as captured through the lens of daily newspaper reportage.

The Today Series was presented at Dia Center for the Arts from January 1 through December 31, 1993; each calendar month saw a different rotation of Date Paintings, chosen exclusively from those made in New York City—a thousand works in total. Kawara’s One Million Years was also presented for the first time as an audio piece in that exhibition. Alternating between two voices, a female reader for even years and a male reader for odd years, One Million Years is an oral reading from Kawara’s twenty four-volume publication by the same title. Both artworks reflect the influences of the micro and macro in Kawara’s work, and how an individual lifespan forms a part of human history.

On Kawara

Taken with a Sony A7IV and Samyang 45mm f1.8