I came across the work of Gautier Deblonde by way of Granta 101 in a photographic essay: “The Arctic”.    (The series “Voyage to Spitsbergen” can be seen on the site - nbpictures - and it is worth checking out…)The photographs in the series (Arctic) are meant to “serve as a reminder to people that our climate is changing, and that without a doubt it will affect them personally and profoundly, wherever they live. “

I appreciate the sense of time in the photographs above. Why would one live up above the Arctic Circle these days - except in search of something - Oil? Natural Gas? - Scientists studying the ice? What has happened to this train?  Why is it here - and abandoned in this way - this place called the Spitsbergen ?  Near to the summer solstice as we are right now… with our sunrise / sunsets so early and late - seemingly - I’m trying hard to imagine what it must feel like to be in perpetual daylight for some 2 months straight in “Midsummer” - or the opposite - darkness in “Midwinter”… 

How attuned to the natural rhythms of the day are we anymore?

75,000 people do not attend political rallies unless something truly magical is happening. -  Posted by Robert Blanchard North Smithfield, RI

I don’t usually find much interesting about ”press photography” and I’m a healthy skeptic these days about how and what sort of images come to be associated with “reportage”. All too often, I find myself distrusting any ability of photography in general to portray anything close to reality. It’s more a game of association. I suppose its always been that way - so that’s nothing new really.  Having said that,  seeing these two very different photos of the Democratic nominees Senator Barrack Obama, and Senator Hillary Clinton that ran in the NYT recently regarding the current “momentum” of the Democratic candidates is but one concrete example of why:

, originally uploaded by Matt Niebuhr.

So it’s “Bike to Work Week”… 5/12-5/16 - If you haven’t already put down the car keys and started to “Go By Bike,” What are you waiting for?

I bike - it’s easy here -  and here’s what I figure - if I can do it, and my first grade son can do it - (rain or shine, all year around) why can’t we get a few others of you out there doing it? I’m talking about those of us that live 5 or 6 miles away from our work place. Give it a try during the seasonable weather - or maybe just once a week… I have to say I’ve had some pretty great conversations with my son on our morning rides - that alone is worth it. I know biking isn’t the only answer and it may not be a realistic option all the time for everyone. This is a call to those of you that could but choose not to.

I’ve been keeping track of my commuting miles this year ( since Jan 17, 08 - to be exact) - here’s where it stands:

763.5 mi as of 5/12/08

Here’s some more figures based upon my car’s rated est. 22 mpg:

Avoided using: 34.70 ga of gas
Saved: ~ $121
Kept over three times my body weight of carbon out of the air  - 678.76 lbs CO2 offset.

You can find more about how to figure your emissions factors here: http://www.epa.gov/autoemissions. My figures are based upon the emission factors of 19.56 lbs CO2 / gallon of gas - from the EPA . The tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks account for almost a third of the air pollution in the United States.  - source

Drive less.  It’s really pretty simple.

Here’s another interesting fact, this year, I have had to purchase about 45 gallons of gas for a total of $150.36. This by the way means about 890.30 lbs of carbon alone have come out of my tailpipe among other not so great things to breath.

Right now we’re lucky perhaps - we still have the opportunity to choose. Do what you can. We all breath the same air.

Roger Ballen - from the series: Shadow Chamber -Photographs 1994 -2004

Portland and Quality Pictures - presents Roger Ballen 

Incidentally,  I noticed this opening line… “a self-tought photographer”  I wonder if it should matter that we know this … should we be expecting something different then ?  I just want to see the pictures and decide for myself.

5.01.08 – 6.28.08 - Exhibition will feature 9 new works that will make their U.S. debut at Quality Pictures

Portland, Oregon - ARTIST TALK:  May 7, 7pm at the Weiden+Kennedy atrium

Sponsored by the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (www.pica.org )

Noriko Furunishi
Ice Park (B), 2007
(original C-Print 
89 1/4 x 60 inches)

I first came across the work featured above from Ice Park 2007  by Noriko Furunishi in a recent issue of Blind Spot 37.  I have to admit that my first, second,third glance through the images in the issue was very brief and casual - on the bus ride into work. But,  I found Furunishi’s images to be quite nice - beautiful depictions of ice formations in wintry mountainous terrain.  I liked them enough - simply for their composition and form - and the fact that you don’t “usually” see landscape depictions composed in a vertical photographic format.  The images stuck in my mind from the other more “constructed” and you might say overtly manipulated photographic work - begging for a “reading” either of subject matter and/or acknowledgement of the artists chosen photographic process or more frankly simply the artist’s hand - at least for the first few glances.  At any rate - for some some reason - the Ice park images stuck (and still remain) in my memory.

Noriko Furunishi
Ice Park (D), 2007
(original C-Print
89 1/4 x 60 inches)

So upon a closer look again, I noticed a detail here or there that at seemed odd, not quite what I had expected to see - then looking closer, I realized more and more details revealing wonderfully odd juxtapositions and shifts in perspective - a real “cubist” moment for me - at least at the surface of stylistic references.   Everything seemed to be in and out of scale, upside down and quite disorienting - but revealing something to me in a good way.  I can only imagine the effect in the presence of a full scale work might be compared to the diminutive but still rewarding size as reproduce in Blind Spot.

Reading up a bit on what I could find about this work introduced to me to a deeper appreciation for the approach. Furunishi’s contemporary approach along with a measured comparison to a historical cultural appreciation of nature as read in the context of more traditional Chinese landscape painting reveals an artistic attempt to convey a contemplation and depiction of our contemporary relationship with nature.

My first realization is that the depictions go beyond mere superficial mimicry and gimmicks - if you consider the subject matter depicted - for example, a snapshot of the artificial ice climbing competition - pictured below - from one such “ice park”

My read on the work (now that I’ve spent some time with it), and the subject matter that Furunishi deals with in this series is about a very contemporary cultural view of “man VS. nature” where your worth is measured by the time and skill with which you can overcome nature’s obstacle before you - even if it is artificially natural…

Second realization, is to consider a reference to historical Chinese landscape painting - traditionally depicting a way of being with and in commune with nature - in a more mystical and spiritual way -  not in opposition to nature - this is where it begins to be interesting and to me seems to be the “message” in the work to consider.  Where do we stand in relation to nature?

Tang Yin (1470-1523): Conversation by the River.

A question to consider: How will we - our cultural generation - be “remembered” for our depictions of our view of the landscape and “nature” in generations to come? 

For me anyway, I find this sort of contemporary fine art work interesting to consider and a much more fruitful endeavor considering the potential of “constructed” photographic work that abounds.  Thanks again Blind Spot for another fine example of the strong work out there for sure worth looking at more than a few times over…

More on NORIKO FURUNISHI - via Murray Guy, Blind Spot and a brief review by Roberta Smith of the NYT.

Thinking about how we might picture our “contemporary relationship with the land” I’m interested in understanding more - here’s a book that I’d like to read tackling the notion of Sprawl: Invisible Hands
(Unattributed Photo above)

Maybe I’ll just stick to reading the wonderful new copy I just received of Robert Adams - “The New West” - republished by Aperture this year (2008)

Suburban Despair
Is urban sprawl really an American menace?

Text By Witold Rybczynski
Posted Monday, Nov. 7, 2005, at 6:42 PM ET

We hate sprawl. It’s responsible for everything that we don’t like about modern American life: strip malls, McMansions, big-box stores, the loss of favorite countryside, the decline of downtowns, traffic congestion, SUVs, high gas consumption, dependence on foreign oil, the Iraq war. No doubt about it, sprawl is bad, American bad. Like expanding waistlines, it’s touted around the world as yet another symptom of our profligacy and wastefulness as a nation. Or, as Robert Bruegmann puts it in his new book, “cities that sprawl and, by implication, the citizens living in them, are self indulgent and undisciplined.”

Or not.

In Sprawl, cheekily subtitled “A Compact History,” Bruegmann, a professor of art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, examines the assumptions that underpin most people’s strongly held convictions about sprawl. His conclusions are unexpected. To begin with, he finds that urban sprawl is not a recent phenomenon: It has been a feature of city life since the earliest times. The urban rich have always sought the pleasures of living in low-density residential neighborhoods on the outskirts of cities. As long ago as the Ming dynasty in the 14th century, the Chinese gentry sang the praises of the exurban life, and the rustic villa suburbana was a common feature of ancient Rome. Pliny’s maritime villa was 17 miles from the city, and many fashionable Roman villa districts such as Tusculum-where Cicero had a summer house-were much closer. Bruegmann also observes that medieval suburbs-those urbanized areas outside cities’ protective walls-had a variety of uses. Manufacturing processes that were too dirty to be located inside the city (such as brick kilns, tanneries, slaughterhouses) were in the suburbs; so were the homes of those who could not afford to reside within the city proper. This pattern continued during the Renaissance. Those compact little cities bounded by bucolic landscapes, portrayed in innumerable idealized paintings, were surrounded by extensive suburbs.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “sprawl” first appeared in print in this context in 1955, in an article in the London Times that contained a disapproving reference to “great sprawl” at the city’s periphery. But, as Bruegmann shows, by then London had been spreading into the surrounding countryside for hundreds of years. During the 17th and 18th centuries, while the poor moved increasingly eastward, affluent Londoners built suburban estates in the westerly direction of Westminster and Whitehall, commuting to town by carriage. These areas are today the Central West End; one generation’s suburb is the next generation’s urban neighborhood. As Bruegmann notes, “Clearly, from the beginning of modern urban history, and contrary to much accepted wisdom, suburban development was very diverse and catered to all kinds of people and activities.”

When inexpensive public transportation opened up South London for development in the 19th century, London sprawl took a different form: streets and streets of small brick-terrace houses. For middle-class families, this dispersal was a godsend, since it allowed them to exchange a cramped flat for a house with a garden. The outward movement continued in the boom years between the First and Second World Wars, causing the built-up area of London to double, although the population increased by only about 10 percent-which sounds a lot like Atlanta today.

It was not only by sprawling at the edges that cities reduced their densities. Preindustrial cities began life by exhibiting what planners call a steep “density gradient,” that is, the population density was extremely high in the center and dropped off rapidly at the edges. Over time, with growing prosperity-and the availability of increasingly far-reaching mass transportation (omnibuses, streetcars, trains, subways, cars)-this gradient flattened out. Density at the center reduced while density in the (expanding) suburbs increased. The single most important variable in this common pattern was, as Bruegmann observes, not geography or culture, but the point at which the city reached economic maturity. In the case of London, the city’s population density peaked in the early 19th century; in Paris it happened in the 1850s; and in New York City in the early 1900s. While the common perception is that sprawl is America’s contribution to urban culture, Bruegmann shows that it appeared in Europe first.

Little boxes on a hillside.

Yet haven’t high rates of automobile ownership, easy availability of land, and a lack of central planning made sprawl much worse in the United States? Most American tourists spend their time visiting historic city centers, so they may be unaware that suburbs now constitute the bulk of European metropolitan areas, just as they do in America. We marvel at the efficiency of European mass transit, but since 1950, transit ridership has remained flat, while the use of private automobiles has skyrocketed. Just as in America. “As cities across Europe have become more affluent in the last decades of the twentieth century,” Bruegmann writes, “they have witnessed a continuing decline in population densities in the historic core, a quickening of the pace of suburban and exurban development, a sharp rise in automobile ownership and use, and the proliferation of subdivisions of single-family houses and suburban shopping centers.” Despite some of the most stringent anti-sprawl regulations in the world and high gas prices, the population of the City of Paris has declined by almost a third since 1921, while its suburbs have grown. Over the last 15 years, the city of Milan has lost about 600,000 people to its metropolitan fringes, while Barcelona, considered by many a model compact city, has developed extensive suburbs and has experienced the largest population loss of any European city in the last 25 years. Greater London, too, continues to sprawl, resulting in a population density of 12,000 persons per square mile, about half that of New York City.

The point is not that London, any more than Barcelona or Paris, is a city in decline (although the demographics of European city centers have changed and are now home to wealthier and older inhabitants, just like some American cities). Central urban densities are dropping because household sizes are smaller and affluent people occupy more space. Like Americans, Europeans have opted for decentralization. To a great extent, this dispersal is driven by a desire for home-ownership. “Polls consistently confirm that most Europeans, like most Americans, and indeed most people worldwide, would prefer to live in single-family houses on their own piece of land rather than in apartment buildings,” Bruegmann writes. So strong is this preference that certain European countries such as Ireland and the United Kingdom now have higher single-family house occupancy rates than the United States, while others, such as Holland, Belgium, and Norway, are comparable. Half of all French households now live in houses.

It appears that all cities-at least all cities in the industrialized Western world-have experienced a dispersal of population from the center to a lower-density periphery. In other words, sprawl is universal. Why is this significant? “Most American anti-sprawl reformers today believe that sprawl is a recent and peculiarly American phenomenon caused by specific technological innovations like the automobile and by government policies like single-use zoning or the mortgage-interest deduction on the federal income tax,” Bruegmann writes. “It is important for them to believe this because if sprawl turned out to be a long-standing feature of urban development worldwide, it would suggest that stopping it involves something much more fundamental than correcting some poor American land-use policy.”

What this iconoclastic little book demonstrates is that sprawl is not the anomalous result of American zoning laws, or mortgage interest tax deduction, or cheap gas, or subsidized highway construction, or cultural antipathy toward cities. Nor is it an aberration. Bruegmann shows that asking whether sprawl is “good” or “bad” is the wrong question. Sprawl is and always has been inherent to urbanization. It is driven less by the regulations of legislators, the actions of developers, and the theories of city planners, than by the decisions of millions of individuals-Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.” This makes altering it very complicated, indeed. There are scores of books offering “solutions” to sprawl. Their authors would do well to read this book. To find solutions-or, rather, better ways to manage sprawl, which is not the same thing-it helps to get the problem right..

Comments

“outregis ” says:

“The argument made by this book, at least as provided in the synopsis above, is demonstrably wrong on almost every point.

The historical country homes of the rich bear no relation to the millions of tract homes lived in by suburbanites in the era of the automobile. Both in real numbers and pecentage of the population, they represented a far lesser impact on society and the environment.

The fact that automobile ownership and sprawl are on the rise in Europe hardly make it a desirable goal. If sprawl is what people want, then that is one thing. If people want to fight sprawl, then the fact that it is happening in other parts of the world doesn’t mean we should accept it.

Zoning laws, cheap gas, and subsidized highway construction all play major roles in the creation of sprawl. These are decisions made by our government, and (indirectly) our population, not some invisible hand.”

Matt Niebuhr says:

” I have not read the book (yet).

What caught my attention, in reading Rybczynski’s review on the book, was and is that the book may offer a longer view of what is now coined “sprawl”… The book may begin to offer other perspectives (historical) on the problem - which of course I think sprawl is a problem.

Summarily, I hold the belief that the problem of sprawl - is a problem solved through economic constraints on the “invisible hand” i.e. us who is the general public.

Only when for example, gas becomes too expensive, when our time spent to and from places of living and working becomes too consuming, when our perception of our “quality of life” is adversely effected by the choices we make — and can afford to make — will there be any change in thinking that the “surban” life is the pursuit worth going after.

I think your point about historical country homes of the rich is fine in terms of numbers of people/actual cost impact etc - But I disagree that it bears no relation. I think that the “historical country home” created an example. A pursuit - that fosters a desire of the “mass” class to also want for that kind of environment. Historically speaking, it may have been more about the clean, open, fresh, healthy countryside - private yet not isolated - that drove the issue. Cities were (some still are of course) dirty, concentrated, elbows to asses if you will, type living conditions. For the most part now, generally speaking, those kinds of problems are solved with modern infrastructure.

For me, the issue is about the “invisible hand” is really about our perception of status by where you live and the pursuit of the “made it” identity… In that sense, we are the “invisible hand”. We are responsible for it - not somebody else. Zoning laws reflect economic pressures, Subsidized highway construction and cheap gas are enablers. So decisions in this light are not “by our government” but by our own doing. That is the “invisible hand”.

Broken Ears, originally uploaded by Matt Niebuhr.

I came across this little Ethiopian cafe shop the other morning. I find it interesting to try and get a read on the neighborhood by the activity and objects found in these little displays - little arrangements and messages - partial dioramas. A hint at a world that might be just behind the glass. Promise, allure, little short stories. Work to be done. Invitations to come in off the street or to go away - move along. These windows are filled with potential - like photographs themselves - pictures framed hung by the sidewalk - already made.

Welcome to America’s Favorite Thrift Store!  © Matt Niebuhr

An interesting quote to consider from Smith’s The Wealth of Nations: ”It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.” 

Assuming that you might qualify, how will you choose to put your economic stimulus payment to good work?

 
East St. Louis, Illinois, 2003

Some of Brouws work comes close to reminding me of that quietness…

3:54 PM. Sunday Afternoon - Matt Niebuhr

I walk by this building above quite often - maybe finding it in the right light with the right activity level - might just get closer to what I’m searching for - an update so to speak on the “Sunday Morning” feelings in the Hopper painting…  it’s just not there yet.

Drug Store,1927 - Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper

Gils Maricopa - CA HIGHWAY by Jeff Brouws

I haven’t seen Brouws’ work in person - so I wonder what the prints might look like.  But the images seem promising at least in the web versions.

For me, it’s not in the painterly treatment of a photograph -but perhaps more in the spare, pared down detail, the coloring and the perspective yet flatness that a photograph can produce that lend it more of that emotive quality I’m after. 

In the spirit of Amy Stein’s “photo battle” series…  Shawn Records caught the bug too… ( comparisons / contrasts - I find sometimes make the most thought provoking combinations - sometimes…)  I decided to begin my own series of comparisons.  Many times I’ve come across photographs or paintings which for some reason or another - remind me of another photo / painting.   It’s not so much that I like one or the other images - or that I think one is better than the other - it’s more about seeing the two together and figuring out something about it from there on…

 So here it goes with   ”Painting / Photo battle #1: - the orifices - a face off of sorts.

Mund / Mouth (Brigitte Bardot’s Lips) - 1963  -  Gerhard Richter
Oil on canvas

Liz No. 3, 2006 - Jason Horowitz

From Jason Horowitz statement:

The work is an on-going exploration of people and the human form. The images reveal a hyper-realistic amount of detail about the subject and explore the relationship between photographic representation and painterly abstraction, the formal elements in tension with the emotional content of the subject matter. The flesh depicted is simultaneously seductive and repulsive. Shot with the same ‘glamour’ lighting set-up used for fashion images, these photographs subvert that process to look at what is real rather than ideal. Larger than life, these images become a vehicle for looking deeply at one’s self and others.

Blue Sky Gallery is currently exhibiting a selection of prints from a series of  photographs by Jason Horowitz called  ”Corpus”.  I attended the gallery talk this past Saturday which has become a favorite of mine - to hear a bit more about the work offered up by the artist.  There were a couple of interesting comments - one was on technique and one was actually about the photographs - both of which resonated with me. 

First - the inevitable question “what camera / film did you use…”  of which I was completely happy to hear Horowitz rephrased the question to a more poignant point - which is that technique (process) matters in so far as the final product (the image) presents what the artist was after - in this case - it’s about presenting “hyper real detail” (and more) of the physical surface of the subject - oh and if it matters to you, it was all digital - a Canon 5d - printed on an ink-jet by Horowitz himself… So the “how” only matter’s in that he manages to get what he’s after.  So much for the film snobbery angle…

Second - the other question / statement from the crowd was about how the images  (more here) seemed to be rather ugly (to one particular person anyway). Most of the images elicited a response: “like a car wreck where you can’t look away” - sometimes just short of disgust.  I’d guess this was probably one of the best responses you could imagine getting from the crowd about your work on the wall.  If what you see in the images is disgusting - are you able to ask yourself - why?  Is the “real” human body beautiful anymore - or only that imaginary idealized image? What parts of your own body would you feel comfortable submitting to this sort of scrutiny?  How strong is your own self image.  I think for me, mostly I felt very self conscious in front of these images - who wouldn’t?  For me anyway - Horowitz’s work seemed to achieve a measure of success - There’s something at both ends of the spectrum working here - the general (fragment of a body - anybody) yet very, very specific - this person - that skin - this hair - that mole on this skin fold…   I think that’s why the response was widely shared - we could all connect at some level with the images in front of us.

It’s worth a look on your own time in person to see what you think if you get the chance - the full effect of the images is not able to be had by seeing them reproduced on the web.

Bruce No. 2, 2006 - Jason Horowitz

So to close the loop (on this navel gazing exercise anyway) -the initial impulse to consider the painting (itself  beautiful / ugly) a completely different sort of constructed image -( More on the assumed subject of Richter’s painting - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Bardot) -is to consider that powerful thing which is truly a unique quality to photography. Simply this: The camera is capable in the right hands to allow you to see much more than you might think and you need not try to escape the facts in front of the lens - in this case the all the better to embrace those facts.