VoxPhotographs Weblog

Kristie©Siri Sahaj Kaur. All Rights Reserved

Many of us are feeling a bit schizophrenic after viewing the Portland Museum of Art Biennial that opened April 7.

If you’re a member of Maine’s fine art photography community, you can’t help but be thrilled at the number of photographers included in this year’s exhibit and what that implies. But…where’s the zing?

If you want that thrilling dose of zing that the PMA Biennial usually delivers, spend most of your time experiencing the installations in the exhibit. They are terrific, and the strangers I’ve watched enjoying them, and the colleagues I’ve talked to about them, heartily agree. As Edgar Allen Beem says in his review of the Biennial in this week’s Forecaster - “that’s what Biennials are all about – discovery.” The installations underscore that purpose in spades.

So how did it all break down in the photography and paintings selection? While I never regret an opportunity to view works by Jon Edwards and John G. Kelley, and count these two high-achievers as close colleagues, seeing works by them from 2007 and 2008 was far from a discovery. I reviewed Kelley’s exquisite “Aroostook Song” in this blog almost two years ago. A mediocre-quality and forgettable content digital print from a 2002 negative  (“Treasure Hunt”) by Michael Kahn (whose mammoth sepia-toned prints I have always loved) and the lovely “Maternal” (2009)by Mark Ketzer just further compounded the disappointment for me. Did the jurors from away have such a sugary vision of Maine that they felt the “traditional arts” (photography and painting) selections needed to balance the “now” of the selected installations works, and appease us real Mainers with works we would feel “comfortable” around? I sure hope not.

What I’m not seeing, and what we need to see after last fall’s CMCA 150 artist show -Photographing Maine, Ten Years Later, 2000-2009 – is where is Maine’s photography community going, not “where has it been?”. Did many artists who are experimenting courageously and successfully with new ways of making pictures simply not submit work?

En Route/New York City #1©Liv Kristin Robinson. All Rights Reserved

Well a couple of them did, thank goodness. Liv Kristin Robinson’s four on-metal urban landscapes (“En Route Series, New York City #1, #2, #3, #4″) were getting a lot of attention and deserve it. (Full disclosure: Robinson’s work is represented by VoxPhotographs). Not only are the works part of a much bigger body of work in Robinson’s “En Route” series (pictures documenting her innumerable trips by bus back and forth to NYC to support her ailing father) these images are very new (2010) and presented in a new on-metal format that supported their style, content and the idea that “discovery”  is what the Biennial is all about for the rest of us.

Window Seats©Heath Paley. All Rights Reserved.

Heath Paley’s “Window Seats” (2010) was getting a lot of attention too. This image is a departure for Paley whose website features well-executed large format scenic photographs at bargain prices. I loved “Window Seats” as did everyone I talked to about the exhibit. Paley took first prize at the Maine Photography Show last year for his image “Curved”, but “Window Seats” is in another league altogether.

Museum Light on Guardrail©Richard Veit. All Rights Reserved

Two photographs by Richard Veit also supported my idea of what the Biennial should do to my brain: “Museum Light on Guardrail” (yes, 2007) and “Bienecke Library Courtyard” (2008) showed me something I hadn’t seen before and I think they are terrifically original. They remind me of some works by Ilya Askinazi that blow me away – rigidly disciplined visual creations of building and parking garage interiors that push easily into the realm of the highest level of abstract content.

Beinecke Museum Courtyard©Richard Veit. All Rights Reserved

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The 45″x35″  Siri Sahaj Kaur chromogenic print “Kristie” (2007) that kicks off this posting is gorgeous. Unfortunately, it’s presence is diluted by the fact that most of the other color photographs in the exhibit are also large in-your-face portraits.

In June the Photo National 2011 opens at the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor. It will include many Maine artists and the partnering exhibit is cyanotypes and callotypes by Thomas Hager. From the teaser images on this link, this exhibit promises to move us forward and connect those of us in Maine’s photographic community with the outside world in a most scintillating and challenging way. We’re getting desperate for it.

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(I’m not going to comment on the emphasis on the traditional when it comes to paintings selected for this Biennial exhibit, but the painter I was with at the members’ opening, as well as others with whom I’ve discussed the Biennial, are scratching their heads and sighing. Thank goodness for the painters like Mark Wethli (Cinnamon Girl, 2009 and Kwazy Wabbit, 2009) and Beverly Rippel (Pink Cap Gun 1, 2010) who stepped away from Maine’s seashore and into their own heads to give us work to challenge our senses.)

In short, if only the majority of selected paintings and photographs were in the realm of Alisha Gould’s “Ejecta” (2010) featured in the Museum great hall and the focus of much of the opening night’s excitement and delight, this Biennial would have been the best ever. Instead, it’s a “three shows in one” experience like Beem says in his Forecaster review.  I already know what water and old houses look like… so at the Biennial: Show us something we’ve never seen before – give us a new door to leap through in our imaginations – and give us the chance to experience how one person’s unique vision can change the way the rest of us see the world.

The Portland Museum of Art  Biennial is open through June 5.

There are reasons to get out of the house this month and beyond, and here they are:

PORTLAND MUSEUM OF ART: Ernst Haas “The Creation” (1981) portfolio. This is exhibited on the first floor in the “elevator hall” and is worth a trip to Portland in itself. I’m going to write a full blog on Haas this week if I can get to it. If you think you’ve seen color photographs and haven’t gone nose-to-nose with these ten dye transfer prints, think again.

UMAINE MUSEUM OF ART: “New York, New York”. A small but worthy show of work from the Museum’s permanent collection is anchored for me by Esteban Pastorino’s panoramic light box of Times Square. You’ll also see prints by Ilya Askinazi, Abbott and Warhol. What I most appreciated besides the Pastorino was the educational free booklet available for the taking – it starts off discussing Alvin Langdon Coburn’s “The Octopus”, an image that represents a major turning point in the history of photography and includes an extensive bibliography.

COLBY MUSEUM OF ART: First, “Displaced Persons” – a body of work by Clemens Kalischer. These images portray Europeans awaiting immigration processing in NYC in 1947-48. Then there is “The J. Street Project” – 303 works by Susan Hiller documenting as many  places in Germany whose names still showed evidence of their former Jewish inhabitants.

ADDISON-WOOLLEY GALLERY: Photographers Melonie Bennett and Barbara Goodbody share the walls with Arunas Bukauskas and sculptor Susan Bennett in “Quartet”.

SUSAN MAASCH FINE ART: The gallery’s photographers each present new work in “Stable: Photography 2011″. Digital, photogravure, silver gelatin, cyanotype and more.

And coming up…

FARNSWORTH ART MUSEUM: May 7-October 9 – Paul Caponigro

COLBY MUSEUM OF ART: July 9 – October 2 – ” American Modern”.Here you’ll meet up with the work of Walker Evans, Berenice Abbott and Margaret Bourke-White.

If you’ve opened a magazine in the last two years you’ve seen Lalla Essaydi’s photographs. But you haven’t seen them for real and you haven’t seen them in a place that is pitch-perfect for these large-scale eye-popping photographs – Bates College Museum of Art.

Les Femmes du Maroc, Reclining Odalisque, 2008 © Lalla Essaydi. All  Rights Reserved. Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, NYC.

The exhibit “Les Femmes du Maroc”, supported by a grant from the David Family Foundation, has been on view there since October 8, so I was two months late in getting to Lewiston and now, if you haven’t seen it, you’ve only got ten days left – it closes 12/18. Fit it in somehow and I guarantee you will gasp in delight as you open the glass doors of the Museum building, glance to your left and…well, you’ll see.

The artist was recently in Lewiston. When I mentioned to Curator Bill Low that I couldn’t imagine a more stunning place to install this exhibit, he said the artist said that, in fact, the Bates College Museum of Art is the most perfect venue in which she has ever seen her work displayed. So it’s not just me.

This particular body of work is inspired by 19th century “Orientalist” paintings by male artists of what they thought Moroccan women would look like and what they’d be doing all day. They had to make it up because the women were rarely, if ever, seen in public. Essaydi has re-created these classic scenes but with young models who agreed to remove their veils (with their family’s permission) and pose for her wearing cloth covered in calligraphy – traditionally and still mostly a craft for men only – and with their skin covered in Arabic text from the artist’s own journals.

Les Femmes du Maroc, Harem Women Writing, 2008 © Lalla Essaydi. All  Rights Reserved. Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, NYC.

Honestly, if you take the time to clear your head and enter Essaydi’s world here, you will be pretty blown away. The huge chromogenic prints mounted to  aluminum are life-size or larger. Essaydi is trying to tell you about the condition of women in Islamic society TODAY and I get the message that not much has changed. Her models are lovely, mysterious and elegant. So were the women of the painter’s dreams. But stop and look into their eyes and see what the artist envisions: a world where Moroccan women are not bound and made helpless by rules created centuries ago by men and still in effect today. It’s hard for us to imagine here in Maine, but you will feel it if you give the artist her due.

There is a phone # you can call and hear the artist talk about a number of subjects and I will do that this weekend, but if I wait until I have time to think and write about what I hear, this posting will never get done. Call 781-730-4683 and punch in #303 – #309 to hear short conversations about the women Essaydi photographs, her process, the significance of using henna, etc. and you will have quite the complete experience.

I know Lewiston seems weirdly off the beaten track, but often that’s were the true gems of experience are. So steer your car in that direction – and as usual, I’ll give you a second tip: Fishbones, down by the falls on Main St. is one of my favorite restaurants in Maine- the staff is so happy to see you and the food is perfect. A cool excursion all around.

On Sunday I attended a panel discussion at CMCA (Center for Maine Contemporary Art/Rockport) and the title of the event was “PHOTOGRAPHY NOW”. I seem to be running into this topic constantly these days: what the heck IS “photography” these days?

The panel of four was mediated by Charles Altschul, Director of Maine Media Workshops, also in Rockport. The panelists were: Kim de Paul (photographer), Jonathan Laurence (photographer and teacher), George Kinghorn (Director/Curator UMMA) and Andy Graham (photographer and President, Portland Color) – a diverse and engaged group.

Santa Croce © Kim de Paul (Narrative Series). All Rights Reserved.

There was a good-sized audience and they were there because they really wanted insight, considering the lovely warm fall afternoon on Sunday.

Some of the pithy thoughts that were shared, kind of randomly covered in this posting: Kim de Paul: Hybrid photographs are the new “traditional photography”. In other words, even alternative process and historic process artists are making digital negatives of their work. How can they not, really? The images need to be online, they need to be forwarded electronically to curators and galleries and publications. Many photographers also use film to take the pictures and make digital negatives and digital prints. Mark Osterman and France Scully Osterman recently juried an historic processes show and required that all works be sent as digital prints for the jurying process. Now, that’s “photography now”!

But it was admitted that alternative processes remain a joy to so many because there are plenty of “happy accidents” involved in successes. I think that applies to cell-phone photographs too, especially considering the wide grins of the photographers who are discovering the joys of using their phones to quickly capture and create truly wonderful images. Cellphone images really do have their own “look” in my opinion.

Andy Graham asked: Are cellphone pics really “yours”? “Handmade photographs (darkroom and backwards) really are ‘yours’”, he said, continuing, “It used to be hard to make a photograph” and that was important to the value of it. It made a finished photograph a rarer thing.

Pool Table Lightning © Mark Rockwood (cellphone image). All Rights Reserved.

Jonathan Laurence said that today’s technology allowing artists to “do it all themselves” creates a frenzied lifestyle trying to keep up. Instead of taking the picture and creating a dark room print or historic process photograph, today’s photographer is in charge of everything including endless editing possibilities including visual and text editing, integration of multi-media and keeping up with quickly-changing technology and its new capabilities.

George Kinghorn said “It seems to be all about SCALE.” But when it works. large-scale photographs have an “element of surprise that can make you do a double-take” which creates a high level of excitement in the viewer. But good photographs aren’t about the size of the print, he cautioned. The photographer’s skill includes choosing what size print the image calls for, not what is trendy.

Everyone echoed my fears: photographs are such a part of life for almost everyone now that (certainly the 20′s and 30′s generation) we can more easily decode images, yes – we are surrounded by them in every direction. But with the sharing that today’s social network is founded on, whose photograph is it really? Graham asked. Because photographs are so easy to make/take, and so quickly appropriated, this certainly makes all photographs less precious and more disposable – and easily replaced with the next one. And because they are everywhere and so replaceable, is the future for collecting photographs doomed?

Kinghorn asked “How can we neglect the trained eye” when we evaluate the quality of a photographer’s work? Are you truly skilled if you take 100′s of photographs to “get the shot”? Previously, many photographers spent hours or long minutes setting up the shot – visualizing what was needed and then creating the setting and correct equipment to create the “actual” of the vision. Where is the craftsmanship now, with digital photographs so readily created, it was wondered?

September Morning © Jonathan Laurence (Mixed media on wood). All Rights Reserved.

Georgia O’Keeffe asked, “What is the point of just recording?” and I agree. Unique vision, people! Tell me something I don’t know about life. But I take issue with Kim de Paul’s insistence that your art must be “story”. de Paul says on her website that she was a quiltmaker for 30 years and that may play into her mindset. There IS “story” is many photographers’ work, but there is also unique vision without “story” and it’s too restricting a definition of what art is to insist “story” always  must be a part of it.

These discussions need to continue – honestly, “photography now” has no simple definition, and the concept of photography is changing almost daily. Everybody’s a photographer and even worse, everybody’s a printer (NOT).

Well, get on board and buckle up. I guarantee it’s going to be a wild ride.

The list of current exhibits in Maine featuring fine art photographs is still growing…

Melonie Bennett has a great subject-specific show of work at the Glickman Family Library at USM just off Forest Avenue in Portland. The images from her feature “The Old Port At Night” for Down East Magazine are installed. Make a point of getting up to the fifth floor of the library to spend some time with these. While you are there, around the corner to your left, you can find a new library of photography books for the public to use while relaxing in some comfortable chairs. They are not for circulation, but with winter coming up, I, for one, will be taking advantage of this amazing and growing collection books and with gratitude. More on this later.

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At Bates College of Art is a show of works “Les Femmes du Maroc” by Lalla Essaydi. It’s the best  kept exhibit secret in Maine right now and I intend to help change that. I have yet to get to Lewiston to view the work, but will easily get there in November. The exhibit is on view until December 18, so absolutely everybody has time to view these seminal and internationally iconic works.

© Lalla Essaydi

By the way, if you want to see three Maine photographers celebrated in another current exhibit at Maine, visit the “Landscapes of Maine -Then and Now” exhibit. Tanja Hollander, Gary Green and Jocelyn Lee are included.

Most importantly, if you’d like to know what’s happening there in the future, request to be added to their e-marketing Constant Contact announcements: museum@bates.edu. See you there.

Like I said, there’s a whirlwind of diverse and top-notch photography exhibits in Maine right now (and don’t forget the Addison Museum in MA through November 5 – see blog posting earlier) and that includes Bangor’s University of Maine Museum of Art’s exhibits by two photographers. They opened October 8 and run through December 30.

The work produced by Todd Watts and Ilya Askinazi is so different, it’s hard to believe they are using the same medium and one could argue they are not. “String Too Short to Use: Recent Works by Todd Watts” is a body of work the likes of which you’ll be hard pressed to define conventionally, as the works include drawing, 8×10 photographs, digital software and then some. The UMMA description of the show says “The artist layers, stretches, inverts and manipulates the images” and “he creates environments that challenge the viewer’s visual perception”. You can say that again. Ever seen a square tree? You may – or may not – see one here.

Courtesy University of Maine Museum of Art

Watts is a mature artist whose work is in national museum collections, and he knows what he’s about. He came to Maine initially to help Berenice Abbott with making darkroom prints and moved here permanently in 1999. He’s obviously not letting himself be too distracted by all that Maine has to offer its residents, as almost all the work in this very complete show was created in 2010.

When mature artists  jump feet first into a digital darkroom and pull it off so successfully, you’ve got to admire them. This obvious lack of fear of the unknown is applied liberally to Watts’ work on view and he’s created his own “hand” with the marriage of technology and film, joining the ranks of many of the world’s top tier artists who have found that digital technology offers endless opportunities to explore what creating a work of art means today. And what being a fine art photographer means today.

Last but not least, Watts’ frames are startling. I actually had to touch one I was so amazed! They are wide, mostly brilliantly colored frames that “define the unique world created within their confines.” Watts also says the frames are part of the identity of the photograph and underscore his commitment to making life experiences, not recording them. They’re pretty unforgettable, as are what they hold.

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Ilya Askinazi was busy this year as well. Here’s a Bangor resident well-known for his black and white beautifully eerie photographs of Bangor, exhibiting in a Bangor art museum, but Museum Director and Curator George Kinghorn didn’t fall back on that easy route when he curated this group of photographs “A Point of View”. Instead he gave us Askinazi as an artist, not a local artist, and that underscores the fresh, big-picture attitude Kinghorn has applied to Museum exhibitions since he arrived in Maine two years ago.

Askinazi spent time in Israel this year and pictures representing that trip are a good chunk of the exhibit. After studying these photographs, I did feel he became more of an observer as he took pictures there, compared to his Maine work where he claims ownership visually and it’s an interesting mix for that reason.

Copyright Ilya Askinazi. All Rights Reserved.

He lugs around a massive 8×10 view camera, (one of which he loaned to UMMA for the exhibit) and is a master at using it. His pictures are impressively complex and frankly full of surprises when you take time to read them as they deserve. That never changes with Askinazi’s work.

Copyright Ilya Askinazi. All Rights Reserved.

This provoking exhibit includes nudes, landscapes, street and architectural photography and some of Askinazi’s trademark double exposures and I wish it had been closer to 40-50 works to do justice to the myriad of approaches he unhesitatingly applies to make his excellent photographs. You don’t fence this artist in. His commitment to that 8×10 view camera and only that camera doesn’t limit his scope; in fact he pushes endlessly at the perimeters of conventional or traditional black and white photography and does so with the utmost success.

Copyright Ilya Askinazi. All Rights Reserved.