Bibliography

Books:

Keller, C., Blessing, J. and Bryan-Wilson, J., 2011. Francesca Woodman. San Francisco, Calif.: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Bright, S., 2010. Auto focus. New York: Monacelli Press.

Elger, D., Obrist, H. U., 2008. Gerhard Richter. Text 1961 bis 2007, Schriften, Interviews, Briefe. Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König

Obrist, H.U., 1995. Gerhard Richter- The Daily Practice of Painting. London: Thames and Hudson

Renaldi, R. and Cole, T. (n.d.). Touching strangers. New York: Aperture

Journals:

Adams, T., 1996. Beyond mastery: Richter distrusts the perfection of his own art. New Statesman [online][viewed 4 May 2015]. Available from: Academic OneFile

Merriman, B., Seeder, A., 2013. Introduction: Vivian Maier. Chicago Review[online], vol.57, p. 102 [viewed 1 May 2015]. Available from: Academic OneFile

Riches, H., 2004. A Disappearing Act: Francesca Woodman’s “Portrait of a reputation”. Oxford Art Journal[online], Vol.27, no.1, p.97[viewed 30 April 2015]. Available from: jstor

Websites:

Fox, A., 2015. Super Snacks [online][viewed 28 April 2015]. Available from: http://www.annafox.co.uk/work/super-snacks/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].

Goepel, C., n.d. Selfish [online][viewed 3 Mai 2015]. Available from: http://www.cenci.de

Haje Cantz Verlag, n.d. Unscharf nach Gerhard Richter [online][viewed 5 May 2015]. Available from: http://www.hatjecantz.de/unscharf-2695-0.html

Richter, G., n.d. Foto Bilder[online][viewed 5 May 2015]. Available from: https://www.gerhard-richter.com/de/quotes/subjects-2/photo-paintings-12

Tate, n.d.Francesca Woodman [online][viewed 30 April 2015]. Available from:http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/francesca-woodman-10512

Exhibitions:

Peder Balke, 12.11. 2014-12.4.2015, National Gallery, London

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery, London, 13.11.2014-22.2.2015

 

Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Junge Frau (young woman), 1965

Gerhard Richter is an artist who works within many different mediums. His works include drawings, watercolor and oil paintings as well as photographs, painted over the top.

One thing that Gerhard Richter is known for, is the way he used blurring in many of his paintings. This is a technique, that fits in with Richter’s mentality of not adapting to any conventions or unspoken guidelines.

Blurriness can mean many things. It can be romantic and nostalgic, disguise and distract and create mystery (haje cantz verlag, n.d.). It can even lead to a complete unrecognizability of the subject and thereby make the subject anonymous.

A blurred picture can spark an interest and fascination in a potential viewer, who wants to find out more about it. However not knowing what is depicted and having to guess can also irritate and annoy someone, who is used to an artwork telling him, what it is, instead of him having to guess. He may also feel overwhelmed by what is suddenly demanded of him.

When asked why most of his paintings looked like blurred photographs, he explained that a blurred image is much more open, it leaves more room for interpretation and doesn’t force the viewer to see certain things  (Richter, 1973).

Richter paints a lot of his portraits from photographs. He said that the painter would absolutely not need to know the sitter/subject, he certainly would not be able to capture the sitter’s personality and “soul” and therefore nobody should attempt to paint from real life people (Richter, 1966). This brought me to reconsider the way I feel about my photograph. Before I saw my final photograph in a way like a “photographic” painting, since it is basically only a collection of colors. The process of making it belongs to photography, but the outcome seems like a painting. I still like the image, because it represents a bit of “the essence of my person” but now I also see somebody else, an unfamiliar person that is not me. Somebody that has been created by the camera on the foundation of myself, but has nothing in common with me. In that way I extended my understanding of the photograph on the foundation of Richter’s “theory”, but as a result I contradict him when he says that “photography is there for conveying information about reality” (Richter, 1966).

Books:

Elger, D., Obrist, H. U., 2008. Gerhard Richter. Text 1961 bis 2007, Schriften, Interviews, Briefe. Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König

Obrist, H.U., 1995. Gerhard Richter- The Daily Practice of Painting. London: Thames and Hudson

Journals:

Adams, T., 1996. Beyond mastery: Richter distrusts the perfection of his own art. New Statesman [online][viewed 4 May 2015]. Available from: Academic OneFile

Websites:

Haje Cantz Verlag, n.d. Unscharf nach Gerhard Richter [online][viewed 5 May 2015]. Available from: http://www.hatjecantz.de/unscharf-2695-0.html

Richter, G., n.d. Foto Bilder[online][viewed 5 May 2015]. Available from: https://www.gerhard-richter.com/de/quotes/subjects-2/photo-paintings-12

Cenci Goepel

by Cenci Goepel

 

Cenci Goepel does self-portraits which she calls “Selfishs”. They are portraits of her, digitally manipulated, so that only the facial expressions remain, putting emphasis on their importance as carriers of “emotion, culture and communication” (Goepel, n.d.).

Something I applied to my way of taking self-portraits was that I do not aspire to smile. This doesn’t mean that I can’t, but more that I do not make myself smile and thereby “pose”. Goepel said that when she began modifying photographs of herself, she had only ones of her smiling. This meant that the range of emotions and expressions to work with was limited.

It is interesting, to look at the way Goepel names her self-portraits: “Selfish(s)”. Selfish, a word that has a very negative connotation, meaning egotistical, self-centered or simply “thinking only of oneself” (after Thesaurus online dictionary). It certainly emphasizes the word “self”. To most people their self, their “me” is something very delicate or at least something that needs to be protected against outside “attacks”. This could be someone disapproving of the way you look, calling you out as stupid or doubting your stories. Defense strategies include conforming to other and trying “to fit in” as well as trying to make yourself as invisible as possible so as to not attract attention. Goepel however does the complete opposite. She isn’t afraid to turn her face into something that might be seen as a bit scary or even ugly looking and doesn’t conform with the society’s standards. What I mean by that, is that she puts the identity of a person before their physical appearance and also shows us that so much can be learned from a face even if it doesn’t conform with your idea of beauty (Goepel, n.d.).

 

 

Sources:

Goepel, C., n.d. Selfish [online][viewed 3 Mai 2015]. Available from: http://www.cenci.de

Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman, House #3, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976

Francesca Woodman’s self-portraits show her, often naked, in a space.

The most memorable of Woodman’s photographs are for me the ones from her earlier work, in which she is seen hiding behind wallpaper. This is an important reoccurrence in her self-portraits. The artist often shows herself half hidden in a cupboard, standing in the corner,barely noticeable, covered with a big plastic bag. She seems to blend in with her environment. Other times she used long or double exposures to make her body look like a ghost, like it’s not completely there. This is very interesting when you consider that someone takes a photograph of themselves and exposes themselves to the camera but hides so as to make the camera to not see them. It makes them look vulnerable and shy. In my work I have hidden as well. After I had decided not to pursue the idea of wearing my father’s jumper, I still carried on wearing it in a few of my “simple” self-portraits. Some show me sitting on the sofa, facing down and the jumper stretched over my tucked up legs. But while I felt like hiding under clothes or figuratively behind my father, Woodman is completely naked. She has chosen to appear vulnerable but at the same time blends in with her environment without distracting clothes.

Space is also something of importance in Woodman’s work. The rooms she is posing in often seem to be abandoned houses, once occupied by their owners, but now run-down and shabby. They show signs of destruction, maybe depicting the artists state of mind, certainly mystifying and sometimes disturbing the viewer (Tate, n.d.).

Sources:

Keller, C., Blessing, J. and Bryan-Wilson, J., 2011. Francesca Woodman. San Francisco, Calif.: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Tate, n.d.Francesca Woodman [online][viewed 30 April 2015]. Available from:http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/francesca-woodman-10512

Riches, H., 2004. A Disappearing Act: Francesca Woodman’s “Portrait of a reputation”. Oxford Art Journal[online], Vol.27, no.1, p.97[viewed 30 April 2015]. Available from: jstor

Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier was a nanny/photographer whose photographs have only recently been discovered in an auction.

In many of her street portraits the camera is close to the subject, however it doesn’t seem like people care about Maier’s presence or are even aware of it. It might have been true that she didn’t attract much attention as a single middle aged woman walking around (Merriman and Seeder, 2013). Her attire consisting of long coats and hats may also have been a contributing factor.

What can be seen, amongst other things, is how little we actually know about a person in a portrait. We look at one of her many self-portraits and see a middle aged woman pointing a camera at a mirror or other reflective surface. In some photographs you get the impression of a mother or aunt just stopping for quick snapshot of herself, while out with the family. We, as the viewer, have no idea of the massive amount of photographs she took.

Maier’s work also raises the question of why we take self-portraits. You might argue that this an act of vanity and also shows a rather controlling nature. Instead of letting somebody else tell you what to do and how to look, you have full control and can choose in what way you might portray yourself. Maier, however, seemed to simply want to capture herself within different environments and didn’t pose in a particular way, most of the time she looks serious and never smiles. Still her photographs look very interesting since she is not standing alone in front of a mirror, but rather incorporates into the scenery around her, thereby giving us access to it.

What we know about Vivian Maier is, that she never intended to show her photographs to anyone and was just making them for herself. This is a really important if you want to be a good and true photographer, in my opinion. You shouldn’t make work to please other people or to follow a trend,  you can only call yourself an artist when you create work because you want to, because you need to. I partly learned this in my project, after I had been told that the images I shot without thinking about it, were much more interesting, than the ones I made to “fit the assignment”. Forcing myself to create something, didn’t work out.

Merriman, B., Seeder, A., 2013. Introduction: Vivian Maier. Chicago Review[online], vol.57, p. 102 [viewed 1 May 2015]. Available from: Academic OneFile

Anna Fox

Anna Fox, Red Wine

 

The work “Super Snacks”(2000-2003) by Anna Fox shows her eating and drinking.

In this series she portrays herself while drinking red wine. As we can see from the later images, she is getting a bit drunk, but this is what makes it so interesting. Fox doesn’t care, yes, she even puts herself willingly in this situation. This seems like it’s not staged, it is more a kind of performance, for which she has set up the camera position and wine glass and starts drinking so as to see, what will happen. Looking at her we feel sorry and laugh at the same time. The artist is seemingly alone, she seems lonely drinking all by herself. It is also amusing, though, how she has changed in the last photograph, her eyes half closed and wearing a red hat, she didn’t wear before. And what is really interesting to me, is that in none of the images she looks particularly pretty or attractive. As Susan Bright(2010, p.44) calls it “unflattering”. She portrays, how most people probably look, when they really drunk. And she is not afraid to make herself vulnerable and to let other people see her that way. This demands a lot of respect towards her, I think, especially in a world where many people think that good photographs must be beautiful photographs. Earlier I wrote that Fox’ photographs do not look staged. But as I’m looking closer, I begin to doubt my earlier statement. Why is Fox wearing a different coloured shirt and different jewelry in different images of the sequence? All the same in “White Wine”. Is this a hint that is supposed to make us question what we are seeing? I am not sure.

It is also noticeable that Fox’ photographs are different quality to many other artist’s photographs. They are not always completely in focus and sometimes her head is only half in the frame. This might seem like carelessness, but in my opinion it is to emphasize the photographs as a documentation of a performance. It shows that the artist has take the photographs herself and nobody else. Or it fools us into thinking that.

“Super Snacks” was according to Fox a try to stop herself from drinking and snacking all the time. It had worked before in “Cockroach Diary” and now she thought that it might work to stop her habits as well (Fox, 2010).

 

Sources:

Bright, S., 2010. Auto focus. New York: Monacelli Press.

Fox, A., 2015. Super Snacks [online][viewed 28 April 2015]. Available from: http://www.annafox.co.uk/work/super-snacks/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].

 

Feedback

I have felt unsure about what my project should be for quite some time now. After the jumper idea was abandoned, I could not think of anything good. Everything I did think of, seemed just boring and unoriginal. That’s something I struggle with a lot, with the thought that I need to create something unusual and special. Not something that everybody’s doing, especially not something that is “typical” of  a (first year) photography student. Of course I know that it’s not really helpful to put that kind of pressure on yourself, but I sometimes can’t help it. I also know, that these kinds of thoughts can push you, to create something truly great and can help you push boundaries, but this can’t happen when your creativity seems to be blocked.

I experimented a lot with self-portraits, masks and props to find something interesting. In loss of a better idea I settled on portraying myself reading. Then however I went to a tutorial with Thom.

He looked at the few work prints I had done and told me basically that they were boring. And I understood at once, what he meant. You could see just by looking at them that I didn’t have any good ideas and tried to make something work that was not good to begin with. If I think about it, I find that simplicity is very good in photographs only not if they are constructed. Or if you construct a photograph it still should have some mystery about it, something that makes the viewer wonder or think. The fox mask and boxing gloves had, although they mean something to me, given the photographs something false.

Tom then pointed out some images on a contact sheet, I had seen as the worst one of all. But then also I saw that the portraits I had taken of myself without any kinds of props were, if certainly not pretty, in a way interesting. They had something slightly raw and almost intense about them. So I printed some oft them and tried to make some more.

 

What is a portrait?

What is a portrait? A portrait is commonly seen as a depiction of a person’s upper body or head.

Even if we see a portrait not as a certain pose or crop of an image, but rather as the a visualization of a person’s character we still “don’t see the whole picture”.

Let me explain. When we look at a picture of our grandma we probably see a (reasonably) old lady whom we immediately recognize. While we may say that she looks very much like herself or that the photographer hasn’t been that successful to capture her, we would when asked probably never say: This picture of my grandma shows everything about her. Her looks maybe, her facial expression yes, but her moods, her heart of gold, the way her eyes look at me when she speaks ? My point is that a image of a person can always only show a fraction of their character. It is in no way a complete representation of someone. And that is what we really need to memorize. Because especially in photography we often think that a photograph represents the truth. We believe it without questioning. If you anything about art, you also know how easily the viewer of an artwork can be influenced, how easy it is for the artist to create something which is supposedly reality, but really just a construction of it. This means, that the we, the viewers, can easily be fooled and steered in a certain direction.

I believe that the term “portrait” is not accurate as a comprehensive word for all what we, in the world of art think of as a portrait. We either need to find a new word or what would be much easier, redefine it so it includes much more. In my opinion a portrait is something may it be an image, a sculpture, a painting, that is made to create or show a certain feature of a living being. They are portrayed in a way that somebody else (the artist) wanted them to appear to the world. The creator could be influenced by different reasons e.g. politics, clients, prejudices,….

 

 

Evaluation

Okay, for weeks I have been thinking about this project. I really struggled to develop my idea further, I just couldn’t think of anything. Now I have realized that the idea of self-portraits with my father’s sweater is something that is not finished yet as a project but that it’s not what I want to do right now. It is a bit uncomfortable to decide abandoning an idea that other people have supported and rated as good. But I believe that in the end it’s not so much about fulfilling the task and doing what I think people want to see but it’s about what the work means and if it’s what on my mind as a photographer.

 

Reflection

It’s gone. I’ve handed my work in.

I started with photographing my flatmates in my dad’s sweater which was supposed to represent the connection between my family at home and my “new” family. The sweater which my dad wore and then gave to me stands as a symbol of home and the relationship with my parents.

Although I had the idea I wasn’t really sure how to bring it across which showed in the images. I agree that when you try to deconstruct these pictures you would not understand the purpose/ a clear message. This could be improved by constructing the images more, finding a more expressive scenery and maybe adding other objects and elements which get the viewer to think about family relationships and the idea of home.

In the feedback session it was pointed out to me that people thought my project was specifically about the relationship between my dad and me.

It was also said that self-portraits would be a good idea to try. So I went out and shot some with the help of my friend. I’m quite pleased with the results, there are only a few issues with focus and camera distance. For the next shoot I will try to position the camera closer and fill the frame in that way. I had never done self-portraits before and it was an interesting experience to see myself in my images. At the same time I have difficulties writing/talking about these shoots because I don’t understand fully what I’m doing at this time. You are talking not about somebody else but about yourself and you have to really explore your thoughts and even your identity concerning close relationships.

I am also not sure that this is what I really want to do especially since I very much would like to play with the idea of what a  portrait is and stretch that term.