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Photoshop and Photography: When Is It Real?

David Pogue posts today in The New York Times regarding two winners in Popular Photography's annual Reader's Photo Contest which were "photoshop jobs."   He questions whether these winners should count as photographs because what the image represents never "actually existed."  That objection, of course, leaves aside the question of whether the image itself is really worth looking at.  Perhaps the best thing about "reality" in this case is that it constrains people from making up scenes we could do without.

In the March issue of Popular Photography magazine, the editor's note, by Miriam Leuchter, is called "What Is a Photograph?"

You'd think that, after 73 years, a magazine called Popular Photography would have figured that out. (Ba-da-bump!)

Actually, though, the editorial is about the magazine's annual Reader's Photos Contest. This year, in two of the categories, the winners were what the magazine calls composites, and what I call Photoshop jobs.

One photo shows a motorcyclist being chased by a tornado; another shows a flock of seagulls wheeling around a lighthouse in amazingly photogenic formation. Neither scene ever actually existed as photographed.

Now, in my experience, photographers can be a vocal lot. And a lot of them weren't crazy about the idea of Photoshop jobs winning the contest.

I have to admit that when I saw the winners revealed in a previous issue, I was a bit taken aback, too. I mean, composition and timing are two key elements of a photographer's skill, right? If you don't have to worry about composition and timing, because you can always combine several photos or move things around later in Photoshop, then, well -- what is a photograph?
 

read more at  Photoshop and Photography: When Is It Real?

The two "photoshop job" winning images:

Click To Enlarge

Todd Mcvey

*Travel/Places Category Winner*“This shot was half planned and half happy accident. I was on vacation in Cape May, NJ, last July, and found this lighthouse while exploring the beach. I knew I had to shoot it— just didn’t know what I wanted it to look like. Then the idea of a composite came to me. I captured just the lighthouse one day, shooting close-ups and from a distance to cover enough angles to choose from. Then I went back the next day at roughly the same time to photograph the seagulls. The sun wasn’t as much of a difficulty as you would expect—framing it behind the lighthouse, I bracketed all my shots so I knew I would get the look I wanted. The main problem was the mosquitoes. They were pretty terrible, so I had to work fast. I think I lost about a pint of blood on this shoot.”*Tech Specs: *Canon EOS 5D Mark II, with Canon 35mm f/2.8 (lighthouse) and 70–200mm f/4 (seagulls) lenses. Exposures, 1/125 sec at f/11, ISO 100. Composited in Adobe Photoshop CS4. 

 

Click To Enlarge

Timothy Bailey

*Action/Sports Category Winner *“I shot this for a project I’m doing with natural disasters and extreme sports. It’s a composite of four different pieces: the background, the sky, the biker, and the tornadoes. The first two were photographed in Northern California in late afternoon. The biker I shot in my studio. It’s my friend Ashley on her bike, which was on a stand; she was pretending to ride it, but it wasn’t actually moving. I created the tornadoes by manipulating cloud images. I like to use a lot of special effects in my photography, and I like having a challenge.” See more at www.timothybaileyphotography.com. *Tech Specs:* Mamiya 645AFD with 17MP Leaf Aptus digital back and 55–110mm lens. Composite made in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

 

Photoshop and Photography: When Is It Real?

Prow

artforum.com / critics' picks: "

PROW

ART IN GENERAL
79 Walker Street
January 22–March 20

PROW, Pyre (detail), 2010, aluminum, polyester, theatrical lighting, industrial fans, electric equipment, cello, violin, various technical parts, dimensions variable.

How might artists position themselves between entertainment culture and traditional techniques of representation such as drawing? How might those different possibilities map onto the display practices of commercial gallery venues or nonprofit art spaces? Peter Rostovsky and Olav Westphalen, collaborating under the name PROW, challenge conditions of spectacularization that entangle artistic practices, paradoxically by adopting elements of the most successful model of collective media production: cinema.

In “PROW: The Prequel,” the foyer of Sara Meltzer Gallery contains a series of light boxes displaying posters for sequels to nonexistent movies such as a slasher pic titled Pet II and the disaster flick Iceberg III (mischievously tagged MATTER HAS A MIND . . . ONCE MORE). Lining the main gallery’s walls are six watercolors appropriated from Google’s open-source 3-D modeling software. The drawings, each hand-rendered by one of the two artists, adopt an eclectic range of imagery conjured by wiki-culture’s anonymous users: a floating baby, a stunt actor hoisted aloft in a green-screen environment, a staged plane crash. The exhibition’s central kinetic sculpture, Pyre, 2010, is an agglomeration of B-movie gimmicks: As the lights dim, a dramatic chord is struck by a mechanized cello and violin, activating a phalanx of industrial fans that raise a curtain of theatrically lit fabric into a simulacral fire.

Replacing the gadgetry of Pyre, the central sculpture in the “Anti-Prow” exhibition at the nonprofit Art in General is a Tatlin-like monument consisting of an interlocking group of red ladders surrounded by walls papered with historic political and artistic manifestos. On each wall is a framed graphite drawing of an iconic public death scene (split along its vertical axis, with one side rendered by Rostovsky and the other by Westphalen): the bodies, lying in state, of Lenin and Mao, the corpses of Kurt Cobain and Che Guevara surrounded by police, and the victims of the Jonestown massacre. Like its Chelsea counterpart, “Anti-Prow” addresses a set of questions about the value of artistic labor—this time by taking up the legacy of political activism, and representations of politics, in the visual arts.

“Prow: The Prequel” is on view at Sara Meltzer Gallery, 525–531 West Twenty-sixth Street, until February 27.

— Eva Díaz

Prow

Superman's Debut Comic Sells for $1 Million

Artdaily.org - The First Art Newspaper on the Net: "

Superman's Debut Comic Book Issue Sells for $1 Million at ComicConnect.com

The June 1938 cover of 'Action Comics' that first featured Superman, is shown. AP Photo/Comic Connect Corp.

NEW YORK, NY (AP).- A rare copy of the first comic book featuring Superman sold Monday for $1 million, smashing the previous record price for a comic book. A 1938 edition of Action Comics No. 1, widely considered the Holy Grail of comic books, was sold from a private seller to a private buyer, neither of whom released their names. The issue features Superman lifting a car on its cover and originally cost 10 cents. The transaction was conducted by the auction site ComicConnect.com. Stephen Fishler, co-owner of the site and its sister dealership, Metropolis Collectibles, orchestrated the sale. Fishler said it transpired minutes after the issue was put on sale at around 10:30 a.m. Eastern time. He said that the seller was a 'well known individual' in New York with a pedigree collection, and that the buyer was a known customer who previously bought an Action Comics No. 1 of lesser grade. 'It's considered by most people as the most important book,' said John Dolmayan, a comic book enthusiast and dealer best known as the drummer for System of a Down. 'It kind of ushered in the age of the superheroes.' Dolmayan, who owns Torpedo Comics, last year paid $317,000 for an Action Comics No. 1 issue for a client. Others have sold for more than $400,000, he said, but this copy fetched a much higher price because it's in better condition. It's rated an '8.0 grade,' or 'very fine.' Dolmayan said he didn't buy this copy but he wishes he could have. 'The fact that this book is completely un-restored and still has an 8.0 grade, it's kind of like a diamond or a precious stone. It's very rare,' he said. There are only about 100 copies of Action Comics No. 1 believed to be in existence, and only a handful have been rated so highly. It's rarer still for those copies to be made available for sale. 'The opportunity to buy an un-restored, high-grade Action One comes along once every two decades,' Fishler said. 'It's certainly a milestone.' The sticker shock was astounding to Fishler, nevertheless. 'It is still a little stunning to see 'a comic book' and '$1 million' in the same sentence,' Fishler said. 'There's only one time a collectible hits the $1 million threshold.'

Superman's Debut Comic Sells for $1 Million

Works that Leave Many 'Disquieted'

Artdaily.org - The First Art Newspaper on the Net: "

Portland Art Museum Opens Exhibition with Works that Leave Many 'Disquieted'

Doug Aitken, 'Free', 2009. LED lit lightbox, 48 x 157 x 7 7/8 inches. Regen Projects, Edition of 4. ©Courtesy: 303 Gallery, New York; Victoria Miro Gallry, London; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich; Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

PORTLAND, OR.- This spring the Portland Art Museum presents 'DISQUIETED'. Curated by Bruce Guenther, the Museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art, the exhibition brings together 38 works that invite engagement and discussion of the elements of modern life that leave so many feeling disquieted. For many, today’s world is marked by events beyond our control. This unease is a natural response to a tumultuous and troubling decade filled with natural disasters, global terrorism, and worldwide financial collapse. Artists have always reflected and reacted to the world around them—and contemporary art, through its form or content, often disturbs as much as it provides solace. In 'DISQUIETED', a roster of 28 renowned artists from four continents explore our social conditions and respond to the most compelling issues of the day, challenging our preconceptions and exposing our vulnerability in turbulent times. “These are some of the most important artists working today,” said Brian Ferriso, The Marilyn H. and Dr. Robert B. Pamplin, Jr. Director. “The objects presented are significant and, like all great art, provide a feast for the eyes as well as food for thought.” The works—including paintings, photography, sculptures, and time-based film and video installations—evoke an instant reaction. Whether unsettling or benign, all require a second look. The issues presented are both intimate and global, prompting viewers to consider their own humanity and their place in the world. “The experience is post-retinal—you take it with you and it becomes a part of your next conversation,” said Guenther. “These works provoke feelings that may be lying beneath the surface or below a person’s façade of contentment. The emotional reaction sneaks up on you, perhaps even moving you from laughter to tears.” The artists presented in the exhibition are among today’s foremost figures in contemporary art; most have never been exhibited in Portland. Artists featured in the exhibition include: Doug Aitken, Chiho Aoshima, John Baldessari, Tanya Batura, Sanford Biggers, Gregory Crewdson, Carroll Dunham, Tracey Emin, Ellen Gallagher, Andreas Gursky, Barbara Kruger, Glenn Ligon, Robert Longo, Paul McCarthy, Ron Mueck, Takashi Murakami, Wangechi Mutu, Shirin Neshat, Lari Pittman, Jaume Plensa, Charles Ray, Daniel Richter, John Sonsini, Adam Stennett, Jan Tichy, Bill Viola, Sue Williams, Su-en Wong. 'DISQUIETED' iPhone/iPod App The exhibition is accompanied by an iPhone/iPod Application (App) which will be available through iTunes. The Museum will also rent iPod Touches with the tour app installed for visitors. The application features videos of artists from the exhibition discussing their work, practice, and concerns. The Museum’s education department also produced video conversations with the exhibition’s curator and local educators. Matching the design of the exhibition, the tour app allows visitors to learn more about individual objects and artists in any order. The app includes content on the following artists: 1. Charles Ray – Artist Feature Video 2. Su-en Wong – Conversation About Art Video 3. John Baldessari - Artist Feature Video 4. Sue Williams - Conversation About Art Video 5. Tracey Emin - Conversation About Art Video 6. Gregory Crewdson – Artist Feature Video 7. Paul McCarthy – Conversation About Art Video 8. Wangechi Mutu – Conversation About Art Video 9. Glenn Ligon – Conversation About Art Video 10. Ellen Gallagher – Artist Feature Video 11. Lari Pittman – Artist Feature Video 12. Carroll Dunham – Conversation About Art Video 13. John Sonsini – Conversation About Art Video 14. Ron Mueck –Conversation About Art Video 15. Andreas Gursky – Conversation About Art Video

Works that Leave Many 'Disquieted'

The Fauxreel Interview

The Fauxreel Interview - unurth - street art: "

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Dan Bergeron, a.k.a. Fauxreel, creates stunning photo-based street art that also explores really interesting themes - from homelessness & community to the intersection of art & advertising, so I was excited to get into it with him.


What is your history in art, how did you come to focus on photography and street art?

In terms of art, I am self-taught, although I studied Film and Sonic Design at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. I became seriously interested in photography once I was finished university. At first it seemed like a smart career move; I was working here and there as a freelance writer for a few magazines in Toronto and I looked at photography as a way of making myself more marketable. About 2 years passed and I was working as an assistant video editor at an advertising agency and continuing with photography as a hobby. My time inside the walls of an ad agency opened up my eyes to all sorts of design and illustration and I had access to a cold press machine that could apply adhesion to essentially any paper medium. So I put two and two together and started to turn my darkroom prints into stickers, as large as 20 x 24 inches, and began selectively putting them in spots around the city. I was thinking of the process as photograffiti, and as a way that I could express what I thought or saw to the largest amount of people possible. Now, some seven years later, I’m still working with photography and exhibiting my work outdoors, but with more thought for my surroundings, more sensitivity to the people who occupy these spaces and using regular 20 lb paper instead of photographic prints.

What attracts you to photography in street art? Who do you think is using it well?

I like how photography democratizes street art. Not only does it make the work more accessible for the viewer, because most people have taken a photo and they understand the various nuances of photographic representation, but it also allows more people the opportunity to get their work up quite easily. I’m not saying that the majority of the photos that you see pasted up are good, it’s actually the opposite, but a camera can be a very powerful tool that levels the playing field in a lot of respects.

Aesthetically, I like how black and white photos look juxtaposed against the color world. The work really pops off the wall, especially when human scale and the placement of the image is given a lot of consideration.

In terms of who’s using photography in an interesting way in street art, I definitely have to mention JR. He understands scale, placement and he thinks in big ways – all very important elements of working as an outdoor artist. However, what JR really understands and conveys through his work is how photographic representation can be used to positively enhance people’s lives and help to give the subject a voice. His work is not about him, but about the people that he photographs and pastes up around the world. He shines light on the “other”, those largely unrepresented in media, through his art.

Other photo-based artists I like who work out in the street would include Andrew01 from Vancouver, Raul Zito from Sao Paolo and Cayetano Ferrer from Chicago. Each of these artists shoot their own images and have come to create their own language in terms of utilizing their images in an original and creative way.

Other street artists who I admire, like Judith Supine or Bast, use photography in their work, but I consider this differently as they are using found photos as part of their collage and because, from my understanding, they do not photograph any of the images they use.

read the rest of the interview and see more images at The Fauxreel Interview
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The Fauxreel Interview

The Making of Images: musée du quai Branly

Artdaily.org - The First Art Newspaper on the Net: "

Musée du quai Branly Proposes the Discovery of an 'Image Factory'

Installation view of the exhibition. ©Musée du quai Branly. Photo: Antoine Schneck.

PARIS.- After Qu’est-ce qu’un corps? and Planète métisse, the 3rd major anthropology exhibition of the musée du quai Branly proposes the discovery of an 'image factory' spanning 5 continents to the public. With 160 works and objects on display, the exhibition solicits a decryption of the great artistic and material productions of Humanity in order to reveal all the things that one does not see outright in an image. This comprehension of images is based on 4 major iconological models created by Man, which go beyond any geographical or chronological classification, whether in Africa, in the 15th to 16th century Europe, in the Americas of the Indians from Amazonia or of the Inuits of Alaska, right up to the Australia of the Aboriginals. The exhibition unravels these 4 models – translating 4 major world views – which are totemism, naturalism, animism and analogism. With the image Factory, the visitor discovers the different principles of decryption according to which civilizations see the world and account for the world. The itinerary of the image factory solicits the visitor to go through 4 sections corresponding to 4 major systems of world views known as “ontologies”: the part “an animated world” is devoted to animism, “an objective world” to naturalism, “a sub-divided world” to totemism and “an entangled world” to analogism. A 5th section, for comparative purposes, makes it possible to understand, with a few examples of “deceptive cognates”, that formal procedures or iconographic devices very close in appearance actually meet completely different figurative intentions. The exhibition the image factory helps the public understand and decrypt these 4 major systems of world views created by Man. An animated world: animism masque "Atujuwa" femelle  © musée du quai Branly photo Thierry Ollivier,  Michel Urtado The 1st section of the exhibition deals with animism, i.e., the generalization to non-humans of a human type interiority. All entities – an animal, a plant, an artefact – are endowed with interiority, animated by its own speci fic intentions, capable of action and judgment. On the other hand, the physical appearance changes from one entity to another. The animist model makes the interiority of the different sorts of the existing beings visible and shows that this interiority is lodged in bodies with dissimilar appearances. The most common images are those which contain tenuous signs of humanity – features of the face, for instance – grafted on mainly zoomorphous shapes. They generally feature non-humans about whom, through a few human attributes, it is shown that they do possess, just as the humans do, an interiority which makes them capable of a social and cultural life. Thus, the Yupi’k masks of Alaska feature the interiority of animals with the insertion of a human face in an animal head, or by adding human limbs to an animal body. In Amazonia, the Indians were attached to transforming human bodies themselves in images, by borrowing from designs and attributes with animal bodies in order to do this. By putting on an animal costume, humans borrow their biological aptitudes from animals and therefore the effectiveness with which the animals make use of their environment. Humans do not content themselves just with collecting appendages from animals, they also borrow from them designs for adorning their own bodies and mark speci fic status or states – maternity, paternity, mourning, illness… An objective world: naturalism arrière cour d'une maison hollandaise, Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684) © R.M.N. photo Gérard Blot The 2nd section of the exhibition exhibits another ontological model: naturalism. The idea behind naturalism is the opposite of the one behind animism: it is not by their bodies, but by their mind that humans differentiate themselves from non humans, just as it is also by their mind that they differentiate themselves from among one another. This world view, which has been dominant in the West for centuries, must represent two features: - the distinctive interiority of each human (the painting of the soul): only humans possess an interiority and are capable of rational discernment, - the physical continuity of beings and things in a homogenous space (the imitation of nature): all humans are subjected to the same decrees of nature, and do not allow standing out by ways of living, as was the case in animism. Contrary to the 3 other sections of the exhibition, “an objective world” brings out a very clear historic movement in the iconography, arising from a tension between the interiority and the physicality specific to naturalism: the interiority which asserts itself at the beginning in a resounding manner (right from before the Renaissance) dissolves over time to pave the way for an auto-referential physicality, reducing henceforth both interiority and life to physical parameters (birth of photography in the 19th century). A sub-divided world: totemism peinture sur écorce © musée du quai Branly photo Thierry Ollivier, Michel Urtado This section presents the world of totemism, made of a great number of classes of beings comprising humans and various sorts of non-humans. The members of each class share different sets of physical and moral qualities that the totem is considered to incarnate. Totemism ignores the differences between beings on the moral as well as physical plane in order to favour sharing, within the same class, of qualities which apply as much to humans as they do to non-humans. In the aboriginal societies of Australia, the core of qualities characterizing each class originates from an ancestral prototype traditionally known as “Dream being”. All the images are all over linked to the Dream beings and to the actions in which these prototypes have been engaged in order bring the world to order and render it apt for the subdivisions that they themselves incarnate. The figurative objectives of Australian totemism are implemented by means of 2 well differentiated strategies: - the body appears as i f at the origin of the image that it has given rise to; it is for example “imprint of the body” of a painting on bark, - the 2nd strategy shows how the world was formed by beings that one cannot see but which have left traces on the landscape; this is what we call “the imprint of movement”. An entangled world: analogism  poupée rituelle © musée du quai Branly  photo Thierry Ollivier, Michel Urtado The 4th section of the image Factory proposes the discovery of the iconological model of analogism to the public, the opposite model to the preceding model. To hold an analogical point of view on the world implies perceiving all those who occupy it as being different from one another. Thus, instead of merging entities sharing the same substances within the same class, this system distinguishes all the components of the world and differentiates them into singular elements. Such a world, in which each entity makes up a unique specimen, would become impossible to inhabit and to imagine if one did not strive to find stable correspondences between its human and non human components, as between the parts that they are made up of. For example, as per the qualities that we attribute to them, a few things will be associated with heat and other with cold, with day or with night, with dry or with wet. Analogist thinking thus aims at making networks of correspondence between discontinuous elements present, which implies multiplying the components of the image and demonstrating their relations. We can find numerous contemporary illustrations of animist ontology among the great Oriental civilizations, in West Africa or in the Indian communities of the Andes and Mexico. The classic figure of analogism is the chimera, a being made up of attributes belonging to different species, but presenting a certain coherence on the anatomical plane. The chimera is a hybrid whose constitutive elements stem from heterogeneous registers, but which can meet in a conjunctural manner in a completely singular being. Mirages of resemblances: the deceptive cognates grand masque de diablada © musée du quai Branly photo Thierry Ollivier, Michel Urtado The itinerary culminates with a didactic presentation, side by side, of images having similar formal properties, but whose figurative conventions meet completely different principles. This last stage of the exhibition explains to the public how to decrypt these images in order to weigh the differences, drawing its attention to the fact that a purely formal approach of images does not allow demonstrating the different world views that they express. For example, a Dutch landscape painting (naturalism) holds a dialogue with a Chinese landscape painting (analogism); a bird shaped mask representing a human type interiority in an animal body (animism)is compared with a bird shaped mask having composite attributes (analogist chimera). see the exhibit site at musée du quai Branly (in French with some English)

The Making of Images: musée du quai Branly

Chi­nese Subjects and the American Art Discourse

from The Times-Delphic: "

The Secret life of… Lenore Metrick-Chen

By AndiSummers on February 18 2010

GIANT CHINESE VASE, one of the subjects of Metrick- Chen’s studies. Was made for and displayed at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876.

TRADE-CARD AD IMAGE, for Soapine soap, is part of Metrick-Chen’s studies.

With her beginnings as a Medical Student at the University of Illinois, who knew that Lenore Metrick-Chen would one day become an art history professor at Drake University?

“I thought I wanted to be a doctor—I was into biology,” Metrick-Chen said. “I was in a class, Cells and Organelles, and it trained me how to read what we saw on the microscopic slides.”

After taking a break from school and then transferring to the University of Chi­cago, in Chicago, Ill., she went into cultur­al studies. That is where she took the class that changed it all: Art and Revolution.

It was an art history class focusing on the art of the French Revolution, and that was the moment Metrick-Chen knew what she wanted to do.

Instead of exploring cells and organ­elles, she took the skills she learned from looking at microscopic slides by looking at what is there and why it is there, combined with her love of culture and delved into art history.

“I would be the best (student) I ever could be,” Metrick-Chen said. “I wanted to get straight As and be thorough from the start. I kept quitting other majors, but this was heartfelt.”

After finally locking down a ma­jor, Metrick-Chen received a joint Ph.D. from the Uni­versity of Chicago in the Committee on Social Thought and the department of art history. Her dissertation was entitled “Collecting Objects/ Exclud­ing People: Chi­nese Subjects and the American Art Discourse, 1879- 1900.”

“I find that the most fascinating is the art of our own time,” Metrick-Chen said.

It is at this time that she started looking in to contemporary art, and the search be­gan to study why people want art to be moral.

After looking for the beginnings of what people have found to be moral in art, she traced it back to the Chinese Exclu­sion Acts. At that point in history, people from China were not allowed to enter the U.S. but that is the time when American art museums were collecting their art.

Metrick-Chen also likes oversee­ing art shows and worked at the Des Moines Art Center on Grand Avenue before working at Drake.

“A lot of people think art is one picture after another; when you curate it is like a journey of pictures creating a narrative, by how they are working together,” Metrick- Chen said. “It’s like opening a book. You have to put all the things together, with the connections you start to see.”

In the future, Metrick-Chen plans to curate a few shows, one being on contem­porary Chinese art.

Chi­nese Subjects and the American Art Discourse

Miss Van: She-Wolves

Merry Karnowsky Gallery is proud to present Victor Castillo:
Strange Fruit and Miss Van: She-Wolves. The two Barcelona based
artists unfold their unique personal perspectives on
subjects like seduction, temptation, innocence, desire, and
cruelty.

 . . . . . .  . .

French artist Miss Van has become one of the best-known
female painters from the graffiti scene, gaining worldwide
acclaim for her work. In She-Wolves, the ultra-feminine
“poupées” (dolls) wear animal heads as they reflect on their
dark, predatory natures.

Always seductive and mysterious, Miss Van’s characters reside
in a mystical world of quiet introspection, as they get in touch
with their feminine power and the dangerous animal within.
While Castillo’s work challenges the viewer with the consequences of allowing our weak
human nature take control, Miss Van’s work asks a different question: What happens if we
surrender to our animal nature?

Miss Van’s work has shown in the United States, France, England, Austria, Italy, Spain, the
Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and Australia, and has been featured in
Juxtapoz and Swindle magazines.

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Miss Van: She-Wolves

Victor Castillo: Strange Fruit

Artdaily.org - The First Art Newspaper on the Net: "

Victor Castillo, 'The Infinite Complexities of Christmas', 2010. Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 inches. Photo: Courtesy Merry Karnowsky Gallery.

LOS ANGELES, CA.- Merry Karnowsky Gallery presents Victor Castillo: Strange Fruit and Miss Van: She-Wolves. The two Barcelona-based artists unfold their unique personal perspectives on subjects like seduction, temptation, innocence, desire, and cruelty. A moral allegorist, Chilean artist Victor Castillo pairs classical painting with cartoon-like characters. He paints children in dark secret gardens, where they innocently reenact violent media images with brutality and indifference. Most of the characters in Castillo’s paintings have phallic, hot-dog shaped noses, humorously suggesting Pinocchio. He also makes reference to contemporary culture, human error and vices, politics, and the loss of values in the increasing consumption of modern life, which he sees as an insatiable desire that blinds us. Castillo’s work has shown in Spain, Chile, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Germany, the United States, Canada, Belgium and Taiwan, and has been featured in Juxtapoz and Hi-Fructose magazines.

Victor Castillo: Strange Fruit

Phil Collins Film 'I Am My Mother'

Artdaily.org - The First Art Newspaper on the Net: "

Daadgalerie Presents Phil Collins Most Recent Film 'I Am My Mother'

Phil Collins, 'Soy mi madre' (I Am My Mother) 2008. 16mm color film/DVD 28 min. © and Courtesy: The Artist.

BERLIN.- The films and film installations, photographs and performances of the British artist Phil Collins are humorous and serious, emotional and complex at same time. His interest lies in cultural anthropology and political phenomena and their symptomatic manifestations, i.e., in popular culture or in the way language is used. Collins’s 3-channel film installation “The World Won’t Listen” serves as a good example of this when Collins offers up a stage to fans of the British pop band The Smiths from Columbia, Indonesia and Turkey. They sing the karaoke version of songs from the eponymously named Smiths album, which was cult in the 1980s -- not only for subversive teenagers in Thatcher’s United Kingdom. As part of the Berlin International Film Festival’s program Forum Expanded and parallel to Phil Collins’s curated project “Auto-Kino!” in the Temporary Kunsthalle Berlin (from 5 February 2010) the daadgalerie will be presenting Collin’s most recent film soy mi madre (I am my mother) (2008, 16mm/DVD, 28min) for which the artist hijacks the ubiquitously popular telenovela format. Filmed in Mexico City with well-known TV actors, Collins translation of the Latin American variant of the soap opera falls into a hyperdynamic, jarring melodrama with opulent sets in which the archetypical identity patterns of the genre are sharpened to a point. Collins alludes to the romantic stereotypical telenovela of the 1980s and 90s at its high point, and where underlying music and facial expressions play a leading role. The daily broadcast TV-novel is famous for creating strong moments of identification which occasionally have lead to the spectator’s mingling of the fictional reality with daily life outside of the media. Earlier works of Collins also deal with the effects of the media on the consumer’s life; for example, his project for the Turner Prize Exhibition in 2006 “Return of the Real” – a press conference with “victims” of reality-TV shows in the UK. A real drama’s collision with its communicative effects through the media coverage were the events of 9/11. In Phil Collins’s early and rarely shown video hero (2002, DVD, 40min) a New York reporter stands in front of the camera delivering his own personal version of the events of September 11, 2001 – as if “freely associating” or undertaking a “talking cure,” albeit assisted by alcohol. Together both soy mi madre and its counterpoint hero make reference to the late 1990s in the USA and the following Bush years and their reflection in the media. A commission of the Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, soy mi madre will be soon broadcast on local television there. Simultaneous to the exhibition at the daadgalerie, an accompanying catalog to the exhibition by the Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, will be published. Phil Collins, born in Runcorn, UK, in 1970, was a guest of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm/ DAAD in 2009. In 2010 he will participate in the 6th Berlin Biennial. In 2009 in a one-person-show at the Tramway in Glasgow he presented the project “The world won’t listen” which he started in 2005 at the Istanbul Biennial. In 2006 he was nominated for the Turner Prize. Since the late 1990s Collins has participated in numerous international group and solo-exhibitions, for example, at the Tate Britain und Tate Modern, at CAC Vilnius, P.S.1 New York, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, SFMoMA, Aspen Art Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, Stedelijk Museum, Frankfurter Kunstverein and Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. Phil Collins lives and works in Berlin.

Phil Collins Film 'I Am My Mother'

from BusinessWorld Online:
Posted on 04:54 PM, February 16, 2010
BY SAM L. MARCELO, Reporter

Komiks relief

In the 1950s, Philippine visual culture was shaped by the twin forces of Carlos 'Botong' Francisco’s sweeping murals and the well-thumbed pages of Francisco Coching’s comic books. Although found on opposite sides of the high art-low art divide, both were modernists who imbued their work with an epic sense of history.

An exhibit at the National Museum titled Telling Modern Time maps out the intersections in the lives of the two men and fleshes out their influence on popular culture. Unlike Botong, who was posthumously named National Artist in 1973, Coching never received the award despite being nominated twice. Even more problematic is the fact that Carlo J. Caparas received the honor in 2009, partly for comic books that he wrote but did not illustrate.

'Coching was very rare,' said curator Patrick Flores, citing that the 'one-man Komiks-making machine' was a triple threat who wrote, illustrated, and �” later on �” adapted his work to film. His career, which spanned from 1934 to 1974, included 61 titles, a majority of which became star-studded box-office hits: there was Fernando Poe Sr. in Hagibis; Pancho Magalona in Barbaro; and Rita Gomez in Maldita.

Mr. Flores, who also edited The Life and Art of Francisco Coching (a book released in conjunction with the exhibit), added that the illustrator’s comic books were ideal movie templates since their panels already possessed a cinematic quality that allowed images to jump off the page.

'His perspective was dynamic and even his use chiaroscuro was very dramatic,' the curator said, citing detailed frames filled with contorted bodies. 'The heart of his work was drawing and his main element was the line, which had to express movement and sound.'

The pages of Coching’s novels are filled with mythical archetypes that captured the imagination of the common folk. 'It was like he offered an alternate universe for them to understand their condition �” an allegorical fantasy that made people fully grasp where they were.'

The exhibit includes reproductions of comic book covers and inside pages, film posters and clips, sketches, and memorabilia. Apart from popularizing heroic Filipino iconography that was characteristic of the post-war era, Coching’s stories contributed to the spread of Tagalog as a national language. His anatomically precise figures, too, provided inspiration for young artistic talents in the provinces who had no access to formal training.

The self-taught illustrator toiled endlessly and was always on a deadline to produce. 'More than genius, there was a devotion to craft,' said Mr. Flores. 'Coching set a high benchmark and he did more for his discipline than anyone else. His consistency of quality was truly remarkable.'

Despite the mass-produced excellence of Coching’s original serials, no one collected popular art in the same manner that Botong’s paintings were. However, archives do exist thanks to 'connoisseurs of comics' who possess a cult-like devotion to Coching’s work.

Recently, El Indio, the 1952 sequel to Barbaro, was reprinted as a graphic novel containing all 35 episodes that were formerly released as five-page installments every two weeks.

Placing Coching, the comic book illustrator, side-by-side with Botong, a muralist whose legacy is unquestioned, raises issues about how 'art' and 'culture' are supposed to be defined.


'It’s good to have them both here because it unsettles conventional thinking,' said Mr. Flores. 'They become equivalent expressions.'


TELLING MODERN TIME is on view until April at the National Museum, T. Valencia Circle corner Finance Rd., Manila. The Life and Art of Francisco Coching, on the other hand, is available at Vibal Publishing House Inc., National Bookstore, and
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Komiks relief

Floppy Disk Art

Visual Culture » Floppy Disk Art: "

Visual Culture

Connect, Create, Inspire

Tuesday, February 16, 201

Floppy Disk Art

London-based artist Nick Gentry recycles obsolete floppy disks to form the foundation of his evocative, moody portraits.

He explains:

“Floppy disks, VHS tapes, polaroids and audio cassettes. As a child growing up in the 80s and 90s this combination played a massive part in how I learned about the world. Favourite films, albums, games and even personal recordings were all stored on there. The whole world was totally reliant on these physical media formats. Now suddenly we are at a time where they are obsolete, replaced by countless intangible data files. As information is released from the physical form it allows personal data and identities to now be revealed and infinitely shared online. At the same time many of us consider individuality and privacy to be more precious than ever. Will humans be forever compatible with our own technology? In my work I want to simply highlight this new movement, as I believe it to be an important cultural and social transition of our time.”

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Floppy Disk Art

Soviet-style covers for histories of Communism

Eye blog » Indian ‘ostalgia’? Soviet-style covers for Seagull Books’ histories of Communism: "

16th February, 2010

11:03 pm

Indian ‘ostalgia’?
Soviet-style covers for Seagull Books’ histories of Communism

Published on Tuesday, 16 February, 2010 | 2:02 pm

‘What Was Communism?’ is a series of short, snappy monographs, published by Seagull Books and edited by Tariq Ali (who also wrote one of them), writes Fíacha O Dúbhda. They are hardbacks, printed on high quality paper with tasteful lettering, with vivid and distinctive covers designed by Sunandini Banerjee, one of Seagull’s editors. In short, they are attractive and appealing commodities.



We are a long way here from the simple utilitarian publications so frequently associated with Communism: printed on the cheapest of paper and covers blank apart from lettering, designed to be handed out for nominal fees at factory doors and public assemblies. Yet the spirit of this history is still intact in these works; Seagull sells the works in India at highly subsidised rates (350 rupees or less than £5 each), making them available to the under-waged of the developing world.



The covers radiate nostalgia for the aesthetic of Soviet graphic culture – from matryoshka dolls and bombs to Red Army soldiers and fiery liberated working women. In the style of montage pioneered by Vertov and Eisenstein, the new is laid atop the old and thus both are transformed through a dialectic of image. Bubbly contemporary graphics are melded with iconography, rejuvenating and realigning our perspectives on the images of the past.



For many years leftists of all persuasions have attempted to salvage Marxist ideology from the aborted Soviet experiment, highlighting its departures from early Communist intent. Yet here we have a blatant referencing of Soviet visual culture, albeit infused with a contemporary and fashionable retro twist. As Banerjee puts it, the vectors – line drawings – are a modern, hip element, for a series taking a new, contemporary look at an ideology that may not be around very much longer.



Do these covers serve to embed bias, irrevocably placing the equation of Communism with Stalinist society in the mind of the bookshop browser? Do they narrow rather than broaden the target audience? Do they embody a fatalism; that ideology cannot be salvaged from history?

We can only ask whether the best way to promote such literature is to plug it into a past it is trying to shrug off. Would the cause not be better served by opening up a fresh arena of possibility through new and daring visual culture, employing the principles of montage in innovative and breathtaking ways?



The ‘What Was Communism?’ series is available from Seagull Books

Eye, the international review of graphic design, is a quarterly journal you can read like a magazine and collect like a book. It’s available from all good design bookshops and at the online Eye shop, where you can order subscriptions, single issues and classic collections of themed back issues.

Soviet-style covers for histories of Communism