Burk Frey reviews John Pfahl

John Pfahl, born 1939, is an American photographer known primarily for his creative landscape works. The most famous of these, Pfahl’s Altered Landscapes series, draws from his background in mathematics and his interest in cartography to inject artificial geometry onto human and natural vistas. He constructs his geometry using materials like paint, tape, and string, placing them in an existing scene so that - misleadingly - they appear to be “flat" or floating. The resulting image is photographed from the correct perspective.

Shed with Blue Dotted Lines, Penland, North Carolina (1975)

Blue Right Angle, Buffalo, New York (1978)

I’m fascinated by how Pfahl’s Altered Landscapes are an inverted version of traditional trompe l’oeil: here, the landscapes are real and the structure is artifice (see also San Antonio artist Charlie Kitchen and others). Pfahl says his intention is to get viewers “to think about the landscape as an intellectual construct.”

For me, the images hold up on a formal and conceptual level regardless, but I do get increased satisfaction out of knowing the fabrication was analog and captured on film. Further, Pfahl in his choice of materials mostly allows the viewer to “see” both his trompe l’oeil image and (through careful examination) the substance of his ruse.

Blue Grid, Pembroke, New York (1977) 

Anna Brown reviews Sarah Lucas

Sarah Lucas is an English artist working primarily in photography and collage. She is a known affiliate of Young British Artists, which was a collective that emerged out of the 90s. Lucas is recognized for her frequent use of visual puns and sense of humor, often utilizing various foods and found objects to replace human genitalia. Her unexpected arrangement of familiar objects suggests sexual innuendos with a notable surrealist influence. The dual nature of her work combines sexual objectification and desire with her own image of defiant femininity. Some of her self-portraits can be read as rather androgynous for the way they challenge gender and sexuality stereotypes. Of her self-portrait series, she says:

       I was quite a tomboy when I was growing up, I liked hanging out with a lot of 

       boys, and I sort of got used to their way of talking about sex. And at the same 

       time as thinking it was funny, I suppose I was a bit aware that it also applied to 

       me, and I've always had those two attitudes. I did enjoy it - but at the same time I 

       must have shuddered inwardly, I think.

I was first introduced to Sarah Lucas’ work in my 2-dimensional foundations class, when a classmate referenced her Self Portrait with Fried Eggs in a project. I found her imagery compelling for its “I don’t give a damn” attitude and the rough, defiant nature of her photographic imagery. Lucas also creates sexually charged sculptural work that is humorous and ambiguously lewd.

http://www.gladstonegallery.com/artist/sarah-lucas/press

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sarah-lucas-2643

Hannah Rosales Reviews Edward Burtynsky

Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer who received his BAA in Photography/Media Studies from Ryerson University in 1982. He also founded a darkroom rental facility, custom photo laboratory, digital imaging and new media computer-training centre called Toronto Image Works in 1985. It accommodates all of Toronto's art community. He has photographs in over sixty museums all over the world including the Tate Modern in London and the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid.

His work investigates our environment and how humans treat the earth's surface. "..an inspection of the human systems we've imposed onto natural landscapes."

Surprisingly, Burtynsky did not alter the photographs in any way. The orange color is natural. He states, "But in the deep view a retrospective exhibition provides, we can see clearly that he is not given to aesthetic manipulations for their own sake, nor even for emotional effect, such as the elegiac splendour Robert Bourdeau achieves by toning his images of industrial ruin."

The two photographs I am comparing are of the same subject matter but are strikingly different. One photograph depicts the orange river as a bold object, coming off very smoothly. However, in another photograph, the orange river is veiny, and spreads out throughout the earth's surface. 

Jacqueline Martinez Reviews Nikki S. Lee

Nikki S. Lee's "projects" are developed through a combination of performance, observation and photography. Her projects are based mostly in America, where Nikki assimilates herself to a variety of social groups. She undertakes the body language and dress of these particular groups. Nikki even changes her appearance in order to "become a plausible member".

The Hiphop Project (1), 2001

The Hiphop Project (1), Nikki darkens her skin tone, as well as change her makeup and clothing of the social group. 

The Seniors Project (26), 1999

The Senior Project, Nikki both gained weight and dyed her hair gray.

Through her projects she undertakes both the individuals and group identity. Her photographs record her interactions and transformations at occur during the projects. "Lee believes that individual identity is fluid and that her Projects were extensions of herself".

Jacqueline Martinez Reviews Roger Ballen

In the beginning of Roger Ballen's career, Roger focus on photographing those from his hometown of Boer, in South Africa. Later in his career his photographs appeared more staged than they once were before. His photographs in fact did remain black and white as he drew inspiration of humanist documentary photography. There isn't a narrative within his compositions that would have the viewer believe that there's a social or political change.

In Roger Ballen's earlier series, Platteland: Images From Rural South Africa, Roger focuses on documentary and photojournalism. His focus during this series was to highlight introverted communities of the socially outcasted. This series showed the intimacy between the photographer and the subject. His subjects were "stripped to their essence, are deceptively simple".

Diamond digger and son standing on bed, Western Transvaal, 1987

Children from countryside in city home, Central Transvaal, 1987

Robert Mata - Hiroshi Sugimoto

 

  

       Hiroshi uses a 19th century  8 x 10 Large Format camera for investigating his notion of using Photography as an avenue for "preserving and modeling time". He has referred to his works as the revealings of "time exposed", by dealing with history and impermanent existences and by exploring themes of time, empiricism and metaphysics. 

 

 These lightening like images were created by discharging electricity to a photographic dry plate which reflects Hiroshi's desire to re-enact the major discoveries of certain scientific pioneers in the dark room and "verify" them with his own eyes.

  These flame images were done in front of a black back drop with an immensely long exposure as the candle holding the flame burns down.      

   
 "Domesticating fire marks humankind's ascendancy over other species. For tens of thousands of years, we have illuminated the night with flames. Reflecting upon this, I decided to record  "the life of a candle."  Late one midsummer night, I threw open the windows, and invited in the night breeze.  Lighting a candle, I opened my camera lens. After several hours of wavering in the breeze, the candle burned out.  Savoring the dark, I slowly closed the shutter.  The candle's life varied on any given night―short, intensely burning nights and long, constantly glowing nights―each different, yet equally lovely in its afterglow."

Hector Vasquez reviews Elad Lassry

  Elad Lassry is a Israeli-American contemporary photographer born in 1977 in Tele Aviv, Israel.
 Elad Lassry

Elad's work often consist of collages and pictures he takes of celebrities and his friends and family. His work contains very bright and vivid colors that pop and he also is known for using old photographs in his works of celebritites and the past history of the world that he finds interesting and that he feels he can better correct the photo in his own way. 

Hector Vasquez Reviews Wolfgang Tillman

Wolfgang Tillman is a contemporary photographer who was born on August 16, 1968 in Remschied, Germany. He attended the Pool College of Art. Tillman's photographs seem to have a common theme of time to them because if you look at his photos most of them are of people in motions which could symbolize time. Also some of his photographs are motion photography, where he takes pictures while having his camera set to a certain time so the camera will take a series of photos at once, therefore creating an image of blurry objects, which are in actuality in movemment.
                                                                                                                           Wolfgang Tillman
"Fleeting Moment"

Jessica Hawkins reviews Shirin Neshat

Shirin Neshat is an Iranian artist who currently lives in New York. She is a photographer but works with film and video as well too. She has directed films in the Venice Film Festival and won countless awards as well as being named artist of the Decade by Huffington Post. She got her MFA at UC Berkley but after she graduated she didn't do any art for 10 years and instead worked with her husband at their storefront. What really brought her back to art was going back to Iran and being shocked at how it was so different from how she remembered it growing up. Her art focuses on femininity and masculinity and difference with the West and Middle East. She works a lot with women and their experience in contemporary Islamic societies.

Jessica Hawkins reviews Ryan Mcginley

Ryan McGinley began photography in 1998 and has since made a name for himself being declared "the most important photographer in America" by GQ in 2014, but receiving critical acclaim since 2003 when he was named Photographer of the year. He is an American photographer that lives in New York. His photography borders between catching the moment and waiting for the shot to happen, and setting up the shot. He originally kept it very organic and documented real life situations, but then started setting up the shots like a movie and directing it because he felt he was wasting time just waiting for a shot that might not happen. A lot of his photos center on young, nude people enjoying live. I really enjoy his photography and how he captures the emotion of the subjects and encapsulates the breath of a real life person in a 2-dimentional medium which is amazing.

Jasmine Barrios Jimmy Nelson

 

Jimmy Nelson is a British artist, he is also known as photojournalist he often photographs indigenous people from around the world. His goal with his work is to portray different cultures from these places the people are usual adorned with clothing, jewelry, accessories that represent their culture his photos are high contrast and are in full color. The people usually fill the frame which allows investigation of only them and nothing else. In his wider shots Nelson typically displays the people in a natural setting of where they are from. Nelson spent parts of his childhood in Asia, Africa and South America which is where he was exposed to various cultures. It was then that he began to have an interest in different cultures and which is why now he photographs a wide range of people however they are specifically indigenous; because there is not much exposure of these people groups is why Nelson finds it important to photograph them and capture “evidence” of their lifestyle and who they are.


 

Jasmine Barrios David Muench

 

David Muench is an American landscape artist he is well known and is an established artist. He has published around 50 books filled with landscapes from 17 different countries. Muench’s interest started when he was very young his father was a photographer and often traveled throughout his career Muench joined alongside him and also became interested and grew a passion for landscape photography. He had his first photos published while he was still in high school and and he chose to continue his photography career which has lasted for the past 50 years. Muench is simply fascinated by nature and desires to capture the moments it has, he states that no photo he has taken can be reproduced because the nature and landscapes itself changes, Muench still actively returns to places he has already been to shot again and again. His photos are often in color and wide shots of landscapes he also has close up that show details of the places he has been.

(It was difficult for me to find photos that did not have a watermark.)