“untitled at the moment”

Art Review
The Greatest Minds in History

By Jason Landry, Art Institute of Boston MFA in Visual Arts candidate  | November 1, 2008

Karsh at 100:  A Biography in Images - The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – Raab Gallery September 23, 2008 – January 19, 2009

BOSTON - In a chance encounter, I ran into a gallery attendant that I knew at the MFA.
He had asked me, “Have you seen the Karsh show?”
“Yes, a couple of times”, I replied
“It’s great.  It’s a show of some of the greatest minds in history”, he explained.
I replied, “and artists too.”
He responded by saying, “I lump artists into that category.”

I was thinking back to the gallery walls lined with a collection of faces that I have now come back to see for the fourth time.  I remembered Einstein, Hepburn and of course Churchill, but I wasn’t necessarily thinking of the artists.  Why was that?  As I went back, I found that there are more people that I would consider ‘artists’ hanging on the walls than I originally recalled. Karsh was quoted as saying, “I photograph the great spirit, whether they became famous or humble.” It was through this quote that I remembered something a close friend told me, “Artists do not normally project their celebrity as much as other famous people do, they are pawns and play a background roll to the individuals they photograph, paint or sculpt.”

Yousef Karsh was a portrait photographer and was contracted often by many of the leading periodicals of his time.  He used a large format 8×10 inch camera, ideal for capturing these larger than life characters.  His utilitarian use of dramatic lighting gave him the capability to control detail and depth in the sitter’s features while heightening their distinguished stature.

As the story has been told, in December of 1941, Karsh was to photograph the British Prime Minister after his address to the Canadian Parliament. This image would soon be recognized and defined as Karsh’s crowning achievement.  Churchill wasn’t told about the sitting in advance and was quite displeased.  As Karsh positioned his large format camera in place, he politely asked Churchill to remove the cigar he was smoking and place it in the ashtray.  When Churchill refused, Karsh took the cigar from his mouth, prompting the stern facial expression realized in this famous portrait.  He then made one more photograph, from which a slight smile began to form on Churchill’s face.  This account of the back-story within the story helps to solidify this image as one of the most recognizable in the 20th century.  And it is these stories, the ones that go beyond the labels on the wall, that really help to explain how photographers think and act in the most precarious situations.  This image appears larger than all others in this exhibition, and undoubtedly should.  At a recent lecture I attended, a slide of Churchill on the cover of Life Magazine, April 29, 1940 was cast up on the screen.  The character was there, but his power was not.

By the 1950’s, ‘Karsh of Ottawa’ became known around the world as the photographer of famous and powerful people.  Out of the many notable images on display, the most recognizable are the images of Ernest Hemingway, 1957 from which Karsh wrote “the shyest man I ever photographed”, Albert Einstein, Audrey Hepburn (in profile), and of course Churchill.  These portraits, all gelatin silver black and white prints line the outer walls of the gallery.

There were two images that stood out in the exhibition.  The first was a simply exquisite image of Jacqueline Kennedy from 1957, standing in a detailed evening gown, satin shawl and pearls.  This full-length portrait shows her poise and presence, well before becoming one of the most recognizable First Ladies in our countries history.

The second was the Portrait of Betty Low, 1936, an actresses and dancer from the Ottawa Drama League draped in a cloth that wrapped around her head and neck. Reminiscent of a marble bust of a Greek or Roman goddess, Karsh captures her every detail, from her nose to her lips, to even the way her gaze looks off to the side.
This portrait is just one example of how Karsh was able to bring out the most important features in a person and immortalize them. Ms. Low was not of the same stature as some of the others displayed in the gallery and was photographed many years prior to Karsh’s impending fame, but shines nonetheless.

The central walls of the gallery paid homage to the work he did throughout the Canadian provinces beginning in 1952 as part of an assignment for some highly acclaimed periodicals including Time and Life Magazines to “celebrate the countries hard working citizens and institutions.”  In one often-published image of workers in a car factory, Karsh used a technique of multiple exposures to help tell two stories in one frame.  His vision and use of the tableau was years before the advent of computers and Photoshop.

Images throughout this exhibition were not hung in chronological order; instead they were classified and separated into groups. There are the musicians and composers, the artists, the humanitarians and scientists, the playwrights, poets and writers, actors and actresses and finally the dignitaries.  There is the historical juxtaposition of images such as Fidel Castro next to Dwight D. Eisenhower that may tell one story, while Khrushchev adjacent to Jacqueline Kennedy hints at another.  There were the obvious pairings such as sculptors Alexander Calder placed next to Emilo Greco, who was photographed with a sculpture of the bust of Estrelita Karsh, Yousef’s wife, in the background.

In the book Karsh: The Art of the Portrait one author states, “He brings out their unique characters through his perceptive lens and gives history a human face.”  But yet, I find that Karsh’s comments yield something a little deeper.  In the same text he proclaims, “All I know is that within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can.”  His statement conjures up another great quote echoed by Diane Arbus which reads, A photograph is a secret about a secret…the more it tells you, the less you know.

For many photographers, it is more than just a face that attracts them to making an image.  It’s a gesture, a persona and someone’s personal stories that often play a part in their processes.  Many photographers want to believe that their cameras can tell stories, and unlock secrets and Karsh isn’t any different from anyone else.  As he said, “I am a photographer and not a writer; my camera is, I trust, more powerful than my pen.”

Through one of the locked display cases in the far corner of the gallery, I peered at a transcript of an interview Karsh had with Albert Einstein on the day he photographed him.  One of the last questions he asked was, “To whom then should we look for the hope of the future of the world?”
Einstein responded with, “To ourselves.”

past, present, future:  Anish Kapoor – The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston – May 30 – September 7, 2008

By Jason Landry, Art Institute of Boston MFA in Visual Arts candidate  | July 17, 2008

BOSTON - There are no boundaries to the sculptures and installations currently on view at the ICA.  When you look at the work of artist Anish Kapoor, you will soon learn that the phrase, what you see is what you get, does not apply.  Chief Curator Nicholas Baume has brought together a selection of Kapoor’s works, some of which are on loan courtesy of the Sol LeWitt Collection.

Born in Bombay, India and currently living and working in London, Kapoor creates monumental reflected surfaces that Baume states, “explores abstract forms & unconventional materials” and “demands to be experienced.”

Piles of colored pigment constructed into pyramidal shapes of red, white and yellow are set on a white platform at one end of the gallery.  A large, dark red horn-like structure called, Inwendig Volle Figur rests on the gallery floor attached to the wall via a glossy tube of the same color at the other end of the exhibition space.  When you stand at what I would refer to as the mouth of this object and follow the tube toward the wall with your eyes, the curvature of the outer tube takes on the optical illusion of fog creeping up the sides.

(Anish Kapoor - Inwendig Volle Figur,2006)   (photo: John Kennard)

The most prominent color used throughout the exhibition is red.  The use of red resonates with the representational markings and clothes worn in India, and it is known to represent energy, life and creativity. It also serves in a spiritual sense as the first chakra in the seven energy centers.

The laws of physics plays an important roll in many of Kapoor’s sculptures and is a test to how each object works formally.  The function of each object varies, and many of the effects have to be experienced in the gallery setting. Duality is constantly represented visually but also psychologically.

When I think of duality, or better yet, distorted reality, I’m reminded of funhouse mirrors.  Photographer André Kertész once used them to create a series of nudes in the 1930’s called “Distortions” that elongated the bodies, bending the visual perspective. Kapoor creates this funhouse effect with his sculpture, S-Curve.  When you stand near the S-Curve, the long curved double-sided mirror in the middle of the exhibition hall, your body contorts into various sizes showcasing the vanities that make up the narcissistic traits in humans. The person standing on the opposite side of the mirror will experience the exact opposite reflection.  This minimalist form itself is reminiscent of the monumental arcs of steel created by Richard Serra.

(Anish Kapoor - S-Curve)

(Richard Serra - Serpent)

Objects beg for your attention. With every glance, they seem to take on noticeable optical and audible transformations depending on where you stand in relation to each piece.
Sound gets amplified and dispersed in the most effective way possible - it is all encompassing.  When you stand close to some of the objects, you can often hear conversations half way across the room.  I observed one patron saying, “It’s like noise echoing in your head.”

Moving on through the sensorium, I approached two concaved discs (think large satellite dishes) mounted adjacent to one another.  The one on the left titled Brandy Wine, 2007, is a shiny red disc and on the right, a disc constructed out of small-mirrored hexagons.

(iPhone photo – courtesy of Jason Landry)

In scientific terms they are called parabolic reflectors. To experience this specific piece, walk slowly toward the red disc and let your eye follow your reflection. At some point you reach this invisible plane from which your eye focuses and suddenly your reflection flips - everything is now upside down.

Patrons to the exhibit are prohibited from taking photographs because the museum doesn’t own the copyrights to the work.  Even though I’m a big fan of photography, this exhibition must be experienced.  Seeing a photograph alone will not do this show justice.

My first art review was published today in BigRedandShiny.  I have to thank Deb Todd Wheeler for inspiring me to write in this format.  More reviews to come.

Art Review

At The Ocean’s Edge

By Jason Landry, Art Institute of Boston MFA in Visual Arts candidate | June 14, 2008

YORK, MAINE –You can taste the salt-water of the Atlantic in the air. The weather was at least twenty degrees cooler near the coast. The tides are moving in and out down by the harbor, people are swimming in the ocean, dogs are kicking up sand as they chase Frisbees and novels are being read. Summer is upon us. New England happens to be a very popular vacation destination this time of year, and with the value of the Euro far exceeding the US Dollar, the influx of tourists this summer will be at peek levels.

Traveling northbound on Route 95, an hour-long drive without traffic awaits you on any summer weekend. Through the tollbooth in Hampton you cross the borders of New Hampshire then into Maine. The exit sign seems rather personal, The York’s/Ogunquit’s - Exit 7. Off of Route 1 and nestled close to Perkins Cove you will find the Stone Crop Gallery.

Far from the streets of Boston and the South End, this gallery doesn’t have the recognizable facade of a location on Newbury Street or the brushed cement floor galleries of Harrison Ave. You enter the gallery from the ground level and the first thing you will notice besides the art is the large ledge of rock protruding from the earth at one end of the gallery. Built from old timbers salvaged from barns and various other structures, this home, studio and gallery is now owned by photographer Dana Berenson, a part-times resident of both York, Maine and Brookline, Massachusetts.

This month, the Stone Crop Gallery presents, Yoav Horesh: Seascapes 2003-2007. These black and white panoramic photographs reflect the perception one has as they look down a beach and out toward the horizon - lengthy and vast. The images were taken from various spots around the world, from the Gulf of Thailand to the Red Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean.

It’s not too hard to figure out what you are looking at in, Mediterranean Sea (Tarifa) 2005. The Spaniards want to make it perfectly clear that from this view it is not the Atlantic peering back at you. Although Horesh places the sign dead center in the frame, what truly gives the picture balance is what is on the outer edges. The lighthouse and boat on the left side take on a similar visual perspective coupled with the rocks and land mass that makes up the right side of the frame.

The Seascape project came on the tail end of a much larger, separate body of work titled, Aftermath, from which Horesh captured the trauma and memory of sites where suicide bombings took place in Israel. Unlike Aftermath that hints toward the documentary, Seascapes have a more ethereal feel as they take on the embodiment of Harry Callahan’s image of Eleanor wading up to her hips in Lake Michigan and what could be an unconscious response to the Ansel Adams surf sequences from California.

(Harry Callahan – Eleanor and Barbara, Lake Michigan, 1953)

(Ansel Adams – Surf Sequence 1-5, San Mateo County, California, 1940)

For Horesh, he feels these images are about a constantly changing view of the sea, from the varying light or weather conditions, to the presence/non-presence of people during recreation. On first glace, you get the sense that he may have staged the people within the images of these repetitive forms. Contemporary photographers are notorious for staging their own narratives to construct some surreal experience that never actually happened. Horesh has assured me that all images are found moments. This truthful depiction helps to give Horesh’s unembellished images more weight.

These Scapes, a shortened variation of the word used by photographers to depict either Landscapes or Seascapes are not of the variety of say Hiroshi Sugimoto who’s views of the ocean have no signs of a human presence and are a way for him to concentrate and contemplate our very existence on this planet. The seascapes in Horesh’s body of work are an idyllic view - a straightforward statement.

(Yoav Horesh – Atlantic Ocean (Cape Cod) 2003)

Horesh, an avid scuba diver, took his camera underwater in 2004 in an attempt to capture the ambiguous landscapes beneath the foaming crests of the sea. This exploration, coupled with the images on land help to define our changing landscapes.

Art Review
A Topographical (re)View

By Jason Landry, Art Institute of Boston MFA in Visual Arts candidate | June 9, 2008

BOSTON - Abelardo Morell has a compelling ability to reinvent himself through his work. His experiments usually lead to images like this one, North America: Cliché Verre With Ink Transferred to 8” x 10” Film, 2007.

This image is part of the exhibition Pictures in Pictures on display from May 14 through June 28, 2008 at the Bernard Toale Gallery in Boston.

Think along the lines of a photogram or a monoprint. A Cliché-Verre is defined as a glass print or picture that is coated, in this case with a black ink, on which a design is scratched into the plate and then left to dry causing cracking and tones of ink to mix and bleed. Etched on this ink-based emulsion Morell has chosen to show topographical views of various continents. His final designs are then transferred onto 8×10 film from which silver gelatin print enlargements are made.

This Topography, unlike his colleagues and peers who were included in the 1975 exhibition and catalogue The New Topographics produced by the George Eastman House, can be attributed to what the world is now seeing through our many visual channels: images taken from the Mars rover, satellite imagery from Google maps, or from other photographers such as Emmet Gowin whose aerial photographs of military test sites throughout the United States show the damage that our continental crust has endured.

Morell’s images have entered a new phase of an artist evolving far from the days of Alice in Wonderland and pictures taken from a child’s perspective toward a more humanistic and scientific view that edifies our society.

Art Review
A Memorial Portrait

By Jason Landry, Art Institute of Boston MFA in Visual Arts candidate | May 29, 2008

War Stories: Images by Nina Berman – Massachusetts College of Art + Design / Sandra and David Bakalar Gallery - February 11 – March 12, 2008

BOSTON - A look towards the horizon shows lighting hitting the ground at night…but it’s not lighting. There is a rumbling in the air, thunder…unlikely. I’ve seen and heard these images on my television and watched in amazement. Through daily newspapers and magazines I’ve seen the images, a split second of war now presented as a tangible object, a truthful but often skewed document. Robert Capa, Eddie Adams, James Nachtwey and Steve McCurry are just a few of the photographers who have risked their lives to capture this proof of the trouble that exists outside.

Through photography, I am reminded of the confusion, the loss and the disturbing realities that our military and the victims of war go through. Nina Berman has presented a series of images in “War Stories”, photographs of military personal who were injured while serving our country. Not only are these civilians scarred for life psychologically, many are physically changed by the loss of a limb, becoming paralyzed or even burned. They return from the battlefields to their loved ones and families often times unrecognizable. Coping with these changes can take its toll.

The objects placed within the frame of a painting or photograph play a roll in telling the story that the artist wants you to see. A truthful depiction, perhaps…one only knows. The gaze that exists in Berman’s portrait (image 1) Marine Wedding, Sergeant Ty Ziegel and Renee Kline, 2006 is haunting. Is Berman making a statement about the realities of war through this portrait? How could she not?

The history of art is brimming with portraits that have been painted or photographed to reveal or conceal something. The Arnolfini Portrait, a painting by Jan van Eyck (image2) is said to be a marriage portrait but also has been noted as being a memorial portrait, a painting of one dead and one living person. Coupled together, these wedding portraits are eerily similar.

The Marine, severely burned and disfigured, dressed in his pressed uniform stands at attention looking down at his lovely bride. I am hesitant to say, stares down at his bride because usually the word stare means, with eyes wide open, and I’m not sure if he is able to stare any longer. His awards and metals are pinned over his heart and shine almost as bright as the jewels in her tiara. The bride, in her beautiful white gown clutches a large bouquet of red roses; one single white rose garishly stands out, a sign for hope perhaps. She remains tight-lipped, her eyes fixed off into the distance, a gaze illuminated by the photographer’s strobes, contemplating her unknown future. If you look closely, the photographic backdrop behind the couple takes on the appearance of ominous clouds, signaling an awaiting storm on the horizon.

This personal and revealing portrayal of what the devastations of war can do to a person are now locked up deep inside the mind of this decorated soldier.