“untitled at the moment”

I was recently interviewed by BU Today to discuss the upcoming 2009 PRC Annual Benefit Auction. (listen here)

Jason Landry: Alicia, Sara, Kelly and Cary…you are performance artists who go by the name Triiibe. What makes Triiibe unique and how do you fit into the genre of performance artists?

Triiibe: We need to start off by saying that we, being Alicia, Sara and Kelly are performance artists and Cary is the photographer. Triiibe is unique because first off, we are triplets. We have always been part of a walking performance. We become artists when we change our clothes. When we began making artwork as individuals, we realized that people didn’t give the same attention to the work that we were making as opposed to us walking down the street together. So, we started using us as a tool. We enjoy doing public performances and people don’t necessarily know about the events in advance. We enjoy making work that catches people off guard and by surprise.

JL: Jeffrey Keough, former Director of Exhibition at the Massachusetts College of Art recalled that during your undergraduate studies, you once created an art piece that measured the perimeter of MassArt similar to the Smoot measurement on the Mass Ave Bridge. Do you recall the first time you collaborated on an art project or performance?

Triiibe: The project we did at MassArt was a public installation where we used a pair of size 10 women’s shoes and painted feet to represent each person at the school. There were over 1,000 pairs of feet, which we identified by using each students id number. It wasn’t meant to be a measurement, but a way to create unity with all of the students at the school. As for our first collaborative performance, we dressed up as identical businesswomen and went to work every Wednesday for 10 weeks in a row in downtown Boston. We would do synchronized actions like sipping our coffee and marching in a row. That was in 2001.

JL: Cary…you took a different route during your career, first being a National Geographic photographer for over 30 years, now a member of Triiibe. How did this collaboration begin?

Cary: I took a different route because I wasn’t a triplet, and it was much tougher…(laughter). I started as a photographer when I was a kid and then straight through college at Boston University. I had a darkroom at BU and was involved with the BU newspaper and yearbook. While at BU, I took a job with the Boston Globe, which launched my career in photojournalism and lasted close to 35 years with National Geographic. During that time, my interest in photography changed from pure photojournalism to conceptual photography. By the time I retired from The Geographic in 2006, I was well beyond what the National Geographic found acceptable. In my own mind, what I wanted to create for them and what they found acceptable for their magazine was beginning to part ways.

The collaboration with Alicia, Sara and Kelly began with the retirement of George Greenamyer. My close friends Rick and Laura Brown were having a retirement party for George. George is kind of famous for looking a little like Santa Claus. He’s got a big white beard and he always wears overalls. So this character dressed like George came into the party. And then another one came in and then George came in. I turned to Rick and said, “Who are they?” He said, “Oh, those are some of my students.” I then said, “I’d really like to meet those twins.” Rick then said, “it’s better then that, they’re triplets.” He then arranged a dinner for all of us to meet.

JL: Who came up with the name Triiibe?

Triiibe: It started as “tri-be” which was our email address a while ago, and I don’t remember who actually came up with it. We changed it to Triiibe to have the three “i”’s representing the triplets.

JL: Do all of your ideas come from the collective, or do you ever take suggestions from outsiders?

Triiibe: We always take suggestions from outsiders. Our make-up artist Rae Bertellotti gives us suggestions and so does Cary’s wife Babs and their son Yari who also work with us. So far, we haven’t picked an idea from friends or someone’s initial concept and done something yet from scratch because we have a long list of our own we haven’t got to yet.

JL: How do you go about creating work that isn’t about being triplets?

Triiibe: Well, we’re kind of over the fact that we are triplets. We want to make work that is about identity and social issues.

JL: I have been watching your careers blossom since 2008. First at the Photographic Resource Center Benefit Auction, then at the interactive performance “Profile” at Samson Projects, and most recently I learned that Triiibe was awarded one of the 2009 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowships. Do you feel things are finally starting to align for the collective?

Triiibe: Yes. We’re starting to get our work and name out there. We’re going to be in a group show in New York this October and we’ll have a show at Gallery Kayafas in the spring of 2010. But, yeah it’s nuts!

JL: Rumor has it that Boston University’s College of Fine Arts has offered you a solo exhibition in the 808 Gallery in November 2010. How do you plan to fill that place?

Triiibe: That’s the big question. We feel that space is unique and a great opportunity for us. It has a lot of windows that opens up to the public. So initially, we have been thinking of doing an installation, performance and photography, but we can’t go into specifics because we just don’t know yet.

JL: There was a political slogan that was very dominant during the 2008 Presidential Campaign and it read, Change is Coming to America.” As artists who use social and political commentary as part of their message, what concerns you the most about the future of our country?

Cary: I think the thing that concerns us most is that Obama will get bipartisanship, that people will start talking to each other, that everyone will be happy, the country will calm down, and there will be nothing to do as artists anymore that is politically interesting. That’s a big concern of ours.

This interview also appears in Big Red and Shiny, Issue #112.

Big RED & Shiny just published an interview that I did with photographer Harold Feinstein.

He had this great quote, “When your mouth drops open….click the shutter.”

To read more (click here)

I finally transcribed the interview I conducted with Vik Muniz.  Check it out in the Big Red and Shiny, Issue 105.

I met up with Alessandra Sanguinetti Thursday afternoon prior to her lecture at the PRC.  Here are some of the questions that I asked during the brief interview:

Jason Landry: What got you into photography?
Alessandra Sanguinetti: When I was a kid, around nine or so, my mother had this book, Wisconsin Death Trip, along with a few other books including Dorothea Lange. I don’t know why she had them. She wasn’t a photographer. Wisconsin Death Trip that just blew my mind. It made me realize that I was going to die. It was really direct. What really got me was the little girl in the coffin with the headband. I think everyone has a point in their lives when they realize they are going to die. I ran around the house saying, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die!” I then asked for a camera. Ever since then I was the one taking the family pictures up until now.

JL: Do you find more inspiration photographing in Argentina or the US?
AS: I only photograph in Argentina.

JL: Has your photographing style changed since having a child of your own?
AS: The style, No…I just photograph less.

JL: Is it important that the viewer know in advance when a photograph is staged, or should they look at the work and respond to it without a back-story?
AS: First of all, my pictures are not really staged. In many cases, in The Adventures of Guille and Belinda, it has all of the elements of being staged, but it’s really more of a mixture of me giving them an idea, like, let’s pretend you are husband and wife, and then they sort of make it up a little. With children it makes sense to stage that, because I could represent their life much more faithfully, getting at their fantasies and having them recreate them. I would never stage adults because I have no idea what they are thinking.

JL: What is the most important photograph that you have ever made.
AS: I guess it would be the picture I took when I was ten or so, with a small Kodak square camera. It was a black & white picture of a storm coming toward my father’s farm. I never get tired of looking at it; I always want to go back there.

JL: Can a photograph truly help you remember something?
AS: I’m actually worried about that. I’m taking tons of pictures of my child and she’s looking at them now. And she’s going to be looking at them like everybody until she grows up. I don’t know what her memories will be of, the pictures I took of her, or her experiences.

JL: If you can make one photograph right now, who or what would you photograph?
AS: I don’t have a longing to photograph something that I haven’t photographed yet. I do have a few ideas in mind that I haven’t realized. I’d like to take a picture of Bob Dylan just so I can say I met him, but if I really want to go make a photograph of something, I don’t waste any time.

This interview can also be seen on the PRC blog, BostonPhotographyFocus

SANTA ANA, CA:  An exhibition in Santa Ana, California at the VALAA (Vietnamese Arts & Letters Association) Center sparked protests from the Vietnamese community.  The group show, F.O.B. II: Art Speaks drew some controversy with an image by photographer Brian Doan. Doan’s image depicts a Vietnamese girl wearing a red tank top with a yellow star on it sitting next to a bust of former communist leader Ho Chi Minh.

The image has been vandalized on a number of occasions during the exhibition.  The glass protecting the image was scratched, a woman protester spit on it, and just the other day someone sprayed red paint on it and attached a tampon and underwear to it.  Reversing his original stance, the curator of the exhibition decided to close the show two days early because The City of Santa Ana notified VALAA that they did not have proper permits to use the space as a gallery.

Doan is creating these photographic portraits for memory. He cares greatly about his heritage, and it is the mainstay in all of his work.  I had a chance to interview Brian this afternoon, attached is an excerpt:

Jason Landry:  The staged narrative is a technique that many contemporary photographers utilize when they create a photograph.  It is a way to create a discourse of something that normally isn’t there.  It makes you think and react.  Is that what you did in this image?
Brian Doan: It was totally staged.  Almost all of my work is about the narrative. I create work in many layers, combining history and props to tell a story.  I wanted to capture what it is like for the younger Vietnamese generation growing up in Vietnam now.  I purchased the t-shirt, had her put her hair up in a ponytail because during communist times, this was how I remember women wearing their hair.  I also put a red book on the table with a cell phone on top of it.  Some may take it as making fun of how Chairman Mao in China made people carry around a red book with his quotes, but all I’m really commenting on is that the cell phone is now more important than the book.  I directed the girl to look away as if she were dreaming.  That’s it.

JL: From what I can understand from the various articles that have been written about the protest, many of the citizens in Little Saigon have expressed that you are trying to flame an old wound, that you are a communist looking to make trouble.  What is your reaction to these claims?
BD: I’m hoping that when they see the series as a whole, they will understand more about me and what I do as an artist. I have begun to get hate e-mail, dirty e-mails, illustrations, and phone calls that are very disturbing. It is interesting that a little image can stir up a big mess.  What can you do…you have to move on.

JL: Your own Father said during one of the protests that he disapproved of your work. Have you had a chance to speak with him since the protest?
BD: I will speak with him when everything settles down.

JL: How did his comments make you feel?
BD: I felt sad. This isn’t the first time and it didn’t totally shock me, but at this point, they should stand behind my work and believe in me.

JL: Do you think that you will have a problem if you get back to Vietnam?
BD: Most likely.  I’m sure they will know more about me now as the person who makes fun of their leader.  I was hoping to go back one more time to work on my project, but it doesn’t look good.  It has now put me in a very uneasy situation.

Read more about the exhibition and protest covered by the L.A Times and the O.C. Register.