Artist Lecture:Brian Ulrich

Brian Ulrich, a famous modern photographer, and 2009 Guggenheim Winner, came to VCU recently, and talked about his work. He shared four main components or series that he really felt he enjoyed, and was successful, and his main motto or heading for his work was 'Not if but when'. He, however, started off with a sound piece, of clippings of his discussion with a security guard at a dead mall, where all the stores except for one or two had been closed. This got me thinking about other senses as well in my work. I thought of noise clippings from Kenya, that i might have in some older cassettes on some of my home videos. What if i ran them in the background with my work? Interesting... Once he delved into his work, he focused on four main series, starting off with what he considered 'street work' and 'Warzone Shopping'. I found both names interesting, thinking about how the camera interacts with the image, and how to control that aspect, as well as the subjects in the photograph interacting with the photographer. The ideas in these images were about how we as a nation consider shopping as a mechanized action, and being ordered by the government to spend, to help this economic struggle we are in now to pass. One piece that really stood out to me, as both very strong conceptually and artistically is the following image, which i felt very interesting, this idea of shopping controlling our governments outlook on the threat level. His second type of work was 'Thrift', in which he captured a completely different type of people group, who were rummiaging through all sorts of junk. These photographs are similar in dealing with the idea of controlling shopping, but focuses more on people's search for something they want, but can possibly not afford. Brian Ulrich also discussed work dealing with City Life, where people interact in malls, walking, and shopping, in which i feel he is trying to play with physical interaction with the setting around the person. The work i find most interesting, however, is the work that focuses on 'dead malls', otherwise known as closed down malls, with nothing in them. These malls intrigue me because some of them are kept well maintained, some with security guards still, and yet there is nobody walking around. These pieces are fascinating because they show a very void and empty space in which we almost have to be. We are expected to be shopping at Walmart in to the wee hours of the morning. There is never nobody in a huge mall, or store, while the mall is open, or during the day, and these are almost shots of the world void of people. They fascinate me to know end. Here is one example i particularly enjoy.