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.

Idea Blog. Continuous construction

Now that i have a direction that i can head towards, i am starting to think about other things that i can construct that remind me of Kenya. My goal in the end is to have photographs of me in an 'Americanized' environment with these things that remind me of Kenya. Some of them such as potholes and dirt can be originally photographed, and kept in an image, whereas other things i will need to construct. Then other things are more of mental ideas and concepts, and i am having a hard time trying to figure out how to incorporate them into the photograph. Some ideas i want to almost 'follow' me around, much like the physical rain in a music video called This Year's Love by David Gray. Here is The link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo-tp0JZvUA
In this video, there is rain that physically follows this man around, as if a burden, or as if the rain is implying a mental connection to something personal. I have been thinking that for some of these things, i would like that idea of something being burdened as well. For example, i thought of, in the photograph, me standing in some dirt, where everywhere else around me is pavement. This picture on the right is partially what i mean, however, the dirt pile will not really be a mound, instead it will be just where my feet are, and it will be a small layering. The idea is that this dirt follows me wherever i walk, and where i stand it will be under me.

Also, i have a bunch of tribesmen garments that i brought from Kenya, that represents the culture there. I thought of including such things on my person as well, however, as long as it does not overpower the rest of the stuff.
I want this picture to be mainly full of stuff i construct with my own hands, therefore creating a much more personal interaction between the work and the pieces itself.

Artist Blog: Barbara Klemm

Barbara Klemm is an artist born in 1939 in Munster, and received her photography training privately through a photographic studio in Karlsruhe. After education she first was employed by a company called Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), and she worked as an engraver. After a while, she moved on to working as a photographer on the editorial staff, which focused on politics and features.
Her photographs are seen more as cutouts of time, being that her pieces are heavily based on documenting daily events in economics, politics, and culture. Her pieces capture the mood of the incident that is affecting the world, and are therefore very powerful in my opinion.
One of her pieces, the one on the right, he depicts the opposite of two people, being that one is heavily burdened, struggling, and to emphasize the point, walking up hill. Then you have the opposite, who seems comfortable, wealthy, and is walking downhill. I especially what the picture says just by looking at the road, and how each are affected by the environment. The uphill climb represents the struggle the poorer man is having not only physically, but mentally too, and it speaks so strongly. The same is true for the opposing wealthy man, easily strolling downhill. This piece depicts the two sides of my identity, and i really like this thought of the two opposing sides confronting each other and dealing with the other in a specific environment.
This piece really flies far for me, because, with the work of construction that i have been doing about the dual construction, and identity, i have thoughts of creating two of me in every composition, each dealing with the same thing, such as shoes, and the benefit one gets, compared to the other. I really like this piece for that reason, and want to pursue the possibility of doing what Barbara Klemm has done in this piece. I feel like it will work very well with the work i am doing now, and incorporates both the identity issues that i was dealing with in photographs, and the dual construction i was playing with in physical things that mean "Kenya" to me.

http://www.actuphoto.com/imagew.php?image=files/news_11935_0.jpg&dst_w=260