Tag: Hannah Starkey

A5—Initial thoughts

CAN has been an opportunity for me to take a fresh look at image-making and to explore themes that I have not touched before. It has been a bit of a surprise for me that identity has come to the fore, as it has in Assignments 2 and 4. Rather than turn to another broad theme at the end of CAN I am inclined to push myself with another aspect of the identity question.

Assignment 2 looked at the issue of family origins — most of us are interested in where we came from and founding myths can be very powerful. Assignment 3 touched on a closely-held fear that has dogged me since I was a teenager. Even Assignment 4, my reading of Paul Strand’s Wall Street, 1915, was an identity exploration of sorts: a chance to delve into the reasons why the photograph has captured my imagination for so long.

For Assignment 5, I have decided to touch on the issue of aging. I am at a point in my life where I have noticed that I am thinking about the next stage of my career and am finding that the attitudes of others around me are changing subtly. Some of it comes from personal interest while some of it appears to be rooted in stereotypical expectations or even forms of ageism.

I discussed a few possible approaches with my tutor during our last Zoom meeting and he was encouraging. He was also good enough to follow up with some examples from Hannah Starkey, Larry Sultan and Rembrandt that I can use for reference and/or guide points for research.

One of the key elements that I took away from my earlier CAN assignments and from my tutorials is the need to pay close attention to every element in the frame of a constructed image. Just as I labour over each aspect of an image I am reading, I need to give the same consideration to every piece of the image I am building: lighting, props, costumes/clothes, colours, foreground, background, gesture, expression, etc. I am essentially dressing a set for a one-frame play.

Research—Setting the scene

Jeff Wall (Vancouver, 1946– )

  • MA art history from UBC, 1970. Postgraduate research at the Courtauld Institute in London from 1970–73.
  • Draws on elements from other art forms—including painting, cinema, and literature—in an approach he calls “cinematography.” Large scale constructions and montages. Conceptualism.
  • Frequently displays work as backlit color transparencies, similar to street advertising, but has more recently worked with b/w printing and inkjet colour.
  • Early work sometimes evoked other artworks: “The Destroyed Room (1978) explores themes of violence and eroticism inspired by Eugène Delacroix’s monumental painting The Death of Sardanapalus (1827), while Picture for Women (1979) recalls Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) and brings the implications of that famous painting into the context of the cultural politics of the late 1970s.”
  • “Near documentary” work made in collaboration with non-professional models who appear in them.

Jeff Wall (2018) At: https://gagosian.com/artists/jeff-wall/ (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Jeff Wall (2020) In: Wikipedia. At: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jeff_Wall&oldid=934463406 (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Jeff Wall Photography, Bio, Ideas (s.d.) At: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/wall-jeff/ (Accessed 26/01/2020). Tate (s.d.)

Jeff Wall: room guide, room 6. At: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/jeff-wall/jeff-wall-room-guide/jeff-wall-room-guide-room-6 (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Lubow, A. (2007) ‘The Luminist’ In: The New York Times 25/02/2007 At: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/magazine/25Wall.t.html (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Hannah Starkey (Belfast, 1971– )

  • Studied photography and film at Napier University, Edinburgh (1992–1995) and photography at the Royal College of Art, London (1996–1997). Lives and works in London.
  • Works predominantly with women as subjects, actresses as well as people she meets on-site to develop scenes. Stark architecture and strong colour.
  • Says of her photographs that they are “explorations of everyday experiences and observations of inner city life from a female perspective.”
  • Works are frequently untitled and show freeze-framed crisis points: issues of class, race, gender, and identity. Intimate moments.

Hannah Starkey | artnet (s.d.) At: http://www.artnet.com/artists/hannah-starkey/ (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Hannah Starkey – Artists – Tanya Bonakdar Gallery (s.d.) At: http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artists/hannah-starkey/series-photography_4 (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Hannah Starkey – Artist’s Profile – The Saatchi Gallery (s.d.) At: https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/hannah_starkey.htm (Accessed 26/01/2020).

O’Hagan, S. (2018) ‘The photography of Hannah Starkey – in pictures’ In: The Guardian 08/12/2018 At: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/dec/08/the-photography-of-hannah-starkey-in-pictures (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Tom Hunter (Bournemouth, 1965– )

  •  Works in photography and film. Photographs often reference and reimagine classical paintings. First photographer to have a one-man show at the National Gallery, London.
  • Socially- and politically-motivated work.
  • “Painters inspire me most – Caravaggio, Vermeer – but I also like Dorothea Lange and Sally Mann.”
  • Series “Persons Unknown”: portraits of squatters in the abandoned Hackney warehouses. Won the Photographic Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in 1998 for an image of a young woman with a baby beside her, reading a possession order, shot like a Vermeer painting. 

Pulver, A. (2009) ‘Photographer Tom Hunter’s best shot’ In: The Guardian 04/11/2009 At: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/nov/04/photography-tom-hunter-best-shot (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Tom Hunter – Artist (s.d.) At: http://www.tomhunter.org/ (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Tom Hunter – 29 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy (s.d.) At: https://www.artsy.net/artist/tom-hunter (Accessed 26/01/2020). Tom Hunter – Artists – Yancey Richardson (s.d.) At: http://www.yanceyrichardson.com/artists/tom-hunter (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Tom Hunter – Artist’s Profile – The Saatchi Gallery (s.d.) At: https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/tom_hunter.htm (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Unheralded Stories Series | Tom Hunter (s.d.) At: http://www.tomhunter.org/unheralded-stories-series/ (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Taryn Simon (NYC, 1975– )

  • Multidisciplinary artist in photography, text, sculpture, and performance. Work featured in the Venice Biennale (2015). Guggenheim Fellow, 2001.
  • Studied environmental sciences at Brown University but transferred to a degree in art-semiotics, while taking photography classes at Rhode Island School of Design. BA 1997. Visiting artist at Yale, Bard, Columbia, School of Visual Arts, and Parsons School of Design.
  • The Innocents (2003) — stories of individuals wrongly sentenced to death or life, then released and gained exoneration due to DNA evidence. Mistaken identity, questionable reliability of evidence.
  • An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007) — objects, sites, and spaces integral to America but not accessible to public (radioactive capsules at a nuclear waste storage facility; black bear hibernating; CIA art collection).
  • Heavy research and preparation for each project: “The majority of my work is about preparation. The act of taking photographs is actually a very small part of the process. I work with a small team, just my sister and one assistant.”

O’Hagan, S. (2011) ‘Taryn Simon: the woman in the picture’ In: The Observer 21/05/2011 At: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/may/22/taryn-simon-tate-modern-interview (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Taryn Simon (s.d.) At: http://www.tarynsimon.com/ (Accessed 26/01/2020a).

Taryn Simon (s.d.) At: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/taryn-simon (Accessed 26/01/2020b).

Taryn Simon – 107 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy (s.d.) At: https://www.artsy.net/artist/taryn-simon (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Philip-Lorca DiCorcia (Hartford, 1951– )

  • Studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Then attended Yale, MFA Photography, 1979. Lives and works in NYC and teaches at Yale.
  • Mixes snapshots and staged compositions that are theatrical in nature. Carefully planned staging, documentary, cinema and advertising. Line between reality and artifice/fantasy blurred.
  • Accidental poses, unintended movements, insignificant facial expressions. Series, Hustlers, Streetwork, Heads, A Storybook Life, and Lucky Thirteen, conceptual in nature.

DiCorcia, P.-L. (2001) Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Heads. Steidl Box Pacemacgill.

Kimmelman, M. (2001) Philip-Lorca diCorcia — ‘Heads’. At: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/arts/art-in-review-philip-lorca-dicorcia-heads.html

MoMA Learning. At: https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/philip-lorca-dicorcia-head-10-2002

Philip-Lorca diCorcia | MoMA. At: https://www.moma.org/artists/7027

Philip-Lorca diCorcia | artnet (s.d.) At: http://www.artnet.com/artists/philip-lorca-dicorcia/ (Accessed 26/01/2020).

Philip-Lorca diCorcia – 46 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy (s.d.) At: https://www.artsy.net/artist/philip-lorca-dicorcia (Accessed 26/01/2020).