Claude Cahun

Hi Monica - I thought you might find this artist very interesting. I love her work and although there's still very little available you can find stuff on the internet.


In many ways, Cahun's life was marked by a sense of role reversal, and her public identity became a commentary upon not only her own, but the public's notions of sexuality, gender, beauty, and logic. Her adoption of a sexually ambiguous name, and her androgynous self-portraits display a revolutionay way of thinking and creating, experimenting with her audience's understanding of photography as a documentation of reality. Her poetry challenged gender roles and attacked the increasingly modern world's social and economic boundaries. Also Cahun's participation in the Parisian Surrealist movement diversified the group's artwork and ushered in new representations. Where most Surrealist artists were men, and their primary images were of women as isolated symbols of eroticism, Cahun epitomized the chameleonic and multiple possibilities of the female identity. Her photographs, writings, and general life as an artistic and political revolutionary continue to influence countless artists, namely Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin. (from Wikipedia)

Interesting NPR Photo-Documentary

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2009/04/a_day_on_las_skid_row.html?sc=fb&cc=fp

David Sparrow: whirligig artist: scrap metal collector

Last Saturday I met David Sparrow, a Durham whirligig artist. Here are a few images of his work.

wall of wires and vines.

My taking of this photo was definitely inspired by our class meetings -- discussing ruins and urban decay.

2 Musicians

This is Alex & Li Lan- the core of an Afro- Cuban group called "Different Drummer".

I asked them to relate to each other while posing, so I think I ended up with a portrait of a couple,rather than a portrait of musicians.

Photo Contest

The Arts Center (in Carrboro, NC) is hosting a 2009 photo contest. Entries are accepted through April 27 at TheArtCenter's box office during regular business hours (M-F 10-6 and Sat 12 - 4). Two photographs (color or B&W) may be submitted per each entry fee ($15). Winners will be exhibited through May 29...there will be an opening reception on May 8 and prizes will be awarded.

I will bring a copy of the flyer I have to class tomorrow (Apr 15) for anyone to check out....

walter benjamin on photography

I was re-reading W. Benjamin this morning and given the fascinating session that we had yesterday when commenting our work/photos, I thought that it would be interesting to share this with you -

In photography, exhibition value begins to displace cult value all along the line. But cult value does not give way without resistance. It retires into an ultimate retrenchment: the human countenance. It is no accident that the portrait was the focal point of early photography. The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the cult value of the picture. For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face. This is what constitutes their melancholy, incomparable beauty. But as man withdraws from the photographic image, the exhibition value for the first time shows its superiority to the ritual value. To have pinpointed this new stage constitutes the incomparable significance of Atget, who, around 1900, took photographs of deserted Paris streets. It has quite justly been said of him that he photographed them like scenes of crime. The scene of a crime, too, is deserted; it is photographed for the purpose of establishing evidence. With Atget, photographs become standard evidence for historical occurrences, and acquire a hidden political significance. They demand a specific kind of approach; free-floating contemplation is not appropriate to them. They stir the viewer; he feels challenged by them in a new way. At the same time picture magazines begin to put up signposts for him, right ones or wrong ones, no matter. For the first time, captions have become obligatory. And it is clear that they have an altogether different character than the title of a painting. The directives which the captions give to those looking at pictures in illustrated magazines soon become even more explicit and more imperative in the film where the meaning of each single picture appears to be prescribed by the sequence of all preceding ones.

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By the way, Linda - I didn't say it yesterday because it seems difficult for me to express myself clearly and fluidly in english yet - I agree very much with Rebecca's comments on the idea of 'appropriating' (re-photographing) the 'original photos' of the space that you are working on and from that point, review and recreate the story emphazising on the actual state of it and reinforcing the importance of preserving symbols to "construct History" or even indentity ...
(I hope this makes sense...)