“You are free and you risk something by taking a photograph. It’s not taking a snapshot of your sister. You risk because this is maybe not the way people think one should photograph. So you go out on a more different road. There is a risk involved in that. And I think if an artist doesn’t take risks, then it’s not worth it.”
Click on the writings to enlarge and read.
Once again, the participating artists were Karlee Wech, Stephanie Washko, Stephanie Walterman, Hana Vanderveen, Katie Strack, Brooke Schocker, Hayley Schaut, Sean Ruffatti, Marcus Rowe, Margaret Rajic, Austin Presti, Sammy Padiak, Nikki Nixon, Kelly Neises, Elisabeth Monsen, Mackenzie Lestan, Duyen Le, Sarah Lagenstrass, Nicole Kornely, Cassidy Karwowski, Alex Hallerberg, Kailey Gilbert, Kaeley Ferguson, Maddie Carrigan, Olivia Bueno, Kyler Bruner, Sarah Betar, Morgan Behrens, and Grace Barbolla. (Go Google yourselves.) And thanks to all the insightful in-house reviewers, some of whom are represented here.
Listen and learn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGt3-fxOvug
He may not realize it, but he’s describing… the darkroom!
This week’s review of the Francesca Woodman exhibit in New York City (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/arts/design/francesca-woodman-at-guggenheim-museum.html?scp=1&sq=woodman&st=cse) is balanced and insightful, but something occurred to me which has never come up in my decades of paging through monographs, down in the dank darkroom: how much influence was there on Ms. Woodman from one Ralph Eugene Meatyard? Look at these jpegs of their images and see if you can guess, completely correctly, whose is whose. Oh, sure, one can easily point out the differences, but look at the similarities.
The Interstate Creative Camerawork Invitational is back after a year’s hiatus. Participating schools include Schaumburg, Lincoln High in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, Lake Zurich, Cary-Grove, Buffalo Grove, and good ol’ BHS.
No awards per se this time, but certificates of participation all around.
Ms. Covelli of LZ chose to attend over another event at their school (I always thought she was brilliant and perceptive).
The show is so wide-ranging that it’s diffcult to know where to look.
Get in to see everything tomorrow or Friday; don’t try on Monday or Tuesday (some sort of SWAT training will make a visit to the school potentially life-threatening); after spring break, the AP Seniors exhibit will displace this stuff fairly rapidly.
Artists in the exhibit are Grace Barbolla, Morgan Behrens, Sarah Betar, Kyler Bruner, Olivia Bueno, Maddie Carrigan, Kaeley Ferguson, Kailey Gilbert, Alex Hallerberg, Cassidy Karwowski, Nicole Kornely, Sarah Lagenstrass, Duyen Le, Mackenzie Lestan, Elisabeth Monsen, Kelly Neises, Nikki Nixon, Sammy Padiak, Austin Presti, Margaret Rajic, Marcus Rowe, Sean Ruffatti, Hayley Schaut, Brooke Schocker, Katie Strack, Hana Vanderveen, Stephanie Walterman, Stephanie Washko, and Karlee Wech.
It’s true. July or August of 1968, Auditorium Theatre. The clincher for me was that The Soft Machine opened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwo3ht8sxJo&feature=related (I already had their LP). All this came flooding back (and yes, I do remember the ’60s) when I came across this record of a vibrant performance.
http://www.openculture.com/2010/07/hendrix_plays_sgt_peppers_lonely_hearts_club_band.html
Robert Cumming made some engaging images which were included in an important exhibit in the 1970s “Fabricated to be Photographed.”
Mr. Metzker made a series called “Pictus Interruptus.”
The Belgian directors/brothers Dardenne have potentially useful comments for our current business of constructing barriers in photographs.
“We like to plunge the viewer into the scene without having had any exposition, particularly, before the scene happens. We just like to throw them into it.”
“It’s not that we don’t want any psychology. It’s just that we feel that, when we give a psychological explanation, we’ve told everything. For instance, if we say, well, Samantha was not able to have a child or she’s wanted to have a child for a long time, we feel that we’re giving an explanation to the viewer who then, in turn, feels that he or she has understood everything.
We try to place our camera in a way – position it so that there are obstacles, almost as if the reality that we’re filming is refusing that our camera find the right place. So since the camera is not in the right position, it’s almost like a documentary. We’d like to see the entire face, but we can’t quite.”
Hear the entire NPR story: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=148774087&m=148774504
And finally (for now), look at some of the work of Yeondoo Jung.
As of this writing, it’s not on the website yet…
http://www.firesigntheatre.com/index.php
…so check f’book.
Update:
Dear Friends – Your thoughts and blessings will help us and Peter get through this passing. This was completely unexpected. I spoke to Peter on Tuesday morning when he told me he had leukemia – others knew before us, but he’d kept it quiet for 6 months. When I spoke with him he said he was tired and very low. He went into the hospital Tuesday night and died at 7am this morning. I just got off the phone with the LATimes obit writer. I told her that Peter changed the world – at least for all of us. Fortunately Judith and I are in LA and will see the family this evening. We love you all and promise to keep you laughing as long as we can, after the tears. David (Ossman)
Update:
Peter Bergman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the day after Russia invaded Finland and the day before Winston Churchill (Peter’s hero) turned 65. Peter’s comic career began in the sixth grade, writing comic poems with his mother for library class – a penchant that developed into co-authoring the ninth grade humor column “The High Hatters,” and his own creation “Look and See With Peter B.” for his high school newspaper.
Peter’s audio career was launched in high school as an announcer on the school radio system, from which he was banished after his unauthorized announcement that the Chinese communists had taken over the school and that a “mandatory voluntary assembly was to take place immediately.” Russell Rupp, the school primciple, promptly relieved Peter of his announcing gig. Rupp was the inspiration for the Principle Poop character on “Don’t Crush That Dwarf”.
While attending high school, Peter formed his first recording group called “The Four Candidates,” turning out a comedy cut-up single titled “Attention Convention,” parodying the 1956 democratic convention. Released on Buddy records, it received air play in Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
At college, Peter was managing editor of the Yale comedy magazine. He wrote the lyrics for two musical collaborations with Austin Pendleton, both of which starred Phil Proctor. He graduated as a scholar of the house in economics, and played point guard for the liberal basketball league whose members have since lost their dribble but not their politics.
Peter spent two graduate years at Yale as a Carnegie teaching fellow in economics, and as the Eugene O’Neill playwriting fellow at the drama school. After a six-month stint as a grunt in the U.S. Army’s 349th general hospital unit, he went toBerlinon a Ford foundation fellowship where he joined Tom Stoppard, Derek Marlow and Piers Paul Read at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin. There he wrote and directed his first film, “Flowers,” and connected with the Living Theatre – a major influence on his art.
Peter worked briefly in London with Spike Milligan and the BBC before returning to America in 1966. Back in theU.S., he secured a nightly radio show on Pacifica’s KPFK inLos Angeles: “Radio Free Oz,” around which the Firesign Theatre coalesced and gestated.
Peter coined the term “Love-In” in 1967, and threw the first such event in April of that same year inLos Angeles. That event ultimately drew a crowd of some 65,000 people, blocking freeways for miles. This so impressed Gary Usher, a Columbia Records staff producer, that he offered the Firesign Theatre their first record contract.
In the 1970’s, Peter diversified his comic career as the president of a film equipment company. He also helped produce a machine for viewing angio cardiograms and measuring the blockage of the arteries of the heart.
In the 80’s Peter turned to film and tape, producing the comic feature “J-Men Forever” with Phil Proctor, as well as producing television shows that featured various members of Firesign.
Starting in 1995, Peter began touring the country as a “high tech comedian”, delivering lectures and keynote speeches to computer oriented companies and conventions. He worked on publishing the web site for one of the candidates for Mayor of Los Angeles.
His latest venture, in association with David Ossman, started in the summer of 2010: the podcast revival of Radio Free OZ.
FINAL UPDATE
Go to this link to read what amount to a legacy comments page, and if much of it reads like gibberish to you, this entry might help: “I still will slip in a line from their album into conversation… to see if others know about them. It’s a bit like a shared secret.”
http://firesigntheatre.com/peterbergman/index.html
FINAL UPDATE ADDENDUM
For those of you who don’t know the work of FT, or if you do but haven’t seen their Jack Poet Volkswagen commercials, scroll down http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/farewell_dear_friend_peter_bergman_1939_2012 and watch a half-dozen or so.
P.S. I think I need a big “5” sign.
This is not event-specific or timely or a reaction to anything, simply something of which to be aware.
http://thestreetphotographymanifesto.com/2011/12/08/street-photography-and-the-law/
Creative Camerawork 