Artist lecture: Fredrika Jacobs, 9/30/09

Fredrika Jacobs is a professor of Art History at VCU and on Wednesday, September 30th she gave a lecture titled "Dusting the Madonna and Burning the Devil: Image Efficacy in Renaissance Italy."

The main focus of the lecture was on a superstitious ritual that occurred during the Renaissance in Italy where devotees of the Virgin Mary would rub cotton wading on plaster paintings of the Madonna, burn the cotton, mix the ashes into holy water and then consume the water. This was considered Marian Devotionalism. The Ecumeniccel Council of Trent in 1563 stated that no one should ask or place trust in an image and wanted to stop the superstitious practice of worshiping images of saints and holy people. The second half of the lecture covered exorcism and how in the 16th century, if a priest couldn't call out the demons by name that were possessing a person, they'd have to draw an effigy of the demon on paper and then burn the drawing. The purpose of this lecture and the parallel that Jacobs was trying to make was the notion of presence. The presence of an absence, which is what all portraits are, regardless of whether they depict the Madonna or the devil.

Monday entry (for 9/28/09): Artist of interest: Jill Greenberg

Jill Greenberg was born in Montreal, Canada in July, 1967 and grew up in Detroit, Michigan. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design and graduated with honors in 1989 with a BFA in Photography. Shortly thereafter she moved to New York to pursue a career in photography. She is both a commercial and fine art photographer with notable clients such as Microsoft, MTV, Sony, Paramount Pictures, Disney, ect. Greenberg is known for her photographs of celebrities and animals, both shot with her trademark lighting, heavy use of Photoshop manipulation and gradient color backgrounds. She is best known for her body of work created in 2006 titled End Times, a series of photographs of crying toddlers. Controversy surrounded End Times due to the fact that Greenberg made each child cry by promising them candy and taking it away. The parents of each child, however, were present at the time of the shoot. The series was meant to depict Greenberg's frustration with both the Bush Administration and Christian Fundamentalism in America.

Official website for Jill Greenberg.

Interview with Jill Greenberg.


End Times was showcased at the Kopeiking Gallery in West Hollywood, CA.

Artist lecture: Tom Wright, 9/28/09

Tom Wright is a professional commercial photographer who works in Richmond. He gave a lecture on Monday, September 28th for the studio lighting class. The balk of the lecture was spent explaining how he photographed each photo that is displayed in his portfolio on his website. He also gave two lighting demos. In the first demo he shot a student with a professional grade ring flash and gave us several tips on how to properly use one. In the second demo he took us into the studio and showed us a lighting set up that he has used for many of his photos. Throughout the lecture Wright fed us several helpful tidbits about commercial photography and what is expected of a commercial photographer depending on the level of the client.

Thursday entry (for 9/24/09): Stream of Consciousness

Quote on topic by an expert:

"Consciousness… does not appear to itself chopped up in bits…a “river” or “stream” are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described." --William James, Principles of Psychology.

Annotated bibliography:

James, William. Principles of Psychology. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1981.

William James (1842-1910) was an American psychologist and philosopher who was also a trained medical doctor. He wrote several books on what was at that time the young sciences of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism and philosophy of pragmatism.

In Principles of Psychology, James' wrote on his four methods of psychology: analysis, introspection, experiment and comparison. It was in this book that James created the term and theory stream of consciousness, which is "the continuous flow of sense‐perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and memories in the human mind."

How this topic relates to my work:

I have finally come to the conclusion that photographing students looking bored or frustrated while attempting to create art in a studio would be incredibly trite and not do justice in conveying my concept. Instead, I have decided to seek out students who feel disillusioned with art and interview them by asking them six questions in which they must respond by using the stream of consciousness writing method. My plan is to then string together their thoughts and create imagery from their answers. My expectation is that the resulting photographs will look highly surreal and abstract.

Monday entry (for 9/21/09): Artist of interest: Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe was born on November 4, 1946 in Queens, New York and died on March 9, 1989 at the tender age of 42 from complications from AIDS. Mapplethorpe attempted a degree in graphic arts at the Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn, New York before dropping out in 1969. Soon thereafter he picked up a Polaroid camera and began shooting his first batch of photographs using his friends and acquaintances as models. Later in the mid-70s he bought a Hasselblad and started including artists, composers and socialites in his photos. It was in the 80s that he refined his technique and began shooting what he is now most known for, which is his statuesque portraits of male and female nudes, formal portraits of artists and celebrities and flower still lives.

What Mapplethorpe is most remembered for is the controversy that arose in 1989 when the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washinton D.C. agreed to show a traveling solo exhibit of Mapplethorpe's work without expressing what type of subject matter they would or would not accept. The body of work that was sent to the Corcoran was created before Mapplethorpe's death and depicted explicit sexual acts. Once the photos arrived at the Corcoran, the hierarchy of the museum and several members of Congress were horrified by the images and decided not to go through with the show. Once pop artist Lowell Blair Nesbitt heard that the museum wasn't going to display the photos, he issued them an ultimatum to either display Mapplethorpe's work or he wouldn't bequeath the $1.5 million dollars he promised to leave them once he died. The Corcoran still refused and the show was later picked up by the Washington Project for the Arts and drew in large crowds due to the controversy. Newsbitt ended up bequeathing his money to the Phillips Collection instead.

The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation official website. A foundation which Mapplethorpe himself helped set up before he died.

An interview with Robert Mapplethorpe's biographer and lover, Jack Fritscher.

Thursday entry (for 9/17/09): Disillusionment

The definition of disillusionment is as follows: a feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be. The term is often associated with students who drop out of high school or college. I have felt disillusioned with photography ever since 2007 when I attended RIT for exactly one month before dropping out. I was incredibly unhappy with the quality of education and teachers at RIT and quickly realized that my heart was in fine art photography, not commercial. Ever since then, however, I've had a hard time trying to find my way back into photography's good graces. I had hoped that coming to VCU would have rejuvenated my love of photography but if anything I have found my experience here to have waned my already crumbling resolve to become a photographer.

Quote on topic by an expert:

We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides,
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides:
But tasks in hours of insight willed
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.
--Matthew Arnold (This quote from Arnold's poem Morality can be found at the beginning of the book Drop Out! by Robin Farquharson)

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
--Thomas Edison

I've had a very difficult time finding an article, book or essay of any kind that deals with this subject matter. I need to do some more thorough research and edit this post in the future.

How this topic relates to my work:

This, along with the theory of the quarter-life crisis, provides the backbone of my concept for this project. It all boils down to the disappointment in discovering that pursuing a degree and career in art isn't as enthralling as once believed.

Monday entry (for 9/14/09): Artist of interest: Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin was born on September 13, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York. Witkin worked as a war photographer during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1964. In 1967 he worked as a freelance photographer for City Walls Inc. Later he attended Cooper Union in New York where he studied sculpture and received his BFA in 1974. He received a scholarship from Columbia University and then received a MFA at the University of New Mexico. Witkin is famous for his complex tableauxs that feature everything from corpses and various society outsiders such as dwarfs, transsexuals, hermaphrodites and physically deformed people. Religion also plays a huge part in his art, as he was raised by a Jewish father and Catholic mother, who divorced when he was young because they couldn't get past their religious differences. Death is also another staple in his work and has a lot to do with a traumatic experience he witnessed when he was a young boy. He and his mother were leaving their apartment building in Brooklyn when a car crash occurred, decapitating a little girl in the process. The little girl's head rolled across the street from the car and ended up at Witkin's feet. Some people find Witkin's work to be highly disturbing but once you learn of this experience he went through as a child, it puts his work into perspective.

Here is an interview with Witkin by Cindy Marler, who was invited to pose for Witkin in Paris for two days in 2001.

I was unable to find an official website for Witkin but the closest thing I could find was this website created by Dave Knipper.

Witkin's work was most recently exhibited at the Galerie Baudoin Lebon in Paris in 2007.

A Day in the Country, 2003

Show Fucker and Woman Who Believes She's Becoming a Camera, 2003

Face of a Woman, 1999

Cupid & Centaur in the Museum of Love, 1996

9/14 September Blog Evaluation

Paul Thulin has read your blog up to this point/entry. Your blog is currently incomplete.

-missing 2 entries

Thursday entry (for 9/10/09): Quarter-life Crisis

We've all heard of the term midlife crisis. It's often joked about in Western society, most frequently when poking fun of men in their sixties who feel the need to purchase an overpriced sports car as a way to reclaim their youth. The term midlife crisis was created in 1965 by Elliott Jaques, a Canadian psychoanalyst and organizational psychologist. This term was created to describe the phase that most middle aged people experience anywhere between their thirties and sixties. The phase includes feelings of depression, anxiety and self doubt over the realization that they are no longer young and that old age is imminent. Several life changing occurrences can trigger these feelings, such as the death of a parent or parents, extramarital affairs, menopause in women or children leaving home. For women this phase can last anywhere between two to five years and in men from three to ten years.

As recent as eight years ago, the term quarter-life crisis made it's debut into the self help section of bookstores everywhere with the release of Quarterlife Crisis, the Unique Challenges of Life in your Twenties by Abby Wilner and Alexandra Robbins. The depression, anxiety and self doubt that is associated with midlife crisis are mirrored in the theory of quarter-life crisis. The main difference is that a quarter-life crisis occurs during your twenties. Usually it's associated with having turned twenty-five. There are slightly different triggers that bring on a quarter-life crisis compared to a midlife crisis and they include confusion of identity, insecurity regarding present accomplishments, frustrated with the working world and not being able to find a stable job or partner, desire to have children and thinking everyone else is more successful in every aspect of life than yourself.

Quote on topic by an expert:

"Plenty of people are going to say the quarterlife crisis doesn’t exist. Let them. My father doesn’t believe in it. But consider that it’s not so long ago that the menopause, the midlife crisis and other life-stage problems were dismissed as self-indulgent. We’re convinced everyone else is having more (and better) sex, doing more (and better) drugs and generally having more fun than we are. And maybe they are. Our parents certainly did. But you aren’t the only twentysomething who hasn’t bought a great house, snared a gorgeous partner, paid off hideous debts and landed a dream job. In reality, few of us have. Most are just as freaked out as you are that your twenties are bigger, scarier and harder than promised. It’s just that nobody really talks about it. Until now."
--Damian Barr

Annotated bibliography:

Robbins, Alexandra and Abby Wilner. Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 2001.

Alexandra Robbins is an investigative journalist, lecturer and author. The topic of her books have dealt with young adults, education and college life. She graduated from Yale in 1998.

In Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties, authors Robbins and Wilner explore the trials and tribulations associated with the transition to adulthood and give those trials and tribulations a name at long last: quarter-life crisis. The book offers advice on how to make the transition smoother and includes personal stories from twentysomethings who have gone through this stage in their lives.

"The whirlwind of new responsibilities, new liberties, and new choices can be entirely overwhelming for someone who has just emerged from the shelter of twenty years of schooling. We don't mean to make graduates sound as if they have been hibernating since they emerged from the womb; certainly it is not as if they have been slumbering throughout adolescence (though some probably tried). They have in a sense, however, been encased in a bit of a cocoon, where someone or something-parents or school, for example-has protected them from a lot of the scariness of their surroundings. As a result, when graduates are let loose into the world, their dreams and desires can be tinged with trepidation. They are hopeful, but at the same time they are also, to put it simply, scared silly."

How this topic relates to my work:

I turned twenty-five this year but honestly I began my descent into a quarter-life crisis when I was twenty-three. This year more than ever I feel the pressure of the future and I try my best not to constantly worry about what I'm going to do in order to put food in my mouth and a roof over my head once I leave VCU. I feel that this paired with my growing disappointment with art school and as a result, discouragment of ever having a career in photography, will make for an interesting backdrop for my project this year.

Monday entry (for 9/7/09): Artist of interest: Hiroshi Sugimoto

The biography on fine art Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto's official website is incredibly cut and dry. He only provides what he feels is significant enough for people to know. For example:

1948: Born in Tokyo, Japan
1970: Graduated from Saint Paul’s University, Tokyo
1972: Graduated from Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles
1974: Moved to New York

Sugimoto is known for his long exposure gelatin silver prints that he produces using an 8x10 large format camera. Because of this, he is also known for his extreme technical ability as a photographer. Sugimoto has used the phrase "time exposed" to explain his work "as serving as a time capsule for a series of events in time." He's famous for several distinct bodies of work that he's produced over the last thirty-three years, the first being his Dioramas series in 1976; a series of photographs taken of natural history museum dioramas. Later in 1978 he begun his Theaters series in which he photographed movie theaters and relied only on the light emanating from the movie screen as his main source of light, thereby making each in the series a long exposure photograph. In 1980 he began his next series titled Seascapes, another series of long exposure photographs that show a perfect horizon line of different seas throughout the world. The band U2 recently used his photograph Boden Sea as the cover for their most recent album released in March 2009, titled No Line on the Horizon.

In an interview with PBS's Art21, Sugimoto discusses Marcel Duchamp's influence on his work.

Sugimoto has had his work shown at the Gagosian Gallery, amongst other world renowned galleries and museums.

Thursday entry (for 9/3/09): Feminism

While I meant to or not, looking back over my previous work, I can see subtle hints of a feminist perspective. It wasn't until Fall of 2008 that I fully explored the topic of feminism for my Concepts of Photography project. The main theme of my project was to show the standpoints of both second wave feminists versus third wave feminists on the topic of pornography. Second wave feminists are against pornography while the third wave not only supports pornography but embraces it as well. My intent with my project was to demonstrate the merits of third wave feminism ideology and the hypocritical extremism of second wave feminists’ behavior in response to third wave theory. By exhibiting positive photographs of women and couples embracing both pornography and sex in a healthy and fulfilling manner within the setting of a constructed adult sex store installation, I placed my concept within its context. Destroying the installation served to convey the stance second wave feminists have taken on the issue of both pornography and of feminists who enjoy pornography.

Quotes on topic by an expert:

“Many anti-pornography arguments have perpetuated the conflation of penetrative acts and power, and the corollary; that to be penetrated is disempowering. This thinking clearly contributes to ideologies that feminize receptive gay men, naturalise feminine powerlessness, and heterosexualise gay male sexual practices (assumptions about fixed top/bottom partners).” -- Wendy O'Brien

“Third-wave feminists see their sexual freedom as a fundamental right, much like the right to vote. As Paula Kamen chronicles in her study of this generation’s sexual attitudes, young women today ‘feel more comfortable than did earlier generations in aggressively and unapologetically pursuing their own interests in sexual relationships.” --Astrid Henry

Annotated bibliography:

Strossen, Nadine. "The Perils of Pornophobia." Humanist 55.3 (May 1995): 7-9. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. VCU Cabell Library, Richmond, VA. 1 Oct. 2008 .

Nadine Strossen was the most recent president of the American Civil Liberties Union. She is a professor at New York Law School and also sits on the Council of Foreign Realtions. She attended Harvard College as well as Harvard Law School.

In this article Strossen brings up the topic of pro-censorship feminist who are taking drastic measures to censor art amongst other things that deal with sexual themes. She brings up the point that they are working against what the founders of second wave feminism fought for, which was equality in not only the workforce and the classroom but in the bedroom as well. The article focuses on the topic of pornophobic feminists who view sex in and of itself as degrading to women, regardless of whether it is consensual and non-violent. Strossen stresses that these ideas are a reincarnation of disempowering Victorian notions.

“The pro-censorship feminist base their efforts on the largely unexamined assumption that riding society of pornography would reduce sexism and violence against women. If there were any evidence that this were true, anti-censorship feminist – myself included – would be compelled at least to reexamine our opposition to censorship. But there is no such evidence to be found.” p.8, paragraph 14.

Strossen is stating that abolishing pornography is not going to rid the world of either sexism or violence against women. Sexism and violence against women have existed for far longer than pornography, therefore simply getting rid of pornography all together is not going to change that.

How this topic relates to my work:

As a whole, this topic only relates to one project that I've completed but can be felt in the essence of several past photographs I've taken. I've often thought about continuing with this subject matter in future projects but am not sure whether I want to for this class.


This is a photograph of the installation I created for the project I mentioned earlier in this post.