Final Portfolio

Sorry, I don't know what the heck I did with that last post. I can't figure out how to get my photos next to each other the way they should be, but here are the images regardless:

Artist Statement: 

This series of work explores the problematic degradation of women particularly within the confines of erotic photography and the pornography industry. I wanted to create a series of several different over-the-top performances that recreated different scenarios common to the porn-world, while also exploring the grotesque or absurd nature of many niches of fetishism. Due to the performative nature of this body of work, I chose to use the camera as a means towards documenting these self-inflicted performances. Therefore, many of the images present remain purposely blurred to indicate the intensity of the movements being made, as well as to convey the sense of vertigo or ambiguity.  I have also chosen to arrange the photographs as triptychs so that they may be read more as a sequence of events than independent images. Several of the images also contain imperfections such as shadows, out-of-frame compositions, or a door-frame seeping into the side of the photographs which play into the idea of “amateur” pornography. The photographs present all stick with the same color scheme, mostly of green with hints of magenta. These colors were chosen as to mimic the balance between the sickness of the psychology that is at play within these sexual fantasies and the sensuality uniquely attributed towards women. Furthermore, this complimentary color scheme helps create the sense that something is just a bit “off” within the pieces. The photographs were printed at a life-size to slightly larger than life-size as to instill an interesting and off-putting sense within the viewer. The scale, in combination with the empty space of the border, also helps give weight to the issue as the viewer becomes forced to sit with the uncomfortable nature of some of the details lurking within the prints. 

In my History of Photography class, we have been recently discussing what makes photography unique from all other art forms. As a primary-painter, I sometimes struggle to see the "art" in photography, particularly digital photography which is so easily accessible to everyone, so having a conversation devoted to what it is that makes photography independently important & able to do something that no other form of art could accomplish was really interesting and semi-revolutionary in the way I think about it. These images are of brain cells & of galaxy clusters. Without photography, we would have no way to share images of the micro or macro. We have been studying photography in the Fine Art sense, but I think that the science aspect of photography is equally as fascinating and can also be considered "art" in a way. These two "science" images are quite beautiful, and when placed together to note the resemblance, I think something really beautiful is conveyed. I just found this incredible, and if it weren't for photography, I would have never known about it. 

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Rhythm 0, 1974 - Marina Abramović

I found a photograph documenting a performance art piece by Abramovic where she dedicated herself to the role of submission and allowed other people to make decisions for her. She placed random objects on a table and allowed the other people to pick out objects to use on her. By the end of the performance, people had torn her clothes off, inflicted pain, and even held a gun to her head. I found this performance really intriguing, as well as the use of photography as a way to document a performance that I was clearly unable to attend. It's similar in the way that I approach photography, as I tend to use it as more of stills from a performance than as anything else. 

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I found a French photographer named Aëla Labbé on lenscratch.com that really captured my interest, particularly this image. She focuses on doing nontraditional portraiture of children, and I just found her compositions to be really intriguing. I have recently become obsessed with notions of exploring identity throughout portraiture, and I find that a lot can be read from a person outside of just their facial expressions. I think that Labbe is able to convey the whimsy of childhood without falling into the typical imagery and photographic cliches. She captures a sort of emotional sophistication than is typically attributed with children. 

Critique #4: Photos.

Critique Images

I wanted to express my internal struggle with femininity through an external manipulation of my form. I chose to use the foot to represent masculine influence for multiple reasons. First, the foot is most easily recognizable as male due to the roughness & hair. Secondly, the foot has ties specifically to eroticism as del as having a particular stigma of being dirty or disgusting. I wanted something that caused a somewhat revolting reaction to manipulate my facial expression. I wanted to highlight the invasiveness of the masculine presence on my femininity and my personal struggle with that.

Chapter Five

This was my favorite chapter so far!!!

In a contemporary context of photography it is nearly impossible to divorce highbrow "art" photography from the photography found in advertisements. Whether it is because we are so bombarded with images that we allow these two seemingly separate realms of photography to influence each other or because these two industries enjoy responding/mocking/referencing each other, it is clear that when pursuing photography even in a strictly Fine Art sense one must now become well-versed in commodity culture. I found this chapter so vastly interesting as it covered everything from stock images to fashion photography to gender roles within advertisements. The common link between all of these different subjects discussed within the chapter however, I feel, was the use of photography as a means of objectifying people. For instance, in stock photography the photographer seeks out the nondescript. This contrasts radically with the photojournalist, who typically seeks out the extraordinary or sensational. Effective stock photography needs to be as banal as possible with as little indication of specificity or individualization as possible. The other aspect I found intriguing about this chapter was the trend of dislocating body parts to objectify and/or sexualize a person (such as in the Fashion ad where a woman's legs were shown coming out of an egg, or the ad where a black woman's head was cropped out). I think this chapter raises a lot of awareness to how images can be so manipulative and telling of society's gazes. While the chapter focused primarily on women, I think that men are also being widely objectified in advertisements today. It made me think a lot about how commercials now tend to try to find someone of ambiguous race in hopes that that will help a broader audience to connect. I also found the parts about the sexualization of non-Western women widely interesting. I think there is a sort of deep-seated fantasy that goes along with exoticism (such as that non-white women are more sexually available to men) that is still prevalent today and this chapter did an excellent job of highlighting that.

While I don't have any specific questions I want to ask, I am curious to see if my classmates think that there are any times or instances in which disjointing body parts in advertisements could be anything other than objectification. I'm also just really interested to hear what other people have to say on this chapter and I am definitely excited to talk about it tomorrow!