Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Space Framed 2013 - Week 2


Walker Evans - Houses and Billboards in Atlanta, Georgia, 1936

"As a way of beginning, one might compare the art of photography to the act of pointing. All of us, even the best-mannered of us, occasionally point, and it must be true that some of us point to more interesting facts, events, circumstances, and configurations than others.
It is not difficult to imagine a person...who might elevate the act of pointing to a creative plane, a person who would lead us through the fields and streets and indicate a sequence of phenomena and aspects that would be beautiful, humorous, morally instructive, cleverly ordered, mysterious, or astonishing, once brought to our attention, but that had been unseen before, or seen dumbly, without comprehension...we would be uncertain ... how much of our pleasure and sense of enlargement had come from the things pointed to and how much from the pattern created by the pointer"
- John Szarkowski, excerpt from catalogue essay for The Work of Eugene Atget: Old France, MOMA, NY, 1981.


Over the next two weeks, we will be looking at four major American photographic works.
This week, we will be reviewing Walker Evans' book American Photographs and Robert Frank's work The Americans
There is an interesting essay on the two photographers by Tod Papageorge here.


At the same time, we will be reading Stephen Shore's book The Nature of Photographs (on temporary reserve in Richview library). We will also look at this lecture - Photography and the limits of Representation given by Shore in London in 2010 that explores further the themes introduced in the book.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Space Framed 2013 - Week 1


Welcome to Space Framed.

This week, to get yourself acquainted with our subject matter, you will watch the BBC series ‘The Genius of Photography’ (Available on dvd from Richview Library or on online). 

The series has six episodes. Please watch episode 1&2 and if possible, the rest of the series.

Select a practitioner from one of the episodes and print out 5 of their photographs that interest you. Research where, how and why the photographs were taken and present these to the seminar at the first session. 
Familiarise yourself with this  blog, and the references and research from previous years.

Space Framed will be held in Hugh Campbell’s office every Monday at 1-2.30 pm from Monday 28 Jan.