Spot Spring 2013

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Spring 2013

IMAGE: David Politzer (Houston, TX), 2012 Carol Crow Memorial Fellowship Recipient, Ranger Station, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, 2011. From the series When Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re Out There. Chromogenic print, 30 x 30 inches. Courtesy of the artist. spot

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HOUSTON CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY

Contents

Spring 2013

Editor Bevin Bering Dubrowski Managing Editor Susie Kalil Production Editor Caroline Docwra Copy Editor Tanita Gumney Founding Editor Emeritus David Crossley HCP Publications Committee Chuy Benitez, Chair, Peter Brown, Poppi Massey, Jean Karotkin Design Antonio Manega, Gazer Design Printing Masterpiece Litho spot Web Design SINAPPS spot is published twice yearly, in conjunction with the fiscal year of Houston Center for Photography. Subscriptions are $13 per year (two issues). Subscriptions are free to HCP members. spot is a journal of independent opinions published by Houston Center for Photography as one of its many services to the photographic community. The ideas expressed do not represent positions of Houston Center for Photography’s administration or membership and are solely the opinions of the writers and contributors. Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. No portion of spot may be reproduced without the permission of Houston Center for Photography. Captions are based upon known information of the photograph. In cases where print type and medium are not listed, the image provider has noted these as variable. Houston Center for Photography’s mission is to increase society’s understanding and appreciation of photography and its evolving role in contemporary culture. Houston Center for Photography strives to encourage artists, build audiences, stimulate dialogue and promote inquiry about photography and related media through education, exhibitions, publications, fellowship programs and community collaboration. For details about membership or advertising, contact Houston Center for Photography: Houston Center for Photography 1441 West Alabama, Houston, Texas 77006 Telephone: 713.529.4755 Fax: 713.529.9248 E-mail: info@hcponline.org Visit us online: www.hcponline.org Executive Director Bevin Bering Dubrowski Director of Education Juliana Forero, Ph.D. Curator Libbie J. Masterson Education and Exhibitions Coordinator Caroline Docwra Membership and Administrative Coordinator Rebecca Rossmann Lead Workshop Instructor Theresa Escobedo Learning Center Associate Galina Kurlat Finance Administrator Sean Yarborough Outreach Associate Felisa Prieto Gallery Associate Amanda Shackleford Gallery Associate Brandon Dimit Interns Emilee Cooney, Julia Davila, Kat Laake, Analissa Moreno, Alexandra Rizk, Rena Suzuki

spot is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

HCP’s 2012-2013 Supporters HCP Benefactors Houston Endowment The Brown Foundation City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance HCP Underwriters Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation Patricia J. Eifel and Jim Belli Artists’ Framing Resource Larson-Juhl HCP Platinum Sponsors Art Colony Association Cemo Family Foundation Clayton Dabney Foundation JBD Foundation Anonymous The John O’Quinn Foundation QUE Imaging Simmons Foundation Texas Children’s Hospital Texas Commission on the Arts Tri Delta Art Show for Charity, Inc. The Joan Hohlt and Roger Wich Foundation Wortham Foundation, Inc. Charles Butt Jereann Chaney James E. Maloney Antonio Manega, Gazer Design HCP Silver Donors Joan and Stanford Alexander Julie and Drew Alexander Susan and Patrick Cook Marcia and Charlie Gerhardt Goldman, Sachs & Co. Bob Gulley Frazier King Lacey Liedtke Locke, Lord, Bissell, & Liddell Poppi Massey Joan Morgenstern Fan and Peter Morris Burt Nelson Sue and Bob Schwartz Southern Union HCP Green Circle Amegy Bank Christopher Ashby Laura and Tom Bacon Deborah Bay and Edgar Browning Chuy Benitez Bergner & Johnson Kelly and Norman Bering Cindi and Bob Blakely Brivic Media Shelley Calton Mike and Becky Cemo Sarah Balinskas and Jeff DeBevec Bevin and Dan Dubrowski Gainer, Donnelly & Desroches, LLP Clare Glassell Howard Hilliard and Betty Pecore Sally and John Hopper Houston Camera Exchange John Cleary Gallery Wendy and Mavis Kelsey, Jr. Sherry and James Kempner Kinzelman Art Consulting Barbara and Geoffrey Koslov Kathryn and Tim Lee Nena D. Marsh Mickey and Mike Marvins Mariquita Masterson Alexander K. and Muffy McLanahan Dixie Messner Celia and Jay Munisteri Stuart C. Nelson Pia Puno Robertson-Finley Foundation Margaret and Doug Rotan Susan Wittenberg Michael Loyd Young

Set-Click-Gone: William Wegman talks to Jason Landry about his life with the dogs

Amy Blakemore with Libbie Masterson: Meticulous Worker/Masses of Stuff

New Southern Photography: Richard McCabe talks to Susie Kalil about ever-changing perspectives and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s rapidly expanding collection

Brian Finke and Edith Zimmerman discuss: Hot Guys, Hot Girls

Sleight-of-Hand: Oscar Muñoz with Maria Ines Sicardi and Ximena Gama on his recent installation Editor Solitario

spotlight with W. M. Hunt Anne Marie D’Arcy Carol Crow Memorial Fellowship Lauren Marsolier 2013 HCP Fellowship

cover: William Wegman The Fly, 1994 Color polaroid Courtesy of the artist opposite: Brian Finke Untitled, Construction 44 (detail), 2008 Chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY

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CALL FOR ENTRIES 2014 FELLOWSHIPS Juried by Elisabeth Biondi (New York, NY)

VISIT WWW.HCPONLINE.ORG FOR MORE INFORMATION! IMAGE: Lauren Marsolier (Los Angeles, CA), 2013 HCP Fellowship Recipient, Building and Tree (2011), From the series Transition, Archival Pigment Print, 54 x 36 inches, Courtesy of the artist and Robert Berman Gallery (Los Angeles, CA)

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CAPTURE CRAWL

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Laura Bourdo, April Capture Crawl at First Ward Community Garden, 2013, Courtesy of the artist

FERS F O P C EAR H AUGHT BY Y H C S EA OPS T GRAPHER H S K O WOR PHOT G LE TO N B I A D L A I A LE R E AV . A T A S TH MBER E M HCP

Do your friends hate walking around with you because you stop every two minutes to take a picture? Love taking pictures, but need some motivation to actually get out there and shoot? Just want to make friends and maybe learn a thing a two about photography along the way? Join HCPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new shooting group. This members only social group is designed to get people with a passion for photography out andabout in the city of Houston to meet new people and improve their photographic skills. Every month a new destination around the Houston area will be chosen for HCP members to meet up and take pictures. Cameras of all kind welcome! U P C O M I N G D E S T I N AT I O N S : D AT E S A N D T I M E S T B D Rosemont Bridge Stain glass windows of local church Houston Dog Park Galveston area Local Cemetery Fannin Flower District Old 5th Ward Lights in the Heights

NOT AN HCP MEMBER: JOIN Visit WWW.HCPONLINE.COM or call/email Membership and Administrative Coordinator Rebecca Rossmann for more information at 713-529-4755 x 17, rebecca@hcponline.org

From the Editors Photography publications have changed dramatically since spot was ﬁrst released thirty-two years ago. The obvious reason, one, is because so much information that was previously printed can be found online. Online publications have visually struggled though – the information, in the past, was often jumbled and cluttered. The pristine printed page could not be rivaled in its clean lines and solidarity. The experience was drastically different. The printed page offered more control than an online version ever could. E-publications have become more and more creative, and within the photography magazine in particular, it is thrilling to see what peers at organizations such as Fraction and Daylight are creating. spot continues to be a printonly publication, primarily. There is an online presence where the PDF version of past issues are available, but all content is currently created for print and converted to a version that can be applied online. This is about to change, however. The true vision for spot is still evolving, yet there is agreement that an online format is essential – in HCP’s mission to stimulate dialogue on photography and related media, and an online presence can reach more and educate more and share more than the printed page can possibly reach. In the next year, a new website for spot will go live. Chuy Benitez, the Publications Chair, is leading the charge on interviewing website creators and working with me and the HCP staff to generate content. The past four issues issues of spot have been beautifully managed and designed, and I want to personally thank Susie Kalil, the Managing Editor, and Antonio Manega, the designer, for making spot happen. I am very fortunate to work with you both. And Caroline Docwra – you are a true rock star. Thank you for being on Team spot. For those of you who love the printed page, HCP is still dedicated to printing publications. HCP will continue to print, but exciting changes are on the horizon. I always have an open ear for any suggestions or comments on spot. Please drop me a line – I would love to hear from you. Best regards, Bevin Bering Dubrowski bevin@hcponline.org

HOUSTON CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY

Those amber eyes stare out from the cover of spot magazine, an enormous fly absurdly balanced on the dog’s forehead. Who can resist? As we move into the 21st century, we find ourselves overwhelmed by a flood of images and the very meaning of photography. It has changed drastically over the years, becoming more and more ingrained in everyday life through the Internet and Photoshop, smartphones and devices like iPads. The artists and writers featured in the Spring issue assess photography’s role in contemporary art and in our lives. The reason for photography’s growing popularity? It’s accessible. Photography is the common language. It’s everywhere; and everyone understands it. Artists are breaking boundaries and making connections to hungry audiences who just can’t get enough of photography. William Wegman, who first established himself within the contexts of video and performance art in the early 1970s, speaks candidly about the collaborative process – and pratfalls – of working over the decades with his beloved Weimaraners. Houstonbased photographers Amy Blakemore and Libbie Masterson engage in a humorous dialogue about process and practice. Blakemore’s images plumb the role of time and memory in fleeting moments of connections caught within larger dramas. Brian Finke’s photographs of high school cheerleaders and football players, flight attendants and construction workers, take an obsessive, unflinching look at these groups beyond stereotypical terms, thereby revealing something about our society, our culture. Finke’s striking documentary style will push viewers out of their comfort zones. Richard McCabe, curator of photography at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, discusses the institution’s rapidly growing collection while aiming to define the inherent, captivating qualities of New Southern photography. Finally, Colombian artist Oscar Muñoz speaks about his powerful video, Editor Solitario, a continuously looping piece that shows a hand laying out mugshots, images of mothers and children, post-mortem portraits of anonymous faces. Memories fade – but photographs invoke the ever-changing collection of humanity. –Susie Kalil spot Managing Editor

Contributors

Edith Zimmerman is the founding editor of The Hairpin and a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. She lives in Brooklyn.

William Wegman was born December 2, 1943 in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He received a BFA in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston in 1965 and an MFA from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana in 1967. Wegman’s photographs, videotapes, paintings and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally and nationally. Recently, a retrospective of his work traveled to museums such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Smithsonian and others.

Brian Finke is the author of 2-4-6-8: American Cheerleaders and Football Players, Umbrage Editions 2003, Flight Attendants, powerHouse Books 2008 and Construction, DECODE Books 2012. His work has been placed in nine museum collections here and abroad. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

Jason Landry is the owner/director of Panopticon Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts. Landry received an MFA in Visual Arts from The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University and a BFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. He and his wife Anne are avid photography collectors and he is a Corporator on the Board of Directors for the Grifﬁn Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts.

Amy Blakemore (born 1958, Tulsa, OK) lives and works in Houston, TX. She received a BS in Psychology and a BA in Art from Drury College (now Drury University), Springﬁeld, MO, and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Blakemore is head of the photography department at the Glassell School of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Ximena Gama is a philosopher specializing in art and politics. In 2007 she worked at the ICAA (International Center of the Arts of the Americas) on the project Documents of the 20th Century Latin American and Latino Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH).

Libbie Masterson earned a BFA from the California College of Arts. An interest in landscapes led her through Europe, Norway, Iceland, Antarctica and Alaska. Inspired by these travels, Masterson began a series of photographs illuminated with light panels, leading to installations scaling up to 70 feet, taking place at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (2006), the Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston (2007) and the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, in 2008.

Maria Ines Sicardi founded Sicardi Gallery in Houston in 1994. As the ﬁrst gallerist to focus exclusively on Latin American Art, Maria Ines was able to bring an international forum to Houston that had yet been explored. Maria Ines is involved in numerous cultural organizations in Houston. She was instrumental in the creation of Maecenas, a support group for the Latin American Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Oscar Muñoz (1951) was born in Popayán, Colombia. In 1971, he graduated from the Escuela de Bellas Artes (School of Fine Arts) de Cali. At the time — the artist’s formative years — a very intense multidisciplinary movement in that city predominated the cultural landscape that included writers, photographers, ﬁlmmakers and painters such as Andrés Caicedo, Fernell Franco, Carlos Mayolo and Luis Ospina. Richard McCabe was born in Mildenhall, England, and grew up in the American South. In 1998, he received an MFA in Studio Art from Florida State University. For the last 15 years, he has lived and worked in New York City and New Orleans, Louisiana. Since 2010, McCabe has been the Curator of Photography at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

W. M. Hunt Strategist - Dancing Bear, New York, USA; Commissioner – Bowler Editions, Inc. New York, USA www.wmhunt.com W. M. Hunt (Bill Hunt) is a New York-based collector, curator and consultant, a champion of photography. He loves Houston and fresh talent.

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HOUSTON CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY

Set-Click-Gone William Wegman talks to Jason Landry about his life with the dogs On an overcast December day, I took a bus from Boston, Massachusetts to New York City to interview artist William Wegman. I rang the buzzer outside of his home and studio in Chelsea and then proceeded up the stairs. Greeting me were four full-grown shiny, silver coat Weimaraners, galloping toward me at full speed — their barks echoed incessantly to alert the owners. The two younger dogs, Topper and Flo, were rambunctious and playful, jumping on me — their front legs and paws stretched onto my shoulders. When they weren’t attacking me they would be taunting the older dog of the house. Eventually, they all calmed down once Bill tossed a handful of treats onto the ﬂoor — they were like children scurrying around picking up candy after someone broke the piñata.

JASON LANDRY: Describe an ordinary day in the life of William Wegman. William Wegman: It has to be dominated by dogs, since there are four of them and they need to be fed and walked, so that starts the day. As far as work goes, I have to do some ordinary stuff, like tend to emails. Photoshoots tend to be scheduled in advance; I have my own studio downstairs. Recently we did a project for a magazine, and there were a lot of props involved. The young dogs that I have need to work, and I’d like to keep that going. Whenever the studio is available we’ll just run down and do stuff. I’ve been photographing the two young dogs in action play fighting – they look like wild beasts! The problem is, when we’re down in the studio and have the photo lights on, they behave too well and stop playing. So, I need to figure out how to get them to act natural. I guess this is an age-old problem in photography – how do you restage ‘action’ to have it look spontaneous – from war photographs, to just any kind of action shots. To get back to your question, lately I’ve been painting a lot with these postcards extending the edge of the images, and that’s a daily activity that goes on throughout the day when I’m not taking photographs. JL: You live in NYC for most of the year and Rangeley, Maine in the summers. What can you do in NYC that you can’t do in Maine and vice versa? WW: I don’t have the access to my staff that is here in NY when I’m in Rangeley. They usually run the equipment, and when I’m there I’d have to arrange for people to come up. Back in the day, before digital, I

used to photograph using a two and a quarter negative, and could develop the film myself. Now with digital, I can’t really do it myself, I probably could, but I chose not to, because there are so many options. I tend to bring smaller things up to Maine that I can be working on, such as text for a book. JL: Do you approach photography differently than you do with your paintings? WW: Yes, I do, and that’s evolved and changed over the years. When I was working with the Polaroid 20x24 camera, up until a few years ago, that was a very, very different way of working that I felt was more like how I made my videos, and that was very different from how I worked with the two and a quarter format twin lens camera. In the beginning and in the early 70s, I would make sketches, little thumbnails of what I wanted to set up. With the Polaroid, I learned to bring a few props and just fool around, start staging things there on the spot. I might have an idea, but would be very willing to abandon it in favor of something else. And that’s how I pretty much worked with video. JL: And with your paintings, I see that you’re doing a lot with postcards. Where did that idea come from? WW: It came from a nature book that I made on the parody of nature in the early 90s. On one page of this book, I extended some Rangeley postcards so that they met up with each other. I didn’t think that much of it, it was kinda part of my collage thing, I think it came out of what I used to do with my own photographs – I used to alter and paint on them. So this was just a variation

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of that. I used to do it with greeting cards. There was this evil impulse to change things – to sabotage the greeting somehow – to make the greeting card say something that it wasn’t intended to. So it comes from that spirit. There was a point when I switched from working on paper to working on wooden panels. I would temporarily stick the postcard up and begin exploring the connections with that postcard with another one. JL: What is the ﬁrst photograph that you remember seeing? WW: That one’s locked in the past. I grew up during World War II – my father was a P.O.W. actually. I didn’t see him until 1945 after he was liberated. I’m sure the war photographs, the pictures of my father that were shown to me – one day I’ll meet him or not – so it was probably family pictures of my father in the Air Force. I remember seeing one picture that I’m still pretty attached to of my father reading to me and my two really pretty cousins when I was around five or four – it’s a classic staged photograph. We weren’t from a family who had cameras, so we’d have to arrange for pictures. Some families in the 40s and 50s grew up with cameras – we weren’t one of them. JL: So, that ﬁrst staged photograph – do you think it has anything to do with the way you stage things now-a-days, both in painting and photography?

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WW: I think so, possibly also my connection with nature since I grew up in rural Massachusetts, not suburban. I grew up in a quarry town where there were these fantastic places to swim and explore and I was always in the woods building huts and rarely slept inside. I liked to fish and I had a dog and a paper route. It was sort of a classic, almost a Norman Rockwell but more rural version of that. My abilities in painting were recognized early on. I was known as ‘Billy the Artist’, and that is why I went to art school. I didn’t really take photographs until way after grad school because my roommates were Art Sinsabaugh and Robert Cumming, two really great photographers, and we used to argue whether photography was art or not and I was on the nay side of that. I certainly did reverse my opinion. JL: So you went from painting to video to photo – do you remember the ﬁrst successful photograph that you ever made? WW: I certainly do. I had been making photographs at first to document some of the installations and performance-type pieces that I was doing. But I remember thinking, gee, what I am doing is staging photographs and became aware especially when I began influencing how they turned out. I took one photograph that I titled Cotto, it was a picture of my ring finger reaching into a plate of salami, it was

previous page: William Wegman, Split Level, 2010 Pigment print Courtesy of the artist

graphically very striking and it was also kinda strange, the idea of meat and design were kind of fused in that picture. It jumped out at me and gave me the courage to do these just as photographs – stage things just as photographs, which was new at the time. It probably had existed in my world, in Bruce Nauman and other things that he was doing. I don’t claim to be the first, but for me it was something that I discovered.

opposite: William Wegman, New Dawn, 2006 Pigment print Courtesy of the artist

JL: What did your parents think about your career as an artist? Were they supportive? Did they get it?

below: William Wegman, North, 2001 Pigment print Courtesy of the artist

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WW: I’m not sure they got it, but were very supportive. I did very well in art school and kept getting scholarships, which made it easy on them. We weren’t from a very wealthy family; I worked to put myself through school. I was a night watchman and did all kinds of crazy jobs. They were very proud of me. I was the first of our family to go to college, so it was a big deal.

It became special. The dogs were elevated, especially at the Polaroid studio where the dogs were on a platform that was brought up to the level of the camera. They like being tall.

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JL: How many Weimaraners have you had in your lifetime? WW: I think I’m up to ten now. The first one was Man Ray – I got him in 1970 and he lived until 1982, and then got Fay Ray in 1986. I lived three years without getting a dog. I didn’t want to repeat the Man Ray experience – that was perfect. I got Fay because there was something kind of haunting when I first met her in Memphis, Tennessee. I couldn’t get this amazing face out of my head – I didn’t think that I would be photographing her, but eventually I did. John Reuter at Polaroid invited me to the studio to try her out, and she loved it! It was a huge event for both Fay and

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I. The next stage was when she had puppies – she had a litter of eight and I became very close to three of them. Her daughter Battie is one that I kept, her son Chundo went to my sister and I continued working with her, and the other girl, Crookie, went to the Rangeley dentist and I worked with her. So those three plus Fay, so now we’re up to five, and then Battie had a litter that produced Chip. Chip had a litter that produced Bobbin, Bobbin had a litter that produced Penny, which involved Candy, and now I have two more, Flo and Topper, who are not related to the Fay line. Bobbin is the end of the Fay line. JL: How do you know when it’s the right time to bring another dog into the family? WW: Last year one of the dogs, Penny, came down with lymphoma. She was having chemo treatments. She was eight years old. Chemo is very successful for lymphoma, but it only gives you a year of life at the most, otherwise you get maybe fifteen to twenty days. We met Flo from a breeder in Syracuse, and she was offered to me, and everyone thought that it would cheer everyone up, including Penny, which it did. When Penny passed away, I was left with two old dogs, Bobbin and Candy – they were 12 and 10, and Flo needed someone to keep up with, so we got Flo’s half brother Topper. Topper is Flo’s dog...they play constantly. Both of these dogs love to work. JL: From the photos, most would think that your dogs are the best-trained dogs in the world. Do you have a speciﬁc routine in the way that you train them? WW: As you know very well, they aren’t trained at all – they are wild and crazy. They like me. They like to see what I’m doing; they like to be around me. It’s kind of a work ethic. When I’m down in the studio they like to be involved. With Flo, she got to see Penny working when we were doing the National Geographic cover. She would sit right next to her. When the strobe lights go off it’s very Pavlovian if you then say ‘good dog’ rather than hitting them. It is something that becomes positively reinforced. Someone said that I train them using my hands. 10

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above: William Wegman, Blizzard, 2000 Pigment print Courtesy of the artist left: William Wegman, Header, 2000 Chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist

And it’s true, I’m always holding them or touching them or moving them into position, rather than using voice commands. JL: Do you think the dogs know when it’s time to work? WW: Absolutely. When we used to go to the Polaroid studio, they walked a mile to work through all of these parks. They got to see their old friends – we probably worked at Polaroid every other week for a few days – we were regulars, but not a constant thing. It became special. The dogs were elevated, especially at the Polaroid studio where the dogs were on a platform that was brought up to the level of the camera. They like being tall. The studio is a special environment. JL: Which one of your dogs was the hardest to work with, and which one has been the easiest? WW: I think Candy because she is the most agile, but not the most attractive (sorry, Candy). She’s a phenomenal spirit – she loves to work, but only for a second. You get everything all set, and you’re about to click the shot, and she’s gone – I’m done. I figured out that I could work with her doing action shots, and that has really led to a change in my work. I’ve done pictures where she looks like she is doing handstands or flying through the air, or doing these incredible balancing things – so I’ve found a new way to work with her. With the younger dog Flo, she’s very dominant – alpha female, and she gets very jealous when working with other dogs. She commands the space. JL: Some artists have been noted as saying that their artwork changed once they had children. Did you see any change in your own art after you became a father? WW: I re-edited all of my children’s books when they were reprinted to be much shorter because I realized that you read children’s books to get your child to go to sleep – you don’t want to be up half the night reading a book! I did children’s books a few years before I had kids. I did them because I was asked to do them, and they became fun. They were a project, and I’ve always been better at projects than if I was left to my own devices. I remember these art classes in college at MassArt. I’d always do better stuff in the illustration and design classes than I would in my own painting classes.

WW: I guess I don’t really know. I usually start with a hook nose, because there was a certain point in my childhood when I realized that I have a funny nose and when I was a kid I used to draw Indians with hook noses, and I didn’t have one of those, so every one of my profiles has a hook nose on it. JL: You have undoubtedly been interviewed many times and answered many questions in your lengthy career as an artist. What’s the one question you hoped someone would have asked you by now? WW: Any of those types of questions when they say, “Do you have anything else to say?” I really don’t have anything to say. I like the response to a question, rather than thinking about one on my own. Right now I’m thinking, God, I can’t wait to go up to Maine to go cross-country skiing with these dogs so I’m not constantly entertaining them. Last week, I was thinking about college because my son just got accepted to college. That was the biggest thing – where was he going to go to school.

all set, “ You getandeverything you’re about to click the shot, and she’s gone – I’m done. JL: What’s been the best bit of advice that you have received in your lifetime? WW: “You otta go to art school.” That was from my high school art teacher and she recommended that I should go to MassArt. And I don’t know what would have happened if I didn’t go. I wasn’t very good at pumping gas, and I wasn’t smart enough to go anywhere else. It was a totally wonderful decision on my part. I’ll be always thankful to Mrs. Laramie from Classical High School for saying that you should go to art school.

JL: On your blog you often post “While On Hold” sketches. Do your sketches come from the topic of discussion that you are having on the phone, or are they just random?

William Wegman was born December 2, 1943 in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He received a BFA in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1967. Wegman’s photographs, videotapes, paintings and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally and nationally. Recently, a retrospective of his work traveled to museums such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Smithsonian and others. Jason Landry is the owner/director of Panopticon Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1971, Panopticon Gallery is one of the oldest ﬁne art photography galleries in the United States specializing in contemporary, modern and vintage photography. Prior to acquiring Panopticon Gallery, Landry worked at the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University in various capacities and was a member of its Board of Directors. In keeping with the gallery’s core focus, Landry regularly attends portfolio review events and photography art fairs both nationally and internationally, has juried group exhibitions, and has lectured at regional and national art colleges and universities. Landry received an MFA in Visual Arts from The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University and a BFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. He and his wife Anne are avid photography collectors and he is a Corporator on the Board of Directors for the Grifﬁn Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts.

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Amy Blakemore W I T H Libbie Masterson: Meticulous Worker/Masses of Stuff

HOUSTON CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY

below: Libbie Masterson Cameras, 2013

my Blakemore has been working in photography for over three decades. She received a BS in Psychology and a BA in Art from Drury College (now Drury University), Springﬁeld, Missouri, and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. A former Core Fellow (1985-87) at the Glassell School of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, she has continued to teach there for some twenty-eight years. Blakemore’s photographs have been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Seattle Art Museum and the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, in addition to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, as part of the Whitney Biennial’s Day for Night in 2006. Blakemore is the recipient of an Artadia Grant, three artist awards from CACH (now Houston Arts Alliance), the Dallas Museum of Art’s Dozier Travel Grant and the Anne Giles Kimbrough award and is a past HCP Fellowship Recipient. Blakemore is represented by Inman Gallery in Houston. Libbie Masterson earned a BFA from the California College of Arts. She is a photographer, sculptor, set designer, jewelry designer and perpetual student of Blakemore. She is also Curator at HCP. Masterson has exhibited in the Perspectives series at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, and received the HAA Individual Artist Grant, as well as the Dora Maar Fellowship from the MFAH. She is represented by the Catherine Couturier Gallery in Houston. Libbie and Amy meet up for an interview, and Libbie has brought questions on ﬂash cards, which Amy draws randomly, one at a time.

Libbie Masterson: Pick one. CARD 1 Amy Blakemore: “What do you want your work….” I can’t read this “…to leave people with?” Impression? LM: When I am working, I think about the experience or the effect that I would like to have on people. Do you have an idea? AB: I never think about that. I just make it for myself. LM: What are you bringing out for yourself? AB: I’m not telling. LM: You’re not telling? AB: No. What meaning I have from an image is going to be different from what viewers see. So people can take away what they want. What they respond to is based on their experiences that they bring to the work. I once gave a photo to a friend – she had requested a particular image and I couldn’t work out why she wanted a photo that seemed so menacing to me. I asked her about that and she had no idea what I was talking about – that we couldn’t be talking about the same image. She saw the image that I thought was so menacing as being funny and very playful.

CARD 2 AB: God, your handwriting. LM: Well, that’s because of your eyes. I’ll read it: “Could you try digital? How about the trend towards old formats and toy cameras? Staying? Fad?” AB: I appreciate it because it helps ﬁlm sales. I mean, I’m not against digital – I just don’t have the patience to sit at a computer. It isn’t any fun or at all interesting enough to keep me from getting distracted. But color printing isn’t much fun either, unless it’s a new image that I haven’t printed spot

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or if I am still trying to work out the problems. I use a drum and jobo processor with color RA-4 chemistry. It can often be extremely tedious and time consuming but, that said, I do not want to quit the darkroom or film. There is still so much more to learn – plus I’ve spent almost forty years at this. Working in digital just isn’t for me though I do scan negatives I am interested in so that I can see them better. To me, making the print is an integral part of the whole process. Black and white is fun. It’s more like taking the picture and printing, not the printing a series again, like I’ve done. That’s really it for me. LM: So it’s really the time at the computer that you don’t like about digital. AB: Well, and because I can’t see what’s happening. I want to know what’s happening. I don’t necessarily want everything to come out perfectly. It’s like someone else is designing the program and I am just pushing the buttons. There is a physicality to working in the darkroom that I definitely enjoy. The other thing is, it would be such a mess trying to find stuff, like organizing it. That would be very difficult for me. 14

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opposite: Amy Blakemore, Planter, 2012 Chromogenic print, ed 10 Courtesy of the artist and Inman Gallery below: Amy Blakemore, Switch, 2012 Chromogenic print, ed 10 Courtesy of the artist and Inman Gallery

“Everything is chaotic.

Except my prints. They are meticulous.”

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LM: Oh, on the computer – it is hard. AB: Well, I mean, my negatives are… actually, I know where they are for the most part. There’s no system. Well, there’s sort of a system, but the computer… hmm, no. I want stuff in my hands. I want to handle it. I want to see it.

LM: Is that part of keeping those personal records for yourself – so you are not really considering the effect they are having on the viewer? AB: I mean, I don’t take them for anyone else. LM: Well, your vision is kind of unusual.

CARD 3

AB: What do you mean by that? I need new glasses? I really do. I can’t see anything.

“Who are your heroes? Who are the photographers at the top of your list?”

LM: Well, when you take your glasses off and look at a print, you can see the tiniest little speck.

AB: I consider Mike Dickey and Tom Parker personal heroes. They were my professors at Drury College, and I would not be here today if it were not for them. August Sander, Diane Arbus and Will Michels will always be on my list. Recently, I have been excited by and looking at Vivian Maier and Ray Metzker.

AB: I was wearing glasses at age 5. I am grossly nearsighted. I don’t think that’s changed much in the past 20 years. It’s like a camera being way out of focus. If I didn’t know you were sitting there, I wouldn’t know who you were. You would have to be right here (pointing to nose). LM: That’s phenomenal.

CARD 4 “Moving from super-personal, intimate portraits to portraits (almost) without the people included – Progression? Series? Story?” AB: There is a mixture of portraits in my work as a whole, but not exclusively. The newer work is somewhat different. Well, one thing is, I’m using a different camera. The Robot, which is 35mm and has a lens I can try to focus, f-stops, etc. It’s a real camera that shoots 35mm square format. I can do things I can’t do with the Diana – so that has changed things. (The images) are still like a diary to me. I don’t want to work in a series, necessarily, though I think sometimes I should. I might get something ﬁnished. I think they all go together, but they are not a series, necessarily – not an obvious one.

below: Libbie Masterson Desk, 2013

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AB: Well, you aren’t used to it. I’m used to looking at stuff like this and when I go to museums, I like to get up really close, so I can see – and then they yell at me to get away from the art.

CARD 5 “Environment. You are a meticulous worker, yet you have masses of stuff everywhere.” AB: I am a collector. Yes, I am meticulous, and that is probably the only place in my life that I am. Everything is chaotic. Except my prints. They are meticulous.

they all go together, but they are not “ Iathink series, necessarily – not an obvious one. ” LM: Do you sleep? AB: I have a sleeping disorder. Sleep apnea. Sometimes, I rest upstairs in my studio. I don’t get enough rest at home.

LM: Where do you want to go from here after having a major museum show? I mean, you don’t really promote your work to people. AB: Now there is expectation. I would rather stumble over it than me throw it out there. It is quiet work.

LM: Why? LM: So what do you want? AB: Because that’s where the cat lives. Patty Miller. That’s the cat.

AB: I want to ﬁgure out a system of organization that works for me – that would be very helpful.

LM: Patty, the (negative) carrier in the darkroom? You named all the negative carriers in the darkroom after your cats?

LM: I asked your gallery for an artist statement and they didn’t really have one.

AB: And other people’s animals, too.

AB: I have a statement somewhere.

LM: Is Patty the one that goes on walks with the dog walker?

LM: Well, if you haven’t written one in 5 years, that’s probably why they don’t use it. Maybe you need to write a new one?

AB: No, that’s Ruthie, the feral cat. But she’s not so feral now. She goes out walking with me, too. So all my “collections” are in the house. I have a lot of nice stuff; you just can’t see it. My environment is extremely noisy. LM: Loud? AB: Visually loud. It’s really loud with all the stuff. That might be why I don’t like being in the house.

AB: Nothing has changed. It’s just different. LM: It was sort of blurry, romantic, foggy, unfocused, illusional. Now it’s clear, very focused. It was centered on one person, now there are scenes with no person at all. This color is more subdued. This is what made me think of your vision. AB: The intent to me doesn’t feel any different. (Changing cameras) allows me to go inside; it does open up a whole different area, though.

CARD 6 LM: Indoors, you mean? “You printed your own prints for your show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston – decisions on that?”

AB: Yes, and I can get closer now. LM: Can you see better?

AB: I made all new prints for the show, so they could turn up the lights. LM: But they already had some of these prints in their collection? AB: Yes, I totally reprinted every single one of them. I knew it would be dim, and I couldn’t see all the details. I needed to see them better. I had seen a show in NYC and it was so dark. I decided that if I owned all the prints then I could tell them that I wanted the lights up high. Someone told me that it was the brightest show they ever had at the MFAH. The MFAH now has all of that exhibition in its collection.

AB: It’s really hard to focus the Robot camera – its small rangeﬁnder. I was nervous to show the Robot stuff. It was brand new, and I didn’t get it yet. I didn’t know if it was good or not. Using the Diana, I just can’t expect anything to come out. There is no guarantee. That’s the bargain you make when you are shooting with a camera like that. With the Robot, there is still user error. LM: Did changing the camera change your intentions? AB: No, it just opened up the options.

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NEW SOUTHERN P H O T O G R A P H Y: Richard McCabe talks to Susie Kalil about ever-changing perspectives and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s rapidly expanding collection During the past year, Richard McCabe – the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s curator of photography – has implemented an aggressive exhibition program that is quickly transforming the New Orleans venue into a powerhouse of cutting-edge and classic photography. Focusing on recent acquisitions and a growing collection, McCabe’s ﬂuid exhibitions feature several artists at any given moment, each represented by concentrated clusters of work that amount to mini retrospectives, creating an immersive sense of the region’s vitality. In this interview, McCabe discusses the images and issues that challenge the epochal divide between the Old South and the New, but also celebrate the richness and diversity of Southern visions.

opposite: Laura Noel Whitney Behind her Job, 2006 Archival pigment print Courtesy of the artist

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usie Kalil: The Ogden’s photography collection provides a visual narrative of the ever-changing American South – the 19th century, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights movement and the emergence of a New South. Photographers whose work is in the collection include E.J. Bellocq, Elemore Morgan, Sr., Eudora Welty, Walker Evans, Clarence John Laughlin, Elliot Erwitt, William Eggleston, George Dureau and William Christenberry. Since becoming curator of photography two years ago, you’ve aimed to balance ambitious exhibition programs and expand the collection. How can a museum promote new photography while also building its own holdings? Richard McCabe: My goal as Curator of Photography at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art is to promote the up and coming photographers who are making vital work, while at the same time honoring the photographers of the past who built the foundations of what is possible in photography – technically, aesthetically and conceptually. What I’m trying to do is balance the new with the established, the tried and true classics of Southern photography. I want the museum to be a living breathing institution – a museum not a mausoleum. In a recent historical exhibition, Mississippi Photographs 1860s-Present, I included Eudora Welty, Marion Post Wolcott, Lewis Hine with emerging artists Kathleen Robbins, S. Gayle Stevens, Euphus Ruth, in addition to the greats of late 20th century Southern photography – Birney Imes, William Eggleston. It was amazing how seamless the work ﬂowed. I got a great satisfaction when one of the younger photographers would say, “I can’t believe I’m in a show with Eggleston.” That is what it is all about – the artists.

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“ That is what I love about the South – it’s got soul.” SK: The American South has always been about a sense of place – the land, the generations of families who have resided in the region. How are those perspectives changing? I’m referring to projects by Richard Misrach or Emmet Gowin that examine industrial runoff, garbage choked rivers, the stretches of land in South Carolina and Louisiana that are lined with factories and petrochemical reﬁneries. Do you see a “game change” occurring in Southern photography – there are photographers like Misrach, Gowin, Alex Webb or Kael Alford who come to the South from other locales and investigate the terrain for speciﬁc projects. Then there are photographers like Birney Imes, Shelby Lee Adams, Keith Carter, who continue to mine the South as part of their heritage. All of them maintain deeply held notions about the South, but how do their perspectives vary in terms of documentation and the evocatively poetic or symbolic image? RM: There has always been and will always be photographers from outside the South photographing the South – and bringing their life experiences to the visual imagery. Some of the best photographs of the South were not made by Southerners – the FSA/WPA work comes to mind. Some view that work as condescending toward the South – I do not. I think it is some of the greatest photography of the 20th century. Not being from a place lets you see that place with fresh eyes. Misrach, Gowin and Webb might view the land and place with less nostalgia, less attachment, and see the place in more objective light. Even Christenberry, who is from Alabama and photographs almost exclusively in Alabama does not live in Alabama. He lives in DC and likes not being so close to his subject. He needs his space to maintain a perspective on the place. Sadly, I just read Christenberry does not photograph anymore – he says the Alabama that nurtured his work is gone. 20

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SK: How do others visualize the South from the outside vs. those of close proximity? Heidi Kirkpatrick lives in Portland, Oregon. Colleen Mullins works in Minnesota, but her series Elysium is an examination of the urban forest of New Orleans forever altered by the devastating canopy loss from Hurricane Katrina. Is there a distinction between images about the South and those made by Southerners? RM: The Ogden Museum exhibits art that is either made by Southerners or is about the South. However, a number of artists from other parts of the country came to New Orleans after Katrina and tried to capitalize on the misfortunes of the locals, feeding off a culture they had little to do with. Some folks referred to these artists as carpetbaggers. I think every case is different – in Colleen’s case, the Elysium series – photographing deforestation of the urban forest – was a great project. Like all great music and art it was more metaphorical than most Katrina work – conceptually it was strong and brought attention to a little known byproduct of the storm. I don’t have a problem with people making great images and bringing attention to important issues – then again, that might go back to what I said previously about perspective and being too close to the subject – that you don’t see what’s in front of you. SK: How has music continued to play a part in the work of Southern photographers – how the landscape of a place shapes the music that comes from it and vice versa? Among the most important portfolios in the Ogden collection are the poignant images of the last Delta juke joints by Birney Imes. Recently, you exhibited the 70s era rock n’ roll photos of Tav Falco, which seemingly took viewers on a “road trip” through the South during a radical era.

opposite: Walker Evans Uncle Sam’s Plantation, Convent, LA, 1935 Vintage silver gelatin print Collection of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art

below: Tom Wik Palm Beach, Florida, 2010 Archival pigment print Collection of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art

RM: Since the South invented country, bluegrass, jazz, blues and rock n’ roll, music is a very important component in the visual arts of the American South. I love the idea of the influence of music on the visual arts. The best music is always very visual. Music can paint a picture in your mind and also remind you of a place. And of course place is such an important part of art in the South. Birney Imes’ Juke Joints was one of the most incredible photographic series of the last 30 years – the power of those images and his technical skill are unmatched. This is a case of photography performing one of its most important functions – preserving memory. Those places are all but gone now and Birney recognized the importance of capturing the last remaining vestiges of these unique spaces – juke joints and where the blues was born. In the case of Tav Falco, it was rock n’ roll, the 1960s, Memphis and the influence of the blues on rock n’ roll. Tav’s work is more of a visual diary of his life – he founded the band Panther Burns with Alex Chilton of Big Star – so rock n’ roll was Tav’s life, but he’s also a great photographer, filmmaker and writer. Tav got his start in photography as a lab assistant to William Eggleston, developing and printing Eggleston’s black and white work. They became friends and would also photograph together – the Eggleston influence is very much evident in Tav’s snapshot style. In 2013, I plan to exhibit photographs by Jim White, an amazing alt-country singer/songwriter from Pensacola, Florida who now lives in Athens, Georgia. He is the narrator/actor in the BBC documentary on religion in the South, Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus.

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SK: Artists, curators and writers have been talking about a “New” Southern photography for quite some time – you’ve branded the recent acquisitions for the Ogden as part of that movement. Can you define what it is? Does regionalism still exist? Does the New Southern Photography reflect national and international trends? RM: Southern Photography has always been more influenced by national and international trends than any other medium in the arts. To me, New Southern Photography blends innovation with tradition. The central themes remain – sense of place, identity, a reverence for history, family, the burden of history and relationship to the land. New Southern Photography builds upon that foundation and expands it further as seen in the work of photographers Lee Deigaard, Donna Pinckley, Frank Hamrick, Laura Noel, Deborah Luster and Susan Worsham. Innovation is tied to outside influence through technology and aesthetic trends. But innovation is a two way street. There’s still a distinct style associated with Southern photography – the Egglestonian effect, the snapshot aesthetic, and the Sally Mann inspired alt process, the 19th century process movement which is a push back against the democratizing of the photographic image via digital photography. There is a sense of nostalgia running through a lot of the work that is a part of the Southern psyche. There are many purists who disdain the digital revolution. I feel there is plenty of room for all the many diverse technologies used in photography today – keeps it interesting. I think you can trace the rise of 19th century processes to Sally Mann incorporating collodian-wet plate processing in her work in the mid 1990s. It took a while for the full effect of her shift to 19th century processes to inundate the photo world, but seven years ago you could have bought an 8 x 10 Deardorff camera for a hundred dollars, and now they are through the roof expensive because they are being snapped up by the 19th century process photographers. S. Gayle Stevens, Bruce Shultz are doing tintypes in New Orleans. Josephine Sacabo works almost exclusively with the Photogravure process. The soft focus dreamy look of alt process lends itself to themes consistent in Southern photography – memory, warmth of imagery, the past, the sense of place. As far as neo-surrealists, I would also list Richard Sexton, Maggie Taylor, Jerry Uelsmann and Louviere + Vanessa, all of whom have exhibited at the Ogden Museum in the last five years. Regionalism does exist, although I know some believe otherwise, but it’s rapidly becoming less prevalent. SK: It seems that the gothic surrealism of Clarence John Laughlin continues to impact young and mid-career photographers. Similarly, there’s the Keith Carter “school” that focuses on ritual, a romantic visualization of the land and people. How can you define the New Southern Photography without dealing with that pervasive influence? How does the psychological element of Laughlin, Ralph Eugene Meatyard – the very “soul” of Southern photography – carry through to Debbie Caffery and Deborah Luster? RM: Laughlin has had such a huge influence on photography. If you were to stroll the galleries of the Ogden Museum now, every photo exhibition and even the painting exhibitions are influenced by Laughlin. Tav Falco – Southern gothic travelogue; Louviere + Vanessa – New Orleans surrealists, who create monumental photographs that blend beauty within darker contexts using the city of New Orleans as backdrop. Their work has a direct linkage to that of Laughlin – both use themes of transformation and are informed by New Orleans. Shelby Lee Adams cites Laughlin along with Ralph Eugene Meatyard as his two biggest influences. Shelby visited with Laughlin in New Orleans and spent a good deal of time with him as a young photographer just out of art school. At first you wouldn’t get the connection between Shelby Lee and Laughlin, but once you really look and compare the work – compositional elements, subject matter, etc. – the Laughlin influence becomes more apparent. I’m curating an exhibition in 2013 titled Seeing Beyond the Ordinary and the Keith Carter influence – soft focus, warm light – will be very much evident. It will feature three photographers – Jim White, Laura Noel and Susan Worsham – who make exceptional imagery from seemingly mundane and everyday moments. Debby Caffery and Deborah Luster, too – Caffery is a master of the atmospheric portraiture, high contrast, moody imagery, and Luster the dark melancholy, psychological approach. 22

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above: Susan Worsham Marine, Hotel near Airport, Richmond, VA, 2009 Archival pigment print Courtesy of the artist

“ Not being from a place lets you see that place with fresh eyes.” spot

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SK: Is the South a geographic location or a state of mind? RM: For Kelli Connell, a sense of place refers to the love of an individual or a person within the context of the place, which I know from her talks, is the South – Texas and her native Oklahoma. She lives in Chicago but makes most of her photographs in the South, because she says the light is much better – yet in her images, the geographic location is somewhat ambiguous. I feel the South is both a geographic location and a state of mind. Speaking for myself, whenever I have lived in other regions of the U.S. – out West, NYC – I really miss the South. Although I’ve told myself many times – I will never move back to the South – I always do. I remember living in Seattle for three years – I walked around that town and thought to myself something is missing, but I could never figure what it was or able to verbalize it, then the words came to me – soul. This place has no soul – that is what I love about the South – it’s got soul. SK: Significantly, you’ve acquired works by a number of women photographers who are examining family history and connection to place. Kathleen Robbins relocated from New Mexico to the Mississippi Delta to live on her family’s farm, re-inhabiting her great-great grandparents’ Victorian house. Her series Into the Flatland explores familial obligation and our conflicted relationship with “home.” S. Gayle Stevens recorded the ruins that once were the town of Pass Christian, Mississippi, a community on the gulf devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Lisa Silvestri shot black and white portraits of New Orleans teenagers using a large-format view camera and 19th century finishing process. These are the kids who returned to find what was left of their communities. All of them reveal 24

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opposite and above: Deborah Luster Disarchive# 01-05 (left) and Disarchive# 01-06 (right) Location - Tulane Avenue at Dupre, Le Petit Motel (Mid City) April 4, 2008, 3:30 a.m. unidentifed woman (20) Gunshot wound to head. Silver gelatin print Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery

personal distinctions and some reﬂections of a post-Katrina world. Donna Pinckley’s photographs of children include objects or environments that convey an intimate part of the individuals at a particular moment in their lives. A history is contained within each image, as told through the details of their surroundings, their stance, their expressions. We’ve already mentioned Colleen Mullins’ series on the deforested urban New Orleans. Are these women representative of a New Southern Photography? What’s coming out of this body of work? RM: The images of Robbins, Stevens, Silvestri and Pinckley are within a straightforward documentary style of photography. Sense of place is in the forefront of their work. The only diversion is in the techniques employed, in particular the use of 19th century processes by Stevens – tintypes – and Silvestri’s platinum printing. But then again, the use of 19th century processes can be another nod to history of photography and the South. I know Gayle Stevens has stated the Pass series was made with tintypes because the dominant photographic technology at the time of Pass Christian’s founding as an artist community in the mid 1800s was the tintype – so this was a conceptual component to the work. With all these photographers, the concept forms the foundation of the aesthetic direction of their work, which is very modern but also rooted in the past. So that goes back to my deﬁnition of New Southern Photography, which is innovation with tradition. New ways of telling the same story. They are making strong work dealing with issues they care about – land, people, a relationship to nature and the environment. spot

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SK: How do you see the trajectory of the Ogden photography collection? What are the missing links? Who is on your radar at the moment and what kinds of photography exhibitions will you be organizing for the Ogden? RM: The Ogden Collection is rapidly expanding – currently we are focusing on emerging and mid-career photographers. Everything builds on Roger Ogden’s original vision – a comprehensive overview of Southern photography. I would love to have more historical 19th century photographs in the collection, which really gets strong around the 1920s to the present. I would also like to acquire 1960s-70s photographs from people like Ralph Eugene Meatyard and Larry Clark, edgy photographers from that special transitional time in the South. What’s on my radar? The State of Texas – what’s happening there is really exciting and I need to investigate that more. For 2013, we are opening with Deborah Luster: Tooth for an Eye: A Choreography of Violence in Orleans Parish. For over a decade, Luster has been making photographs that explore effects of crime, punishment and violence in Louisiana. In this series, she focuses her camera on an invisible population – people who exist only as a memory – homicide victims. We’re also in the process of working on the Eudora Welty exhibition that will feature many rare photographs, some never seen before. It’s such an exciting time for photography right now – there’s a great community here that is built around the New Orleans Photo Alliance, the St. Claude art district, the Prospect Biennials – the art scene has exploded.

back to my deﬁnition of New Southern Photography, “ Sowhichthatisgoes innovation with tradition. New ways of telling the same story. They are making strong work dealing with issues they care about – land, people, a relationship to nature and the environment.

”

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opposite: Clarence John Laughlin Elegy for Moss Land, 1947 Silver gelatin print Collection of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art above: S. Gayle Stevens Pool West Beach and Barkley from the series Pass, 2009-12 Wet plate Collodion pin-hole tintype Collection of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art

Richard McCabe was born in Mildenhall, England, and grew up in the American South. He received an MFA in Studio Art from Florida State University in 1998. Also in 1998, he was awarded a Fellowship to New York University to attend the American Photography Institute, National Graduate Seminar. From 1998-2005, McCabe lived in New York City, where he worked for numerous art galleries and museums, including the International Center for Photography, the Robert Miller Gallery and the El Museo del Barrio. He also taught photography at Pratt Institute, New York City and Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey. In 2005, McCabe moved to New Orleans and has worked within the curatorial department of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art for the past seven years. In 2010, he became Curator of Photography at the Ogden Museum. From 2009 to the present, McCabe has served as an Associate Professor of Art at Xavier University, New Orleans. Susie Kalil is Managing Editor of spot. spot

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Brian Finke and Edith Zimmerman discuss: Hot Guys, Hot Girls Photographer Brian Finke is known for his pictures of groups – of flight attendants, bodybuilders and cheerleaders – and his latest project focuses on construction workers. Construction was recently on display at ClampArt Gallery in Chelsea, and available in print from DECODE Books. Brian and I talked recently about his projects over drinks in Brooklyn.

right: Brian Finke Untitled, Construction 67, 2010 Chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY

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rian Finke: So your favorite picture from Construction, I know.

Edith Zimmerman: Right, the hot guy with the Mountain Dew. I want it for my apartment, but it might be weird to have a picture of a stranger looming so large in a studio. Maybe I’d put it in my bathroom.

BF: But you can’t put it your bathroom, because of the humidity. EZ: Right, right. I’d find a way, though.

BF: [Laughs.] Any other ones you like?

EZ: Any pictures of hot guys. Also hot girls! I like your sensibility, because there’s a dirty-ish aspect: you give people the opportunity to look really closely at someone’s face – their pores, their sweat, the curve of their lips – and since that’s generally not acceptable in real life, you feel a little guilty, but it’s irresistible.

BF: It’s the same thing with the process of taking pictures – it gives you the chance to stare at people and be judgmental, because otherwise [without the camera] it’d be pretty awkward. But that kind of looking and seeing – to a certain extent I think I’m a very easy person to be around, because I can talk, but I’m not intrusive or intimidating.

above: Brian Finke Untitled, Construction 9, 2010 Chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY

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above: Brian Finke Sara, Icelandair, 2006 Chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY opposite, top left: Brian Finke Untitled, Cheerleading 25, 2001 Chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY opposite, top right: Brian Finke Untitled, Football 31, 2002 Chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY

â&#x20AC;&#x153;It gives you the chance to stare at people and be judgmental, because otherwise (without the camera) it'd be pretty awkward.â&#x20AC;?

opposite, bottom: Brian Finke Untitled, Cheerleading 81, 2002 Chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY

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EZ: I would agree with that. To what degree do you fall in love with the people you’re photographing? And does it happen when you’re there with the camera in their face, or later when you’re alone with the picture?

BF: I like that. To get so involved, and spend so much time, I really do have to fall in love with it that way. EZ: But I mean the individuals. Flight attendants, football players.

BF: It’s kind of a love-hate with the individual pictures, because you see ‘em so much. And then some of the pictures that become popular – you could love them AND hate ‘em because you get kinda sick of reprinting them. EZ: Like playing your greatest hit?

BF: Yeah. But about revisiting subject matter, and whether it’s boring – for instance, ESPN the magazine, hired four photographers to cover different aspects of this giant pep rally at the University of Kansas called Midnight Madness. I was like, “I want to shoot the cheerleaders!” but they were like, “The crowd.” So I took some picture of fans – but then I made some nice new, beautiful cheerleader pictures. EZ: Well cheerleaders are very PRETTY, so there’s also that.

BF: Right. [Laughs.] There was this one picture I made, it felt so nice, and to me was totally different than all the other cheerleader pictures I’ve made. So they’re practicing on the football field before the game, and there was this one girl – also when I’m shooting I get crushes on people... EZ: I asked that! Brian, I said, “Do you fall in love with the people you’re shooting?”

BF: [Laughs.] I was talking to a photo editor at a party a few months ago, I was totally drunk and talking a lot, saying that I really get crushes on people when I’m shooting – like you’re physically drawn to them... EZ: This is what I ASKED. I just want to put that out there. Anyway, glad we’re coming around.

BF: So yeah, with this cheerleader, it was her blonde hair, and how it fell just below her ears, and there was this great red lipstick, and the royal blue of her uniform, and there was this one shot where she was staring at me, this deadpan stare, and the background went black, and it was just amazing. That look of indifference, and then the style and aesthetics. And yeah, the physical attraction, of course. It’s awesome. Such a good picture. 32

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opposite: Brian Finke Lily and Azriza, Air Asia, 2006 Chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY

below: Brian Finke Kate, Tiger Airways, 2006 Chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY

“I really get crushes on people when I’m shooting – like you’re physically drawn to them...“

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above: Brian Finke Untitled, Construction 17, 2010 Chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY

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opposite: Brian Finke Unnur, Icelandair, 2006 Chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY

I think photography in general is very intuitive; it doesn’t have to make sense. I’m good at obsessing about things. I can commit to something, and stick with it, and delve into it, and I don’t get sick of it for a long time. And even when I do, it’s just like moving on to a slight variation, really. It’s very repetitive. And I mean even the books, they’re all the same size. They’re all square.

EZ: Is it harder to photograph someone you know than to photograph a stranger?

BF: Yeah. EZ: And are friends ever disappointed that you don’t take pictures of them? Or maybe I’m just shedding light on my own...

BF: You want your picture taken? [His three photography books are stacked between us on the table, and he touches them on all sides.]

“I think photography in general is very intuitive; it doesn’t have to make sense.”

EZ: You’re making like your own Brian Finke totem.

BF: It’s my boxed set! EZ: How did being drawn to more attractive people play out on the construction site?

BF: I was like, “This is going to be the hottest construction site ever!” It was a conscious decision; I want to take pictures of people I want to look at. It’s not necessarily like people always have to be, quote unquote, good looking, it’s just that there’s something about them.

EZ: No! Well...

BF: There we go! [Laughs.] Last night I went out with my agent from Milan, and we were taking pictures at dinner, and she was like “YES” – she was being sincere – like, “Ahh you took my picture!” EZ: See?

BF: I was just like – it didn’t really cross my mind. She just had these great red nails, this great red phone, and this great red lipstick. So, maybe if you put some makeup on? EZ: Fuck you! [Laughs.] I HAVE makeup on. I have eyeliner on. Shit. Okay.

BF: See, now you know my fetish, the red thing, the red lipstick. It’s a fetish thing, really, photography. EZ: That should be your next book, Women in Red Lipstick. But no, actually your next series is on the US Marshals. How’s that going?

BF: This past weekend I went to Texas, and one of the pictures I got there was of these two Marshals who look like they’re 15. But they have these giant guns, and one of them looks like Steve Urkel, with this little awkward giggle, and they’re in this person’s home. It’s just very awkward and wonderful. Being physically WITH people when I take their picture, being very close to them – I like that proximity. You can see how the person holds himself. EZ: Can you give me a picture of that hot guy from the construction site?

BF: [Laughs.] I’m happy to.

Edith Zimmerman is the founding editor of The Hairpin and a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. Brian Finke is the author of 2-4-6-8: American Cheerleaders and Football Players, Umbrage Editions 2003; Flight Attendants, powerhouse Books 2008; and Construction, DECODE Books 2012. His work has been placed in nine museum collections here and abroad. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

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Sleight-of-Hand: OSCAR MUÑOZ WITH MARIA INES SICARDI AND XIMENA GAMA ON HIS RECENT INSTALLATION EDITOR SOLITARIO

aria Ines Sicardi/Ximena Gama: To get us started, can you tell us what Editor Solitario is about?

Oscar Muñoz: Editor Solitario is a video installation where the viewer is situated in the same position as the protagonist. We see an arm playing with photographic images as if playing a card game. This game has subjective and arbitrary “rules,” building and deconstructing the relationships between them. Some images stay longer than others and the idea revolves around assembling and dismantling a system or constellation of images related to my own personal world, local and not, along with other images that we share and are part of history. MIS/XG: The vanishing and reappearance of the image is a recurrent topic in your work. However, in this installation, there is a new element: changing the position of the photographs. Are you thinking about the nature of images and how they are used to narrate the story? Is that what the title refers to? OM: The title references the card game “Solitario” (Solitaire). Someone who is playing cards, but in this case, they are replaced by photographic images. I am also alluding to the ways in which the past can be thought and reconﬁgured, as in Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas, which explores the idea of our innate memory through art history, or on a more personal level, the structure of family photo albums. In both cases, the order is not chronological, but particular and subjective. MIS/XG: We also see there is a strong relationship with the analog image – in this case, images that are part of a physical file of developed photographs and the digital image that is projected. How do you conceive the relationship between analog and digital? OM: There is that desire to build a constellation of images – but also it has to do with Jose Luis Brea’s book Las Tres Eras de la Imagen, which examines how the various technical ways lead 36

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Oscar Muñoz is a Colombian artist whose work has been recognized internationally. Represented in the U.S. by Sicardi Gallery, Houston, director Maria Ines Sicardi, and associate Ximena Gama, who currently resides in Bogota, Colombia, recently talked with artist Oscar Muñoz concerning his recent installation Editor Solitario in order to uncover some of the influences behind his work. During his forty year career, Muñoz has developed the most subtle, delicate and cohesive oeuvre of Colombian artists. Using various media, he has created a deep reflection on the subjectivity of individual and collective memory. The following interview was transcribed from collaborative discussions and phone calls.

to differential models of production, distribution and reception of images. The photographic image manifests on paper and it is ﬁxed there. With the transition from analog to digital, the initial characteristics of the image change, such as the support and ubiquity. For example, digital images ﬂoat on the surface. In this case, the installation Editor Solitario emphasizes the projection that hovers on the paper but does not settle in. It is simply an illusion that is opposed to the physical presence of the paper, which is the initial support of the photograph. MIS/XG: A lot of your works use images from the archive of photographs that you have collected. Puente utilizes a series of photographs by the “fotocineros,” street photographers in Cali, Colombia, popular in the 1950s through the 1970s. In Biografias, a collection of newspaper obituary images and Pais Tiempo, a reproduction of the local and national daily newspaper, the information vanishes as you turn the pages. We see in those pieces, as in Editor Solitario, a tension between a desire to save and collect and the opposite action of showing the weakness of the images; their disappearance and the new meaning they acquire with the passage of time. OM: The archivist is a person that selects images using a strategy of meaning and order to preserve. However, that act of selecting also leads to a practice that discards information – unconsciously erasing all that has not been selected. It can lead to an invisibility, a forgetfulness of what has not been chosen. Derrida, in Archive Fever, talks about how in that drive to collect and preserve documents, there are parallel or simultaneous forces that oppose the initial intention of the archivist. As Derrida has noted, “There is no power without control of the archive, or without memory.” Whoever selects also takes a stand to “rescue” the images and give them new meaning. In Editor Solitario, the same character builds that

Oscar Muñoz Editor Solitario, 2011 Media Video projections on a table. Sound, 20 minutes, edition 2/5

selection, but in Sedimentaciones the character faces himself; one character that is actually two and who perform opposite tasks. He recovers images and also undoes them. MIS/XG: It is impossible not to think about Editor Solitario as a work with a political edge, especially in a country like Colombia. Even though some images are part of the collective memory, in certain cases, some of them have even become historical icons. The gesture of the hand that decides to remove an image is very evident. Is it possible that this piece is a reference to the violent act of a disappearance? The decision of an individual to “erase” another? Have you ever thought about it this way? OM: Thinking about the hand which has the power to decide what will exist and what will not – in that sense, it is similar to the archivist. Nonetheless, it can also be seen from another angle that allows us to reflect on how the structures and management of power are designed. The character does not have a specific identity and he makes the decision to bring certain images up and remove others. There are several images of people who have disappeared in Colombia, including one of those who vanished in relation to the violent takeover of the Palacio de Justicia (Courthouse). Even though that image is proof that he left the courthouse alive, it is not sufficient evidence that it happened because the document is frail, blurry, without many details. This image illustrates the debate between the opposing forces of the archivist’s job. It is a trace, unlikely evidence that this has been.

Oscar Muñoz (born 1951, Popayan, Colombia) graduated in 1971 from the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Cali. His works are in major public and private collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the CU Art Museum, University of Colorado, Boulder; The Daros Collection, Zurich and Tate Modern, London. Throughout the past decade, Muñoz has shown individually and collectively in museums and institutions such as O.K. Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz, Austira; Pori Art Museum, Pori, Finland; The Korea Foundation, Seoul, South Korea; Museo Extremeno e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporaneo (MEIAC), Badajoz, Spain; Preﬁx Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada; Institute of International Visual Arts (INIVA), London; Museo Tamayo de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hirochima, Japan; Mori Art Museum, Todyo, Japan and the PICA Museum, Perth, Australia. In 2007, Munoz was invited to participate in the 52nd La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Robert Storr. Most recently, a forty year survey of his work: Oscar Muñoz: Protograﬁas, was exhibited at Malba-Fundacion Costantini, traveling to Museo de Arte Lima (MALI). The artist currently lives and works in Cali, Colombia.

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with William M. Hunt

Anne Marie D’Arcy (Houston, TX) Sikh Musician, 2012 Inkjet print Courtesy of the artist

Anne Marie D’Arcy won the 2013 Carol Crow Memorial Fellowship I find the portraits by Houston photographer Anne Marie D’Arcy astonishing. First of all, they are facilely done; the composition and lighting are fine. The models have exceptional ease and comfort in front of the camera. The notion that a group of turbaned Sikhs could be shown as happy and unremarkable strikes me as slyly subversive. In a climate of political correctness and sensitivity to diversity, I am trying to offer this observation inoffensively. I don’t encounter Sikhs 38

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regularly and seeing them in this completely easy, up beat way is disarming and delightful. These are tribal portraits, the same as if Ms. D’Arcy had documented Wall St. lawyers or African tribesmen or Texas cowboys with her unaffected, receptive sensibility. She renders her subjects accessible and familiar. This is marvelously radical to me, and perhaps to you, and probably not to a Sikh. This strikes me as smart and worth putting in front of you.

Lauren Marsolier won the 2013 HCP Fellowship Lauren Marsolier’s work has an intentional quality. By intentional, I mean that there is an otherness, a higher consciousness here. These are sharply considered, very good looking landscapes of an anonymous and arid village without signs or signs of life. Something’s afoot. What are these strange places bathed in pleasant pink light. Why do car tracks mysteriously disappear? It seems absolutely soundless, too. What an odd thing to observe about photographs. We

are visitors here, observers, pleasantly alienated. There are unidentifiable buildings in a strangely abandoned settlement. It is a place like one of those towns where NAVY seals practice deadly raids or where Jacques Demy musicals from the 1960s are set. Why do the tire tracks end or why do the hanging rings or the wrapped car seem so ominous? This work is so contemporary and accomplished. It didn’t occur to me that these were composited images until after several viewings.

Lauren Marsolier (Los Angeles, CA) Playground 3, 2011 Archival pigment print Courtesy of the artist and Robert Berman Gallery

W. M. Hunt (Bill Hunt), a New York-based collector, curator and consultant, is responsible for introducing many major contemporary artists in the U.S., including Luc Delahaye, Julian Faulhaber, Erwin Olaf and Paolo Ventura. His collection Dancing Bear is the subject of The Unseen Eye; Photographs from the Unconscious, published by Thames & Hudson in the UK and Aperture in the U.S. He also teaches at the School of Visual Arts and for many years produced the Your Picture... panels for PDN. Most recently, he curated Photolucida’s Critical Mass touring exhibition and judged competitions for Photo Center North West in Seattle (Equivalents), the Castelli Gallery in Ashevell, NC (Road) and KlompChing in Brooklyn, NY (Fresh).

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Collectors: Discover a new photograph every day.*

Photo Camps at HCP! June - August, 2013 Through the Looking Glass: The Art of Self-portraiture with Galina Kurlat Environmental Photography with Felisa Prieto Hanging with Holga: Exploring Medium Format Photography with Lindsey Thompson You in Cyberspace: Building your own Website with Theresa Escobedo Sun Prints, Digitally!: Digital Negatives & Cyanotypes with Galina Kurlat Serial and Narrative Photography with Felisa Prieto Your World, Pixelated: Fun with Digital Photography with Kelly Webeck The book of you: Creating a digital photo book with Theresa Escobedo

*YourDailyPhotograph.com 40

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visit www.hcponline.org for more information.

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