in/action

there can never be anything inherently wrong with an image, only how it is used.

magritte the phor phather

Magritte intuited photography* to a greater degree than most of the medium's masters. imagine this painting surrounded by 16 photobooth pictures of the Surrealists (Dali, Magritte & Max Ernst amoung them) in shirt & tie with their eyes closed. Published in La Revolution surrealiste, 12 (15 December 1929) the whole piece is entitled (for those of us fortunante enough to not speak french) : I Do Not See the [Woman] Hidden in the Forest.

there is some thing(s) (always) in the refusal.
the repetition of the closed eyes. the ease of the process. the height of the gesture.
we do not know what we are supposed to be looking at.
the naked & bashfull woman or the blinded men that surround her.
who is the subject of this portrait : the artist or the muse ?
( the relationship a phool's phrase )
has he gone blind from his own creation or the thought there of.
there is something impotent & powerless in this painting.
( a fact most photographers deny )
do we see that which we represent ? or do they transmute themselves. . .
is there a 'they' of which to speak or merely more 'me' than we have room for ( ? )

another picture ( a latter thought ) :


here we learn more through Magritte's spontaneous photographic refusal. the muse & the artist become one in this self portrait. the mastibatory narcissim of ages : an admission of being an open book th(r)ough turned back. a picture ( ultimatly ) taken for his own bemusement. yet, he has thought hard of representation & the real that photography can nt deny. what does a picture like this supposed to mean !? we learn : we are able to understand more through puzzles & fragments than a completely stated portrait. he teaches us that we learn nothing about a person by looking at their cold objectified face, no matter how expressive they can be. the truth lies in momentary decisions & (seemingly) arbitrary props. the lens flattens that which the human has made round. we can see more in our mistakes than in our rehearsed takes.

thanks magritte for sticking to painting but disseminating yr truth through all the arts.

*usually when i use the word 'photography' i am refering specifically to the 'study of light' as i have come to understand it.

this is my photograph this is my thought

:

i am making a photograph
i am making a photograph
i am making a photograph

[ ]

a piegon perches in the underground
a pigeon perches in the underground

[ one day ]


a pigeon perches in the underground

[ next day ]

a pigeon perches


[ days & days ]

the pigeon perches still

[ ]

s/he is making a photograph
s/he is unmoving
s/he does nt wait
s/he does nt know

[ s/he is making a photograph ]

a photograph is never made
[ a photograph is in its making ]

a painting is the time spent
[ buying paint
strech ing canvas ]

actions & decisions
errands & illusions

a painting is looking at painting
[ a history a fool's phrase ]

a painting is a photograph

[ there is no history
there is only making
there is only now ]


a poem is an unuttered thought

a photograph is a poem

a photograph is a now

a now is all the thens
[ collapsed from before to after ]

:

the day a blog is born is a very good day

:: i will attempt to piece together the fragments that make up my loose understandings of all things representational. i will then attempt to sew together letters & words & punctuation to communicate these understandings to you - a generous public ::

( A POLEMICAL BEGINING )
amateur representationalists of the world unite : you have nothing to lose but any interest in mass media

! take to yr cameras ! yr darkened rooms & cinematic memories. . .
let us, if you will please, grab hold of the modes of production.
how to counter our vapid image saturated society ?
do nothing but make pictures, instinctually if perhaps blindly.
the medium for the revolution's sake begets : death to seamless commercial aesthetics ! throw away yr spot tone & pro lighting kits & understand that truly beautiful photographs exists all around, just waiting to be realized & 'clicked'.

photographs are made in the time that takes to make them
photographs are in the making - so why do we constantly attempt to hide the seams of our means of production ? ( this is step one : embracing yr 'mistakes' )

the medium is inextricably linked with the commercial world – it’s true. yet the art world acts as if jeff wall's mimicking of advertising (& proliferation of modernism) is THE solution. devoid of dust & digital noise his light boxes hit our consciousness with a thunderous $$$. a lightening bolt struck earth, but it looked so much like the Coke-a-Cola ad that proceeded, i paid it no heed. we must learn to turn away from the already existing, so that we may return to representation with renewed veracity. we need not adopt the language of advertising & celebrity culture to make ourselves more understood. i suggest a return to the primitive, the explanatory (grain, pixels, chemical stains, oh my !) ,a conversation about a conversation can be the most satisfying conversation of all.

show me some thing new, show me some thing that does not want to sell & I will show you an original photograph.