Giancarlo Mori | Blog

Iannis Xenakis - The Mathematics of Beauty

Does beauty respond to mathematical rules? Is there an mathematical pattern to what we find esthetically pleasing? I think so. My interest in abstract forms is purely visual (my current photographic project centers on the abstract visual qualities of natural forms; more on this soon...) but I have been interested in artists and thinkers who have attempted to quantify that regularity in mathematical terms for a long time.

Iannis Xenakis was one such thinker and artist. As an engineer, a musician, an architect, and a mathematician, he explored the underlying patterns of beauty and worked with giants like Le Corbusier and Messianen. Now an exhibition of over 60 works on paper by Xenakis including sketches, architectural drawings, and mathematical notations is open at the Drawing Center in SoHo with the title: Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary from Jan 15 till Apr 8.

Art in America has an interesting piece on it: The Mathematical Mind of Iannis Xenakis by Brienne Walsh. Synthetic and mainly historical in its approach, but worth reading.

   

 
   Iannis Xenakis in Paris, around 1970.

      A sketch by Xenakis from The Drawings Center's show.

Photo LA

Last week, from Jan 14th to the 17th, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, downtown Santa Monica, hosted the XIX Annual Photo LA. You can peruse the official site here. 

Others have written about all of the surrounding events, from seminars on collecting to lectures with star photographers, and portfolio reviews (a few links at the bottom of this post.) As a photographer, I was interested in spotting trends in the market, and and these are my quick impressions from that angle...

Right from the start the event felt smaller. The venue is cozy, lacking the sprawling feel of previous editions... the sense of an industry in crisis was tangible from the beginning. The general sense - and others have picked up the same scent - was one of a more introspective Photo LA: B&W was prevalent, both in contemporary works as well as in classic/vernacular ones, and missing where the walls after walls of the very large color photographs that we have seen in the past as the staple of the event. There were a few exceptions, interestingly many of them from abroad, but most boots were showing smaller prints, classically in feel, classically framed, some of them impersonally classically composed and inspired too.

I for one, was happy to see such a reversal of trend. The end of the ubiquitous monumental color print's age is not one I will decry.

A few other Photo LA 2010 reports and commentaries (more coming soon...)

@ LensScratch

@ The Onine Photographer

 
 

Esthetics of the Exhibition Space...

In a previous post I emphatically stated my interest for "a treatment about the esthetics of the modern exhibition space". One such a treatment is just being published by Yale University Press: Charlotte Klonk's Spaces of Experience: Art Gallery Interiors from 1800 to 2000.

According to Brian Sholis in Frieze Magazine: "Thirty years ago, artist and writer Brian O'Doherty revealed some of the political and economic implications of the 'white cube'. It is, we now acknowledge, anything but a neutral container. While O'Doherty's polemic holds up well, it doesn't address at length how such design features as coloured walls, wainscotting and decorative furnishings were slowly excised from the typical gallery environment. Art historian Charlotte Klonk's limited but engaging study Spaces of Experience traces just this history." Promising indeed.

Here is the book at Amazon.

 
 

Framing... the issue

I have been known to agonize over the most minute details of my picture making process: all that goes into paper selection (more on this soon), print sizes, and yes, framing. Mat, no mat, window, 4 ply mat, 6 ply mats, metal frame, wood frame...

Online research helps to frame (pun intended) the issue, but in the end it is a highly personal process, one that depends on the individual photographer's style, whether their work is B&W versus color, what effect one wants to achieve. One consideration is to be raised above all: this is an integral part of the picture-making process. And in the end is no other way to resolve it if not by direct examination: visiting galleries and museums to find out what is being done out there.

In my personal quest for my individual framing style I've had to contend with this issue widely. At the moment I am in a transition phase, not with my work, but how I see my work displayed, the paper I want to use, and all of the other elements that revolve around the non-technical elements (the technical ones are more clearly defined, fortunately), the type of space and lighting conditions that my work will be displayed in, what I want to communicate with it, etc... Underestimating any of these issues will highly curtail the final result of one's prints.

I will spare the details of my personal plight, but if someone is interested in sharing, I'd love to hear what they are doing with their framing choices right now.

Here is a good, albeit quite high level point of view on the issue, in the words of the LACMA head curator of photography, Charlotte Cotton: LACMA: The Way We Frame Now. I'll post more resources as I find them.

{ Note on margin: I would love to read a treatment about the esthetics of the modern exhibition space... }

Note to the non LA insider: the LACMA is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, one of the paramount art institutions in Southern California and the country.

Camerawork Exhibit Extended

The two-man exhibition at the Camerawork Gallery (see here for more) I am a part of has been extended till Sep 4th.

Below is the poster of the show designed by Anna Furlong for Bernd Reinhardt and me.

Camerawork Exhibition

A select number of pictures from my current B&W portfolio will be exhibited in a two-man show this July at the Camerawork Gallery in Scranton, PN. The show will run from July 3rd till August 4th, 2009 with an opening reception on July 3, from 6:00pm till 8:30pm.

Read more about the show at: http://www.cameraworkgallery.org/current.htm. 

About Camerawork: "Camerawork Gallery is dedicated to hosting exhibitions of fine photography made by local photographers. The gallery is in the recently renovated Casey Laundry building and is downstairs, below the Marquis Gallery. Camerawork is managed by local photographers: Ivana Pavelka, Rolfe Ross and Michael Poster." 

Find more information about the gallery by clicking the logo below: