Giancarlo Mori | Blog

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.

 
 

New Color Studies

Some new color photograph are also now on my website here.

(© Giancarlo A. Mori, 2009)

 
 

New Project

Pictures from my new project entitled "In Praise of Shadows", inspired by the work of Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki, are now on my website here. The project is still under way, and has been shot in the neighborhood where I live during the summer month of 2009. The project is a reflection on the poetics of shadows and darkness, and their transformative effects on the familiar.

(© Giancarlo A. Mori, 2009)

 
 

What's in a photograph? Re-reading John Berger (part I)

I have been re-reading John Berger's essays lately, with the same gusto as before... as every time, I might add. 

(Note to the improbable reader: for those not familiar with Berger, do read his work and a little about him... especially if intelligence and intellectual independence are traits you value and appreciate. Starting at Wikipedia perhaps.)

{ Note: I am fascinated by theoretical/intellectual debate, when honest and passionate. There is too little and too much of it going on, at the same time, all the time... You can read some on political and cultural blogs, art sites, online "salons"... with much of what is being discussed so oddly/poorly/incorrectly framed to have no significance... with many of those involved denying that they are even engaging in intellectual debate. Ss if reducing high discourse to common banter could do any ideas justice. }

More topically, one of the questions that have long interested me... that I have debated, principally with myself... is what a photograph really is, its relationships with other visual arts, its independence from painting or graphic design for example, what is admissible and what is not, the very meaning of "norm"... 

In that context, a short essay by Berger is... as always... controversial, sane, and highly enlightening: "Understanding a Photograph", originally published in The Look of Things (1972), starts with the following passage: "For over a century, photographers and their apologists have argued that photography deserves to be considered a fine art."

It then quickly posits: "It now seems clear that photography deserves to be considered as though it were not a fine art." Not a hesitation, not a doubt. His truth as a jab, right there before you, as a clear, unambiguous assertion. It would seem the statement might close the case. But there, under the surface, a pressing question remains. One question that I find more interesting than the answer... more on that soon.

He then continues with a statement I cannot agree with, but that provides one of the central contentions about photography today: "We must rid ourselves of a confusion brought about by continually comparing photography with the fine arts. Every handbook on photography talks about composition. The good photograph is the well-composed one. Yet this is only true in so far as we think of photographic images imitating painted ones. Painting is an art of arrangement: therefore it is reasonable to demand that there is some kind of of order in what is arranged." Here it is, black on white, the cracks of our craft, it's center, continually debated, courted and brushed off, disassembled and marked as a lie.

(to be continued...)

Japanese Graphic Design

Picked up from Paul Pope's Twitter feed, a collection of graphic designs from 1920 to 1980. No photography, but a number of beautiful designs: Give Us Back Man - Japanese Graphic Design 

Thanks to Paul for sharing. (Note: Paul is a world class author and comic book artist. Follow his twits!)

  Ryuichi Yamashiro, ad for Morisawa Co., early 80s

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.

Site Update

My new website is complete and is now online HERE (with a permanent link on the left column at the top.)

This blog is also being renovated, in style, structure, and content. The base design is in place, but will continue to be tweaked over the next week of so. Expect some disruption while the changes take place...

Note: some of the older posts' images have been lost during the re-design. I am in the process of re-establishing the links but it will take some time. Thanks for your patience while I work through each of the posts. (Take home lesson: always backup your blog on a local+different remote drive!)

Site Construction

The site is undergoing some renovation. Apologies in advance if the site is down when you try to visit. Please try again.

Some of the changes include: modifications to the theme; the portfolio link is accessible again, although it points to one of my external portfolios while my Flash gallery gets implemented; some general elements redesign, etc...

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.