History Lecture #5

• Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander - street photography (for the most part), socical landscape but more of a critical eye
• interested in seeing more than the human eye
• creates meaning, expresses something of the maker's experience
• kind of similar to the straight photography aesthetic, no post manipulation
• Diane Arbus is an exception to falling under these categories for sure
• Robert Frank, from Switzerland, came to the US in the early 1950s
• received Guggenheim in 1955, American grants
• published a body of work "The Americans"
• "sorted, neglected and forlorn" slammed by critics
• used 35mm
• loose, restlessness in his work
• intuitive, responded to what he found interesting
• Candy Store, New York City
• Charleston
• The Hearse
• had an influence on the next 3 photographers
• Garry Winogrand, American culture
• influenced by Robert Frank and Walker Evans
• city and urban landscape
• animate and inanimate objects, juxtaposition
• gives the feeling that something is just about to happen
• often utilizes a slanted horizon
• close, rapid and close to subject, tilted
• published 5 books, published by subject matter
• "The Animals" taken at zoos
• animals exuded human-like qualities and humans seemed to exude animal-like qualities
• "Public Relations" media events
• hoped to highlight life at that time
• "I photograph to see what the photograph will look like"
• passed away in 1984, photographed until his death
• Lee Friedlander
• influenced by Eugene Atget, Walker Evans and Robert Frank
• photographed American culture
• foliage, street images, nudes, landscapes, portraits and self portraits
• densely packed frames
• busy scenes and created order
• strong formal appreciation for geometry
• photographed between 1964-1972
• New Orleans
• Route 9 West, New York
• Texas, 1965
• Diane Arbus
• photographed between 1962-1971, until her death
• worked in fashion, father owned a fur store
• opened a studio with her husband Allan Arbus, later divorced
• photographed people on the fringes of society
• Albino Sword Swallower
• photographed normal people and their oddness, and well as odd people and their normalises
• influenced by August Sander
• posed subjects, frontal pose and lighting almost always centered
• brought up issues of subject representation
• talked to subject until there were exhausted
• photographing people with a marginalized life
• felt her parents sheltered her
• King and Queen of a Senior Dance
• Lady Bartender
• Man in Curlers
• Jeff Wall, Canadian photographer
• A Gust of Wind
• started as a painter
• wasn't interested in taking a photojournalistic approach
• constructed like a painting
• 3 aspects of how images were displayed: Large size - his work is measured in feet, not inches. Produced images as unique objects, not as editions. Presented them as enormous, back lit transparencies
• the way he constructed his images
• inspired by paintings, and things he witnessed on the streets
• his images are contrived and artificial
• concerned with the physical beauty of his image
• more than 100 shots, digital files
• would work on some pictures for over a year or two
• The Flooded Grave
• In Front of a Night Club
• Men Waiting
• Grogory Prudson, influenced by Jeff Wall
• contemporary photographer Andres Girsty
• Shanghai, 2000
• images are digitally manipulated
• uses overhead, broad views
• concentrates on capitalism
• sites of tourism, offices, hotels
• 99¢
• Philip-Lorca diCoricia
• reworking the documentary style
• strange place between documentary and fiction
• straight documents that look like film stills
• no manipulation afterwards
• hid lights on the streets
• Gregory Crewdson
• overwrought-Americana
• works in New England area, staged
• Ophelia
• Luring Augustine, 2006
• film crews, make up artists
• "underline an edge of anxiety..."
• pays attention to lighting
• no one definition of what art should be
• Wolfgang Tillmans