From the series No More No Less Kensuke Koike & Thomas Sauvin
Kensuke Koike is a Japanese contemporary artist, currently living in Slovenia, widely known for his exceptional skills in collage making.The Japanese artist has thus developed a certain taste for image destructuring. These new images have therefore their own independent life, barely connected to that of the original photos, showing that in the end everything depends on our point of view of reality and what we take into consideration. In kensuke’s images none of the images only moved around, which is a philosophy that he applies to all o this work “nothing is removed, nothing is added”. When editing my images inspired by his wok I will try to work by this same philosophy.
This image is from the sires No More No Less by Kensuke Koike & Thomas Sauvin. In the image there is a potrrt of a young Chinsee boy, in which two triangles have been cut out of his face. These two triangle cover the section where his eyes would be, these two sections have then been swapped around, to give a new perspective on the image. When I first saw this image I thought that the two sections of triangles, before I knew that these image where scraps that Kensuke had found I thought that the two triangles where the boys Mother and Father, I thought that it gave the image a new perspective and added a lot of conceptual meaning to the image.
For example take an old portrait of a loving couple, cut their eyes out, switch them around and the relationship takes a new direction. This is what Kensuke’s work is about getting a new perspective on the way that images can be viewed. The image above is taken from his project in collaboration with Thomas Sauvin ‘No More No Less’ which is a photobook which was published last November. The publication came about after Koike was invited to work with Sauvin’s archive of old images that he recovered from Beijing silver-recycling centres.
The images where made by an unknown Shanghai University photography student in the 1980s, simple black-and-white studio headshots that have an evenness of style, tone and lighting throughout.
Research and analyse the work of at least 2-3 (or more) photographers/ artists. Produce at least 2-3 blog posts for each artist reference that illustrate your thinking and understanding using pictures and annotation and make a photographic response to your research into the work of others
– Produce a mood board with a selection of images.
– Provide analysis of their work and explain why you have chosen them and how it relates to your idea and the exam themes of FREEDOM AND/OR LIMITATIONS
– Select at least 2 key images and analyse in depth, TECHNICAL (lighting, camera), VISUAL (composition, visual elements) (interpretation, subject-matter, what is the photographer trying to communicate), CONTEXTUAL (art historical, political, social, personal), CONCEPTUAL (ideas, meaning, theory of art/ photography/ visual culture, link to other’s work/ideas/concept)
– Incorporate quotes and comments from artist themselves or others (art critics, art historians, curators, writers, journalists etc) using a variety of sources such as Youtube, online articles, reviews, text, books etc.
– Make sure you reference sources and embed links to the above sources in your blog post
– Plan at least 2-3 shoots as a response to the above where you explore your ideas in-depth.
– Edit shoots and show experimentation with different adjustments/ techniques/ processes in Lightroom/ Photoshop
– Reflect and evaluate each shoot afterwards with thoughts on how to refine and modify your ideas i.e. experiment with images in Lightroom/Photoshop, re-visit idea, produce a new shoot, what are you going to do differently next time? How are you going to develop your ideas?
Other artists for you to research and explore who uses montage techniques
Dafna Talmor – cutting up and reassembling film negatives
http://www.dafnatalmor.co.uk/
Read; http://www.1000wordsmag.com/dafna-talmor/
David Hockney’s ‘joiners’
https://photomuserh.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/david-hockney-photography-will-never-equal-painting/
Emily Allchurch – architectural montages with reference to masterpieces from history of painting
https://www.emilyallchurch.com/
John Stezaker combining seemingly disparate images
Alma Haser – comic surgery and other projects
http://www.haser.org/cosmicsurgery
Weronika Gesicka – Traces and other projects
http://weronikagesicka.com/en/gallery/
Images and text:
Look up origin of photo montage / collaging in Dadaism – protest art in response to World War 1. Also early examples of performance art – link with you interest in drama etc.
https://www.theartstory.org/movement-dada.htm
Hamish Fulton – combing observations of nature and his own experiences in words on images
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/hamish-fulton-1133
– maybe respond to images of Jersey used in advertising/ tourism or something more political/radical
https://www.jersey.com/