How do Birthe Piontek and Richard Billingham, express the notion of family and relationships in their work?
Opening quote
Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. Link to power points about isms and movements M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\Personal Study
Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
Compare How Phillip Toledano’s and Nancy Borowick’s photography represent the concept of loss?
How have concepts of family, separation and memory been explored in the photo books of Sarello, Casanova and Germain?
In what way is identity and autobiography expressed in the work of Chino Otsuka and Tom Hunter?
In what way does Carole Bénitah explore childhood memories through her work as a method of understanding identity?
How do Sam Harris and Richard Billingham, express the notion of family and relationships in their work?
// was there ever a point where you thought, ‘i can’t share these pictures, they’re too personal’? // yes, i had to work on finding the right tone, like turning the volume up and down. in order to test this out, at certain moments i documented a lot of really powerful images, but it took me a while to figure out the right tone. there were some more visually explicit images of my fresh scars straight after surgery, at the time i was feeling a lot of anger and the tone was a lot louder. then later, i decided those pictures were for me and nobody else.
// what are you working on at the moment? // i have been working for a long time on a long-term project with my family in germany. they are all portraits revolving around the people and things i grew up with. over time it has become quite a substantial project dealing with, amongst other things, my mother’s dementia, and my parents are moving out of the family home and it’s all about the house and their things. this was originally about my need to capture a moment; when you live abroad and visit home you notice the changes more.
Modernism
'A general term used to encompass trends in photography from roughly 1910-1950 when photographers began to produce works with a sharp focus and an emphasis on formal qualities, exploiting, rather than obscuring, the camera as an essentially mechanical and technological tool.'
Modernism was generally based on idealism and a utopian vision of human life and society and a belief in progress. It assumed that certain ultimate universal principles or truths such as those formulated by religion or science could be used to understand or explain reality. Modernist artists experimented with form, technique and processes rather than focusing on subjects, believing they could find a way of purely reflecting the modern world.
Post-modernism
'Postmodernism was a reaction against modernism.'
The term was first used around 1970. As an art movement postmodernism to some extent defies definition – as there is no one postmodern style or theory on which it is hinged. It embraces many different approaches to art making, and may be said to begin with pop art in the 1960s and to embrace much of what followed including conceptual art, neo-expressionism, feminist art, and the Young British Artists of the 1990s.
The aim of my personal investigation is to record a personal exploration into my family and origins within my family
The inspiration for my project and the sort of outcome I would like to achieve in my project comes from artists such as Birthe Piontek and Donja Nasseri who are artists the explore similar topics such as family relationships and identity. In my project I would like to create images like the ones by Donja Nasseri where the finds interesting ways photograph objects or physical images that have a significant meaning, I intend to use those more abstract colorful images as a juxtaposition with some more poetic images with inspiration from artists such ad Birthe Piontek.
Rules of photography from article by Lewis Bush https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/photography-2/eight-photography-rules-worth-breaking/
As a photographer, it can feel futile to keep adding to this visual blizzard, when so much can be said with those that already exist. The solution, for some, lies in a creative attitude to the old-fashioned idea of ownership and copyright.
For seven years the French collector Thomas Sauvin harvested film negatives from Beijing’s vast dump, buying them from specialist scavengers who recycle the negatives for the valuable silver they contain.
In his hunt, Sauvin has created an archive of a million images that offers a unique insight into a pivotal period in modern Chinese history, from the tail end of Mao’s cultural revolution, to the economic success story of modern China.
Belgian artist Mishka Henner, meanwhile, works with images he finds online to dissect the motivations and power of their original producers.
In 51 US Military Outposts, he uses satellite imagery of US military bases around the world to probe the extent of this modern American empire. His interest in these images, he says, lies in the fact that “the people who are running the show, that’s the stuff they’re working with.”
