Maybe I will reveal his real name, later, if you are lucky.
The designer Shrinkle has called him the "Fillipino LaChappelle". I must disagree. What Soybaby is doing is entirely more contemporary than anything I've seen in the last two years of LaChappelle's oeuvre.
I've never worked with anyone so quiet and gentle. Apparently, all of the excitement and energy is transferred directly into the camera.
He's also the proud owner of the famous San Francisco green chaise. You're nobody until you're photographed on it. It's a bit naughty, some kind of right of passage, definitely eerie.
Though it's clear that each image is carefully thought-out, when looking at McNeill's work, I feel as if thought becomes aware of its fragmentary character. She is as aware as any artist should be. No part of the composition is superfluous. Nothing is ornamental.
It's not a revolt against "pretty" or palatable, or publishable, as much as the work is a call to the sharp, a place from which no person can dissociate herself. McNeill studies color like Rothko, unafraid of experiment, yet with an intrinsic eye. Such stillness. A still more studied than a piece of a "movie" film, a still that halts the noise in the head, demanding attention of a good number of senses, numbing the rest.
So much to the contrary--but not in opposition--Hsu's work is fast. In an expression of how much movement and photography as medium diverge from one another, the work meditates temporality. It's full of punctuation like the slash "/", saying Look at this / and/or this / or there's this one. It's what Manny Farber would call Termite Art, sincere insofar as the tradition itself makes itself out of the blurring of distinction between theme and occasion--worth noting that much of Hsu's work consists of photodocumentary pieces of fashion and music shows--constant and eating itself.
Aaron S wrote: I don't know, this stuff really doesn't do it for me. I like the conceptual nature of work. Not work that is all shine and no substance.
You know, it's funny. That shot wasn't taken too long ago, but, the process has evolved so much since then.
It should be noted, my aesthetic is more of a classically influenced one. Aside from people like Newton, mostly photographers like Witkin, Weston, Steichen, Pictorialism, and it's changing, I am more and more abstracting, on a Rothko-esque path.
You know, it's funny. That shot wasn't taken too long ago, but, the process has evolved so much since then.
It should be noted, my aesthetic is more of a classically influenced one. Aside from people like Newton, mostly photographers like Witkin, Weston, Steichen, Pictorialism, and it's changing, I am more and more abstracting, on a Rothko-esque path.
Yes! It is exciting! I go to the SFMOMA far too often just to stare at a particular Rothko.
My friend wrote a poem after it. I'll find that too.
That'd be great. In London, at Tate Modern, there is the room of Rothko paintings. And I love just sitting there. I am reading Artist's Reality right now.
I am going through a thing for commercial photographers right now, so I would prefer to link to their websites after confirming they are indeed on mm as well. but, I have just done a whole bunch of cleaning, so I am too apathetic to do anything but say, Rothko rocks, and here is another non mm PHOTOGRAPHER whose Taschen book (which does much better justice to his images) is by my bedstand right now. This guy needs more press outside of the netherlands. Large format film prints hand tinted with gouache.
Webspinner wrote: I am going through a thing for commercial photographers right now, so I would prefer to link to their websites after confirming they are indeed on mm as well. but, I have just done a whole bunch of cleaning, so I am too apathetic to do anything but say, Rothko rocks, and here is another non mm PHOTOGRAPHER whose Taschen book (which does much better justice to his images) is by my bedstand right now. This guy needs more press outside of the netherlands. Large format film prints hand tinted with gouache.
Goodness, thank you. The apocolyptic images are interesting, especially considering the tension in "centered" images.
I'm going to have to spend some time with this one...more than ten minutes.
So, now's as good a time as any. And then I'm going to bed. Thread will be revived tomorrow, no worries.
I'm a bit nervous about the fallout...reviewing my friends' work and all. They are going to hate me and tell me I know nothing about their work. The truth, of course, is that the conscious viewer always knows more than the artist.
