art photography in the vernacular

These are all photographs taken by my favorite amateur photographer, my boyfriend Ken. The images were the result of a project he completed while crossing the country in his 1987 Toyota Cressida. His trip started in San Francisco and ended in Chicago, so he stayed close to route 66 the whole way. Considering that the history of photography is one of my main areas of interest, and the category of amateur photography is becoming increasingly more important to the contemporary practice, I find myself extremely drawn to these images. While I spent a good deal of this academic year reading about surrealist manipulations of the medium, I keep coming back to more contemporary investigations. In my mind there is an undeniable link between the modern photographers and the contemporary digital artists like Gursky and Wall. Throughout the century there is a continued interest in the photograph as documentary, no matter how much that notion has been contested in academia. The rise of vernacular photography, as evidenced in the proliferation of exhibitions like the one currently at the art institute "In the Vernacular," still has at its heart these questions of authenticity and the camera's documentary role. I know this to be true because these remarkable images were produced only because Ken wanted to "document" his trip across the country. It was this exact word he used over and over when I asked about his project.

There is no question that these images make a case for the surreality that results from the automatic nature of the photographic medium. These could stand as contemporary examples of exactly this principle that the surrealist photographers were so fond of. Many of the effects I find to be compelling in Ken's images resulted directly from faults in the cameras he was using, and his haphazard photo-taking techniques (sorry Ken, I know how you take pictures).

What is strange is that these photographs can be seen to represent both sides of the debate. On the one hand, they are extremely personal and as previously mentioned, meant for documentary purposes. They are definitely in the vernacular. They also have that "americana" quality that is so typical of contemporary photography practices. The roadside structures, landscapes and strips of highway bring to mind Ed Ruscha and Edward Hopper at the same time. Yet the surreal effects caused by the automatism produces the kind of beauty that belongs to art photography. It is precisely their abstraction and separation from visual truth that makes them beautiful. Ken has stumbled upon an image-making process that addresses both sides of this century-long debate.

a voice from beyond?

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The voices of advertisers come at us from everywhere. Radios, T.V.s magazines, websites. They keep coming up with more and more places to place ads. Soon we will all have to check ourselves into institutions to escape from the voices. Millions of people make millions of dollars telling us what we want to hear, asking us to tell them what we want to hear, so they can tell us what we want to hear so that we buy products they want to sell. This is nothing new, and neither is the subject of today's post: billboards. To me, billboards are by far the most fascinating of all advertising methods. For one, there is the proximity to the heavens. As much as we are used to advertising voices filling our airspace, there is no denying that a message that appears to come from the sky, in HUGE writing, is bound to strike up some associations. Especially since billboards frequently rely on declaratives. What could a message from god possibly look like, if not a GIANT DECLARATIVE SENTENCE COMING FROM THE SKY. Another fascinating aspect of billboards to me is the visibility of aging and layering. No other advertising method allows you to see the previously placed pealing messages of the past. I find the layering to be a kind of literalization of time passing as viewed through a progression of images. For someone like me that loves all things old, historical and visual, it doesn't get much better than that. There are also the particular kind of aging advertisements painted on the sides of buildings. These are much more common in Chicago than San Francisco, since Chicago is a much older city. To me these faded messages read as much like ghosts of old versions of neighborhoods as anything ever could.

invisible aesthetics

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For the first set of images I decided to start with an aesthetic comparison. As a native San Franciscan and recent Chicago transplant, I have a personal investment in both of these frequently overlooked, visual components of the two cities. The top image depicts a staple of domestic Chicago architecture--the back stairs/entrance or fire escape. I was informed when I first moved here about 6 months ago that these became the standard for Chicago homes in response to the devastation caused by the Chicago fire. As a San Franciscan, I'm used to a much different conception of population density; the idea of each pair of streets having their own alley and separate entrance was initially completely baffling. This feature has become one of my favorite aspects of the city's architecture. Row after row of these fantastic wooden fire escapes line the alleys. With the endless flatness that is mid-western terrain (another novelty to me), truly astounding visual experiences can result from a peek down an average alley way. This photograph captures the contrast of the brick and wood structures that I find to be so compelling. Every time I encounter one of these structures (including walking up my own alley and staircase), I cannot help but feel that I am experiencing the private, inner life of a city's structure.

San Francisco's Muni lines may not be entirely in line with the kind of aesthetic that comes to mind when picturing the city's Victorian architecture as it reflects bright California sun light. Psychedelic paint-jobs, monumental bridges, and the kind of views that could only result from the city being built on a series of endless vertigo-inducing hills--these are the images found on post-cards of San Francisco. These images explain appeal to the countless under-dressed tourists who come to the city only to be shocked by the fact that it is normally 20 degrees colder than the imagined California climate. There is no question that the city of San Francisco offers a range of aesthetic experiences that are amplified by the prominence of the city's bright light and color. But one important aesthetic component of the city that is specifically meant to go unnoticed is the web of wires that enclose the city. Muni wires are everywhere, and they provide a completely unique service to the aesthetic of the city. They create an intimacy to the urban space, and also a sense of connectedness. The most famous landmark of San Francisco may be the Golden Gate Bridge (I've been told it is the most photographed structure in the world); but if you ask anyone who has lived in San Francisco about the Muni lines instead, my guess is you will get a much more impassioned response.

So what can be said about looking at the city structures that inhabit our visual fields and shape our experiences on a daily basis, when they are often meant to be invisible? There is a massive web that entangles the city of San Francisco and it necessarily changes its inhabitants' experience of their environment on a daily basis. It is entirely present and visible, yet most of the time, it is exactly the opposite.

statement of purpose

In the twenty-first century images are everywhere. We notice them, analyze them, engage them, ignore them, enjoy them, seek them out. We watch T.V., and movies, go to see art, pass by advertisements, decorate our homes—we live in and around images at all times. These images have categories and terms of engagement. We determine our levels of engagement with these images by their categories. As an art history student, I was taught the traditional art historical methods for engaging art objects, and learned how to adjust these methods depending on what the object demands. But my desire to understand all the images that inhabit every corner of my life extends beyond studying art. This blog is an effort to delegate some space for the analysis of images that do and don’t get printed in art history text books, hung on museum walls, or illuminated by projectors on classroom screens. In academia, there is a slow change occurring that reveals a desire to acknowledge the place of images in contemporary culture beyond the disciplines of art history and film studies. Classes and sub-departments dedicated to media or visual studies hint at the fact that the traditional academic disciplines can be seen to have blind spots in these areas.
But for some dedicated image-enthusiasts such as myself this change isn’t happening fast enough.
Each post will offer some analysis of images, related in content, context, or aesthetic quality, that I come across in any of the previously mentioned channels. My analysis of these images is posited only as a starting point for what I hope to be discussions that will give these images the critical attention they deserve.