Aperture's Blog, page 205

Alec Soth – on Influence, Summer Nights, and Allen Ginsberg

Alec Soth encountered Robert Adams’s 1985 monograph Summer Nights as a young photographer; the book was, in his words, a “gateway drug” to the “harder stuff” in Adams’s body of work. When asked to participate in Aperture Remix , an exhibition for which artists were commissioned to create new work in response to Aperture publications that were influential in their artistic development, Soth chose Summer Nights.
This video,  Summer Nights at the Dollar Tree , is Soth’s response to Adams, and is featured in the Aperture Remix exhibition on view at Aperture Gallery through November 17.

Soth spoke with Aperture Remix’s curator Lesley A. Martin about influence, Summer Nights, and Allen Ginsberg. The resulting conversation appears below, and is also included in the artist book Soth created as part of Aperture Remix.

Lesley A. Martin: For this project, you were asked to engage directly with an influential body of work—and with the photographer who created that body of work. What was the most difficult thing about that process?

Alec Soth: A few years ago I became really frustrated with photography. In order to continue working, I felt like I needed to take apart my process and to examine things before putting them all back together. One of the things I did was make re-creations of other people’s photographs. For example, I shot half a dozen versions of Migrant Mother. The point of this wasn’t to try and make my own iconic image—I was a more in the role of a student going to the museum and sketching from the masters.

What made this project different, and more difficult, was the looming presence of Robert Adams. In the case of Migrant Mother, I didn’t have to worry about Dorothea Lange and her opinion. But since this particular experiment was initiated by Aperture, Adams’s blessing was a necessity.

In the beginning, Mr. Adams graciously engaged in a letter correspondence with me. This was great, of course, but it was also inhibiting—it actually prevented me from having a dialogue with the core of his influence.

LAM: In other words, your dialogue became more about attempting to chat with esteemed, iconic master Robert Adams, rather than about an engagement with a set of actual ideas and images?

AS: Basically. Also, to borrow from Blake, my appreciation of Adams is all about innocence and experience. When I discovered Summer Nights I was discovering photography. The world felt so new. But that was a lifetime ago. It is hard to scrub your eyeballs of all that experience.

LAM: Exhibitions are an important way to experience work, but more often than not a book falls into one’s hands and becomes a primary way to engage with a set of images. How did you first encounter Robert Adams’s work and, more specifically, what is it about Summer Nights that you’ve found to be inspirational, maddening, or otherwise of interest to you personally?

AS: Almost all of the work I discovered as a young photographer was in book form. More often than not, I found these books at place called Half Priced Books. This store would always have books by popular photographers like Annie Leibovitz and Ansel Adams. They would also often have Robert Adams books. The first time I saw an Adams book, I remember wondering if he was Ansel’s son.

Early on, I wasn’t particularly taken with his books. They were too dry for me. But when I was twenty and discovered Summer Nights, things clicked. It is easy to see why. Summer Nights is his easiest book to digest. I think of it as the Robert Adams gateway drug. It certainly worked that way for me. I immediately went out and started taking night pictures. I didn’t find the book maddening at all. It just lit a spark for a kind romantic solitude.

LAM: Summer Nights, with its dark, empty streets; views through lamp-lit windows; and the lights of the carnival ride at night definitely feels different from the cooler assessments he seems to make in some of his other books. It tips his hand as a sentimentalist—in the best possible sense of the word—in a way that few other of his books do. His work also operates on a highly moral level, which seems to come from a sense of loss as much as judgement. Would you agree with that assessment?

AS: Yes, I would describe Adams as both a romantic and a moralist. You might even say he is romantically moral.

LAM: Has that sense of morality challenged you as a photographer?

AS: Absolutely, yes. As I said, Summer Nights was the gateway drug. As the years went by, I took on the harder stuff and, in fact, came to appreciate most of it more than Summer Nights. Los Angeles Spring is probably my favorite Adams book.

That said, I’m always aware of the fact that my moral temperament is vastly different from Adams’s. While I admire his conviction, I don’t feel the same outrage. Part of what I love about Los Angeles Spring is that it teaches me to find beauty in difficult places. I’m more interested in that beauty than in the anger that fueled Adams to go out and find it.

But the issue of rigor is more complicated. Adams is an incredibly rigorous artist—he is almost pious in his practice. I admire that and have longed for it to be a part of my work. There were times as a young artist when I emulated people like Richard Long. And God knows I’ve had plenty of fantasies of retreating to an adobe hut in the desert and purifying my practice.

One of the lessons I’ve learned from studying Adams—and others who live and work with his kind of rigor—is that I’m simply not that person. I grew up playing in the woods with my imaginary friends, but then I would come in at night and sit in front of the TV for a few hours. I’m a product of both those experiences.

LAM: To what extent do you think a young photographer needs to confront his or her influences, and at what point does one need to identify what one has learned and move on?

AS: It has always been important for me to wrestle with my influences. In college I studied under Joel Sternfeld. At the time, I was sort of embarrassed by his influence, so I made work that was as different as possible. But that was a waste of time. It was only when I worked through his influence that I really started to grow. Over time, you begin to understand influences and the nuances of what makes your own work different.

Photography is a language. To communicate, you need to learn the language. The history of photography is like the vocabulary and influence is like a dialect. One shouldn’t be embarrassed about having an accent. That said, it has been important for me to reevaluate those influences as the years go by.

There is a kind of mythmaking that inevitably surrounds influential artists. For me, it is more and more important to figure out how to function as a real-life human being than to emulate some sort of myth. I feel like I can now learn more from my influences by understanding the compromises and everyday challenges they faced than by upholding a schoolboy fantasy.

LAM: The anxiety of influence is hard to escape: one of the most deflating commentaries that someone can make about artwork is that it is “derivative.” In the context of thinking about photography as a language, however, I like your imagining work as “accented” one way or another.

At the very beginning of Why People Photograph, Adams writes: “Your own photography is never enough. Every photographer who has lasted has depended on other people’s pictures too.” How easy is that to acknowledge—both in terms of people from whom you’ve learned from and in terms of people who are following in your own wake?

AS: I’d be lying if I didn’t say the “derivative” jab can be deflating. But I think it is dangerous to obsess over this issue. It is better to grapple with your influences than run away from them. I learned a lot about about what defines my particular vision by figuring out how it differs from those who’ve inspired me.

In Adams’s essay, “Making Art New,” he quotes Matisse, who said, “I have accepted influences but I think I have always known how to dominate them.” I’m no Matisse, nor have I always known how to dominate my influences, particularly as a young photographer. But as time goes by, I have a better sense of who I am and how I might be able to move my particular football a little further down the field.

So I’m comfortable talking about my influences. As for those who may have been influenced by me, well, I’m not sure what to say about that.

LAM: I’m curious about the other side of the coin of influence—i.e., the self-consciousness one can feel once one’s own path has been established, a path that might stray away from or push beyond one’s mentors. The Allen Ginsberg quote you’ve included in this book, about Whitman, seems to express Ginsberg’s own yearning for kinship and respect while also consciously throwing out a dissonant image—“neon fruit supermarket”—that is hardly Whitmanesque. What’s that about for you?

AS: Ginsberg saved the day for me. “A Supermarket in California” clearly illustrates Whitman’s profound influence on Ginsberg, but Ginsberg’s voice rises above it. He sings with Whitmanesque bravado, but it’s still Ginsberg’s world. The poem wouldn’t work if Ginsberg had written about Civil War soldiers. He needed to use his own universe of neon supermarkets in order to say anything meaningful about Whitman.

Along with reading Ginsberg’s poetry, I read some interviews with him in which he talked about influence. In an interview in the Paris Review he talked a lot about William Blake. I had been thinking about Blake because Adams quotes him at the beginning of Summer Nights. But, of course, Adams quotes him in a really understated way. In this interview, Ginsberg talks about a vision he had after masturbating while reading Blake. I found this kind of exuberance refreshing. It helped me shake loose from some of the somber reverence I sometimes feel when engaging with Adams’s world.

LAM: That’s definitely a different invocation of Blake than the one found at the beginning of Summer Nights. In the Paris Review piece you mention, the interviewer keeps bringing up classical reference points, trying to tie Ginsberg to various literary traditions. Ginsberg bats them away, insisting that his writing is arrived at “organically rather than synthetically.” He states that his own challenge was to be able to accept writing outside of preconceived notions of what literature should be—and instead to “approach the Muse to talk as frankly as you would talk with yourself or with your friend.” In other words, he seems to be encouraging us not to take the weight of literary tradition too seriously and to trust in our own intuitions and inspirations, which can be found in both old and new; to be both traditional and taboo-busting, if you are open to it. Is this relevant to your own process of making work, of having found an authentic voice for yourself?

AS: Absolutely, yes! Here’s the thing: I love Robert Adams. But I also love the TV show Breaking Bad. I don’t see that as a contradiction. In fact, I can see similar issues of morality and the American social landscape in both. Would Robert Adams like Breaking Bad? I doubt it—and that’s just fine. But for me to have an authentic voice, I need to follow whatever stirs me. Maybe it would make me a better citizen if I read Wendell Berry rather than watched Breaking Bad, but it wouldn’t make me a better artist.

LAM: I’m curious to hear about how you arrived at video as a response to this project?

AS: I needed to shake things up. When I tried going out to take night stills, I just couldn’t get the blood pumping through my veins. The world I was looking at didn’t feel new. It felt like Robert Adams’s world.

I had a new camera with a video option that I’d never used. I didn’t really know what I was doing technically, but that was an asset. It felt good to be a bit lost.

The biggest thing about using video was the sound. Playing back the footage after my first night of shooting, I was so aware of the sound of the evening. For me, this is what really evoked the feelings I first had of seeing Summer Nights—the sort of solace that one can find as darkness and quiet settles over the landscape.

Alec Soth (American, b. 1969) has been the subject of many exhibitions, including The Space Between Us, a major retrospective presented at the Jeu de Paume, Paris, and Fotomuseum Winterthur in Winterthur, Switzerland, in 2008, and From Here to There, presented at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in 2010. Among Soth’s monographs are Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004) and Broken Manual (2010). In 2008 Soth started his own publishing company, Little Brown Mushroom. He is a member of Magnum Photos.

The Latin American Photobook

Chile o Muerte by Armindo Cardoso

Chile o Muerte by Armindo Cardoso

Doorway to Brasilia by Aloísio Magalhães and Eugene Feldman

Doorway to Brasilia by Aloísio Magalhães and Eugene Feldman

Amazonia by Claudia Andujar and George Love

Amazonia by Claudia Andujar and George Love

Retromundo by Paolo Gasparini

Retromundo by Paolo Gasparini

Buenos Aires by Horacio Coppola and Grete Coppola

Fotografias by Manuel Alvarez Bravo

Noturnos Sao Paulo by Cassio Vasconcellos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opening Reception: Thursday, November 29, 6:00-8:00 pm

The Latin American Photobook Symposium: Friday, November 30–Saturday, December 1

The Latin American Photobook, featuring a selection of volumes from the 1920s to the present, provides revelatory perspectives on the under-charted history of Latin American photography.

A growing appreciation of the photobook has encouraged a flood of new scholarship and connoisseurship of the form. Few projects have been as surprising and inspiring as The Latin American Photobook, the culmination of a four-year, cross-continental research effort led by Horacio Fernández (Spain), author of the seminal volume Fotografia Pública (1999). Compiled with the input of a committee of researchers, scholars, and photographers—including Marcelo Brodsky (Argentina), Iatã Cannabrava (Brazil), and Martin Parr (United Kingdom)—The Latin American Photobook publication presents one hundred and fifty volumes from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela. The book was published in Spanish by Editorial RM, in English by Aperture Foundation and Fundación Televisa, in Portuguese by Cosac & Naify, and in French by Images en Manœuvres.

The accompanying exhibition, presented earlier in 2012 at Le Bal, Paris, and Ivory Press, Madrid, features work by great figures such as Claudia Andujar, Barbara Brändli, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Horacio Coppola, Paz Errázuriz, Graciela Iturbide, Sara Facio, Paolo Gasparini, Daniel González, Sergio Larraín, and many others. On view are photobooks, vintage and modern photographic prints, videos of books, maquettes, notes, and studies for mock-ups. The photobooks are divided into seven thematic sections: America Before America, History and Propaganda, Urban Photography, Photo Essays, Artist’s Photobooks, Literature and Photography, and Contemporary Photobooks. This not only allows the visitor to explore individual photobooks and photographers, but also Latin America’s manifold social, political, and art histories.

Curator Horacio Fernández is a photo-historian and author of numerous catalogs and books, including Fotografía Pública: Photography in Print 1919–1939 (1999). He has been a senior lecturer at the Facultad de Bellas Artes in Sevilla, Spain, since 1988. Between 2004 and 2006 he was general curator of PHotoEspaña, the annual international photography festival in Madrid.

The Latin American Photobook was co-published with Fundación Televisa.

 

 

 

The Latin American Photobook exhibition and symposium is made possible, in part, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Tinker Foundation, The Council for International Teaching and Research and the Program in Latin American Studies at Princeton University, the Instituto Moreira Salles, Estrellita and Daniel Brodsky, and the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York.

 

 

Aperture Remix Exhibition – Video

Nan Goldin – The Ballad of Sexual Dependency – Reprint

Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a visual diary chronicling the struggle for intimacy and understanding between friends, family, and lovers—collectively described by Goldin as her “tribe.” Her work describes a world that is visceral, charged, and seething with life. As Goldin writes, “Real memory, which these pictures trigger, is an invocation of the color, smell, sound, and physical presence, the density and flavor of life.”

Through an accurate and detailed record of her life, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency reveals Goldin’s personal odyssey as well as a more universal understanding of the different languages men and women speak, and the struggle between autonomy and dependency.

First published in 1986, this reissue recognizes the persistent relevance and freshness of Nan Goldin’s cutting-edge photography. Over the past twenty-five years, the influence of Ballad on photography and other aesthetic realms has continually grown, making the work a contemporary classic.

This new edition of Ballad has been printed using new scans and separations created by master-separator Robert Hennessey from Goldin’s original transparencies, rendering them with unparalleled sumptuousness and impact.

For more on Nan Goldin and The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, see:

· The Guardian

· The Paris Review

· MoMA

· BOMB Magazine

· ASX

The Ballad of Sexual DependencyPrice: $50.00

Lynne Cohen – Occupied Territory Exhibition & Book Signings

In 1987, Aperture published Lynne Cohen’s first photo book, Occupied Territory, an exploration of space as simulated experience—both idealized and standardized. The expanded reissue of Cohen’s monograph was released earlier this year, delivering her pioneering work to a contemporary audience and situating her images within the lineage of Lewis Baltz, Stephen Shore, and other widely celebrated New Topographics photographers.

In celebration of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Lynne Cohen’s Occupied Territory, join the photographer at two events in North America this month:
Montreal
Artist Talk and Book Signing: Lynne Cohen

Thursday, November 8, 2012, 6:00 pm

Paragraphe Bookstore

Montreal
New York
Lynne Cohen: Occupied Territory Opening Reception and Book Signing

Saturday, November 10, 2012, 4:00 pm–6:00 pm

Higher Pictures

New York

Image: Lynne Cohen, Corporate Office, from the series Occupied Territory

Occupied Territory Price: $60.00

Model Dining Room, from the series Occupied TerritoryPrice: $900.00

A2/SW/HK – Designers for the new Aperture magazine

Aperture has hired the London-based graphic design team A2/SW/HK (Scott Williams and Henrik Kubel) to redesign the magazine. One of A2’s specialties is typography—they draw unique fonts for each client—and they are working on a set of fonts for their fresh design of Aperture. Scott and Henrik’s extensive portfolio is full of smart, beautiful projects. We’re excited about what they’re doing for us right now, which you’ll see very soon. In the meantime, visit A2/SW/HK’s website to see their work.

 

Above: Samuel Beckett, complete works, 2009—2010, Faber & Faber, London. Cover design & bespoke typefaces by A2/SW/HK

Chris Buck – Artist Talk and Signing @ Aperture Gallery

 

This Wednesday at Aperture Gallery, join Chris Buck for an artist talk about his first photobook, Presence: The Invisible Portrait.

Presence brings a counterintuitive and conceptual take on the desire to behold fame. A successful editorial portrait photographer, Buck ingeniously set up these shots so that, even without digital manipulation, no human figure can be seen. From the super-famous (Robert De Niro, Jay Leno, Snoop Dogg) to the legendary (Günter Grass, Chuck Close, Archbishop Desmond Tutu) to the notorious (Nick Cave, David Lynch, Sarah Silverman), the range of subjects and collaborators blurs the line between the indulgence of pop culture and the obliqueness of art photography. A book signing will follow the discussion.

For more on Presence: The Invisible Portrait, see:

· Cool Hunting

· Huffington Post

· GQ

Chris Buck Presence: The Invisible Portrait Talk and Signing

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

6:30 pm

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore

547 West 27th Street, New York

101 Tragedies of Enrique Metinides – Trisha Ziff

“There’s a huge contradiction for me between publishing and looking at these images, and how in the street—just in ordinarily life—I respond to something gruesome that happens.”

Manuel Geerinck – New Limited-Edition Photograph

Aperture is pleased to offer a new limited-edition photograph, untitled ph 1507, 2007, by Manuel Geerinck, contributing photographer to The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography. Now available in the Aperture gallery and online.

“These are true abstractions. You may think you see eggs and bugs and aliens and, indeed, clouds, but there is a beautiful vagueness to these. These are not recognizable things.” —W.M. Hunt

Untitled PH 1507, 2007Price: $850.00 The Edge of Vision Limited-Edition PortfolioPrice: $3,000.00

New Limited-Edition Photograph: untitled ph 1507, 2007

“These are true abstractions. You may think you see eggs and bugs and aliens and, indeed, clouds, but there is a beautiful vagueness to these. These are not recognizable things.” —W.M. Hunt

Aperture is pleased to offer this special limited-edition photograph, untitled ph 1507, 2007, by Manuel Geerinck, contributing photographer to The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography. Now available in the Aperture gallery and online.

Untitled PH 1507, 2007Price: $850.00 The Edge of Vision Limited-Edition PortfolioPrice: $3,000.00