Book Review The Universe Next Door By Abelardo Morell Reviewed by Colin Pantall The cover of Abelardo Morell's The Universe Next Door sets the scene perfectly. It's a signature Abelardo Morell picture; a view of Central Park looking north. There are the trees, a pond and the surrounding buildings projected upside down against the interior wall of an apartment. An electric cable trails across the floor of the room, closed curtains and a closed door interfere with the Central Park view. It's simple but magical, one of the trademark camera obscura pictures that Morell is best known for.

The Universe Next Door. Photographs by Abelardo Morell.
 Art Institute of Chicago, 2013.
 

The Universe Next Door

Reviewed by Colin Pantall

The Universe Next Door
Photographs by Abelardo Morell.
Art Institute of Chicago, 2013. 176 pp., 40 color and 100 duotone illustrations, 11x9-1/2".

The cover of Abelardo Morell's The Universe Next Door sets the scene perfectly. It's a signature Abelardo Morell picture; a view of Central Park looking north. There are the trees, a pond and the surrounding buildings projected upside down against the interior wall of an apartment. An electric cable trails across the floor of the room, closed curtains and a closed door interfere with the Central Park view. It's simple but magical, one of the trademark camera obscura pictures that Morell is best known for.

The Universe Next Door details the evolution of these pictures, but it does much more than that. It also shows just what an innovative and engaged photographer Morell is, a photographer who connects the simplicity of the oldest of photographic techniques with the fundamental complexities of how we conceptually experience the world. In The Universe Next Door we see pictures that, as Elizabeth Siegel writes in the introduction, "…call attention to the material, physical and tangible. He renders everyday, overlooked objects unfamiliar by bestowing on them a heightened sense of both their tangible existence and what else they could be."

The Universe Next Door, by Abelardo Morell. Published by Art Institute of Chicago, 2013.

In the camera obscuras, he does this by attaching the world of interiors to the world of exteriors. Look at a picture such as Times Square in Hotel Room and suddenly the bed the guest is supposed to sleep on is transformed into a public space rattling with the typographical noise of a hundred billboards and neon signs. Coca Cola, Avis and Andrew Lloyd Webber rub up against Rent signs and ads for Suntory Whisky. And when all is done, there is a row of taxis waiting to whisk you away down an eerily empty street (a street emptied by the 8 hour exposure it took to make the picture) back to a hotel room that is suddenly not as quiet as it appeared in the brochure or on the website.

It's William Klein mixed with Nicéphore Niépce, high energy and the history of photography. But Morell didn't just stumble on his camera obscuras by accident. They were the result of his early photographs of his children and how they saw the world. Laura and Brady in the shadow of our house shows Morell's children lying on sandy ground, windows etched into the soil, the roof of the virtual house provided by a 'real' shadow from a 'real' house. This is early experimentation with the different visual layers of a picture, something that would be more fully realised in Morell's subsequent work.

The Universe Next Door, by Abelardo Morell. Published by Art Institute of Chicago, 2013.

The Universe Next Door, by Abelardo Morell. Published by Art Institute of Chicago, 2013.

Morell also used to be a teacher so we see the classroom experiments that led Morell to his camera obscuras; Light Bulb, 1991 shows a light bulb shining in front of a simple cardboard box. On the front of the box is a large format lens. The light goes through the lens and hey presto, visible on the back of the box is the upside-down image of the bulb. And Morell takes a picture of it.

This led directly to the camera obscura pictures, but even with these hugely successful images, Morell was constantly innovating. From black and white he moved to color, from an inverted image, he moved to a non-inverted image by using a prism to refract the exterior light through 180 degrees, from analogue he moved to digital and from a room as a camera obscura he switched to using a mobile tent to make his pictures.

For these tent pictures, the outside image was projected onto the ground and then photographed using digital technology (a 2 minute exposure is much easier to make than an 8 hour exposure). The result is images where the view is visually connected to the ground from which it was photographed. View of the Golden Gate Bridge from Battery Yates shows the Golden Gate Bridge but we also see the parched soil from upon which Morell was standing. Tufts of grass, dusty soil and the odd buttercup or two give the bridge a much more transitory feel than we usually see.

The Universe Next Door, by Abelardo Morell. Published by Art Institute of Chicago, 2013.

It's not all camera obscuras though. Morell photographs museums, engages in book arts and experiments with photograms. His Alice in Wonderland Series shows the characters of the book leaping in and out of the pages of a modified book. Again, dimensions are played with and there’s a photographic homage to Lewis Carroll, the author of the book and renowned photographer of children.

The Universe Next Door is a journey through Morell's career, a career in which he has constantly adapted his practice to new possibilities, while staying true to the original idea of making (as Siegel says in the introduction) the photograph "a wonderful wonder of wonders."—COLIN PANTALL

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COLIN PANTALL is a UK-based writer and photographer. He is a contributing writer for the British Journal of Photography and a Senior Lecturer in Photography at the University of Wales, Newport.http://colinpantall.blogspot.com

Vanishing Existence by Kosuke Okahara

This week's Book of the Week pick comes from Manik Katyal, curator, photo editor found and editor-in-cheif of Emaho Magazine. Katyal selected Vanishing Existence by Kosuke Okahara published by Backyard Project.

"Vanishing Existence is a self-published book by Japanese photographer Kosuke Okahara — a forty page limited edition of 100 copies. The book is carefully designed. Kosuke selected traditional Japanese paper and incorporated an ancient binding technique to give the atmosphere of Chinese paleography. It is a beautiful handmade book about China's forgotten leprosy colonies. Okahara's strong visual imagery is complimented by the writing of his travel companion Takeshi Nishio who accompanied Kosuke to the far corners of rural China." -- Manik Katyal


The trade edition is now out-of-print. Please email us to be notified when the limited edition is available.

 

from Vanishing Existence by Kosuke Okahara

Manik Katyal is the Founder, Curator, Photo Editor and Editor-in-Chief of Emaho Magazine — an online publication that aims to put forward emerging artists by organizing international exhibitions and workshops. Katyal is a journalist who has interviewed some of the world's renowned photographers. He was nominated for the ‘Creative Entrepreneur of 2012’ award by the British Council.

Katyal was a judge at the FORMAT International Photography Festival, The Reminders Stronghold Project Grant, and FotoDoks Workshop in support of VII Photo Agency. Katyal participated for 2012 Fotovisura Grant with fellow judges from Time, New York Times, CNN, New Yorker and many others. He served on the panel for the 2013 LUCEO Student Awards and the International Photography Awards 2013. Katyal also served as a portfolio reviewer for FORMAT International Photography, Chiang Mai Documentary Arts Festival, Angkor Photo Festival, Encontros da Imagem, and Arles.

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Don Quijote, 2000 -- Tony Chirinos

We are pleased to announce a portfolio of images from Tony Chirinos. Titled Fighting Cocks, Chirinos' photographs give a glimpse into a cockfighting community on the island of San Andres, Colombia. Through his special use of flash, Chirinos is able to render his subjects with a startling dimensionality. The photographs of the cocks are especially eerie, their plucked legs and confrontational stances make them appear as fierce creatures, more closely resembling images of dinosaurs than fat and docile backyard hens. Chirinos’ images bring us to the fights, though the photographs are never graphic; the fighting itself is clearly not what Chirinos finds compelling. While the images center on the birds, the men who own them are always on the periphery, creating a unique tension where the birds become reflections of something bigger, the culture that breeds them, the men who hold the sport in high esteem.

Chirinos' interest in cockfighting goes back to his father's stories of his own childhood encounters with fighting roosters. For Chirinos, photography is a way to interact with his heritage and long-standing cultural traditions. Both the series and Chirinos' background are intriguing, and on the occasion of this portfolio, I've asked him to tell us a little bit more about each. -- Sarah Bradley

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Altar, 2000 -- Tony Chirinos

Sarah Bradley:     A certain audience will bristle at the mere notion of cock fighting -- which is illegal in the United States -- yet your images seem to avoid simple judgments and instead look deeper, the creatures becoming a metaphor for the masculine culture that breeds and fights them. What drew you to this sport and what has making these images showed you about the culture of cock fighting that you hadn’t previously understood?

Tony Chirinos:     What drew me to cockfighting were the stories that my father would tell the family during dinnertime. My father grew up in Cuba during the most prosperous time that the country ever experienced and yet he was very poor but managed to live a life full of youthful encounters. One of those encounters was owning roosters for cockfighting. He would tell us about the training, shaving of the feathers, cutting the crest, feedings, the preparation for the fight, the spurs and even how to cook a dead fighting rooster. During those hard times nothing went to waste. All those stories that my dad told have vividly stayed in my memory and I was able to relive my father’s youth through my project and images. What my images showed me is that my father’s stories were real; just like in the movie Big Fish directed by Tim Burton, I too was not sure if everything my father told was real and or exaggerated by time.

La Familia, 2000 -- Tony Chirinos

SB:     You've mentioned that you were welcomed into the cock fighting community of San Andres. Can you elaborate on the experience of shooting this series and your interactions with both the men who raise the birds and the animals themselves?

TC:     Well, I became a spectator for two years before I even introduced the camera and I feel that that time gave me the knowledge of all aspects of this sub-culture we call cockfighting. For example, the words that are being used during the fight might seem irrelevant to someone experiencing this chaos for the first time but for the skilled owners of the cocks the same words can mean your cock is winning or loosing or your cock is hurt or the house bets just changed to double or nothing. Those words were very important for me to learn and master because it gave me insight into what was going to happen next forcing me to prepare for the next visual experience that I can capture. The men that participate in this sub-culture range from very humble to mean, aggressive and dangerous and I experience both. Wolly Time was a humble man who invited me to experience the way he trained his 70 cocks. Unfortunately I also saw Wolly get shot and die during a dispute in a cockfighting festival that occurs every Christmas week holiday in San Andres. I also befriended a very aggressive and dangerous man who also owned cocks. I have to thank Carlos Gordon who became my guide and confidant during the seven years that it took to finish this project. As for the birds, I just wanted to make portraits of them not pet them.

Serenata, 2000 -- Tony Chirinos

SB:     I'm curious about the distinctive manner in which you shot this series, utilizing multiple flash heads, which gives the images a unique look. What made you chose to shoot the series like this?

TC:     I can’t speak for all photographers but at least for me I am very fascinated by the fact that we acquire our subjects from the real world but the resulted is always printed on a 2D surface. My interest as a photographer is to open up the spatial distant between the foreground, middle ground and background by using lights the same way the movie industry does, which allows me to recreate a 3D world on a 2D surface. For example, each of the three flash heads are illuminating a specific area of the structured image with very specific light intensity resulting in sculptural looking photographs.

Coño, 2000 -- Tony Chirinos

SB:     In Cocks, as well as a number of your other photographic series, you use photography to explore your Hispanic background. How does your cultural background interact with your photography and how has it influenced your work?

TC:     I feel that I don’t belong and that I am lost in this world ethnically. Born in Venezuela from Cuban parents and migrated to the United States at age of six created this dilemma for me. Who am I, Venezuelan, Cuban or American? I don’t know but I am understanding bit by bit from each photographic project that I complete. My cultural background comes from what I have heard from relatives or seen in pictures and I think that what I am trying to do is recreate that glimpse of culture through the projects that I photograph. For example, Where Men Gather, is a project about Latin Barber Shops and the relationship between men and their longing for home. Photography is my culture and it’s where I best fit.

El Tuerto, 2000 -- Tony Chirinos

SB:     Your photographic background is interesting as well -- you spent years as a bio medical photographer. Can you talk about your path to fine art photography and how this background helped develop your eye?

TC:     This is a very interesting question but a very important one at least for me. My path to fine art was not clear; what was clear to me was that an image/photograph had POWER to effect the viewer and that fascinated me. Fine art is just another category that people try to associate you with what you are doing. I consider myself a documentary style photographer making work that engages the viewer aesthetically and intellectually that also moves beyond mere entertainment to ask the viewer to think critically. I feel that my experience as a bio medical photographer amplified for me the understanding of photography as a visual language, in the same way that a writer masters diction. Being able to express myself using images rather than words gave me the confidence that forces me to have high expectation of what I do and why I do it. Every image/photograph that I produced during my tenure as a bio medical photographer had to be perfect both in technique and in narrative and perfection is what I thrive for.

View the complete portfolio

For more information or to purchase a print please contact photo-eye Gallery at 505-988-5158 x121 or gallery@photoeye.com.

Book Review Speaking of Scars By Teresa Eng Reviewed by Adam Bell Photography is particularly ill equipped to visualize the ineffable or to address what can't be easily expressed in words. Bound to its indexical nature, photographs are frustratingly tethered to their subject matter. Yet this limitation and challenge makes photography a particularly rich medium. The tension between the actual and suggested meanings of an image is often key to its power.

Speaking of Scars. Photographs by Teresa Eng.
 If / Then Books, 2013.
 

Speaking of Scars

Reviewed by Adam Bell

Speaking of Scars
Photographs by Teresa Eng.
If / Then Books, 2013. Hardbound. 68 pp., 50 color illustrations, 6-3/4x9".

Photography is particularly ill equipped to visualize the ineffable or to address what can't be easily expressed in words. Bound to its indexical nature, photographs are frustratingly tethered to their subject matter. Yet this limitation and challenge makes photography a particularly rich medium. The tension between the actual and suggested meanings of an image is often key to its power. Because of its frequently obtuse nature, photographers often lazily use keywords like 'memory' and 'trauma' to impart significance to images and work that is not resolved. However, in skilled hands, a photograph can deal with these subjects. Teresa Eng's Speaking of Scars attempts to address a personal trauma and its lingering presence within her memory. Through inventive design and subtly suggestive images, Eng's book avoids these pitfalls and, by leading us through her therapeutic process, achieves a beauty and power all its own.

Speaking of Scars, by Teresa Eng. Published by If / Then Books, 2013.

Speaking of Scars, by Teresa Eng. Published by If / Then Books, 2013.

The book's design is especially interesting and crucial to its success. Eng makes use of folded pages, translucent overlays and overlapping pictures. Images unfold, pile up and fold back onto themselves. Stacked on top of one another they suggest that each image is built upon and dependent on others. Even in their cumulative powers images can't answer or explain. Left with mysterious piles, folds and overlays, the images remain silent in the face of a trauma they are incapable of expressing. Unlike a lot of clever design whose bells and whistles do little to enhance the work, the multiple strategies used within the book are essential to its meaning. One must engage the images to decipher their meaning. We are active participants. Like Eng herself, we puzzle and infer meaning from the images. The book contains little text beyond a J.M. Coetzee quote in the beginning and a short personal statement at the end that reveals the full story behind the work. It is worth leaving that unsaid as it adds to the power of the book.

Speaking of Scars, by Teresa Eng. Published by If / Then Books, 2013.

Most of the images seem to take place in a hospital or place of convalescence – hospital rooms overlook the sea, coastal mountains sit in the distance and fruit or flowers sit on the windowsill. However, all is not peaceful. Images of calming hope are mixed with images of enigmatic frustration and silent rage. In one image, a blunt post or furniture leg pushes obdurately against a stretched and resistant vinyl floor. The few people who do appear reveal bruises or turn away from the camera, their faces and bodies obscured in shadows. Through her careful editing, images gain powerful and menacing resonance through their associative sequencing and pairs. An innocuous ripe cantaloupe echoes an image of bruised flesh and mirrors back terrifying possibilities and associations. A small bunny statue sits in a corner and appears to be retreating from the world and difficult memories. Blinds and curtains obscure the outside world or part to reveal the light and sea. Darkness and light wax and wane like moments of hope and despair. In another image, a silk wrapped fragment of furniture is more suggestive of what it is hiding than its pink pretty surface.

Speaking of Scars, by Teresa Eng. Published by If / Then Books, 2013.

Speaking of Scars, by Teresa Eng. Published by If / Then Books, 2013.

The therapeutic value of art, for both the maker and viewer, is fairly obvious. What is less frequently revealed is the therapeutic process for the artist. In Speaking of Scars, we are drawn closely into Eng's own therapeutic process. Refracted through her trauma and difficult memories, the work takes us along with her slow recovery. Forced to make connections and see the subtle relationships through Eng's eyes, we see that however powerful images may be in revealing the world around us, they can also suggest deeper, unspoken and evolving meanings. As viewers, like the artist, it requires work to make these connections, but the rewards can be great, cathartic and beautiful.—ADAM BELL

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ADAM BELL is a photographer and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. He received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts, and his work has been exhibited and published internationally. He is the co-editor and co-author, with Charles H. Traub and Steve Heller, of The Education of a Photographer (Allworth Press, 2006). His writing has appeared in Foam Magazine, Afterimage, Lay Flat and Ahorn Magazine. He is currently on staff and faculty at the School of Visual Arts' MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department. His website and blog are adambbell.com and adambellphoto.blogspot.com.

A Possible Life. By Ben Krewinkel.
 

A Possible Life – Ben Krewinkel published by f0.23 publishers

The beautifully crafted and layered A Possible Life uses photographs, letters, conversations and documents to investigate the life of Nigeria immigrant who has lived in the Netherlands for ten years, though the identity of the man called Gualbert remains at least partially hidden because of his status as an illegal alien. Selected as one of the Best Books of 2012.

A Possible Life is a book about an illegal immigrant to the Netherlands. His name is Gualbert and with the photographer Ben Krewinkel, he's the co-author of the book. Gualbert comes from Nigeria and has lived in the Netherlands for the last 10 years. Maybe. Or perhaps he comes from Niger because that's what all his papers are stamped with. Or perhaps his name isn't Gualbert and he's not a migrant because Krewinkel says that reading the book '...as a non-fictional and objective story purely, might be considered naive.' Instead Krewinkel regards the book is a partly fictitious account of an illegal immigrant’s life, one told through a collection of personal photographs, letters, conversations and official documents. – from the review by Colin Pantall

Another beautifully designed book where the pages need to be cut for the full perspective to be seen. It's an old trick, but wonderfully done. Thanks to the great design, this is a book where the whole forms substantially more than the parts. – Colin Pantall

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A Possible Life. By Ben Krewinkel.

Singular Beauty. By Cara Phillips.
 

Singular Beauty by Cara Phillips published by Fw: Books

Presented in a clean white box, the wonderfully designed Singular Beauty by Cara Phillips peers into the doctor’s offices, operating rooms and at the strange devices of the cosmetic surgery. Phillip’s perfectly composed photographs show spaces that are not just a medical sterility, but also cold and lifeless, devoid of human presence. Selected as one of the Best Books of 2012.

A slick insight in the world of cosmetic surgery. Both the clinical photographs as well as the glossy design with Japanese binding contribute to a terrific (almost scary) book regarding the limits of pushing physical beauty. -- WassinkLundgren

Cara Phillips' book Singular Beauty was printed with FW: and designed by Hans Gremmen in the Netherlands and produced as a result of a successful Kickerstarter campaign completed in January 2012. The book comes in a lightweight clamshell and the semi-transparent pages are folded almost as a Japanese binding with reverse printed black text with captions describing the subject and location of each office. All images in Singular Beauty were shot with a 4x5 camera and Phillips uses all available lights in the operating theater. These two factors create strikingly detailed images. -- Melanie McWhorter

View the video presentation by Melanie McWhorter

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Singular Beauty. By Cara Phillips.

The Line. By Palindromo Meszaros.
 

The Line self-published by Palindromo Meszaros

The cover photograph of The Line by Palindromo Meszaros is an image that is difficult to forget -- red mud covers the bottom of trees, the line matching up perfectly with the horizon. It's an impossible looking image, one that can take a few seconds to make sense of, and is a perfect encapsulating image to describe the terrible disaster that lead to its creation. On October 4th 2010, a retaining wall of a reservoir containing waste water from the MAL aluminum company burst, flooding the town of Ajka, Hungary will a million cubic meters of toxic waste. Causing ten causalities, poisoning fields and creating irreparable damage to homes and infrastructure, Meszaros photographed Ajka six months later. While the water had long-since receded, its presence remains -- every part of the landscape is stained with a red line from the toxic water that filled the landscape. The visual beauty of the red line pulls us into the work, but the disastrous event that caused it can never be forgotten, and the two presences are in conflict in every frame. The self-published book is beautifully designed making for a memorable document.

View the video presentation by Erin Azouz

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The Line. By Palindromo Meszaros.

Book Review Sworn Virgins By Teresa Eng Reviewed by Adam Bell Thanks to blood feuds over still-sacrosanct ancient laws and an imposing geographical isolation, there are fewer men than there used to be in the Accursed Mountains of northern Albania. Where a patrilineal culture is undermined, a most extraordinary tradition has emerged. In the absence of a male head of household, women subsequently known as "Burrnesha," or "sworn virgins," choose or are chosen to take a vow of chastity and live as men.

Sworn Virgins. Photographs by Karen Jenkins.
 MACK, 2013.
 

Sworn Virgins

Reviewed by Karen Jenkins

Sworn Virgins
Photographs by Pepa Hristova.
Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg, 2013. Hardbound. 228 pp., 71 color and 63 black & white illustrations, 8-1/2x10-1/2".

Thanks to blood feuds over still-sacrosanct ancient laws and an imposing geographical isolation, there are fewer men than there used to be in the Accursed Mountains of northern Albania. Where a patrilineal culture is undermined, a most extraordinary tradition has emerged. In the absence of a male head of household, women subsequently known as "Burrnesha," or "sworn virgins," choose or are chosen to take a vow of chastity and live as men. As it is surely not an antidote to a diminishing bloodline, this role rather provides a certain foothold in the family legacy, allowing these women-men to be land owners and bread winners where there were otherwise none. Pepa Hristova has both created and collected their portraits in Sworn Virgins. Title and artist name are transparently debossed in the book's cover image – a mountainous landscape that leads to several more sweeping views; all suggesting an immutability to this place and these lives, governed by codes that are both cause and consequence.

Sworn Virgins, by Pepa Hristova. Published by Kehrer Verlag, 2013.

Sworn Virgins, by Pepa Hristova. Published by Kehrer Verlag, 2013.

Thirteen individuals are depicted in Sworn Virgins, in multiples images and short texts, written by Danail Yankov or quoting the subjects. Representing the original iteration of this practice, Hakije and Qamile have lived as men since birth and early childhood respectively, in answer to their family's need for a male heir. Others like Diana, chose the role of sworn virgin for themselves, as an empowering act of autonomy and adventure. For Drande and Have, whose physical disabilities seemed a liability within proscribed female roles – it was a chance to beat some twist of fortune. In many portraits, the family home is a well-worn, complicated symbol of their legacy – a nod to the domestic for those whose choices have both preserved this realm and shifted their expected role within. Many of the sworn virgins are also depicted in a series of sequential images – less formal portraits than slice of life moments of smoking a cigarette, or walking down a mountain path. For subjects who are ostensibly hyper-aware of pose and affection, these sections – sometimes set out on gatefold pages – are an effective counterpoint of more unstudied gestures and aspects.

Sworn Virgins, by Pepa Hristova. Published by Kehrer Verlag, 2013.

Sworn Virgins, by Pepa Hristova. Published by Kehrer Verlag, 2013.

Each section of Hristova's color photographs is preceded by a smaller inbound insert comprised of black and white reproductions of existing portraits of the sworn virgin (and sometimes others) on pink, less substantial paper stock. While on one hand they have the ephemeral feel of photocopies, they are nonetheless an obstacle to getting directly to Hristova's contemporary views. These inserts insist that the viewer first reckon with how the Burrnesha have been seen in the past before taking on their latest depictions. They are a dynamic conflation of the theme of inevitability that runs through this cultural tale and a demonstration of each sworn virgin's pride and active authorship of her own story. Where so often vernacular imagery is used in a way that suggests a naivety on the part of its makers or subjects – as if the selector alone can understand its visual power – here it suggests that the sworn virgins understand the visual language at play and what it means to craft an image. While my thoughts surely turned to contemporary considerations of gender identity and sexual politics as I wonder at this practice and these lives, Hristova's project has also made me suspend my disbelief in the face of those who so confidently and knowingly wear their defining life choice on their sleeves.—KAREN JENKINS

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KAREN JENKINS earned a Master's degree in Art History, specializing in the History of Photography from the University of Arizona. She has held curatorial positions at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, AZ and the Demuth Museum in Lancaster, PA. Most recently she helped to debut a new arts project, Art in the Open Philadelphia, that challenges contemporary artists to reimagine the tradition of creating works of art en plein air for the 21st century.

We Make the Path by Walking by Paul Gaffney

This week's Book of the Week selection come from writer and photographer Colin Pantall who picked We Make the Path by Walking self published by Paul Gaffney.

"This is a book of quiet landscapes but they emerge from a more complex place; Gaffney's relationship with the land, with photography and with himself.

"The title is perfect. It's a book of paths made by walking. In this case the walking is by Gaffney's feet and is both meditative and obsessive. He walked over 3,500 kilometers to make the pictures in the book, which ends up being a mapping of the land he walked upon, the mindset he walked with and, because mapping is such an integral part of photography, a social history of photography." -- Colin Pantall

from We Make the Path by Walking by Paul Gaffney

Colin Pantall is a UK-based writer, photographer and Senior Lecturer at the University of South Wales, Newport.
http://colinpantall.com/
http://colinpantall.blogspot.co.uk/

Installation of Sudarios in at the chapel of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Retreat Center, Santa Fe -- Erika Diettes

Part II of Melanie McWhorter's interview with Colombia photographer Erika Diettes, an artist-in-residence for CENTER’s Artist Labs. An exhibition of Diettes' Sudarios series is currently on view at the chapel of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Retreat Center, home of CENTER offices. McWhorter spoke with Diettes about her work during the installation in Santa Fe. Read Part I of the interview.

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Installation of Sudarios in Santa Fe -- Erika Diettes

Melanie McWhorter:     People of varying professions -- like when I talk to massage therapist or school counselors -- talk about the difficulty of carrying other people's weight and that they have to look for ways to find relief afterwards. Do you feel that you need to be a medium for those who do not have a voice? If not, what do you see as your role? How do you deal with some of the weight of these experiences?

Erika Diettes:     It's definitely hard to sit down and listen to testimonies. I think that I started with Silencios; you start to open yourself to this stage of fragility. You become more fragile. You think it's going to become the opposite -- people think that you just build this hard shell and it's the contrary -- it's definitely the opposite. It's like walking with your raw skin. Sometimes you feel like you have heard the most horrible story that you could ever hear and then you meet somebody else and -- I don't want to count -- but there's always something more horrible than what you already heard. So it is difficult, I'm not going to say that it's not hard, it is extremely hard.  But at the same time it is extremely empowering. When you meet one of the women of Sudarios, when you see their strength in front of you giving that testimony and when you see the way they keep going with life and when you see the power that they have because they are very strong women. The first testimony that I heard from the Sudarios series I could not ever imagine how you would recover from something like that. It was a woman who had to witness -- who was forced to witness -- how they killed her mother, how they took out her eyes, how they cut her tongue, and the perpetrator told her you have to open your eyes because you have to see. You see this woman giving you that testimony and you see that she has two daughters and she keeps going with her life, obviously in a very hard way, but she still goes on. When you are witness of that you think, "I have no reason what so ever to complain, I'm just very grateful that I get to be a voice, I'm grateful that my work actually serves a purpose." So I just feel-- I guess the right word would be honored. 

Installation of Sudarios in Santa Fe -- Erika Diettes

I feel very honored and grateful to them for allowing me to be this bridge that connects the stories from these areas of Colombia. Of course we know where they are located but we really don't know what they look like. In Colombia when you are in the cities, when you live in Bogotá or in a big city it's like you really don't understand the dimension of the countryside, it's like it's two different countries. So I think for me to be able to be the bridge that connects these two places -- and I don't mean like physical place, but I mean like all the cultural and all the spiritual things that go in each place -- I think I just feel honor and that gives me the strength. I started the Rio Abajo project without imagining ten percent of the dimension that that project was going to have. I had no idea when I started that. So I think one thing fits the other, and it fits the other and it just makes it bigger and bigger and bigger, because I truly believe that we all need to be acknowledge, and I think these art projects sort of does that for these regions. And it's not only about talking about the violence but about talking about the strength also, it is very sad and it is extremely hard, but I just feel this incredible strength to also do something about it and the only thing I know is how to take photographs. I don't know how to do anything else. I will not be able to do anything else -- I don't know how to do anything else. My true passion and my love in life is photography and I feel very blessed to have found a way to express and represent something that is unrepresentable in a way. Because there's really no way of representing the dimension of the horror that they go through. I think that these are exercises or intents to do that, but there's no real way to that sort of understanding. But I guess the only thing that I can do is photography and I'm just very happy that they find my photography as a valid place to show their pain to the world. So I just feel very empowered.

MM:     Finally, since we are sitting on the CENTER campus in the IHM Retreat Center Chapel, where your work Sudarios is hanging, tell me why the installation and materials of each project is so important. Will you describe how you install works from Drifting Away and Sudarios and tell what experience that you are trying to create as a curator of your own work?

from Drifting Away (Rio Abajo) by Erika Diettes

ED:     I think nowadays we are in a very fortunate moment. If we think about technology we can do whatever we want, there is technology that can solve any problem. I think that the limitations are our ideas, because everything can be done today.  You name it, there's a place in the world that can do it. We have to think beyond regular medium, traditional medium, but I think that you need to understand what materials you really need to tell the story. If you have your story very clear, you will feel the materials that are absolutely necessary for that. Like for the Rio Abajo project, I was really obsessed with the idea of the river, and the idea of fragility of life; how can you put that together? I had the elements of how do you represent a person you cannot photograph, that was the first question. I started to think, OK, what do people keep of the person? Mostly they always keep clothing, and that also has a very-- of course it's a symbolic reason, but there's also a very utilitarian reason. What if he comes back? He needs his clothes. So they always keep his favorite shirt -- it's not any piece of clothing, it's his favorite thing. In other cases it's "He looked so handsome in this shirt" so that's the shirt that they keep. You have to keep into account that many of these families are also displaced from their original house so they have to leave that house with what they can grab and they always will keep something of that person in case he comes back. So I decided that the clothes was the way to go and then I needed the river. So I said, we need water, I literally wanted to put the clothing in the water. But then what material would make sense for this representation? So those images are printed on crystal, and when you see the installation it's really heavy pieces, they are as tall as I am -- they are very large pieces, they are heavy, but they are very fragile. You can do that in plexiglass, you can print in plexiglass, but then it wouldn't have the weight of the stories, which is why I chose to print in glass. It makes it heavier, it makes it more difficult to ship, you need more insurance, but that story would not be complete if you did not have the crystal element. It's something that needed to be done that particular way. Of course it took me many proofs to get the right color and right printer, but if you give your project the time-- it needs its own language. It has to be spoken perfectly. You need to have the symbolic element but you also need to find the medium to fit the symbolism that you're trying to look for.

from Sudarios by Erika Diettes

The Sudarios images on the other hand, it's like the opposite. They are very weightless images. They are printed on silk and they are called Sudarios because 'sudario' means shroud, and in some religions they wrap bodies in white linen, and that linen is called sudario. If you look in the Catholic religion, the sudarios is the place where Jesus' face was last imprinted. I really wanted to give the idea to the spectator that these women are ghosts. You see them floating in the church and you see them going to heaven. The way I install the work, there's always one image that is higher, it's like it’s ascending to heaven. I had the intention of that because in the many testimonies that I have heard there's always this idea -- and these are just literal words, I'm not making them up or interpreting anything -- that after the encounter with violence they are left dead in life. So I want to capture that because these are portraits of people who are alive, they are all still living, but they told me that they feel that they no longer belong to this world, after witnessing that violence it's like they are dead but they have a pulse. I think the perfect element for that was the silk because I wanted the images to be translucent and ephemeral, to have that ghostly appearance. So I think as an artist you have to look for the language you need to speak in that particular moment. And there's the technology available -- we can definitely do whatever. It's an amazing moment to be a creative person because there are thing to be done -- things you can do -- you just have to have the ideas for it. Maybe you just have to be patient. The Sudarios images are twenty images, but I had to print -- I think it was 97 proofs before I was able to get the color right, before I was able to get all of them together looking the same. I mean, it was insane, the number of images I printed. But you have to be patient, you have to be obsessive! You can get it done, it is a question of time and effort. You really have to commit to the effort of it!

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Erika Diettes with images from Sudarios

Visual Artist Erika Diettes lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia, exploring issues of memory, pain, absence and death. Her most recent work, Sudarios, was showcased in the 2012 Fotofest Biennal, the Festival de la Luz in Buenos Aires, the Ex Teresa Arte Actual in Mexico City, and the Ballarat Foto Biennale in Australia, among others. Diettes' photographic works are part of the permanent collection of major museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and has been exhibited at the Museums of Modern Art of Bogotá, Cali, Medellín and Barranquilla; the National Museum of Colombia; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago de Chile; the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and many more.

Diettes received a Master’s degree in Social Anthropology from the Universidad de los Andes and has authored several essays on artistic representation in times of war that have been included in books, newspapers and journals. Her photographs have been exhibited in unique spaces linked to re-memoration processes developed by victims’ movements in Colombia.

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Read Part I of Melanie McWhorter's interview with Erika Diettes. Diettes' installation of Sudarios will be on view at the chapel of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Retreat Center through October 24th.

Copies of Diettes' books, Silencios, Drifting Away (Rio Abajo) and Sudarios are available at photo-eye Bookstore.

Book Review Gasoline By David Campany Reviewed by Adam Bell Gasoline consumes us as much as we consume it. As we race forward and pass peak oil, the iconic and ubiquitous gas stations that litter the US landscape serve as a glaring reminder of our increasingly dangerous addiction. Through their association to cars, gas stations and gas signify freedom, the possibility of reinvention and the romance of the road.

Gasoline. By David Campany.
 MACK, 2013.
 

Gasoline

Reviewed by Adam Bell

Gasoline
By David Campany.
MACK, 2013. Hardbound. 64 pp., 36 black & white illustrations, 8-1/4x11".

Gasoline consumes us as much as we consume it. As we race forward and pass peak oil, the iconic and ubiquitous gas stations that litter the US landscape serve as a glaring reminder of our increasingly dangerous addiction. Through their association to cars, gas stations and gas signify freedom, the possibility of reinvention and the romance of the road. Perhaps they are just an inconvenient stop on the way somewhere else. In the early 21st century, they are also a reminder of our own exhaustion. We've painted our self in the corner. What was once cheap and inexhaustible is nearing its end and killing us in the process. In Gasoline, David Campany gathers thirty-five archival press photographs from the mid-40s to the mid-90s that depict the humble gas, gas station and the surrounding landscape. Elegiac, humorous, tragic and pointed, Gasoline is an astute and poignant reminder of the iconography and architecture of our lingering addiction.

Gasoline, by David Campany. Published by MACK, 2013.

Collected from deaccessioned newspaper archives, the photographs represent a bygone era when the physical print was the default. Moving from the darkroom to the picture editor's desk to print, the images were cropped, annotated and labeled. In presenting both sides of the images, the photograph's materiality is foregrounded. Bends, torn edges, wrinkles and grease pencil marks offer a glimpse of the image's history. The black and red colored marks also have a beauty all their own. Signs, people, cars and banal buildings all sit outside the colored lines, or are crossed out, and suggest that the cropped images have much more to tell than their editors allowed. Like most archival press images, the photograph's backs reveal the photo and reproduction credits, signatures and captions. For historians, this information is invaluable. As all images become digital, this wealth of information has rapidly disappeared. Although metadata often holds similar information, the impersonal data fields lack the richness of hand-written notes and tell their own story of use and circulation.

Gasoline, by David Campany. Published by MACK, 2013.

Gasoline, by David Campany. Published by MACK, 2013.

For a book on gasoline, the images themselves are quite varied. They show gas stations from their birth shortly after Eisenhower inaugurated the Interstate Highway System in the late-40s through the oil embargo in the late-70s to the mid-90s. Vernacular architecture is mixed with shots of signage, explosions, destroyed stations or men and women pumping gas. The book's most iconic image is on the cover and shows a woman slumped over the wheel. Resembling a Richard Este's painting, the photograph was taken during the oil embargo in the late 70s. Taken at a time when gas lines often stretched for blocks, it perfectly captures the crushing frustration of being trapped in a car. The woman, like most of us, is a slave to gas and her car. As a vehicle of freedom, being trapped and immobile in a car seems tantalizingly cruel.

Gasoline, by David Campany. Published by MACK, 2013.

The book is divided into two sections containing the front and then backs of the images. In between the two sections is a short, but fantastic, conversation between Campany and George Kaplan. Always smart and accessible, Campany offers wonderful insight into the project, his motivations and what such archival images say about our current moment. Although a cliché, all history is as much a mirror of the present as it is about the past. Our concerns, hopes and desires constantly filter and shape the way we read the past. While the book is ostensibly about gasoline, gas stations and energy consumption, it also speaks powerfully about the role of vernacular images in our lives and the evolving nature of the medium. In some ways, it is easy to conflate the nostalgic lament for the passing of analogy photography and its attendant materiality with the waning subject of the book. Nevertheless, the book reveals a world when gas was cheap, although sometimes scarce, pollution was a distant dream, gas stations were just a tank away and the open road promised a new life or just an exhilarating ride out of town.—ADAM BELL

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ADAM BELL is a photographer and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. He received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts, and his work has been exhibited and published internationally. He is the co-editor and co-author, with Charles H. Traub and Steve Heller, of The Education of a Photographer (Allworth Press, 2006). His writing has appeared in Foam Magazine, Afterimage, Lay Flat and Ahorn Magazine. He is currently on staff and faculty at the School of Visual Arts' MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department. His website and blog are adambbell.com and adambellphoto.blogspot.com.