self-portraiture, representation, and narrative

sfmoma: SUBMISSION: ‘Under The Oven’. Self Portrait by Jana...

jes-reyes — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 18:43:58 -0600

SUBMISSION:

‘Under The Oven’. Self Portrait by Jana Maré.

wrestlingwithwavesandsnow: A Dream From Last Night A short...

jes-reyes — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 19:14:12 -0500

A Dream From Last Night

A short digital film by Jean Says

Shot on December 23, 2007.

I opened the front door for something, was it the newspaper covered in snow? Footprints…from who? Do I go to see? Where am I going? Why don’t I grab the newspaper? It’s so dark out.

*you may need to adjust your monitor if video appears too dark.

wrestlingwithwavesandsnow: Just look at it. photo by jes...

jes-reyes — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:18:45 -0500

wrestlingwithwavesandsnow:

Just look at it. photo by jes reyes.

wrestlingwithwavesandsnow: Duluth, Minnesota/Photo by Aleshia...

jes-reyes — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:17:27 -0500

wrestlingwithwavesandsnow:

Duluth, Minnesota/Photo by Aleshia Gutierrez (November 2007)

sfmoma: johnfekner: Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still...

jes-reyes — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 20:18:13 -0500

sfmoma:

johnfekner:

Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #13 [1978] Photograph Gelatin Silver Print

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art July 14 - October 8, 2012

One of the most influential artists of our time, Cindy Sherman creates provocative artworks that explore wide-ranging issues of identity and representation. Working as her own model, she deftly transforms her appearance using wigs, costumes, makeup, prosthetics, and props to create intriguing tableaux and characters inspired by movies, TV, magazines, and art history. The first major exhibition of Sherman’s work ever presented in San Francisco, this retrospective brings together more than 150 photographs made from the mid-1970s to the present.

Learn more about Cindy Sherman, the most anticipated show of the summer, here!

my student film/video blog-place.

jes-reyes — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:00:00 -0500

my student film/video blog-place.:

Wrestling with Waves and Snow is a short experimental video by Jes Reyes, a graduate student living in Paulapolis, Minnesota. This work is in pre-production, and this is its blog-place. It is a creative thesis project.

sfmoma: Today marks the 105th birthday of Frida Kahlo! Known...

jes-reyes — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 19:00:05 -0500

sfmoma:

Today marks the 105th birthday of Frida Kahlo!

Known for her fantastical imagery and folkloric style, Kahlo earned recognition among the Surrealists, but her intriguing persona and originality propelled her beyond the confines of a specific movement to become a leading figure in modern art.

Pictured: photos taken during our 2008 Frida Kahlo retrospective, when artist Rene Yanez gathered many actresses at SFMOMA to portray the iconic and much beloved artist for a piece called “Pasion por Frida.”

See many more photos here!

A Reflective Review: The Introspection of Francesca Woodman

jes-reyes — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 16:08:00 -0500

Simply put, Francesca Woodman was wise beyond her years. Innately a surrealist before being influenced by surrealism, she understood how to be analytical and critical with her body. She paid homage to Greek mythology and antiquity, as well. A mature artist for her age, she left a legacy of work honorable for a retrospective. Astonishingly, the amount of work she left behind was primarily produced within a decade’s time. Photography that is vast, experimental and sophisticated; her body was a tool and her subject was herself.

Francesca Woodman, Polka Dots, 1976. Providence, Rhode Island. George and Betty Woodman.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York showcased from March 16 – June 13, 2012 the career or Francesca Woodman. I was fortunate enough to visit the exhibition a couple weeks before closing. Curated by Corey Keller, this retrospective is the first major American exhibition of Woodman, and it hosts 176 photographs and a handful of videos that study her intimate and complex self-portraiture. The exhibition originated from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).

Francesca Woodman. Untitled. Providence, Rhode Island. 1976. George and Betty Woodman.

The exhibition charts Woodman’s career documenting her work as a student at Rhode Island School of Design (RSID), her days in Italy studying abroad, and to her time at the MacDowell Colony. Her career survey ends while she is New York attempting to establish herself as fashion photographer. In 1981, at the age of 22, she died by suicide.

A small part of the exhibition is Woodman’s six short videos; they are essential to the retrospective as meaningful companions to her still images. Student projects, she produced them while taking a video art course at RSID. After only knowing Woodman contained in still image, seeing her in moving form provided a further look into her rawness. The videos bestowed deeper insight into her dream-like process as an artist. Viewing them added a new way of watching and connecting with her.

Francesca Woodman. Selected Video Works. Providence, Rhode Island. 1976-78. George and Betty Woodman.

Francesca Woodman. Untitled. Rome. 1977-78. George and Betty Woodman.

Quintessential to Woodman’s work is the visceral energy that bellows in each of her images. As a photographer, Woodman selected her medium and aesthetic, and possessed it. The Guggenheim exhibition, in all of its comprehensive detail, captures her bold nature - one that explored self-representation and the body through an exercise integrating the boundaries between subjectivity and objectivity.

Francesca Woodman. Untitled. Providence, Rhode Island. 1976. George and Betty Woodman.

Significantly, most of her images are nude. I notice this changes as her art progresses and her projects begin to conceptualize differently. Her bare body though, a recurring theme as it is, represents a simplicity that utilizes a quiet introspection rather than pure exhibitionism. It takes skill to represent the body nude in way that constructively deconstructs objectivity.

Francesca Woodman. Untitled. Providence, Rhode Island. 1976. George and Betty Woodman.

Being nude appeared to be an avenue to investigate what is and isn’t for Woodman. But this goes for all of her images. Work that appears to be non-narrative, actually speaks to a structured automatism that connects each of her projects to her overall nature as an artist. In psychoanalytic terms, she appeared to consciously utilize her unconsciousness to shape and form her relationship with her own body, and the spaces she worked within in.

Francesca Woodman. Untitled. 1979-80. New York. George and Betty Woodman.

Francesca Woodman. Untitled. 1980. MacDowell Colony, New Hampshire. George and Betty Woodman.

As I reflect on this exhibition, I am impressed by Woodman’s growth and experimentalism as an artist. While examining her small-scale photographs, large-scale senior project, large and effectual “blue print” diazotypes, and her artist books, I walked away feeling Woodman tapped into creativity and authenticity as a way of life. Inspiring as her work is, bleakness resonates, too.

Francesca Woodman. Caryatid. 1980. New York. Diazotype. George and Betty Woodman.

Photo

jes-reyes — Sun, 20 May 2012 18:58:29 -0500

plans...

jes-reyes — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:36:59 -0500

Francesca Woodman and Dawn Kasper are two artists that utilize rich and particular perspectives through the use of body, space, and performance. Their art convey deeper meanings within self and subjectivity.

Kasper will be performing at the Whitney Biennial 2012 during the same time Woodman’s photography will be displayed at the Guggenheim. I find this an opportunity, and I plan to view both events in-person, as it will heighten my understandings of their work and provide valuable insights that will benefit my Master’s thesis project.

120 of her photographs of Woodman’s, along with her videos and artist books will be displayed in retrospect at the Guggenheim in conjunct with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This exhibition is the first comprehensive collection of her work, with newly released pieces, in the United States. By large, the intensity of this exhibit will thread many of her artistic intentions and visions into one space, where her conceptual pieces will be explored within a perspective that represents her work in historical context and contemporary relevancy.

Viewing Woodman’s work in-person will permit me the chance to examine more closely the validity of her favorite subject: herself. It is necessary to view these works in person so that my interaction with her work is authentic to my own thoughts and experience. I want my writing on Woodman to be inspired by what I feel and see when viewing her work in-person. I plan to view this exhibit twice on two separate occasions so that I fully engage myself with her work.

Dawn Kasper is a performance artist of self-portraits, and relatively unknown and unexplored by scholars, though her work has not gone unnoticed. The meaning of self is neither fixed nor singular, and Kasper’s work, whether in photographic form or in live-art, are intuitive and uncanny, where her body is a vessel of meaning in identity. Her current project at the Whitney is multidimensional within self-portraiture. She has taken up gallery space and re-staged her art studio; a place she hasn’t been able to afford on her own since 2008. It is not a closed space, either, rather it is an ongoing experiment called THIS COULD BE SOMETHING IF I LET IT. Biennial patrons can engage and interact with her and her self-identified space while she is completing projects. She opens what is often a private space for artists, public.

I intend to participate on a day where she is scheduled to perform. Viewing Kasper’s performance will demonstrate the immediacy of her project(s), as well as witness how Kasper connects self-exploration, persona, and the body to her larger studio project and her individual performance pieces. Viewing her perform, will provide me an understanding behind her project(s), and how each element self-represents her. I will also access the experience of her visceral work, as it is an event that can only be experienced once.

Max Ernst: Quote from Obit, April 2, 1976.

jes-reyes — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 19:04:00 -0500

He was, indeed, the last of the old masters of modern art to be given his due. But when he was awarded the grand prize for painting at the Venice Biennale in 1954, public feeling at last began to swing his way; and over the next 20 years his reputation mounted steadily and without interruption. He was, almost to the end of his life, a terrific worker. Nothing stopped him. If his doctor was worried about his heart, Ernst took the cardiogram and used it as an ingredient in a picture. If his doctor told him to stop working altogether, Ernst took off his painting overalls and used them too as an ingredient in a picture. If illness came his way, he bore it with a Roman stoicism.

- From On This Day, New York Times Obituary, April 2, 1976.

“Putting psychic life in the service of revolutionary politics, Surrealism publicly...

jes-reyes — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 18:55:00 -0500

“Putting psychic life in the service of revolutionary politics, Surrealism publicly challenged vanguard modernism’s insistence on ‘art for art’s sake.’ But Surrealism also battled the social institutions - church, state, and family - that regulate the place of women within patriarchy. In offering some women their first locus for artistic and social resistance, it became the first modernist movement in which a group of women could explore female subjectivity and give form (however tentatively) to a feminine imaginary.”
-Whitney Chadwick, from Women, Surrealism, and Self-Representation

Keep an eye on your inner world and keep away from ads, idiots and moviestars. - Dorthea Tanning

jes-reyes — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 18:39:00 -0500

Keep an eye on your inner world and keep away from ads, idiots and moviestars. - Dorthea Tanning

Tentative and New Things Related to My Research: I have been...

jes-reyes — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 19:50:00 -0500

Tentative and New Things Related to My Research:

I have been toying with the idea of analyzing a self-portraiture project I, myself worked on for a couple years. From 2005-2007 I developed a persona by the name of Jean Says (named after Lou Reed’s famous songs…I know, I know). I created a blog around it. I also made short videos. It’s something I am going to think about more and hash the idea out with my advisor. The video above is an example of one of my videos. It actually kind of embarrassing watching it…it’s kind of cheesy. Though, I know it was something that I needed to create. All of the videos were filmed automatic with no script or preconceived idea. Editing though, which was barely used, allowed me to shape a particular narrative. Sadly, these videos are locked to YouTube, unless someone can help me download them from their site. I know that kind of software exists, I just don’t know how to use it or understand it. It’s ironic that I don’t or can’t find my copies of these videos, as just as I retired Jean Says, the computer I had them on crashed. I thought maybe I had them on an external hard drive, but alas, I can’t find them. I wonder: maybe Jean Says purposely deleted them?
Recently, I applied to the Museum Studies Minor at the U. Behold, I was accepted! So I am now looking for a co-advisor and looking at my current degree program and making some tweaks. These tweaks have created a better direction, as what was a mess of coursework is now a body of work/classes that connect in a more complex and complementary way. It’s quite a relief.
While also working on my degree program, which I will submit near the end of this summer, I have also been working on my final project proposal. This will be turned in with my degree program. Working on both at the same time has helped me fine-tooth courses needed to complete my Liberal Studies degree. The museum studies portion of my degree will offer a more practical approach to my career, while also applying its theories to how I structure, write and present my final project.
Lastly, I have created a tentative title for my final project: My Need to Represent the Subject of Me: How Literary and Visual Experimentalism Narrate the Self.

The Need for Self/Body as Object

jes-reyes — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 13:34:21 -0600

The Need for Self/Body as Object

Looking forward to Dawn Kasper, a performance artist, at the...

jes-reyes — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 13:25:00 -0600

Looking forward to Dawn Kasper, a performance artist, at the Whitney Biennial. She’s moved most of her studio belongings into the Whitney, and created a new studio space among museumgoers. Hello live art, here I come. So glad I get to see this.

7 PM THIRD FLOOR

2012 BIENNIAL PERFORMANCES

Performance:
Dawn Kasper Share

As part of her ongoing Nomadic Studio Practice Experiment, in which the artist has relocated the entire contents of her studio as well as herself to a gallery on the third floor, Dawn Kasper will present three scheduled performances within her new studio space. The content, form, and participants of each performance will be determined in the preceding weeks, as Kasper works in and interacts with her exhibition space and the Museum as a whole. Kasper’s performances are often bombastic, highly personal investigations into communication, persona, artistic activity, and the history of live art.

Free with Museum admission. Space is limited and is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Dawn Kasper (b. 1977), Murder At The Schindler House, 2003. Performance, Fritz Haeg Sundown Salon, MAK Center, Schindler House, Los Angeles, 2003. © Dawn Kasper; courtesy the artist. Photograph by Karl Haendel

Francesca Woodman, Self-Portrait (age 13), 1972-1975 This...

jes-reyes — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:32:29 -0600

Francesca Woodman, Self-Portrait (age 13), 1972-1975

This self-portrait could be a title card to hundreds of images Woodman never explained.

I felt inclined to post an image of Ms. Woodman clothed. I think most of her photos I have posted been her nude portraits.

This image here is one of her first, where she resists showing her face. It is the role of the camera, or so photography, that is most present. It’s a hide and seek technique, where avoiding to reveal is contrasted with the concrete reality that the photo is a document of space and time. It’s almost an invitation to explore, as the shutter release cable is visible. She may be hiding her face, but she is not hiding her motive.

Still from Francesca Woodman’s Video Works...

jes-reyes — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:11:49 -0600

Still from Francesca Woodman’s Video Works 1975-1978.

While in NYC in May, I will be able to view selected videos Woodman made near the end of the 1970s. It will be interesting to see these videos; as compared to her traditional photographs, they incidentally often feel like they are film stills.

I’ve ordered the exhibit catalogue, and it should arrive shortly. I am hoping it shall give me a preview to what I’ll be studying in-person soon.

I am also in luck, as the Whitney Biennial will be ending the weekend I will be in New York. I am planning to do some research prior to see if I can come across 2012 Biennial artists that practice self-portraiture.

Vanity Fair Spotlight on Cindy Sherman. Click on photo to read.

jes-reyes — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:06:00 -0600

Vanity Fair Spotlight on Cindy Sherman. Click on photo to read.

Self-Portraiture and Artifice: Cindy Sherman Exhibition at the Walker Art Center in November 2012

jes-reyes — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:15:00 -0600

Now, this is exciting for me…I came across this over the weekend. The Walker Art Center will be showcasing over 170 photographs by Cindy Sherman in November. Dating back to the 1970s, Untitled Film Stills carved out a career in conceptual photography for Sherman. As a successful contemporary artist, she continues a legacy in photography that conveys the instability of self-identity. She also critiques the act of looking by constructing visual narratives within her photographs. This exhibition, organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, will document Sherman’s many faces by displaying work produced over the last 30 years.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #3. 1977.
Collection The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Sherman’s art is non-prescriptive, and clearly, neither is she. You can expect to be fascinated by her play with selves. Her photographs capture straightforward images through rhetorical and psychological representations, though Sherman asserts that her film stills do not completely define her. Defending this in an interview with the New York Magazine in 2008: “I really don’t think that they are about me. It’s maybe about me maybe not wanting to be me and wanting to be all these other characters. Or at least try them on.” Sherman feels it is a mistake to refer to her work as self-portraits, yet at the same time she acknowledges how the images are self-reflexive. Conveyed: fashioning ambiguity and contradiction is a skill.

Below is a portrait Sherman self-posed to play with various notions of the West, which iconically is a perpetual enduring image of cowboys and Native American subjects, where the landscape is often a competing character. Sherman, in this photo, displaces the archetype of the horseman with another Western figure that is rarely not depicted, one that is self-invented. Constructing and playing is the purpose:

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #43. 1979. Collection The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Sherman’s work harks back to the French surrealist photographer, Claude Cahun, who crafted, during much of the 1920s, a skill in portraiture, where her self-images spoke to the machine of mass culture and how collective and individual identities are suppressed by traditional and dominant social roles and archetypes.

The image below represents Cahun in a particular guise, with a shaved head. She is dandyish and wearing typical men’s fashions of the time. In the next portrait, Cahun poses in another dandyish image, yet it is quite different in self-construction. Both images depict a masquerade similar to Sherman’s; that identity is constructed, whether it be based upon social compromises or consciously self-composed.

Claude Cahun (Lucy Scwob). Untitled. 1921. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Claude Cahun (Lucy Schwob). Untitled. 1927. Collection Jersey Museums Service, St. Helier, Jersey

The connections between Cahun and Sherman revolve around distancing from the ordinary, and capturing the self within many roles and identities. While playing with a myriad of guises that are not necessarily she, characters, personas and theatrical depictions are carefully designed to easily identify role-playing in a critical, intentional and subjective way. The two photographers build upon self-exploration to pave a path in questioning dominant visual and cultural meaning.

Claude Cahun (Lucy Schwob). Untitled. 1932. Collection Jersey Museums Service, St. Helier, Jersey

Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film Still #228. 2008. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

By playing the model, both Sherman and Cahun strike a chord and convey the societal imbalance of stereotypes and the cultural assumptions of gender, sexuality an identity. It is a careful balance between objectivity and subjectivity, where the act of distancing de-normalizes the self and permits a reflexive intuitive to critique its apparent image. Below is an image of Sherman playing Marilyn Monroe. Dressed in costume, she engages in the possible dress-up and disguise Norma Jeanne Baker experienced to be Ms. Monroe for mass culture.

Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film Still #54. 1980.
Collection The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The self-projection of Sherman’s photos frame how we look, and also perceive the world around us and ourselves. She is as iconic now as an artist and photographer as her images and characters are.

Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film Still #474. 2008. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.