put your eyes to the sun

Here is a link the the image I chose. I was unable to download it and reupload it here.

This photograph was taken by a girl named Bailey (who does not disclose her last name). The little girl in the black and white photograph stares off into the distance, seemingly completely unaware of the world around her or the camera snapping at her from just feet away. The day looks cold and dark. Her eyes shine with the light and contrast of wherever her mind has traveled to, but only enough to make the viewer more curious - never enough to let the viewer in.

Upon browsing Bailey's profile on this art site, one can find a journal entry about this little girl. Her name is Sasha, and she was adopted by Bailey's family at a very young age. Sasha had been abandoned by her biological parents in the middle of a field, left to die there. How Bailey's family came to adopt her is not explained, but they have, and are now taking care of a little girl with more emotional issues and trauma than most people see in a lifetime. Some of Bailey's photos of Sasha show her a little happier; however, most photos of Sasha are dark and dreary, showing that she indeed has a troubled mind.

Bailey simply may have asked Sasha to look away from the camera when she took this photograph, as she often photographs her siblings and they are probably more than used to her instructions. She may have been attempting to simply capture an aesthetically pleasing photo (which she does), but it seems that there is more to this photo than appealing to the eye. Bailey has once again succeeded at capturing Sasha in such a way that shows her pain, and allows the viewer to feel it, too.

While the clarity and composition of the photo make it interesting to look at, the feelings drawn from the eyes are what truly make this photo successful. Sasha is physically present, but her mind has traveled to a place, perhaps a place in the past that she'd rather not remember but cannot shake from memory.

Walker Art Center - Interpretation

Because we did not have much time to look around at the Walker, I ended up having to go online and find a piece to interpret - I am not sure if the piece I chose is on display, but it stood out to me far too much to ignore it, so I apologize if this breaks the rules a little.



The piece that I chose is entitled "Advice for How to Shoot Yourself," an title that is as striking as the work itself. The artist, Ben Vautier, is shown in two side-by-side photos with the labels "good way" and "bad way," all underneath a header that restates the title. Both photos show Vautier in the same position - seated in a white folding chair with a profile view and a shotgun in hand. In the first photo ("good way"), Vautier is holding the gun at an angle roughly 45 degrees to his body, the end of the gun in his mouth pointing up into his skull. The other photos depicts him holding the gun at a ninety degree angle to his body, the end of the gun still in his mouth but now pointing at the back of his head/throat.

While some may argue that piece speaks for itself, I think it is possible to draw different emotions out of this and that more than one interpretation of Vautier's meaning is possible, especially for those of us that know nothing of Vautier or this work other than what we see and the title. One may think that Vautier's message is one of depression and suicide - they may think that he is conveying his own depression through the photos.

My immediate reaction was that this is a satirical piece, a humorous work. Many teens today have heard the phrase, "down the road, not across the street" (for those that haven't heard the phrase/don't understand, here is an image that has been passed around the internet, found on a blog via Google) in reference to self-mutilation - because talk of self-mutilation and cutting have more recently become something that people are sometimes more willing to talk about and something that more people seem to be doing (for whatever reason), it has also become a topic to make jokes about. Similar to the "down the road" idea, Vautier's piece shows how a gun should be positioned if one is truly aiming for suicide - the more dangerous way - and another position that we commonly see in movies that seems to be more 'popular' by knowledge. Perhaps this piece was created during a time that suicide/attempted suicide seemed to be on the rise and less taboo to discuss - or maybe it was still taboo to discuss; artists often break the rules.

The light-hearted, cursive script used in Vautier's piece contribute to the humorous feel. In fact, I think the font is a large part of this feeling; a sharper, more rigid font may have created a feeling of coldness or anger, and a dreary, droopy font may have created a more upset feel. The font Vautier has chosen is similar to the handwriting of a teenage girl - not anything like the handwriting of a grown man would be in his suicide note.

The arrangement of the piece contributes to this as well. A more scattered, chaotic arrangement may have been representative of chaotic feelings the artist is experiencing, but the symmetrical, very organized, lined-up arrangement makes it seem that the artist put a lot of thought into making it attractive and pleasing to what most humans are automatically drawn to. If Vautier were feeling depressed and suicidal and created a work of art about it, it seems that he would perhaps not spend so much time meticulously arranging the parts of the piece, as his possible soon-to-be end would not create the need to impress those who view the work.

Source of image.

Describing Art: The Midway Gallery

When we visited the Midway, I immediately saw a large piece that caught my attention - not just for it's size, but for the medium and subject matter.

The black and white photographic series by Larry Clark is called Tulsa. The photos were taken in 1971 and made into 11" x 14" framed (in black) silver gelatin prints (11" x 14" is the size of the frames, the picture sizes are not listed).



The series consists of 44 images arranged in 5 rows. The topmost and second-to-bottommost rows hold 10 vertical photos each, and the other three rows hold 8 horizontal photos each. Each image pictures a different person (with a few exceptions - a few people are seen in multiple photos).



The photos above are just a few of the photos in the series up close (it was difficult to get pictures without a glare on the glass in the frame - sorry!). As you can see, the photos depict people at funerals, using drugs, posing with guns, etc.

The first photo I have chosen out of the bunch shows a woman in her underwear straddling a man on a bed. The man has long, dark, messy hair and is injecting something into the woman's arm while she holds her bicep. There is writing on the wall and the sheets on the bed that cover most of the man's body are wrinkled and shifted out of where they would lie on a nicely made bed. We can not see the woman's face, but the rest of her body is quite exposed. I also assume that what is in the syringe is some sort of drugs, as this is often depicted in this series and people don't often use syringes outside of a doctor's office. At first glance this photo is purely sexual - until you notice the drugs.

The second photo shows two people. One man is almost center-frame, sitting on the bed, leaning back on his elbow. The blank, empty look on his face appears to be due to a drug or alcohol induced state. His sheets are out of place and he almost looks like he may have recently been in a fight; his hair is messed up and it appeared that there may have been blood on his face. The other person stands with their back to the photographer in the front left, pointing at the man on the bed in what seems to be a scolding manner. The room around them is messy, and tension is obvious. My immediate conclusion was that the man on the bed had done something in a drug-induced state, but we shall never know.

The third photo is an almost bird's-eye-view of an open-casket funeral. We can see an elderly man rearranging or placing flowers above the coffin, and we can see into the coffin as well. In the coffin lays a baby. At first glance, if one just notices the infant (possible, as he or she lays center-frame), they may think he or she is sleeping peacefully - however, the surroundings indicate that this is something more than sleep. The photo leaves you wondering what happened, but absolutely no evidence of what could have been is depicted - just the man arranging flowers, and the baby in the casket.

The fourth image is one of the few that seemed posed. A man sits on a bed, center-frame, taking up most of the picture. He looks to his left with a small smirk on his face, holding a handgun in his left hand. He is almost sitting cross-legged, but his right leg has been brought up and is resting in the crook of his arm that he has wrapped around it. He wears no shirt, but dons dark pants and socks, and his is just the slightest bit of messy - it looks intentional. The look on his face and gun in his hand make you wonder who or what will be hit.

The last image is of two nude women and a nude man. They are in what appears to be a bedroom (it's almost college dorm-like), one of the women and the man seated side-by-side and the third standing and bent over the middle woman. It it difficult to see because of the glare, but it appears that the standing woman is helping the seated woman to inject a drug of some sort while the man sits by and watches. This photo is interesting because at first glance it seems to be girls being silly, and then the drugs are noticed, and then one notices that long hair does not mean female - the figure on the left is a male (it took me a few times of looking at it to notice).



I'm not sure what drew me to this piece but I could have looked at it the entire time we were there, creating stories for each picture.