Hello! Thought I'd break the ice to get this going. Genevieve suggested that this be a once a month communal post for curiosity/feedback but depending on how many of us can post it could end up being more often :) Think this is a great idea so comment away if ya'll got any more -T
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| Tommy Taylor/ ~6.5 feet high/ mounted print |
Also I haven't played with the site as a whole so let me know if you can and feel free if you want!
ReplyDeleteOn Tommy's piece:
ReplyDeleteI am loving that this image is revealing itself slowly, that I know I am to solve certain things on my own. However, I am still unable to really figure out all of the "involved" elements. So far, I can see that the image you have presented us is a photograph of the piece in installation. I know that the piece is six and half feet tall and that it is a mounted print, but what I can't come to terms with visually is the cast shadow. Is this an actual element, a mechanism between the wall and the print? And what is that little edge of hair at the top? Were you actually sitting behind the piece while it was installed, or just for the photo? I know this is annoying but I feel like I need to know these answers before I can really speak about it. Tommy? Tommy? Are you out there?
Other things I can speak towards now would be that over all it has this great Robert Longo "Men in the Cities"/eighties feel to it. But Longo's figures were men and woman in business suits, caught in a stasis between dying and dancing. Longo speaks of them as wearing uniforms that referenced Wall Street as well as the punk music and scene of that time. Your piece seems less threatening at first, almost peaceful. Your figure is wearing clothing, but it is all and any clothing, not a uniform. And the physical gesture mimics that of floating or hovering. But the more I look at it I begin to feel and recognize that this tranquil nature scene is only available through the human body that acts as the lens. This, of course, is unsettling and I begin to wonder about just how much weight my perceptions have. Are things what they are simply because I exist?
I man who looks at the sun is also a target. Questions are rampent in my head now. Have we "conquered" nature with technology or will it still be the end of us? Are we simply portals for technology? I don't mean these questions in like a creepy conspiracy theory way, I mean them honestly. Are we using technology to eventually go beyond "nature" and why is technology not thought of as natural or as part of earthly creation?
I want this man to put his real clothes back on, I want to feel "right" again about my perceptions. I want these things that we will never have back, that we can only live through nostalgically. To me this piece strongly references this incredible transformation we are going through at the moment and how much we are about to find out about what we truly are. And how can there not be a little in fear in that for artists?
This is by far the best feedback that I've gotten on this.
DeleteI also just got a quickish documentation for it also that I'll post..
I've been caught lately for the last year or so between seeking out nature and culture through travel and the only temporary unnatural process of going about it. A day in this country, an hour on that mountain, 5 min. at that temple...
Some reading, of course it never leaves, has been creeping back to me through Barthes's 'A Lover's Discourse' and Bataille's 'Story of the Eye'..
These are some pieces from a general something that I just put together...
"Exiled from my image in a deep London insomnia a desert of numb bachelors stumble in mantua for a chance to leave the world's airport. These are my images. The moments of visual detachment during emotional contact. When we loose ourselves; identity, psychology, and gender blurring, lost, and found at once. You, a curt puff, a distant breeze. A lost sound, smell, and memory. Will you remember the flowers in your hand? Will you recall? Will you remember shaking on my shoulder? The touches, smiles, and laughs of it all? I remember touching your shoe a branch above. Sleepy peace the richest place of happiness I know. Can you ever know if you'll ever have it? I used to be able to, an angel so dark and beautiful."
I feel that I've always been trying to get back to that sacred place of paint and a part of me gets more worried that I might not get back.
Sorry, a few revisions that I just caught. That was supposed to be "A man who looks at the sun is also a target." Not, I man....
DeleteAnd the last sentence was supposed to be, "And how can there not be a little fear in that for artists?"
I am mad that this format won't let me go back in and just fix it!
Anyways, great writing Tommy. Oh how you made want to go back and read "Story of the Eye." And so now that is what I am off to do.
Hi All,
ReplyDeleteThis blog is a great idea, and I'm sorry it took me so long to post.
I share a few of Genevieve's feelings when looking at this...I would love to know a little more, Tommy, about the shadow elements of the piece (is it performative, this installation shot being a moment where your shadow is captured jumping?) And like Genevieve, I am extremely intrigued by that strange little outline of hair, that does not seem to be a part of the larger shadow. It is so unsettling, like something is hiding back there...I can't stop looking at it.
The strongest impression I get is that of falling---I absolutely see the Robert Longo man-in-a-suit-dodging, but my brain immediately went to Hitchcock's "Vertigo", that brilliant nightmare scene where Jimmy Stewart's silhouette is falling into white nothingness. (if anyone hasn't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WAxDlUOw-w). That sensation is furthered by those rock walls we see at the legs and arm of the figure, and the bright light as if we're looking up at the sun while falling backwards and downward into a chasm. It's quite chilling to me, actually.
I like your writing, Tommy, and also your description of traveling. There is something so strange about the feeling of displacement and self-uncertainty during travel, and those brief snatches of someone else's life and culture that you grab at momentarily. I can now see that reflected in your multiple shadows/silhouettes/identities, the fleeting act of jumping (or falling?), and the environment being stamped out in the shape of a man.
Maybe ya'll can help me out on this one because I can't tell, at least for this one, if describing how it's made takes away from it or not. If ya'll don't think it does then I'll detail it for ya.
ReplyDeleteI can see that the Longo and Hitchcock references are a definite similarity but does your mind stick to those things or no?
Thank you Zoe. It seems like whichever direction this sends people I'm identifying with. I've heard that a good title could be a good anchor point but the best thing I can think of to do since I'm usually bad at it is to just pick a line from my writing that could still leave things open enough..
Hi Everyone, Hi Tommy!
ReplyDeleteI think knowing the "making" of the piece would be helpful if you are concealing information that would otherwise be apparent (if I were standing in front of the piece.) Is there another form/performance involved with the work? Is the reality of the shadow purposefully hidden for the sake of the digital reproduction? I sense a kind of mysteriousness about this work, and I am curious about whether it is equally mysterious in person.
I really like the subtlety in the image details: "mounted digital print"... the notion of a digital image having physical presence--casting a shadow perhaps?
On second thought, I just looked back at the image, and now i am seeing a frame around the entire thing. Is this a digital print mounted flat? I actually can't believe I didn't see this the first time.
I really love the "sun" or glowing orb--it seems to be emitting its own light...There is something profoundly existential about it. It reminds me of the last scene of Waking Life when the 'dreamer' is floating up into the sky and we are left to wonder where he is going...for eternity.
Anyways..I apologize for my sad feedback. I have been at a residency all month and have been left to my own thoughts running amok...feeling a bit fried.
Also--I like when you mentioned "the sacred place of paint." I've been thinking a lot about the digital image...and how it (for me) reinforces the integrity of painting. At the same time painting today is indebted to these technologies.
ReplyDeleteSo Tommy, what are we looking at? I feel like the image has masking tape on the edges (not to scale for 6.5 feet), so is this a print of print? possibly many times mediated? If you'd like feedback on the objectness you'll have to provide more info . . . if you just want input on the image, this is what I can do.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I am going to the Sue Webster & Tim Noble projects (chaos in material - design in shadow), but when I see the images of the print and the edges of a photo, I think much more about computer/ photoshop generated imagery.
Particularly, I feel there is a comment or a play between the virtual, extended, computer-negotiated, human experience and the 3D, face-to-face natural, sensate existence. I feel like this individual is hiding behind (or shielding himself from) a shallow digital representation.
Mary/Micah, sorry it took me a little while to get back here, I'm putting together a sort of paper related to it now but it's gonna be a while before it's finished...
ReplyDeleteSO!
I went through ~8,000 images and organized them into 16 categories (the 'best of' in 9 of them are here http://www.tommytaylorart.com/typologies.html ) of ~2000 images. I went through those 2000 and picked out ~36 that I thought might work well together. --------I did a photo shoot with a couple of other people inspired by the 'Pina' bausch film (which is AMAZING) that had ~150 pics of which I picked out ~30 (it was a good shoot). I cut out all the figures from the shoot and empty space from the categories, some objects, some landscapes. I would play with all of them arranging them until something 'clicked'. I'd saved some of the trimmings which ended up being the figure in this piece. SO! looking out of a tower in Cork ireland with the moon layered behind with a clipping scan layered in photoshop on top of them, then all of that scanned at a really high resolution. This A4/8.5x11 image was then printed out and hangs to my physical scale.
I'm in the middle of putting together a thesis from lots of writing pieces at the moment, which deals with what all this might mean that I'd love to send out later but, thats later unfortunately ;\
The approach to art over here is a little strange to me. GENERALLY speaking of course, people over here (the UK) primarily expect a clear concept first with an encounter of the work left as an after affect. This leaves a lot of work that I see over here incredibly rich with articulated concept but sometimes<italics) an incredibly underdeveloped physiological relationship between the artist and their work...just trying not to set up a polarity between form and content here. It's also another reason why artists write so much more over here (and make/construct less)-BUT there's no stigma about that here so that's good.
So, I miss America. Just don't know how much I'll miss Europe after I return.
Micah, Sue Webster & Tim Noble is a great unexpected reference that No one's mentioned here! I'm surprised bc they just had a big show here not too long ago.
Some people feel compelled to 'do' in an everyday/environmental overload in places like London and NYC. That, I've learned is not me. There's a paradox to choice that isn't fulfilling for me in the same way that you might try to pick a bag of chips at a 'super' store. Who knows, maybe every once in a while I'll be excited to walk down this isle again.