Your favorite urban gardens
I have been mulling over a photo project about urban gardens for quite a while, and I think I’m ready to get started. I am putting the word out on the street to get suggestions from you about your favorite gardens. I’ve been mostly thinking about the kind of community spaces (both official and unofficial) that spring up in vacant lots, but great backyards, rooftop gardens, and community farms are all fair game, too. Although I am going to start off close to home (NYC and nearby), I would love to have something to work toward, so please feel free to chime in if you’ve got suggestions in other cities too.
Above and beyond a simple location and description of the place, I am looking to reach out to people who work in these spaces, too. If you or someone you know is an urban gardener, please get in touch!
The New Pastoral
I linked to an article by Andy Grundberg on PhotoReads the other day: The New American Pastoral: Landscape Photography in the Age of Questioning. For some reason this article has really stuck in my head, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. The title refers to an exhibition at the Whitney in 1990 which included the work of David Taverner Hanson, Lewis Baltz, John Pfahl, Richard Misrach, Emmet Gowin, David Maisel, Patricia Layman Bazelon, and Ray Mortenson.
Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant, Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania, from the series Power Places, 1982 John Pfahl
The exhibition was a direct descendent of the New Topographics exhibition 15 years earlier (Baltz even makes an appearance in both), but with subtle differences. As Grungberg writes:
What separates the two exhibitions is the matter of the picturesque. The photographers in “New Topographics” sought to purge any trace of it from their pictures, while most of those in “The New American Pastoral” rely on it as a sign of both loss and possibility. One has to wonder, of course, whether they can have it both ways, and whether the picturesque can be enlisted for what are at heart political statements. There is after all something old-fashioned looking about these new pastoral landscapes, which may have to do with their implicit faith in the ability of traditional photography to illuminate contemporary problems.
Reading and re-reading that passage has given me some insight into my own work and that of others I follow closely. We are all descended from the New Topographics, but I think there is an important distinction in the way the subject is approached. Some of the work in New Topographics could be described as picturesque, but my overall impression of the exhibition, and much of the work that has followed, is documentary. The New American Pastoral work borrows the documentary aspect of New Topographics but wraps it up in a more traditional form. This is a somewhat blurry and subjective line, but I do think it’s an important one.
I think the term “New Pastoral” quite effectively captures the gist of much of my favorite contemporary work, and I’m surprised that I haven’t heard it used before. It may be that something else has come to replace it (of which I’m not aware), or that no one else finds this kind of classification necessary. Personally I feel like I’ve had this phrase on the tip of my tongue for years and I’m glad to finally be able to get it out.
Off the top of my head, here are a few of the major contemporary photographers whose work could fit into this New Pastoral group:
John Pfahl
Richard Misrach
Joel Sternfeld
Jem Southam
Clare Richardson
Gregory Conniff
Michael Lundgren
Karin Apollonia Mueller
Raymond Meeks
And of course there are many up-and-coming photographers whose work fits into this category. I would love to see a curator’s take on this subject in the 21st century.
My entry for Hey, Hot Shot
I swore off contests sometime last year, with one exception: that I would probably enter Hot Shot in 2010. I can’t say exactly why Hot Shot lures me so—considering the tough competition, I don’t think I stand much of a chance. I wouldn’t mind doing an edition with 20×200, though, so that seems like reason enough.
I got to the part on the application about whether or not I’ve entered before and I had to think back… yes, in fact I did enter, way back in 2007. I have no idea what work I entered, but in hindsight I’m quite sure it wasn’t very good. I’ve put a lot more effort into it this time around, though I’m sure I’ll still be embarrassed looking back in three years.
I’m posting this here as much for my future reference as for anyone else to see. Reading it now, the project statement comes off as a bit awkward, but I wrote that damn thing five times and this was by far the best version.
Dead Horse Bay, Brooklyn, 2010
Near the West Pond, Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Queens, New York, 2009
Skier in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York, 2010
New Year's Day, Valley Stream, New York, 2010
Bridle path, Bohemia, New York, 2010
Project Statement:
These images are part of a series called Outer Lands, a survey of the landscape of Long Island. The photographs reflect my effort to reconcile my sometimes contradictory interests in pictorial beauty and the contemporary landscape.
I began my exploration of Long Island along the wild edges of Brooklyn and Queens. I quickly learned that it’s difficult to take a picture in New York City without a plastic bag or a beer can lurking somewhere in the frame. At times I have tried to exclude these elements, but the resulting pictures always nag at my conscience. I have grown to accept that landscape photography in the city involves garbage; in fact, it requires it.
Soon I made my way to the interior of Long Island, where it is common to find patches of unspoiled wilderness. My first pictures of this pastoral landscape came easily, but eventually the nagging returned. The artifice of my endeavor remained, it was simply expressed on a different scale in these open spaces.
I came to realize that a compromise was necessary in order to be satisfied with the work. Many of the photographs in this series embrace the pictorial landscape while simultaneously acknowledging the contradiction inherent within it.
I plan to continue this project indefinitely, returning to many of the same places through different times of year. It is my hope that through intimate familiarity I will produce a work that is both honest and beautiful, a contemporary look at a complex landscape.
Gregory Conniff
“It is from walking attentively through a place at different times and in different light and weather that we can most assuredly come to know the character that abides within that place despite its changing appearances. Out of this direct knowledge almost inevitably grows understanding, affection, and an impulse to take some responsibility for where we are.”
-Gregory Conniff, from his introduction to his book Wild Edges
Lafayette County, Mississippi, Gregory Conniff , 2005
Lead with your heart
Think back to the last song you heard that filled your heart with joy. Did you get up and dance? Did you roll down the windows and sing along at the top of your lungs? Or did you sit down and write a paper about it?
I’ve been listening to a lot of Miles Davis lately. I’ve probably listened to Kind of Blue a hundred times in the last year. Is there anything that Miles Davis, or anyone else, could say about Kind of Blue that could make it any better for me?
I seriously doubt it.
I won’t argue for a minute that there isn’t value in the intellectual analysis of art. I’ve attended symposia, read books, and gone to endless lectures and artist talks, all in the hopes of “getting it.” But I would give it all away for the first 60 seconds of All Blues. Or five minutes alone in a room with a single Lee Friedlander print.
Jesus Christ, Lee Friedlander!
The primary value of art in my eyes goes far beyond intellectual discourse. I look to art for inspiration, for an emotional connection with others. I choose to make art because I am in a constant state of wonder about the world I live in, and the process of creation is my struggle to communicate that wonder to others.
I’ve spent the last 5 years living and breathing photography, absorbing everything about the subject that I can get my hands on. What I’ve come to realize is that the process of creation and the process of analysis are two very different things. There are some who happen to do both well, but I think that’s rare, and I don’t think that one is necessarily a prerequisite for the other.
Camden Hardy recently paraphrased Frank Gohlke as saying “It’s too bad we can’t just be artists any more; we have to be scholars too.” Hardy sees this as a sign of a lack of intellectual rigour on Gohlke’s part. As someone who is very familiar with Gohlke’s work, I have to think that Hardy has missed the point completely. Gohlke’s rigour is in the work; his photographs are as conceptually stimulating as anything you are likely to see. It’s up to us, as viewers, to provide the context and make of it what we will. To me, that’s what the experience of art is all about.