Steven Gelberg

Portrait

Annie Leibovitz was born in 1949 in Waterbury, Connecticut and enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute intent on studying painting. It was not until she and her mother traveled to Japan after her sophomore year that she discovered her interest in taking photographs. In 1970, she photographed for the Rolling Stone magazine and became chief photographer just two years later. Leibovitz has photographed many celebrities such as John Lennon. She has created influential advertising campaigns for American Express and the Gap and has contributed frequently to the Got Milk? campaign. Annie Leibovitz has worked with many arts organizations, including American Ballet Theatre, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Mark Morris Dance Group, and with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Her books include Annie Leibovitz: Photographs (1983), Photographs: Annie Leibovitz 1970–1990 (1991), Olympic Portraits (1996), Women (1999), American Music (2003), A Photographer’s Life: 1990–2005 (2006), and Annie Leibovitz at Work (2008). Exhibitions of her images have appeared at museums and galleries all over the world including the National Portrait Gallery and the Corcoran Gallery, in Washington, D.C.; the International Center of Photography, in New York; the Brooklyn Museum; the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; the Centre National de la Photographie, in Paris; and the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Annie Lebovitz took this photograph of Louise Bourgeois. The composition in this image is intriguing because of the way the subject creates positive and negative space. Where Bourgeois’s hand is, really creates an interesting shape to the background. The tone of the lighting in this photograph matches the mood of the subject. There seems to be some parallelism between the wrinkles of her skin and the wrinkles of her clothes that really brings this image together. The portrait only shows a side profile of Bourgeois’s face to give a sense of mystery where the viewer does not really know what this subject has gone through.

I believe that this photograph is a successful portrait because it really captures what Louise Bourgeois portrays in her own work through sculpture. Her gesture gives a sense of anxiety while her face is expressing sadness and despair. Since the portrait only consists of one person with this somewhat depressing mood, the viewer can also draw out a feeling of loneliness and hardship. This portrait mirrors Louise Bourgeois’s own work with suggestions of the human figure and expressions of themes such as betrayal, anxiety, and loneliness.

This is a photograph taken by Richard Avedon during his time in the west photographing regular people in their everyday lives. In this picture, Richard takes a photo of a coal miner after work. Richard evokes a strong emotion with this picture, through the workers facial expression and appearance. The focus of the picture, points straight to the workers face especially the eyes. The eyes of the worker are very hard to explain. Instead of the worker looking at the camera, they are pointed lower than eye level, at if he is looking through your heart or even soul. Since the coal miner is not making eye contact, it’s as if he’s isolated and alone. Just the vantage point of his eyes made me wonder what he was thinking. Whether if he believes he even exists or if life is worth living?

Secondly, his clothing and appearance make a strong impression on the mood of the picture. Since he is a coal miner he is very dirty and tired after a hard day of work. The coal smudges add to his expression, as if he doesn’t care they’re their. Also his clothes including his overalls show that he doesn’t care for his appearance or the clothing he wears.

Avedon exposes his audiences into everyday lives of the people of the west and shows us a glimpse into how they live. Avedon successfully includes the facial expression of the coal miner as well as the context of his job to effectively produce a portrait which tells a strong narrative

Portrait Post

This is a photo of Bill Brandt taken by Michael Birt. This photo was on display at Fulham Palace, England. Bill Brandt was an influential British photographer and photojournalist best known for his high-contrast images of British society and his distorted nudes and landscapes. In this photo, Brandt is sitting on a chair, showing some of his work.

One thing I liked about this portrait is that once you see it, you can immediately tell that he is a photographer and that he is showing examples of his work. I liked the windows in the background, which splits the background in half. I liked how his head rests in between the two windows and I also liked the curtain on the upper right and upper left edges.

I think this is a successful portrait because it tells you something about the person in it. The photo itself has a high contrast, which is what Brandt is known for. The fact that he is showing some of his own photographs (nude images, which is again what he is known for) just adds originality and authenticity to this portrait. This portrait also gives Brandt some kind of power or authority created by the low vantage point and the way Brandt stares right into the camera. The expression on his face gave me an impression that Brandt is tired of what he's been doing. How the light creates shadow on the left side of his face suggests that there might be a darker side to him that we might not know of.

Portrait

This photo was taken by Rosie Hardy, an 18 year old from England. This photo shows a girl dressed as a clown, squatting on a chair in a darkened corner, looking frightened. The walls behind her have shadows of fingers pointing and grasping towards the clown.
I chose this photo for multiple reasons. It is a self-portrait, which I specifically looked for since I’m attempting self-portraiture for this project. It is also both whimsical and scary. I really enjoy the juxtaposition of the clown costume and the scary shadow puppets. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to laugh at or feel sorry for the clown. The imagery is scary enough, and also the emotional face of the clown, that I can’t help but feel sympathy for the clown.
I liked that the photo is telling a story. We are exposed to a frozen moment of this clown’s life and I also liked that Rosie made the background a part of the story as well. I think that in a lot of portraits, the background is ignored or taken away by just having a white wall to help emphasize the subject. Rosie started with a simple background (grayish mottle walls) and added elements that draws your attention to the subject even more, rather than distracting. I think that this is a successful portrait, because Rosie obviously considered all elements of the photo before taking it. She created a character of a scared clown and both dressed and expressed herself appropriately for that character, she worked the background to her advantage, instead of ignoring it, and she made sure that the lighting was perfect for both the hand shadows and for darkening the corner with the clown in it.

PORTRAIT POST

This is a photo of Elie Wiesel taken by Sergey Bermeniev. Elie Wiesel is a survivor of the World War II Holocaust under Hitler, and the author of 57 books, including the popular novel, Night. Also a peace activist, Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, and was called a 'messenger of mankind'. Wiesel spent time in concentration camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald, where over three million people were killed or died from diseases.

In this photo we see Elie Wiesel's face, centered in the photograph, deranged from painful memories and a traumatic past. There are deep lines in his face from age and wear and tear that throw long shadows against the light. Part of his face is completely in shadow, though the rest of him is lit, and he seems to glow against the black background. His hair is crazy and white, and his expression is thoughtful as his gaze leaves the photograph to the right, almost disgusted as he is probably remembering what has happened to him.

I believe this is a successful portrait of Elie Wiesel because his expression clearly shows the pain he has felt, but its hesitant, like he knows that as hard as he tries to let people in, no one can really understand. Though he looks hesitant, the face is also very open and raw, letting the viewer see his inner suffering. It makes the viewer feel like an outsider. Everyone knows who Elie Wiesel is, and everyone knows what happened during the Holocaust, and how many people were killed, but few experienced it, and are alive to tell the story. It is the blatant memory of experience here that makes this portrait so strong and successful.

Faculty Throwdown, Art Event review

The crowd surrounded the two benches like spectators surrounding the ring at a boxing match. The contenders were introduced in much the same way. In one corner you had Colby Caldwell (Photography & Digital Media) and Billy Friebele (Digital Media), in the opposite corner Joe Lucchesi (European & American Art) and Lisa Scheer (Sculpture, Writing & Art Theory). After the announcer explained the rules, the 2010 Faculty Throwdown was about to begin!

In the first round, the question under discussion was: True or false, Art is the moral compass for society? Money was suggested as the true moral compass for society. Money makes the world go ‘round, and even artists “sell out” and take money because they need it to continue their craft. It was countered that feeling, not reason was the basis for morality, and feeling cuts through the superficial materiality of money.

I feel that creative artistic expression is something that can only be done when you have the time to do so. In order to have leisure time, you need money to facilitate things like buying food and supplies. Money can act as the moral compass of society because money is society’s way of stating, indirectly what it finds to be valuable.

In the next round, the question was: which is more important in the defense of Freedom: Guns or Art? Both sides of this debate brought up several interesting points. It was argued that in simple dollars spent, weaponry far exceeds any other government expenditure, which was countered by the point that debates over art are much louder than debates over defense. The point was made that art has almost unlimited purview, whereas the defense of weapons, like handguns, is much more limited, which was countered by the argument that WMDs were still of a great concern, that weapons drive society, art drives academia.

For this question, it is much harder to pronounce a clear winner. Weapons can protect us physically, but Art protects us mentally. It’s impossible to express yourself with a gun at your back, but without a gun to protect yourself, that can very well be what happens. In the end, however, I would have to side that Art is more important in the defense of freedom, but you have to be free enough to be able to express that freedom.

The third round dealt with limits of free speech concerning visual art. With no limits on free speech, art can be used to promote hate speech, but community standards are more exclusionary that inclusive. Without limits, there is no difference between the gallery wall and the bathroom wall, but with limits, the issues that are highlighted by art are less likely to be discussed.

This round of debate was another tough call. John Stuart Mill states “An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard.” Essentially, what Mill is saying here is that context is very important to when and how views are expressed. Art is bound to offend someone, somewhere, and when that happens it is important to debate the issue and get to the root of the problem. It is problematic when art is meant to shock or offend, and there is no such debate that takes place, because there ought to be. Ultimately then, I would say that there should be no limit on the freedom of expression of art if a discussion of the issues raised by that art can take place.

The next round asked each participant to name, in the last decade, which work had the greatest impact of society. In this round, one debater chose, James Turrell’s Roden Crater, because it was the embodiment of how art shapes the Earth, the Earth connects to the mind, and connects us to prehistory. Shepard Fairey’s Barack Obama "Hope" was the next work to be cited, because of the extreme significance of the image and its incredible dissemination into the popular culture. Stephen Colbert was cited as the greatest performance artist, because he is able to take issues at present them in a way that will promote discussion and thought about them in a way that does not immediately exclude anyone. Lastly, The Holy Virgin Mary, by Chris Ofili was chosen as an important work because it caused debate over the public funding of art.

I would have to say clearly that Barack Obama Hope has had the most impact on society over the last decade. Art is meant to be seen, and no piece of art has done so more than Hope. Colbert would be a close second, because he is seen and he does promote discussion, but he ranks second, because Hope was disseminated so quickly to a huge audience, while Colbert is seen by people who have access to Comedy Central.

The second-to-last question in the debate was: Can Art ever be divorced from Politics? It was argued that even having no position is, in itself, a position. When we can’t respond to something in a framework, it’s prepolitical. It was also argued that the real question here was what sphere should art occupy? Should it be public or sequestered, and can society and art exist without serious conflict? My opinion is that both politics and art are social expressions of the people, and that unless there’s complete agreement, there’s always going to be conflict over art in politics.

The last question dealt with what the role of intentionality was in Art. It was argued that intention is important to understand on the receptive side, and that intention was important to understand as related to context. Both points of view here are equally valid, and I am not of an opinion on either of them (which means that I hold an opinion anyway)

At the beginning, 4 Professors entered, and at the end only 1 left alive. Professor Colby Caldwell was pronounced the master debater, and gained the bragging rights he so rightly deserved. The Event as a whole was a great success that should gather crowds for years to come, and if I wasn’t graduating, I’d come back for this event next year.