Showing posts with label MIAD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MIAD. Show all posts
Thursday, September 01, 2011
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility
Monday I took my students in the WATER course to tour the Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility. I am hoping it will help them contextualize their daily use of water and its connection to Lake Michigan. It was a visceral experience, the sights, sounds and smells. I took this short video of one of the water clarification pools toward the end of our tour. Hundreds of plastic bags clung to the pool as the water spilled over the edge - why aren't plastic bags banned?
Friday, September 10, 2010
Back to School & Catching Up...
I apologize for the delay in posts this summer. I am hoping to get back into the rhythm of a weekly update this fall.
I am back to teaching and pleased to be teaching two courses that I created at MIAD this fall, Historical Perspectives and an interdisciplinary course titled, Water. They are two great groups of students and look forward to seeing their work evolve this semester. I hope to share some of the treasures here as the semester progresses.
I am in the process of giving my website a bit of a face lift. Thanks to the good people at livebooks.edu I am now able to host video on the site, stay tuned for new video works to be posted here.
PhotoMidwest is a month long celebration of photographic art held in Madison, WI, September 24 - November 9, 2010. I will be on the other side of the table as a reviewer for the PhotoMidwest Porfolio Reviews, Saturday Sept 25.
The motion sensitive light boxes from re:current, titled "figure ground," will be on view in two locations this fall:
I am back to teaching and pleased to be teaching two courses that I created at MIAD this fall, Historical Perspectives and an interdisciplinary course titled, Water. They are two great groups of students and look forward to seeing their work evolve this semester. I hope to share some of the treasures here as the semester progresses.
I am in the process of giving my website a bit of a face lift. Thanks to the good people at livebooks.edu I am now able to host video on the site, stay tuned for new video works to be posted here.
PhotoMidwest is a month long celebration of photographic art held in Madison, WI, September 24 - November 9, 2010. I will be on the other side of the table as a reviewer for the PhotoMidwest Porfolio Reviews, Saturday Sept 25.
- The biennial faculty exhibition at MIAD opens next week and includes 2 "figure ground" pieces. I will be teaching until 7 but will pop by from 7-8pm, if you're in town it looks like an interesting show this year.
- Opening Thursday, September 16 from 6-8pm, MIAD 273 E. Erie St., Milwaukee WI 53202
- The Milwaukee Art Museum's Contemporary Art Society Auction features "figure ground" (2am), 2010.
- Preview Party Thurs, Oct 14, 5:30–8 p.m. Gallery Talk Tues, Oct 19, 1:30–2:30 p.m.
CAS The Art Auction Saturday, Oct. 23, 6 p.m., MAM 700 N. Art Museum Drive Milwaukee, WI 53202
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Teaching Pre-College at MIAD
I have been consumed by the 3 week intensive course that I am currently teaching. The high school students have been stepping to the charge and producing a lot of work in both analog and digital media. Check out the class blog and their "photo a day" posts here...
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
5 of 10
The Historical Perspectives lecture this week considers the ephemeral. It is the fifth lecture in the series of 10 (maybe 11... still thinking) that encourages students to think thematically while making connections between historical and contemporary works in photography...
Monday, September 21, 2009
off the road and on to intimacy
Sorry its been a full week - didn't post the ROAD lecture... I imagine you can guess who we covered... I was pleased to have Anthony Lane's New Yorker article on Frank for the students to read...
this week ... considers intimacy - take a peek...
(yes, I realize that all of these themes could/should be a class in themselves... )
this week ... considers intimacy - take a peek...
(yes, I realize that all of these themes could/should be a class in themselves... )
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
back to teaching...?
Was I really there a month ago?... feels more like a year! Pre College at MIAD has officially started. Two weeks of 9-4 teaching in the middle of summer. The students are really fun and its good energy but high school students are exhausting! Fun with Holga cameras and digital photography basics are on my horizon for the next two weeks. I plan on updating my website in the next two weeks as well... stay tuned!
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Joy Christiansen Erb at the Perspectives Gallery
We are so pleased to be ending the semester with Joy Christiansen Erb's Remembered series. Joy will be giving a virtual artist talk via skype on campus Tuesday April 21 at 11am.
All are welcome to attend! Joy's work will be on display through the month of April.
Joy Christiansen Erb artist talkTuesday April 21, 2009
11-11:50
Perspectives Gallery, 2nd floor
Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design
273 E. Erie, Milwaukee WI
Friday, April 17, 2009
Milwaukee's Spring Gallery Night...
Spring Gallery night in Milwaukee is one of the most well attended event as many of us are itching to come out of hibernation and stretch our legs.
Tonight be sure to stop by the Armoury Gallery, MIAD, the Haggerty Art Museum, Green Gallery and shoo (to see (h(om)e) of course!)
detail of petrified, 2009 installed at Armoury Gallery
Tonight be sure to stop by the Armoury Gallery, MIAD, the Haggerty Art Museum, Green Gallery and shoo (to see (h(om)e) of course!)
detail of petrified, 2009 installed at Armoury Gallery
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Grant Ernhart in Perspectives Gallery
Grant Ernhart's Gustine now on view in MIAD's Perspectives Gallery through April 10, 2009. Grant will be in Milwaukee (virtually via Skype) on Tuesday March 31 at 11:15 for an artist talk.
All are welcome to attend. MIAD, 273 E. Erie St. 2nd floor, Milwaukee
Saturday, February 28, 2009
JW Lawson showing in Perspectives Gallery
JW Lawson's Southeastern View at the MIAD Perspectives Gallery.
Lawson will be on MIAD's campus Tuesday March 3 for an artist talk in the gallery from 11:15 - 12:00pm. All are welcome to attend: 2nd floor, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, 273 E. Erie, Milwaukee WI
The work will be on view through March 20th.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Hiroyo Kaneko
Hiroyo Kaneko is a fellow SFAI grad and I am pleased to have the opportunity to show here work in Milwaukee. Hiroyo's work is up for one more week in MIAD's perspective gallery. Below is an interview with Hiroyo that accompanies her work in the gallery. Don't miss the opportunity to collect one of her images in the new Lay Flat publication.
How did you come to photography? How have your previous studies in literature influenced your work?
When I was in the University, I took some interesting classes about the visual arts and films. That was because the period that I was studying within the French Literature was early to mid 20th century, so, all the cultural movements were interacted each other. So I was very much interested in the relationship between writers, visual artists and filmmakers, such as Andre Breton, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and Luis Bunuel.
I was also into French New Wave films, especially Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut as well as Japanese film makers, like Yasujiro Ozu, Mikio Naruse and Seijun Suzuki. All those visual experiences got me in a filmmaking circle eventually and we made a few pieces. However, after everyone graduated the school, it got to be difficult to get together to continue the activity, then I naturally shifted to photography which I could do on my own.
Your work seems to deal with the intimacy of family. Do you photograph your family often? You are present in a few of the images – how did your presence in the pictures change the way you made the photographs? You became a participant as well as the observer.
First time I photographed my family (for my own project) was 4 years ago when I started this bathing series. I didn't’ particularly intend to make the portraitures of my family but used them as models because I didn’t think that strangers would allow me to photograph them naked. Besides, I needed to demand them some kind of posing as 1) I used 4x5 camera and 2) I didn’t want this work to be a documentary. So the asking my family seemed to me the only choice for the situation.
However, since then I started to include their images in my other series also. I think that the more I photograph them, the more I am able to gain the objective artistic view to them. So I’ve become less hesitant to deal with my family for my art work.
The reasons why I put myself in the pictures are several.
1) We are very small family, only 5 members.
Father, Mother, sister, her husband and their daughter, so without me, there couldn’t be enough variations in the series. Besides, my brother in law passed a way sometime after our first session. So the members are even getting smaller. (Maybe I should get marry to add a new member.)
2) People said that my sister and I (and our mother too) look alike very much. Sometimes they confuse between her and me. I thought that including myself in the images could emphasize this likeness or let them notice that we are two different people. Anyway, I enjoy the viewers’ reactions and showing the irresistible resemblance within a family.
3) Because I use their naked bodies for my work and expose them in public, so I would feel guilty if I hided myself just behind the camera.
What is the cultural and personal importance of the bathhouses in your work?
After I moved to San Francisco from Tokyo in 2002, I experienced severe difficulty in communication with others. This doesn’t mean that the people in the US are severer than people in Japan. I guess that any communities in the contemporary society should be same more or less, even within families. But to me, it looked more obvious in here because I was a stranger, had the language barrier and faced the cultural differences, etc. However I also became more grateful and found it precious when it worked well. For those reasons, I got interested in seeing how we had raised the way to communicate each other, what would make our emotional interaction happen. Rather than showing the tough side, I wanted to show something more neutral, basic or more positive and warmer aspect of it. Then I came up with the idea of photographing people in bathhouses in Japan which seemed to me an ideal setting for my purpose.
Bathing in hot tubs is one of the most ordinary daily rituals and habits in my country. Since our society is highly competitive and reserved, we are urged to live extremely uptight. However, once we soak ourselves in hot water, we emerge relaxed, revitalized, and perhaps relieved through exchanges of unspoken emotions with others and nature.
We take bath with family, friends, strangers and sometimes men and women together showing subtle impressions which waver between vulnerability and flexibility, openness and hesitancy, and intimacy and loneliness. Through this project, I focused on capturing those subtle and ambiguous expressions of human beings in the middle of moments because I think that they represent the fundamental humanity regardless who they are.
What role does the element of water play in your work?
It represents both nature and culture. It also brings a sense of movement and flexibility.
The photography itself is fundamentally related to water which the photographic process needs for the production. So I believe that the element of water and photographic images are compatible each other.
Can you talk a little about the light and color palette in your photographs?
In terms of the light and color, I am very much influenced by painting rather than photography, I suppose. Especially the paintings by French impressionists especially Manet and Cezanne (also Renoir and Bonnard too) teach me how I should deal with the natural light and color that are reflected from the subjects.
There is a sense of movement in all of the images – it heightens my awareness of time and gives softness to the pictures. Can you talk about this observation?
I’m very glad that you see that way. In my work, I always try to consider “time” more important than “space” although the photographs are actual rectangular spaces. I believe that this is one the most interesting aspects in photography. We can express something invisible and uncountable quality (= time and softness in this case) through the visual images of objects printed on such a small space.
Is this an ongoing series? How do you know when you are done with a project?
I will probably take a break to photograph my family in this setting a little while but am planning to continue the project in different places with strangers. Now I am doing some research where and how I can do it.
What is next for you and your photography?
To make photographic series in the US.
Who are some of the photographers/artists that have been most influential to your works development?
Besides the artists that I mentioned earlier,
Lee Friedlander
Diane Arbus
Jean Marc Bustamante, French artist/photographer known by his landscape series “Tableau”
Thomas Struth
Kineo Kuwahara, Japanese photographer in 1940’s to 80’s, known as his snapshots of pedestrians, downtown Tokyo.
How did you come to photography? How have your previous studies in literature influenced your work?
When I was in the University, I took some interesting classes about the visual arts and films. That was because the period that I was studying within the French Literature was early to mid 20th century, so, all the cultural movements were interacted each other. So I was very much interested in the relationship between writers, visual artists and filmmakers, such as Andre Breton, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and Luis Bunuel.
I was also into French New Wave films, especially Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut as well as Japanese film makers, like Yasujiro Ozu, Mikio Naruse and Seijun Suzuki. All those visual experiences got me in a filmmaking circle eventually and we made a few pieces. However, after everyone graduated the school, it got to be difficult to get together to continue the activity, then I naturally shifted to photography which I could do on my own.
Your work seems to deal with the intimacy of family. Do you photograph your family often? You are present in a few of the images – how did your presence in the pictures change the way you made the photographs? You became a participant as well as the observer.
First time I photographed my family (for my own project) was 4 years ago when I started this bathing series. I didn't’ particularly intend to make the portraitures of my family but used them as models because I didn’t think that strangers would allow me to photograph them naked. Besides, I needed to demand them some kind of posing as 1) I used 4x5 camera and 2) I didn’t want this work to be a documentary. So the asking my family seemed to me the only choice for the situation.
However, since then I started to include their images in my other series also. I think that the more I photograph them, the more I am able to gain the objective artistic view to them. So I’ve become less hesitant to deal with my family for my art work.
The reasons why I put myself in the pictures are several.
1) We are very small family, only 5 members.
Father, Mother, sister, her husband and their daughter, so without me, there couldn’t be enough variations in the series. Besides, my brother in law passed a way sometime after our first session. So the members are even getting smaller. (Maybe I should get marry to add a new member.)
2) People said that my sister and I (and our mother too) look alike very much. Sometimes they confuse between her and me. I thought that including myself in the images could emphasize this likeness or let them notice that we are two different people. Anyway, I enjoy the viewers’ reactions and showing the irresistible resemblance within a family.
3) Because I use their naked bodies for my work and expose them in public, so I would feel guilty if I hided myself just behind the camera.
What is the cultural and personal importance of the bathhouses in your work?
After I moved to San Francisco from Tokyo in 2002, I experienced severe difficulty in communication with others. This doesn’t mean that the people in the US are severer than people in Japan. I guess that any communities in the contemporary society should be same more or less, even within families. But to me, it looked more obvious in here because I was a stranger, had the language barrier and faced the cultural differences, etc. However I also became more grateful and found it precious when it worked well. For those reasons, I got interested in seeing how we had raised the way to communicate each other, what would make our emotional interaction happen. Rather than showing the tough side, I wanted to show something more neutral, basic or more positive and warmer aspect of it. Then I came up with the idea of photographing people in bathhouses in Japan which seemed to me an ideal setting for my purpose.
Bathing in hot tubs is one of the most ordinary daily rituals and habits in my country. Since our society is highly competitive and reserved, we are urged to live extremely uptight. However, once we soak ourselves in hot water, we emerge relaxed, revitalized, and perhaps relieved through exchanges of unspoken emotions with others and nature.
We take bath with family, friends, strangers and sometimes men and women together showing subtle impressions which waver between vulnerability and flexibility, openness and hesitancy, and intimacy and loneliness. Through this project, I focused on capturing those subtle and ambiguous expressions of human beings in the middle of moments because I think that they represent the fundamental humanity regardless who they are.
What role does the element of water play in your work?
It represents both nature and culture. It also brings a sense of movement and flexibility.
The photography itself is fundamentally related to water which the photographic process needs for the production. So I believe that the element of water and photographic images are compatible each other.
Can you talk a little about the light and color palette in your photographs?
In terms of the light and color, I am very much influenced by painting rather than photography, I suppose. Especially the paintings by French impressionists especially Manet and Cezanne (also Renoir and Bonnard too) teach me how I should deal with the natural light and color that are reflected from the subjects.
There is a sense of movement in all of the images – it heightens my awareness of time and gives softness to the pictures. Can you talk about this observation?
I’m very glad that you see that way. In my work, I always try to consider “time” more important than “space” although the photographs are actual rectangular spaces. I believe that this is one the most interesting aspects in photography. We can express something invisible and uncountable quality (= time and softness in this case) through the visual images of objects printed on such a small space.
Is this an ongoing series? How do you know when you are done with a project?
I will probably take a break to photograph my family in this setting a little while but am planning to continue the project in different places with strangers. Now I am doing some research where and how I can do it.
What is next for you and your photography?
To make photographic series in the US.
Who are some of the photographers/artists that have been most influential to your works development?
Besides the artists that I mentioned earlier,
Lee Friedlander
Diane Arbus
Jean Marc Bustamante, French artist/photographer known by his landscape series “Tableau”
Thomas Struth
Kineo Kuwahara, Japanese photographer in 1940’s to 80’s, known as his snapshots of pedestrians, downtown Tokyo.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Scott Eiden showing in Milwaukee....
Scott Eiden showing in MIAD's Perspective Gallery. January 12- January 31, 2009Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design
2nd Floor
273 Erie St.
Milwaukee WI
Friday, November 21, 2008
Kevin Miyazaki at MIAD
I am looking forward to Kevin Miyazaki's exhibition in the Perspectives Gallery at MIAD. Kevin will be giving a gallery talk next Tuesday November 25 at 11:15. All are welcome.
Very Small Observations
KEVIN MIYAZAKI
November 24 - December 12, 2008
Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design
2nd Floor
273 E. Erie St.
Milwaukee, WI
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Dan Farnum in Milwaukee...
virtually...Dan Farnum is showing his Growing Up series in the MIAD photography gallery through October 10. He will be giving a artist talk (with the help of video skype) in the gallery tomorrow, Friday October 3 at 11:15 am. If your around stop in:
2nd floor Photography Gallery
MIAD- Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design
273 E. Erie St.
Milwaukee, WI
Thursday, August 21, 2008
MIAD Faculty show...
I am showing lacuna in the MIAD Faculty Exhibition (part 1), running August 18 - September 6. The show is in the Layton Gallery on the River Level of the school (downstairs). Other great faculty that I am happy to be showing along side... Jason Yi, kate e martin, Brandon Bauer, Mike Rebholz, Rina Yoon
Installed within the work are pads of prints for peeling off and the taking... if you are around Mil-town please stop by and take a piece with you.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
a day at the museum
Mel and I revisited the Unmasked and Anonymous Exhibition at MAM yesterday. It was wonderful to spend time with the work in a quiet gallery. The show was mobbed with people last week Thursday at the opening, with little room to move let alone see work.
This is one of my favorite pieces by Shimon & Lindemann, Jennie 2002 - a large tintype. The room was beautifully lit with soft spots on the ambryotypes, tintypes and dauguerrotypes. Next to this glowing portrait of Jennie is a large ambrotype of my fellow SFAI grad Tim Sullivan.Other favorites from the show...
Larry Clark's Tulsa(side note - Larry Clark graduated from the Layton School of Art the predecessor of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design)
Milwaukee's own Frank Ford's Portrait of his mother
Jen Davis(Jen Davis will be in Milwaukee to give an artist talk on Thursday, October 30, 6:15 p.m.
at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Reception to follow: 7–8 p.m. )
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