dolores

transvestites

now that i have a computer.....

Su Friedrich

Su Friedrich's work has a very interesting quality to it. The way in which she scratches words onto her film give it a very emotional appeal. It's kind of stressful to watch due to the movement and complete silence. I got lost while watching her films. I couldn't 100% put my finger on what was going on or what she was trying to say. I don't feel she explained herself very well & that added to my frustration. I didn't respond very well to her film where she was filming her once ex-girlfriends ( or partner or whatever) car. I couldn't figure out the master plan- why this was so important to her that she had to make a film out of it. I thought it was boring. I think if she had concentrated on showing more of a few videos instead of a little of many videos I could have had time to get a better response of her work. Honestly, I feel like I'm critiquing her lecture more than I am critiquing her work. There was just nothing there that evoked any sort of response. Her work & her lecture became a very neutral experience.

Yasumasa Morimura

This is someone I almost forgot about who I think is right up my alley.
I have recently reaquainted myself with Morimura after accidently stumbling upon his portrait when I was researching Greta Garbo.
Morimura places himself in the roles of famous yester-year actresses such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hephburn, Greta Garbo etc.etc. These actresses he portrays are no longer recognized for who they are but for the symbols they have become. For instance, Marilyn Monroe, she's no longer a person, she is her beauty mark, she is her platinum blonde hair, or her white dress. She is a symbol that anyone can portray, that anyone can be.

photos

Sirena Sparkle, well known Richmond dragqueen


Robert Legorreta, performance artist known for dressing in female clothing


by Clay Gerdees







It's been a constant struggle as to what direction I want to head towards,
& I still don't know.
Whenever you throw the simple word "concept" into the mix,
I run around in circles like a dog chasing its tail.
So I've been trying to remedy this with getting more specific
because I have been too broad & confused, & havent been producing a thing.
So I've been speaking with local dragqueens,
Sirena Sparkle, Dora Lee & Esta Bunny.
I've been thinking of capturing them in their space,
since you rarely see a dragqueen off the stage.
Maybe when I photograph them they will even choose to not have the make-up on,
we'll see.
This is a new direction.

goings on

Lately, I've been really attracted to Katy Grannan's older body of work, where she placed adds in newspapers in hopes of photographing strangers in desolate places.
Photographing her "characters" in these desolate places really allowed them to really show off- without concern of a peeping public. I really took that aspect to heart with what I am working on. Right now, the work I've been producing is very similar to that of Katy's, which I'm not so happy about but I know it will grow.
I've been photographing transvestites in deserted environments such as inside run down buildings, in open fields and in the forest. So far these transvestites of been mock ups. I put up an ad on Craigs List & a few other places asking for people interested in portraying the opposite sex. I only got five replies and three of them are inconclusive. One of the replies I received was from a presumed Realtor, when I asked her why she was interested in this project she only replied with "I want to see if I look real." Honestly, I was very disappointed with that answer.. so I began calling up friends & asking them to portray the opposite sex & that is what I have been doing... but it's still not working- it just doesn't feel important to me.
So I thought more & more.. and I want to move more & more into the direction of Katy Grannan. I just want to photograph real people, real transvestites.. ones who perform & ones who dress in secret.. my real question now is how- How can I do this in a way that fits my style, in a way that will really glorify these people. This is the direction I am going in now- more research is underway.

Kate Gilmore

I was presently surprised by this lecture! Looking into her work prior to her lecture there was nothing that really sparked my interest. However, my opinion quickly changed after getting the opportunity to see her talk individually about each peice. Gilmore's work has a great appeal just by her careful choice of colors and arrangement. During her lecture she made it very clear that she was perhaps overly aware of her want to have colors that represent a sense of time, place and emotion- her awareness of this really separates her overall style from other video artists that I've seen. Not only is she documenting her ideas but she is doing so in a clever/aesthetically pleasing way.
I could also really appreciate the way Gilmore incorperated shape into her concepts. The repetition of hearts and stars in most of her videos really drew a lot of her work together and also made a very recognizable signature for her work. I think overall repetition is working in Kate's favor. Her videos aren't extremely long but they are long enough as to where they start becoming repetitious- but they grow at the same time. At the lecture it was mentioned by one in the audience that they began to feel for her character in each video- I felt the same way. I think because of the growth (maybe even climaxes?) the audience really begins to feel sympathetic towards the characters. Particularly in "With Open Arms" where Kate portrayed a girl looking for stardom but was being pelted with tomatos. At first, it was just a girl being pelted by tomatos but toward the end she was completely covered with tomato goo & seed but she still persisted in her goal of stardom.
However, I have to say personally the videos I was most attracted to were "cakewalk" & "wallflower." After making that decision, I kind of realize I might like them mostly because they were the peices that were the easiest to figure out, or understand. Most of her videos are straight forward, but with these two and the added pain/work/concept/aesthetic put into them, they really stood out. Overall, I think Kate's work is pretty amazing- & I'm very interested to see how her Texas show will turn out.

a history in babble

Ok, so the first part of my research I have started with what I already know.
I would like to maintain the ideals/aesthetics of the 1920s/30s-
so since for some reason, i have weird knowledge of that time period,
I thought of transvestites in early film/how they were portrayed & the controversy involved.
What comes to mind first is Marlene dietrich in the film "morrocco" where she dresses as a man & locks lips with a lady. This film was released in 1930- pre production code. However, she extended this role into her real life, wearing tophats, suits, etc while off screen. She was often occused of being bisexual & having a relationship with fellow actress Greta Garbo. However, the fact she dressed in such a manner could have been less about her sexual preference and more about her determination for women's and/or transgender liberation.
Secondly, I think of the film Marie Antoinette from 1938. In the supporting role of Duke d'Orleans Louis Philippe Joseph II, Joseph Schildkraut, was one of the fanciest looking men in film at the time. Wearing more make-up in Marie Antionette than any woman would. He also played a character of questionable sexual orientation.

I can't say that any of this really means anything, but it strikes my interest seeing these portrayals in early film. And it's also true that both Dietrich & the director of Marie Antoinette, W.S. Van Dyke started on the vaudeville circuit where they would have access to knowing/engaging transvestites.
So Vaudeville- there were many performers on the vaudeville circuit who put themselves on display as the opposite sex for entertainment. When I think of this I think of the film "Some Like it Hot." But anyway, many of these performers were actually cross dressers but they were in no way homosexual. That point is also very interesting to me in going further working on the idea of the transgendered and transvestites.

So in order to figure out what was going on with transgender photo graphy at this point in time I had to dwelve deep into the vaults of the internet, where I found answers in the gay erotic community rather than just the transgendered community as Paul had suggested. Much of the "gay" photography started out being labeled as "physique" photography in order to protect the photographers/clients character. I find it interesting that many of these photographs I have been finding of these subjects have been images by unknown photographers too.
There is also a photographer Karoll of Havanna, who photographed male physique but hid his photographs from the Cuban authorities. They had never been shown until recently in a gallery in Paris. His photographs are said to resemble old Hollywood films and it's also interesting to note that he died in a "re-education" camp in Cuba.



Unfotunately it has been a lot harder to find photographers interest in transvestites. However, I have found a few by unknown photographers. They seem more like documentation of this person rather than fine art.






Photographers to note are Horst P. Horst, Herbert List, F. Holland Holiday

masculine vs. feminine

80s videos can be good

fellow student

Ok, so I have to write about a fellow student whose work I think is tops. This is a hard topic to write about or to even think of. This is mostly due to the overall apathy I feel is within the photography department and within many of the departments in general. I too am apathetic in a school environment- the reason bewilders me as I am free & feel competant in my work outside of school.
I don't feel like there is much work I see in school that stays with me. Maybe a few here and there but they are always and consistantly from the students you know who are really interested in what they are doing, who want to learn from what they are doing not the ones who are always just trying to get by.
I even went to every art departments website to view their galleries and nothing stepped up. Honestly, I think a lot of it has to do with my unbreakable bias and my personal interests.
I remember even going to the senior photography show lastyear and feeling complete disappointment. And why is it that sculptors tend to take better photographs than photographers.

big dreams

wondering....

I was wondering if I could film redundant, or inane things,
for instance my watching t.v. - capturing the movement of my face, my eyes,
the reactions.
or just filming anything in action,
the swaying trees, moving water, working beetles.
And I have been thinking of stop motion,
or slow motion,
or altering time in general.
overlaying video..
recording sound effects to incorperate into music.
black and white or color?
thought process.

little bits

unfinished idea

This is a continuation of the last blog,
because I had lost my train of thought & never got around to mentioning other artists.
It's super difficult for me to find an artist & be completely attracted to everything they do.
Too often I see something amazing & go in search of more & end up disappointed.
So I find most inspiration in tidbits of song or even music videos.
Something I am dead set on doing this semester (hopefully for senior portfolio)
is creating music & creating imagery or video around the music.
Inspirations for this mostly came from the Smashing Pumpkins video, Thirty Three.



All I can say is that what I get out of this video is overwhelming feeling of emotion from the song & imagery being put together.
It doesn't matter if the imagery means anything, or if it is even related to the song at all.
What is important is the emotions the two combined evoke....
I believe that these two 'things' can create an overwhelming response from an audience,
even without narrative.
Or even if it's just an expression, a simple idea, or a simple action that causes that reaction.

George Hurrell

In response to last class,
I want to make up for my lack of 'name dropping.'
There are plenty of artists who I draw great inspiration from.
Most of which are not contemporary.
The biggest influence since I can remember is George Hurrell.
I always admired the way he lit his portraits.
Everything was very controlled.
I feel like I take to this style of photography too,
because I am most comfortable in a control/leadership role.
Everything in Hurrell's photographs is completely flawless. But it's unknown to me whether it was of his doing or the studio's. I know there would be actresses & actors with freckles or moles & they would completely erase them on photographs/film.
I like that idea too, the manipulation of imagery to such an extreme extent that these actors are always characters in the eye of the public. But when the public see's them away from the camera, they are always disappointed. I guess I can't say it was the photographers who created the characters, it was the studios- but it was the photographers who made their characters look larger than life.

Contemporary Artist

Contemporary Art. It seems a lot these days, the glamour and delicacy of yester year is seen as a trite reminder of the naivety we used to experience in it's art. With few expeceptions, in the main stream art industry today, much of that quality that was experienced at the turn of the 20th century is lost; when photography was finally being seen as an art and when artists practicing in wet mediums started realizing their work didn't have to be photo realisitic. Also, take into consideration the times in which these ideas were starting to revolutionize, the time in which the population wanted escapism from reality more than ever. This is when people wanted to dream- a chance to escape the reality that they experience everytime they leave their doorstep.

Concept. Concept exsists in everything even if it is not intentional. People find meaning in everything, especially because it's our nature to want to relate everything to ourselves. It's widely understood that almost anyone these days can take an amazing photograph, or paint their heart out in Photoshop and get some semblance of what is considered a "good" digital painting. However, the quality in all of this is quite deteriorated from the care that was once important. Why can an "artist" get away with making a concept whose means of presentation
lacks technique and quality.

There is one artist I follow consistantly, whose photographs are of superb quality, whose concepts are not hidden. However, it tends to be that once you see one of this artist's peices, than you've seen fifty. When photographing in such a manner as he does, so comfortably, it is hard to remember that you are capable of outdoing what you did before. Even still, he takes the careful consideration of every corner of every photograph he creates. Nothing seems forgotten or 'half-assed.' Everything is there for a purpose and put their meticulously to complete the entirety of the dream.