so on the subject of Fred Lebain. can you believe that i hadn't seen his work before my own Vagrant Disposition? i can't believe it, either. he was featured on i heart photograph, but that wasn't 'a spring in new york'.
in that series, he took photographs around New York City (Lebain is a Frenchman), made some massive prints, and returned with the prints to those locations. he then shot a wider image of the posters in place, blending them in with the landscape.
in some cases, such as the image above, it is not clear how the print is being suspended in the space, but it is obviously a print.
in others, a person (possibly Lebain? i like to think so) is holding the print in place. in this image, you can also see how the print is being warped, bent and battered by the wind.
this is obviously extremely similar to Vagrant Disposition. however, there are some pretty big differences as well. first of all, I took photos of my self, rather than just locations, and shot video of myself holding these posters in the location. it was extremely important for me to include myself in the images, because this series wasn't just about the places I'd seen, but placing myself there as well. a temporary monument to the fact that I was there. also, the fact that I shot video rather than an image was a way to show the struggle of holding these prints in place, and give a moving example of what happened to the prints in the process. the other major difference between my work and Lebain's is my displaying of the prints as screens for the projection. my intention was to allow people to see the print in all its damaged glory... to examine where my hands clutched the sides of the print, where the dimples showed up most, where the wind ripped it apart. as with my alludere: surrealist exploration installation, it was crucial to show that the print has a life of its own. since I've struggled with the digital print for quite some time now (my first attempt to distance myself from the traditional digital print method was with The Manhattan Project: Retreat the Digital Print) I wanted to put more value into these digital prints. when you're working with a file, you can reproduce a print as many times as you like... so why then do we treat them as precious objects? money aside, I see no point in it. to me, a battered print is more valuable than a pristine one, because you absolutely cannot recreate it. and it grows and changes with time - the holes poked through it for installation, the marks from bands keeping it rolled up, the gradual fading and changing that happens as time passes. this was extremely important to me.
I guess I had to know that someone already did something similar to what I was doing. that's always the case. but it will never be exactly the same.
thanks, Chelsea, for putting me on to Lebain's work!
and now, here are some photographers i've been digging lately (the majority discovered on 500 photographers)....
Aaron Hobson - extremely influential to me right now (at least mentally). definitely makes me regret not shooting some of my later ideas in NZ.
Celine Clanet is drawing me to Scandinavia.. though I suppose Lindsborg will have to do for now.
Christian Hansen - self explanatory.
Ellen Kooi - inspiring me to use children and colored gels.
more thoughts later.
