Victoria Sambunaris Untitled, Wendover, UT, 2007 Courtesy of Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York

A Guided Tour

With the rise of digital photography, one ed to this, these studios specializing in fam- stylized fact that reverberates around pho- ily photography have a lot of preschools, tography circles is that the traditional com- kindergartens, high schools and college mercial studio is dying. While it may be true graduations to visit. Commercially speaking, that there are fewer around and our need to the family is imperative to its success. There visit them less regular, there is still an impor- are also times when this kind of vernacular tant place for them. However many snaps commercial photography can have an inter- you take of your family (and by this I mean esting place in the art gallery and is used to children specifically) there is still an urge to arresting effect in the hands of artists. get “a proper photograph” done and proud- Artistically, the home, domesticity, the ly place it on the mantel piece. For this to family and the familial everyday are a rich- happen, a visit to a studio is necessary. Add- ly mined seam for artists and photogra-

Essay By Susan Bright in conjunction with the exhibition Housed curated by Joseph Maida & Katie Murray phers. It’s easy to reel off a long would downgrade it to a “lowbrow the role that technology now has The work they have chosen does list of great bodies of work that art” and love the illicit opportuni- in the home. not simply validate their own prac- have made an important impact in ties it can offer. But it is exactly photography’s tice (as can so often be seen when the history of photography. Ap- And you can’t get much more technology and inherent lowliness artists or photographers turn their proaches and intentions differ, but lowbrow than the wonderful chat- that is part of its charm and on- hand at curating) but challenges it. the need to consider the idea of roulette.com. This site enables you going attraction for many artists. Thankfully, they also avoided the the family and home, and, in turn, to flick through people sitting in References to “applied” photog- egotistic trap of putting their own your place in it, is irresistible to front of their computers and en- raphy such as still life (Kathryn work in, which is an absolute no- many. Worth mentioning are the gage (or not) for however long Parker Almanas), fashion (Peter no for any artist/curator (artist/ British photographer, Richard Bill- you want. It’s a place for extro- Stanglmayr) and surveillance (Da- book editors also take note). ingham, and his controversial Rays verts and introverts alike. A space vid Deutsch) can be seen in the Their decision to hold the exhi- A Laugh (2002) and autobiograph- for the curious and bored and for exhibition Housed curated by art- bition at the Alice Austen House ical journeys by Mexican artist, one to masturbate it would seem ists Joseph Maida and Katie Mur- Museum carries through the con- Ana Casas Broda, in her brilliant- (depending on what time you go ray. Before we take a tour of some cept of the domestic to a conclud- ly complex Album (2000), which on). It is evidence, indeed, that the of the work in the show, there are ing point. In a nice matryoshka of combines family snapshots, studio computer has an integral place in two things that are worth men- ideas, the spectator can experience photographs and her own artwork the home now and how embed- tioning here. One is the role of the work around the theme of a house to suggest signs and symptoms ded a certain kind of photography curators and the fact that they are while in a house. The beauty of the of traumas long repressed. Mitch (and video) is – one that was un- artists, and the second is the inau- Alice Austen House Museum is Epstein’s Family Business (2003) imaginable when Bourdieu’s book gural venue for the exhibition - the that it is no ordinary museum, nor saw him return to photograph his was released. Alice Austen House Museum on an ordinary house, but one that father. The resulting series works It is interesting to note that at Staten Island. housed an extraordinary woman. metaphorically to suggest larger the time Photography: A Middle-brow Both Maida and Murray’s work The echoes and traces of Austen’s universal overtures, and then there Art was reprinted in 1990, two explores primal aspects of human- life and work ricochet throughout is the funny and empathetic Subur- large and important exhibitions ity and a need to connect (most the work on show, and, by remov- bia by Bill Owens, which enjoyed about the family and the home obviously in two new videos: girls ing the traditional gallery context, a recent revival (first published in were in production. These were in 4/4 by Murray and amailstrip- the photographs resonate across a 1973 and again in 1999). Who’s Looking at the Family, curated per4u: 4mike, 4gerald, 4dwight by different register. Peter Stanglmayr Calder from Born a Wicked Child, 2007 Theorists, critics and psycho- by Val Williams and shown at the Maida). Both also deal with ideas Alice Austen delighted in mas- Courtesy of the artist analysts (needless to say) have Barbican Art Gallery, London, in of domesticity, albeit in an oblique querade, confused people with her also been drawn to similar subject 1994, and Pleasures and Terrors of way. Maida and Murray came to sexuality and worked as a photog- The work of Peter Stanglmayr, culine is at its most acute, and the matter. In the case of French so- Domestic Comfort, curated by Peter the work in the show through a rapher in a way that was not befit- Born a Wicked Child (2007), is a tensions of awkwardness/grace ciologist, anthropologist and phi- Galassi for MoMA, New York, in frustration in their working pro- ting for a woman of her time. The contemporary nod to Alice Aus- and vulnerability/composure are losopher, Pierre Bourdieu, and his 1991. Although drastically differ- cess and, during their research, use of twinning and mirroring in ten and traditions of gender. The apparent in the photographs and collaborators, it was not the sub- ent in approach and intent - where stumbled upon a good idea and some of her work (most obviously series was originally commissioned give them their strange and slightly ject matter per se but the family’s Galassi focused on high art with the rush that curating a tight group in her most well-known self-por- for a small women’s knitwear com- unsettling charge. The work hints use of the camera which made it a prevalence for narrative and the show can provide. Their role is far trait Trude and I Masked, Short Skirts, pany called Spring & Clifton. In at the secret space of the home, a a “middle-brow art” and, as such, dramatic, Williams had a more ex- from the “curator as failed artist” 11pm, Thursday, August 6th, 1891) an attempt to make their twin sets place where young boys can dress a definition for photography. They panded view of photography deal- cliché, and, instead, Housed shows suggests a sophisticated knowledge raunchier, he decided to shoot up in their mother’s clothes while based their theories not on some ing with the surrealistic everyday a generosity of spirit to work with of the graphic qualities of photog- boys instead of girls. At the time she is at work and be liberated by intrinsic photographic DNA but and included a selection of vernac- artists around a theme, which cuts raphy and also could be read as a of the shoot, the boy pictured was such an experience. It is such ordi- on the fact that it had become a ular photographs including foren- to the core of their own prac- pre-postmodern understanding of fifteen - an edgy, and some would nary suburban boys experimenting mass social practice. One wonders sic photography, studio portraits tice and challenges their working the slippery qualities of the self say controversial, move to photo- with the feel of nylon, when they what he would make of the use of and family snapshots - neither methodology. This show is empiri- and identity at once performed and graph a model officially “under- pull on a pair of tights, or relish- photography now – and, in partic- could have ever predicted how cal research made into something learned in order to fit in (far from a age” in the fashion business. It is, ing the electric shock of desire ular, its applications on social net- much domestic photography has creative, and their affinity with humanist belief in a stable and uni- however, an age when the dichot- as they run their hands through working sites. I feel certain that he changed in the last fifteen years or the subject matter shines through. versal sense of being). omy between feminine and mas- beautiful fabrics and enjoy the qui- out of the inhospitable land. Fu- tures of mirrors from mail order by historical, faux simulacra within tility is apparent in Untitled, Wendo- catalogues and enlarges them to these objects of desire with the ver, UT as the landscape swallows highlight other reflected home wider implications of not just the up the houses showing that man decorating features for sale. As self-trying to escape, but also a na- is far from ever conquering nature such, they become signifiers for tion – but to what? And where is – an American pioneering dream, empty consumerist desire, reflect- the authenticity? as so eagerly illustrated by other ing back at the viewer an “ideal A very real American history early topographical photographers home.” She has said of these im- and tradition is, by contrast, the Abby Robinson from the AutoWork Series, 1973-2010 Courtesy of the artist such as William Henry Jackson, has ages stuffed into our mailboxes, main subject matter for Thanks- turned into something altogether “These catalogs are obviously giving. The gluttony, excess, pres- etly subversive thrill of putting on Some of the work in the show to without a car. This landscape more pathetic. made to sell objects but they pres- sure and emphasis on food, rather nail polish. Such a boy may well be brings to mind the photographs may well fall neatly into the lin- On first appearances, Peter Gar- ent such idyllic, clean life-styles than family, show the artist’s dis- found inside the homes that Da- of Edward Ruscha, Lewis Baltz eage of conceptual art that Baltz field’s Harsh Realty (1998-2000) that they also seem to be made for gust at this yearly get together and vid Deutsch photographs (and, to or the legendary work of the New heralded so concisely, but it is seems to show what these little escaping from our own imperfect, his personal revulsion as his fam- add a touch, a ludicrous one can Topographics more than Edward also worth considering within the houses in Utah might look like if messy lives. This escape is intensi- ily gorges on food that becomes also imagine the truck, pictured in Hopper, who is often the default larger history of American pho- a huge twister came to town. How- fied by the potential ownership of almost unrecognizable with the Benjamin Donaldson’s Wood Stove artist of choice for those dealing tography and, in particular, in rela- ever, the photographs are an elabo- any of the objects presented there. close up shots and DIY shooting Trailer, NH (1998) from his Terrain with issues of suburban alienation. tionship to the Nineteenth century rate layering of truth and fiction. There is an illusion of control, of techniques. The fact that the artist series, parked outside ready to de- There is a distance to much of topographical photographs of First presented to the world as choice to determine the ‘look’ of suffers from anorexia is left unsaid liver fake fireplaces). the work rather than an emphasis Timothy O’Sullivan. A compari- “real” houses that had been airlift- your life. I started searching for but once again points to family se- Technology, as mentioned, on suggested narrative. Theoreti- son with Desert San Hills near Sink ed out to open fields and blown up instances of self-reflection and crets, hidden histories and painful plays an important part in David cally, too, one feels that the refer- of Carson, Nevada (1868) is interest- in a similar vein to the monolithic escape (mirrors, windows, doors) memories that bind families to- Deutsch’s photograph Pink House ence may not relate as much to ing. O’Sullivan’s photograph feels and monumental earthworks and in the catalogues to address these gether as is implied in many of the (2002). It is not just the subject Bourdieu but, perhaps, more to ironic and knowing, two traits macho gestures of artists such as notions of self and escape as they works in Housed. of his work but also key to his Jean Baudrillard’s America (1986). which are unusual at such a time, Michael Heizer and Chris Burden, pertain to the viewer of the cata- The metaphors, which food can photographic technique. Made be- Exhilarating and provocative, this especially for “record” photogra- they are, in fact, small maquettes log.” It is as if a real life is replaced carry, and deconstruction are also fore the intrusive Google Earth, text abandons academic formal phy. The photographer’s wagon that are digitally manipulated. The Deutsch took aerial shots of sub- argument and analysis and is, in- has done a U-turn in the desert, “back story” was a hoax directed urbia from a helicopter. They have stead, a more languid and opinion- and the photographer’s footprints at the art world. Over ten years on, the coolness of conceptual art ated survey. The ideas considered are legible in the sand. We can see with digital technology what it is taxonomy mixed in with work-a- in this book share similarities to where he has walked uphill carry- today and a complete lack of belief day army reconnaissance but con- the work of Baltz, Deutsch and ing his heavy camera to take the in the veracity of photography, the versely let the imagination run free another artist featured in the show, picture, but there is no view. Any story seems sort of sweet and even as you envision what’s happening Victoria Sambunaris, in that the vista is obstructed by a large sand irrelevant. What hasn’t changed, in these generic, clumsy boxes that epic scale of consumerist America dune, which dominates the center though, is the strange beauty of the people call home. In a review of (when transferred into a domestic of the picture, and, as such, gives pieces, which seem to owe a curi- his work in Art Forum in 2001, Mar- setting) makes for an alienating the whole scene, and the efforts to ous postmodern and delirious debt garet Sundell described them as a and depersonalized place. photograph it, a sense of futility. to the Topographics (both old and place where, “autonomy tends to Where Deutsch dives in, Sambu- With the Sambunaris photograph, new). slide into isolation and voyeurism naris pans out. Their work neatly a similar mound dominates, al- The consumerism mentioned increasingly usurps more mean- becomes a counterpoint for one though her vantage point is much in reference to Jean Baudrillard’s ingful forms of human contact.” another, especially in her 2007 higher and further back to en- America can be seen as the main However, as much of the other piece Untitled, Wendover, UT, which able a view. The sad houses act in subject matter in the work of Pe- work in the show demonstrates, shows a tiny town of “cookie cut- the same way as O’Sullivan’s cart nelope Umbrico and as a subtext voyeurism (and with it a new kind ter” houses in the middle of bar- does in order to give scale. They for Kyle Ganson’s video Thanksgiv- ing (2007). In Mirrors (from catalogs) Kathryn Parker Almanas Blueberry Danish, 2006 of isolation) is meaningful contact ren land isolated and dwarfed by are stuck in Utah, however, unable Courtesy of the artist for many. mountains and impossible to get to move like the wagon on its way (2002 – 2007), Umbrico takes pic- subject matter for Kathryn Parker of the scenarios comes to the fore, quencing swirls through time with- of alternative possibilities to ideas Almanas. Where Ganson gorges belying the seriousness of their re- out losing its storytelling thread.” around domesticity and concepts the senses with a turkey and sweet porting. In a similar way, Christopher of the home. potato overload, Almanas gets The everyday is also seen in the Miner truncates time and memory These works show, or tell, how clinical. She continues the long work of Jessica Watson and Abby in his video The Best Decision Ever the body is a vital part of domes- art historical tradition in still life Robinson. Watson shows adroit Made (2004) as he returns to his ticity just as the alienating, cool and where food symbolizes a demise skill in taking photographs of deceased grandparents’ house and distancing aspects of technology and eventual death with its inevi- quotidian objects and manages to tours the empty site with a laconic have come to dominate the home. table decay. However, she updates transform them into something ambivalence. His aimless voiceover It is these two apparently opposing it to a society where the body is special. This is a notable skill of a tells the viewer about his grandfa- elements that are two main curato- not a corporeal, visceral thing photographer, and one that seems ther’s stable life and how different rial touchstones for the exhibition. symbolized by oozing fruit, but a misleadingly simple. A lamp, some it is from his own. The piece is not Sometimes they are at opposite sanitized, disinfected and dissected uncooked fish and a knife and fork without humor and pathos, how- sides of the spectrum and, at oth- thing in the shape of a Danish pas- become modern day still lifes, with ever, as he recounts how he used er times, they coalesce. Either way, try. The seventeenth century mas- a touch of Eggleston color and a to masturbate over a picture of an they are both very contemporary ters of the still life genre reveled twist of diacritic framing so deftly unknown young Hawaiian woman, debates, which the curators deftly in the decay as food began to deli- handled by Japanese artists such as who was in a tourist photograph highlight, and, as such, bring issues quesce, but Almanas prefers the Rinko Kawauchi. These influences, with his grandparents. around the American home right snap of surgical gloves, and her combined with her own hand, be- The body is a common vehicle up to date. personal fascination and repulsion come something quintessentially for artists and an expressive tool with the subject matter are appar- American, and scale and juxtaposi- through which questions of iden- ent in equal measure. This push/ tion in the works give them enough tity - from the very personal to the pull technique is also used to great visual charge to be interesting but highly abstract and philosophical ironic (and comic) effect in the se- not dazzling. It is the quietness of - can be explored. In Catherine ries Newscasters by Matt Ducklo. them that is their strength. It’s as Opie’s Self-Portrait/Cutting (1993), Over half of the American pop- if they shouldn’t really “work” but her sexuality and physical objec- ulation has three or more televi- they do, and you just can’t quite tion to the heterosexual nuclear sions per household, and, accord- put your finger on why. They are family are literally expressed in ing to the Nielsen Co., the average like photographic haikus - elusive her skin. The soreness of her skin American watches more than 4 and profound at the same time. contrasts with the childlike illustra- Catherine Opie Self-Portrait/Cutting, 1993 hours of TV each day. With this Messier, more personal and alto- tion that has been carved there and Courtesy of Regen Projects, Los Angeles © Catherine Opie statistic in mind, a 65 year old will gether more obsessive is the work sets up an oppositional dynamic have spent nine years in front of of Abby Robinson. For over thirty between the medium and the sub- the television. Ducklo takes news- years she has been making self- ject matter. The portrait could also casters as his subject matter and portraits, which act like staccato be read as a metaphorical turning Susan Bright’s writing has appeared in Aperture, Contemporary, European Photo and American Photo. Bright is best known for her book Art Photography Now. Her forthcoming book Auto Focus: The Self Portrait in Contemporary Photography will be out in Fall 2010. She has taught extensively and convened removes them from the contextual notes in her life. They show daily of her back on monogamous re- major conferences and seminars on many aspects of art and photography internationally. Previous posts include Assistant Curator of Photographs box, so what we have, instead, are routines, visits to the dentist, va- lationships. The picture is part of at the National Portrait Gallery (London), Curator at the Association of Photographers and Acting Director for the MA Photography (Historic strange, made up automatons with cations and time with her family a series of three synoptic self-por- and Contemporary) at Sotheby’s Institute, London. Bright curated the 2007 exhibition Face of Fashion for Britain’s National Portrait Gallery and their smiles, which are not really – the very “stuff ” that makes up traits, which highlight the physical- was co-curator of the landmark exhibition How We Are: Photographing Britain at Tate Britain that same year. smiles, staring transfixed into the life inside and outside the home. ity of her body – be that through Joseph Maida has had solo exhibitions of his work at Wallspace Gal- Katie Murray has had solo exhibitions of her work at White Columns distance. The falsity, performance She has said of the work. “… the scarification, extreme piercing or, lery in Manhattan and at the Nikon Salons in Tokyo and Osaka. His and Jen Bekman Gallery in New York City. She has also participated in and blandness of their appearance images parallel memory itself – most recently, the nursing of her photographs and videos have also been included in group exhibitions group exhibitions at venues including the International Center of Pho- at the Bronx Museum of Art, the Queens Museum of Art, Art In tography, the Queens Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New is such a regular feature in most quirky, circular, paradoxical, ironic, young son. They continue to reso- General, Artists Space and PS122, and he has shown internationally at York, Yale Art Gallery, Bellwether Gallery and Kate Werble Gallery. homes that the absurdity of their sly and funny. The effect is to hon- nate as much as when they were institutions including the Reina Sofia National Museum, the Witte de Murray’s photographs have been featured and reviewed in New Yorker, look becomes almost unnoticed. or both time and truth as well as made, and the place of her body in With Center for Contemporary Art, the Kunsthalle Wien and the Pro- The New York Times Magazine, W Magazine and PDN, among others. Her Arte Center, St. Petersburg. He is the recipient of numerous awards in- newest video girls in 4/4 is currently the subject of a solo exhibition at It is only when it is brought out to deconstruct them. The series is this exhibition is a powerful punch cluding a recent JUSFC/National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. World Class Boxing in Miami. Murray is a graduate of the School of of context that the ridiculousness lucid without being linear; the se- to remind mainstream America Maida is a graduate of Columbia (B.A.) and Yale Universities (M.F.A.). Visual Arts (B.F.A.) and Yale University (M.F.A.). Matt Ducklo Newscasters, Salt Lake City, 2002 Courtesy of Eleven Rivington, New York

housed

Kathryn Parker Almanas Christopher Miner Alice Austen Catherine Opie David Deutsch Abby Robinson Matt Ducklo Victoria Sambunaris Benjamin Donaldson Peter Stanglmayr Kyle Ganson Penelope Umbrico Peter Garfield Jessica Watson

Joseph Maida and Katie Murray would like to thank the artists and lenders who have gen- erously made the works for Housed available. A special thank you to G. Carl Rutberg, Paul Moakley and the Alice Austen House Museum for embracing the idea of our exhibition and for giving us the opportunity to bring this work together. We are deeply grateful to Stephen Frailey for his support of our endeavor since its inception, to Susan Bright for her wonderfully written contribution and to Isaac Haas for his sharp design sensibility.

This publication is supported by Dear Dave Magazine, the Alice Austen House Museum and a grant from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.