UC San Diego Visual Arts @ 50
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UC San Diego Visual Arts @ 50 Title Extensions of Photography: A Visual Arts Faculty, Emeritus Faculty, and Alumni Exhibition Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1vt6d51t Authors UC San Diego Department of Visual Arts Sizonenko, Tatiana Publication Date 2016-10-07 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 4.0 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Extensions of Photography A Visual Arts Faculty, Emeritus Faculty, and Alumni Exhibition October 7 – December 9, 2016 University Art Gallery Mandeville Center UC San Diego Extensions of Photography VA 50 Extensions of Photography Amy Adler Eleanor Antin Kaucyila Brooke Becky Cohen Brian Cross Moyra Davey John Craig Freeman Kip Fulbeck Anya Gallaccio Katie Grinnan Nina Katchadourian Fred Lonidier Jean Lowe Kim MacConnel Babette Mangolte Rubén Ortiz-Torres Patricia Patterson Martha Rosler Elizabeth Sisco Deborah Small Phel Steinmetz Blaise Tobia Ruth Wallen Introduction Barthes’s theoretical writings Fine Arts degree in photography, has opened up a new way of thinking fully institutionalized a wide array about pictures and helped artists of conceptual strategies and forms. who, beginning in the 1960s, were Starting in the early 1970s with already experimenting with the the hiring of Phel Steinmetz and photographic medium to justify and Fred Lonidier, who spearheaded the expand their practice. Dissatisfied photography program, artists and with the pervasive commercialism of graduate students affiliated with UC fine arts photography, those artists San Diego have made a commitment In his seminal essay of 1961, “Pho- cal treatment, framing, etc) and were not interested in the aesthet- to non-formalist photography, and tographic Message,” Roland Barthes represents a coding of the photo- ic dimension of the photographic their artistic practice has contribut- discusses the photographic image graphic analogue…. The code of image so much as its role in culture ed to the expanded notion of what a operating like a semiotic system, as a connotation was in all likelihood and politics. They examined how work of art can be. particularly paradoxical sort of sign, neither ‘natural’ nor ‘artificial’ but photographs could be used to convey Over the years, a number of prolif- because it possesses simultaneously historical, or if it to be preferred messages, how such messages were ic artists who practiced photography, an “objective” and “invested” nature, ‘cultural.’ related to consumerism, and how video, and experimental film joined both natural and cultural. Barthes photography was employed to exert the department, for a fixed period postulates that the two fundamental Barthes thus skewers the genre of political control. Moreover, consid- of time or for the duration of their semiotic operations—denotation and photography that, because of its pre- ering the paradoxical complexity of academic careers, including Eleanor connotation—are inseparable within sumed “naturalness” or “neutrality,” the photographic image, they further Antin, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Helen the content of the pictures and con- viewers were predisposed to take for questioned the nature of its use in Mayer Harrison and Newton Harri- stitute their appeal. He writes: granted. He proposes that everyday relation to the images that populate son, Louis Hock, Allan Kaprow, Bar- images are complex signs rather our world. bara Kruger, Kim MacConnel, and The photographic paradox can than seemingly innocent and trans- Barthes’ writing about photog- Babette Mangolte. Some extremely be seen as the coexistence of two parent forms. Hence he underscores raphy aimed both to unmask its talented graduates subsequently messages, the one without a code photography’s inherent tendency “objectivity” and to account for how a taught in the department as well, (the photographic analogue), and to present itself as a “perfect ana- particular view of the world becomes such as Becky Cohen, Jean Lowe, the other with a code (the ‘art,’ or logue” without a style, while veiling naturalized. Thus it furnishes a Martha Rosler, Allan Sekula, Eliza- the treatment, or the ‘writing,’ or its invented and highly structured convenient and constructive frame- beth Sisco, Deborah Small, and Ruth the rhetoric, of the photograph); meanings hidden behind those that work for this exhibition, which itself Wallen. The department has always structurally, the paradox is clearly arise almost accidentally. Barthes’s sets out to provide an understand- embraced interdisciplinary approach- not the collusion of a denoted mes- assertion about the play between the ing of the practice and concept of es to making art and, accordingly, sage and a connoted, it is that here denoted or literal and connoted or photography as it developed in the Professor Emeritus Particia Pat- the connoted message (or coded) symbolic/representational elements Department of Visual Arts at UC terson and former visiting lecturer message develops on the basis of a of the picture serves to delineate the San Diego over the past 50 years. Katie Grinnan have extended the message without a code…. Con- ways in which all photographic imag- Since its inception in 1967 by Paul practice of photography to painting notation, the imposition of second es, whether aesthetic/fine art objects Brach, and under the leadership of and sculpture, either by exploiting meaning on the photographic or merely chance snapshots, share David Antin, the department has photography as a practical tool in a message proper, is realized at the intrinsic properties that a skilled fostered ever-expanding photograph- sketchbook process that transforms different levels of the production practitioner can exploit in order to ic practices including video, perfor- photography into painting, or by of the photograph (choice, techni- produce expressive work. mance, and revisionist documentary integrating photographic images and approaches and, in the Master of photograms as structural elements in photo-sculptures and installations. ies between creative categories but Extensions of Photography inau- The show complements The Uses The work of current faculty, includ- also to blur the line between art and gurates VISUAL ARTS @ 50: ART of Photography: Art, Politics, and the ing Amy Adler, Brian Cross, Anya life. Promoting new and post-studio INTO LIFE, a series of exhibitions Reinvention of a Medium, 1968-1985, Gallaccio, and Rubén Ortiz-Torres, practices for art, their work has both and events celebrating the 50th anni- a major Southern California exhibi- further reflects the emergence of new introduced themes of everyday life versary of the Department of Visual tion running concurrently at the Mu- areas of photographic practice rang- and revealed the pressing histo- Arts in 2017. Developed by a select seum of Contemporary Art, San Di- ing from drawing to hip hop. ries of gender, class, and political committee of faculty, emeriti, and ego from September 24 to January 2. Since the mid-1960s, UC San resistance. The range of works also alumni, the anniversary program- It extends the theme of the MCASD Diego-affiliated artists, drawn to reflects how analog photography has ming will survey the impact and show and primarily covers the period photography’s inherent political and rapidly given way to its digital suc- achievements of the department and from 1985 up to the present day. social dimensions, have significantly cessor: carefully produced prints are help shape a narrative for the future broadened the notion of the photo- juxtaposed with works responding of visual arts at UC San Diego. —Tatiana Sizonenko, Ph.D., Art graphic image by fashioning new to a culture increasingly dominated History, Theory and Criticism, 2013 forms and formats, such as text-and- by virtual reality and screens with a image installations, photomontages, rapidly shifting content. photo-novellas, and film and video Extensions of Photography also productions that exploit photog- celebrates the work of recent alumni raphy’s fundamental capacity to, who went on establishing distin- within frames, multiply and capture guished artistic careers outside of time and movement. The conceptual the department. Work of Moyra practice of these artists has consis- Davey, John Craig Freeman, Kip tently extended the photographic me- Fulbeck, Nina Katchadorian, and dium to a broader cultural applica- Blaise Tobia represents new develop- tion, incorporating images from daily ments in photography over the past life to force the viewer to reconsider decade. They explore the processes, the social and political significance supports, and techniques of photog- behind the ever-present barrage of raphy; rematerialize the medium mundane images. through meticulous printing and dig- Extensions of Photography, there- ital technologies; and reassert how fore, seeks to highlight the artistic photographic images circulate. Their practices of former and current UC recent works further investigate the San Diego-affiliated artists and rules of photography and the nature alumni who have engaged with the of photographic representation and photographic image as a paradoxical reproduction, by taking the notion of sort of sign, who have contributed the photographic object beyond what significantly to the cultural life of it meant for Barthes. Reconceptual- San Diego and the United States ization of photographic practice by while helping redefine the medium current faculty and alumni carry on itself. The exhibition spotlights how the legacy of early experiments with these artists