photo by Matthew Leifheit for CCNY
A mercurial poet of visual splendors, Pierre Le Hors challenges the ways in which pictures exist. Photographing transient beauty and anchoring it concretely in this world though the creation of carefully considered objects, Le Hors explores space.
“Photography lets me pay attention to the outward appearance of objects, to the surface of my surroundings. With photos you can isolate a little part of the world, saving it for later consideration. I find that you can discover a lot about the world by starting from its surface, and working backwards from there.”
Last month Dashwood Books released a new publication of Le Hors’ photographs entitled “Byways and Through Lines”. This object is halfway between a zine and a full-fledged book, and it contains a very personal alternative to the standard series of photos. The images are widely varied, drawings and paint marks are presented alongside pictures made using a scanner interspersed with more traditionally straight photography. The connections between images are poetically nonlinear, barely tangential, often bisecting each other and twisting together then separating. The flow of “Byways and Through Lines” is more like a cloud, an etherlike Chutes and Ladders for the eyes mind and heart. Diagrammed, I imagine connections between the images would looks very much like Le Hors’ photographs. The images are very warm and human, alternately emphasizing surface and depth, rich with visual play. “I usually don’t shoot with a very clear idea of where the images will end up,” Le Hors admits. “I tend to think about my pictures as pretty fluid things. Most of the images in Byways were initially unrelated. Some came from different projects, others were simply photos taken in a casual way, out of observation. In editing and laying out the book, I looked for several thematic “threads” to run throughout, parallel to each other. They criss-cross in certain places, and the title alludes to that. In a quite literal way, the book binds them and creates a third context.”
David Strettell, owner of Dashwood books, published “Byways and Through Lines” as part of the second year of the “Dashwood Book Series”. Other artists represented in this second volume of the series include Glen Luchford and Nigel Shafran, as well as a collaboration with Robert Mapplethorpe’s foundation which features unseen early collages and assemblages with an introduction by Patti Smith. “The idea behind the whole series is to introduce contemporary photographers and reintroduce largely unknown work from the past to a contemporary audience serving as a reflection of Dashwood’s own curatorial theme,” explains Strettell. “Variety is the key in terms of matching fashion with documentary with conceptual art as well as established figures with relatively unknown talents. What I recognized in Pierre’s working practice that it was linked very much to books and publishing. He had previously published a beautifully conceived project with Hassla, Firework Studies and was publishing experimental zines under the name NOWORK (with Tuomas Korpijaakko).”
“Firework Studies” is one of the most elegant photographic objects I have ever encountered. It’s more of a movie than a monograph, the edges silver leafed into a perfect block and every surface of the book covered full bleed in beautifully tonal black and white photograph. The book is sculpture, it reads back and forth and over and around, romancing the viewer with exploding light tendrils leaking over black ground in atomically generated paintings.
Le Hors makes things. In the time of tumblr where photographs increasingly loose connection to their origin there is a tendency for photographs to become weightless, images floating through space unhindered by a physical object. There is a high level of craft in Le Hors’ work, an attention to how it can be interacted with physically from a human perspective. This consideration of the encounter is evident in both sequential publications like zines and books and in the way Le Hors presents still photographs as prints. There is generally an emphasis on surface, on the photographic object. But not always. Always the vaporous quality of these photographs resists becoming solid.
Untitled (Alikeness)
17 C-prints mounted to aluminum
Installation views from “Alikeness” Solo exhibition Ed. Varie, New York, NY January 2011
Leah Beeferman / Pierre Le Hors Two-person exhibiton PACS Gallery, Brooklyn September 2011
“I think there is a lot to be said for being literal, or plain spoken. I also think of abstraction as being literal, one-to-one: what you see is what you get.”
Le Hors is the current recipient of CCNY’s darkroom residency, and he’s making exciting new pictures. As part of the residency an exhibition of the work that eventually results will be presented at CCNY sometime next year. This will surely be something to see as Le Hors’ ideas of what could happen in his art seem like the galaxy to be constantly expanding, spiraling outward and inward, through space and time. Stay tuned.
-Matte Magazine for CCNY
photo by Matthew Leifheit for CCNY
conversation with Pacifico Silano
Recuperating and reconfiguring icons sliced from pornographic gay magazines of another generation, Pacifico Silano emphasizes the negative space they left behind. He is included in the upcoming second edition of Jen Bekman’s “Hey Hotshot” exhibition, on view April 6th, 2013 through April 21st, 2013.
Opening Reception Friday, April 5th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
at Jen Bekman Gallery, 6 Spring Street NYC
MATTE: How did you become interested ’70s porn?
PC: I have always been fascinated with history and time periods that I have never lived through. In my early 20s I started spending a lot of time in dirty East Village gay bars that would play 70s gay porn on loops. I started to model my own appearance off of some of the men I saw on screen, grooming my mustache and wearing denim/plaid. I was fascinated with the masculine archetypes in the films. I also saw an amazing documentary called Gay Sex in the 70s and it completely changed my life. It struck a strong emotional cord with me and ever since then I have felt a need to talk about a lost generation of gay men.
MATTE: What do you think imagery from this time period can say about today?
PC: Everything old eventually is new again. I think given the current political climate with gay rights and marriage equality, now is an appropriate time to look to the past in order to figure out where we are going as a group of people. Looking at this imagery is a reminder of how much we have lost. I also think that there is something interesting about the desirability of gay porn stars and how disposable they become over time. That factored with the AIDS epidemic makes for a powerful statement.
Where the Boys Are, photo/video istallation 2012
MATTE: How are this new work and your last series, “Where the Boys Are” related? How are they different?
PC: This new body of work is directly connected to the themes I have explored in “Where The Boys Are”. It’s just a little more specific and obsessive. This new work dissects the Al Parker persona. It’s both a memorial/tribute to a person and a commentary on how we consume imagery from the past… it also just so happens to be about one of the most famous gay porn stars of all time.
MATTE: Describe the postcard piece you were telling me about.
“Wish You Were Here” is a postcard I have fabricated of Al Parker & Mike Davis. The two starred in many films together during the 70s and both died from complications of AIDS. I wanted to create a piece that would breathe new life into the forgotten and find new ways to circulate their likeness without the internet. Something that would feel authentic… It’s interesting because the image I have chosen has strong homoerotic undertones. The idea of this imagery being distributed and mailed out is also a commentary on censorship and how far I would like to believe we have come.
-MATTE Magazine for CCNY
Blue Boobs, c print colorgram, 2012
A Conversation with Pia Howell
Using traditionally photographic materials to create vividly colored abstractions in the darkroom, Pia Howell sidesteps the need to photograph something real. In doing so she perhaps makes photographs that are more direct, translating her good-humored presence onto type-c paper in a fanciful yet cannily culturally conscious language of mark and gesture.
Wild! Berry, c print colorgram, 2011
MATTE: When did you decide to start painting with the darkroom? Was there a time when you made “straight photographs”? If so, what prompted the transition?
PH: I got the idea to start painting in the darkroom a couple of years ago after thinking a lot about the “painted” frosting designs on pop tarts. I wanted to recreate the wild berry pop tart design as a c print, and the best way to do that was to paint it onto a large transparency. From that experience it became clear that there was a lot to work with from painting transparencies.
Yes I learned traditional printing from negatives in both black and white and color, and there was a brief time when I was making “straight” photographs. The urge to experiment came largely from a frustration with having to find subjects and content to photograph (as opposed to creating it), as well as an interest in facing the materiality of photography rather than keeping it latent. I’ve always been most driven to work in photography but I might actually be more of a painter or sculptor at heart?
Black Smiley, c print colorgram, 2012
Sad Confusion, c print, 2012
Witch Work, unique c print, 2012
MATTE: Can/do you edition your pieces, or are they one-off?
PH: Editioning my work is probably closer to printmaking than photography. Though the printmakers I’ve met seem to be hardcore perfectionists about editions. Personally I feel like each print I make is technically unique since I am moving all the components (transparencies and set up) between making each print, but for exhibition purposes it makes a lot of sense to create editions. My idea of an edition can get pretty loose. But as long as 2 prints look almost exactly the same and are going for the same effect, I think they are an edition even if they are registered slightly differently.
Red Marks, c print colorgram, 2009
Abstract Olympics, collage, 2011
Red Marlboro, unique c print colorgram, 2009
MATTE: How do you come up with the color of palette for a specific work?
PH: I’ve always made a lot of little abstract paper collages, and through that have been very interested in strange color combinations. I have palettes in my mind that I’m working towards…In the darkroom it can be difficult to achieve a specific subtle color, say a pastel for example, and at the same time adding another color adds considerable complexity to a print, so often the palettes of c prints I make are more limited than I’d like them to be eventually.
MATTE: How do you begin to compose an image?
PH: Yeah that’s hard because my images transition between so many materials. I usually just have to jump in and start painting something, which often works when I want something to look chaotic or careless. Sometimes I make a composition I like immediately; other times I have to rework a composition by combining elements from different paintings, scanning, enlarging, copying, tracing, photocopying etc.
Flag, c print colorgram, 2011
MATTE: Why are you a member of CCNY?
PH: I love CCNY- it’s such a unique resource. I became an intern towards the end of college, and stayed on so that I could keep working in the darkroom after I was out of school. Analog darkrooms, especially color darkrooms, are so rare these days- I hear all the time about art institutions disassembling their color darkrooms. This may sound crazy but I think it’s premature; there is still a lot of potential for interesting work to be made through analog printing.
-MATTE Magazine for CCNY
photo by Matthew Leifheit for CCNY
1989 New York, NY
I officially consider Deanna Havas to be my muse. She has a certain “I don’t give a fuck” that combined with very real knowledge and a staggeringly evolved and cohesive personal aesthetic frequently leads to good art. She is constantly at work, and the things she makes are things you’d like to have around because they exude the same kind of shameless and pokingly subversive wit. A notable entity on the internet, Havas offers her very real self as a mirror of pixels and tweets. Working with the world wide web she injects the usually cold arteries through which our digital lives flow with uniquely human insight and warmth.
This month New Museum affiliated non-profit Rhizome presents a new piece by Havas entitled “Affiliate Program” as part of their “The Download” series. The program allows you to earn back the membership fee you pay to Rhizome by directing traffic to her website.
“The Download as a curatorial program makes it so you can only download the monthly projects if you join, and the profits are essentially split between the artists at the end of the program,” Havas explains. “This stood out to me as a pretty unique feature of this curatorial project so I was interested in engaging with that aspect. Alternative economies are often proposed as a solutions for commodifying net based works which continues to be an ongoing theme, and affiliate marketing occurred to me, not only because its kinda sketchy, but because its unique in the sense that its an economic system indigenous to the internet.”
Found Abstract Render, 2012
Iphone/Ipad composition, 2012
Iphone/Ipad composition, 2012
Havas sometimes culls things from the internet, sometimes creates things in exhaustively painstaking detail from scratch, and often mixes both. Everything she creates is unified by very informed engagement with culture in general alongside very specific subcultures. In her recent piece “Mecha Composition” Havas summons a digital golem of cyber detritus to champion the obsessions of nerds everywhere.
Mecha Composition, 2013
“Mecha Composition also fits in with this otaku/loner/ ‘content creation as escapism’ them that I’m interested in lately. Otaku is a somewhat pejorative loanwoard from Japanese basically describing basement dwellers who are obsessed with anime, video games , etc. In Japan the existence of this subculture incited a moral panic (due to a serial killer who was allegedly otaku), which seems somewhat absurd- the idea that someone who is afraid to leave their home possess a threat to society. Hikkomori is the Japanese word describing a ‘phenomenon of reclusive adolescents or young adults who withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement.’ The causes of this phenomenon have been attributed to mental/developmental disorders such as autism, peer bullying and the demands of the education system in Japan. They encompass a larger group of ‘freeters’ (expression for people between the ages of 15 and 34 who lack full-time employment or are unemployed, excluding housewives and students) that grew out of economic conditions in post-war japan- a highly competitive and unstable job market. I believe that the socio-economic climate that allowed for this sub-culture to grow is somewhat analogous to the socio-economic conditions we experience in (post-Bush administration) America today. Mecha is a sci-fi genere of robots and mechanical objects, its pretty common in anime/magna, Gundam is a popular example. It has a strong conceptual/ aesthetic link with otaku culture (/m/ on 4chan is a mecha forum). I downloaded various mecha 3d models from the internet and designed my own shaders for them, in an attempt to engage with this ‘collective aesthetic’. I like the idea of these robots, not only in the escapist/hobbyist sense, but also as a representation of power in a meek culture.”
Havas’ latest project is called “Abject Aesthetics”. It is a Pinterest board she curates focusing on several different “fandoms” each adoring a different type of tragedy. She finds the images manually by combing specific hashtags across various social media. This work presents an undeniable link between contemporary fashion and the idolization of suffering.
“I was interested in exploring the nuances of Pinterest as a curatorial platform, and how social networks as a context contribute to the overall meaning of the work (blah blah blah Lol). Some of the fandoms, particularly the eating disorder and self harm ones predate pinterest and tumblr (I was aware of them as a tween online in the late 90s). It’s actually such an integral part of tumblr culture now that there are links to eating disorder/self-harm/mental illness/ suicide prevention resources in the website’s static footer. Tumblr has even taken the initiative to ban hastags related to those fandoms. There are some newer fandoms, #columbiners, for example, that fetishize the plight of the columbine killers. There are fandoms for virtually every school shooting (or really any serious crime perpetrated by a teen) that has happened between now and the late 20th century. The irony is that the more traditionally attractive the school shooter, the bigger the fandom is going to be, despite the fact that the ‘social stigma/ bullying victimization’ aspects are one of the main elements being romanticized. Columbiners are so prevalent, not only because of the degree of the tragedy, but also because of the effect that mediation has on the images- news footage from the period now feels dated/retro, the killers themselves appear, on the surface level, as vintage 90s teen idols.”
As vehemently as she may feign nonchalance, Deanna Havas is keeping an eye out for all of us. Through deceptively generous works she exposes the weird beauty of culture coming together on the internet. As she recently tweeted:
-MATTE Magazine for CCNY
photo by Matthew Leifheit for CCNY
1992 Washington, DC
Lauren Poor is making her entire life into a garbagey Gesamtkunstwerk by exhaustively applying her vision to her surroundings. She lives a mystical neon dream where life and art intermix fluidly. Through obsessive appreciation of imperfection and oddity Poor is able to grow her vision organically and allow it to spread like moss over any given subject. Increasingly she works in a way that prevents the viewer from being able to tell where the photograph begins or ends. A studied confusion of foreground and background allows her art to bleed past its borders and into its surroundings. There is a fantastical quality to these works, like windows on a world where you would rather be.
Trash Palace 2013
Poor’s recent series “Trash Palace” takes this mixing of real (photographic) information with fantasy (painted) content to the next level. The series is comprised of photos of the artist’s apartment accompanied by small houselike constructions and still lives. The physical subject of each photograph has been heavily altered by the artist’s hand if not completely fabricated by her hand. Then the photograph is printed, and the print is worked back into by the same hand. Through these repeated interventions of self Poor’s hand combines with the photograph, and they seamlessly become unintelligible.
“I wanted to use my apartment as a test space for experimenting with ideas of visual culture,” said Poor in a recent conversation with MATTE. “I paid attention to why everything in my apartment looks the way it does and how it all might affect my lifestyle and mentality. Everything started off white and boxy as apartments usually do and after studying ways different cultures create their visual worlds and how their choices relate to and affect their beliefs and lifestyles I decided to try to create my own and see what would happen. I began to create my own wallpaper and images that I thought would better reflect my own values and world I want to live in. Some of the images show my value for objects like plastic bottles that American society deems disposable and worthless compared to the values it shows through it’s own images and advertisements. I wanted to make a non oppressive space that people would feel free in and open to possibilities of existing and creating, so I left out ideal human forms and opted for abstract doodles and a wide range of colors. When I felt I’d changed the space enough that it fulfilled some of what I hoped to represent I photographed it and emphasized some of it’s qualities by painting on the prints, then experienced living in it.”
Masks 2012
The cohesiveness of Poor’s aesthetic is the only constant in her work, and it is malleable enough to allow for wild experimentation. “I think I have a way of doing things as anyone does. The way I imagine and create is affected by things I’ve seen and experienced and held dear or significant in my life so far. This includes a lot of ideas and visions related to dressing up and playing make believe as a kid, building fairy houses, hopping through suburban backyards, being in an acting group when I was younger and performing Shakespeare plays, being in an organization called City At Peace and many other things.”
Times Square 2013
Poor’s most recent endeavor is applying her magical world to all our lives. Choosing Times Square as her subject, she takes the hyperreal crossroads of the universe one step further. “I’m able to photograph using a machine what I’m seeing and then paint using my body what is in my mind, invisible to everyone else,” Poor writes. The logical progression of this thought takes her vision into the physical world, and that’s exactly what she’s doing. Drawing inspiration from large public initiatives such as Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg project in Detroit and Isaiah Zagar’s Philadelphia mosaic works, Poor is building a city. With help from her father and a few friends she is in the very early stages of building a “visionary environment” in her parents’ back yard in Maryland. Over spring break from School of Visual Arts this year Poor began work on this small house, and this is a direction she has been dreaming of for a long time.
The Chicken Coop 2013
Untitled 2011
“I’m excited to continue building. During this time I was happy to work to create something large and functional and I kept dreaming of building cities and empires and communities and neighborhoods someday. I hope my future will look more like this- building and fueling communities, creating spaces for good.”
Lauren Poor’s generous and unique sprit shines through everything she touches, and for this reason she will surely succeed in making the world a more beautiful place.
-MATTE Magazine for CCNY
photo by Matthew Leifheit for CCNY
Bridget Collins
1990 Minneapolis, MN
Bridget Collins feels for you. Her photographs are earnest, generous, and easy to relate to. Above all they are empathetic. Delicately observed notes on the nature of beauty, human relationships and the physical world these pictures hint at the humanity of their author and let you know she understands.
“I feel like all of my work is empathetic, its about connection,” Collins recently told MATTE. “My process is all about giving small things due attention, being present and trying to connect myself with my environment. The photos themselves show lots of contact between disparate things touching or holding each other. I like the middle ground, seeing things from both sides. I think this is apparent even in my choice of palette, my colors aren’t very vibrant, everything sort of blurs into a greenish-grey, lost in a fog of missed connections and deja vu.”
Collins’ latest project, a self-published zine entitled “Excerpts From A Palm Reading” (available here), mines incidental snapshots she has taken in the last year. These photos are combined with edited down text from the 2013 Yahoo.com Gemini Horoscope, creating a collection of extractions from Collins’ past with advice for her future interspersed. The ambiguity of Collins’ eye makes these very personal snapshots universally relatable, creating a sequence of somehow familiar moments to which the viewer can bring personal history and make connections. As Collins puts it, “I like clichés, I like pop songs ya know?”
Bridget Collins cover for Packet Biweekly issue 2/17/2013
Bridget Collins “Soho Forestry Guide” for Packet Biweekly issue 01/21/13, photo courtesy Chris Nosenzo
Bridget Collins cover for Packet Biweekly issue 2/17/2013
Collins is also a regular contributor to the new journal “Packet Biweekly”, a collated and stapled publication founded late in 2012 by artist and graphic designer for Bloomberg Business Week Chris Nosenzo, who is her friend and fellow alumni of Pratt Institute. “Along with many other of our friends at Pratt, Bridget’s work helped define what kind of content Packet should have, as opposed to Packet having a distinct vision that this kind of work just happened to fit into. In other words I saw what Bridget and our friends were creating and felt like it needed a form; so Packet was born for the work that we create,” says Nosenzo. Collins uses Packet as a platform for experimentation, taking advantage of the relatively low overhead afforded by its zine format. “Packet is literally a packet of ideas. It’s cheap and disposable and comes out every two weeks. It’s an awesome thing to work on, filled with tangents, half-finished projects, and late-night bursts of inspiration,” comments Collins.
Through Collins’ eyes the audience is privy to a world of subtlety and wonder. Moments of transcendence are presented as a trail of breadcrumbs left behind as Collins moves through life. These are small offerings, solutions to the daily preoccupations of human existence. In this way they are very hopeful. “When I was young, I was very much an escapist,” says Collins. “I didn’t think anything beautiful existed in real life, only in movies and television. My work now is sort of a protest against that, a way of trying to remain present and come to terms with my surroundings.”
-MATTE Magazine for CCNY
Photo by Matthew Leifheit for CCNY
Nir Arieli
Born 1986 Tel Aviv, Israel
Nir Arieli’s photographs are beautiful. Picturing male dancers in glowing natural light Arieli steals the physical beauty of his subjects, elegantly transferring it into still images. A frenetic unrest scratches at the surface throughout his series, presenting signs of a struggle beneath the placid picture plane. Tension exists between perfection and imperfection. Tension exists in the very muscles of his sitters. Tension even extends to the viewer in the act of looking at men in this way. Movement is suggested or even depicted explicitly, but the final images are very still. Arieli’s photos preserve moments of balance and grace, leading to the polished contrapposto that gives his pictures gravity.
Arieli only photographs men. Choosing subjects primarily from The Julliard School’s dance program, Arieli slowly sculpts the photograph through communication. “We worked in front of a white wall and he told me certain things he wanted within the composition including muscular tension and contortion with a relaxed focus in the eyes,” says Austin Goodwin, an undergraduate dancer at Julliard and repeated subject of Arieli’s photographs. “He asked me to move extremely slowly through different positions with my upper body. Throughout this he would stop me and we would explore whatever was working best. Occasionally I would try something different to see if it was cohesive with his idea and from there the collaboration continued between me inserting movement suggestions and Nir giving direction as to focal specifics and body angles. It was a very organic process.”
Arieli’s video work is made the way a photographer should make video, the camera at a fixed point, the frame unwavering. The only thing moving in the picture is the subject himself, performing for the viewer. “Dancers are performers, the process of creating a still image gives them a similar satisfaction to the one they get when the lights come up on stage,” says Arieli to MATTE, “The camera functions as the audience. They are eager to actively contribute to the success of the work. I’m often working with them in a very abstract way of directing, and they are able to translate my words into physical states.”
Beginning his career as a military photographer for the Israeli magazine Bamachane, Arieli now focuses with reticence on beauty. “Beauty is an essential part of every body of work I make. I’m in love with it but I also know I can’t be married to it in the most traditional sense,” says Arieli. His new series entitled “Inframen” looks beneath the skin of his subjects. Exposing flaws in the sitter’s physicality through an infrared process, Arieli freezes these artists at what he considers to be a pivotal time in their lives. “I’d like the viewer to disconnect from the glorious immortal dancer’s image they know from the stage, and notice the fragility of these people, the contrast of their gentle souls against their strong bodies. The ridiculous situation in which the dancer’s whole existence is dependent on his body, and that youth is gone in such a young age. In that sense this project is a lullaby for this beautiful stage in a dancer’s life, when they’re at their best physical shape,” says Arieli. “From now on the body will betray them slowly.” -MATTE Magazine for CCNY