Larry Sultan is a master of composition.
His photographs have had a huge influence on my own work and continue to inspire and push me to this day.
File under influences, Inspiration, larry sultan, photography
Dennis Hopper recently exhibited some of his photographs and paintings at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York City.
I'll be honest: I've always liked Hopper. He has an impeccable eye for art in various forms -- films, painting, photography, art collecting, acting, etc. Some of the films I saw him in when I was younger -- Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, and Blue Velvet -- certainly gave him some good cred in my book.
So getting the chance to look at some of his photographs was especially intriguing to me. One, because I'm a photographer. Two, because all of the photos in the exhibit were from the early to late 1960s, a time period when he was an up and coming actor and artist and before his breakthrough directorial debut with Easy Rider.
This first batch is especially interesting in that he made the photographs in the '60s and revisited them in 2009 to paint his immense "billboard paintings." He has a photorealism thing going on mixed with a bit of Ed Ruscha's influence (whom himself is a subject of one of Hopper's photograph/billboard painting combos below).
I think it's kind of amusing that these photo/painting combinations are of visual artists. Some of the greatest ones, in fact. Hopper was definitely hanging around the right crowd in '60s art world. No doubt his growing stature in Hollywood at the time offered him some choice access to the stars of art and entertainment of the time.
Ultimately, the world doesn't need more images of celebrities. However, these images capture a time before celebrity saturated our lives.
Through Hopper's eyes we see the personalities before/beyond publicists and movie plugs and more like our confidants and friends. They were just that to Hopper and, for a fraction of a second, they're ours, too.
File under andy warhol, dennis hopper, ed ruscha, photography, robert rauschenberg, tony shafrazi
Wong Kar-wai is, hands down, one of my favorite filmmakers. He and cinematographer Christopher Doyle have created stunning imagery with now-classic films like Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, and Happy Together.
Happy Together (1997) is my favorite of the their collaborations. These still captures by no means truly show the magic these guys make. They have to be moving to show that. However, they attempt to convey a small sense of the visuals they create.
The stills could be magnificent photographs on their own.
The film goes from black and white to color at about 22 minutes in, but it’s no ordinary color. It’s a rich, grainy, saturated, streetlight-like color.
Go see Happy Together. You can watch it online at The Auteurs.
Prepare to be inspired.
File under christopher doyle, film, film stills, wong kar-wai
I was listening to the new Gusatvo Cerati album last night and was reminded of how I get so excited about listening to music, new and old. I’m thrilled that music still moves me as much as it does.
Sometimes it even works its way into my photographs.
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And by the way, the new Gustavo Cerati album is really good.
File under gustavo cerati, music
I hardly ever go this much into fashion but damn if Alessia’s stunning looks, Courtney Vose’s kick ass makeup and styling, and Teresa’s killer location don’t make for a very vibrant and fashionable shot.
This shot was inspired by the films of Pedro Almodóvar, one of my favorite directors and visual artists. The women in his films are headstrong, beautiful, and complicated. That’s what we were going for with this shot and I think we nailed it.
File under alessia andrade, almodovar, courtney vose, pura vida, volver
A recent issue of STOP SMILING magazine featured a tribute to poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti through an interview with photographer and filmmaker Chris Felver.
Felver recently directed and is currently screening a documentary film about his long-time friend and collaborator called Ferlinghetti.
From the interview:
“Some people never want to meet their heroes,” says Felver. “As a photographer and documentary filmmaker, you have to. That has been my mission from the beginning: to find a thread to connect all these people I admire by photographing them or making films about them, their lives and their work. The camera became my welcome wagon.”
The camera is his welcome wagon into the lives of his heroes — or anyone else he photographs, for that matter.
I feel the same way much of the time. Meeting, photographing, and getting to know people — even if just for the few minutes we spend together as photographer and subject — is one of my absolute favorite parts of what I do.
This is Dylan. He shoots and he paints. His work is beyond words. Check it for yourself.
I just put up an inspiration line.
It’s nothing more than a few feet of heavy wire, three aluminum three-eighths of an inch push-pins, and an assortment of photographs, print ads, drawings, tearsheets, and artists that inspire me.
What’s inspired you lately?
Donald Sultan has been one of my favorite artists ever since I came face to face with the immense work Aqua Poppies, Dec 10, 2002 at the Mint Museum here in Charlotte a few years ago. (See a tiny version of the painting here.) It’s an 8×12′ mixed media piece worthy of a long look every time I visit the Mint.
This piece, Five Blue Flowers with Flocked Center, March 10, 2002, is not the one at the Mint but it similar in style and color:
© Donald Sultan / Courtesy of Mary Ryan Gallery
Some of his more recent work is really knockin’ me out, it’s so good. This is Black and Orange, Jan 28, 2008:
© Donald Sultan / Courtesy of Mary Ryan Gallery
Black Trumpet, April 2008 (left) and Sand Trumpet, April 16, 2008 (right):
And then here’s one from 1994 titled Fruits and Flowers III (Yellow Peppers):
© Donald Sultan / Courtesy of Mary Ryan Gallery
It’s the shapes and simplicity that I love most about Sultan’s work.
Check out more at Mary Ryan Gallery (click on the Donald Sultan link; Flash site with no direct link), Meyerovich Gallery, and artnet.com (the most comprehensive collection of his work online).
Times being what they are, coupled with a relentless drive to get my name out there, so to speak, I was struck by this quote I recently read from the late writer David Foster Wallace.
You can’t make sure that everybody’s going to like you, but damn it, if you’ve got some skill you can make sure that people don’t ignore you.”
I thrive on collaborations with other creative folks.
Art directors, designers, other photographers, painters, writers -- I just love the flow of ideas that comes from putting creative minds together and the process of shaping them into something more.
It makes me feel truly alive.
So when I came across this video recently I was elated. It's a collaboration between filmmaker, graphic designer, artist, and director Mike Mills; writer, director, artist, and poser Miranda July; and musicians Blonde Redhead. And it's brilliant.
One of the things that pushes Mills, July, and even the members of Blonde Redhead to come together to make a video like this is their diverse means of self-expression. They draw, film, direct, perform, write, and create -- constantly.
That relentless pursuit of the muse -- no matter which road they chose to chase after it on -- only makes them more worldly, more able to choose the form of expression that best suits the idea.
This recent article on David Byrne's show at Radio City Music Hall by Vanity Fair's Michael Hogan speaks to this diversity.
Blown away by the performance Byrne puts on during his Everything That Happens Will Happen Today tour, Hogan writes:
So here’s my theory on why Byrne is so youthful, and why his concert felt as contemporary and relevant as any Bowery Ballroom set by the latest blogosphere buzz band: the guy keeps up. He doesn’t sit around all day reminiscing with his fellow dessicated rock stars. He reads, he thinks, he sees art and film and music. And his creative portfolio is radically diversified. He paints, draws, blogs, directs, runs a record label, composes for film, composes for dance, designs funky bike racks, and god knows what else.
There's a common sliver of creative DNA running through Byrne, Mills, July, and every other artist that is still relevant, still working, still exciting and excited, still creating beyond their best known medium.
Each brings a variety of methods and experiences to the table, making the collaboration, the art, and the experience more diverse. Sometimes the results are amazing and sometimes far from it. The upshot is: come what may.
Not only is it a great way to make a living, it's a great way to live.
Jamie Tao is an art director, designer, and illustrator (among other things) based in Miami. She has a bunch of lovely and imaginative work on her website, such as this one from her batch of personal stuff.
One of my favorite parts of her website is the opening page.
Under what looks like a Polaroid snap of Miami’s man-made grid of lakes, quarries, and a land ripe for strip malls and subdivisions, taken from a descending airplane, Tao writes:
I usually sleep from take-off to landing. I was coming home from one of my recent trips and never really appreciated Miami until I saw it from an airplane. This is home. Welcome.
I agree with Jamie: Miami from an airplane is a sight to see. A flat land divided up into squares and rectangles with various other shapes occasionally dropped in to the grid to break up the pattern. Whether flying in from the swamps of the west or the beaches of the east, Miami from above is a sublime visual spread.
I read Jamie’s passage over and over again as if each reading revealed something I, too, knew but never wrote down or realized. What I realized was this: I never really appreciated Miami myself — my hometown and, for better or worse, the place that helped me become the person I am today — until I saw it from eight hundred miles away.
File under design, Illustration, jamie tao, miami
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