Review: Uncommon Places, Stephen Shore, 2005; Stephen Shore : New American Photography, dir. Ralph Goertz, 2010

Uncommon Places is the book that said, yes, you’ve been here.

Not the places, mind you, though I may have been to a few.  But the mindset of the photographer.  Here is someone who did what I’ve been doing, practiced as I practice.  I intuitively get what Shore was doing, because I’ve been doing the same.  (And I wonder now why none of my tutors, coursemates, or fellow enthusiasts referred me to this earlier.)

Here is how Shore describes his work at this time:

Vienna: Frustrated Exhibit Visits

One of the pleasures of being a teacher is long vacations.  Unfortunately, the longest one is always in summer, a time of year when lots of other people vacation and so not much seems to happen culturally wherever you might visit during June, July or August.

Case in point, I've spent the last week in one of Europe's, if not the world's, cultural capitals but have been frustrated in my efforts to view photography exhibits.

I was excited to find the city has a dedicated photo gallery/musuem and that it was exhibiting the 2014 World Press Awards.  On closer inspection I found not only does that exhibit not begin until September, but that the gallery is closed for the summer.  Damn.  A sister gallery + library has remained open for the summer, but  1. I'm not much interested in the current exhibit, and 2. it's a bit of a hike from my hotel.  The city hosts a Month of Photography event with numerous exhibits - beginning the end of October!

Walking through the city I found a small gallery with a collection of mid-20th photos representing Austrian children (pictured here) and also - closed for summer!

Once I get back to Dubai I'll probably find a few interesting exhibits, but by then I'll be so deep in work and assignments that there won't be time.  

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Review: Wynn Bullock: Revelations (Atlanta High Museum of Art, until 2015.01.08)

I had never heard of Wynn Bullock before checking the scheduled exhibits for Atlanta's High Museum of Art.  A bit of online research revealed him as one of the masters of mid-century West Coast movement, along with Adams and Weston.  It was in fact his meeting with the latter that convinced him to give up an acting career to pursue photography.  But where Weston and Adams are well-known, Bullock is largely forgotten, even though one of his two images in The Family of Man was chosen by exhibit visitors as their favourite of the collection's 500+ photos.

Scott suggests Bullock may have been ignored because he was difficult to classify, working in several genres, from early experiments inspired by Man Ray, to straight, to commercial, to late period color abstracts.   It may also be that he was ignored because he was interested primarily in exploration of experience, especially ideas of space and time, and less in particular kinds of subjects.

The last major exhibit of his work was nearly 40 years ago, presumably near the end his life, or shortly after his death in 1975.  So why an exhibit now?  And why in Atlanta?