Joel Sternfeld

Born 1944 in New York City, Sternfeld graduated from Dartmouth College in 1965 with a BA in Art.  After studying the color theory of Johannes Itten and Josef Albers, he began making color photographs in the 1970s.  Starting out with small and medium format cameras, he eventually moved on to shoot large format, giving his work the crisp details that it is known for.  In 1987 Sternfeld released his American Prospects series, which “combined . . .  an insightful and ironic view of his subjects” (The Getty Museum).  In 1996 Sternfeld began to travel and document tragic events in American history, calling the series: On This Site: Landscapes in Memoriam.  Applying his careful use of color, Sternfeld photographed the site where Martin Luther King was murdered, and the place where Rodney King was beaten.  In 2001 with his Stranger Passing series, Sternfeld switched from landscapes to full length portraits, recording the peole he met as he traveled across America.  “Each picture tells a story via the person’s physical appearance and the rich details of their surroundings” (The Getty Musuem).  Sternfeld’s most recent series done in 2006, Earth: Esperimental Utopias in America “explores the sites of past and present idealized communities” (The Getty Museum).  Currently, Sternfeld teaches photography at Sarah Lawrence College.

Images:

http://iamgros.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/joel_sternfeld_blanket_blog.jpg

http://caraphillips.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/sternfeld1.jpg

http://collegerelations.vassar.edu/images/releases/070525.utopian_dropcity.jpg

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/3/assets/images/main/sternfeld_2.jpg

Interview:

No interview available.

Gallery Representing artist/artist website:

http://www.luhringaugustine.com/index.php?mode=artists&object_id=67

Surrealism

Descriptive word: bizarre

“Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which it is intended to express, whether verbally or in writing, or in any other way, the real process of thought. Thought’s dictation, free from any control by the reason, independent of any aesthetic or moral preoccupation."

-André Breton

Jones, Jonathan. “Arts: Andre in wonderland: In 1928 the first photobooth arrived in Paris - and for Breton and the surrealists, it was a dream come true.”  The Guardian (London).  16 June 2004, final edition: p. 12.

Jonathan Jones is a staff writer for the London Guardian newspaper.  He writes for the arts and design section of the newspaper.  In his article of André Breton and surrealism, he writes briefly about the rise of the surrealism revolution with its founder Breton, and the influence that it had in photography.  Jones states that Breton’s definition for surrealism is “pure physic automatism,” which flowed together well when the first automatic photo machine (called a photomaton) was invented and released in Paris.  According to Jones, “the photomaton was a readymade surrealist photography that removed the conscious, controlling mind of the photographer and took a stream of images too quickly for the sitter to compose her or himself in any but the most basic ways. The close range of the portraits and the flat background add to the sense of being surprised, taken aback, even abused, that we feel after sitting for a strip of passport pictures. The brutality that makes photomaton portraits uncomfortable makes them, for the surrealists, insightful.”  Portraiture and especially self-portraiture were very common in surrealism, because they were very fascinated by the “self.”  As Jones points out, the majority of the photomaton portraits of Breton and his group show them with their eyes closed.  In accordance with Breton’s manifesto of 1924, this will help us to recognize “the omnipotence of the dream.”  Towards the end of Jones’s article, he analyzes the photomaton portraits in a contemporary light.  Calling them “anti-aesthetic, deliberately banal, photo-based art” he believes them to be antecedents of Andy Warhol’s work.

While my work is not about examining the self or dreams, I think it can definitely benefit from the surreal movement’s exploration of the bizarre and uncanny.  Since I am experimenting in combining imagery to create a made up space, I think it is appropriate to consider the history and process behind this movement. Photography played a big part in surrealism with its departure from the ordinary use of a camera, and instead of using as a practical tool to record what is in front of it, it was used to create what the artist imagined.  I think this theory can be useful to my process.

Photo:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/gallery/images/ray.jpg