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Against Nature The title of this exhibit, “Against Nature” is drawn from the English translation of the title of J.K. Huysmans’ A Rebours, a well-known and somewhat infamous French book of the late nineteenth century. Literally signifying “in reverse,” the title has been rendered into English variously as “Against the Grain” or “Against Nature.” In short, it tells the story of an esthete who renounces everything “natural” and attempts to construct a life in which art and artifice are predominant. Bits of nature, such as certain carefully selected flowers, are tolerable within his domain because they possess the aura of artificiality. I have chosen this title for several reasons. On one hand, nature is the subtext of most of my photographic work. Even the forms of the architectural works seen here appear to derive from a specific analysis of what is “natural,” in nature. This enigmatic architecture absorbs references to nature while it renounces nature to help it function in a world of artifice. Simultaneously; it denies the traditional geometries of modern and historical architectures. But this title, “Against Nature,” may take on varied meanings. As I perceive it, it may also tell something of a photographer’s chosen mission. Simply put, I suggest that there are two intertwining but competing stories to which contemporary photography tries to offer shape. One, of ancient lineage, derives from the enduring need to model the world as we perceive it, or sometimes (not acknowledging the difference), as we would wish it to be. The results may take the form of illustration, of so-called naïve photography (e.g. snapshots and other works that do not exhibit the self-conscious aesthetics of photographic intent), or as any faithful effort to record the life and world that lies before us, such as nature, family, or civilization in its countless protean manifestations – all with no expectation that viewers will look at the results in any way other than at “face value.” In the other strain, the photographer becomes the antagonist of his own story. He puts himself against or within his subject matter and attempts to construe the inner logic or subtext of his subject; his goal is to bring form and meaning to what remains unsaid and/or undiscovered, and he does it either by observing the mirror of his own life or that of others. At times, photographically, his mission may evolve into an agency for strife or a criticism in which he stands against whatever lies before him, including himself. In this sense, photography may either dissolve into abstractions or draw upon subtle conceptual logics, such as irony, cynicism, hermetic beliefs and ulterior (including political) motives. Modern times have shown us that both tributaries are valid in themselves or vital in their confluences as they continuously intersect with and overlap upon one another. In my own mind, at this moment I see each photographic project as a visceral battle: as with the advancing infirmities of age, as in the struggle against the Mountain in an attempt to capture its soul, for instance, or against the interference of weather and other natural forces – against forgetfulness or ineptitude, against disillusionment as when the creative drive fails – against the loss of ingenuity, and as part of the eternal internal attempt to defeat banality – against time, and against time running out – in short, against nature. That said, creators, however, have no indisputable claim to the authority of their own interpretations. This can be a blessing because it opens a path to escape one’s own limitations. I am thankful, therefore, when I suspect that to others my photographs may imply something outside of what I take to be their apparent meaning. With this in mind, except to please myself, and hopefully others, I come to the art of photography with no conscious agenda outside of what is suggested by my preferred subject matter and my academic training. I suspect that for this basis I tend to use the eye and iconography of documentary, tourist or amateur photography, as inescapably conditioned by my life-long associations with art, by my experiences in an amateur photographic society and from whatever influence my residence in the suburbs of New York City may exert. The above notwithstanding, I’ve made some stylistic choices: I hope to avoid the hyper-sensitized, excessively saturated and overly-modulated fraudulent imagery frequently seen in commercial advertising media, which, as exciting as it may be to the eye, I suspect may inhibit the quest to find meaning in form. So, ultimately, at the close of the day creative photography becomes a struggle with nature in its numerous manifestations which 1) includes resolving the meaning of the fabricated backdrops that inhabit and define the environments in which we live, 2) avoiding the blinding surge of stylizations in the commercial visual media that surround us and 3) balancing the will to create art and artifacts against the tug of nature itself and its promise to give entropy the last word.
“I think the truly
natural things are dreams, Artist's Biography Artist's Exegesis
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