News

Video Archive

Moving Still: Derek Shapton’s Here
Davin — May 2nd, 2008

Heather Morton has posted a video she produced with Derek Shapton. It gives a further narrative glimpse into the childhood memories that are crystalized in his series Here.

“For the past year, I have been revisiting and photographing the locations of vivid early memories, ranging from the sidewalk in front of my childhood house to the park I used to play in to the former location of the pool where I first learned to swim. The images in Here are selections from this ongoing exploration.” — Derek Shapton on heathermorton.ca

Shapton’s series shares some of the visual language of location-based studies like Joel Sternfeld’s On This Site but adds a layer of personal remembrance and emotional response. I’m also reminded of projects like Gayla Trail’s Not Now, Not Ever which also takes childhood location as a jumping off point for creating new images with their own set of possible emotional reactions.

“Because I started this particular project while revisiting my childhood geography, time and place is very important to me. I try to create imagery that is difficult to date, capturing something that isn’t ‘right now’ but isn’t any specific time that has ever been or ever will be.” — Gayla Trail

I hope to see more of these videos from Heather Morton. I really like getting insight into an artist’s practice (which should be clear from from MakingRoom’s mandate) and even brief videos can shed a lot of light on how people work.

Derek Shapton has a show at The Gladstone Hotel here in Toronto (1214 Queen West) running until May 31st.

heathermorton.ca
derekshapton.com

Posted in People, Video — Comment
Christian Patterson - Sound Affects
Davin — April 26th, 2008

Spotted over at Shane’s site, Christian Patterson has posted a video teaser for his forthcoming book Sound Affects.

christianpatterson.com

Posted in Books, People, Video — Comment
Totally, 100% TREND
Davin — March 4th, 2008

via Ana @ pica+pixel

Posted in Video, Websites — 6 Comments
Greg Girard on CBC Arts
Davin — December 15th, 2007

Phantom ShanghaiThere’s a nice narrated slideshow by Greg Girard on CBC.ca about the images from his Phantom Shanghai book. It’s a quick watch at just under 4 minutes but it does a great job of contextualizing the images. I’m actually long overdue in doing an interview with Girard having contacted him a few months ago when the Phantom Shanghai images were being exhibited at Toronto’s Monte Clark Gallery.

Posted in Books, Interviews, People, Video — Comment
Nathan Coley
Davin — December 7th, 2007

Nathan Coley - There Will be No Miracles Here and We Must Cultivate Our GardenA nominee for the 2007 Turner Prize, Scottish sculptor and installation artist, Nathan Coley deals most often with questioning the institutions of theology and examining the elements of faith. Just one aspect of his work, his large scale environmental texts are striking and have the resonance of Holzer’s Truisms.

There Will Be No Miracles Here references the 17th century village of Modseine, France where, by royal decree, a sign was erected warning against superstitious practices that in essence challenged the moral authority of a divinely enthroned monarchy. We Must Cultivate Our Garden is a translation of one of the final lines from Voltaire’s Candide which is similarly about the conflict between secular life and theocratic rule.

Tate Online has a video interview with Coley.

Posted in People, Video, Websites — Comment
Sander Plug - Chocolade Haas
Davin — November 30th, 2007

Just because.

© 2007 Sander Plug

Posted in Video — Comment
Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project
Davin — November 10th, 2007

Tierney Gearon: The Mother ProjectI recently watched the DVD release of Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project a documentary by Jack Youngelson and Peter Sutherland.

The documentary follows Tierney over the course of three years as she assembles her new body of work, a project that promises to be even more provocative than the photos that originally made her career.

The film documents an incredibly tumultuous period in Tierney’s life, from her move from London to Los Angeles to having a third child at age 41. Tierney is famously reclusive and has always wanted her work to speak for itself, for her audience not to have any preconceived ideas about what motivates the photographs. As Tierney says, all of her photographs are portraits of herself.

— Press Kit, Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project

Gearon’s mother — diagnosed as manic-depressive, schizophrenic — became the primary subject of her personal work after a period where she became notorious for her photos of her young children. She has been challenged on the validity of both projects and labeled by some an opportunist, exploiter, and very nearly a child pornographer. Gearon’s images are very often intense but also infused with the brightness and warmth of saturated commercial images.

Their relationship is complicated – her mother has suffered from mental illness for much of her adult life. Through the process of making these photographs, Tierney has struggled to understand how her mother lives now, as well as coming to grips with how her illness effected Tierney as a young girl. By extension, the process of taking the photographs also reflects Tierney’s struggle to be a good parent to her own children. Tierney describes her pictures as a form of therapy – a means of healing herself. The truth is never what it seems in Tierney’s world, however; the eerie tableaus at the heart of her work always hide a deeper meaning just beyond the edges of the photographs.

The documentary addresses the questions that have long been associated with Tierney’s controversial work, and by extension, questions that face all artists who draw on their family for inspiration. Are the photographs as therapeutic for her subjects as they are for her? Is the camera Tierney’s way of communicating with her family, or is it a protective shield?

— Press Kit, Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project

The documentary has been superficially compared to Albert and David Maysles’s 1976 documentary Grey Gardens. Similarities are drawn between Gearon’s mother and Grey Gardens’ subject “Little” Edie Beale. The more valid comparison seems to be the working style of the filmmakers; in each case they have maintained a long-term intimate relationship with their subjects while managing to portray them naturally. Their presence is felt but doesn’t seem to alter the relationships of the subjects radically.

This film was powerful for me for personal reasons but it is also a very effective document of an artist at work — both quite in control of her intent and vision and also struggling with its effect on her and her family.

Posted in Books, Video, Websites — Comment
Henri Cartier Bresson on Charlie Rose, 2000
Davin — December 6th, 2006

Recently noted on Alec Soth’s blog, this lengthy interview with Henri Cartier Bresson is interesting although much of his motives/ideology are already quite well known. I do find that there is too much reverence for Cartier Bresson than even he may have preferred but it’s not surprising as much of our society is quick to need “heroic” figures. There’s no question of Cartier Bresson’s impact but I think there’s a separate problem in our need to make finite the number of people who mattered — people who set that example that all others must have followed. It’s our unfortunate nature (and certainly that of art history) that the hero in history is propelled forth.

On this it might be interesting to re-visit a text from my highschool history class, “The Hero in History: A Study in Limitation and Possibility” Sidney Hook, 1943

Posted in Video — Comment
Ed Burtynsky on TEDTalks
Davin — November 24th, 2006

TEDTalks: “Photographer Ed Burtynsky accepts the 2005 TEDPrize, and presents a stunning slideshow of his work, which explores human impact on the natural world in eerily beautiful large-scale landscapes. He also unveils his three wishes: To use his artwork to encourage a worldwide conversation about the planet; to launch a ground-breaking competition that motivates kids to invent new ideas in sustainable living; and to create a IMAX movie of his work. (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 35:10)”

Posted in Video — Comment