all photos ~ (embiggenble)
OVER THE PAST MONTH OR SO I HAVE BEEN SPENDING AN INORDINATE AMOUNT of time and mental energy ruminating, one might even say festering, about recognizing and defining my psychological–mental processes, behaviors, emotions, thoughts, and motivations–picture making modus operandi. The primary driver of this activity is the simple fact that I have been occupied over the past couple months with writing a variety of artist statements to accompany various applications, submissions, and photo book intros; essentially a distinctly separate artist statement for each of my bodies of work.
This undertaking has been mentally exhaustive. So much so that I have been somewhat consumed by the desire to create a single, one-size-fits-all artist statement; something short, sweet, to the point and not too art speaky, aka: full of obtuse flapdoodle and green paint. That is, something as honest and simple as Saul Leiter was heard to say:
“ I have avoided profound explanations of what I do …. I go out to take a walk. I see something. I take a picture …. I take photographs in my neighborhood. I think that mysterious things happen in familiar places …. I like ambiguity in a photograph. I like it when one is not certain of what ones sees. When we do not know why the photographer has taken a picture, and when we do not know why we are looking at it, all of a sudden, we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.”
…. A simple, straight forward, unpretentious statement that, unfortunately, most likely would not be received with great enthusiasm in the Fine Art world. Although, knowledgeable individuals just might perceive a hint of enstragement lurking therein. In any event, the point of Leiter’s words fit me and my photographs like a glove.
All of that written, my desire for unadorned simplicity in an artist statement is somewhat compromised by the unexpected result of my recent rumination / festering; the fact that I came to discover my heretofore unrecognized relationship with Optimistic Nihilism, photography wise. To wit:
Optimistic nihilism photography refers to a visual approach that finds beauty and personal meaning in the inherent "pointlessness" of existence. Rather than seeing a lack of grand purpose as a cause for despair, photographers use this mindset to celebrate fleeting, everyday moments as precious exactly because they are temporary and cosmically insignificant. Photographs made under the aegis of this concept / approach often reflect a personal, subjective experience of the world rather than an attempt to capture an "objective" truth. It is a "playful" approach to photography, where the photographer is free to find joy and aesthetic value in everyday chaos.
All of this how-to-write-my-artist statement pondering has led me to the conclusion that my challenge is to express, in the most direct and simple manner possible, how a mix of a bit of Leiter simplicity together with a dash of the Estrangement Principle incites / drives my picture making endeavors to create Optimistic Nihilism photographs that exhibit joy and aesthetic values as seen and perceived in everyday chaos, aka: quotidian life.
OR, one other possible conclusion is that all this artist statement fussing and rigamarole is much ado about nothing and it don’t amount to a hill of beans in greater scheme of the universe.