But I can relate to 1/3 of the pictures shown via my work as a photojournalist. The facial expressions and postures in those images remind me of a few assignments I have done for NGO’s working with the severely disabled. Specifically they remind me of an afternoon last year when I took pictures of a 22 year old Michael and his carer. He loved his basketball, Fish & Chips and his paddling pool. Not an easy afternoon.

People see different things in pictures for different reasons. This time I did’t see what the author intended, I saw something else.

All the best

Petteri

As to the comments above, I think people need to expand their horizons further. I find the rejection of this and other good works I have seen on burn only shows how limited people’s exposure to good photography is.

But examine that reaction; really look at yourself and try to determine what you are reacting to/against specifically. Then ask yourself what it is that might have motivated the thinking person to undertake this work and the curator to publish it.

Then try to look at it again. This is learning, people; sometimes it’s uncomfortable.

First of all I have to say that I always read the photographers statement first, then view the images at least once, the photographers link, follow the comments for a couple of days and then return to the essay/photograph again. I imagine this as a fair approach.

This essay really intrigued me. The statement I found total art-speak and meant nothing to me. The images though are well constructed, consistent with this concept and imaginative. I did find them funny. At least some of them. A lot of repetition and arguably too many of them but still admirable work. I like contemporary art and am not into theatre but I get bob’s point. I find it a bit stretched but the second viewing was different for me, albeit not more entertaining.

You do need a vision and conviction to do anything of quality. Even if I studied them for days, I do not think I could be able to continue this story in any meaningful way even though technically is not so challenging. I take Photography as a medium of expression and a very inclusive one at that. This is not my cup of tea but it made laugh and I love the the absurdity of life. This is photography, good photography but not everyone’s photography.

Congrats Alexander and thanks to all the guys above that keep up the debate.
(I’ll try to make it shorter next time, promise)

This is branching out into the stuff nobody understands and kinda feels like they wasted their time to watch. Is the point to be weird? Is the point to go over people’s heads and make them not so excited and hesitatn when they see a new essay pop up?

Expression of the artist’s something or other…? Yeah, not a fan of this sort of expression – and it seems as though the majority who decide to comment agree. I, for one, hope Burn gets back to real stuff soon…

So I’ve tried to put my initial reaction (absurd, to use Bob’s word) aside after reading Joe and Bob and view this in a new light. No dice.

Welcome back Joe, by the way…

I find the pictures overly-lit and un-subtle and well, sterile for an essay supposedly concerned with a universal humanity. Someone in a photo class I was in last year turned in an portrait series shot similarly, yet it was funnier, more absurd than this.

But then again I’m just a derivative lemming. :)

2) true to form, you have to lecture (a shame!!!) others on how they viewed it, how they participate on BURN, and I suspect, if we let you, how they view all art since Lascaux to Alexander yesterday…

and of course:

3) did you notice no one asked their comment to be deleted, because they did not write more than one, to begin with….

bob

==================

A nose that can see is worth two that sniff.”-Eugene Ionesco

“Living is abnormal.”-Eugene Ionesco

“people standing in lines discovered three terrible truths:
1. Money is real.
2. The people standing in line next to you have different abilities.
3. There are not 3 kinds of sausage but 33. Or even 333.”–Vladimir Sorokin

Ok, so I PROMISE I will not post a 1200-line poem again (even though i was VERY TEMPTED to post Vladimir Mayakovsky’s play “Bedbug”) because I do not want to incur Michael or Herve or Steve wrath again ;)))….but i will post a link at the end ;))…

First of all, let me congratulate Sasha on being published here. Frankly, I loved it. And I will TRY to offer a perspective into which people can ‘view/see’ this essay and maybe re-appraise their thoughts. First of all, for me it is impossible to view this essay without thinking of Theatre, particularly modern, post-modern, absurdist theatre as well as the great Russian tradition of theatre. Call me the Inspector General, but when i first looked at this essay last night, I immediately thought of Gogol’s The Inspector General, Mayakovsky’s The Bedbug and Ionesco “The Bald Soprano”….this is not ‘documentary’ photography, it is not ‘reportage’, it is not ’street photography’, it isn’t even Freudian, introspectionist conceptual photography. It’s theatre, and I think can be view, appreciated and really enjoyed within the framework of contemporary theatre, or even the history of performance art, which just happens to be ‘documented’ with a photograph, as were most of the pieces performed in the 60’s and 70’s in the infancy of the performance arts movement.

but, it is incredibly funny and actually quite self-deprecating. I can’t believe that so few have tapped into it’s brilliant and absurdist humor. The pic of the guy with the mirror shaving his back (god damn guys, who hasn’t looked at their back in the mirror and thought: what the fuck is that odd island of growth doing there??). Actually, i saw all the pictures as if photographs from a staging of a play, and in that perception, that perspective, they spoke to me. Then again, i LOVE theatre and love reading plays and love going to see them. I wish to add as well that Russia, and russian artistic and literary history and orientation, cannot be understood without appreciating the richness and importance of the Theatre experience. It is with this perspective, that I also see Sasha’s essay as being connected to: the strange, and silly and hilarious and absolutely abnormal and odd ‘joke’ that the living experience, that each of us experience and is such a rich and vital part of theatre, particularly modern theatre.

Why must a photographic essay be about the ‘moment.’ the vitality, at least for me, of photography, is that as a medium it continues to grow and expand and reach outward to include the intersection of ideas and art forms and history that other forms of expression (theatre, fine art, literature, music, film) already traverse. Yes, this is NOT a magnum essay, nor is it documentary work or journalism, nor is it (to me at least) navel gazing. It’s a funny, sometimes brilliant, sometimes boring, series of theatrical images that mine someone’s experience of living and seeing and acting and playing and remembering. I remember the first time i saw Ionesco’s play THE CHAIRS in university, 1/2 the audience walked out….and then i thought, damn, when did audience loose their sense of the playful….photography has grown past the need for a consideration that is universal in application. Each photographer needs to focus on that part of photography that makes the best sense. For some, it’s the refinement of the ‘image’ (beautiful pictures) for some it’s the versimilitude and documentation of the moment (documentary, journalism), for some it’s the rejection of style or the abundance of style, for some it’s theatrical, visual language, for some it’s the idea of conceptual architecture, for some it’s just family albums….

for me, the essay is akin to experience a great modernist play, all that absurdity and humor that really speaks to the iconography of our lives and our thoughts and the absurd experiences that happen to us and they we get ourselves caught up in…if your’ve seen a play, think of that when yu look at these pictures….

is this kind of work the kind of work that sticks with me in the gut or soul?…probably not, because for me, there is still not enough ’sadness’ or ‘loss’ to remain stingy my gut, but the work, for me, is strong enough to make me smile and say ‘that’s funny’ or ‘that’s right’….are some of the images weak, for me yes, is it a bit too ‘repetitive’ (in the sense of stretching a point), yea, for me, but do i appreciate and value this, did it make me think: wonderful theatre, yes….

What i do, however, lament is that Artist statement. As a writer and a photographer, I just get really frustrated by the way some use art-speak to mine the vitality of what already exists in their work, and by extension end up undermining them. There is little of the absurd in the statement…..UNLESS, the statement itself is a characateur, an absurd decoy, a joke itself that minimics all the silly artists statements that seem to come boiling up from the underground of the artworld and photography world….and actually, that’s how i read the statement, as part of this absurdist theatre….maybe because im reading Sinyavsky’s GoodNIght now, im under his influence, but, i think, actually, the statement might just be part of the grand guignol humor that exists in this essay….

Sasha is Russian….and to understand the tradition of russian art, russian photogrpahy, russian literature, russian life, one must also understand that absurdity and humor lay at the nexus of the experienced life, and the artistic life too……..

i think it’s a decent way to think, relating the work to Ballen (though, i prefer ballen of course), but each artist attempts to noose the live lived through the prism of the camera in their own way….for me, the work is just as universal as NG work, but in a much different way….then again, as i said, i love the theatre and performance art….

it is a shame actually,…not that people don’t like this work (each of us reacts to work in their own way) but that, what seems to happen often at burn now, is that people rather arrogantly and obnoxiously dismiss work or make fun of others, just because it aint their thing….

http://www.sovlit.com/bedbug/

Саша.! :)) Здравствуйте. Мне очень понравилась эта история фотографических и я любил, что он напомнил мне о таком исполнении искусство жить и театр. Он был похож на большой театральной играть, и я любил, что иконография заполняется с абсурдным юмором и реальностью и фрейдистской символики. Кроме того, он посмотрел, как весело фотографировать.

Спасибо за очерк. Я посылаю вам поздравления и уважение. Все самое лучшее,

bob

i agree 100%…and i left a long comment this morning, addressing the work (which is really THEATRE, absurdist theatre a la Ionesco) and the comments…but my long comment has been sitting in Spam since 9:30 am. …an…HOPING soon david and anton retrieve it….

(david/anton, when u retrieve my comment from this morning, please delete this note)…thanks so much…

running
b

with the polarity of appetite for this work i can’t help but think a bit about the audience for this work, i don’t think i could really describe the kind of person that would like this work, (i admit i’m weird) but i suppose if you were to show me someone that doesn’t like this work i might likely show you a ‘competent’ photographer, but likely one with a portfolio filled with mostly boring and if not boring still entirely derivative work.

This is bold and original and likely the most fun i’ve had viewing an essay on Burn, i hope more work like this finds it way in, even if it disturbs the lemmings.

The photographs have what seems to me to be a very Eastern bloc feel. The sparce use of colour, very stark compositions etc, combined with the tongue-in-cheek expressions of his subjects and sense of the absurd that seems to be a part of the culture.

I don’t think Alexander was trying to say anything terribly complicated here, perhaps I’m wrong. I think he is just having some fun poking fun at the human condition. I love it.

Thankyou and congratulations Alexander. I love the work on your site. You have vision.

“Living is abnormal.”-Eugene Ionesco

“people standing in lines discovered three terrible truths:
1. Money is real.
2. The people standing in line next to you have different abilities.
3. There are not 3 kinds of sausage but 33. Or even 333.”–Vladimir Sorokin

Ok, so I PROMISE I will not post a 1200-line poem again (even though i was VERY TEMPTED to post Vladimir Mayakovsky’s play “Bedbug”) because I do not want to incur Michael or Herve or Steve wrath again ;)))….but i will post a link at the end ;))…

First of all, let me congratulate Sasha on being published here. Frankly, I loved it. And I will TRY to offer a perspective into which people can ‘view/see’ this essay and maybe re-appraise their thoughts. First of all, for me it is impossible to view this essay without thinking of Theatre, particularly modern, post-modern, absurdist theatre as well as the great Russian tradition of theatre. Call me the Inspector General, but when i first looked at this essay last night, I immediately thought of Gogol’s The Inspector General, Mayakovsky’s The Bedbug and Ionesco “The Bald Soprano”….this is not ‘documentary’ photography, it is not ‘reportage’, it is not ‘street photography’, it isn’t even Freudian, introspectionist conceptual photography. It’s theatre, and I think can be view, appreciated and really enjoyed within the framework of contemporary theatre, or even the history of performance art, which just happens to be ‘documented’ with a photograph, as were most of the pieces performed in the 60′s and 70′s in the infancy of the performance arts movement.

but, it is incredibly funny and actually quite self-deprecating. I can’t believe that so few have tapped into it’s brilliant and absurdist humor. The pic of the guy with the mirror shaving his back (god damn guys, who hasn’t looked at their back in the mirror and thought: what the fuck is that odd island of growth doing there??). Actually, i saw all the pictures as if photographs from a staging of a play, and in that perception, that perspective, they spoke to me. Then again, i LOVE theatre and love reading plays and love going to see them. I wish to add as well that Russia, and russian artistic and literary history and orientation, cannot be understood without appreciating the richness and importance of the Theatre experience. It is with this perspective, that I also see Sasha’s essay as being connected to: the strange, and silly and hilarious and absolutely abnormal and odd ‘joke’ that the living experience, that each of us experience and is such a rich and vital part of theatre, particularly modern theatre.

Why must a photographic essay be about the ‘moment.’ the vitality, at least for me, of photography, is that as a medium it continues to grow and expand and reach outward to include the intersection of ideas and art forms and history that other forms of expression (theatre, fine art, literature, music, film) already traverse. Yes, this is NOT a magnum essay, nor is it documentary work or journalism, nor is it (to me at least) navel gazing. It’s a funny, sometimes brilliant, sometimes boring, series of theatrical images that mine someone’s experience of living and seeing and acting and playing and remembering. I remember the first time i saw Ionesco’s play THE CHAIRS in university, 1/2 the audience walked out….and then i thought, damn, when did audience loose their sense of the playful….photography has grown past the need for a consideration that is universal in application. Each photographer needs to focus on that part of photography that makes the best sense. For some, it’s the refinement of the ‘image’ (beautiful pictures) for some it’s the versimilitude and documentation of the moment (documentary, journalism), for some it’s the rejection of style or the abundance of style, for some it’s theatrical, visual language, for some it’s the idea of conceptual architecture, for some it’s just family albums….

for me, the essay is akin to experience a great modernist play, all that absurdity and humor that really speaks to the iconography of our lives and our thoughts and the absurd experiences that happen to us and they we get ourselves caught up in…if your’ve seen a play, think of that when yu look at these pictures….

is this kind of work the kind of work that sticks with me in the gut or soul?…probably not, because for me, there is still not enough ‘sadness’ or ‘loss’ to remain stingy my gut, but the work, for me, is strong enough to make me smile and say ‘that’s funny’ or ‘that’s right’….are some of the images weak, for me yes, is it a bit too ‘repetitive’ (in the sense of stretching a point), yea, for me, but do i appreciate and value this, did it make me think: wonderful theatre, yes….

What i do, however, lament is that Artist statement. As a writer and a photographer, I just get really frustrated by the way some use art-speak to mine the vitality of what already exists in their work, and by extension end up undermining them. There is little of the absurd in the statement…..UNLESS, the statement itself is a characateur, an absurd decoy, a joke itself that minimics all the silly artists statements that seem to come boiling up from the underground of the artworld and photography world….and actually, that’s how i read the statement, as part of this absurdist theatre….maybe because im reading Sinyavsky’s GoodNIght now, im under his influence, but, i think, actually, the statement might just be part of the grand guignol humor that exists in this essay….

Sasha is Russian….and to understand the tradition of russian art, russian photogrpahy, russian literature, russian life, one must also understand that absurdity and humor lay at the nexus of the experienced life, and the artistic life too……..

i think it’s a decent way to think, relating the work to Ballen (though, i prefer ballen of course), but each artist attempts to noose the live lived through the prism of the camera in their own way….for me, the work is just as universal as NG work, but in a much different way….then again, as i said, i love the theatre and performance art….

it is a shame actually,…not that people don’t like this work (each of us reacts to work in their own way) but that, what seems to happen often at burn now, is that people rather arrogantly and obnoxiously dismiss work or make fun of others, just because it aint their thing….

http://www.sovlit.com/bedbug/

Саша.! :)) Здравствуйте. Мне очень понравилась эта история фотографических и я любил, что он напомнил мне о таком исполнении искусство жить и театр. Он был похож на большой театральной играть, и я любил, что иконография заполняется с абсурдным юмором и реальностью и фрейдистской символики. Кроме того, он посмотрел, как весело фотографировать.

Спасибо за очерк. Я посылаю вам поздравления и уважение. Все самое лучшее,

bob

What does not win me over with this essay is the photographer’s statement, which I found unclear. Had I seen this work without the statement, or with a strong supporting statement, I probably would have given it a much more positive evaluation, but I feel a disconnect between the statement and the pictures, and a lack of logic in the statement itself.

Having said that I feel there is something to this essay and it made me reflect. To me, the merit of this particular work was primarily that I found the process of evaluating it both intense and provocative.