(press the “F” key at any time to switch to the full screen version)
Imants Krumins – Bum not as in Person. Mute
So here it is a thing just like the landscapes and stone walls I build ……..
some stuff that will change and disappear
Bio:
Born in the UK know nothing important about it, lived most of my life in Australia
Went to art school, failed at least once…… Sculpture major that’s what the piece of paper says
Exhibited on the Continent, The New World and The Old World ………. No awards prizes etc but I do have a pest control certificate
a troubled mind …with a troubled cure
Photographs: Imants Krumins
Websites: www.etrouko.com.au – www.imantskrumins.com
this essay sums up perfectly my earlier comment on buzz that to draw a line and say “no further!” is ridiculous.
Good to see it here. encore.
John
An inside piece, then? “Woah, deep Dude, this is art, ain’t nobody gonna understand this stuff.”
Haik you have you met the Red Dwarf?
John Gladdy…
Who said we should draw a line and go no further?
As stirring as ‘Hell’ (imagined)!! Brilliant!!! Complete and totally effective. May your mental journeys never end
“(in)complete and totally effective…”
Michael. The question was raised on buzz a while back in relation to manipulation of [RAW]images. Some people asked “where do you draw the line?”
j
Imants…
You never did tell us what’s troubling your mind.
Draw the line. Then move the line. This has always been the process. Paint. Away.
Yes John. That was me. It was rhetorical. The discussion was about a photo that had been photoshopped and was disqualified from a contest. I thouhgt that was stupid. I was simply trying to spark a conversation about what’s OK and what’s not. I was not saying there should be a line that photographers cannot cross. You completely misread.
Michael they moved the goalposts as I kicked my soul around the boneyard………….ward 017 has been good to me. I hear they may let me out and back into the world next week…….anxious days
OK… I see. So it’s really that you want people to know you’re troubled… just don’t want to actually talk about it. And what better way to keep from having to talk about it then freely announcing you are troubled. Right?
Imants, i forgot to mention in my email….
the direction connection to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1WUsRFZd7k&feature=related
if u haven’t seen it yet….do so ;)))
running
hugs
b
Kinda of agree with Jim here.
It’s art using photography to form part of the work, no solely photography. But I haven’t got a problem with that.
For myself and probably Jim I guess these goes slightly beyond our own practice of photography, due to the level of alteration involved but that’s cool and respect to Imants for showing this.
We set our own goal posts and lines in our work.
On separate topic I came across this great essay by Paul Graham over at AmericansuburbX blog called “Photography is Easy, Photography is Difficult”
I really recommend everyone have a read, it’s here:
http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/07/theory-paul-graham-photography-is-easy.html
px
I’ve been waiting a long time for work like this to appear here on Burn. Neither photography nor fine art need to fit into the rigid containers some followers insist upon. Creative expression refuses to be bound by such narrow interpretations. That is the nature of true creativity–its utter disregard of “rules.” The very fact that Imants’ work has so obviously pushed the buttons of some of our readers is a sign of its success.
As for myself, if photography were as narrowly defined as our friend Jim declares, I would never have chosen it as my favored medium. It would have been way too restrictive and boring for my taste.
Patricia
Thanks to all for having the time to lok at my photography(grin)……… next project “The Time Givers” return after their squirmish with “The trans-atlantic Riders” http://etrouko.com.au/art/blur08.jpg
And for some followers, it seems, there is no “art” that is unsuccessful. “Art” can only be good. There is no possibility of forced pretense or posturing. There is no room for disagreement otherwise “rigid containers” and “narrow interpretations” abound. ;^}
michael, that’s one of the problems I have with the direction photography is going. This “everything is good” philosophy when applied to photography devalues it and threatens to make it irrelevant. If random snapshots on the street, or dense art pieces like this, have the same value as DAH essays, then what’s the point?
Michael. What is successful? define.
Patricia used the word successful. Not me.
Peter, thanks for the link!
Compulsory reading!!!
Cheers,
Armando
Jim Welcome to a post-modern world glad you could join us,
seriously the methods used to make a work is totally up to the creator making it, photography has always been a broad canon, Man Ray has already been mentioned perhaps look at Alexander Rodchenko or some of the Chinese propaganda photography produced under Chairman Mao (there was a great show on at the Photographer’s Gallery in London about this Can anyone remember the name of the Chinese photographer?). The artists audience matters eg aiming straight photography for new documentary purpose makes the veracity of the image of utmost importance.
But with Art aimed at an art audience, the methods matter less then then whether you like it, if you don’t like the art that’s cool but basing on opinion of the art, because of the the methods used to produce is a bit arse about face.
Imants,
Your images disturbed me. I don’t know if I like or dislike but they attract me and definitely make me think about the rigid boundaries we are accustomed to create regarding photography and its interpretation.
I like the way Patricia put it.
I believe in the freedom of the author/artist. What he does, and how he does it, concerns only to him and the goals, targets, objectives, whatever you call it, that he has established.
(Hope it’s clear what I am trying to say with my poor english)
Now a couple of questions for you: What was your inspiration for this series? What is your purpose on this work, if there is a specific one?
Anyway, you achieved something here!
Congrats,
Ari
Peter, the ultimate conclusion of “a post modern world” photographically is that everyone ends up talking only to themselves.
JIM…MICHAEL K
Jim thanks for the compliment, but the essays you have seen of mine are only one kind of thing…yes, they do represent the “real me”, but the “real Imants” is someone else……why is this such a surprise??….why cannot Imants just be Imants?? as i have said many times, i am quite excited by work and by photographers who see the world different from me….i do not feel threatened, i am enlightened…i learn…i am piqued…and if you saw my new Dream Hotel slide show, i am sure it would not be to your liking…
now Michael K. you have a point… certainly this does not mean that everything “experimental” or “non-traditional” or “arty” or whatever tag line you may have for what is out of your comfort zone necessarily has value…subjective work deserves the same scrutiny as the work from which it seeks to break away..that is of course a given….after one sees the 100th d’Agata imitator or Parr imitator , then that work becomes just as boorish as the photographer who is trying to be the new Jay Maisel…
however, the conversation now is a good one imo….still, for the life of me i do not see why some seem to get quite literally angry with others for their point of view…we are just giving opinions….there is no resolution…there is no “right”….the beauty of photography to my mind is all that it reveals about the human psyche and spirit….the minute any of us locks down on any particular philosophy as “gospel”, then that will be the day that we die as a creative spirit…
for me it is quite easy and natural to do what i do and then at the same time feel so refreshed when i turn around and see someone looking out a different window…i may go take a peek…i might not like what i see and go back to doing what i was doing…OR, as is man’s inherent nature, i might just learn something…not copy…but learn…put some new info in my psychological hard drive….chew on it….sleep on it.. breathe deep…what comes out later could well be different from what i was doing before, an honest evolution, but not copying what i have seen….a hybrid thought…a new vision…fresh air….we just cannot live without fresh air….
the list of artists who were “talking to themselves” is a very long list indeed…Jim you are paid to “try to communicate” with your readers….and so so full assumptions of what “people want”…..the vision of most editors who then implore their photographers to “go get” what the “readers want” is only what the advertisers tell the editors the readers want…pictures that are not in conflict with the advertising that supports the publishing business…nothing wrong with that, but just please know that is the case….
most artists are not “trying” to communicate at all…that is a very narrow vision of what fine music, art, literature and photography are all about…communication IS one function of photography, but certainly not the only one…
Burn will continue to publish the traditional and the non-traditional and everything in-between from photographers who are truly committed to what they do…….
as always gentlemen, many thanks for your time and your thoughts…
cheers, david
Burn will continue to publish the traditional and the non-traditional and everything in-between from photographers who are truly committed to what they do…….
I sure hope it does! Good, bad and all the other.
Thanks for your comment on this. This is indeed a good conversation. Worthy.
The late Jeff Porcaro once said of his “style” (paraphrasing here)… “I stole a little from John Bonham, a little from Jim Keltner, a little from Bernard Purdie and after that you hope something in you comes out that is yours.”
So yes, even from Imants offering here, there is something to learn.
Cheers.
Imants – I find your work exceptionally powerful. I have been waiting for something as interesting as this to be shown on Burn ever since I started looking at the site. Is this photography? Of course. Photography is a means of expression. I make no judgement on Photoshop – I really don’t care. Photographs don’t show truth; they show choice. Some might want to depict the world as they imagine it to be ‘out there’ as ‘realistically’ as they might choose. Others might want to express the world ‘in here’. I understand your work as showing us ‘in here’ – it is a privilege to be allowed such access to this level of raw being. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that some are confused or anxious – they probably never go there.
Amazing photography – well done Imants and Burn
Hi Jim,
To take a guess it started being post modern (art) world since about the 1970′s (any Art historians here that know a bit more?) yet amazingly people today aren’t just talking to themselves photographically or otherwise. oh, where the conclusions of Postmodernism published I must have missed that memo?
px
Because of the monochrome treatment, it is very hard for me nto to see this work in the light that has been done before, in the last century. Not in subject, but in style/stance and manipulation.
Personally, I do not believe there is much “new” in the way we make photos, or assemble them withina frame. Not a critique, btw. It’s what the artist does with what is in that frame (or on that wall, or sky, or whatnot…) and how this develops as a series or a body of work, that matters. On BURN, there is too much fascination , or discussion, on the means employed. A picture is a picture, period.
Sometimes, I feel like many here (not you, Jim) only know “challenging” photography as it comes to appear BURN, as if until David started this blog, all photography had been about PJs, or straight shooters. Like Marcin said, there must be a library in your vicinity. Worth visiting…
Imants, not sure what it’s about, and why I should be touched by it. I am reminded of what david said in his WS slideshows, that silence is approval. My own silence here is for just having walked across the threshold of your house, and waiting to be inside, spend some time with what you do, make sure this is art that comes from within, not just to be off. Still approving, not turning my heels back! ;-)
I will read again, but very few here are talking about what you have been doing, or attempting, about what is in the picture, that they can grasp, and make something about it (or attempt too). Almost a berezina!!!
Just to say it’s good such work is being shown on BURN, that it’s great to be challenged, well, yes, thanks for sharing this with us but if I was Imants, and serious about what I submitted, that wouldn’t do much for me as an artist. It’s more like a favorable critique on BURN and David’s large net vision than about what Imants did.
IMO.
Exactly. I want to ask Imants to tell me what this work means? Should I have to ask him that question after viewing the piece?
Very strange pictures.
Total rejection from me.
Ziemlich abgefahren.
Last weekend I went to the f-stop photo festival in Leipzig where the work “Mental Hospital” by Anders Petersen (Sweden) was shown. Imants images evoked the same strange creepy feeling I had, when I looked at Anders Petersen’s work. The comparison is a bit far fetched perhaps.
Good to see provocative work here on burn!
Best
Reimar
I don’t care what it is about, or what you, Imants, wanted it to be about, to me it only matters that I can go in there and see/feel what *I* think it is about.. thanks!
Shock and horror seems to be what the self disturbed Immants is trying to convince us goes on in his troubled mind. It reminds me of historcal sites like castles and dungeons in London and the little videos and wax scenes greated in musty old museams to put the chills on kids. This stuff is not imaginative nor chilling nor boundry pushing, if you are trying to push the limits between your disturbed inner world and the manifestation of it in the outer world you should at least have had a good gawp at dali and Buñuel’s Andalusian Dog. From 1920′s this is still disturbing, it deals with real stuff. Stuff that lurks in us all. Art is not a divine understanding passed on through particular genes (or occular cults in Immants case). Artists that claim that their individuality and special awareness are the spearheads or their work fit within a fashionable trend currently rotting away at the genuine need for the artist to communicate to their audience on terms that are mutually inclusively defined. This i’m sorry though deals with nothing but how to indulge ones narcastistic ego. If you were honest enough to do a work about that, you would be appraoching art as I understand it.
Jim, didn’t you take an art or English class at some point, maybe in high school? “Hamlet” doesn’t *mean* anything. “Guernica” doesn’t *mean* anything. If you don’t like a work of art, can’t respond to it, are flummoxed by it, or are otherwise in distress about what it means, talking to the artist really isn’t going to help.
Again, we have Jim asking the photog to justify himself to Jim. Do a little work on your own, Jim. Crunch a few brain cells.
Preston, actually my degree is in English Lit and History. But Hamlet actually does mean something.
The photography certainly doesn’t have to justify his navel gazing to me. Just interested to know what the work is about to him.
Preston, and we have you asking Jim to justify himself to you. Please, let’s not go down that path.
Good lord. What’s with this “justifying” crap? Nobody is asking Imants to justify anything. An artist has put up an essay for critique. That’s what happens here at Burn. People are praised, criticised, questioned, ignored, defended by Bob ;^} … you know, whatever. That’s how it works.
Yesterday, to his credit, Imants told David he wanted no restrictions on comments about his piece. If I remember correctly, he even was joking around about how much fun it’ll be that way! But one of his first responses was “I’m not going to justify!” To me that’s just a wonderful way of shutting down discussion.
One last time… no one is asking anyone else to justify anything.
Okay, Jim. Tell me what Hamlet means.
Exactly. I want to ask Imants to tell me what this work means?
——————————
If I may, not exactly what I said or meant. Just to take the time or desire to get more acquainted to what Imants is doing, and of course, any words is welcomed form him, but that soes not have to be what he “means”. It is not always for the artist to say or know that. yet, just like there were many keys to James Joyce’s novels, such work as Imants may need a little more familiarity or introduction (from him or someone else, but concrete, not just celebrating “rings” or I dunno what) to dwell in.
Herve, it it means nothing to the artist, why should I take the time to look at it?
Why do you assume it means nothing to Imants? You think he’s just jerking your chain?
Preston, it’s about maintaining moral integrity in a corrupt world.
No, Preston. I assume it means something to him. And I would be interested to know what that is.
For those that need an answer to be comfortable, as the audience you need to “stop” the slideshow and select the frames, some need to be reconstructed others deconstructed. For those that feel they need an answer,once you have completed that task you will have your photograph,
QCan’t see how the not justifying stalls conversation, some have asked me to do so……….. the piece is there you respond to
mmmh, interesting but in some way failing due to its “density”, imo… there is no direction but this result does not seem the truthful aim of the author…image/meaning layers are too thick, out of its obscurity you just grab a feeling, and this feeling reminds me of http://www.conclave.ru.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with asking an artist what his work is about, but I wouldn’t anticipate and answer from most; still no reason not to inquire.
Imants already said “The whole work stems from a phrase that we say everyday, “Ahh h I don’t know..” then the other person usually opens their mouth(mute) to respond ……. as for the rest blink and remember…………….”
That’s a lot of information..
For me the basic form of construction really isn’t that different from work that was being done with photography montage in the 1920s and 30s.. Hoch (as an exapmle: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/228/489559306_771226dbca_m.jpg) or as i said before from el lissitzky (http://parsons.danamcclure.com/2DIS_S08/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/the_constructor_self_portrait_by_el_lissitzky_1925.jpg)
or Moholy Nagy (http://www.pada.net/Photos/20/Full/moholy.jpg) (collected as photographs)
I don’t understand the reason for concern that Imants’ work is threatening to photography, crossing a line, etc..he could be doing this in the darkroom, or with glue at his kitchen table, just as was done 80 years ago or so…
Herve, it it means nothing to the artist, why should I take the time to look at it?
—————————
Having a senior moment, Jim? what the work means and what it means to the artist are 2 different things. Picasso never deigned to explain what his paintings were about, yet, take a look at Guernica, and see that it is a meaningful work, and with no doubt than that meaningfulness was why Picasso painted it.
Capice?
closer to us. My 4th of July shot with the saxophone player. It only means to me that I saw something and went right there to shoot it, rather than not To Patricia, it means the san Francisco she misses (which I can’t, since I live here).
I am sure Imants has no problem if the work means something ele to us than to him, and that we wouldn’t even be curious what it means to him. Yes, I’d be more curious in a bit of an analytical description (especially, since some frames go so fast I can’t see them well, or are way too dark), than what it means to Imants. When I read critical work on a photo, the writer always starts with describing the picture, sometimes throroughly. With Imants’s, I can’t so far, and no one else has tried.
Guernica was actually a wrong example, since we hardly need to know what it is about what it means.
Just don’t agree with this, Herve. It’s what the artist himself sees that interests me. I already know about my own demons.