Along that same vein, we thought some of you may be interested in Alex’s and my statement about collaborating together on the Violet Isle book and exhibition, a statement which we posted below and on our “Two Looks” blog today.

As always, we welcome your thoughtful questions or insightful comments here, and/or on our blog.

Hope to see some of you at the Violet Isle opening/book launch a week from tomorrow at Ricco Maresca Gallery, Nov. 5th, from 6-8pm, or the gallery talk/book signing on Sat. Nov. 7, 4-6 pm. David posted the details with the Q&A.

Best,
Rebecca

VIOLET ISLE: ON COLLABORATION

For the book and exhibition of Violet Isle, we chose to collaborate in order to create a more complicated and multi-layered portrait of Cuba, one that explores not just the streets of this Caribbean island, but also the relationship between Cubans and the natural world. Interweaving our work, we discovered, expanded upon our understanding of Cuba, upon the notion of an island in a kind of bubble –– a political, economic, social, and ecological bubble –– the latter, which scientists now say, may protect Cuba environmentally because of the dearth of cars and plastics and other consumer goods. This collaboration also allowed us to embrace visually and conceptually the enigma of Cuba, what Pico Iyer calls, the “ambiguous island.”

Ultimately, we feel our Cuba photographs interwoven in the book or exhibited together –– with their echoes and tensions and cracks and contradictions –– create a more dynamic and complex portrait of the violet isle, a place prone to both political and romantic cliches, than either of our bodies of work shown separately. That’s what we found so fascinating and mysterious and humbling about collaborating on this project.

“Cracks are a given between one collaborator and another,” the poet CD Wright once wrote about her collaboration with the photographer Deborah Luster, “that’s how the light gets in.”––Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb

How your individual perspectives are interwoven is simply magical – that union is exactly what makes the whole so fresh and at the same time, incredibly powerful. It packs a mean punch with its symbolism – human hands holding wings – and then I realised it is one of the most moving pieces I’ve ever seen. Would that there be a cat purring contentedly under the image of Fidel Castro!

It is a duet that could begin to transform relations between men and women and, our appreciation of Nature the natural world. Told in 10 images. A complete inspiration!

Thank you.

Jenny

I read some of your thoughts in the discussion with David, I think, about how you feel editing needs to be an intuition with you, has helped me very much in the confidence I know it will add for me in the future. Thanks for that observation. I struggle with maybe thinking and undermining myself as far as what is a good photo and what isn’t as good within my own work rather than simply settling on a gut feeling.

ALEX.

I’m not one for owning photographic books but rather one who finds myself in the back corner of a bookshop finding my shoulder is about to give out after a couple of hours holding out a photographic book, which I can remember in this sort of a circumstance, looking through your photographs and how that world of the Carribean so mesmerized me and inspired me to also capture the human essence.

Thanks …

I have heard of you both but don’t know your reputation, your work or anything else about you. Which gave me a wonderfully blank slate to look at this work. I had no expectations for you to live up to….well, er, that’s not exactly true. I dreaded another boring look at Cuba. Please don’t take offense, David, i never saw your work there (but Jim is enamored of it so it MUST be great!!!)..or Martin Parr’s either..but the usual, the old cars, the streets, the decaying buildings with their lost grandeur, the countryside, the sugar cane, the old men, *yawn*..i only saw one photo of Cuba that i ever liked and it was taken in a ballet studio, an amateur photograph posted on the web. I loved it so much. One photo. That’s it. Which brings me to this work.

First, i find the collaboration extremely exciting. Just when one viewpoint is in danger of MAYBE getting redundant, the other approach slips in, zaps the tongue, cools the eye, frisks the brain, thuds deep down in the heart, oooohhh..i like this collaboration stuff! Left brain, right brain stuff, powerful stimulant, twoferthepriceofone and neither approach disappoints. This isn’t a duet to me, it’s a tango. Powerful tension, mutual respect, physical and mental attraction, the zing of challenging each other, the joy of sharing two different viewpoints, these are all palpable in this work.

I tried to talk about the different photos, the birds, the people, the precise compositions, the insistent energy, but this work truly is interwoven. I can’t separate the two. There’s just this wonderful balance between the metaphorical, the whimsical, the thoughtful, the political, the human, the emotional, the Latino, the distinctly Cubano, the book is going to be an amazing work, i believe. Congratulations and i look forward to seeing the final version.

Thanks!

best
Kathleen

Cheers

Hi to Cathy, Sean, and Justin. Nice to see some photographers Alex and I have worked with before here on Burn. And hello to Frank and Patricia, who saw our slide talk at David’s loft last weekend, in which we set about 40 of Violet Isle photographs to a Cuban duet.

First of all, thanks for all your responses. Alex and I realize it’s hard to get a sense of the complete book from just 10 images – especially a book that’s interweaves two photographers’ work. Thanks for the poetry (Wendy and Eduardo). And Sean, thanks for bringing up the Warsaw chimp photograph, the last photograph I took for The Glass Between Us. There’s a link on our blog (Postings: October 2009) to a recent interview in which I talk about the story behind the photograph.

For Andrea C:

You were wondering what text would accompany the images. Alex and I decided it made sense to have Pico Iyer write an afterword for Violet Isle after reading an essay he had written about Cuba in his book, Falling Off the Map. We felt his vision of Cuba (which he calls “the ambiguous island”) was in keeping with our view of Cuba. You can find an excerpt from this afterword on our blog (Sept. 14th posting: Making Books: Finding a Writer).

In addition, there is a short piece written by Alex and me.

For Brian Frank:

You thought Burn readers might be interested in hearing more about how Alex and I edited the book and found a publisher.

Alex and I strongly believe in what we often call “intuitive editing,,” in which we try to use the same eye that photographs in a spontaneous and intuitive way as the eye that edits one’s own work intuitively.

For Violet Isle, we didn’t see this as a collaborative project until the spring of last year. It just so happens, soon after we made this decision, we were scheduled to teach a workshop in Peru, and started working on the edit each afternoon of the workshop when the participants were out photographing. We started the edit the way we always do when editing each other’s work –– spreading out the photographs (on the floor, on a wall, or on a table) and then starting to “play” with them, making relationships with images until they begin to talk to each other formally, poetically, thematically. We discovered during this Peru workshop that this was an ideal task to complement teaching, since teaching often leaves us quite exhausted, emotionally and creatively, and we often find it difficult to photograph our own projects after spending hours each day talking and looking at other people’s work. But, as we found out in Peru, during a workshop we also happen to be in the perfect mindset to edit our own work. In addition, it’s helpful to edit a book away from New York and our hectic schedule and our studio, and those day-to-day details that eat up so much time in a photographer’s life. Anyway, by the end of the workshop, Alex and I showed the participants our first sequence of what ultimately became Violet Isle, and their comments were extremely helpful. We finished editing the book in two other workshops –– one in Cadiz, Spain, the other in Venice, Italy.

As far as trying to find a publisher for this rather unusual joint book, we first approached a large, rather traditional art and photography book publisher. Although there was strong initial interest in Violet Isle, it became clear the project was too off-beat for such a mainstream publisher. We’d heard about a creative, new small publisher, Radius Books –– and had met Darius Himes, one of the publishers, who’d shown us a beautifully printed book they’d done of Mark Klett’s photographs. So Alex and I decided to show our Violet Isle book dummy to Darius and the other Radius publishers. Interestingly, the very quality of the work that the larger, more traditional publisher saw as a weakness or detriment –– Violet Isle’s uniqueness –– was the same quality that Radius saw as one of the book’s strengths.

For Justin:

I’m not sure I’d use the modifier “ruthless” when describing Alex’s and my editing and sequencing process. It’s more akin to play. That said, I don’t remember any significant disagreements about the Violet Isle sequence. As you may recall from our workshop, when we edit other people’s work, we are often rather quickly in agreement. Since we’ve been editing each other’s work for 10 years now, perhaps that’s not so surprising.

As far as a musical influence on this edit, it would have to be Cuban duets, especially the boleros. Our favorite Cuban duet, to which we have set the slide show of Violet Isle, is the bolero, “Silencio”, by Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo. It makes us both smile each time we hear it. It’s such a beautiful and melancholy duet. Anyway, here’s a video clip from Buena Vista Social Club with Ibrahim and Omara singing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VzsT5OswHk&feature=PlayList&p=62577788ECF30E68&index=0

Alex’s answer to your question, Justin:

The decision to combine our respective bodies of work came after our penultimate trip to Cuba. Our collaboration is one of editing not of photographing. So, I don’t think this decision particularly changed how I worked in Cuba on our last trip.––AW

This undefinable part of personality cannot be reduced into psychological explanations or common denominators. The richness of Aex Webb’s work can only exist, because he leaves room into his work for the complexity and chaos, which inhibits any of us, all in a different way.

I could never make his work. Nobody could. Because it’s Alex Webb. Like DAH stated, he insists that the work of his students reflect their personalities. Personalities are made up of a lot of things. But what makes art to be wonderfull, is the undefinable and chaotic inner part of personality, from which we create.

What I sense in Martin Parr`s work, is not some sort of sunshade of this part of his personality, but what I sense is the mere defense system our current culture uses in order to deny the existence of that part. Every culture has elaborated complex defense systems against that undefinable chaotic part in every one of us. Every culture, as to be a culture, has too. It is a natural cultural process. But the danger is that culture destroys that part, or tries to make it harmless. Religions, fascism, dictatorships tried to destroy it.
Why so? Because the power of this chaotic part of personality, expressed in life or art, is able to shake up the way culture has learned us how to canalise our desires and dreams. This process is a mixture of unconscious and conscious movements. Not any culture has succeeded to destroy completely the power of this chaotic part of a person. But many have tried and almost succeeded.
Our culture takes a more sophisticated approach. It tries to make it irrelevant. It tries to make it’s rebellious power irrelevant. So we forget about it. So we are less sensitive to it.

Martin Parr’s images are not rebellious against these complex underlying cultural movements. They surf on them, like on the waves of a sea. I must say, in a clever way. They can be seen as critical about our consumption society and in the same way as a confirmation of that consumer society. That provides the undefinable part of Parr’s work, so many people like. but this contradicion doesn’t emanate from the innermost personality. It is a contradiction so much carressed in our culture. We criticize and at the same hand confirm what we criticize. So we can sleep with our good conscience and keep on doing the same things we are doing. Parr rests vague. Surfing on the waves. It looks like criticism, it looks like art, it only looks like it… Safely guarded from the chaotic parts of personality which can rebel against underlying parts of culture. (note: the goal is not to rebel, rebelling is just a logical outcome of the fact you make something personal).

Not thinking about the differences and similarities of “two different photographers”, is an easy way to dismiss important questions. It is the same as “all cultures are relative”, so we don’t have to think further. Or “there is room for both”. Of course there is!

I normally respect the “one comment” rule but this time, I really wanted to thank you for the depth and quality of your answer to my question on repetition and reinvention. In case this was not clear I do like your obsessions very much :):):):) and there is no doubt in my mind that your work continues to sing. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. It is always facinating to also discover the man behind the photographs. Simply looking a the complexity of your images, their construction, I would have expected you to be an intellectual (I mean this positively!) and a man who analyzes things. I am not disappointed and I can tell that you had asked that very same question to yoursef already. Needless to say that it was great reading you. I hope we can carry this conversation forward at some stage face to face. There would be nothing nore pleasing to me than to meet someone whose photographs have inspired me so much. A real priviledge to have you spend some time with us on BURN.

Eric