I'm working on a series based on "gathered paper" - in this case, a caption on the back of a photograph of a woman being executed (found in a thrift store with about eight other ones). Other potential items are things found on the ground, in garbage cans, and from other people's collections. I'm not sure if this is the final presentation for this image (currently a 40-inch carbon ink print). I'm still in the early stages of deciding what to do.
2 comments:
My initial reaction: finding something like that in a thrift store seems so unlikely...I feel as if I am being lied to. I not only feel like I'm being lied to, I'm sure (although not beyond a shadow of doubt) that I'm being lied to. I like the idea of painting an image with text, of generating a sentence that has automatic and insuppressible visual cues; a picture without the picture. However, whether or not you are actually creating a fictional scenario, I'm feeding off of the intrigue of 'truth', not the sentence itself. And that truth (i.e. being found in a thrift store) seems...mmm...a bit leading.
That being said, I'm interested in this project. I love that the sentences are so large and, at least in my mental interpretation, framed. It's an interesting question: what makes an image? Is it merely the suggestion of something or must it contain visual cues? And, if you agree that a sentence can be as visually descriptive as a painting, can they be experienced in the same manner?
I'll be interested to see the remainder of these--keep posting them.
I suppose it's more accurate that it was found in an upper-end antique/thrift store (a mix of total junk and treasure). The pictures are originals, all captioned on the back in the same handwriting. Most of them are beheadings.
The captions are so strangely matter-of-fact (as if written by a tourist who was passing through the Syno-Japanese War and stopped to take a few snapshots) that I could probably print the entire collection as a body of work in itself and feel satisfied with it. I've played with that idea, but am currently considering it part of the bigger idea I have.
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