The Link

A friend just sent me a bunch of images.

I'm sure I've seen that one before somewhere.

This one looks like it could be a Matt Couper original, but I can't say for certain. It has a Matt Couper painting style, but equally it could be a Philip Guston, and it certainly contains some Gustonian elements.

And my guess is that this is a Philip Guston from 1980 called 'untitled'.

Nice wee connections there. I've been reading a lot lately about how photographers use elements of painting (composition, palette, lighting etc.) to create their work. Me, I just take pictures. If anything I make some photos because they remind me of a photo I've seen elsewhere (many of my posts make reference to these references so track them down yourself). But I've never consciously sought to 'rephotograph' a painting, so it's cool when serendipitous moments such as these occur. Thanks Matt.

I could now have a rant about the rephotograph, because there is currently a rephotography show on at Pataka. The work involved the artist finding a book of Renaissance portraits then scouring magazines to find images which approximate them, then photographing them both. When I saw this article about Richard Prince's work from the New York Time, I couldn't help but chuckle when I read this:

"My whole issue with this, truly, is attribution and recognition. It’s an unusual thing to see an artist who doesn’t create his own work, and I don’t understand the frenzy around it."

He [Krantz] added: "If I italicized 'Moby-Dick,' then would it be my book? I don’t know. But I don’t think so."

At least with painting, and this is something both Matt and Peter Ireland (amongst others) do regularly, the act of copying someone else's work in an act of creation, not just copying. The painter uses their own style and incorporates it into a work that is, generally, bigger than the elements they're referencing. Rephotography has no such creativeness and the 'meaning' is in the concept, not the work itself.

I'm sure it's been done, but I'm still waiting to see a show where all the work is artist/curator statements. A few randomly placed long, involved, art theory rantings, attempting to add great weight and intellectual meaning to a mediocre idea. At least then the artist doesn't have the hassle of actually producing the physical work.

But I wasn't going to rant. So I won't.

Oh, and flicking through Matt's site I noticed that Peter Ireland (refer to this post) does have a website with some of his paintings on it (refer to it here).

PS - just to make this wee circle complete, today I received a response to my response to Peter's response. It came in the form of a letter and was delivered to my letterbox by my friendly local postie. Awesome. And none of you are going to know what he said. Suffice to say it was lucid, well thought out, and bloody good. I really like a good letter, but very few people do letters these days. My response to Peter's response to my response to Peter's response will be winging it's way to Wanganui sometime in the next week or so all going to plan.

Double PS - this just arrived in my emailbox. It answers stuff.