Lewis Koch

Touchless Automatic Wonder, Lewis Koch's web gallery created while Artist in Residence at the Fotografisk Center, Copenhagen, Denmark in May 2001 of "found text" photographs has been published as a book.  Touchless Automatic Wonder, Found Text Photographs from the Real World  (Borderland Books, distributed by UW Press) , 112 pp, hardbound, 80 duotone illus. The reproductions are very fine and the design is in keeping with the work giving it room and cadence.   At the risk or sounding like a Luddite; the opportunity to fully engage with the sequence, pairings, and individual images in a scale that makes them more accessible than the earlier web version is a great pleasure.  The book allows me to turn and re-turn the pages to absord the unfolding of this work while allowing room for my imagination and memory to also make it my own narrative.  

 

Kendra Green from MOCP wrote, "Lewis Koch plays at the borders of the incomprehensible and the inexplicable.  A open-air staircase seems to lead only to the sky; the question mark on a cart aptly remarks on its own mysterious placement at the center of a frozen lake; the view from a curtained window reveals the backward lettering of “YES”; on the glass floating in an inky night. Indeed, Koch’s gelatin-silver photographs often make use of odd or unexpected fragments of signage and found text to intensify the unsettling sensation of being radically out of place. Not merely quirky or coincidental, these single words or full phrases confront the viewer with all the authority of labels and directives, at once creating and commenting on the scene’s tension." 

 

It is fine thing to have a book inspire the emotion contained in the title. Curiosity, speculation, admiration, amazement.  In a word,  wonder. 

The book is available here and here.  You can contact Lewis Koch (lewiskoch(at)yahoo(dot)com) directly for a signed copy as well as inquire about a copy in a limited edition of 50 with choice of one of 5 images in editions of 10.

 

All black and white images copyright Lewis Koch and used with permission of the artist.

The kindness of neighbors

Any ideas on what to do with a 25 pound head of cabbage?

Challenging Vision

The issues in my work are often of a similar nature with an abstract edge. Though I build on past experience, I attempt to eradicate previous habits of seeing and thinking. I keep searching for what is visually new to me while always hoping that a fusion of form and content will take place.

Barbara Crane, 2002

Human Forms, 1964  Barbara Crane

 

Do you feel good about your work?  Do you feel like you are getting a lot done, moving forward, exploring new ways of seeing and making others see?  Do you feel pretty good about having a handle on the technical requirements of photography?  Then I advise you do not go to Barbara Crane Challenging Vision  at the Chicago Cultural Center through January 10, 2010.

I was there Saturday and felt as though I had been taken, metaphorically, to the woodshed.  No excuses, no explanations, no permissions asked.  Work, and more work, and more work.  Every thing, every form, every media.  Humbling, inspiring.

Spend time on her web site to get a taste of the experience.  A well made catalog covering the exhibit and her career is available through Amazon.

Security

Do we know when Amtrak hired Mad Magazine cartoonists for their graphics department or is that the international symbol for "bad guy"?

                                  

Mise-en-scène

with Dan, and myself as metteur en scène.

Dreams

I'm sleeping under Michael Kenna tonight. Nice when a hotel buys
original art.

Aspen Creek prints

Aspen Creek Photo had a sale a couple of weeks ago on 8 x 10 prints mounted and matted  at 16 x 20 for $12 a print.  Their product and service are every bit as good as their older sibling West Coast Imaging.  An excellent option for proofing at a good price and still having something usable.

Cash

Just when I was feeling disappointed that bidding on work in the Aperture Foundation 2009 Benefit  Auction was not in the budget....now I can bid on everything and still have enough left to buy a Hasselblad with a digital back!

Those were the days

Photo by Sonja Thomsen

Last night Curator Lisa Hostetler gave a talk to members of the Milwaukee Art Museum Photography Council presenting an overview of the collection.  How acquisitions came about, strengths and focus.  I love learning the back story to these things.  Example?  The Edward Weston (lower left) Bad Water, Death Valley, 1938 (printed by Edward Weston) was purchased in 1957 for $10.  The John Szarkowski, Grain Elevators 1, 1949 was acquired as a gift from Boston Store (a department store in Milwaukee) as an art contest winner in 1950.  That's what I call getting in on the ground floor.

Before and After

As I am getting caught up with life I finally had the time to frame 10 pieces from Sonja Thomsen's Petrified series for my husband (Is there a better place for a series that speaks to timelessness [by way of petrified shark's teeth] than a dental office?  Except perhaps a lawyer's?). Thank god for Ikea, pull out all their junk mats and backing and you have a very serviceable frame and glass for your own museum board.  It feels good to be industrious.

The High Cost of Film

My husband just paid $125 to have a 3 gallon container of used fixer picked up from his office. $30 to buy, $125 to have hauled away. Another reason (let's not even go into OSHA) he switched to digital x-rays. If you have a darkroom please don't tell me you just dump it down the drain.

My neighbors to the North

The Mpls Photo Center emailed to ask for help in getting the word out on their call for entries for a juried exhibition of portraits. The Deadline is October 24th so get your files ready for upload (yes you can submit by email!). I only wish they were 425 miles closer so I could avail myself of their facility and classes.

Ba ba ba ba ba......

Yo La tengo - A Take Away Show - Part 1 from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

I just found La Blogotheque. I love it. I love the production values on these two Take Away shows by Yo La Tengo.

Yo La Tengo - A Take Away Show - Part 2 from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Have a great weekend.

Ephemera panache

A wonderful surprise came in the mail. Thomas Allen was handing these out at the opening reception for his exhibit at Foley Gallery a few weeks ago. A friend was in New York and attended having gotten to know him when he did the cover of her book. Each one (obviously since they were cut from book covers) is different. I am thrilled with mine, very apt.

Art under water

I am working my through my inbox as well as my notes to self on items to link to. I found this clip from early summer to be entertaining in an "Art imitating life", "best laid plans" sort of way. Found at CMonster my favorite comment is:

"I hope they leave it there for the bienale. It actually seems more interesting and relevant, a mcmansion underwater in debt to poor planning." Elbowtoe

Art and policy

Yellowstone 2004

I've been watching Ken Burns' The National Parks: America's Best Idea this week. Tyler Green has a great post making the point that indeed there was a time in this country when artists were able to sway opinion and policy.