Roe Etheridge, Old Fruit, 2010
Anyone paying attention to emerging art photography these past few years will have noticed that still-lifes are back. It’s been an interesting and welcome development, watching this traditional genre, which for years had been banished to the shadowy realms of advertising and stock photography, re-emerge as one of the dominant modes of the moment. Some of you, however, may share my sense that this wave of rediscovery is beginning to show signs of exhaustion – that there are simply too many people repeating the same basic formulas with diminishing results.
Such is the fate of the fad, of course, and our current interest in still-lifes will undoubtedly recede from the zeitgeist sooner or later. My feeling, though, is that this revival is more than merely a trend to be enjoyed, endured, and left behind in short order. Rather, I’d argue that it’s a logical, timely development, one that reflects both our current cultural moment and photography’s relation/reaction to it. It’s part of a larger cycle and deserves our attention. The trouble is, cycles unfold at accelerated speeds online – what might have developed into a valid movement given an ample incubation period can easily be reduced to a momentary meme instead. So my purpose in writing this piece is to suggest that for those of us who are interested in this facet of art photography, it might be a good time to pause, look at what’s been done so far, and figure out not only why we’re making this work, but also consider how to push our ideas forward.
So how can we account for the proliferation of still-lifes being produced by this generation of emerging art photographers? A cynic would say it’s because still-lifes are easily produced and easily aped – which is partially true. On one hand, yes, perhaps more than any other style, still-lifes allow the photographer to control both how and when he works; rather than hunting and waiting for decisive moments, the still-life photographer conceives, constructs, and captures his images at his own leisure. As such, it’s generally easier to take a basic still-life photo than, say, a striking portrait. But while this may account for much of the less-significant work being produced, it still doesn’t quite explain what makes the still-life such an appealing and appropriate mode for young photographers in 2012.
Kate Steciw, Sketch for Still Lifeless, 2010
Rather than chalk things up to photographers’ laziness, I tend to align my view with those of people like Matthew Thompson and Anne Ellegood, who have argued elsewhere that this recent rediscovery of still-lifes has everything to with the predominance of digital technology. Put simply, our transition to digital means of shooting and disseminating images has transformed photography’s (and thus the photographer’s) relation to materiality. The breakdown: the arrival of digital photography signals a clear step towards the immaterial; for most people, the days of tangibility – film, physical prints, and photo albums – are long gone. This makes taking/storing photos an easier and cheaper proposition than it’s ever been. The ease and accessibility of digital photography means there are more images being created than ever before. Meanwhile, the internet, which has become our primary means of viewing and sharing photographs, ensures that we’re exposed to more images than ever before. Furthermore, the experience of viewing images online – an experience which, more than anything, is defined by the possibility of decontextualization, recontextualization, and purposeful juxtaposition – has fundamentally changed our expectations of those images, eradicating the notion that they might be imbued with any sort of set meaning or degree of “truth.” Such is this generation’s version of the ever-present but ever-changing “crisis of photography.”
Photographers have responded to this new landscape in different ways. Some have reacted by openly embracing digital manipulation, celebrating photography’s liberation from the impossible burden (and fallacy) of “believability.” For others, the crisis demands a reassertion of the photographic object itself, which bears implications on the manner in which photos are both printed and displayed. For still others, however, the element of materiality that had been displaced by digital technology has been effectively refocused as content. Almost like sculptors, these photographers begin to construct assemblages and arrangements to photograph. They begin to work with their hands as much as with their eyes and, as Matthew Thompson asserts in his essay “The Object Lost and Found,” they in turn adopt a more traditional notion of the artist’s studio, embracing the space “as a site of making, not simply a site of production.”
Wyne Veen, Frozendutch, 2011
The rediscovery of still-lifes can also be seen as a direct response to the free-for-all nature of the net – the venue which most photographers use to share and even exhibit their work. In an environment where notions of authorship and intent are all but meaningless, perhaps there’s something comfortable about making images that so often resemble product photography, a caste of images traditionally dismissed by the art-inclined as being particularly disposable, even meaningless. As Kate Sutton wrote in a recent review for Artforum: “As Facebook feeds and Tumblr streams send digital images further from their indexical referents with every passing ‘post,’ the only image whose integrity cannot be eroded is the image that never laid claim to any: the stock photo.” If the internet has the potential to strip any image bare and blank, it seems, it might make sense for us to produce work that bears little pretense of preciousness to begin with.
So this generation’s interest in still-lifes, I would argue, is neither accidental nor trivial. That said, my hope is that we can follow the example of exhibitions like the Aspen Art Museum’s 2011 show “The Anxiety of Photography” and the Wandering Bears photo collective’s as-yet-unnamed group show by taking a moment to reflect on the work that’s been produced thus far and consider where else the still-life can taken, before it’s inevitably deemed out of fashion once more and left for some future generation to rediscover.
In that spirit, I’ve compiled a very brief list of young photographers who have produced some of the most compelling, vital still-life work thus far. They’ve taken the genre to new places, raising interesting ideas that we might push forward. This list is more about starting conversations than being comprehensive, though, so if you think I’ve missed anyone, feel free to bring that person’s work to our attention in the comments section.
(Note: As my focus here is on emerging photographers, I’m not going to look at the work of people like Roe Etheridge, Elad Lassry, Annette Kelm, and Lucas Blalock. Any survey of contemporary still-life art photography would be incomplete without their inclusion, though, so be sure to look into their work if you’re not already familiar.)
Geeting’s images are exciting because they feel spontaneous and informal, as if each click of the shutter recorded a moment of discovery. His still-lifes often call to mind the random arrangements and accidental beauty one encounters walking down a city street: a discarded set of blinds leaning haphazardly against a draped blanket, fallen leaves lying on a sheet of insulation. In both content and technique, the work is wonderfully unprecious, casually combining everyday items to achieve results that are striking, ambiguous, and weird. Like many photographers experimenting with still-lifes, Geeting’s work suggests an interest in product photography. Interestingly, however, his interests seem to lie less with the pristine images of a glossy catalogue than with the amateur setups one finds in ads on Craigslist and eBay. (His most recent project, a blog called Sell It Yourself (http://sellityourself.tumblr.com/), collects images culled from such sources.) From the outset, photographers have used their cameras to capture and call our attention to the naked strangeness of our surroundings, and Geeting’s work – still-lifes and otherwise – stand up as a noteworthy contribution to that tradition.
Where Geeting’s work feels unplanned and unconventional, Grant Cornett favors an approach that is far more precise, considered, and faithful to the conventions of still-life painting – particularly those established by Northern European painters in the 17th century. For those artists, still-lifes offered the opportunity to show off ones skills, as they worked painstakingly to achieve lifelike textures and subtle light effects. It’s easy to see, then, why the genre might appeal to a photographer like Cornett; for although his work demonstrates a keen eye for composition and an peculiar taste in subject matter, it’s his technical skills – his use of lighting especially – that truly set his images apart. Contrary to many emerging photographers, who seem to find inspiration in the surreal blend of advertising and avant-garde sensibilities achieved by people like Paul Outerbridge in the 1930s, Cornett’s references reach much farther back. He frequently alludes to still-life painting styles of the Flemish Baroque and Dutch Golden Age: the ontbijtje, or “little breakfast” still-life, popular in 17th-century Netherlands, in which simple combinations of food and drinking vessels are set against neutral backgrounds; the pronk, or “sumptuous” still life, in which lush arrangements of foods, flowers, cutlery, and patterned fabrics were designed to please and even overwhelm the eye. But where these European paintings typically contained symbolic messages – most often regarding mortality and the brevity of life – Cornett’s work serves simply as a vehicle for graphic experimentation, impeccably designed compositions in which shapes, colors, and textures create a strong but ultimately enigmatic effect.
3. Aurélien Arbet – Jérémie Egry
Over the course of the past few years, Aurélien Arbet and Jérémie Egry have developed a practice that, although diverse (among other ventures, the two keep busy as the founders of both Hixsept L’oiseau Gris clothing and the JSBJ publishing house), bears a refined, singular, and consistent sensibility. This aesthetic – a highly stylized blend of handmade elements and precise staging, of rough textures and clean presentation – is evident in their still-life work. Their process adheres to most of the genre’s conventions: objects ranging from used painters’ tools to fruit to sculptural busts are collected, arranged in a studio setting, and shot against a saturated draped backdrop. What sets the work apart from traditional fare, however, is the duo’s distinctive approach to sculpture. Their choices of objects to include and combine are surprising, and their constructions demonstrate a sophisticated sense of line, texture, and color interaction. But while the results are pleasantly ambiguous, the effect of these images is often similar to product or stock photography: the designs are minimal, the images simple and exacting, and while there’s an experimental tone to the work, nothing here is truly spontaneous or left to chance. It’s an interesting (and difficult to achieve) gray area, but one which Arbet and Egry seem quite comfortable exploring.
Through playful setups and odd juxtapositions, Carson Fisk-Vittori’s work invites us to look more closely at everyday items, stripping them of their common associations and allowing us to consider them, perhaps for the first time, on purely formal terms. Often forgoing the studio in favor of domestic settings, her images are unassuming, casual in both content and staging. Behind this apparent informality, however, is a decision-making process that is at once subtle and deliberate. In interviews, Fisk-Vittori has expressed an interest in ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement. It’s a useful point of reference in looking
at her work: as in ikebana, Fisk-Vittori forgoes conventional means of presentation, instead composing intuitive but calculated arrangements designed to draw our attention to a given object’s surface, lines, and form. As a result, household items like computers, houseplants, and vases are rendered strange, new, and full of potential.
Christopher Schreck is an artist/writer based in New York City.