Fotografieren II

Essay for new Sissi Farassat book

I wrote an introductory essay for Sissi Farassat's new book "Sequence", published by Fotohof. The original, full length essay can be found here on academia.edu.

Fotografieren

Panel Discussion on Fashion Photography

On August 21st, I was invited to a panel discussion on "Fashion Photography - Art or Commerce?" which was organized in conjunction with the exhibition "Zeitlos schön: 100 Jahre Modefotografie von Man Ray bis Mario Testino", curated by Nathalie Hirschdorfer from the image archive of Condé Nast, at the Museum Bellerive in Zürich, Switzerland. Aside from the curator of the exhibition, who also moderated the discussion, the other invited panelist was the gallerist Christophe Guye. It was an interesting discussion on the merits of embracing fashion photography, or at least some of its positions, by the art world and/or the art market.

Work

Found in NYC (summer 2014)

Valuing Labor in the Arts

My graphic from 2009, in which I propose a system to afford all working visual artists a basic income through redistribution of capital gains in the art market, has been included in the current issue of Art Practical (5.4), Valuing Labor in the Arts. It's listed under Value/Labor/Arts: The Manifestos. Here the section's introduction:

"On April 19, 2014, The Arts Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley will stage a day-long Practicum entitled Valuing Labor in the Arts. The gathering invites registered participants to select from the 8 Artist-led Workshops; each is a small-group practicum devised to spur dialogue, action, and art-making around questions of art, labor, and economics. They will also spend some portion of their day in “The Power of Demands and Transparency,” working to develop a Bay Area cultural survey and to expand their own thinking in relation to the Bay Area’s broader labor history. In the early evening, registered participants will re-convene together en masse at the David Brower Center to debrief, to share insights, and to share a meal. In addition to the workshop prompts and featured essays in this issue, we have included here a selection (and a reminder) of some recent and some not-so-very-old manifestos of artists who found themselves asking how they wanted to be valued and wondering whether the available value systems were up to the task. Some worried about authorship and ownership, some about invisibility, some about whether an artists’ union could combat a highly individuating art market that kept artists from working with each other."

(By Shannon Jackson, Helena Keeffe)

"Dederon – The Fabric of the East" at e-flux' Agency of Unrealized Projects

One of my projects that hasn't seen the light of public display is "Dederon - The Fabric of the East" has been included in e-flux' Agency of Unrealized Projects. Here my project description:

One of the most complex and yet unrealized projects of mine is “Dederon – The Fabric of the East” (2003-present), which literally uses the (polyester) thread named after the DDR (engl.: G.D.R.) to trace the initially noble and ambitious project of establishing “socialism on German soil”, with particular emphasis on materialism at the intersection of industrial production and everyday life. Here, the synthetic fiber Dederon functions as a metaphor for the categorical Modernist belief in progress and how it defined the social, political, economical and cultural fabric of East Germany before and after 1989. Besides my own photographs (etcetera), I have collected information and visual material from a diverse number of found sources over the years, including film, texts, fiber and fabric samples, posters, advertisements and brochures, with the intent to weave together an installation-collage that presents a critical and somewhat epistemological account of life lived in the “real-existierenden Sozialismus”. Two films, “The Divided Heaven” (Christa Wolf and Konrad Wolf, 1964) and “Good-bye Lenin” (Wolfgang Becker, 2003) represented by screenshots, will function as the conceptual ‘bookends’ in which the two main female film characters miss the construction and dismantling, respectively, of the Berlin Wall while hospitalized due to a state of unconsciousness. In between these two place-and-time holders, “Dederon – The Fabric of the East” will explore issues of production, fashion, gender and representation, political belief systems and ideology, the public and private, memory and melancholia. It is meant as a look back at the successes and failures of the 20th Century’s socialist projects as well as a proposal for rescuing its best ideas and implementations for a future beyond our current and crisis-ridden capitalism. Thus, I seek to reinsert a consideration of future into a world that seems increasingly preoccupied with the present only. But perhaps the unrealized nature of this project of mine is also indicative of the utopian nature of such a progressive alternative? We shall see ...

Photobastei Images

Me with my work in the background (Photo: © Photobastei, 2014)

Viewing my work (Photo: © Photobastei, 2014)

At Photobastei in Zürich

Romano Zerbini, known around Zürich for his keen eye when it comes to photography and his tireless pursue of projects promoting the medium and its artists, has managed to secure seven floors of a high-rise building to temporarily use as an exhibition space for photography between January and August of 2014, named Photobastei. I have been invited by Romano to show two works on the 5th floor: a slide projection of Critical Distance (2008-2013) as well as White Works (2007) from my mixed messages series. The well attended opening was last Thursday with Paolo Pelligrin as the main attraction. My work will be on view through February 2nd, 2014. Here the accompanying text (in German only): 

Critical Distance ist ein umfangreiches Projekt zum Thema "Heimat", dem Blochwitz seit gut 6 Jahren nachgeht und das von Beginn an simultan als Buch und als Fotoinstallation konzipiert war. Er verarbeitet darin in Bild-Text-Kombinationen durch Aussage, Gegenüberstellung, Interpretation und Übersetzung, dass es das Land seiner Jugend und Kindheit, die DDR, seit fast 25 Jahre nicht mehr gibt, dass er zwischenzeitlich länger in den Vereinigten Staaten gelebt hat als im vereinigten Deutschland, und dass er nun sozusagen auf neutralem Boden in der Schweiz wohnt. Heimat ist also (nicht nur) für ihn immer vorort und doch anderswo - und uns damit nur einen Schritt näher als die Utopie. Das macht die Fotografie auch zum idealen Medium für ein solches Langzeitprojekt. Die hier gezeigte halbstündige Bildprojektion lehnt sich stark an das Buchformat zu Critical Distance an und durchläuft über die oben genannten drei Stationen/Kapitel einen Erkenntnisprozess, der der Suche nach Heimat, frei nach Ernst Bloch, einen katalysatorischen Effekt für radikal-emanzipatorische Veränderung zuspricht.

During the opening on January 16th, 2014.

White Works (2007) stammt aus der Serie mixed messages und nimmt unsere noch immer zutiefst chauvinistische Kultur und die ihr zugrunde liegenden Wirtschaft ins Visier. Die Fotografien aus dieser Serie entstanden alle in New York, sind aber in Ihrer Aussage auf den gesamten Westen und gerade auch die Schweiz übertragbar. In der rasterförmigen Anordnung aus 25 Einzelaufnahmen, versucht Blochwitz in gewählt komplexer Bildsprache und –montage herauszuarbeiten, dass in unserer Gesellschaft noch immer vorsätzlich klassifiziert wird, wer was arbeitet, wer überhaupt arbeiten darf und wer gar nicht arbeiten muss. Im Englischen auch: white collar, blue collar ... no collar. Wie dabei das Erwirtschaftete verteilt wird, folgt einer ebenso asozialen und zynischen Logik. Harte Arbeit und prekäre Lebensbedingungen bedingen sich leider öfter als sie sich ausschliessen. Und die Sichtbarkeit der Arbeitenden sinkt je mehr man Arbeitsspuren und die Körperlichkeit der Arbeit an der Arbeitsbekleidung ablesen kann bzw. könnte.