DSM to PDX – via the road….

UPDATE: Made it… and now I’m back already….

Blue Mountains – Oregon
2007
Matt Niebuhr

I am happy to say the drive required no diapers (I really wasn’t that pressed for time… I planned ahead after all… ) some 1770 odd miles later… I have a few new souvenir scratches on the car – and an appreciation for the vast open west.

Hybrid #1
2007
Matt Niebuhr

Hybrid #2
2007
Matt Niebuhr

I’ll be leaving for one of two road trips to Portland from Des Moines very very soon… I’m anxious to get the road miles covered safely and to dodge snow storms… but also, to see something along the way worth photographing.

The blog will be quiet for a while during my travels but I hold out the hope that inspiration will show itself along the way. I’m optimistic.

More of my work here: www.mattniebuhr.com

…examining the threshold at which ordinary visibility ends and perception begins ….

“Splitting” Gordon Matta Clark

UPDATE: Read about the show…and see a couple of images via NYT…
Showing at the Whitney

“…He often talked about edges: about the areas between walls, between a floor and
a ceiling — about gaps and voids, which he made into art. In the show are
photographs that he took of the spaces under chairs, between the floors of
buildings, on the ceiling of a loft, where the sprinkler pipes were: places
people don’t usually bother to notice. “Opening up view to the unvisible” (he
loved wordplay), was something he jotted on a note to himself. It might be his
manifesto.” – Art Review- Cross Sections of Yesterday

By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN
Published: February 23, 2007

Gordon Matta-Clark, “Splitting,” 1974,
black & white photo collage, 40 x 30 inches
Collection Jane Crawford
Courtesy Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

I find Matta-Clark’s vision of space more to my sense of being in the world… After all we humans stand up on two legs… and look out at the world through two eyes (I’m generalizing here)… We don’t fly over things like birds… so I find things like this…. by Andreas Gefeller – which I think is a bit more odd and difficult to enter into… excepting that I am a practicing architect (intern) – so I’ve got some practice looking at “plans”. But that’s a whole other subject – like the Oblique…

To me the plan (more like a way-finding map – removed – abstracted – about iconography) means something entirely different than the section photo montage by Gordon Matta-Clark above. I like the collage of photographs each room with it’s own vanishing point. Vanishing point – that assumes that there is a subject perspective…. a point of view. Therefor I can imagine being in this space… I like the offering of being able to “see it all at once” yet I’m, not really able to a have true understanding of the space. That’s what’s challenging in this work. What we think we see in photos recomposing a certain kind of reality… In this case Gordon’s. I like it.

Incidentally, the work and other stories of Matta-Clark will be shown at the Whitney coming next year. Should be a show worth seeing.

…examining the threshold at which ordinary visibility ends and perception begins ….

Portraits: Industrial Farming

Industrial Farm: 20061125#1-1, photograph by Matt Niebuhr.

Industrial Farm: 20061125#1-1
Matt Niebuhr
2006

One of a series I am working on of various types of industrialized farming buildings.

I hold the view that industrial farming is not a sustainable endeavor for many reasons. Not least of which is the enormous strain that is put on the environment because of the extremely high concentrations of livestock in confined conditions. Another obvious issue is the vast scale of production that severs the connection with sustaining a local community in order to feed the “world”. In the modern world of processed foods, the location of production and the location of consumption are rarely known to each other.

Industrial Farm: 20060126#1

Matt Niebuhr

2006

This is not a “new” problem, but it is one that has a potential solution in recognizing and looking at more sustainable farming practices which includes certified organic farms. We, (the invisible hand) have the ability to pick and choose among the types of food products we purchase to encourage the growth of more sustainable production of food. Consider locally grown produce when possible is a place to start.

Industrial Farm: 20061125#1-3

Matt Niebuhr

2006

The Industrialized farmstead – a product of economics – is creating the potential for increasingly devastating disaster’s as the issue of scale and product are increased. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” as the saying goes.

See more of my work here: www.mattniebuhr.com

…examining the threshold at which ordinary visibility ends and perception begins ….

Henry Wessel – Bay Area Photographer

Henry Wessel
Real Estate Photograph No. 90967
1990
Chromogenic print, ed. of 7
27 5/8 x 40 3/8 in. framed

I came across an exhibition announcement via Artdaily.org presenting the work of Henry Wessel – a “bay area” photographer whose work will be featured through April 22, 2007, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Artdaily.org

Henry Wessel
Real Estate Photograph No. 908614
1990
Chromogenic print, ed. of 7
27 5/8 x 40 3/8 in. framed

The Real Estate photos are a particularly interesting typology to me – they appear to be “any-place” and “no-where” with very specific and quirky details of porches, the oddities, are what begin to hint at a house in transition of ownership – rather than a home that is lived in. Empty, apparently, waiting for a new life to begin.

Henry Wessel
New Mexico, 1969
Gelatin silver print16 x 20 inches (print)
20 3/8 x 25 3/4 inches (framed)

Wessel’s work (style) seems to remind me of work from Robert Adams and perhaps Lee Friedlander (I’m thinking of: Sticks And Stones: Architectural America).

More about Henry Wessel here and photographs here – represented by the Rena Bransten Gallery.

UPDATED:
A review by Michael Kimmel – NYT “Celebrating the Views That Others Looked Past“

…”focus on the peculiarity of everyday events. “

…examining the threshold at which ordinary visibility ends and perception begins ….