taking a creative break right now

It was on sale. I couldn’t resist.

Book Description:
Since her earliest photographs in the 1970s, Cindy Sherman has built a name as one of the most respected photographers of our day. Famous for posing as the subject of her own photos, Sherman’s work addresses the role of the artist, the impact of the media upon the art world and the position of women in society. Organized in a roughly chronological path by theme, Cindy Sherman provides a comprehensive review of the artist’s complete works, including her Bus Riders, Murder Mystery, and Untitled Film Stills series, and photographs on topics ranging from surrealist pictures, fairy tales, rear screen projections, the Old Masters, centerfolds, pink robes, clowns, dolls, and Hollywood. Fascinating archival material includes a notebook of personal snapshots that Sherman kept from an early age, on which she would circle herself and label each one: “That’s Me.” This monograph is the catalogue for an international exhibition that will be held in Paris, Denmark, Austria, and Berlin from 2006 through 2007.

This is a project by Kent Rogowski, and my boyfriend bought me the book from Amazon.

Bears, is a series of portraits of the most unusual sort: ordinary teddy bears that have been turned inside out and restuffed. Each animal’s appearance is determined by the necessities of the manufacturing process. Simple patterns and devices never meant to be seen are now prominent physical characteristics, giving each one a distinctly quirky personality: their fasteners become eyes, their seams become scars, and their stuffing creeps out in the most unexpected places. Together these images form a topology of strange yet oddly familiar creatures. They are at once hideous yet cuddly, disturbing yet endearing, absurd yet adorable, while offering a metaphor for us all to consider. These bears, which have lived and loved and lost as much as their owners, have suffered and endured through it all. It is by virtue of revealing their inner core might we better understand our own.

“Nobuyoshi Araki: Self, Life, Death (Limited Edition)”

Araki has been described as a pornographer, a monster, a genius, a “dirty uncle” and much else besides. He has called himself most of these things, too, and makes much of his persona as a somewhat cartoonish, priapic little devil, as though he were himself a character in an erotic 18th-century drawing of the Floating World.

This major publication provides the most comprehensive overview yet of Araki’s prolific 40 year career. Araki’s key series of works are included alongside many rare and previously unpublished photographs. Featuring an interview and essays by writers from Japan and Europe, this book examines Araki from a broad range of perspectives and gives a cultural context to his work. Also included are a large selection of Araki’s writings, translated into English for the first time, as well as complete illustrated and annotated bibliography of his own books. Reflecting Araki’s principle of “I-photography”, the book is divided into three sections that follow the main recurring themes in his work: Self, Life and Death.

Tomoko Sawada (1977-) from Kobe is a photographer who lives and works in Japan.  She first came to wider public attention playing a host of characters and identities in her self portraits ID 400.  Sawada produced her images using photo machines a technique reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s photo-booth portraits from the 1960s, Sawada used a public photo booth to create an “army of me,” - but not me.  This involved weeks of changing her physical appearance as well as her dress.  She managed to produce over 400 different identities.

“The facial characteristics and expressions are so varied and elastic in these candid shots that they become in of themselves a subtle study of physiognomy”.

Crying is a powerful act; taking a photograph of oneself crying and putting it on the Internet is another matter entirely. It is a very specific cultural phenomenon and is in many ways much like a performance. As such, the title of this project is borrowed from a piece of the same name made by the Dutch performance artist Bas Jan Ader in 1970. His piece consisted of a silent 16mm short black and white film of himself crying uncontrollably with no explanation. Regardless of the authenticity of his tears, his grief is overwhelmingly real. It is at once hard to watch, mesmerizing, and beautiful.

“I’m Too Sad To Tell You (after Bas Jan Ader)” was originally conceived as a project to create an archive of self-portraits taken while crying. The images were to be displayed online on a website and then later made into a book. An open call was posted on the photo sharing community Flickr.com asking people to submit their crying self-portraits over the period of one month.