Thursday, December 25, 2014

Instagram - Candida Hofer Photo Assignment


Instagram - Candida Hofer Photo Assignment
by This Ain't Art School

@thisaintartschool
#candidahoferassignment

1. Love thy neighbor
2. Suspended in Space
3. Exhibit exhibits
Bonus: Pinball Wizard

Dec 1 - 10, 2014

Description from Instagram Account - This Ain't Art School:

1) "Love thy neighbor - document a slice of migrant culture in your neighbourhood
Take this assignment as an opportunity to meet your neighbors & ask them about their story
Please remember to be mindful of people's privacy"

2) "Suspended in space - a vast space in a representational building, devoid of people, photographed from a central perspective. Thank big, empty, light, linear. No spiral staircases"

3) "Exhibit exhibits - same same, but different. This time, the space is not empty: It is an interior filled with artworks which enter into a dialogue with the building. Go to a museum or gallery & try to capture the way the artwork is presented"

"Bonus assignment for extra fun - Pinball Wizard: Locate a pinball machine. Shoot straight from the hip without fussing around.  Think casual, not composed.  And while you're there, don't forget to put the bloody phone away & play!"

"Go play & have fun! Feel free to share this with your friends.  And please be fair, don't tag old photos, take new ones & play with us"

"PS: we'll occasionally post a bit of extra info over on our Facebook page - click the link in our bio to follow us there as well."

Photo Assignment Notes before the Assignment was given:

First some Homework...
"Which photographer should we pick for our next assignment?"

after that a Why they chose this artist...

"It's autumn, it's mostly dark & grey outside, sometimes foggy.  So it wasn't easy to come up with an assignment on - let's say - Martin Parr who was one of the photographers you guys suggested.  We would need sun, bright colours, beaches & people eating ice cream. We thought we'll better keep you busy indoors. And who is the master when it comes to take photos of interiors? Right. Candida Hofer. She studied at the Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf, where she was in Bernd Becher's photography class, along with Struth, Bursky and Ruff.  She sort of adapted the Becher style: just as they have systematically photographed industrial structures, she has been photographing interiors of museums, libraries and representative buildings since the early 1970's. Hofer is well known for her bright & shadowless photographs with an enormous depth; her scenes are empty & events are absent.  It's all about blankness & light, symmetry & alignment. We'll hand out the assignments to you on Sunday evening. A special thanks to... for allowing us to use this more than perfect photo to give you an impression of the upcoming #candidahoferassignment"

My attempts...
(excuses as follows: Thanksgiving week house full of company, first week of December Christmas catching up/mailing & then the company Christmas party... had to run around nearby with the cell phone camera when could catch a scene that might work with holiday purpose at the forefront...)

Exhibit exhibit (kinda sorta, only outdoors)





















outdoor #gallery in #TheWoodlands #TX
#sculpture boy under the shade at home in the tall pines trees
instead of indoors
#photoassignment 2/3 trying #candidahoferassignment



















2 out takes of boy sculpture in The Woodlands
along Woodlands Parkway

Link to the Public Art & Map for The Woodlands...
http://www.thewoodlands.com/nature/public-art.html

The Dreamer by David Phelps
http://phelpssculpture.com/






















new #pinballmachine
where are all the old originals?
Not at this #arcade MainEventEntertainment
#thewoodlands #tx #speedracer #photoassignment bonus
trying  #candidahoferassignment
sad days - we use to own an old pinball machine & foosball game
when the boys had to stand on chairs to play them
good #memories & better photo ops

*correction: #speeddemon he's a little red devil not a Speed Racer























2 out takes of the Speed Demon Pinball Machine
only thing missing is the classic flippers on this machine
(I did not stop to play the game, as it was mid day,
nobody was in the arcade, nor the bowling alley,
was on holiday errand run & thought I would really
Really like to find an old arcade with old flipper machines
before I gave in to try a pinball game--that & bring some kids
with me would be the best?!)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Candida Höfer Artist...

Wiki link...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candida_H%C3%B6fer

Museo Magazine article/interview with photos...
http://www.museomagazine.com/CANDIDA-HOFER

You Tube - Through the Lens of Candida Hofer 2010...
http://youtu.be/gfAmjCyPcZw
4:18 minutes from Hong Kong Tatler - AsiaTatler.com
(note: talks about her cameras, if you like those details)
"if you have an idea, be persistent keep doing what you want to do..."

Candida Hofer Interview - Fondazione Bisazza...
3:34 2014 translated "Immagini di Architettura"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prbXVKw73xM

"The subjects of my work are public and semi-public spaces. I prefer them when they are without people. Spaces then seem to tell more about people, what they do for them and what people have been doing to them. Spaces are about light. This is why I photograph them in the light that I find in them, may it be natural or artificial light. Spaces have functions. Functions create similarities. I am fascinated by the differences in these similarities."
Candida Höfer

In the USA find her works...

Listed in Artcyclopedia:

Guggenheim Museum NYC (1 photo in the Collection Online: Deichmanske Bibliothek Oslo II 2000)
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/2961
Brooklyn Musuem NYC (1 photo online: Brooklyn Museum of Art IV 2001)
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/165589/Brooklyn_Museum_of_Art_IV
Harvard Univ. Art Museums Massachusetts
http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/
Candida Hofer in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Database (*page no longer exists)
Mildred Land Kemper Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri (1 photo: Museum fur Volkerkunde Dresden I - Museum of Ethnography Dresden I 1999 - with a note that it's not on view in the museum)
http://kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu/collection/explore/artist/605
Musueum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago (1 photo: Bucherei Leipzig IX 1997)
http://www.mocp.org/search/?as_sitesearch=http%253A%252F%252Fmocp.org&q=candida+hofer
Norton Museum of Art West Palm Beach FL (1 photo: U-Bahnstation Theaterplatz OsloII 2000)
http://www.norton.org/photography
Philadelphia Museum of Art (2 photos)
http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/results.html?searchTxt=&bSuggest=1&searchNameID=51843
Phoenix Art Museum Arizona (1 photo online - center photo of three & her name referenced as a recent acquisition to the collection in the Summer Breeze Gallery but no photo in view on that page online of the gallery, except around a corner there's a partial view: Candida Höfer, Palacio Nacional da Ajuda Lisboa VII, 2005
http://www.phxart.org/exhibitions/453606d9-99d2-4ba9-83f1-10dd0da932bc

Frye Museum (6 photos)...
In 1996 there was a First North American retrospective of her photographs at the Frye
http://fryemuseum.org/exhibition/78/
Bourse du Travail Calais IV 2001 (c-print & detail), British Library London 1994, Bibiotheque Sainte-Genevieve Paris II 1997, Ca' Dolfin Venezia 2003, Pierpont Morgan Library New York IV 2001

"Höfer studied photography under renowned professor Bernd Becher from 1976 until 1982. She is the senior member of the first class of students to study at the Düsseldorf Academy under Becher’s tutelage in the 1970s and 1980s. Other members of the Becher circle included Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, and Axel Hütte. At the time, the Academy was considered the most influential art school in Germany and the work produced by Becher’s students took the art-photography world by storm."

Artsy Net - 25 photos of her work...
https://artsy.net/artist/candida-hofer

note of the 25 I like this 1 especially - lots of red, lots of red polka dots, fun energy tho empty...
Spiegelkantine III 2000 - C print - edition of 100 - Galerie Fluegel-Roncak - Sold for $5,000
https://artsy.net/artwork/candida-hofer-spiegelkantine-iii



image from Google Search
Spiegelkantine III 2000 - C print - edition of 100 - Galerie Fluegel-Roncak
http://www.fluegel-roncak.com/
(note: this image not found on their webpage, only 1 photo of artist under Various Artists, a green curtained room photo: Fundacion Marcelino Botin Santander 2004)

Art Space.com - Bio & List - (2 photos: Teatro Colon Buenos Aires with a price tag of $7,500 & Barock Brasilien $8,000)
http://www.artspace.com/candida_hofer
Bio notes mentions her hometown as - Eberswalde, Germany but Lives & Works in Cologne, Germany
(note: I'm wondering if because she's in Germany & a German photographer & a woman perhaps too that she was chosen as the Third Photographer in the Photograph Series by This Ain't Art School or possibly that she liked to photograph interior architecture/spaces, which for the winter is a good project to go indoors - in any case I do like finding out about photographers I didn't know before, that she's a woman was an added bonus)
























My belated 2 out take photos of the Food Truck/Taco Truck
I would of liked to pull up to find it parked to get out & take photos & ask questions
or get to know my neighbors, though they don't live on my street they are always working somewhere nearby my street in this ever under construction city of Houston or The Woodlands--though the later will finally run out of land area to build on at some point, my neighborhood for one is completed though neighbors do move in & out so there's always the possibility of getting the chance of meeting a neighbor that is an immigrant to the USA or an expatriate that may have some limited work assignment here
but I did not find this truck again, only once spotted it in traffic - that I followed on the way home,
when finally stopped at a traffic light, got in the other lane so I could snap a few photos of it
(I especially liked the animals in the scene & would of liked to know if that was their homeland depicted in one of the nicest truckside murals I'd seen in a long while on one of these Food Truck/Taco Trucks that wasn't professional sprayed/wrapped kind of thing)

Photo Assignment Note:

I did not do well with this third photo assignment, compared to the other two, & really it was only 3 photographs plus a bonus photograph for the whole assignment in a short 10 days rather than a month

I could not make it to an Art Exhibit I had thought one was in town until January, but it was gone over Thanksgiving week holiday (end of Nov) I found out only too late - the artist with I think a few art student assistants had taken local soil samples, mixed them with water & had painted the floor & walls of the Rice Univ. Gallery with this soil paint into a landscape of wonderous animals in plants

Then I also did not make it into town Town (as in H-town) to view/photograph any large open space interior - no library, zoo, train station, airport or the like...maybe I could of found a Mall, but an empty one during the holidays--forget it & even finding the other possible large open space interior locations empty/devoid of humans during the holidays when all sorts of family visitng/visitors are in town coming/going/looking for things to do/places to go visit would of made it perhaps impossible, though I don't like to say that word?!

Nor did I catch my neighbors at home - as I know they're expat's from Russia & then I thought what an explanation it would take in order for me to even ask to take a photo of them... my back up photo idea was a food truck, most likely operated by a Mexican American, in the ongoing construction zone of the next door neighborhood & shopping area nearby, but I only found a colorful painted truck in traffic (see above) that I liked that so photographed that only after the  photo project was over...

The outdoor photo I took of the sculpture was barely taken from the car driving to/from a holiday errand, but I did have to circle the block & U-turn & wait just before the light change in order to roll the window down to get that photo, plus cropped to edit out most of the road or traffic going by the other side of the roadway...

And as well the bonus pinball machine photo was taken inside a large entertainment zone building with mostly bowling lanes that I pulled over from going to/from a holiday errand once again to run in to first off find out even if they had a pinball machine at all--they had 2 new machines, the same game, set side by side, which made me wonder where there are any old classic arcades in town (but I have not gone on to find out if there are any of them elsewhere...)

It does all make me want to add these places, these photos I did not manage to take a photo of to an internal list of Photos I'd Like to Take One Day!


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