And the winner is...

(I'm going to have to take credit on inverting this bravotv.com image)

Abdi Farah is the Next Grea...

...wait a minute. The is honestly no way that the show's title holds water, so calling him the next 'great artist' would be lying, but his work was good enough for the solo show at the Brooklyn Museum.

Of course, I am enthralled that Miles did not win the finale. With that said, I would have to say that I was disappointed with some things that Abdi decided to include in his final show, as well as Peregrines cohesive in-cohesiveness.

As far as Abdi’s work, I will wait until after Saturday to critique it, because I found a ‘way in’ to the Brooklyn Museum opening! For now, I will say that some of his work is compelling, like the black bag painting, and to a larger degree, the sculpted forms, but mostly these successful pieces remind me far too much of work and subject matter executed by other artists.


Abdi, Bravotv.com uploaded some of your slides upside-down. I'd ask somebody to recheck that.

Peregrine’s work was very original. I thought that the vomit drawings were grotesque, and made me very uneasy. Her sculptures in wax were also very haunting. My only issue with this body of work was that some of the pieces seemed like ‘unsuspecting objects’ that were ‘conned’ into being art.

Frightening as all hell.

However, one of these objects—the unborn twins—worked well, even after being conned. It was a truly beautiful photograph… I wonder if she commissioned someone to take it, or if she in fact created this work.

Also being conned into being art was Mile’s White Castle bum. How disturbing—and I am speaking about Miles, not the work. I have a serious problem with people taking pictures of the homeless—for they don’t own the home that defines the privacy that makes it illegal for photographers to photograph them in vulnerable states.

I have always found photographers who exploit the homeless to be extremely selfish. The saving grace was his distance from the subject, which was a view through a surveillance video; this idea, for me, became a perplexing statement about privacy and right to privacy that kind of tickled me strangely.

What’s worse is that this homeless man died while Miles sketchily took pictures of him for every Bravo TV fan to then scrutinize. If Miles had won I’d have suggested donating his money to the Salvation Army. OH YEAH, and his abstraction prints were as bad as an intense mushroom trip that you realized you were allergic to the mushrooms after you ate them and have to go to the hospital in an ambulance—that’s how much I hated those prints.

It’s been great blogging week to week about WANGA. I’ve made some interesting acquaintances along the way and ran into about 35% of this seasons cast. It was an interesting season, yet the producers left very little to the imagination about the direction of the show. I mean it was basically exactly the same as Project Runway. Tim—I mean Simon—even did studio visits in the finale episode.

For the next season, I would like to see more opportunities and challenge wins during the season for the artists. Penguin Books was not enough, and the public art piece that Nicole lead during the group challenge didn’t even stay on site after the show aired. Let’s face it… this season was the trial run, and it was okay. But next time around, just be smart and pick me during auditions. I’m sure 50% of the kinks will be worked out after that. Just kidding... or am I?

And just for fun, I decided to include a little funny tidbit, one last time, indirectly about Jackie:

Her painting, Untitled, herself and Shaina.

Me and Shaina in the funniest picture I have ever used as my FB profile shot. Enjoy... until next time.

World Trade Center; ongoing project update

I've made a previous posting recently about my ongoing World Trade Center series of images made at ground zero. Is it even a 'ground zero' anymore? I've been focusing on probably five different categories at the same time when I shoot down there. The five categories are a direct reflection of things constantly happening or existing at the site at all times:The Photographer,The Fence, Hard Hats, Underground, and 9/11 Culture (yet to process culture shots)

Photographs are processed traditionally in a darkroom at my home in Jersey City.

[click images to enlarge]

The Photographer is constantly making images here. I focus on culture around the Trade Center, as well as the need to photograph beyond the fence.

The Fence is an extreme barrier between the public and the monumental site. The streets between Church and W Broadway on Vesey are frequented by PATH train riders and pedestrians visiting the site. The street is never empty.

Hard Hats are what help me distinguish pedestrians from construction workers. They walk differently through this site. I may be drawing upon my own sentiments, but it seems as if the workers walk around these streets as if they have a strong attachment the site; it's something about their demeanor.

Underground the World Trade Center, riding on the PATH train from Jersey has always been a wonder to me. I wish I had been photographing since I was 16, because I used to ride the PATH into WTC when there was still debris from the towers at Ground Zero. Over the years, the tracks have slowly become completely enveloped in the darkness of the new construction at the site. Now, all that is seen from the train are the under-workings of WTC 1.

Goodbye, Jackie, Nicole, and my Wednesday nights.

“Artsy fartsy in the woods” is what I typed as I was taking notes for this blog posting, as a side note, even before I knew what the challenge was.

Adbi, at the start of the episode, admits hes lost all knowledge as an artist because hes been in the bottom the entire time. How could this really be? Maybe it was good to be in that frame of mind before learning what the challenge was. He walked to the water, and meditated. In the end, he decided to go with his gut instincts and create a truly new vision/direction for his work to go. My friends don’t know this, but I also converse with God for new project ideas. Not kidding—but recently I’ve called so much he’s been putting me straight through to voicemail.

Abdi was finally true to himself, I thought his drawing was one of the more amazing works of art tonight. His piece was so beautiful to me that it makes me cry. I’ve written such horrible things about him and his work in past shows, but his work tonight was so realized. He didn’t use the materials as much as I would have liked to see, even before watching his choice of natural material I thought to myself, “I’d mix gravel into a medium to make some sort of mark with”… and then I thought, “that would be cheating the challenge.” My only other concern is that Abdi drew himself without any signs of male genitalia.

When I saw that it was JACKIE who was laying down under that cover, I was very let down… I could have sworn that it was Peregrine when I watched the preview commercials for the show. It just seemed so unlike her. She didn’t represent herself in the way that she had been doing in weeks previous. I am dying to read her explanation as to what happened right after I publish this post.

I was perplexed by Jackie’s image of the shower and the umbrella. I initially noticed the white umbrella when she was in ‘nature’ from a painting for hers that I have been familiar with for quite some time, and then, later on, the image source of the painting came right out of the printer, so naturally I became completely confused. Towards the end of the show it was apparent that she had not used the source image, but later on decided to go ahead and use that image in a future painting unrelated to the show.

That painting always held some mystery for me. I would like to ask Jackie, retrospectively, why she chose to create the painting of the herself and the umbrella even after the challenge. The painting always held something different than her other work for me, very shy and silent. It makes me think that this work was reflection of her experience on the show., but I might be reading too deeply.

Her piece that she ended up doing would have been stronger had she been more clever about interpreting the project in words. If she had only said something to the degree of what the piece had actually depicted, I think the work could have actually been very haunting. It’s like art school 101, she had to whip something up really quick because she was sick since the last challenege, so she did her best and turned out something pretty beautiful. But when you get to class and can’t talk it up to the class during the critique, all the minimalism turns into the viewer noticing how little effort was actually put in. The punctuation made with the hanging rock became empty; it could have held more weight, no pun intended.

Watching Nicole work on the show is always a kind of treat. You never really know exactly what she’s making until the final reveal. He use of making molds in her work lends itself to this. I am very sorry that she was not picked for the finale. As I have expressed before, her work is personal, and bold.

A side note about Nicole and Jackie: I really was set on believing that both of these artists would be in the finals. I was pretty happy about it too, while it lasted. I think that Jackie and Nicole, given enough time to work on actual art, that these artists could have given Miles a run for his money. (100,000 dollars to be exact) Nicole had commented on Jackie's DFN Gallery event on Facebook saying:

I thought this comment meant that they would potentially both end up in the finals, being as you wouldn't say something like that to someone who isn't on an equal playing field. Now I realize that the comment was made because both of them didn't make it.

This picture was too sweet not to post, I feel for the both of you for going home.

Oh yeah and Peregrine... I know Jerry Saltz had a lot to do with swaying the judges. I have to say that I completely disagree and am disappointed with Jerry at this juncture.

Miles sucks too. Good luck in the finals. I hope Abdi beats your white ass into the Wednesday after next. Yeah... I just brought it there.

As for my work this week:

I have been cheating myself this entire time with my WANGA weekly challenge. My initial plan was to make work during the hour of watching the show, but I've been so lax that it has turned into a posting of my past work that is relevant to the challenge. This work was completed last winter, with a shoot done once in the fall, and once in the winter. I was speaking to the cyclical nature of photography and life, and the continuum of life and death represented in nature.

WANGA RELATED:

I have a job interveiw tomorrow so it might be a little bit before I am able to post my Work of Art visual response/recap. But rest assured that I am typing tidbit notes as I am currently watching the show... I can't believe that Peregrine is in the final, I don't even really want to talk about it.

Until tomorrow, here's a picture taken recently at a Chelsea gallery opening last Friday when I met WANGA contestant, Judith Braun. She was really great to meet!--Very animated and exciting to talk to.

She was accompanied by Robin Rollin, (Judith in the zesty colors, of course), Bill Benson, and Paddy Johnson who, among her many endeavors in the arts, is the creator of Art Fag City. All of these people started chuckling at me when I tapped Judith as asked if I could please take a picture of her. (and it was great... because I totally expected it)

JACKIE ON CHELSEA

In other news, Jackie Santos gained some airtime on Chelsea Lately, which airs on the E! network. Click on the following link to watch exactly how 'inspired' Chelsea was after viewing Jackie's feminine control piece.

Road Side Memorial - Gabriella Giselle Camejo

Roadside Memorial

Gabriella Giselle Camejo

My good friend Gaby was killed our senior year at MICA when she crossed the street with my other good friend Kent Miller who was injured, but survived. For whatever reason, ever since then I periodically write my thoughts about the experience, or create visual works expressing my concern about the situation. I never truly was able to recover from the experience as I am sure many of my friends who were close to her also cannot. Emotions that could never truly be expressed through a blog. I created this work for Suzanne Camejo, Gaby's mother.

The print is a pictogram of a tracing of an image of Gabriella, with the following flowers overlaid on the print. A negative was created with Ilford paper in the dakroom, and a positive was printed from the paper negative.

World Trade Center; ongoing b/w project

It's been a while since I wrote about something that I've done personally. In the next few days I will be posting some ongoing projects, and my reviews of some exhibitions I went to in Chelsea within the past two weeks.

The following images are from an untitled series about life at the World Trade Center construction site, with an emphasis on pedestrian traffic. I believe that the magnitude of the events at Ground Zero have obviously affected the site's pedestrian traffic and demeanor, but the gate around the site specifically creates mystery, and a temptation for onlookers to reach over the gate to photograph. My focus in this project is about the site in general, the onlookers, the photographers, and the construction workers. I have been photographing this series since the winter of 2009. This project was shot with 35mm b/w film and printed at home in my darkroom in Jersey City.