David Hilliard and Candy Chairs

So Thanksgiving is over. I was talking with a friend today and he described it as the "thanksgiving inconvenience" which might seem cynical, but when you're a student it pans out that way-you spend a couple of days traveling and visiting, and then the rest of the break is spent saying, "oh fuck". While I was busy not updating:

I had a critique with the amazing David Hilliard. regarding my as yet untitled Chairs project. The critique came days after me saying I didn't know where to go with the project, and David certainly got me out of that rut.

He really liked the idea of the project, which was great, and said all sorts of fun words about the chairs, "fetishy" and "obsessive" being my favorites. One thing he said that initially surprised me, but now has me really excited was that the photos in simple print form cheapened them.

He wanted them to be more physical, more objectlike-he wanted to be able to collect them "like sexy candy". Candy? Who is this man? It's really got me thinking about what the presentation of a photograph does. I mean yeah, frames and matting make them look nice, scale is important too, but beyond that you can present photos in ways that are really outside the box. The way (a lot of) painting and sculpture work now is so much more than hanging something on a wall (think of Angela de la Cruz)

she hates her paintings

Photos still just hang there. David Hilliard's work tries a little to get away from this-he uses dip/trip/quad/etc.tychs to create a sense of movement and space that a single photograph just can't capture, or so he says.

And now, a couple Hilliards:

Copyright © 2003 David Hilliard

Copyright © 2005 David Hilliard

What do you think?

Also, out of left field: Susan Rice as UN ambassador! Hopefully she'll bring China (and us) to task for our lack of action in Darfur (she hates genocide)