Forest Fires, Conspiracy Theories & Sci-Fi (Oh my!) with Brian Z. Shapiro.
by Valerie Thompson
Date Posted: February 12, 2016
Valerie Thompson: Why don't you give me a brief overview about your history... like how you ended up in the arts... in photography.
Brian Z. Shapiro: So I kind of always knew that it was going to be like something to do with the arts. In school I was just like "none of this is really for me." But I didn't think there was anything out there until I was about ten and then and then my father got me obsessed with films. Every Friday night we would sit down and he would be like "we're watching a film, and then we're going to talk about it afterwards." And we'd go through you know the different waves and the different 'auteurs' and all of that and then we'd sit and talk about it so up until about the age I was nineteen I was like "I'm going into the film industry...I want to direct, I want to be an auteur" But I was about fifteen...to take a film class, we had to take one other class in this like summer camp, so they had a photography one and I took that.
VT: ...and was a film or digital?
BZS: It was film. Yeah, I didn't learn digital until I was like nineteen. So it switched over about nineteen when I transferred to SF state (University) and then it kind of has not stopped. I've always been obsessed with it. I’'e kind of always been a photographer that goes outside of the studio and goes out in photographing places...versus one that creates a shot. I had a real obsession with making sure that everything in the shot I was taking was exactly how I found it...that nothing was moved.
VT: That's cool, because a lot of photographers approach it from the completely opposite way where they like the ability to stage things. So it's cool that you're coming from the other end of it where you have sort of a transparency that you like to promote.
BZS: Right. You know I think that it's a shame that we put all photographers under "photography." I think there are the photographers who kind of really want to be painters or sculptors who use photographs to document the process. While there's other ones like myself who are more coming from a journalistic, storytelling point of view.
VT: Well the beauty of photography as a medium means that people implicitly do not question the validity of what you are showing them.
BZS: Right. Although, you can get away with that so much.
VT: Yeah. Well there's a lot out there these days that is completely falsified.
BZS: Yeah. And there's a lot of obsession over making sure everything is true as it possibly can be. I don't think photography can do that.
VT: Well I think that this discussion is very important in particular to do with...I mean the kind of work that you make...and I've known your work for a while and just because you shoot with complete transparency doesn't mean that there is lack of a narrative. There is some sort of fictional or real narrative going on in what you're shooting because you definitely have these narratives in your work.
BZS: Right.
VT: So how did how do you find that you make these images to support this greater narrative that you have...that are completely transparent and not staged. How does that work?
BZS: So, at least when I'm out shooting I will kind of focus on, you know, what is going on that day. I am constantly taking notes. I approach everything as a journalist, even though I try to avoid that term just because it does get into the idea of that "well-funded journalist...the number one job is to tell the truth or if you don't, they're going to crucify you."
VT: It’s a loaded term.
BZS: Yeah. With this, I have a story in my head that I'm telling myself. And then when I'm setting up the shots, I'm trying to figure out "OK where in the story does this shot fit in?" Something that I've learned to do over the past five years is: if there's a picture that won't fit into the story, I won't take that picture.
VT: Do you think that kind of curating...it’s not really curating...but that kind of decision...that careful selection...has been as a result of starting out in film? Because film provides a lot less opportunities to make just image after image; like in digital photos, you can make those mistakes, you don't have to curate before you take the photo, you know.
BZS: Correct.
VT: So you think that behavior kind of stemmed from learning film?
BZS: Probably. I think - at least when I do shoot digital - I think it's a hindrance, because you start editing and making your selection before you're done shooting and I think the idea of "to go out and shoot" is something that you should be only focusing on that and experiencing that, and then not the experience of starting to think about the histograms and cropping and something that should be done on a computer, later.
VT: So you work a lot more...in film...a lot more linear. You know, whereas you can self-edit on the job, using the L.C.D. screen on the back of a digital camera.
BZS: I think that is my biggest problem with digital...it's that you can start making the decisions about your photographs before you swallow the experience.
VT: So as far as content goes...do you want to go over that?
BZS: Yeah. So for about the past year I've been photographing the area surrounding the Bohemian Grove, which is a retreat for super wealthy, super rich, super white men of the world who make the decisions and decide how the money supply, the water supply and the air supply [is used.] So, every summer they have a retreat up there for about three weeks and spend the whole time getting super drunk and putting on pagan rituals. So.
VT: Where did you first read or hear about Bohemian Grove?
BZS: I've kind of always head about it since...I've always been obsessed with conspiracy theories and I really find them fascinating. But I think I first heard about it as a teenager and kept on reading, you know, going back and seeing something about it...I remember reading something that...I'm a huge Stanley Kubrick fan...but reading about how Eyes Wide Shut is secretly about Bohemian Grove. But I realized it was pretty close to where I live...about two years ago when I kind of had to put it on the map of "as soon as I get a car and I can be able to get there, I'm going." Then, about a year ago I ended up getting a car for a day and decided to go up there and I go to the front gate, and I'm not there for about more than a minute before I'm like swarmed with cars and there's a security guard out there, and he's making me delete...expose my film and all kinds of stuff. As soon as that encounter was over, I was thinking like "this has to be a project."
VT: The fact that you were met instantly with such a mysterious encounter...you know you don't get that way if you don’t have something to hide.
BZS: Yeah, and I think there's the type of people who say "OK, never doing that again" and they learn their lesson, and then there's the type of people saying "oh, nope, we've gotta go back in!" Even if I didn't get that many photos that day, I still got the experience of it, and I think that was something more important.
VT: Well from what I've seen of your work ...and followed it...you do a lot of writing. In very much like a film noir, lone wolf, detective-journalist kind of way...
BZS: ...gonzo way.
VT: A gonzo way, yeah...where you have the day, and the time, and the place and you write down your experiences. So, having that written account, but also the images to go with it just lends itself immediately to the format of a book, right? Which is what you ended up turning this work into.
BZS: I think I like the book a lot more as an art piece than any exhibition. Just because I think it's very democratic, and I like the experience that people have of being able to have a book and go through it. I always imagine them sitting on a bed like I do late at night, and going through books.
VT: Yeah, going over memories, or fictional memories...I was just talking in a class about how memories are actually not...they are "virtual" because they aren't something tangible, something real. So we do an element of fictionalizing...we inject things that didn't actually happen into our memories as a result of them percolating up in our little noggins.
BZS: Right. So we go back and think about our memories, and memories are deeply...false, I think. But in our own minds they are real.
VT: Personal truths. But the medium of the book - I mean you said it...I do it too, even at my parents' house with books that nobody's touched in forever and I'll go through them and it'll be an experience where I'm connecting my memories from my personal archives to what's in them, and it's a new experience. You're right, it's democratic, it's accessible to the masses, and it's emphatically not "the gallery," which I think is becoming troublesome for a lot of artists these days, the gallery setting...the museum setting.
BZS: And it's not to say that I don't like galleries or I don't like museums, because I think those are different experiences in and of themselves. But, I really like the idea of somebody being able to own what I would consider an art piece, and have their own experience with it.
VT: So, you mentioned that it all kind of started with film, and your father was really influential in exposing you to a lot of great film. What would you say then has been the most influential? You said Kubrick...
BZS: Kubrick of course and I think like any teenage, pretentious "snob" kid, they go through a huge Kubrick phase. But I think even going back, I'm still always kind of amazed by what he did. But, you know last couple of years it's been the seventy's era "movie brat" period. So, the Scorsese's, the De Palma's, Coppola, all of that...French New Wave was a huge influence on me, especially during college; basically all of the film snob criterion collection...you know, basics.
VT: Stylistically, do you think film has had an influence on how you work?
BZS: Somewhat. I'm realizing now that I need to switch over from a square and a six by four medium format to a six by seven, and I'm thinking that I like it more because it reminds me of a cinema screen, versus what a square does - were you immediately see it and think that's a picture. But with a six by seven, you have to wonder if it's a film still.
VT: You can definitely achieve cinematic qualities in the still image. Even, you were mentioning, you like to leave your scenes untouched by your hand, you don't like to curate them, you don't like to set them up - which, of course, would lend itself immediately to the cinematic, creative set-making - but you find these scenes so organically, yet you manage to retain a sort of cinematic feel.
BZS: Yeah, there's a dogma 95 aspect to it.
VT: Well I suppose my next question would be: have you ever forayed into the moving image?
BZS: Here and there. I was scared of it for such a long time because it was something that I quit, and I moved on from...that you know it was a weird thing in that I only had two years of film school, and not the whole four. And it was something that I loved so much that I almost didn't want to touch it...but I'm slowly getting back into it. I've been looking at a lot of the works of Terrence Malick lately, and finding that I'm really loving a scene where he will let something...let the camera go...and have what could only be described as a picture, but nothing's actually happening. We're just enjoying the image. The only difference is that we're kind of seeing the image move, seeing the things move back and forth.
VT: Like a prolonged .gif?
BZS: Yeah OK, I like that idea!
VT: ...in sort of contemporary terms...
BZS: Yeah, I'm wondering who's going to be the first artist to...
VT: ...be the gif artist of our age.
BZS: Exactly. Or is it gif (pronounced: jiff)?
VT: I don't exactly know. Interesting. Well I guess, in asking that question: "why not the motion picture?" It seems that you really enjoy the classics. There is a certain timelessness to the style and the process that you use, and so I think particularly in the moving image these days, in that area, it's really changing. It is a lot of like "oh film is so fifty years ago"...and even now video... "oh that was so twenty years ago." So I feel like now it's hard to probably break into that, whereas ...I don't know, I mean would you argue that film photography has achieved a little bit more of a permanence? Or not?
BZS: Yeah. Probably. I think there's always going to be the same...in the fine art world there's going to be film photography, versus you know digital might still be "cheating." One of my professors refers to it as a "photo vest" ...you know, the guy wearing the Safari vest, going out ...it's those types that still believe in filters and light meters, and all that, and not altering anything.
VT: Well, your content is very much there - it's not just the medium that is the art - but I think there are a lot of film photographers out there...fine art film photographers... who use simply the medium as their craft. They hone it, and they know it so well that that has become the art in their work.
BZS: It's part of the thing of... "well everything's been photographed at this point so what's the point of going out and photographing it, so I'm going to go back to the studio and play with the medium, itself," versus my idea that I still think there are things to be photographed.
VT: That's a good point that you bring up that everything really has kind of been photographed. Do you think that's the first step in a photographer's method...that they need to realize that?
BZS: Yeah, but I think I think you also need to know how to make something interesting. You know, I'll never photograph the town I grew up in; just because I've seen everything so much, and I think everything is boring but I'm sure that if I go back and spend time there, I will find photographs of things that will be interesting. But I think you can't believe that lie that everything has been photographed and think well then I'm not going to go photograph things.
VT: You can't get discouraged about it. It's interesting that you mentioned that you wouldn't photograph something so close to home, you wouldn't photograph something that you've seen your whole life. And that's an interesting point because I feel like a lot of times what people expect from us is for us to photograph what is the closest to us. You have fresh eyes when you witness something that you haven't seen before and that, sometimes, is more beautiful than if you're just so familiar with it that you're an expert.
BZS: It's like when you go to another country, you want to photograph everything because everything is completely foreign to you. And then you see people here - especially in San Francisco - who are taking photographs of the most boring things...like why are you taking that photograph? ...but to them it's completely fresh.
VT: Well I mean and that dredges up a whole different topic of conversation. Maybe we won't delve into that today, but it is interesting and something that you face as a resident of the Bay Area. And you grew up here...
BZS: Born and raised. Hella Born and raised.
VT: Alright, conspiracy theories.
BZS: Talk about those? Yeah. OK. Oh I really like it because...I think that word gets used quite a bit. We're living in the age of conspiracy theories, where they're coming to prominence so much. And there's so many different aspects out of it that I think every...you know to call somebody a conspiracy theorist is kind of doing them a disservice because you're not seeing what their politics and what their beliefs are, and where those are coming out and I think there are conspiracy theories that come out of...straight out of just pure racism. I think there's conspiracy theories that come out of class issues, and there's conspiracy theories that come out of this anti-social aspect of it. So I think you really can't classify them just as one thing but it's also these people who live in a different world, and believe different things than us.
VT: Well I think it's a greater attempt at coming to terms with what is...reality, the day-to-day.
BZS: And there's comfort in conspiracy, because it's easier to believe that five people in the world rule...or just one person rules...or that that reptiles rule the world versus the fact that this world is full of chaos and you can't figure it out.
VT: It's easier to believe that reptiles rule the world than to accept the chaos. (laughs)
BZS: You know I think that's why so many conspiracy theories are kind of cropping up out of absolutely horrible events that we have absolute proof of what happened...because they are so horrible that to believe the truth about them is really a lot scarier than to believe that this was some sort of inside job. You know I think that's why the two biggest conspiracy theories out there right now are 9/11 and the Newtown (CT) school shooting. That it's easier to believe that this giant government conspiracy theory brought down the towers, rather than nineteen assholes with boxcutters…or one weird dude with a machine gun.
VT: To accept the truth would potentially be to dehumanize... to accept that maybe we're not as "human" as we claim to be...as the human race.
VT: Well it's certainly very interesting. Science fiction is probably along the same vein. I have read texts that draw convincing parallels between science fiction and conspiracy theories and all that as a way of envisioning a solution to a projected dystopian present or future.
BZS: I think you can tell a lot about somebody's politics and personal beliefs through what science fiction they like.
VT: It's crazy how the media influences and governs how people think in such like a polar kind of America that we live in.
BZS: And there's just so much of that. I think it scares people that you get so many facts, and that they're not all right.
VT: And even just the sheer volume of the content, the sheer volume of the media that we're receiving these days. You get it on Facebook, you get it in your inbox. Every morning, if you ask a lot of people what the first thing they do when they wake up is, it's that they roll over and check their phone.
BZS: Because something might have happened in those six hours.
VT: Well we live in such a fast-paced world that we come to expect to know about these things as they happen.
BZS: I think one of those things might be is that we're waking up to check to see whether another terrible even has happened.
VT: ...or if the world is still there. (laughs)
VT: So what are you working on now?
BZS: So kind of what I've been working on more recently is the effect of forest fires over certain parts of California. This past summer was really bad for forest fires because of the drought. It's something that kind of fascinates me because it's something that if you want to manage it, you have to let it happen sometimes...it's part of a cycle. If you let things burn sometimes, it's going to keep the big fires from hitting next summer and it's part of nature, so that when small fires so happen, it means that more trees are going to come back next year. But it's also something where people still live pretty close to these fires, and a lot of people lost their homes. So, how do you make the difference between letting something happen but also making sure the homes are ok, and making sure we can still be there next time...and I think that's something that is a really big issue coming up...like ok how much of the earth can we use for us to live like we are versus just letting it be...letting it happen.
VT: There's a lot of different storylines in that, and buried issues. On a larger scale there's the issue raised by this whole smaller narrative about the greater good. Australia has rampant bushfires, and the northern part of Australia is vastly Arnhem land, it belongs to the indigenous peoples, and a lot of it is national park land...and they have seasons - tropical seasons. They have a monsoon season and then in the hotter months, they have those natural burns that happen - spontaneous bushfires - and it's good for the earth. It burns off all of the scrub so that new shoots can come up, and it's a natural force of nature. But human presence has interrupted that.
BZS: Australia is an interesting one because it's such a different ecological system from the rest of the world that one little thing can really mess everything up - and that's where you end up with rabbit-proof fences.
VT: The European settlement did a lot to mess the balance up.
VT: Are you focusing just on forest fires?
BZS: Natural disasters in general, but forest fires are the most prevalent thing, here.
VT: In California, for sure. Forest fires, drought...
V.
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"The Great Assemblage" Exhibition Review.
by Valerie Thompson
Date Posted: December 25, 2015
THE GREAT ASSEMBLAGE - SWELL EXHIBITION REVIEW
By Valerie Thompson
The Great Assemblage, a show spanning the works of nine artists, is nothing short of a visual feast. Upon entering the gallery, interminglings of color and texture assault the eyes; it is no longer a gallery in the traditional sense, because the art is crawling off the walls. There is a distinct weight to the curation of the artworks in the space, starting light with smaller, daintier, pieces as you enter the gallery, then building into a crescendo of wall-mounted installation cacophony as one moves to the back of the space. A certain tactile appeal generates in me the most childish compulsion to touch and pick up, shuffle and re-arrange the works among one another; I almost feel inclined to close my eyes and simply navigate the show as if it were braille, for one turn of the room, seeking to absorb the thoughts, feelings and knowledges of the artists. It seems as though, in assembling the works in this space, the artists have, themselves, given into the purest of tactile impulses. For a group show of such magnitude in a relatively small space, a logical cohesion has bridged the range and scope of work, in terms of curation. The collaborative aesthetic and arrangement of the work combined with a relative absence of wall text leaves the task of identifying individual artworks and artists up to the viewer.
The collage works of Devon Lach and Lauren Shaw sit on either sides of the gallery entrance, conversing with one another. Lach's grid of nine collages depicts spreads taken from vintage Playboy magazines and interrupted by the artist's hand, driven by a witty commentary. In her woven and layered collaged interventions, appendages become severed from their indigenous bodies and pasted upon others. Erogenous icons of the sexualized female body, such as nipples and vaginas, are replaced with eyes, or removed entirely, and in the lower centermost piece, a fully clothed man is given breasts, a vagina, and female thighs in an act of feminizing both the metaphorical patriarchy, and they symbolic physical male figure. The acts of removing and supplanting, weaving and obscuring, universalize the hyper-sexualized female body in a way that mirrors society, and draws attention to feminist critique. The dysmorphic bodies with missing sexual signifiers become ironic; they represent the sexually postured female body void of its defining sexual faculties.
In Shaw's collages there is a much more playful timbre. A total of 45 pieces amass on the wall, working in dialog with each other. Comprised of found imagery, Shaw's works take figures, shapes and textures, and amalgamates them on an isolated background; the results are individual bite-sized glimpses with language akin to a short phrase or saying. Like in Lach's collages, eyes are concealed - but in a less overtly loaded manner. The masked pupils are deftly dotted over by one or two miniscule globs of paint, giving the impression of either un-seeing, or laser eyes. For me, there is humor implicit in Shaw's works - both tongue-in-cheek, and more overt comedy; however, beneath the veneer of lighthearted banter is perhaps a deeper social inquiry awaiting discovery.
In a similar way to Shaw's interacting collages, the large, transiently arranged piece, "Lost Dogs" by Neil Enggist comprises a symphony on the right-hand wall of the gallery. Modular panels of work are woven together much like the notes in a song, with each individual piece acting as a container for an isolated memory or phrase, or a stanza in a piece of music. In "Wheel I," Enggist speaks to charting moments in life that at one time or another become intertwined, in order to talk about universal connectedness. With restricted temporality built into the process of these works, Enggist uses the ocean and objects to "paint" disappearing artworks on a sheet of metal. The result is an oxidized, time and element-worn tableau, its surface etched with the residue of ephemeral marks, denying its own objecthood by virtue of its own recurrent effacement and re-inscription.
In relative captivity from the rest of the show, the works of Ryan Van Runkle crowd the small, dark-walled installation room. A large box-like object rigged with lighting and various transparencies and images takes over the center of the room, encircled by wall-mounted paintings depicting amorphous collage, and what reads as photograph stills from a performance. Somewhat physically closed off from the rest of the show, the works cause the viewer to navigate the crowded room with care - bringing attention to the relationship of body to space, and provoking a sense of one's own corporeal confinement. Just as the figure in Van Runkle's photographs struggles to break free from his enclosure, I, too, end up feeling claustrophobically inclined.
The multi-media triad of artworks by Jeff Johnston reveals truths embedded in the human condition in three acts. In Act I, "This is When I turn to Liquid," a sculptural piece consisting of a suit jacket oozing on the dark wall in white paint, Johnston invokes contesting symbols of control and disarray. The suit, a symbol of adulthood and responsibility, communicates the idea of having one's affairs in order, and a certain adherence to the corporate lifestyle. On the other end of the spectrum, the suit is nullified by its frenzied baptism in white paint. In Act II, "We took a leap together and then we fell apart," we see a progression of works on paper depicting the uncoupling and dissolving of two indiscriminate figures. In Johnston's third act, "I know what I'm doing," I am guided to think cyclically back to the first piece in which the suit, to me, symbolically functions as a referent to the order and chaos of living one's life. In his recent body of work "Mistakitunities," Johnston points to happenstance, relationships, and the sort of "and so it goes" habitude of daily life. Perhaps these works are a continuation along the same vein of thought - ultimately a coming to terms and making peace with life's inevitable swells and pitfalls.
Kevin Corbett Hill's works on paper and installed creations are pieced together on the wall as individual elements that seem to function as parts of a greater whole. In spite of his quite distinctive aesthetic, I struggled to distinguish Hill's work from his neighbor's because of the way his pieces spread themselves liberally across the wall and became skillfully intermingled with some sculptural companions made by Caitlin Peterson. Whether Hill's pieces are stand-ins for memories, feelings, responses, or thoughts, it seems like there is a certain continuation from self to work, and vice versa, in a way that seems almost as if his work is his constant stream of thoughts and his thoughts pour directly, unmediated, into his work. His works on paper embody a curious amalgamation of image and text. In many of his collages, short sentences and remarks are coupled with clippings of imagery and globs of paint that, to me, seem immediately indicative of specific moments in the artist's life.
Blending cleverly - and almost imperceptibly - into some of Hill's works on the gallery wall, the sculptural offerings of Caitlin Petersen speak to me of play, childhood, and innocence, with perhaps a larger commentary on gender or sexuality. With Peterson's artworks particularly, I am increasingly aware of my desire to pick up and touch, which is conceivably part of Peterson's strategy. Many of her pieces are reminiscent of trinkets or maybe even toys - fully aware of their objecthood, and put on display on shelves or platforms to be looked at, treasured, to contain narratives and possibly to be played with - although I am admittedly unsure of the artist's intention on the latter. One of the most engaging parts of Peterson's work is her use of color - found color. For what wide array of mostly primary colors are represented in her pieces, all the items she has used appear to exist in their original found color states. Knowing Peterson as a person, it is hard to imagine her works being the product of any other artist; her found object creations seem to speak with distinct personalities not too unlike her own.
Another curious example of color and object is the work of Sebastian Cabrera. In fire engine red and contrasting aqua, an installed space - either fictitious or based on reality, the artist leaves this up to the viewer - manifests, commanding one corner of the gallery. Cabrera's blindingly tropical color palette stands on its own as a metaphor for opposing, yet complementary, elements. The physical objects that comprise the installation seem to have been sourced separately and made to work cohesively in the space, in keeping with the assemblage spirit of the show. My eyes immediately go to the recognizable components like the workbench and vertical shelving unit housing more predictable objects, yet on my second sweep of the scene, I see a dustpan and broom hung on the wall in display, but not in use; a rug covers part of the floor but is left haphazardly rolled up; a dead bird hangs delicately from a string nailed into the wall, and a large pole of indeterminate utility bisects the entire scene. These objects seemingly stripped of their individual use-values forge relationships with one another, leading the overall installation to represent paradoxes and harmonies, juxtapositions of mystery and of the familiar.
Dana Morrison's meticulously constructed art objects and collages fill the remaining wall within the gallery. In her sculptural wall-mounted pieces, Morrison addresses the relationship of the bodily self to space and material with a distinctly minimalist approach. While using a majority of traditionally masculine materials, Morrison's artworks still retain a sense of delicacy and vulnerability. In "Repurposing Memories III," Morrison has arranged a collection of objects - themselves, containers for individual memories and moments - to abstractly re-create perhaps a larger personal narrative. In her collaborative piece entitled "The Blue Cabin," a grouping of nine collages made collectively by herself, Lauren Shaw, Kevin Corbett Hill and Eric Sorenson, I am once again given the impression of memory and the act of re-visiting specific memories; the marks made harmoniously by the four artists read as references to collective experiences and the commonly held memories and emotions that are held among friends.
For more information and pictures from the opening, head to the Swell Gallery's website:
http://swellgallery.tumblr.com
or Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/swellgallerysfai/?fref=ts
V.
Art exhibition / Bay Area artists / blog / Bay Area arts / assemblage / collaborative works / bay area art scene / swell gallery / student artists / SFAI / grad student / show review / exhibition review / Dana Morrison / Neil Enggist / Lauren Shaw / Devon Lach / Caitlin Peterson / Ryan Van Runkle / Jeff Johnston / Kevin Corbett Hill / Sebastian Cabrera /
Copyright
2016
Valerie Thompson
