pierre le hors

work by pierre le hors. see more here

[all pierre le hors, 2009. from his book dummy firework studies]

brian sorg

stuff by brian sorg. see more here.

[all brian sorg. 2008. top to bottom: lady liberty in indiana. lady liberty in a wal-mart parking lot. lady liberty on fulton market.]

interview • alyssa gorelick

i heart photograph: in this image, “in a flash,” there's a tension between the document of the event and the materiality of adding to and re-photographing it. are the shine of the flash and the cut-photo flower meant to interrupt the original image, or do they serve another purpose?

alyssa gorelick: interrupting the original image is one effect of my additions of the flower and the flash. i was also thinking about the creative process being a series of tests. the image i used is of a nuclear test from 1953. the flash of my camera captured on the photo paper along with the handmade photo flower become records of my test. both experiments end in a flash. seeing catastrophic experiments combined with those that are small and gestural interest me, one hiding inside the other.

i.h.p.: along those lines, the flower, which appears to be made out of another copy of the mushroom cloud itself, provides another set of tensions: the nuclear blast as a WWII icon of total war, and the flower as an icon of '60s countercultural peace movements. what was behind your decision to make a flower as the handmade gesture to insert into the frame of the final photo?

a.g.: by making the flower by hand i am presenting my transparent attempt at mimicking a natural form, specifically a long-standing symbol of beauty and peace. the mushroom cloud image, which embodies “total war,” becomes a backdrop for the handmade gesture. by using a duplicate photograph of the nuclear test as material to construct a flower, camouflage is provided for my creation. the optical flattening that results from re-photographing the flower resting on the nuclear blast image heightens the camouflaging effect.

i.h.p.: could you talk a little more about the relationship between camouflage and materiality in the photo? it seems that making it apparent that the photo is a "photo of a photo" heightens a viewer's desire to look for metaphor, metonymy and "content" in the work rather than suppressing it. and as you mentioned earlier, the flash of the explosion doubles the flash of your camera. how does this kind of linguistic doubling play a role in your practice in general?

a.g.: we have a direct relationship with flowers, we have all seen touched and smelled them. nuclear explosions are intangible and most of us have only seen them in representations. to make a flower out of paper is to reiterate its tactility. to make a flower out of a photograph that contains an image of a nuclear blast points to the tension between the tactile and the ephemeral that a photographic representation is capable of revealing. using a nuclear blast photo as a background or environment which serves to disguise a constructed flower generated out of the same essential skin—the photo paper—implements a form of visual deception that is very much tied to war and survival: camouflage. the trick of camouflage is one that has evolved in nature as defensive function and is based on the optical blending of disparate materials. the flash in this piece functions as a linguistic and formal double as well an agent that reveals that no matter what the visual content of a photograph, we are always looking at a material skin, we are looking at paper. you ask how linguistic doubling plays a role in my practice in general, i would say it goes hand in hand with my interest in the co-existence of ephemerality and materiality in photographs.

[photo: in a flash by alyssa gorelick. see more of alyssa's work here.]

interview is a weekly column by nicholas grider that appears each tuesday on i heart photograph.

interview • kim schoen

i heart photograph: tell me a little bit about the larger project this image is from.

kim schoen: "a series of catastrophes and celebrations" was a firework event in the desert of california, an event that was collectively documented.

i.h.p.: the image shows fireworks meant for daytime use. how would you situate this specific project in the space between fireworks and bombs, and in a larger sense, between documentary and performance?

k.s.: the fact that they were shot off in the daytime was because i was curious to see the mechanism occurring in that moment; the similarities between the minute of explosion and the snap of the shutter at the 'decisive moment' in photography interested me. i wanted the materiality of the firework to be clearer; rather than the lights, which at night obscures the detonation; in this project the viewer gets to see that a firework is an actual explosion, with all the implications that may bring.

it was an event that i staged that was then documented. so in a sense the idea to shoot off fireworks in the daytime was the event, (rather than a performance) and the rest was documented just the way any crowd would try to take pictures of fireworks.

i.h.p.: because, as you say, this work was collectively documented, did you see yourself in a dual role as architect of the project and curator/editor? and without overdetermining the work, could you talk a little more about the "implications" in the daytime explosion and its relationship to living history?

k.s.: it would have been sad to have a fireworks show for just one person, the lonely artist. they are viewed in the collective. fireworks are usually commemorative of a military victory or nationalist celebration, and in the past the german military used to shoot them off during actual battles. but i wanted a purposeless event, fireworks only, no real event, which is why it took place at the fireworks company test site- so even the location would be germane to the fireworks themselves. i played many roles in this project—architect, curator, editor.

[photo: untitled 8 by kim schoen. 2005. see more of kim's work here.]


interview is a weekly column by nicholas grider that appears each tuesday on i heart photograph.

geert goiris

some nice work by belgain photographer geert goiris. see more here.

[all geert goiris. top to bottom: north sea. 1998. blast #3. 2001. narvik. 1997.]

pascual sisto

these are still from the wonderful video project salamander by pascual sisto. watch the video and see views from the variable channel video installation here.

[all pascual sisto. stills from salamander. 2006.]

rosemarie fiore

rosemarie fiore's firework drawings are made by exploding and containing live fireworks, "resulting in bursts of saturated color that are overlapped and collaged into abstract compositions." i love how the explosions leave little indexical traces that look quite photographic. take a peek at more of rosemarie's very interesting work here.

[all rosemarie fiore. top to bottom: firework drawing #14. 2005. firework drawing. 2005. firework drawing #33. 2006.]

sarah pickering • explosion

i love the contrast happening in these photos of explosions by sarah pickering. the frozen stillness of such violent and firey eruptions is so great and the visual forms they create so pleasing to look at. the photographs, taken in the english countryside, are of pyrotechnic explosions orchestrated for british police and military training purposes. sarah is especially interested in the total remove from reality at work here, as she explains in her artist's statement (published in cabinet magazine):

"most of the photographs in this series were in fact taken during manufacturers' demonstrations for military and police shopping trips rather than during the training itself--in this sense, the images represent artificial instances of artificial explosions"

and you can have a look at more of sarah's work here.

[all sarah pickering. small photo: groundburst no. 1. 2004. big photos (top to bottom): fuel air explosion. 2005. artillery. 2005. landmine. 2005.]