Comments on: Kendall Messick’s Impermanence http://www.theasc.com/blog/2010/05/17/kendall-messick%e2%80%99s-impermanence/ John Bailey's thoughts on cinematography and artistic expression Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:12:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: Frederic Goodich, ASC http://www.theasc.com/blog/2010/05/17/kendall-messick%e2%80%99s-impermanence/#comment-203 Frederic Goodich, ASC Thu, 03 Jun 2010 04:30:01 +0000 http://www.ascmag.com/blog/?p=1470#comment-203 It strikes me that Kendall Messick’s statement: “My ongoing body of work explores memory, evidence, personal history, and the transformative effect that time bestows upon experience…” would describe many contemporary and past artists' semi-autobiographical expressions of a self impacted by the engine of time. Proust and Kienholz come to mind. And Messick does it in his way, masterfully, indeed. Messick’s statement might also describe those artists, perhaps the majority, whose art, inspired by memory and experience, is less apparently personal, yet also takes impermanence as a subject -- the transitory nature of human relationships and the impermanence of objects in the physical world. What’s particularly evocative in Messick’s “Impermanence” exhibit is the juxtaposition of his own past with a new present: the photograph of the burnt object being on exhibition with the object itself in the very building the destruction occured. Something of Messick’s mindset and physical process to create these images bleeds through. Did this ‘solvent can’ contain the mineral spirits that fed the fire? These juxtapositions of photos and objects certainly awaken thoughts and feelings of mortality. But they also inspire insight into the process by which art objects are created. They do so by calling into question the very nature of ‘representation’ and the ‘real’. Similarly, the painter Magritte inscribed: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” on his painting of a pipe, i.e., this is not a pipe it is simply a painting of a pipe. My experience of Messick’s exhibit is John’s Bailiwick blog, the photos and words that appear on my computer’s digital screen. I do not see a solvent can nor the photo of a solvent can. I see a digital image of a photo of a solvent can. Even as I view the images, my computer ages imperceptibly. Someday, it will dim; it will go dark. When Messick’s exhibit is dismantled and archived -- as inevitably it will be – the act itself will describe another impermanence. Speaking of ‘Impermanence’, I expect Messick will be taking photos of the dismantling. It strikes me that Kendall Messick’s statement: “My ongoing body of work explores memory, evidence, personal history, and the transformative effect that time bestows upon experience…” would describe many contemporary and past artists’ semi-autobiographical expressions of a self impacted by the engine of time. Proust and Kienholz come to mind. And Messick does it in his way, masterfully, indeed. Messick’s statement might also describe those artists, perhaps the majority, whose art, inspired by memory and experience, is less apparently personal, yet also takes impermanence as a subject — the transitory nature of human relationships and the impermanence of objects in the physical world. What’s particularly evocative in Messick’s “Impermanence” exhibit is the juxtaposition of his own past with a new present: the photograph of the burnt object being on exhibition with the object itself in the very building the destruction occured. Something of Messick’s mindset and physical process to create these images bleeds through. Did this ‘solvent can’ contain the mineral spirits that fed the fire? These juxtapositions of photos and objects certainly awaken thoughts and feelings of mortality. But they also inspire insight into the process by which art objects are created. They do so by calling into question the very nature of ‘representation’ and the ‘real’. Similarly, the painter Magritte inscribed: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” on his painting of a pipe, i.e., this is not a pipe it is simply a painting of a pipe. My experience of Messick’s exhibit is John’s Bailiwick blog, the photos and words that appear on my computer’s digital screen. I do not see a solvent can nor the photo of a solvent can. I see a digital image of a photo of a solvent can. Even as I view the images, my computer ages imperceptibly. Someday, it will dim; it will go dark. When Messick’s exhibit is dismantled and archived — as inevitably it will be – the act itself will describe another impermanence. Speaking of ‘Impermanence’, I expect Messick will be taking photos of the dismantling.

]]> By: Patrick Campbell http://www.theasc.com/blog/2010/05/17/kendall-messick%e2%80%99s-impermanence/#comment-202 Patrick Campbell Sat, 29 May 2010 13:21:39 +0000 http://www.ascmag.com/blog/?p=1470#comment-202 I found this to be a fascinating collection of stories that seem to take real life situations and creatively document them through intimate photography . Very interesting and well told I found this to be a fascinating collection of stories that seem to take real life situations and creatively document them through intimate photography . Very interesting and well told

]]> By: Richard Walden http://www.theasc.com/blog/2010/05/17/kendall-messick%e2%80%99s-impermanence/#comment-201 Richard Walden Sat, 22 May 2010 21:36:32 +0000 http://www.ascmag.com/blog/?p=1470#comment-201 Kendall Messick in some ways mirrors Ashely Gilbertson, similar to a war correspondent he had to keep his emotions in check and his professional wits about him, while he documented the destruction to his home. The Hasselblad contact sheet shows the work of an artist rather than accident investigation photos. The photograph “Metaphor,” from “Corapeake.” I found disturbing but didn’t quite know why until I read the comment “a collector remarked that to her, the image recalled the horrid history of [African-American] lynchings”. That comment put it into perspective for me because I actually saw some photographs of a lynching taken around 1900 in Dallas Texas when I was a teenager. Kendall Messick in some ways mirrors Ashely Gilbertson, similar to a war correspondent he had to keep his emotions in check and his professional wits about him, while he documented the destruction to his home. The Hasselblad contact sheet shows the work of an artist rather than accident investigation photos.

The photograph “Metaphor,” from “Corapeake.” I found disturbing but didn’t quite know why until I read the comment “a collector remarked that to her, the image recalled the horrid history of [African-American] lynchings”. That comment put it into perspective for me because I actually saw some photographs of a lynching taken around 1900 in Dallas Texas when I was a teenager.

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