The Danger Zone: Art Scene II: The Squeakquel

What: O: Photography by Aryn Kresol, Annie Rudolph, and Matthew Schwerin

What That Is: It’s a photography show that happened the same weekend as Rockford Art Scene. Didn’t you listen to the Sock Monkey Sound episode 213?

No: You should have. It was pretty good

When: April 16 and 17, 2010

How Much: It was free

Next time: I’ll ask what the O stood for.

If you can think back, way, way back, to last September, you might remember a little review titled, “Chris French Presents: Annie Rudolph, Aryn Kresol, and Carrie Allen.” (Check Out Last Years Event Review!). What was notable about this? Well, either very little or an average amount. It depends on how you look at it. I’m leaning towards the latter because it was my first review for this fine website. It’s mostly pretty ok. It was probably much too short, and I pretended to be somewhat of an authority on photography, which I revealed to be painfully untrue with my reference to Alfred Steiglitz (Christ, don’t you know any contemporary photographers? Yes but there’s no way I’m going to name check Annie Leibovitz. Does Diane Arbus count? Maybe). There was a pretty good joke about Rockford’s own Jesus Correa and his penchant for kitten sweatshirts. And I always like to explore the comedy of cheap wine. As he did in September, Chris French held a photography show in his loft space on State Street (I mistakenly referred to it as an Art Scene participant. Turns out they bypassed the entrance fee and went guerrilla with a sign on the sidewalk to lure people in). It ended up being a very similar experience. I didn’t see any Jesus Correa art this time but I did see him riding his bicycle across the State Street Bridge. I couldn’t tell if his sweatshirt had depictions of any animals on it. I also did something drastically with my reporting. This time, instead of drinking too much wine and just looking at the photographs, I drank too much wine and actually talked to the photographers themselves. It proved to be very illuminating.

“I don’t remember who said this, but they said, ‘Those who put themselves in a position to get lucky usually do.”

This was Matt Schwerin explaining his artistic method in trying to capture everyday moments that might say something larger about the human experience (my words, not his). It’s a very interesting phenomenon. Even though the three photographers were mostly chosen because of their friendship with C French, they end up being illustrative of three equally disparate approaches to the medium.

On the one side, Annie Rudolph represents what may be the most direct approach. Her photography is mainly centered on finding beauty in the world. All of her photographs were taken on the fly, owing their existence to the fact that she was in the specific place at the specific time with her camera at hand. They emphasize a focus on aesthetic qualities rather than those that are symbolic or expository (The word I’m looking for is thematic). I said last year that her photographs “show a command of light and form that belie a mastery of both technology and a strong eye for composition. She also had really cool frames.” I still agree with this assessment. Except there weren’t as many cool frames this time. For more of Rudolph’s work go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/annierudolph or http://annierudolphphotography.com

Sitting on what I see as the opposing end of the philosophical spectrum is the work of Aryn Kresol. Kresol’s photography is, quite often, as informed by literature as it is by pure visuals. She often begins with titles and then strives to take photographs which reflect that symbology. One is not likely to see a genre photograph from Miss Kresol. When I viewed some of her other work in the fall, I probably focused too much on the way in which she uses real world objects (faces, body parts, sometimes furniture) in a more liquid, abstract matter. I don’t want to suggest that her photography is rife with iconography (incidentally, this is a phrase that I often like to blurt out when I’m practicing my Sheffield accent alone in my apartment. I received lots of strange looks when an art history professor actually said it aloud and I burst out laughing). These elements are most definitely present and are quite impressive, but there are many undercurrent themes that one does not become aware of with a cursory glance at the photographs. One finds a lot more meaning when they take time to ponder the relationship between the title and the work itself. To see more of Kresol’s work, visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/enigmaticintent . Or check out her blog at http://arynkresol.blogspot.com

I’m going to suggest that Matt Schwerin’s work sits at an almost halfway point between the approaches of Annie Rudolph and Aryn Kresol (both because I actually believe that it does occupy a space between the direct photographs of Rudolph and the more cerebral approach exhibited in those of Kresol, and also because it works very well organizationally). Schwerin does seem to split the difference between the two. Carrying a camera with him as often as possible, he whips it out when a photographic opportunity presents itself. Later, he moves to give these photographs deeper meaning by placing them in a context that will reveal symbolic themes that may not have been evident in the single photograph. I’m not going to try to explain the true meanings of Schwerin’s group of photos (it was very involved and impressive and I can’t do it full justice. Especially not without showing all of them on this page) but they touched on themes of faith, family, and post adolescences in some very beautiful ways. If you have time next month, I suggest going to see Schwerin’s senior project at the Columbia College graduation show (http://tinyurl.com/y6nz384) and talk to him yourself. That’s true of all three photographers but I don’t have any links to upcoming events for the other two. For more on Matt Schwerin’s work, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattschwerin

Overall, C French and Lonnie Iske over at Vixen Productions put on a pretty darn good event. I do have two complaints. There wasn’t nearly as much wine this time as there was the first and what was there was not of the greatest quality (Although I did have at least two people give me their Chardonnay because it was too gross to drink. Nice). The second being the very rude way in which they ignored my band, Boys Like Jason’s (http://boyslikejason.bandcamp.com) repeated offers to play. This is what I wrote in September:

“To that end, I had a very good time and hope that Chris French and the fine folks at Vixen Productions take part in the Art Scene again next year. One could also hope that they might be swayed to consider a performance art installation. On an unrelated note, my band, Boys Like Jason; are now billing themselves as performance artists.”

7 months ago! We even offered the option of having us play quiet or play loud. Instead they had Warren Franklin and Kevin Schwitters play on Friday and Saturday, respectively. Whatever. Warren sounded like Warren and he had an untitled song that I’m going to call, “This Love Can Hurt” that I particularly enjoyed. Schwitters played two Braves songs, which was awesome, and handled the crowd in a very fun, personable manner.

Final Score: 9 Bottles of Sweet Red/Digital SLRs out of 10

To see work from all of the artists mentioned vist their sites below:

Annie Rudolph
http://www.flickr.com/photos/annierudolph or http://annierudolphphotography.com/

Aryn Kresol
http://www.flickr.com/photos/enigmaticintent or http://arynkresol.blogspot.com/

Matt Schwerin
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattschwerin