My review on the Whitworth gallery
Snow mirror
This piece of art is phenomenal, the artist, Daniel Rozin has named it the snow mirror. It is made up of silk, projector, video camera, custom software, computer, blackbox and the surrounding environment.
When looking at this art from a distance you see snow flakes falling which in itself can be quite fixating but as you get closer your shadow is actually used as part of the art. Rozin presents us with an image of ourselves, transformed by the digital magic of computer programming.
Whatever movement you make it will appear on the silk art in front of you, a bit like a mirror but with an added bonus of snowflakes and tall buildings.
Rozin obviously spent a lot of time creating Snow mirror and in my own opinion was well worth it, its beautiful.
Did I?
Wow, this is spectacular, you almost feel like you are sat on cloud 9 when looking at this piece of art that Hiraki Sawa has created.
It has been made to employ strategies of collage and cinematic illusion to transport the viewer into a dreamlike state.
Sawa likes to create a piece of work that shifts between worlds of reality and imagination, to me this piece covers both of these as clouds are a reality but when you become fixated on Did I? you can use your imagination and that will take you where ever you want to be.
These two pieces of art are my favorite, simply because they are the ones that caught my eye. Everybody is different this is why art is universally loved, each person sees what they want to see.
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On the 3/11/2011 I went on at trip with university to National Media Museum in Bradford to view the exhibitions of Donovan Wylie and Daniel Meadows.
Donovan Wylie
At the age of 16 Donovan left school and went on a 3 month trip around Ireland. In 1992 Wylie became a nominee of the Magnum photos agency and he became a full member in 1998, one of you youngest ever members of Magnum. Since 2000, Wylie has completed various photographic and film projects exploring the religious identity, history and the concept of territory, especially in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, post ceasefire.
Ireland
Outpost in Ireland 2005
Afghanistan
Outpost Afghanistan 2010
These 2 images are what caught my eye the most when I was walking round his exhibition, one is taken in Ireland and the other is taken in Afghanistan, they have similarities, Donovan seems to have taken them both from the similar level, similar amount of sky in the image and about the same amount of land. I love how he has captured these outposts.
The one in Ireland looks so peaceful, the grass is green and there seems to be no movement at all, I love how even though its a photograph of an outpost it makes you feel at ease, I wouldn't mind visiting that place in Ireland to get a real feel for it.
The outpost in Afghanistan is not quite as beautiful as the one in Ireland, the photograph is amazing, Donovan has managed to capture it amazingly but because there is no greenery its just sand and stone it makes me feel more on my toes.
I think Donovan's photographs are amazing, when I was walking around the exhibition I was looking at each image for several minutes to take it all in, I even watched the film that they had playing, he was explaining that he had seen someone else's photograph of the outpost above and wanted to go and see it for himself, it took him a while to capture the image he was looking for. A lot of Donovan's time and effort has gone into his work and you can clearly see this from his exhibition.
Daniel Meadow's
Daniel Meadows was famous for taking photographs of people, he has created many portraits over time and wait for this, he took the pictures on a bus.
A quote off Daniel,
"Once upon a time I lived in a double-decker bus, reg. JRR 404, better known as the Free Photographic Omnibus. She was my home, my travelling darkroom and gallery".
He did everything on this bus,
He would travel around, stopping and asking passers by if they wanted their photograph taking, many many people have witnessed what its like to step on to this bus, it must have been quite a crazy experience.
Most of his photographs are black and white but in the exhibition there was a few in colour, it even said on the wall that the coloured pictures were very rare. Meadows was obviously a busy man but he loved what he was doing, he got so much adventure out of it, travelling the world and meeting so many new people.
Meadows had tracked down some people he had photographed those many years ago and asked if he could photograph them again, so there was a television showing us what they used to look like and what they look like now, it was amazing to see the difference and also how many of the people have not changed over time.
Daniel Meadows exhibition really inspired me, I have researched his work quite a lot over the past couple of days, it's all so interesting, I'm going to be purchasing his book for further reading. I would recommend that everybody goes and views this exhibition, you don't have to love photography like I do to love Daniel Meadows work.
