12.13.2015

Juxtaposition. Out of time out of place.


So, would you believe that I was looking at some August Sander images from 1930's Germany and was so enthralled by his portraits of bakers that I decided to create a composite from a baker portrait made long ago; in the black and white film years?

Of course the original image of the baker  might have shown him standing at attention against a stark kitchen background, but a little time spent in a modulus molding program imbued him with the appearance of movement. And then, of course, to make a statement about the confluence of two time streams I had to composite him into a modern scene. But I am such a perfectionist that I needed to control every square centimeter of the image and so I created each person in the scene individually, using a three D modeling program. I went so far as to make authentic SXSW badges for each one of the secondary people in the composition and then calculated the exact amount of defocusing each would require, depending on where they would exist in the construct.

I didn't like the original carpeting so I had this carpet designed and produced. I photographed the carpeting at the final size I would use it and then dropped it into the construct. When I finished creating the image, after several months of intensive PhotoShop,  I worked with several curators from famous museums who helped me craft convincing and plausible artist statements. Armed with the images and the artist statements I embarked on the process of securing an embarrassingly enormous grant. This required the local government to divert several millions of dollars from programs to feed starving children but it allowed me the time and space to really refine my vision of hermeneutically colliding psycho-social spheric containment realities and then have them master printed large enough to attract top galleries. Imagine my lack of surprise or even registration of emotion when, Baker #7, Harbinger of the Duality Apocalypse, sold for a cool $10 million....

But it was all worth it because I can feel the ephemeral sense of reticence that is the foundation of the work.

Sorry, just feeling snarky today. Too much reading of works about modern artists via modern magazines about ART. My bad.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. A wickedly on the mark assessment of the fine art market. Nicely done.

amolitor said...

Harbinger of the duality apocalypse!

I can see you're playing with some dialects here, if course it's worth millions.

(I actually love the picture! What a beautifully surreal thing.)

Anonymous said...

Not a baker!
It would appear that he is a "Short Order Chef"
Well done Kirk, quick reflexes to see and grab a great pic.

Kind regards
Terry Forrester
Melbourne Australia.