Grant W. Ray

Hinge Exhibition

2011-07-11T16:38:00.000-07:00

Am I am pleased to announce I will be exhibiting work at Hinge gallery’s inaugural opening. The main exhibition will
present the work of Tom Burtonwood and Scott Ashley as well as gallery artist Cole Pierce, Jeffery Forsythe, Ryan
Richey, Rusty Shackleford, and Grant W. Ray.

Hope to see you there.

Hinge Gallery
Grand Opening July 14
6:00 – 9:00

Exhibition Dates: July 14th – September 4, 2011

Hinge Gallery
1955 W. Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60622

hingegallery.com
info@hingegallery.com

SPE

2011-03-16T22:39:00.000-07:00

One of the many great things about SPE is meeting people whose work inspires and enlightens.

Lori Hepner

Status Symbols: A Study in Tweets

Kerry Skarbakka

Constructed Visions

Stephen Chalmers

Dump Sites

Melissa Fleming

Catherine Wagner

Trilogy: Reflections on Frankenstein, the Arctic Circle and the History of Science

Adam Magyar

Urban Flow series.

Stephanie Dean

Modern Groceries

Bethany Souza

Sunshine State

Sarah Baranzki

Jennifer Litterer

ACRE Projects: Two-person show by Grant Ray and Becket Flannery

2011-03-06T19:29:00.000-08:00

Top: Grant W. Ray "Steuben, Wisconsin: Triangulum Constellation"

Bottom: Becket Flannery "Debbies's Ruler"

ACRE Projects

1913 W 17th St

Chicago, IL

Opening:

Sunday, March 13th · 4:00pm - 8:00pm

Mr. Ray continues his experiment-based practice of documenting photographically the pseudo scientific investigations into unexpected forms of communication from unexpected places. For this latest set of photographs, Mr. Ray returns to the wooded rural areas of North America to get closer to an unblemished natural landscape in humorous exploration to locate marks, traces, or signs that could be construed as natures attempt at communication.

Becket Flannery’s exploration began with Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan; prior even to the text, a frontispiece depicts the new “artificial man” whose body is the people and whose soul is sovereignty. This cryptic image introduces and also summarizes Hobbes’ thought. The frontispiece was not simply a decoration, it was a way of reconciling political thought with the sensible – i.e. the creation of political vision. Lately, the rupture between vision and thought has been too severe to repair so easily. One of the most recent political manifestos is written by a committee that proclaims itself to be invisible; and what use does the image-driven political simulacrum have for text beyond the purely tactical?

Rather than the strict correlation of image and text, the intention of the collages in Frontispiece is different. Rather than focusing on the loaded image-symbols, those privileged nodes of interpretation, they play with the forms that frame and suggest this referentiality. These cues to the civic still linger, as we are constantly asked to engage with our political images, without being troubled with what they might mean. These text-less frontispieces then imply new ideas and social visions; they are images looking for authors."

Nina Beier and Marie Lund

2011-02-12T18:10:00.000-08:00

"London-based Danish artist Marie Lund and Berlin-based Nina Beier work individually but have maintained a collaborative practice since 2003. With staged events as well as videos, photographs and sculptures, Beier and Lund tinker with social hierarchies and group dynamics. Together they have created performances, objects, and ethereal interventions, often rooted in the history of materials, context, and social space. Exploring the conditions of conception, perception, and interpretation, Beier and Lund test the boundaries of communication while introducing subtle shifts within institutional and behavioral structures."

Nina Beier Marie Lund

"A sensed perturbation" 2008

Nina Beier Marie Lund

"The Home and the Backdoor"

Remember Then: An Exhibition on the Photography of Memory

2011-01-24T20:28:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to announce the inclusion of my photographs in the upcoming exhibition “Remember Then: An Exhibition on the Photography of Memory” being held at Concourse Gallery at Harvard University and co-curated by Regina Mamou and Scott Patrick Wiener.

“Remember Then: An Exhibition on the Photography of Memory is based on a simple premise that photographs are used as tools by our culture to recall the past. The artists in Remember Then set out to interrogate this proposition, and memories are used as source material for recreating images in the present, systematically and through various methodologies. How a viewer understands and receives this new memory is the catalyst for each image.”
(For the full press release please follow the link.)

It is truly an honor to be featured along side such extremely talented artist.
Jesse Avina
Carrick Bell
Wafaa Bilal
Kevin Buzzell
Helen Maurene Cooper
Jill Frank
Eiko Grimberg
Sharon Harper
Julia Hechtman
David Hilliard
Chelsea Knight
John Merrill
Daniel Poller
Arne Reimer
Irina Rozovsky
Michael Ruglio-Misurell
Jayanti Seiler
Kurt von Stetten
Nicole White

Concourse Gallery
CGIS Harvard University
1739 Cambridge Street
Cambridge MA, 02138

Opening: February 3rd 6-9pm

Stan Douglas - Television Spots/Monodramas

2011-01-04T15:19:00.000-08:00

A few years back I had the opportunity to see Stan Douglas's Monodramas at the Guggenheim in New York. At the time I was studying photography at the School of Visual Arts, my Junior year, and was working on a photographic project entitled Story Telling. I know, very original and unique right. It was a project in which I was plumbing the possibility for photographs to be structured as ambiguous open ended narratives that would invite viewer interaction/interpretation. Initially what drew my interest to Douglas's Monodramas was biased. I neglected to understand the conceptual complexity of Douglas's work and instead focused on his process of creating ambiguous narratives open for interpretation. How ever Douglas's work is far more complex than creating simple dramas.

Stan Douglas_Monodrama_1991_"Don't Call Me Gary"

Douglas's Television Spots/Monodramas were made at the hight of post modern art practice. The short videos explore the hallmark trope that many artist were plumping in their work, namely the minutiae of everyday life. Douglas particular aesthetic, especially in the Monodramas, reflects the slick advertising technique found in the late 80's early 90's commercials. Unlike the average television ad the video pieces do not include those devices that anchor something specific and concrete. Namely narrator, text, product placement, narrative. These devices which normally help the viewer interpret the message, what to buy, etc, are absent. As the viewer of Television Spots/Monodramas we are set into the middle of an ambiguous setting without the narrative safety of beginning middle or end. We are left to interpret the video for what it is, and subsequently what it is not.

Douglas's process reveals the empty shell of advertising through these absences while critiquing the function/spectacle/promise of advertising. In one of the Monodramas, personally the one I enjoy the most, the viewer is presented with three scenes involving a car. Instead of a car commercial presenting the viewer with the romantic trappings of travel on the open road, the promise of status and happiness, Douglas's commercial presents the everyday mundane reality that surrounds the culture of the automobile. Cars break down, cars drive on the highway in daily exercises of commuting, and every grand adventure in a car usually ends in the same non desrcript parking spot.

Stan Douglas - Television Spots/Monodramas

- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

You can view a larger resolution below at Ubuweb's Stan Douglas site.

Stan Douglas Television Spots/Melodramas

latest update

2010-11-15T21:18:00.000-08:00

It has been slow going on the blogging front due to teaching two courses this semester. I am always amazed at just how much time teaching and all its prep work takes out of a day. How ever with the end of my courses approaching it has brought a bit more free time to look at other artist and their work.

Currently I am thoroughly enjoying the photographic works of Emma Wieslander. In "Looking at the Sun" I was struck by the simplicity and minimal quality of the work and it conceptual richness. Wieslander's work operates on a metaphysical level inviting contemplation of the act of photographing the sun and the significance of such an act as performance. The artist choice in using text is similar to Taryn Simons photographic project "An American Index of the Hidden and the Familiar". Both have successfully utilized text in a way that compliments, or anchors as Simon states, the content of their photographs away from ambiguity or absurd.

Off to the Woods

2010-08-16T07:48:00.000-07:00

Heading out to the ACRE residency in Wisconsin today. Very much looking forward to eleven days of meeting new people, creating new work, and getting away from the smelly city.

The Documentation of "If Nature Could Talk"

2010-08-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

For those who did not get a chance to make it to the event/exhibition of If Nature Could Talk. Installation, details, and photographs follows. Click on images for larger views.

Spoke Gallery

119 N. Peoria St.

Chicago, IL

Bridgewater, New Hampshire: Dr. Kerry Nixon, Clean Coal Technology

Dr. Kerry Nixon’s invention introduces the cheap and effective means for everyday individuals to produce their own clean coal. Presented will be three samples of Nixon’s various means in producing clean coal. Coinciding with the presentation visitors will have the opportunity to try the simple means of Nixon’s clean coal invention. Accompanying the three samples visitors are invited to participate and experience the easy to use means of producing clean coal.

Austin, Texas: Ronald Johnson, Talking Plants

Ronald Johnson invention is a plant translator designed to transmit electrical impulses of plant life into electrical signals. These signals are then translated into corresponding words. Viewers will get a chance to listen in on three separate plants internal dialog.

Ozark, Missouri: Jeanette Ambs, Fortune Tree

Jeanette Ambs invention introduces what could only be called a fortune tree. The tree was designed in Ambs Fenton based greenhouse through painstaking grafting techniques and splicing of several RNA strands from various trees. The unique tree is designed to bud on the full moon of every month producing several bulbs containing what Ambs states resemble small typed messages. The messages are usually composed of only a few words with content that resembles the tiny messages one finds in fortune cookies. Visitors will have the opportunity to pluck the uncanny fruit from the fortune tree.

Prescott, New Mexico: Abitha Simon, Seed Bomb

Abitha Simon’s invention uses mold, seed bombs, and grass to decipher what plants want to tell us. Simon’s starts with a grafting process that introduces classic literary works with either mold or seeds. After weeks of cultivation the texts are removed from the greenhouse and screened for those parts of the page that remain free of plant or microbial life. With a simple manner of deduction what letters and words are left untouched are the subtle communications of a plant life “natural” communication.

Pevely, Missouri: Denise Brooks, Natural Symbolism

Denise Brook’s invention couples psychologist Hermann Rorschach inkblot experiments, and three unique sources of light to deduce the characteristics or thought patterns of nature. A simple device projects light onto the plant casting its shadow onto a piece of paper. The user traces the shadow resulting in a kind of drawn shadowgram. Visitors will be allowed to project one of three light sources (tungsten, fluorescent, daylight balanced) towards a plant and trace the resulting shadow.

If Nature Could Talk

2010-07-13T21:41:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce an upcoming exhibition at Spoke gallery titled, If Nature Could Talk. The three-night event will feature photographs that document five new pseudo scientific inventions. Visitors are invited to come and encouraged to interact with the objects and their uncanny results.

“If Nature Could Talk,” is an interactive event that explores the uncanny relationship between art, science, and nature. Based on the investigation of Human/Nature dynamics through marks, traces and symbols of pseudo- scientific experiments, the work suggests what nature might be thinking and feeling in an evidentiary context. Chicago based artist, Grant W. Ray has photographed these strange attempts at communicating with nature. He will be presenting this historic archive and five extraordinary inventions for two nights only at Spoke Gallery. Participants will be invited to interact with ordinary objects that have extraordinary functions such as, “Ronald Johnson’s Talking Plants,” which reportedly translates the thoughts of domesticated houseplants into a language you can understand.

Spoke
119 Peoria
3D
Chicago, IL 60607

Opening Reception: July 23rd 6pm - 9pm
Open hours July 24th, 25th 10am - 6pm

Upcoming Exhibit: In leaves no step had trodden black curated by Eric Weeks

2010-06-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

I am proud to announce the inclusion of two photographs from the Uncanny Imagination series for the upcoming exhibition at the Visual Arts Museum in New York "In leaves no step had trodden black" curated by Eric Weeks. It is both an honor and a privilege to be showing alongside such talented photographers.

"Borrowing a line from the well-known Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken,” the title of the exhibition suggests the innumerable possibilities of implying narrative with photography, as well as the choices each exhibiting artist has made in their use of the medium. Implied narrative can be constructed, found or merely hinted at through the artist’s process."

Visual Arts Museum
209 East 23 Street
NY, NY 10010
July 6th thru July 20th
Reception July 6, 6pm - 8pm

Exhibiting Artist:
Tracy Baran
Ted Barron
Monica Bradley
Jesse Chan
Lisa Elmaleh
Nicholas Fevelo
Brian Finke
Lauren Fleishman
Ayala Gazit
Sean Gutowski
Barclay Hughes
Danny Kim
Matt Kushan
Greg Miller
Katie Murray
Orit Raff
Grant W. Ray
Katie Nicole Smith
Christina Thurston
Corinne Wilber
Richard Williamson

artXposium Skie Mall (Sky Mall) curated by Anni Holm

2010-05-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce the inclusion of two of my photographs in Skie Mall curated by Anni Holm. It will be an honor and privilege to exhibit work along side these fellow international and local artist

"On May 15, 2010, in conjunction with the annual West Chicago Blooming Fest, the STUDIO, located at 203 Turner Court behind Main Street, will open its doors to the 4th biannual artXposium. This multimedia art experience, organized by People Made Visible, Inc. featuring regional, national and international artists who will display a variety of art work inspired by the inflight SkyMall catalog.

In addition to the SkieMall, artXposium events and exhibitions will take place in front of the 19th century CB&Q Depot, at the West Chicago City Museum and on Main Street. Saturday, May 15 the exhibition opens at 9am, with an artist reception from 6 to 9 pm which will feature a performance by Alison Rhoades along with food, drinks and a silent auction. (Full program available at artxposium.org.)

New to the program this year is a tent among Blooming Fest vendors hosting the West Chicago International Artist in Residency Program featuring Gitte Bog’s project: Fusion Foods.

Featured artists include: Claus Ankersen (DK), Lise Haller Baggesen (DK/NL/US), Tom Burtonwood (UK/US), Mario Contreras (US), Gemma Correll (UK), Diana Gabriel (US), Aron Gent (US), Richard Holland (US), Holly Holmes (US), Matt Logan (US), Mark Osterman (US), Sara Phalen (US), Grant Ray (US), Alison Rhoades (US), Andrew Rigsby (US), Steve Ruiz (US), Victor Yanez-Lazcano (US) and Matt Austin (US). This year's exhibition has been curated by Anni Holm.

artXposium Hours: Saturday 9am-9pm & Sunday 10am-2pm. This event is free and open to the public. (Suggested donation $2)."

Start Time: Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 9:00am
End Time: Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 2:00pm
Location: 203 Turner Court, West Chicago, IL 60185

A sample...

2010-05-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

"New York, New York: MTVs Top Ten Videos 1981, 1991, 2001", from the Uncanny Imagination series received a spot in Feature Shoot "singles" blog section.

Feature Shoot "Singles" section.

The Two Photography’s

2010-03-29T23:37:00.000-07:00

Interesting essay by Paul Graham titled "the Unreasonable Apple" about a quote from Michael Fried’s recent book “Why Photography Matters as Art and Never Before”

Carefully constructing his pictures as provocative often open ended vignettes, instead of just snapping his surroundings”
Michael Fried

Graham’s essay “the Unreasonable Apple”, takes issue with Fried’s seemingly sophomoric malaise in referring to straight photography as that of merely “snapping pictures”. Graham sets out to establish that there is more happening in the work of “straight” photographers than merely “snapping pictures”. He posits the question what is that “something” that happens when photographers like Robert Adams, Stephen Shore, Diane Arbus took their photographs. The essay goes on to lament what Graham sees as the absence of “straight” photography from critical attention and ends with a mandate seeking photographers, writers, dealers, collectors, and curators, to write critically about what that “something” is. How ever noble the intent the essay inadvertently manages to establish a dialectic between what he sees as “straight” photographers and those photographers who make/synthesis their subject matter for the camera thus fracturing the photographic medium into two types of photography. One is a serious business with a practice and processes beyond Fried’s “snapping pictures” a point of Graham’s I strongly agree with. The other photography is made, synthesized, constructed, and easily explained to the buyers, collectors, dealers, and curators as simply stuff set up for the camera to be photographed.

It is Graham’s choice of language that complicates his call to action. His style of writing, and structure hints at the old modes of modernist photography. There are ways to write about photographic practice in constructive and culturally relevant ways without the need to inadvertently or otherwise tear down other practices of photography. Sadly, especially given the context for this essay, Graham’s "the Unreasonable Apple" is not one of them. For that question to be fairly addressed we can be thankful for SFMOMA and their upcoming symposium "Is Photography Over".

Four Faces - Review by Michael Weinstein in NewCity

2010-01-26T06:30:00.000-08:00

Write up by Michael Weinstein on the "Four Faces" exhibit at Barbara & Barbara Gallery.

"Drawn to the recesses of densely wooded public parks, Jennifer Ray seeks out evidence of male sexual encounters—a spent condom, a pair of briefs, a Styrofoam cup—and shoots the tell-tale details in color, so that they are small, yet obtrusive elements of the larger verdant scene. Eric Bessel takes color portraits of women posed in gestures and sporting expressions that betray distress, bitterness or hostility. Helen Maurene Cooper dolls women up in kitschy costumes, places them against decorative mannerist backgrounds, and snaps them in color as they vogue like fashion models, sometimes tough, sometimes dreamy. Grant Ray puts ordinary objects into compositions suggesting “pseudo-scientific experiments,” as when he goes into the wooded glen, plants an electrical gizmo there, and shoots the scene in color, proving that you can do other things in the park than have sex. You can read the artists’ statements if you want an overdose of cultural theory, but their work boils down to crossing the boundary from the illusory world of normal certitude to the wilderness of the seamy psycho-dramas that surround the islands of sanity that we so painfully attempt to construct. (Michael Weinstein)"

Through February 18 at Barbara & Barbara Gallery, 1021 N. Western

Four Faces exhibition

2010-01-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to announce the inclusion of my work for the exhibition “Four Names” at the Barbara and Barbara Gallery. The opening reception is being held on Saturday, January 23rd from 7-11pm.

Four Names
Grant W. Ray
Helene Maurene Cooper
Jennifer Ray
Eric Bessel

Opening Reception
Saturday, January 23, 7-11pm

Barbara & Barbara Gallery
1021 North Western Ave.
Chicago, Illinois

Critical Encounters: Fact & Faith Photography Exhibition

2009-11-02T15:06:00.000-08:00

Photograph on post card front by Krista Wortendyke

I am pleased to announce the inclusion of one of the photographs from the Uncanny Imagination series in Critical Encounters Fact and Faith Photography Exhibition at Columbia College Chicago Library. (Sadly due to a typo my name was printed as Grant Wray instead of Grant W. Ray.) The opening reception will be in the Weisman Reading Room, 2nd floor library, 624 S. Michigan Ave.

"Sponsored by Critical Encounters, Center for Teaching Excellence and Alumni Relations. Students, Staff and Alumni were asked to respond to this year's focus, Fact & Faith, and submit images that explore the tension between the need to know and the need to believe. Join us at the reception and see how the artists personally interpreted this theme.
Critical Encounters is a college-wide initiative intended to synchronize conversations between the school and the community, in an ongoing dialogue, around a central, socially and culturally relevant issue each academic year."

Jurors:
Jodi Adams, Photography Alumna and Staff
Stephen DeSantis, Interdisciplinary Arts/Book and
Paper Alumnus, Columbia College Chicago

Show Hours:
Mon-Thurs 8:00am-10:00pm
Friday 8:00am-6:00pm
Saturday 9:00am-5:00pm
Sunday 12:00-5:00pm

Harold Arts The Yield: 2009 Resident Exhibition

2009-10-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce my participation in the Harold Arts The Yield: 2009 Resident Exhibition. The exhibition will include two new photo works from the ongoing “If I Could Speak to Trees and If Trees Could Speak to Me” project that humorously and metaphorically addresses the complicated and nuanced roles humans play in the environment. The opening reception is being held at Heaven Gallery and Johalla Projects on Friday, October 23rd from 7-11pm.

Friday, October 23, 7-11pm
Opening Reception
Heaven Gallery - 1550 N. Milwaukee
Johalla Projects - 1561 N. Milwaukee

Saturday, October 24
Gallery open from 1-5pm

"Athens, Ohio: Shadow of its Former Self. Electric Ouija Board for Trees"

"Athens, Ohio: Manufactured Wind, Manufactured Communication"

Artist: Jason Dodge

2009-08-13T13:11:00.000-07:00

The long pause. Some time has passed since my last update and for good reason. A few weeks back I returned from artist residency at the Harold Arts Residency where a new project was being conceived and born. Just as soon as I was back in Chicago it was off to Tampa Florida for some quality time with the parents, sand and surf, and what turned out to be a sad night at Tropicana Fields. But, here I am back again with no vacation or travels in the near future.

It is great to see a fellow artist using text in a similar manner to my own work. Dodge's use of text for these small sculptural works provides the catalyst for interaction and theatricality.

Artist: Jason Dodge
Title: "AMETHIST, GARNETS, SAPHIRES, AQUAMARINE, QUARTZ, TOPAZ, RUBIES
AND TURMALINE INSIDE OF AN OWL, 2007"

"Telephones...a new art show in the theme of...Telephone."

2009-07-13T19:06:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that two photographs from the "uncanny imagination" series will be included in the Telephones group exhibition with thirteen other talented artist at the Barbara and Barbara gallery. Stop by and check it out.

Barbara and Barbara Gallery
July 25th
6:00pm - 10:00pm
barbara&barbara@ the retro wash
1021 N. Western ave.
Chicago, IL

Hin Chua "After the Fall" (review)

2009-06-30T20:18:00.001-07:00

Hin Chua's photographic project “After the Fall” successfully navigates the often complex conversation surrounding the spaces where human made and the natural intersect. In most cases contemporary landscape photography has an axe to grind, playing heavily to one political side or the other reducing the complexity of environmental issues into a dialectic between utopia/dystopia. Granted Chua's photographs rely on certain visual tropes normally associated within the visual rhetoric of utopic/dystopic, but it is his perfect balancing of the two, manufactured being dystopic, and nature being utopic, that provides for an engagement with the subject matter rather than a statement or matter of fact lecture.
Chua's compositions create a visual rhetoric and sophistication presenting a standard of viewing similar to the early works of dadaist photographers and the new phenomenology whom worked to push for a unique photographic language to encompass the dynamic and oft complex relationships in their time period. Chua deftly finds spaces where nature and the manufactured meet not in contrast but in perverse blends of the utopic/dystopic. In the images below a band of brown and dried weeds resemble/mimic the structure of high gain power lines set against a clear blue sky.

In another photograph power lines cut across and grid the sky into square sections above nature and organic shapes and colours.

In other photographs Chua folds his trope and sticks it on its head. An other wise barren landscape of grassy hills and plains are transformed into the surreal nightmare of multi colour plastic bags presenting a hellish uncanny version of flowers in a meadow.

Chua ask his viewers to contemplate the idea and definition of nature and human made. For one side of the environmental political equation this people are boating in a toxic mess masked by the oft invisible poison of toxic waste. The other side, the PR blitz of clean green industry existing side by side with green spaces across the globe.

Photographer photographs

2009-06-22T14:49:00.000-07:00

Fellow colleague and friend Alyssa Marzolf just posted some new work on her website. Check it out.

Things that don't belong - Patrick Bernatchez

2009-06-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

The odd juxtaposition where nature reasserts itself in post-apocalyptic fashion resulting in chaos and destruction. The mundane safe unsuspecting ubiquitous places such as the office, or the interior of a car (chrysler) is turned upon its head. This technique is similar and in line with the reemergence of surrealist techniques such as depaysement or making strange through the juxtaposition of unlikely objects and events. Where the surrealist often failed to move beyond the ostranenie Patrick Bernatchez pushes forward, utilizing the surrealist technique as both a device for an uncanny investigation into site specific spaces, as well as the oft complicated relationship between nature and man.

In the video stills from the short film “I feel cold today” a metaphoric richness comes through in the multi layered concept Bernatchez has put forth for the viewer in the staged set. We are presented with both the psychological affect of the ubiquitous layout of the office space, and its affect on the psychology of the worker. The office as the site of continual fluctuation between the tedium of work and the grand myth of the capitalistic system. The pale colors, cheap office furniture, the visual white screech of fluorescent lights. Buried beneath the snow one can see Bernatchez second punch, his environmental angle. How readily to we forget the destructive and power of mother nature to reassert itself into the man made world. Here, lest we forget, is the uncanny future and reality of our daily world. We hold mother nature off with cheap walls and pumped in heat and artificial light, but when given the chance she will take it all back. Are we witnessing a cubical workers fantasy, or a eco-political gesture lest we forget the awesome power just outside the walls of our cubicles and cars.

Unlike “I feel cold today” the process and production of Chrysalide is made more apparent. Through the obvious placement of the lights, and the semi commercial quality of the lighting Bernatchez ramps up the fetishistic quality that the car has become in society. The performative act of the two hoses pushing gallons upon gallons of water into the car only to sit back and watch is a kind of sacrilege that breaks down the relationship and aura we have to the automobile. This breaking down and then revealing recontexualizes the car as a claustrophobic and isolating structure. As we speed by the world outside the windows of the car, tuned into radio stations, texting, cell phone calls, all the while speeding past everything in a disconnected manner. Car as insulated fishbowl, so why not treat the inside of the car as such. And what better car model to use than a Chrysler.

"we may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoycing."

2009-06-13T10:48:00.000-07:00

Was just reading over fellow artist, collegue, and friend Kim Neudorf's blog and discovered this serious yet humorous image by Sonja Vordmaier.

Debord's "Derive" and "Pyschogeography"

2009-06-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

Guy Debord and Situationist the Theory of the Derive, and Pyschogeography. I recently came across the essay "The Poetics of the Derive" written by Vincent Kaufmann. Not being that familiar with Debord's Derive, and only slightly informed of its predecessor from the Surrealist Andre Breton and his walks through Paris, it quickly raised many questions to tackle. Most specifically the idea of looking at the early photographic works of Eugene Atget, and his systematic walks through Paris cataloging the ephemeral Paris of his time. One which was being demolished to make way for the Modern streets and boulevards that Debord and the Situationist would later lament in the same manner Atget did before. Yet, how might this theoretical construct of the Derive apply to the large amount of contemporary urbanscape photography found in the United States. And even more interesting the actual activity the photographer performs in order to find these locations.

Debord's Derive is not simple a walk through the streets of the city, of chance encounters. Instead one must move rapidly and decisively through the urban space, with intention. When possible the practice should not be done alone, but in groups of two or three. They should be aware of their surroundings, of the "...ecological analysis of the absolute or relative character of fissures in the urban network, of the role of microclimates, of distinct neighborhoods with no relation to administrative boundaries, and above all of the dominating action of centers of attraction..." (link to essay) Thus the most talented photographers who's oeuvre includes the investigation of the urbanscape. The walk itself, the interaction of operator, camera, and site breaks down the normal relationship we have with public urban spaces. Their activity alone is the Derive.

Breaking the rules of theory to return to Eugen Atget melancholic catalog of a ghostly Paris that is no longer. His photographs present to us the sites slated to be demolished, of the concrete reality of the demolition not just of squares and houses, but of the intricate means and subtle variations of the daily social realities created and maintained through public works and layout.

The pyschogeography. Atget's photographs of a forgotten urbanscapes now stand like so many rectangular ghost, an archive of ephemera, of power structures that have morphed, shifted, become temporal and translucent. They function as nostalgic tombstones, racked nicely in a file, viewed sequentially, ordered and precise. Are Atget's photographs any less powerful than they were in his time period? Or does the contemporary viewer see them only as quaint post cards, a romantic bygone era of a dirtier, grimmer, Paris leaving out the pychogeography of that site and the site that will replace it?

If Atget's photographs have lost their power to be anything more than romantic nostalgic post cards and coffee table books, then what of the contemporary photographers working within the urbanscape. Their photographs present tangible realities, visual stand ins of the power structures, specifically in the United States. Yet is the mere representation of these sites enough, does it go far enough to instigate more than just chance encounters for the viewer looking at the photographs. And what of the Modernist aesthetic formal qualities laid over these sites. Atget's Paris is grimy, dark, moody. Contemporary urbanscape photographs are made to be as beautiful as they are not in reality. The photographers activity of finding these sites is the derive, the photograph itself is the pyschogeography, the questioning. But unlike the gritty ghost of Atget's Paris, their contemporary formal presentation, high gloss, bright colours, fends off the questions raised by their derive. Instead the viewer is left with one word, nostalgia. The photograph becomes a representation of the United States political landscape and the power structures in play as it slowly turns and morphs. Instead of critical action and engagement, we mourn. The United States is changing and morphing its political and social power structures while its identity as super power declines. Its intial status symbols and sturctures that came to represent power have shifted, take on new meaning. Like so many tombstones the contemporary photographic formal aesthetic and their beautiful rendering of the dynamic and shifting urbanscape moots any possible critical interaction. Instead we are presented with lovely nostalgia, and pretty memento mori.

New blood.

2009-05-26T13:27:00.000-07:00

Change can be good. As easily as that word is thrown around in the United States it's use can at times ring hollow. Michael Weinstein "Portrait of the Curator: Matthew Witkovsky" in New City wrote an informative albeit short introduction about Matthew Witkovsky, the new Chair of the Photography Department at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the changes he has in store for the department.

As a photographer who's practice relies on the relationship between text and image I'm biased when it comes to the oft complicated presentation of text and image. Specifically I'm interested in Matthew Witkovsky intention of educating the audience to the works of photography through the placement of text and image on the wall. This idea has been gaining traction in Chicago's photography community for some time as curators seek to deconstruct the white cube and by default change the relationship to photography and text. For the Art Institute of Chicago's Photography Department however it presents a bold new direction. Witkovsky's curatorial practice along with an all ready shifting focus found in assistant curator Katherine A. Bussard recent curatorial practices for "so the story goes" and "On the Scene: Kota Ezawa, Sarah Hobbs, Angela Strassheim" presents the foundation and direction for a decidedly smarter approach. One that will be interesting to see develop given the recent addition of 20,ooo square feet portion of the new Modern wing for the photography department.

Death by Design: International Museum of Surgical Science

2009-05-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

The art performance media power house of Michelle Maynard and Teena McClelland Death by Design strike again. This time bigger, badder, and bolder than before they present their latest endeavor "You Outta be in Fangs" at the International Museum of Surgical Science and Three Walls gallery

From Three Walls
"Death by Design, Co., is a special effects and video-based company established by artists Michelle Maynard and Teena McClelland in May 2005. The Death by Design team constructs film sets and immersive environments at select locations where clients are invited to enter the set and engage in an in-depth conversation with life through their own "Hollywood" death. Visitors can either watch the action unfold or be part of the story-line, infiltrating the artwork as live (and dead) bodies.

You Oughta Be in Fangs is their first ‘party’ environment/installation, where party-goers, immersed in the set, become characters in a speak-easy riddled with the undead."

Cyprien Gaillard: 'Beton Belvedere' and Dunepark at Stroom den Haag

2009-05-19T14:59:00.000-07:00

Catching up on much needed reading I came across several essays and reviews worth note. The first is Cyprien Gaillard's exhibition at Stroom den Haag curated by Zoe Gray. The show covers Gaillard's project Beton Belvedere and Dunepark.

In Dunepark Gaillard's process is that of an archeologist, exhuming the distant horrofic past of Nazi occupation. "For Dunepark, Gaillard excavated a former Nazi communications bunker buried in the sand outside The Hague. The bunker had been built in early 1943, during the German occupation of the Netherlands, as part of Hitler's Atlantic Wall, a system of defence against an Allied invasion. After the war, the bunker was simply buried under the sand – covering it was a less expensive option than destroying it." *1 Gaillard's excavation of the structure some fifty years later becomes a performative act calling to mind notions of history and the archive. Who controls the story of history, who decides what is included and left out from the archive. Borrowing from the tropes of traditional landscape painting and by default photography, Gaillard presents this subject matter not just as document but as a site of dialog through the juxtaposition and metaphoric relationships. This solid sand covered concrete block squatting within a "natural" setting of a beach. Visitors crawl over, along, and on top of its sandy surface, resembling a play park rather than its original darker history and icon of Nazi war time technological might and wonder.

Looking over Gaillard's other photographs the use of dichotomy as the means for conversation and dialog. In the Benton Belevedere photographs the otherwise uncanny white smoke hovering in the natural landscape, or in a palatial yard contrast with its setting. The ephemeral white cloud will disappear, will only remain for so long, fleeting in comparison with the care and upkeep of the Palace grounds.

Or in the photograph Chateau de Oiron which presents a path leading to the Chateau resurfaced in recycled concrete and glass from the recent demolished urban building blocks of urban spaces. Why are some structures preserved and cared for while others are slated to be torn down and buried.
Progress and history, what tells the story, who tells the story, archive and structure of history. Similar to the defining of North Americans political, cultural and historical identity through the constructed myth of Manifest Destiny Gaillard's photographs presents the dichotomy of structure and land as the site of fabrication and creation of history.

1.Rosales, Esperanza. "Cyprien Gaillard: 'Beton Belvedere' and Dunepark at Stroom den Haag" Afterall Spring 2009 Issue 20. http://www.afterall.org/current.html

Cyprien Gaillard: 'Beton Belvedere' and Dunepark at Stroom den Haag

MFA Photo Thesis

2009-05-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

Friday May 15th my visual thesis will be presented at Glass Curtain Gallery. This will mark the completion of my MFA Graduate studies in Photography at Columbia College Chicago and the official kick off to the life of an emerging artist. If you are unable to make the opening you can view the work and the work of my fellow graduates, at mfa photo thesis.

*click for larger image

Glass Curtain Gallery
1104 S. Wabash Ave, First Flr
Chicago, IL 60605

Gallery hours
Mon-Wed, Fri 9:00am - 5:00pm
Thur: 9:00am - 7:00pm

Opening Reception
Friday, May 15th, 5:00pm - 7:00pm

Into the future we go...

2009-04-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

Finally able to take a small break from the studio and location shooting the web site has officially been updated, and with relative ease I am happy to admit. There are about six new photographs with more to come in the following weeks. I finally have linked my artist cv and am currently working on the bio. One of the more difficult pieces to write.

www.grantray.com

ArtFutura

2009-04-22T22:17:00.000-07:00

ArtFutura
I am pleased to announce that “Hackensack, New Jersey: R&D Department Google Tech” from the uncanny imagination series has been accepted to the ArtFutura 2009 Infinite Possibilities group exhibition . It is an honor and a privilege to be a part of the amazing work that the The RIC Associate Board performs.

*click for larger image.

Obscura Virtual Dog

2009-04-10T15:25:00.000-07:00

Virtual Dog.

Science Fiction Science Fact

2009-04-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

"The secret lives of invisible magnetic fields are revealed as chaotic ever-changing geometries . All action takes place around NASA's Space Sciences Laboratories, UC Berkeley, to recordings of space scientists describing their discoveries . Actual VLF audio recordings control the evolution of the fields as they delve into our inaudible surroundings, revealing recurrent ‘whistlers' produced by fleeting electrons . Are we observing a series of scientific experiments, the universe in flux, or a documentary of a fictional world?."

Issue 33: F-Stop Magazine

2009-02-01T19:36:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to annonce that three photographs from the "spectre of vision" series were selected for Issue 33 of F-Stop Magazine. It is an honour and privledge to show case along with such great talent and vision.

N 1st St & Dickson St. St. Louis, Missouri

2009-01-05T04:54:00.000-08:00

Just under two years ago, the start of my graduate studies at Columbia College, I came upon an jewel in the rough so to speak. While navigating google maps for a specific location to shoot in St. Louis, Mo. I stumbled upon a section that showed an earth work in an abandon lot. I was so fascinated by the idea, and the location of this piece in the middle of one of St. Louis’s most run down an vacant areas that I wanted to make a photograph about it. The image below.

Over the recent holiday break, I began thinking about that photograph again and decided that instead of relying on the technique of comparing and contrasting I would instead work with and through sequencing. Giving just as much visual impact for the sat image to be appropriated and stand on its own. So recently armed with the knowledge that DigitalGlobe had launched their new WorldViewI satellite for Google I was hopeful for a better resolution of that particular lot. With that in mind I should have known better. Now old buildings and structures are magnates for real estate developing. However, unlike most cities the historical protection of St. Louis architecture is practically nil. Instead of the macabre work around of gutting a building and leaving its skin they just bulldoze it to the ground and haul away the fill. Recently this particular area in St. Louis has been green lit for on shore gambling and the future site of a new four-lane bridge spanning the Mississippi. It is changing at an alarming rate. The lot and its airplane is nothing more than a fresh layer of turned up “lot rubble”. Once its wings spanned the entirety of that brown lot. Now the only evidence is access roads and well-worn tracks from trucks hauling away the bits of turn of the century masonry and glass. Yet carefully and almost hidden at the base of a high gain power line was an insignificant and rather crude Smithson-esque spiral. So who is creating these things, and for whom?

Binary 0/1 - 639

2009-01-02T02:40:00.000-08:00

The Rough Draft - Turbulence Ver. I

2009-01-01T00:38:00.001-08:00

click image to read text.

From the Ground Up

2008-12-01T22:37:00.000-08:00

In the latest incarnation of an idea that I have been exploring for the last year finally may have come to fruition. About a month ago while researching for a particular photograph I wanted to make a list was generated. It has hung on my studio wall since, located in the space I foundly call the Island of Misfit Toys. It is a zone of inactivity, dead ends, possibilties, or false starts. About two days ago the list fell from the wall, glided down to the floor, and skidded into the stack of wire and glue sticks for the "It's Electric" installation. And there it was, the bit of text and an older installation randomnly placed together. Now considering I have become more compfortable with using text as part of my practice and context the list has lead me in the right direction, no pun intended. It has been moved up to the shoot wall and is slated to be shot this Saturday. If all goes well there should be a rough version of the "build" shot and a rough final image to show.

Lost Season One, Fleetwood Mac, Family Snaps

2008-11-07T10:34:00.000-08:00

Home in the Bubble (work in progress)

2008-06-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to my good friend Eric P. Too many late night, early morning conversations about the environment and my recent discovery of my concept would eventually lead to some thing along these lines, even if it is just metaphorical.

2008-04-17T22:11:00.000-07:00

Grant W. Ray

A recurring thread, home and family...

2008

2008-04-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

Grant W. Ray

Community Organization

2007

WIP

2008-04-17T00:09:00.000-07:00

The newer images below mark a new approach to my image making. Obviously the return of the diptych is one example that helps drive a juxtaposition of the object and setting, as well as the narrative and the evidentiary approach in the work. The second was losing up a bit on the formal elements. By presenting a less polished style the photographs fail to drive home the juxtaposition, narrative, and the evidentiary. And that is the wonderful balance that this newer work attempts to solve. Some where between the perception of what we can see, and what can only be captured by the camera.

Data and the Unseen

2008-04-16T23:55:00.001-07:00

Grant W. Ray The Forms of Data - Lost Season One and Two 2008

the smallest details

2008-04-16T23:48:00.000-07:00

Grant W. Ray Reading Between the Lines 2008

Newest Works

2008-04-15T01:24:00.000-07:00

Grant W. Ray

To the New World, Christopher Columbus 2008

SPE

2008-03-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

I am suprised and elated to report that attending SPE was a complete and utter sucess. Denver was absolutely beautiful and the light quality is amazing, not to mention the warm temps found in the mid 50s. But I wanted to share the artist of note who I had the pleasure of meeting, reconnectiing with, and speaking about photography with.

Christine Shank
Toni Pepe
Christopher Gianunzio
Annie Holm
Christine Holtz
Rachel Girard Reisert
Tom Leininger
Julie Barnofski
Nate Larson

People of note who I did not have the pleasure of meeting with.
Liz Wells - lecture on the new landscape in Europe. Notions of sense and perception in the European landscape.

Stefan Petranek - the collaboration of artist and scientist and the meeting of the two relms as a rich dialogical space of creation and artistic endevour.

Libby Rowe - Humour as a tool for speaking about the construction of the femine and notions of feminity in culture and society.

Zack Bent - Working with the domestic sphere as site of relationships and familial rites of passage between Father and Son.

Early Can Speak Device

2007-12-23T21:54:00.000-08:00

"Early Translation Device"

2007-12-23T21:53:00.000-08:00

"12:13am - Completed Device"

2007-12-23T21:52:00.002-08:00

"Migration and Pattern formation"

2007-12-23T21:52:00.001-08:00

"Controlled Study - .Nothing, Maybe, Nothing"

2007-12-23T21:50:00.002-08:00

"Root of Language - Keyboard Tree hybrid"

2007-12-23T21:50:00.001-08:00

Discovered Message

2007-12-23T21:49:00.001-08:00

"Fortune Knowledge Hybrid"

2007-12-23T21:46:00.001-08:00

"Controlled Study - Isolation/Interaction - 3:42am"

2007-12-23T21:44:00.001-08:00

"Active Site #356 - Ofallon and N. 2nd"

2007-12-23T21:33:00.000-08:00

A to B from NC stl

2007-10-23T20:57:00.000-07:00

a thoughtful road trip

2007-08-18T17:47:00.000-07:00

Vacant Face, Chicago 2007

Antithesis -Robert Adams

the ashcan

"the view"

A first for everything

2007-07-16T13:34:00.000-07:00

It is official the new site and domain www.grantray.com has launched onto the high seas of the internet.