|
Currently
on view through February 11, 2002, in the Laramie L. Leatherman
Art Learning Center at the Speed Art Museum, is Responses,
a portrait project completed by the Advanced Photography students
at DuPont Manual High School during the fall of 2001. The project
features 24 images created as a photographic response to the images
in the Leelcyd series presented in the exhibition Gathering
Light-Richard Ross Photography that was on display at the
museum from September 11 to October 28, 2001.
Leelacyd
is a project, as described by Julien Robson, Curator of Contemporary
Art at the Speed Art Museum, which has been a developing collaboration
between Richard Ross and his daughter Leela over the past few
years. Setting up a camera in a spare room at their home, Ross
started taking a photograph of Leela every morning before she
set off for school and, eventually, with the apparatus set up
permanently, he was able to hand the project over to her. Just
before going out the door, sprightly or tired, no matter whether
she felt good or bad, Leela would stand, deadpan, before the camera
and press the shutter release. The results are a witty, day-by-day
visual diary of teenage fashion in Southern California, a contemporary
documentation of teenage self-representation.
To accompany
the photographs, Leela has written a set of short diary entries
that catalogue her response to these images of herself. While
each commentary can be read like the hints and tips found in fashion
magazines, or even perhaps as pearls of wisdom from fortune cookies,
they also give insights into the way the subject views herself
and her interaction with the world at large.
The students
from Manual High School viewed the images in a special visit to
the museum and had the opportunity to meet with the artist, Richard
Ross, and his daughter Leela to discuss the Leelacyd series.
The meeting with Richard and Leela Ross occurred on September
11, 2001 and the events of that day influenced the project in
a profound way. They were also given the set of LeelaÕs short
diary entries to read and digest.
Under the
guidance of their teacher Wes Curtis, the students engaged in
a critical discussion of the Leelacyd series and their
meeting with Richard and Leela Ross. Through this discussion they
developed a framework for the photographic portraits they would
soon create. Many of the students reacted to LeelaÕs reference
to clothing as a Òarmor,Ó or ÒmaskÓ to guard her against the rigors
of high school life. Others reacted to what they considered the
impersonal style of the repetition of images. Several of the students,
in light of the tragedies of September 11, took an introspective
approach to their final images.
The finished
work consists of twenty-four primarily black and white images.
As the work of twenty-four separate individuals they present a
wide range of visual styles and they are aesthetically and conceptually
divergent to the Leelacyd series. Despite this, they do retain
a unity in their search for identity, present in the Leelacyd
series.
The students
represented in this exhibit are Josh Shapero, Allison Tassie,
Lindsay Evancho, Jacob Gotlib, Alecia Dimar, Rachel Wurfel, Glynnis
Bernier, Kim Powers, Sally Greene, Daniel Zakem, Sarah Davis,
Eric Rickert, Eve Burkhead, Sarah Alsup, Lauren Hawkins, Joy Cernac,
Jessica Rublein, and John Toner.
top
|
