Arne Svenson's guest appearances

Arne Svenson

A Photographic Life

galleryIntell videocasts

Eric Fischl

Terry Winters

Patricia Conde Galeria

Christiane Fischer

Steven Kasher

Catherine Edelman

I. Arne Svenson

Charles McGill

Nikki Rosato

Edwynn Houk

Serge Alain Nitegeka

Marianne Boesky

Paul Villinski

Morgan Bulkeley

Howard Greenberg

OwlTail

In episode 219 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on embracing experiences and life, empathy and context in photographic documentation, and protecting your legacy through your own actions.Plus this week, photographer Arne Svenson takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’Arne Svenson is a self-taught photographer with an educational and vocational background in special education, whose photographic practice aims to seek out the inner life, the essence, of his subjects, whether they be human, inanimate, or something in between. He says that he uses his camera as a reporter uses text, to create a narrative that facilitates the understanding of that which may lie hidden or obscured. In the years 2012-1016, Svenson was artist-in-residence at Wesley Spectrum High School, a program in Pittsburgh for children on the autism spectrum. In partnership with The Andy Warhol Museum and the Cognitive Psychology Department at the University of Victoria, BC, he was involved in a long-term project exploring the science of facial recognition skills with subjects on the spectrum. The resultant work was shown in its entirety at The Andy Warhol Museum. He is the author/photographer of numerous books, including Unspeaking Likeness, The Neighbors, Prisoners and Sock Monkeys and in 2016 he received the Nannen Prize in photojournalism for his project The Neighbors. Svenson's photographs have been shown extensively in the United States, Europe and Asia and are included in numerous public and private collections, including SFMOMA, Carnegie Museum of Art, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Norton Museum of Art. His work has been profiled in the New York Times, Artforum, Art in America and The New Yorker, among other publications. Recent solo exhibitions of his images have been held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Western Washington University, and as a two-person show with the work of Andre Kertesz at Galerie Miranda, Paris. Over the past few years Svenson has given numerous lectures in universities and museums, mostly on the issue of free speech in the arts and how this topic relates to his series The Neighbors, the subject of a protracted legal battle. He was the defendant in a lawsuit involving privacy issues and therefore uniquely qualified to speak about the ramifications of censorship and the protections guaranteed by the First Amendment. https://arnesvenson.comDr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts.© Grant Scott 2022

In episode 219 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on embracing experiences and life, empathy and context in photographic documentation, and protecting your legacy through your own actions. Plus this week, photographer Arne Svenson takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer’s the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?’ Arne Svenson is a self-taught photographer with an educational and vocational background in special education, whose photographic practice aims to seek out the inner life, the essence, of his subjects, whether they be human, inanimate, or something in between. He says that he uses his camera as a reporter uses text, to create a narrative that facilitates the understanding of that which may lie hidden or obscured. In the years 2012-1016, Svenson was artist-in-residence at Wesley Spectrum High School, a program in Pittsburgh for children on the autism spectrum. In partnership with The Andy Warhol Museum and the Cognitive Psychology Department at the University of Victoria, BC, he was involved in a long-term project exploring the science of facial recognition skills with subjects on the spectrum. The resultant work was shown in its entirety at The Andy Warhol Museum. He is the author/photographer of numerous books, including Unspeaking Likeness, The Neighbors, Prisoners and Sock Monkeys and in 2016 he received the Nannen Prize in photojournalism for his project The Neighbors. Svenson's photographs have been shown extensively in the United States, Europe and Asia and are included in numerous public and private collections, including SFMOMA, Carnegie Museum of Art, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Norton Museum of Art. His work has been profiled in the New York Times, Artforum, Art in America and The New Yorker, among other publications. Recent solo exhibitions of his images have been held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Western Washington University, and as a two-person show with the work of Andre Kertesz at Galerie Miranda, Paris. Over the past few years Svenson has given numerous lectures in universities and museums, mostly on the issue of free speech in the arts and how this topic relates to his series The Neighbors, the subject of a protracted legal battle. He was the defendant in a lawsuit involving privacy issues and therefore uniquely qualified to speak about the ramifications of censorship and the protections guaranteed by the First Amendment. <a href="https://arnesvenson.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://arnesvenson.com</a> Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 <a href="http://www.donotbendfilm.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.donotbendfilm.com</a>. He is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts. © Grant Scott 2022

A Photographic Life - 219: Plus Arne Svenson

“… one sunny day the light was raking across the windows of the neighbors’ and it hit every particle of dirt and dust on the glass, thereby diffusing the scene behind it into, almost, a painterly scene…” — Arne Svenson Exhibition on view April 9 – May 30th, 2015 Besides never sleeping, New York City also never stops growing and expanding. The familiar orange construction netting, with carefully rounded perforation squares, seems to float through the various neighborhoods of the city, briefly annunciating an impending birth of a new structure. And then it’s off to another street, another project, another new beginning. But the army of paint-splattered, dust-covered, helmet-shielded workers behind the magically growing glass and concrete structures often remains unseen. Well, they are, of course, the center of many jokes, complaints, stereotypes and soft-drink commercials, but most of us perceive these builders as one with the structures they build. Arne Svenson, The Workers 16. Image © Arne Svenson. Courtesy the artist and Julie Saul Gallery Not so with Arne Svenson, who came to see these men and women in a new light after completing his previous series of photographs ‘The Neighbors’ — an intimate series of partially obscured portraits of wealthy residents going about their lives in a glass building across from the artist. The absolute transcending beauty of ‘The Workers’  lies in the way Svenson translated the ordinary person inside an ordinary city scene into a jewel-like cameo filled with motion, gesture, light and a mille-feuille of internal narratives. He is, very obviously, not interested in a posed sitter, instead finding beauty in the moments before and after. “I take the photographs and don’t look a them for 3-4 days, allowing the excitement of the moment to die down. Then as I examine each one I have to once again “find” that space and moment within the oval.” And it is these moments that allow the viewer to construct his/her own dynamic narratives. In fact, the viewer is expected to make as much effort in interacting and establishing a personal bond with the photograph as Svenson made in creating it. And that’s fair. “I start the sentence; I give you a paragraph, but you must finish it,” says the artist. On a personal note, I found it interesting that in an earlier interview, Svenson referred to himself as someone who immigrated to NYC from California. A term rarely used when describing movement within he same country, intentional and final as it may be. “I was done with California. I left with no intention of coming back” he clarified when I mentioned the article just before we started taping. And so I find this connection particularly fascinating, since most people who traditionally come to build our cities, and in all probability subjects of his photographs, are themselves immigrants. For this interview Arne and I met at his exhibition at Julie Saul Gallery in Chelsea and talked about some of the important visual and conceptual aspects of this series, as well as the connections between his portraits and some of the well-known examples from the centuries past. Here is the first part of our interview. Video interview transcript. The palette, gestures, composition and of course, the oval that holds your subjects in ‘The Workers’ all point to the influence of the great European portraiture tradition. Are these references intentional? Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of a Man, 1632, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Arne Svenson: Everything from the Baroque, to Renaissance, to Mannerism, to the Edward Hoppers. And I didn’t see it at first because I was looking for something completely different in these images, but as people started telling me this – I started seeing it. So I went to The Met and I looked around and not being a student of art history I don’t have the academic knowledge, but I was looking for something different. I was looking for: how does the light rake across the canvas and is that my light? So, when I started this new series, ‘The Workers’, I used that knowledge of not only critical analysis of my own work by others, but I used my trips to The Met. And one thing I did see immediately with this new work, with ‘The Workers’, was that I had to use an oval and it was a very tough decision to make because it’s an extraordinary statement – an oval. It has a lot of connotation. And part of the motivation behind this particular series was that I wanted to illustrate and show us the people that build the palaces for ‘The Neighbors’. So, I started looking in neighboring buildings, and buildings up and down the street and out of the neighborhood, and looking through glass and seeing workers and as I saw them, it came to me that it was a noble profession and how is nobility shown in many-many paintings and through history? It is through the oval. So, I turned the tables, in a way so that ‘The Neighbors’, the wealthy inhabitants of New York City were relegated to these harsh and geometric containers, and ‘The Workers’ were awarded the oval. While many would consider dust and dirt hindrances to the integrity of the final image, you use them to your benefit. Tell me how these elements became integral parts of ‘The Neighbors’ and ‘The Workers’? When I started ‘The Neighbors’ series I had a large lens and was looking through to the neighbors’ windows and I photographed the action, or the lack of action. And I kept analyzing, why could this not be successful – it’s a beautiful vignette, it’s beautifully lit… And I realized that there was no indication that I was shooting through a window. Then one sunny day the light was raking across the windows of the neighbors’ and it hit every particle of dirt and dust on the glass, thereby diffusing the scene behind it into, almost, a painterly scene. It broke up the surface and I realized that if I broke up, if I focused on the dirt then this would be the secret that I was looking for. This would also be a way of flattening the planes. I didn’t want dimension. I wanted it to appear that all this action was projected on a ¼” plane of some sort. Arne Svenson, Neighbors 3. Image © Arne Svenson. Courtesy the artist and Julie Saul Gallery The long lens helped with that because that kind of foreshortens and then focusing on the glass further reduced the depth of the action, so it appeared as if it was happening as though it was imbued in the glass. To me it was like photographing stained glass. It was almost that…. I shudder to say a religious experience, but it was an experience that gave everybody, and especially The Workers’ – all my subjects grandeur and respect, I think is the term I am looking for because it suddenly became bigger than a photo. This video and transcript © galleryIntell. Artwork © Arne Svenson and courtesy of the artist and Julie Saul Gallery. The post VIDEO: Part I. Arne Svenson’s ‘The Workers’ at Julie Saul Gallery appeared first on galleryIntell. Related posts: Niko Luoma at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery.  Ira Bordo “No Rush” – at Pobeda Gallery, Moscow  Brandon Lattu at Leo Koenig Gallery 

<h1>“… one sunny day the light was raking across the windows of the neighbors’ and it hit every particle of dirt and dust on the glass, thereby diffusing the scene behind it into, almost, a painterly scene…” — Arne Svenson</h1> Exhibition on view April 9 – May 30th, 2015 Besides never sleeping, New York City also never stops growing and expanding. The familiar orange construction netting, with carefully rounded perforation squares, seems to float through the various neighborhoods of the city, briefly annunciating an impending birth of a new structure. And then it’s off to another street, another project, another new beginning. But the army of paint-splattered, dust-covered, helmet-shielded workers behind the magically growing glass and concrete structures often remains unseen. Well, they are, of course, the center of many jokes, complaints, stereotypes and soft-drink commercials, but most of us perceive these builders as one with the structures they build. Arne Svenson, The Workers 16. Image © Arne Svenson. Courtesy the artist and Julie Saul Gallery Not so with Arne Svenson, who came to see these men and women in a new light after completing his previous series of photographs <a href="http://www.saulgallery.com/artists/arne-svenson/neighbors#2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">‘The Neighbors’</a> — an intimate series of partially obscured portraits of wealthy residents going about their lives in a glass building across from the artist. The absolute transcending beauty of ‘The Workers’  lies in the way Svenson translated the ordinary person inside an ordinary city scene into a jewel-like cameo filled with motion, gesture, light and a mille-feuille of internal narratives. He is, very obviously, not interested in a posed sitter, instead finding beauty in the moments before and after. “I take the photographs and don’t look a them for 3-4 days, allowing the excitement of the moment to die down. Then as I examine each one I have to once again “find” that space and moment within the oval.” And it is these moments that allow the viewer to construct his/her own dynamic narratives. In fact, the viewer is expected to make as much effort in interacting and establishing a personal bond with the photograph as Svenson made in creating it. And that’s fair. “I start the sentence; I give you a paragraph, but you must finish it,” says the artist. On a personal note, I found it interesting that in an earlier interview, Svenson referred to himself as someone who immigrated to NYC from California. A term rarely used when describing movement within he same country, intentional and final as it may be. “I was done with California. I left with no intention of coming back” he clarified when I mentioned the article just before we started taping. And so I find this connection particularly fascinating, since most people who traditionally come to build our cities, and in all probability subjects of his photographs, are themselves immigrants. For this interview Arne and I met at his exhibition at <a href="http://www.saulgallery.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Julie Saul Gallery</a> in Chelsea and talked about some of the important visual and conceptual aspects of this series, as well as the connections between his <a href="https://galleryintell.com/ira-bordo-no-rush-at-pobeda-gallery-moscow/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">portraits</a> and some of the well-known <a href="https://galleryintell.com/artex/irma-brunner-by-edouard-manet/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">examples from the centuries past</a>. Here is the first part of our interview. <h1>Video interview transcript.</h1> <h1>The palette, gestures, composition and of course, the oval that holds your subjects in ‘The Workers’ all point to the influence of the great European portraiture tradition. Are these references intentional?</h1> Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of a Man, 1632, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Arne Svenson: Everything from the Baroque, to Renaissance, to Mannerism, to the Edward Hoppers. And I didn’t see it at first because I was looking for something completely different in these images, but as people started telling me this – I started seeing it. So I went to <a href="https://galleryintell.com/free-art-books-from-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Met</a> and I looked around and not being a student of art history I don’t have the academic knowledge, but I was looking for something different. I was looking for: how does the light rake across the canvas and is that my light? So, when I started this new series, ‘The Workers’, I used that knowledge of not only critical analysis of my own work by others, but I used my trips to The Met. And one thing I did see immediately with this new work, with ‘The Workers’, was that I had to use an oval and it was a very tough decision to make because it’s an extraordinary statement – an oval. It has a lot of connotation. And part of the motivation behind this particular series was that I wanted to illustrate and show us the people that build the palaces for ‘The Neighbors’. So, I started looking in neighboring buildings, and buildings up and down the street and out of the neighborhood, and looking through glass and seeing workers and as I saw them, it came to me that it was a noble profession and how is nobility shown in many-many paintings and through history? It is through the oval. So, I turned the tables, in a way so that ‘The Neighbors’, the wealthy inhabitants of New York City were relegated to these harsh and geometric containers, and ‘The Workers’ were awarded the oval. <h1>While many would consider dust and dirt hindrances to the integrity of the final image, you use them to your benefit. Tell me how these elements became integral parts of ‘The Neighbors’ and ‘The Workers’?</h1> When I started ‘The Neighbors’ series I had a large lens and was looking through to the neighbors’ windows and I photographed the action, or the lack of action. And I kept analyzing, why could this not be successful – it’s a beautiful vignette, it’s beautifully lit… And I realized that there was no indication that I was shooting through a window. Then one sunny day the light was raking across the windows of the neighbors’ and it hit every particle of dirt and dust on the glass, thereby diffusing the scene behind it into, almost, a painterly scene. It broke up the surface and I realized that if I broke up, if I focused on the dirt then this would be the secret that I was looking for. This would also be a way of flattening the planes. I didn’t want dimension. I wanted it to appear that all this action was projected on a ¼” plane of some sort. Arne Svenson, Neighbors 3. Image © Arne Svenson. Courtesy the artist and Julie Saul Gallery The long lens helped with that because that kind of foreshortens and then focusing on the glass further reduced the depth of the action, so it appeared as if it was happening as though it was imbued in the glass. To me it was like photographing stained glass. It was almost that…. I shudder to say a religious experience, but it was an experience that gave everybody, and especially The Workers’ – all my subjects grandeur and respect, I think is the term I am looking for because it suddenly became bigger than a photo. This video and transcript © galleryIntell. Artwork © Arne Svenson and courtesy of the artist and Julie Saul Gallery. The post <a href="https://galleryintell.com/arne-svensons-the-workers-at-julie-saul-gallery/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">VIDEO: Part I. Arne Svenson’s ‘The Workers’ at Julie Saul Gallery</a> appeared first on <a href="https://galleryintell.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">galleryIntell</a>. Related posts:<ol> <li><a href="https://galleryintell.com/niko-luoma-at-bryce-wolkowitz-gallery/" rel="bookmark nofollow" target="_blank">Niko Luoma at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery. </a></li> <li><a href="https://galleryintell.com/ira-bordo-no-rush-at-pobeda-gallery-moscow/" rel="bookmark nofollow" target="_blank">Ira Bordo “No Rush” – at Pobeda Gallery, Moscow </a></li> <li><a href="https://galleryintell.com/brandon-lattu-at-leo-koenig-gallery/" rel="bookmark nofollow" target="_blank">Brandon Lattu at Leo Koenig Gallery </a></li></ol>

VIDEO: Part I. Arne Svenson’s ‘The Workers’ at Julie Saul Gallery