Bjorn To The Task
By Tom Wachunas
“Frankly, this culture of
unbridled narcissism and oversharing has become like a metastasizing cancer
that is eroding all traditional notions of personal discretion and public
decency.” – Anthony L. Hall
“I strongly urge you to study portrait
painting, do as many portraits as you can and don't flag. We must win the
public over later on by means of the portrait; in my opinion it is the thing of
the future.” –Vincent van Gogh, from a letter written to painter Émile
Bernard
“…I
hope that this project inspires people to look inside of themselves and ask,
"What inspirations have I been ignoring and how can I begin to set them
free?" We are all worthy of it. We are all artists.” -Bjorn Bolinder
EXHIBIT: The One-A-Day Project: Re-imaging the Selfie with Bjorn Bolinder, at
Translations Art Gallery THROUGH JULY 26, 331 Cleveland Avenue NW, downtown
Canton / viewing hours Wed.-Sat., Noon to 5 p.m.
I admit to having
an ambivalent attitude toward the social media onslaught of “selfies.” On the
one hand, they constitute a viral phenomenon that earned dubious legitimacy
when “selfie” was declared “word of the year” in 2013 by the Oxford English
Dictionary. Essentially, selfies are a trend that further illustrates our
societal lust to overcome anonymity. Call it an apotheosis of cultural
self-absorption. And ironically enough, I think that after a point, this pictorial
plethora has succeeded in rendering a homogenized, rather silly sameness to the
countless individuals who indulge their desires to be quickly “known” and
otherwise friended, flattered or envied. Fifteen minutes of fame, anyone?
On the other hand,
if we consider the selfie trend in the larger context of self-portraiture as a
human practice, there’s nothing new about it at all – just the mechanism and,
to a considerable extent, the “aesthetics.” I still recall all those goofy
images generated during the last century of faces and bare butts squished on to
the glass plates of Xerox machines. (You could call them yesteryear’s analogs
to today’s digital dross.) But I’m speaking here of self-portraiture as a
viable artistic pursuit. And from that perspective, a substantial number of
artists have historically engaged the practice and left a distinguished legacy
of compelling works – Dürer, Rembrandt, van Gogh and Frida Kahlo, to name only
some.
This is where
things get a bit dicey. Are selfies an art form simply by virtue of their being
photographs? It’s an arguable point, and
I tend to regard them as a kind of pop art subset – a highly accessible if not “lowbrow”
democratization of the photographic medium. Even as many online exhibitors
might employ photo shop editing, their motivation seems more about vanity and
superficial “special effects” than genuine creativity.
The photographs by
New York City-based artist Bjorn Bolinder are at once a commentary on the whole
notion of selfies and a transcending of their usually generic, mundane or
cutesy content. I’ll not be recapping here what initially prompted this collection
(for that, please click on the above links to Translations Gallery and
Bolinder’s web sight for the expanded statement and examples of his work)
except to say, with great admiration, that Bolinder is clearly passionate about
and committed to the sheer discipline of daily
prioritizing his creative process.
So yes, on the surface, the subject matter is Bjorn
times Bjorn times Bjorn, day after day, spanning more than 100 consecutive days…But
collectively, these images are a scintillating diary of sorts - an intriguing visual autobiography of ideas,
inspirations, possibilities to be realized and challenges to be met both
technically and aesthetically. More than monotonous or ordinary repetitions of
his face, these superbly crafted images embody the soul of a storyteller, alive
with a sense of theatricality, played out in various settings and atmospheres.
They’re alternately whimsical and haunting, playful and contemplative, dramatic
and fantastical.
The photographs
aren’t framed or mounted in the conventional manner but rather suspended in
air, hung with clothes pins on lines that stretch wall-to-wall across the
gallery. Viewing them is literally a moving experience, requiring us to walk
through the rows, all the while reading the hand-written notes interspersed
among the photos explaining the progression of particular concepts or goals.
Indeed, motion itself is a recurring
thematic aspect in many of the images, and not so surprising when considering
Bolinder’s background as a dancer.
This collection,
then, is a record of making each day a realized, tangible product – an intentional
step in an ongoing dance, so to speak. As such, the exhibit presents the
wondrously designed choreography of a rich imagination.
PHOTOS, ©Bjorn
Bolinder 2014, from top: Air Slumber,
Cell Jump, Fangtastic, Jump/Catch, Typical Saturday Night
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