FINAL PIECE MOOD BOARD

Final Piece Mood Board

ANALYSIS- MAN RAY

MAN RAY

This piece of art work was done by Man Ray. Born Emmanuel Radnitzky, August 27,1890 and died November 18,1976. He was an american modernist artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements. This piece of work is called 'Gun with alphabet stencils'. It's a photogram or 'Rayographs' was the term Man Ray used for his photograms. The work was done in 1924. I chose to analyse this piece of work because we were looking photograms,and Man Ray considers him self one of the pioneers of photograms and we used pretty much the same techniques.

To better understand Man Ray, I looked at his other pieces of work.

Image 1

 Image 2.

And also at his own website Man Ray Website

"I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence."

I would say that Man Ray is very abstract in the way he works, from switching between the traditional form of painting and going on to do some photography, he at times doesn't have a set theme on his work and I admire him for this because it allows him to do his work without any limitations. I don't think this particular photogram has a set theme, it could be one of death because of the obvious gun in it, however there are no bullets in the gun which then contradicts this and may not be intended as something quite dark and violent. I would also thought that the photogram was of children's toys,because the wooden blocks could be made for children and was a toy which was played with a lot in older days and amongst younger children, and then the development from playing with harmless wooden blocks to fake toy guns. Also the round objects could be balls, again something which can somewhat cause some form of violence but is not intended to harm anyone. The title for it is quite basic and only depicts what actually is on the photogram rather than what it is about,so you have to gather your own views on it. 

The technique used by Man Ray was simply, placing the photographic paper under the enlarger, place and arrange objects on the paper and then expose, for proximately 6 seconds. Because the image is a photogram there would be no colour, only the outline of the objects. Not having any colour allows the viewer to add their own colour into the image, making it somewhat more personal and more their own. The formal elements which are quite important in this piece of work is definitely shape, because it tells you what exactly the image is of, and because there is no colour the photogram technique relays a lot on shape. 

I have chosen to look at Man Ray because we have been doing photograms during our lesson and he was one of the pioneers in this technique. My first reaction to the work was what was it about, because from the given objects you don't really know straight away, the objects spark up questions in your mind as to what it might be. What I dislike about the image is the actual technique itself, I don't really like photograms in general because you don't get all the details of the image and you have to sort of figure it out on your own. What I like about the work is that it's completely random and quite expressionist. This particular piece of work hasn't inspired me as such, but it has inspired me to try and do more photograms.

EVERYDAY MIND MAP

Everyday Mind Map

ANALYSIS- RONI HORN

RONI HORN

This piece of art work was done by Roni Horn. She was born in September 25, 1955 in New York. Horn has been making work since the 70's . This particular work done by her is called " Cabinet of 2001". The pieces of work are photographs, and they were made to be on Flashart magazine. I have choosen to analyse this piece of work because I have been studying shutter speed and this piece of work done by Roni Horn is a perfect example of how to use this little technique and create very quirky and unique photographs. 

The technique used to create this piece of work was using the shutter speed. Making the subject of the image move and then using a slow shutter speed to capture it. This effect is quite effective because it gives the impression of the clowns make up to appear smeared and also makes the images very blurry. There also seems to be a downward light source shinning on the tops of the persons head as it seems to be the lightest part, this then in turn casts dark shadows on the eyes making them seem sunken into the face. She also choose very simple background and also the clowns face match this with only the red nose and mouth making them the subject of the image.

To get a better understanding of her work I looked at a website which showed other of her exhibitions to see what other types of work she also does.

Hauser & Wirth

I think that the theme for this piece of work was irony, because, she took something that is supposed to bring you joy and make you laugh and turned it into something that looks quite scary and unsettling to look at. The tile of the piece of work doesn't really help me to make a decision about what the work is about, I had to come to my own conclusion about it. 

I have choosen to look at this piece of work because of the use of shutter speed and how the movement of clowns was captured creating that scary distorted image effect. My first reaction to the work was one of shock because of how scary the images looked, but then on the same hand I thought it was a very subtle way of making an image look quite scary. What I like about the image is how the person in the image cannot be identified therefore it leaves you wondering who the person actually is. What I dislike about the image, isn't the image itself but the fact that you can't tell what the image is about. The work has inspired me to try and do more images using the shutter speed technique because not only can you get images of actual ,movement but also to create something quite scary.