on todd hido

one of the things i miss about graduate school is the access to constant art lectures. i know they are still there - happening on art campuses all over the bay area, but when i was a grad student it was so much easier to find the time to go. it was a treat at the end of a day of making to stop and go hear another maker talk about their work and their process.

wed. night the little spent the night at her grandparents house so i escaped to hear todd hido speak about his work. 

i have gravitated toward his work for some time. i think for obvious reasons [negative space, the integration of home- and what that means, the pairing and fusing of seemingly mismatched ideas]. but instead of my interpretation. i'll just share my notes with you.

sources/influences/kinships > origin. his: taking pics of his toys in his living room with an instamatic camera. BMX biking. 

from OHIO [denise dr.]. came to CA [mills actually] for a workshop that changed his life and influenced him to come to grad school here. when to tufts/museum school in boston and then was an assistant to a commercial photographer as his printer. 2 years. this was good for making work w/out thinking. 

be open to change

the hyperreal = artifical

architecture as container for memory

building an archive [he uses folders and cheap costco prints]

plug in to build bodies of work - shuffling

repeat until redundant

ambiguity is key

uses a pentax 6x7

was in first bay area now [w/ barry mcgee and margaret kilgallen and chris johanson. he was so excited and honored]. 

compulsion is good for artists.

he's blissfully influenced by everything he loves including:

robert adams, steven shore, bernd and hilla becher, diane arbus, roy decarava, larry sultan, mark rothko , edward hopper, walker evans

he shoots like a photographer, but thinks like a painter [and thus i'd say is also influenced/related to gerhard richter's landscape paintings]

he lives between the two

the search for home

his work featured on raymond carver book covers - highlight for him [and stunningly gorgeous].

put 2 things together to make a new truth

always exploring and shuffling images together to combine them in new ways. particularly true with new work : excerpts from silver medows [some of which are below]. 

like robert adams he often works on an idea of a monograph as a way to put imagery together. 

sometimes he's looking for characters. for a way for the pictures to tell a narrative [to which a viewer brings their own perspective].

for his recent exhibition with transformer station he created a series of movie posters. you can buy a set [i did - signed - can't wait for them to arrive]. 

have a great weekend.