Pushing the boundaries and seeing what happens

Francesca Gavin recently wrote a piece for Artsy titled: 

“Steve Lazarides’s Banksy Auction Tests the Artist’s Market”

Lazarides photographed by Lars Fassinger

"Steve Lazarides is innately skilled at promotion. His career as a gallerist was for a decade intertwined with the artist Banksy - initially promoting and producing screenprints for Banksy and his imprint Pictures on Walls, before representing the artist as a gallerist. Lazarides’s gallery is now the definitive space for artists who have largely emerged from a street context, and next week Lazarides is putting up around 30 unsigned prints by Banksy at auction. The question everyone is asking is why?

“I want to see how far the market can go, to be honest,” Lazarides explains. “When you’re selling directly to a client, you set a price and that’s it. With auction you don’t really know what’s going to happen. Why not push boundaries and see what happens? Everybody does it - they just lie about it. I’m constantly being persecuted for being honest,” he laughs. Unlike many galleries, Lazarides does not work with the secondary market, focusing on largely young primary-market emerging names.

Banksy and Lazarides haven’t worked together for around seven years.“I don’t think we’ve spoken since 2008,” he considers. Nonetheless, Lazarides is the expert in Banksy’s market. “There aren’t many dealers and artists that have the kind of relationship that we had. It was an intense decade of being in each others’ lives. With the paintings, I probably know everything about them. With the screenprints, I was getting them printed, I numbered most of them. I then wrapped them up and stuck them in a fucking tube.” The Bonhams print sale, however, does not represent the gallerist’s desire to wash his hands of the artist, and he still has a significant personal holding on his work.

“I think the market has become so solid. The interest from people around the world is quite significant,” Lazarides muses. “This work has to really be absorbed into an overall umbrella of contemporary art. People like Shepard Fairey, Os Gêmeos, Vhils, JR, Conor Harrington - I think they’ve broken the shackles of being just urban artists. It’s not chumps buying the work. It’s very, very serious collectors.” 

The gallerist has uncovered a vast collection of unsigned prints that he sold to a secondhand furniture dealer on Brick Lane in the early days of Banksy’s career. The works were still in the packing Lazarides has presented them in. He brokered a deal to have access to this archive. Although unsigned, the works still have strong authenticity for Lazarides’s involvement and his relationship to Banksy. The gallerist also intends to find a way of releasing some of the unsigned prints on the market—aware that there are still 1.5 million people buying Banksy’s book who all wish to own a piece by the artist ..."

The auction in London is on January 28th (that is today people!) and included in this sale is none other than Kate Moss (Purple, Orange) from 2005:

Not one to miss an opportunity, we emailed the Director of Sales enquiring as to kate’s availability and price. We received the following response:

Hi ishotkatemoss,
Hope you're well and thanks for getting in touch.
This actually comes with all the other 5 colourways as a set of 6 for £500k.
I do have a single original colourway available for £95,000 + vat if of interest?
All the best

So, without factoring in tax (which may be able to be waived if we are taking it out of Europe, so as to hang on our fine NY walls), the single kate would set us back only US$145,000 plus shipping! For those who are looking for a slightly more affordable and tacky kate colorway, don't forget the Russell Marshall's inventory.

 

If anyone is seriously considering such a purchase, we’ll leave the last word to the subversive artist so many of us admire. With echoes of the Christie’s London kate sale that prompted our very own ishotkatemoss collage, on February 22, 2007, the day after Sotheby’s London sold three Banksy works, all of which soared above their auction estimates and into the six figures, the elusive and anonymous British graffiti artist updated his website with the following image of an auction house:

Observe. Slow Down. Shoot. Submit.

www.ishotkatemoss.com

Photographer Series #14: reashotkatemoss

Rea Chen is a graduate from The China Academy of Art where she majored in printmaking. She recently moved to New York where she is undertaking her MFA at Parsons The New School.

Some of Rea's kites in her studio

While visiting Parsons we found her studio walls inundated with kites and knew she was a natural fit for ishotkatemoss. 

Each kite had a recognizable image (including the Queen, an Oscar statuette, Steve Jobs, Audrey Hepburn, Stephen Hawking, The Beatles etc.) wrapped around a bamboo frame, with beautiful ribbons adorning the sides and tail.

Rea descrices her art as "doubting the function and the formats of icons and finding the real value beyond the idol as symbol". She explores these themes by critiquing the extreme conditions in which iconography is found, while also trying to create balance in the possibilities of viewing such symbols.

iskm: Can you explain your project?

Rea Chen (RC): There are two backgrounds to the kite project. The first is a reference to the Basant Kite Festival, which has recently been abandoned in Pakistan. A potential reason for the cancellation is due to extreme Muslims not allowing the Festival to take place. I see this situation as so- called "extreme aniconism". The other reference is the Reenaction of Crucifixion in the Philippines and Mexico. At these reenactions many disciples experience a real crucifixion on every Good Friday. They have, in theory, a similar experience of Jesus, but they will get off from the cross at a point in the process and then repeat the action again next year. I describe it as "extreme idolism".

My hope is to reorganize the Basant Kite Festival, but in New York with uniquely constructed kites.

iskm: How do you build the kites? 
RC: I choose to build the kites using the core structure of a diamond kite, which has a cross beneath the kite paper, as its making process is similar to that of a crucifix. I use light materials to build the kites: bamboo sticks to build the structure, and I print the images onto rice paper. I affix the images onto the cross then I use a needle to stick through the left and right angles of the paper, let the string cross the two holes and make the spar bow. This process reminds me of the hanging and nailing of Jesus onto the cross. To complete the kite, I add the ribbons and lastly, I tie the string to be held when flying the kite.

 

iskm: Why do you select the images you do to put on the kites?

RC: I choose images of all kinds of western idols from Google searches. In the US, beliefs coexist and people can believe whatever they want. People should have the freedom to choose their beliefs. I feel that building the modern idols into kites and then letting people fly them is like worshiping and controlling some beliefs to critique the "extreme aniconism". However, I foresee the kites will fall down, get entangled and the images will be broken and the structures will be damaged. This part is to doubt the real function of idols, and critique the "extreme idolism".

iskm: After discovering the iskm project, Rea constructed a kate kite and photographed its flight:

iskm: Why did you select the source kate image that you did?

A cropped version of Rheims' photograph

RC: I chose a topless photo of Kate used in a worldwide ad campaign, which was taken when she was 16, by the French photographer Bettina Rheims*. Bettina has said that she shoots for the famous female superstars, to give them what they want. However, for an unconfident young girl, I question the validity of this and would expect that the girl would have a great deal of fear. After investigating, I found that Kate said she was pressured into showing her nude body, 'I'd lock myself in the toilet and cry'. She indicated that after this, her first nude shoot, she experienced a long 'nervous breakdown' and she cried for years and years. I felt that this is the real crucifixion of her, the mass show of her on all fashion media. She has to be hung on the cross, to face watching eyes with complex emotions. Kate became the world’s supermodel not only on her own, but also through a series of social selections - by others who control the kite string, to make her fly high or fall down. Even though she said she regretted doing the 1992 photo shoot that helped skyrocket her to fame, she became resigned and said 'I didn't like it, but it was work, and I had to do it'. There appeared to be a lack of anyone providing support or mental care and I can feel something through her eyes as if to say ‘To be or not to be?’.

iskm: Is there any reason the ribbon is red for kate?

RC: I use black ribbon for all, but for Jesus I utilized red ribbon, as the symbol of blood. I also used the red for Kate as I think she was crucified by the photographer and sanctified in the fashion industry.

iskm: Where did you fly the kite? Did you choose the locations for any special reason?

RC: I flew the kite along Fifth Ave; from the Parsons school, famous for its fashion major, down 5th Ave past the retail stores, to Central Park - where it finally became entangled by the tree branches. It meant flying the kite from the starting point of learning, through the fashion commerce and ultimately to the central destination of New York, the world’s hub for arts and entertainment.

 

iskm: How did people react?

RC: It was a little difficult to fly on NY streets because of the crowded conditions. Also, sometimes the kite string was entangled with pedestrians, which was a little bit dangerous. Some people took shots of it, and one policeman came to me. I thought I was in trouble but he appreciated that it was a lovely kite and it flew so well! He also asked who was on it, and I replied that it was Kate Moss and he let me continue. Many people looked up at the kite while I was walking, especially children.

 

iskm: Want happened to the kite? Did you leave it entangled in the trees?
RC: It was entangled on the branch in a very high place, I could do nothing but cut the string. I’m not sure how it is now, maybe it’s still there washed by the rain and snow, or it has fallen down and been swept away.
 

iskm: Do you intend to fly all of the kites together? If so, when?

RC: I’m still working on organizing the kite festival here in NY, but the date has not been decided as yet. It will depend on the weather, so more than likely we will need to wait for the spring.

iskm: Which photographer/s or artist/s would you most want to most see involved in ishotkatemoss? Why?

RC: I’d love to have seen Frida Kahlo interpret this project, because her own life was a beautiful appearance with strong torment inside, playing her role. In a strange way, I feel that there’s so much in common between the representations of both Frida and Kate.

iskm: A brief note that Rea returned to China over the winter break and we had great difficulty conducting portions of this interview as her email account was blocked. She commented during the process:

RC: Sorry for the block of instagram, facebook and google. I really feel helpless without the ability to be in contact with my friends.

It was a stark reminder, especially in the wake of our recent commentary on freedom of expression, that censorship often limits our ability to create an open, creative and positive dialogue.

If you are interested in learning more about the festival or even assisting Rea, she can be found on Facebook or via instagram where her handle is “chenhuiji”.

And, only as we will never have the chance to ever say this again: reashotkitemoss!

Observe. Slow Down. Fly. Shoot. Submit.

www.ishotkatemoss.com

* This image is not readily available on the internet as it breaches the code of conduct of many sites, due to the fact that it shows an underage girl naked. iskm has chosen to display the image cropped. We wholeheartedly support Rea Chen's use of the photograph within her artistic process due to the fact that she is specifically commenting on the way the image had been taken, promoted and used. However, we endorse censorship of images that depict and/or promote the sexual exploitation of children.

Satire Lives

Text from Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker January 19, 2015 issue, interspersed with some cartoons and illustrations from around the world in response to the recent happenings in Paris:

Dave Brown, The Independent, UK

The staff of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, massacred in an act that shocked the world last week, were not the gentle daily satirists of American editorial cartooning. Nor were they anything like the ironic observers and comedians of manners most often to be found in our own beloved stable here at The New Yorker. (Though, to be sure, the covers of this magazine have startled a few readers and started a few fights.) They worked instead in a peculiarly French and savage tradition, forged in a long nineteenth-century guerrilla war between republicans and the Church and the monarchy. There are satirical magazines and “name” cartoonists in London and other European capitals, particularly Brussels, but they tend to be artier in touch and more media-centric in concern. Charlie Hebdo was—will be again, let us hope—a satirical journal of a kind these days found in France almost alone. Not at all meta or ironic, like The Onion, or a place for political gossip, like the Paris weekly Le Canard Enchaîné or London’s Private Eye, it kept alive the nineteenth-century style of direct, high-spirited, and extremely outrageous caricature—a tradition begun by now legendary caricaturists, like Honoré Daumier and his editor Charles Philipon, who drew the head of King Louis-Philippe as a pear and, in 1831, was put on trial for lèse-majesté.

Lucille Clerc (not Banksy), French

Philipon’s famous faux-naïf demonstration of the process of caricature still brings home the almost primitive kind of image magic that clings to the act of cartooning. In what way was he guilty, Philipon demanded to know, since the King’s head was pear-shaped, and how could merely simplifying it to its outline be viewed as an attack? The coarser and more scabrous cartoons that marked the covers of Charlie Hebdo—and took in Jesus and Moses, along with Muhammad; angry rabbis and ranting bishops, along with imams—were the latest example of that tradition. In the era of the Internet, when images proliferate, merge, and alter in an Adobe second, one would think that the power of a simple, graffiti-like scrawl was minimal. Indeed, analysts of images and their life have been telling us for years that this sort of reaction couldn’t happen anymore—that the omnipresence of images meant they could not offend, that their meanings and their capacity to shock were enfeebled by repetition and availability. Even as the Islamist murderers struck in Paris, some media-studies maven in a liberal-arts college was doubtless explaining that the difference between our time and times past is that the ubiquity of images benumbs us and their proliferation makes us indifferent. Well, not quite. It is the images that enrage; many things drove the fanatics to their act, but it was cartoons they chose to fixate on. Drawings are handmade, the living sign of an ornery human intention, rearing up against a piety.

Michael de Adder, Canada

For those who recall Charlie Hebdo as it really, rankly was, the act of turning its murdered cartoonists into pawns in a game of another kind of public piety—making them martyrs, misunderstood messengers of the right to free expression—seems to risk betraying their memory. Wolinski, Cabu, Honoré: like soccer players in Brazil, each was known in France by a single name. A small irreverent smile comes to the lips at the thought of the flag being lowered, as it was throughout France last week, for these anarchist mischief-makers, and they would surely have roared at the irony of being solemnly mourned and marched for by former President Nicolas Sarkozy and the current President, François Hollande. The cartoonists didn’t just mock those men’s politics; they regularly amplified their sexual appetites and diminished their sexual appurtenances. It is wonderful to see Pope Francis condemning the horror, but also worth remembering that magazine’s special Christmas issue, titled “The True Story of Baby Jesus,” whose cover bore a drawing of a startled Mary giving notably frontal birth to her child. (Did the Pope see it?)

David Pope, The Canberra Times, Australia

Nor was it only people’s pieties that the cartoonists liked to tweak. Georges Wolinski, eighty years old, born of a Polish Jewish father and a Tunisian Jewish mother, caused a kerfuffle two years ago by creating a poster—for the Communist Party, no less—in favor of early retirement, which showed a happily retired man grabbing the rear ends of two apparently compliant miniskirted women. “Life Begins at Sixty” was the jaunty caption. Yet Wolinski, for all his provocations, was a life-affirming and broadly cultured bon vivant, who became something of an institution; in 2005, he was awarded the Légion d’ Honneur, the highest French decoration.

In recent years, Charlie Hebdo has had to scrabble for money. It gets lots of attention, but satirical magazines of opinion are no easier to finance in France than they are in America. Still, Wolinski and his confederates represented the true Rabelaisian spirit of French civilization, in their acceptance of human appetite and their contempt for false high-mindedness of any kind, including the secular high-mindedness that liberal-minded people hold dear. The magazine was offensive to Jews, offensive to Muslims, offensive to Catholics, offensive to feminists, offensive to the right and to the left, while being aligned with it—offensive to everybody, equally. (The name Charlie Hebdo came into being, in part, in response to a government ban that had put an earlier version of the magazine out of business; it was both a tribute to Charlie Brown and a mockery of Charles de Gaulle.)

Magnus Shaw, UK

The right to mock and to blaspheme and to make religions and politicians and bien-pensants all look ridiculous was what the magazine held dear, and it is what its cartoonists were killed for—and we diminish their sacrifice if we give their actions shelter in another kind of piety or make them seem too noble, when what they pursued was the joy of ignobility.

As the week came to its grim end, with the assassins dead and several hostages—taken not by chance in a kosher grocery store—dead, too, one’s thoughts turned again to the inextinguishable French tradition of dissent, the tradition of Zola, sustained through so much violence and so many civic commotions. “Nothing Sacred” was the motto on the banner of the cartoonists who died, and who were under what turned out to be the tragic illusion that the Republic could protect them from the wrath of faith. “Nothing Sacred”: we forget at our ease, sometimes, and in the pleasure of shared laughter, just how noble and hard-won this motto can be.

Observed ... www.ishotkatemoss.com

A Pledge of Allegiance

It is that time of year, where we take stock and reflect. More specifically, here at this blog, on the state of "art", the images we see every day and why iskm is pursuing what we do.

This time last year the Critic's Manifesto was front and center and served as inspiration. This year, a different manifesto, a pledge in fact:

"The feeling of new art is fugitive ... here for the moment, gone forever. It's only truly valuable before it's surrounded by the mystique of money, while it's still owned by culture, before it becomes booty." from Rene Ricard's Pledge of Allegiance published in Artforum, November 1982.

Art does need to be fugitive.

We like the idea and notion of the ishotkatemoss collage as fugitive ... and see a parallel to the Christie's London auction as further stark evidence of kate's image as booty, creeping from the commercial realm to the perceived artistic. Case in point, Mario Sorrenti's 1992 image of a certain booty, that had been used in an advertising campaign for a cologne:

This image sold at the Christie's auction for £49,875 (approx. $80,000), a world record price for this "artist".

Art is valuable before it's surrounded by the mystique of money ...

At which point the art is cologne ... "like a bad smell, the image lingers" ... and becomes booty.

So, Happy New Year. Let's go shoot kate.

Observe. Slow Down. Shoot. Submit.

www.ishotkatemoss.com

Sting like a bee

Manipulating Glen Luchford's boxing kate image this Dec.26th:

"The man who has no imagination has no wings" Muhammad Ali

Observe. Slow Down. Shoot. Submit.

www.ishotkatemoss.com

From 58 images to 100 posts

To mark our 100th blog post we thought we would revisit the 58 selected images that launched the ishotkatemoss collage.

Zev Jonas' 58 images installed in his studio

These images were captured on film as in-camera montages of layered media we are surrounded by in public spaces.

"I am interested in how we exhibit, view and mass-produce images of each other and how these often carbon copied representations become individualized - by the effects of time and location - and interpreted. Looking towards the decay of a romantic portrayal of ourselves, I find a fascination with the distinct lack of control we have over what happens to images over time. As the human visage is constantly repeated, systemized and codified I believe that our perception is altered.

My vision regarding the presentation of these photographs was in a moving, changing and ever-growing collage – allowing for constant movement and change based on the speed of our interaction. I believe that if we slow down, particularly in today's fast-paced world of constant bombardment, we will experience and see the image, the change and the impact on ourselves so much more clearly. We experience one face in so many different forms and shapes that we become desensitized. As a result we stop seeing the transformation to who we are, beyond the superficial layers.

Some of Mr.Phomer's contributions

It was deemed that kate moss was the perfect subject to explore this theme given that her image is one of the most reproduced representations, used to market and commercialize the idea of beauty and now ‘art’, in modern history.

After being bombarded by the deteriorating wheat-paste posters and learning of the Christie’s auction I felt haunted and stalked by kate’s image. It became overbearing and I couldn’t stop seeing her ever-changing face. As I explored sources to express myself, I felt a frustration that there was not a coherent forum in which to discuss such a dialogue on the array of topics I believed relevant.

I felt that my own art was not, unto itself, a satisfactory outlet in which to address these issues as I wanted to, and feel as though I am being successful, in creating a conversation amongst and between the artist, the consumer and the viewer in all of us.

Am I a pretty girl? SpongeBob

The impact of societal expectations regarding celebrity, privacy, sexuality and commercialization I hope makes this blog’s dialogue relevant to all. Such a discussion is readily available given kate is the most recognizable model on the planet. The fact that she has been turned into an object of/for ‘art’ allows us to turn the conversation towards appropriation, copyright and artistic interpretation – thereby allowing art photography to respond to commercial photography. We are therefore writing about, while fostering, the practice of image making and the visual impact of the pictures on all of us." Zev Jonas

Observe. Slow Down. Shoot. Submit.

www.ishotkatemoss.com

Moisturize

A found crinkle kate:

Observe. Slow Down. Shoot. Submit.

www.ishotkatemoss.com

A supreme cult of personality

How hard do you need to try to get a submission into ishotkatemoss? We count more than 500 photos being taken in less than a minute:

Please note that the person in this video is not kate but someone apparently of great importance i.e. a celebrity who is, according to the providers of our news, a pal of kate and who "regularly parties in the same circles in London".

To be clear, it is our belief that all of the people were clamoring over themselves to get an image included in the iskm collage ... so without any further ado, and after all of that effort, here is the selected submission:

Congratulations paparazzi #3 for being chosen for your artistic efforts!

Of course paparazzi's want to Shoot.

Now, if we could just get them to SLOW DOWN and Observe something of relevance before Submitting.

www.ishotkatemoss.com

Obstinate, like a moss

Sent to iskm yesterday - originally from Phomer via The Poularde:

A brilliant intake and outtake from "habitual masticatory exercises"!

Observe. Slow down. Shoot. Submit.

www.ishotkatemoss.com

Thin

During an interview with a fashion magazine in 2009 when answering the question: "Do you have any mottos?" kate answered “Nothing tastes as good skinny feels”. Her response - quite rightly - spawned a slew of complaints from body image campaigners, who claimed that such a statement encouraged eating disorders.

While walking through the streets of NY last night, observing just protestors, something out-of-place was observed in a trash can.

Walking towards the trash can ...

At first it was the red mask that caught our attention. Then something else ...

Upon closer inspection it appeared to be a student’s art project that had been abandoned. 

This is probably iskm’s most disheartening submission to the project. Not only have we always been offended by the idea of kate and her language promoting negative body image, but given that 5 years on her words still resonate is so problematic.

The fact that this student decided to give up on such an effort is disconcerting. iskm’s hope is that this artist not only has the opportunity to have a forum through this project to explore more deeply this topic but also that they have the strength of conviction to find their voice.

We are going to see if we can find the creator of this work given the trash can's proximity to a nearby college … in the meantime, all iskm can do is point you towards Thin, a powerful project by Lauren Greenfield.

Observe. Slow Down. Shoot. Submit.

www.ishotkatemoss.com

Buy Buy

A wonderful submission received today, apparently taken in a physical store (don't you know it is Cyber Monday and you are supposed to be shopping from your computers people!?!)

Observe. Slow Down. Shoot. Submit.

www.ishotkatemoss.com

insta-kate

Finally, for your viewing pleasure on instagram: 

#ishotkatemoss

Follow. Observe. Slow Down. Shoot. Submit.

www.ishotkatemoss.com

Photographer Series #13: greggshotkatemoss

Gregg LeFevre has used text and images to create over 200 site-specific public art works that provide insight about the nature and character of particular places. His cast bronze insets can be found underfoot, set in the paving of all types of pedestrian spaces in numerous American cities including NYC, Miami, Chicago, Boston, Las Vegas, Seattle and LA.

LeFevre's Edison inset, Trenton, NJ

Having worked “in the streets” as a sculptor, it was natural for LeFevre to begin a parallel career as a street photographer in the early 1990’s. His most important photographic series deals with the role of figurative advertising in the urban landscape. He is especially drawn to documenting what happens when “the photographic fantasies of the advertising world meet the reality of street life in urban centers” … a perfect fit for ishotkatemoss!

iskm: Do you identify yourself as a "street photographer"?

Gregg LeFevre (GLF): I would identify myself as a photographer with a street photography habit. I try to shoot what I see as a dialogue between the advertisers and the city itself: it’s people, it’s artists, it’s installers, it’s construction companies, it’s public works departments, it’s insane people, it’s animal life, then the wind, weather and other random occurrences.

iskm: How/why do you select the source images you choose to photograph?

GLF: I always travel through the city with my camera. Part of what I do is encyclopedic in that I often shoot different examples of the same thing. For example, balloons, homeless people’s carts, spilled paint, chains, pictures of celebrities etc. But outdoor advertisements are for me the richest subject as there are so many levels of interaction, and mediation and transformation of meaning.

LeFevre’s photographic representations document another layer of the sculptural elements within the urban landscape. When asked about kate specifically, he forwarded more than 20 recent images - which are now included in the iskm collage - so it was fascinating for iskm to consider his use of her ever-present visage.

Untitled, Gregg LeFevre's Kate Moss

iskm: Why did you shoot the kate moss images?

GLF: I have shot series of many celebrity and model ads: Kate Moss, Lady Gaga, Mike Tyson, J.Lo, etc. I am drawn to all the myriad things that can happen to an outdoor ad, and because I always carry a camera, I shoot every ad that I see of a particular personality, then later I sort them into categories, and choose my favorites in each.

iskm: Some of your favored kate images have been doctored by others. Why are you particularly attracted to the way other people/artists have changed what we would have seen? 

GLF: I do see a dialogue between the advertisers and the city, including the citizens of the city. People respond to ads in very different ways, and when they choose to interact by way of altering an ad, these differences create all sorts of interesting scenarios and elaborations. And of course ads do the same - over and over I have shot ads that contain imagery drawn from the graffiti and street art world. For example there are ads that feature torn away sections, as if they were savaged by someone, or ads that have printed graffiti as part of the ad. One type of situation that I shoot, I call blockheads, where a sticker artist has pasted a sticker, often rectangular over the face featured in an ad. Recently I found an ad campaign on the street doing exactly the same thing, only what appeared to be the sticker art, was actually a sticker printed within the original advertisement.

Untitled, Gregg LeFevre's Kate Moss

iskm: By you 'capturing' it do you feel it is a formal acknowledgement of other's work, which is passing? Do you see this as another form of appropriation?

GLF: I don’t consciously acknowledge their work, but looking at the dialogue they create does highlight their creative participation. And I am definitely appropriating their work. I also have a series of graffiti shots where I have cropped sections of graffiti and street art that reference or look like different established artist’s works. I call it the “Homage Series” and I’ve found various passages in street work that look just like Picasso, Basquiat, Guston, Cristo, Franz Kline and many, many others.

iskm: You title your web site "Unmanipulated" and the portfolio which includes kate "Aberrant Imagery". Can you explain why you use this language?

GLF: “Unmanipulated” is the title of my site because I want to stress that these are documentary images, and not images that have been created by using Photoshop, or other image manipulation programs. “Aberrant Imagery” is just that, because of what the actions of various actors in the urban landscape have visited upon advertising images.

Untitled, Gregg LeFevre's Kate Moss

iskm: How do you feel your approach to photography/art making affected your kate work? Do you see her all the time as a subject?

GLF: Kate Moss seems to have had several resurgences as a presence in the street advertising world. She’s reinvented herself so many times that she’s right back from where she started.

iskm: Do you see your work photographing altered advertisements as a natural progression in the lineage of "street photography"?

GLF: While I am aware of past street photography, I have not in any conscious way tried to extend or align my work with that of past photographers. I am not trying to represent today’s culture, but rather the dialogue, which has existed as long as advertising has been around. Yet by doing so, I am using ads, that when looked at in the future, will be seen to reflect the culture of today.

iskm: Which photographer/s would you most want to most see involved in ishotkatemoss?

GLF: Edward Burtynsky, Gursky, Struth, Brassai, Atget - are all photographers that I admire who made social comments, sometimes very subtle, with their photography. Burtynsky, for example shot an amazing series on the destruction of derelict super tankers, cut apart on the beaches of Bangladesh by boys and young men wearing no protective clothing or headgear. While some of the shots are breathtakingly beautiful, they are also social criticism on several levels: how wasteful and ill fated the world's oil industry is, and how little it values human life. I think Burtynsky would turn a keen eye toward the world of consumer advertising, and its super models.

More of Gregg’s work, including the arresting portfolio Aberrant Imagery, can be seen at gregglefevre.com and while walking the streets of NY; his images are currently in the entryway to the Four Seasons restaurant and the windows of the Gourmet Garage plus his sculptures are intertwined in this fair city's sidewalks.

So keep your eyes peeled and as you walk past those distorted advertisements, just like Gregg:

Untitled, Gregg LeFevre's Kate Moss

Observe. Slow Down. Shoot. Submit.

www.ishotkatemoss.com

Photographer Series #12: meghannshotkatemoss

Meghann Riepenhoff recently visited New York from her home in San Francisco in order to attend an opening of her own exhibition, Littoral Drift, at Foley Gallery. This body of work was selected, by curator Charlotte Cotton, as the winning portfolio for the Camera Club of New York’s 2014 Annual Juried Exhibition.

Littoral Drift #05, Two Waves

Littoral Drift is a series of camera-less cyanotypes made in the landscape via submerging paper in bodies of water, burying it in sand and exposing in sunlight. These stunning pieces are examples of the way in which Meghann engages a breadth of photographic technologies, transforming “mundane detritus and alter processes to recall telescopic and microscopic views”. In doing so she considers the relationship between the insignificant and the immense, the sublime, impermanence, and the role photography plays in mediating the human experience.

Meghann’s work has been widely exhibited and published. After learning of ishotkatemoss, she quickly expressed an interest in exploring and collaborating with the project. This was intriguing as her work is ethereal, she has created celestial landscapes and spectacular galaxies. In many respects, we were trying to disassociate and dismiss the view of kate, and the ideas of model perfection, as ‘celestial bodies’. Why was she so fascinated by what iskm was doing?

Meghann Riepenhoff  (MR): I'm interested in manipulating processes and materials in fairly simple, yet often previously unconsidered ways. In reconsidering the prescribed ways we relate to media and tools, there is often a revelation around potential, what is/was unseen, and how large of a mystery in which we exist. iskm does this from a completely different, yet relatable, perspective.

iskm: How do you approach a subject such as kate?

MR: A friend and I were talking about Kate Moss and she described her as 'shape shifty' because the photographic representation of her is so varied and even disparate. I thought about the ways identities exist in layers, and how we attempt to articulate or impose them via media. I also thought about the Buddhist 'no-self' theory, where conditioning shapes beliefs we have about self, perception, existence, etc. Images are perhaps the most powerful tools we have for shaping perception, and so I wanted to use leading image technology to play with a picture of Kate I extracted from Aperture's most recent magazine.

Untitled (ishotkatemoss); video still

iskm: Why did you utilize the image that Aperture highlighted in its “Fashion” edition?

MR: My choice was not necessarily about specific content from the “Fashion” edition, but more generally about the mediating nature of context. A publication like Aperture can position an image in a way that is different than any other magazine, and yet the nature of weighting (intentionally or inadvertently) an image is not unique. Stephen Shore described the photographic print as "an object" with "its own life in the world” and explored the implications of a print winding up "in a shoebox or in a museum". So there’s this understanding that a photograph has a life, and changes meaning given context, time, viewership, etc. … and that the experience of a photograph is collaborative, with what it encounters contributing to defining its existence. Also there is the nature of photography itself, which is a constantly evolving medium that regularly redefines itself with technologies and new applications of ideas. 

iskm: What did you to your chosen Kate Moss images and why?

MR: I like to have a certain irreverence toward materials and tools in my practice, to use them in ways not prescribed, in hopes of generating new kinds of results. I also have a love for DIY, low-fi, and residue of process. For iskm, I used a really basic Photoshop tool and simply played with layer opacity. Then I recorded a video of this shifting image with my phone, which I’d propped on my computer with a stack of Post-its before capturing a video still for the iskm collage. When I first learned about iskm, I loved that it teetered on the line of serious and playful, rigorous and casual. In my practice and with this piece, I want the tools I use to be relevant to the subject matter and tone. So for Kate, Photoshop and a Post-it tripod were obvious choices.

Here is Meghann's Untitled (ishotkatemoss) video:

iskm: Have you worked with video before?

MR: I have and actually made a video that, very much like the Kate piece, slowly oscillated between two similar images. It was called 'Athens 4am' and depicted a view looking out of a window onto moonlit, bare wintery trees. The focus shifted from the distant trees to the pane of the window, where condensation had collected on the glass. The change was almost imperceptible, but there was never a stasis moment, where change wasn’t happening. Applying a similar approach to Kate seemed in line with the ideas driving this piece.

iskm: How do you feel your approach to photography/art making affected your kate moss work?
MR: I love scientific imagery for the reason that I believe science is constantly revealing just how little we know. Each new image of the cosmos or nano particles reveals that what we previously saw, and therefore believed, is in a state of constant unknown. With Kate, I applied this same curiosity around both the tools and the idea of identity of a thing that is in flux, illusory, and perhaps a disappearing concept all together. 

iskm: Which photographer/s would you most want to most see involved in iskm?

MR: Walead Beshty because I love his banal process that creates literal traces, and yet the image quality transcends that. The crumpled cyanotypes and photograms feel like exquisite representations of some intricate system or place however they're just crumpled paper and light. There's something really smart about his work in how simple the treatment is. 

Also I’m part of this really kickass group called Library Candy and I’d love to see each of those artists (Eric William Carroll, McNair Evans, Lucas Foglia, Jason Fulford, Katy Grannan, Chris McCaw, Richard Misrach, Nigel Poor) respond to ishotkatemoss.

iskm: Thanks so much Meghann.

MR: This was fun.

More of Meghann’s stunning work can be seen at www.meghannriepenhoff.com. Over to you Library Candy!

Observe. Slow Down. Shoot. Submit. 

www.ishotkatemoss.com