From “Past Paper//Present Marks,” published by Radius Books. (Jennifer Garza-Cuen and Odette England)
These photograms made in Robert Rauschenberg’s pool contain multitudes
Perspective by Kenneth Dickerman
Photo assignment editor
July 13, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
For the last four months or so, I’ve been in a bit of a funk. The brutal news cycle detailing global unrest and domestic discord has eaten away at any sense of tranquility I had. Everything seems jumbled, upside down, nonsensical.
I’m just now starting to peek out of the funk. And one of the things I’ve found to be supremely helpful is taking respite in beautiful things — or things that I can get lost in, that carry me away into a sense of reverie. The book “Past Paper // Present Marks” (Radius, 2022) by artists Jennifer Garza-Cuen and Odette England is one of the books I’ve taken some refuge in.
The book itself is gorgeous, which only boosts the pleasure you’ll get while flipping through its pages. But the content (I hate that word!) borders on the sublime. It’s a collection of photograms — or photographic images produced without a camera — made in legendary artist Robert Rauschenberg’s swimming pool at his Florida home.
The images are experimental visions of wonder. Garza-Cuen and England made them in 2018 as part of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency in Captiva, Fla.
….. Read the full article HERE
You can read more about the book and purchase it on the publisher’s website, here.
Alternative Approaches
This afternoon was the seventh day of a three week study abroad course in Prague, Cz. My seven students and myself along with our expat guide to the local outdoor life and foraging culture took the tram home and discussed everything from politics to dogs to our affection for Czech public transportation. Before settling into a bath to wash off the day and before going out to a bar for a poetry night named for a literary reference to Philip K. Dick, I happened upon this article written by Kenneth Dickerman that concerned photo books and photograms.
It has been challenging to organize a course around a particular theme knowing nothing really other than what I’ve been told about our host country and feeling relieved and surprised when come to find out that Prague has a rich and romanced history with the photograph and photographers throughout its history…. the little that I am aware of, to be sure.
This course has been the ultimate lesson in flipping the classroom. The course materials I worked to build online for months and weeks up to the last few days before departing sit untouched in our online shell and the usual ease with which I am able to access my teaching tools both online and otherwise are either missing or just really don’t feel like they ‘fit’ for the class. The readings, topics, videos, etc. are, of course, relevant, and some students are able to find time in our busy schedule to review or work ahead and add to their experience, but I’ve been honest with them and have said that our job here is to learn through experience.
Experiential learning is the ultimate hands-on and the greatest test of a student, at any level, finding comfort in the release of control over outcomes or seeing over the hill at what lies ahead on their path. It is totally uncomfortable as a teacher and for some students creates new opportunities to stretch and flex into the line between what they know what they expect to know and what they actually are presented with.
My own experience here has been that the usual touch points of assignments, regular, documented discussions and other ways in which students get ‘official’ feedback from the instructor don’t serve the students and therefore, I’m not using them for this class. We have two main assignments that will come out of this class and the whole enchilada depends on whether or not they do the work and move through the process as they experience - writing in their visual journals, making videos, voice notes and of course, images to chronicle their journey. Prompts help propel them but our activities hopefully give them opportunities and inspire.
The other assignment that is essential to this course is a collaborative photo book. My temptation today, after reading this article, was to post a link to the class and ask them to read it. However, I paused, wondering if it was actually useful for them to have one more thing to do before their weekend arrives.
I’m realizing that this book “Past Paper//Present Marks,” is relevant to the students in that it is another example of a photo book and therefore a good model by which to gauge their own content and design. It is also relevant to me and my own process. It has, for three years now, been really too much to ask that I make work. I’ve been simply teaching - ha ha - simply - no, I’ve been grinding and clawing my way towards teaching to students online, remotely and without the returns of getting to facilitate their work as they make it and celebrate their accomplishments in person.
This has been a real privilege to both teach as well as travel with this group of students and there is something in the approach that artists Jennifer Garza-Cuen and Odette England took towards the access they had to Robert Rauschenberg’s photographic supplies and home. Their use of the materials and the very specificity of the space in which them made the images seems to be a photographic record in a way that cuts and peels the process of photography back to its purest form.
Photography for early students is all about controlling variables and making precise decisions until the foundations are practiced and results are predictable. Photography is also the practice of taking that foundation and understanding of the precision, the chemistry, the variables and how to control them - and then throwing it all out the window and using expired film, paper, unpredictable light. It’s also about allowing chance and chaos and oblique strategies influence this precise and controlled field in way that only those with that strong foundation can - knowing that something will happen - but not knowing what.
The magic for me in photography is that there is a tremendous freedom from control for those who are receptive to it - an uncertainty that can be produced though setting things up so that the conditions are right for the unknown to breath and thrive.
Photography is always a reflection of ourselves, the photographer as well as ourselves, the viewer. In the case of the photograms made by England and Garza-Chuen, as they wrote, “ set them free in Bob’s pool///….accumulating itinerant light swimming through salt water ///“
Releasing our attachment to the outcomes is a beautiful thing