Brian Ulrich

"Brian Ulrich was born 1971 in Northport, NY. His photographs portraying contemporary consumer culture reside in major museum collections such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

Over the past 10 years I have been engaged with a long-term photographic examination of the peculiarities and complexities of the consumer-dominated culture in which we live. This project titledCopia, explores not only the everyday activities of shopping, but the economic, cultural, social, and political implications of commercialism and the roles we play in self-destruction, over-consumption, and as targets of marketing and advertising.

Initially this project began as a response to the heated environment of 2001. The communal sense of grieving, healing and solidarity that broke down social walls as our nation grappled to make some sense of the tragedy of September 11^th was quickly outpaced as the government encouraged citizens to take to the malls to boost the U.S. economy thereby equating consumerism with patriotism...I promptly became aware that the topic of consumerism dealt with a vast and complexly important part of our lives."

Copia Series
"Thrift"

Untitled 2006

Untitled 2007

Untitled 2007

All these images from Ulrich's series "Copia - Thrift" are all images based in thrift shops around America. All the images taken show the disorganisation, and chaos of typical thrift shops, and the culture of the people who shop there. These three images I felt stood out more to me than any others from the series. They are the most photogenic and aesthetically pleasing photos I found. All of these photographs show the same chaos and lack of order, it is however the lighting, composition and use of colour that helps create the wonderful character and atmosphere of the thrift shops. This is how they in real life, nothing is hidden or altered in these photographs to make them pleasing to the audience, he has used compositions to do this naturally and that is what I find most interesting.

Dominik's 2 2008 - Ulrich

 99 cent 1999 - Gursky

Brian Ulrich and Andreas Gurksy have both photographed about consumerism and have both showed their views and interpretations about the subject. However, these views are very different. From researching both artists, and looking closely at both of their work, I have realised that Ulrich portrays consumerism in a dull, empty, lifeless way, showing the downfall of consumerism and the economic crisis, talking especially about life after 9/11. His project focuses on all the buildings and business that have become bankrupt and those who know have to spend their lives in thrift shops to get by on life. On the other hand, Gursky seems to approach consumerism at a much larger scale, and likes to show that the economy is bursting and is more interested in making large shops and business look bright, colourful and full of life.

Although their views on consumerism seem to differ, I feel that some images for example the image below and the image of Gursky's 99 cent image, are similar in the sense that they are both colour, show some sort of order and pattern, and slightly try and show life in some way.


Untitled 2006 - Ulrich

www.notifbutwhen.com

www.thesegunsdontquit.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/99-cent-store/

Camera as a Gun

The female shooter "La Tireuse" Agnes Geoffray (2005)

Agnès Geoffray is an artist living and working in Paris and Brussels. 
She currently works with photographs and writings.

This image by Agnes Geoffray is called The Female Shooter, and is a single image, not part of a series, that portrays a woman holding a gun. From a first glance we suspect that she is holding the gun, however, as you take a second glance you see that she is in-fact pointing the gun at herself, whilst peering down the barrel of the gun. I did a little research into this image, but unfortunately did not find enough to be certain of why she is doing this. However, I feel as though this is a slightly constructed image and that this is actually a self-portrait. I feel that due to her using herself in the image, and that she is a woman, it adds an impact on the image that this isn't stereotypical and that it is usually the male figure holding the gun. This adds an enigma and invites the audience to question her decision of photographing herself pointing a gun at herself. I looked into some information about herself and her education as I was intrigued that the image was taken in 2005, however looks like a much older photograph. I found it slightly difficult finding technical information, and information about her decisions for other photographs and so on, as no essays or interviews are written down available for me to translate them, I only found a video interview which i could not translate. However, I found out that she left "Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts - Paris, F." in 1997, 16 years ago, which I estimated makes her around 27/28 years old if not slightly older. I felt this made the image a lot more interesting as the medium she used has made the image look older, and her decisions doing this are unknown.

http://www.agnesgeoffray.com/Agnes-Geoffray-CV_a22.html

I used this website to find out the information I needed about Geoffray and her photographic work.