"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 11th 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
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
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.thesegunsdontquit.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/99-cent-store/
No comments:
Post a Comment