Icarus Also Flew

Art Gallery Opening + Reception | January 20, 6-9pm | Chicago, IL

Five of Dave's art pieces will be featured in a group show at the Chicago Artists Coalition gallery. The opening reception will be January 20, from 6-9pm at 217 N Carpenter, Chicago IL. We'll be there and would love to have you all stop by.

Official press relase below: 

In collaboration with CAC's Hatch Projects, Twelve Galleries Project presents Quarterly Site #9: Support curated by female design collective Quite Strong. The exhibition showcases two communities of visual creatives-HATCH Projects artists and Quite Strong Lust List designers.   Featuring:   Installations by HATCH Projects Artists - Marissa Lee Benedict/ Amanda Greive / Renee Prisble / Brittany Ransom / David Wittig / Jim Zimpel    Art and design works by Quite Strong Lust List Designers -   Alanna MacGowan / Cave Party Collective / Firebelly Design / Elaine Fong / José Scaglione / Julia Stotz / Katherine Verhoeven / Linsey Burritt / Margot Harrington / Monina Velarde / Nancy A. Bernardo / Nancy McCabe / Nicole Lavelle / Renata Graw / Tinne Van Loon / Tonya Douraghy / Veronica Corzo-Duchardt / Veronika Burian / Zara Picken   Together, HATCH Projects, an initiative of CAC focusing on contemporary art and professional artist development, Quite Strong, a collective fostering the overlap of art and design cultures, and Twelve Galleries Project, a roving curatorial experiment exploring collaborative exhibition models, can reap benefits for the Chicago creative experience. Each respective group challenges its members to step outside their immediate communities to seek vast and varied perspectives and experiences. The result: the facilitation and implementation of a support system beyond what is merely essential and into territory that is rich and rewarding. In essence, Quarterly Site #9: Support connects the "support" theme central to the missions of Hatch Projects, Quite Strong and Twelve Galleries Project and to the success of artists of all kinds.   For more information please visit: HATCH Projects http://support.quitestrong.com/ http://www.twelvegalleriesproject.org/quarterly-site-9

 

Currently on view at the Coalition Gallery

If you have a chance, I invite you to come see one of my pieces from the Beware of Jet series in person. The 60x40" print is part of the the Pine Feather Period group show at the Chicago Artists' Coalition Gallery in the West Loop (217 N Carpenter to be exact). The show was currated by Jeff Ward and will be up until January 13, 2012. More info is available on their website. 

Elan - the Polaroids

 
  
 

Naked Portrait

This is actually the very last frame from a recent shoot. While the best images from a shoot almost always come towards the end, I don't know that I've ever concluded at such a marked apex, but really what else was there to say?

Skins?

Though I'm often at a loss for words when talking about my work, I have especially not found the words to talk about this series. I lack even a proper title for them. Ironically, I suspect they might be in more need of some context than a lot of my other work. All I can say for now is that they are all detail shots of aircraft...and that not only can the devil be found in the details, but it is probably also where genius and beauty are found - perhaps even their point of origin. 

The photos are purposefully devoid of details that will identify them to anybody except a those who are intimitaly aquainted with each particular aircraft: engineers who meticulously planned the placement of each seam, workers who placed each rivet, and the pilots and mechanics that noticed the gradual but indelibe marks left by invisible forces (time, gravity, air). I suspect some, if not all of them, also saw some beauty in all that and struggled to explain to others why it was all so beautiful. If succesful, these photo perhaps can serve as a bridge.

Though the contraints of this medium obviously force me to display them all together, try to look at each one alone, and consider it seperate from the rest.

on work

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do."
                                                                                                                          -Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

On photography's conflict with realism

I was reading an inteview with photographer RIchard Mosse, and came accross this brilliant articulation of something that is central to my own photographic work, though it greatly differs from Mosse's both in subject and aesthetic:

In my practice, I struggle with the challenge of representing abstract or contingent phenomena. The camera's dumb optic is intensely literal, yet the world is far from being simple or transparent. Air disasters, terrorism, the simulated nature of modern warfare, the cultural interface between an occupying force and its enemy, the martyr drive in Islamic extremism, the intagibility of Eastern Congo's conflict - these are all subjects that are very difficult to express with traditional documentary realism; they are difficult to perceive in their own right. Very often I am fighting simply to represent the subject, just to find a way to put it before the lens, or make it visible by its very absence. This process is inherently "Romantic" because it often requires a retreat into my own imagination, into my own symbolic order.

The rest of the interview is also excellent and I recommend you read it. It can be found in the Summer 2011 issue of Aperture, p52.

Earthbound

MacKenzie - the Polaroids

The first five images are unusually formal for me, but I have to admit it's rather satisfying to flirt with a different tradition and walk away with some images I'm proud of.
A big thanks to Mackenzie for her fantastic work, braving the long hike, the cold, and the mysterious tall dark sand creatures. These images also wouldn't exist but for Jeff Youngren's generous assistance and fantastic local knowledge. (He can also hold more drying Polaroids in one hand than anyone else I know). 
 

Meagan and a Red Dress (the Polaroids)

I've delayed posting my images from my growing body of polaroid work because I've been planning to first post my instant-film manifesto. But since the number of polaroids shot now substantially exceeds the number of words written in the manifesto, I think it is time to post some of them, and leave the explanatory essay for another day. 
So, without further ado, here are some polaroids from my second shoot with Meagan.