Tag Archives: photography

Robert LeBlanc: Trust is Everything

Pau Waelder

LA-based photographer Robert LeBlanc is known for documenting the lives of communities on the fringes of American society in photographic projects that usually take years, as he gains the trust of its members as is allowed to portray them at close distance. Since the publication of his first book, Unlawful Conduct, in 2016, his work has been increasingly on demand, leading to collaborations with mainstream firms and large companies, while also developing his own projects with funding that also comes from launching NFT drops and building a community of collectors around his work.

Fahey-Klein gallery is hosting an exhibition of Robert LeBlanc’s latest project, Gloryland, which is also available as an NFT drop on SuperRare and an artcast curated by Nicholas Fahey on Niio.

Robert LeBlanc. A New America #1 (2014-2022)

You have mentioned skateboarding as the reason why you got into photography. How would you say this experience contributed to shaping the photographer you are today?

I have always said skateboarding saved my life. I grew up in rural Montana, where I had no access to much art or culture, so as a youngster, I would see the world and experience art and culture through the pages of skateboard magazines and skate videos. Then, I started to use a camera when I would go out and skateboard with my friends and document what I would see in the streets when we would be out late skating around. I look back at those times and realize it was my “schooling” on how to navigate the streets, and that really helped develop the skills that honed my ability to access worlds I wouldn’t have normally seen. I firmly believe that skating gave me all the tools I needed to do what I do today. 

Robert LeBlanc. A New America #64(2014-2022)

Your photography projects span several years. What is the process of developing these projects? Do you work on several projects simultaneously? Do the experiences in one project lead to another?

When working on long-term projects, it is a slow burn. You have to gain trust and spend a lot of time with whom I’m photographing to really get to the good stuff. Eventually, the subject’s walls slowly go down, and that’s when you get the opportunity to witness the real magic. I work on several projects at once, and sometimes one project will open the door to another project. You never know when the right opportunity will present itself, and you have to be ready for that; sometimes, you get one shot to gain that trust or access, and being prepared for those opportunities is a must.

“When working on long-term projects, it is a slow burn. You have to gain trust and spend a lot of time with whom I’m photographing to really get to the good stuff.”

In your projects, you use different types of cameras. What do each of them bring to the final output? Is the choice of camera driven by a specific type of image you want to create, do other factors affect this decision?

Yes, I like to use different cameras; sometimes, a particular camera is perfect for that specific project. Cameras are the ultimate tool that connects how I see the world into a visual story to tell a wider audience. For me, not only how the camera shoots but the size plays a huge factor. Sometimes I need something small and very discrete, and sometimes medium format is the only way to create the image I need. I’ve recently been using a monochrome-only digital camera, which is such an inspiring tool. Something about being able only to see the world in Black&White will steer my attention to things I wouldn’t have ever noticed in color. I also love what a cell phone can accomplish, and we all walk around with quite a powerful tool in our pockets every day, and its normality can be a mighty thing. 

Robert LeBlanc. Gloryland. Untitled #35 (2018-2021)

Steve Schapiro, who was known for being able to blend in with the communities he portrayed, once said: “basically, if you’re just matter of fact photographing people in terms of who they are and what they’re doing, you don’t have any trouble.” Do you agree with this statement? How has your experience been when entering a community and gaining their trust?

Absolutely! When you leave your biases at the door and come into any situation with an open mind, you will learn something fundamental about the human experience. How you interact with whomever you photograph will be much more rewarding, at least in my experience. Trust is everything, and there is a responsibility within it too. These are real people with real lives and feelings; abusing that trust to me is the ultimate disrespect in my eyes. I have always played by those rules, and that has gotten me to the places I have been because of the respect I give to anyone on the other side of the lens, and I believe that’s the only reason I’m able to continue to tell their stories.

“Trust is everything, and there is a responsibility within it too. These are real people with real lives and feelings; abusing that trust to me is the ultimate disrespect in my eyes.”

In your description of the community of The House of The Lord Jesus in Squire you emphasize the need to look deeper and “sift through all the coal dust” to understand who they are and what they do. Considering that you intend to do this through your photographs, how do you develop the project with this aim?

I didn’t initially have that objective. I just wanted to witness a community that I found fascinating and widely misunderstood. But when I started to spend more time understanding who they were and the environment they lived in, I began to put those pieces together. It’s a tough part of the country that involves a lot of suffering; I not only wanted to show what they did but also show that they are kind, loving, and compassionate people. Mainstream media is at fault for turning what they do into such a spectacle and, in return, pushing a false narrative that talks about crazy folks who handle snakes, and honestly, that is so far from the truth. I watch people do things in the city every day that seems crazier and more stupid than what they do. This is a rich history of tradition on the verge of excision.

Robert LeBlanc. A New America #29 (2014-2022)

In your recent projects you have had sponsorships and collaborations with big brands, how has that affected the development of your work as compared to earlier projects? 

Luckily for me, it hasn’t at all. Large brands can be beneficial with funding and getting the word out there, and I’m incredibly grateful for brands who have supported my projects and ideas. But it’s important to know where the line needs to be drawn and remind yourself you are doing this because you are passionate about the project and not to be a PR firm that pushes a brand’s message. It comes down to finding a brand or company that shares the same message or beliefs, and if they start to push back or try to reshape what you, the artist, are doing, then they’re not the right fit. But it would be best if you were conscious of that, so you are not wasting each other’s time and money.

Robert LeBlanc. Gloryland. Untitled #39 (2018-2021)

What has the NFT market brought to the dissemination of your work? 

I have opened many doors through collectors or funding. I’m incredibly grateful for all the folks who have supported my NFT drops; most of those funds help to continue developing work or the release of works and books. There is a lot of power within the NFT community, and I’ve met many people I have looked up to for years who are passionate about supporting artists and the art community. It’s been such a fantastic ride so far. The biggest struggle as a creative is how do you continue to finance and survive while creating. I think before NFT came about, we as creatives were held captive by large brands with budgets, making us all fight for scraps, but NFTs have changed the game entirely. Now I can give collectors a more personal experience one on one, and they know that their support will be significant in developing these bodies of work.

“Before NFT came about, we as creatives were held captive by large brands with budgets, making us all fight for scraps, but NFTs have changed the game entirely.”

Tin Lizards is a project that involves collectors in the process of creating the photographs, using blockchain technology to create a system of voting and rewards. How was that experience? Are you interested in further developing this type of project?

I’ve been loving it and hopefully to do many more projects like this. I love being involved with those who support my work, and I hope Tin Lizards is a perfect case study on how collectors can play a very involved role in creating a project

Robert LeBlanc. Gloryland. Untitled #9 (2018-2021)

On SuperRare, your photographs are sold as NFTs and also available for download at 9k pixels. Why is the image available at such high resolution? Are you concerned that it might be used or printed without your permission or control?

No, not at all. Technology constantly changes, and so do the screens that are used to display art. I want to make sure that the collectors can use these images no matter what size screen they are displayed on. I obviously don’t want collectors printing my work because there is a level of quality control that needs to be intact, but if they have a 98″ screen, I want them to be able to enjoy the art on a large scale without the art looking like a pixel mess. Plus the files I use to print photos are much larger than what is available on SuperRare.

Niio in 2022: the articles

Niio Editorial

As we reach the end of 2022, we look back at a very busy year, and forward to an even more intense 2023. In this series of posts, we have selected some of our favorite artcasts, artists, artworks, articles, and interviews. They outline an overview of what has happened in Niio over the last months and highlight the work of artists and galleries with whom we are proud to collaborate. However, there is much more than what fits in this page! We invite you to browse our app and discover our curated art program, as well as our editorial section.

Five articles from 2022

Niio is part of a wider ecosystem that includes the contemporary art world, the art market, and digital culture in general. In our Editorial section, we look at what is happening globally and offer our views and analyses, based on our professional knowledge and observations. We have visited and reviewed some key events in the international art world calendar, such as the Venice Biennale, and followed the latest developments in the NFT scene, as well as the growing influence of Artificial Intelligence programs in artistic research. We have also initiated two series of educational posts, titled Ask Me Anything and Quick Dive, seeking to offer our readers an introduction to the main concepts and terms in the digital art field and the contemporary art market.

We have chosen five articles among more than 60 posts enriching our Editorial section this year. Click on the titles to read each article.

The Role of Art in a Climate Emergency

On 13th October 2022, two climate activists from the environmental group Just Stop Oil, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, threw two cans of tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s painting Sunflowers (1888), on display at the National Gallery in London. The controversy sparked by this protest brings up the question: what is the role of art in a climate emergency?

The article analyzes the reasons behind the protest and the reaction of artist Joanie Lemercier, as well as the views of other artists addressing climate change through digital art.

We care more about representations of nature than about nature itself. We have made cities and virtual spaces our habitat, while using natural environments as sites of leisure, or even just as an image to be displayed on the computer’s desktop. 

Digital Art at the Venice Biennale

The 59th International Art Venice Biennale, curated by Cecilia Alemani, its satellite pavilions and shows marked a strong emphasis on the advancements of digital art as a rightful art world medium. This article explores the different digital art focused exhibitions displayed at the Venice Biennale Arsenale & Giardini, and satellite events.

Installation View, Sonia Boyce Feeling Her Way, British Pavilion.

This year marked a great leap for the new media arts, artists and practices as the 59th Venice Biennale can be seen as a celebration of the digital, setting the placement of the digital arts side by side with traditional respected mediums.

ISEA2022: the possible spaces of new media art

Drone show on the closing night of ISEA2022 Barcelona

The 27th International Symposium on Electronic Art took place in Barcelona from 9 to 16th June, bringing to the city a community of more than 750 experts in art, science and technology and hosting 140 presentations made by experts in the field, 45 institutional presentations, 40 talks given by artists, 23 screenings, 18 posters and demos, 16 round tables, 13 workshops, and 13 performances. The main organizer of the event was the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), in partnership with ISEA International, the Government of Catalonia and the main cultural and political institutions in the region. The article reviewed the three main exhibitions of digital art in the scene, alongside several shows taking place in commercial art galleries.

The exhibitions in Barcelona feature three different forms of presenting new media art: a setup similar to contemporary art biennials, a process-oriented, artist-in-residence environment, and a new media art festival exhibition.

Out of the grid, into your screen: display your NFTs anywhere

The NFT revolution has brought an unprecedented attention to digital art, which is now easier to collect than ever before: once you sync your wallet to the marketplace, you only need to browse, pick your favorite NFTs, and in two clicks you’re the proud owner of a rare gem that just dropped. It is so easy that many collectors have hundreds, if not thousands, of digital artworks in their wallet. The excitement of owning something beautiful and unique, paired with the immediacy of the transaction, can become addictive. As the collection grows, it fills row after row of an endless grid that you can see on any web browser. With a simple copy and paste, you can also share your collection with anyone and brag about your possessions, your taste, or your ability to seize the opportunity and get that coveted artwork that is now out of reach of most wallets. This article explores how you can preserve and display your NFTs using Niio Manage.

Just as most collectors have artworks in different sizes that fit certain spaces of their homes, it is possible to have a series of screens to display different kinds of artworks

Miles Aldridge: photography and a love for cinema

Miles Aldridge, “A Drop of Red #2”, 2021.

Miles Aldridge is a British photographer and artist who rose to prominence in the mid nineties with his remarkable and stylized photographs which reference film noir, art history, pop culture, and fashion photography. Miles Aldridge is the son of Alan Aldridge, a famous British art director, graphic designer, and illustrator, who is known for his work with notable figures such as John Lennon, Elton John, and the Rolling Stones. Alan Aldridge was the art director for Penguin books. His work is mainly characterized as a combination of psychedelia and eroticism. Miles thus grew up in an artistic environment even posing with his father for Lord Snowdon as a child.

Niio Art in collaboration with Fahey/Klein Gallery recently published an artcast featuring a selection of Miles Aldridge’s extensive oeuvre. This article is based on Miles Aldridge’s interview with Bret Easton Ellis for Fahey/Klein Gallery.

“I like the sense of eternity, when a figure seems to be permanently frozen. The power of an image is not to have a beginning, middle, and ending, but that it’s a complete universe. It’s like the figures are permanently there”

Miles Aldridge

Niio in 2022: the artworks

Niio Editorial

As we reach the end of 2022, we look back at a very busy year, and forward to an even more intense 2023. In this series of posts, we have selected some of our favorite artcasts, artists, artworks, articles, and interviews. They outline an overview of what has happened in Niio over the last months and highlight the work of artists and galleries with whom we are proud to collaborate. However, there is much more than what fits in this page! We invite you to browse our app and discover our curated art program, as well as our editorial section.

Five artworks from 2022

Screens have become the canvas of the 21st century. Artists display their creativity in digital artworks that are meant to exist on a screen, sometimes inside a web browser or even a mobile app. We believe that artworks are better experienced and appreciated in a dedicated screen, and therefore our whole system enables setting up a screen at home or anywhere that becomes a space for art. Within this space, many things can happen: the images that appear on the screen can be painstakingly created through 3D modeling, or drawn using a generative algorithm. They can also consist of video footage mixed with hyper-realistic CGI elements. They can be abstract or build a precise narrative, and they can be crafted from scratch or appropriated from an external source. It is quite impossible to describe everything that an artist can create digitally and that fits on a screen, as it is defining everything that a painting on canvas can be.

We have chosen five artworks from more than 230 moving image artworks and 185 photographs featured in our curated art program this year. Click on the artists’ names to find out more about their work.

Yoshi Sodeoka. Synthetic Liquid 8, 2022

Supported by a hybrid creative process that is both analog and digital, Sodeoka deploys an unconventional artistic approach that challenges the video medium. While questioning the major issues of visual media, its perception, and the interpretation of the world in the digital age, the work navigates narrative universes with singularly ultra-guided aesthetics. “Synthetic Liquid” depicts organic forms and blatant colors that open a portal to psychedelic and illusory world far from reality.

A multifaceted artist, Yoshi Sodeoka creates a wide range of audiovisual artistic works that include video art, animated gifs, music videos, and editorial illustrations. Influenced from an early stage in his career in noise music and glitch art, as well as avant garde movements such as Op Art, his work is characterized by breaking down the structure of the musical score and visual integrity of the image to find new forms of artistic expression.

Driessens & Verstappen. Kennemerduinen 2010, scene H, 2011

Kennemerduinen 2010, is a project for which the artists documented six locations around the Kennemer dunes (near the North Sea). Each film has a duration of almost nine minutes and covers exactly one year, from one January to the next. On a weekly basis, each scene was repeatedly photographed from the same position and at the same time of day, around noon. With custom developed software each series of shots was edited into fluid transitions. Slow transformations and changes in season, that are never directly perceptible in daily life, are perceptible on a sensory level. By systematically computerising and formalising observation, the Kennemer dunes films became studies of the spontaneous course of nature, of the emergent and entropic processes underlying it.

In the past years Driessens & Verstappen have documented three different types of Dutch landscapes: a historic landscape park (Frankendael 2001), a dike landscape (Diemerzeedijk 2007) and a dune landscape (Kennemerduinen 2010). From each landscape type several films are made.

Katie Torn. Dream Flower I, 2022

“Dream Flower I” is a 3D animation that depicts a snoozing biomorphic female arrangement made out of flowers, leaves and pipes. As the creature sleeps, a plastic like liquid flows from the pipes creating a relaxing fountain. The work is inspired by Victorian botanical illustrations.

Katie Torn’s work explores the female figure in a world shaped by digital technology and obsession with self-image boosted by social media and consumer culture. She uses 3D graphics and video to build assemblages of natural and artificial elements that question the boundaries between beauty and decay, body and prosthesis, organic and synthetic, and between a person’s own self and the image she creates of herself. 

Julian Brangold. Observation Machine (Iteration), 2022

A sculpture depicting a seating man is multiplied six times, the copies rotating in a choreographed fashion. Colored in a pink hue, the sculptures resemble consumer products, souvenirs lined up on a shelf waiting to be purchased. At the same time, the artist applies an effect that makes the sculptures come to pieces, as if an invisible hand were trying to touch them but destroyed them in the process.

Julian Brangold (Buenos Aires, 1986) is one of the leading names in the growing digital art community in Argentina. Through painting, computer programming, 3D modeling, video installations, collage, and a myriad of digital mediums, he addresses how technologies such as artificial intelligence and data processing are shaping our culture and memory, as well as our notion of self. An active participant in the cryptoart scene and NFT market in Argentina he has been exploring art on the blockchain since 2020 and is currently the Director of Programming at  Museum of Crypto Art, a web3 native cultural institution.

Julie Blackmon. New Neighbors, 2020

Courtesy the artist and Fahey-Klein gallery

Julie Blackmon (b. 1966) is an American photographer who lives and works in Missouri. As an art student at Missouri State University, Blackmon became interested in photography, especially the work of Diane Arbus and Sally Mann. Blackmon’s oeuvre also shows influences from Masters of the Dutch Renaissance such as Jan Steen.

Niio Art in collaboration with Fahey/Klein Gallery recently published an Artcast of Julie Blackmon’s photography works in digital format. The artist focuses on the complexities and contradictions of modern life, exploring, among other subjects, the overwhelming, often conflicting expectations and obligations of contemporary parenthood. Blackmon has stated that her works deal with “modern parenting, and the contradictions and expectations and the overwhelmed feeling that go with parenting today as compared to the past” furthermore the artist has stated “with the little ones it’s more metaphorical than about parenting, and speaks of the anxieties of everyday modern life”.

Niio in 2022: the artcasts

Niio Editorial

As we reach the end of 2022, we look back at a very busy year, and forward to an even more intense 2023. In this series of posts, we have selected some of our favorite artcasts, artists, artworks, articles, and interviews. They outline an overview of what has happened in Niio over the last months and highlight the work of artists and galleries with whom we are proud to collaborate. However, there is much more than what fits in this page! We invite you to browse our app and discover our curated art program, as well as our editorial section.

Five artcasts from 2022

Our curated virtual exhibitions are characterized by their flexibility to bring art in a digital format to any screen, at the homes of collectors and art fans, as well as in the framework of international exhibitions. This year, we have featured commissioned artworks by outstanding artists, participated in the ISEA2022 Barcelona International Symposium of Electronic Arts among other events, and introduced photography artcasts with celebrated photographers in collaboration with Fahey-Klein gallery.

We have chosen five artcasts from almost 60 launched since March this year, featuring the work of more than 80 artists. Click on the titles to explore each selection.

Snow Yunxue Fu, Karst, 2019

Possibles

Niio joined the exhibitions of the ISEA2022 Barcelona 27th International Symposium on Electronic Art with a selection of artworks addressing the main themes of the symposium. The screen-based works address the notion of possibles in different ways, from the dynamics of microscopic particulate matter to the global effects of climate change, from new worlds we could inhabit to those that are fading away, and from our individual perception of the world to the realization that even machines can forget. Participating artists: Frederik de Wilde, Diane Drubay, Jeppe Lange, Sabrina Ratté, Antoine Schmitt, and Snow Yunxue Fu.

Frederik de Wilde, Hunter and Dog_Octree #1, 2021

Chiseled in Code: II

Artists create with the weight of art history on their shoulders. The canons from Antiquity, the Renaissance, the Baroque and Neoclassical periods, as well as Modernity have shaped the perception of the Fine Arts and the objects that an artist is supposed to create. Artists nowadays have the possibility, through digital technologies, to incorporate, remix, and reshape the art from the past in order to create new artworks that question the need for a static piece of marble or a canvas, and instead present an ongoing process. Participating artists: Quayola, Daniel Canogar, Frederik de Wilde, and Julian Brangold.

Steve Schapiro. Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick and Entourage, New York, 1965

Steve Schapiro

A selection of photographs by Steve Schapiro (1934-2022), one of the most prominent figures of documentary photography in the United States, initiated our series of photography artcasts curated by Nicholas Fahey, owner of Fahey-Klein gallery in Los Angeles. Devoted to photojournalism from a young age, he worked as a freelance photographer for Life and other magazines such as Time, Newsweek, the Saturday Evening Post and Paris Match. An exceptional witness of the civil rights movement, his camera captured key moments in American history with a sharp eye and caring attention to the subjects of his portraits. 

Carla Gannis, Flowering City, 2022

Carla Gannis: Theories of Everything

In this series of works, artist Carla Gannis and her avatar C.A.R.L.A.G.A.N. travel around different parts of the world, in the city, and the countryside scanning and recording their experiences. The artist references historical philosophers, thinkers, and artists considering developments and similarities between the past and the future, between the pre-digital and the post-digital ages. The artworks represented derive from a series of 3D LiDAR scans taken from the artist’s iPhone, which are then recreated into fragmentary sceneries through a multimedia process that includes post-photography, 3D animation, digital painting, and AI generated imagery.

Yuge Zhou, Interlinked I, 2022

Yuge Zhou: Interlinked

The pace at which city dwellers move is faster the bigger the city is. This was already proven by Marc and Helen Bornstein in their often quoted essay The Pace of Life from 1979, and has become much more clear nowadays, when our physical movements in the city are paired with a relentless digital activity. Yuge Zhou revisits her exploration of urban environments and the flows of commuters in these two commissioned artworks creating video collages of passersby in different U.S. cities, walking on sidewalks or rushing through subway stations. The collage technique allows her to create repetitions and create a sense of rhythm in these observations of daily life. “Interlinked I” and “Interlinked II” are part of the Niio Commissions Vol. 3

Miles Aldridge: photography and a love for cinema

Roxanne Vardi

Niio is proud to introduce a selection of artcasts by celebrated photographers in collaboration with Fahey/Klein Gallery, the leading contemporary photography gallery in Los Angeles. Curated by Nicholas Fahey, these selections dive into the work of the artists, presenting key series and iconic images.

Miles Aldridge is a British photographer and artist who rose to prominence in the mid nineties with his remarkable and stylized photographs which reference film noir, art history, pop culture, and fashion photography. Miles Aldridge is the son of Alan Aldridge, a famous British art director, graphic designer, and illustrator, who is known for his work with notable figures such as John Lennon, Elton John, and the Rolling Stones. Alan Aldridge was the art director for Penguin books. His work is mainly characterized as a combination of psychedelia and eroticism. Miles thus grew up in an artistic environment even posing with his father for Lord Snowdon as a child.

Aldridge’s interest in photography started at an early age when he received a Nikon F camera from his father. At the age of thirteen, Miles was introduced to punk rock, and at the age of sixteen he joined a rock band called X-Men. Aldridge has mentioned that he found punk rock as ‘a great escape’ from his parents divorce. He went on to study graphic design at Central Saint Martins where he started out with painting and drawing, and later became a pop video director. By the age of 28, Aldridge became a fashion photographer at British Vogue where he worked for seven years as ‘Grunge Photographer’. The artist has stated that he had “a fascination with the model in front of the camera”. Aldridge found inspiration in artists such as Richard Avedon, a photographer who “balanced project work and fashion work”. Miles Aldridge’s works have been featured in magazine such as GQ, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and Harper’s Bazaar. Aldridge’s photographs have also been exhibited internationally at the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The British Museum, Fotografiska in New York and many more.

Niio Art in collaboration with Fahey/Klein Gallery recently published an artcast featuring a selection of Miles Aldridge’s extensive oeuvre. This article is based on Miles Aldridge’s interview with Bret Easton Ellis for Fahey/Klein Gallery.

Miles Aldridge, “Chromo Thriller #3”, 2012.

In addition to being inspired by photographers such as Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton, Aldridge’s works are also highly influenced by filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Pedro Almodóvar. “It began as a love of cinema and became an opportunity to make pop videos. My film education continued from there, watching films to find an idea. Hitchcock’s films always stayed with me, the most banal everyday objects become so sinister [in his works]. His stylization of life is what I find so true in a way”.

“It began as a love of cinema… Hitchcock’s films always stayed with me, the most banal everyday objects become so sinister”

Aldridge’s photographs mainly display female figures as the main protagonists of the images, to this end the artist has stated “when my parents divorced I was left with my mother when my father moved to LA, I watched this woman care for us, at the same time there was this sense of her falling apart… My childhood became caught up in intense melodramas, strange housewives and mothers who have this secret life. Whatever was bubbling up inside her was like a geisha, completely without expression, driving this turmoil inside but keeping this perfect face. When I started my own work I looked for these same characters on the screen, mothers tormented with a secret life and unspoken truths. When I stumbled across these characters in films is when I started creating a series called Home Works. The cake becomes a metaphor for a family while the mother is plunging a knife into it”. Thus, Aldridge always looks for a way to represent these personal yet collective domestic melodramas but in a way that is highly stylized, and therefore there are also no men in his pictures because according to the artist “enacting that would [make] it too real”.

Miles Aldridge, “Impressions #1, 2, 3 Triptych”, 2006.

There is also the influence of painting in Aldridge’s works with his use of bright colors which he attributes to artists such as Francis Bacon, Henri Matisse, and Alex Katz. Aldridge’s works can often times be experienced as color experiments which he suggests are on the verge of a color overload. Apart from art history, Aldridge is also highly inspired by films.

“I was almost living my life through movies in a certain way… going to the movies to find answers for things”

The artist has thus stated that he is very ״inspired by technicolor films where the color is beyond reality, like a red bus in a Hitchcock film”. Inspecting his work titled A Drop of Red #2 from 2021, one will realize that the substance overflowing from the broken Ketchup bottle is in fact much redder than it would be in reality. This is a technique used by the artist to exaggerate a scene taken from reality, and to create a certain mystery around the work. Furthermore, the artist relates to “the intense artificiality of photos”, and this is what he finds so powerful.

Miles Aldridge, “A Drop of Red #2”, 2021.

Towards this end Aldridge has shared his system “where I take a personal memory and take it through a scene of a film”. The artist then takes cinema and puts it into the realm of photography.

“I like the sense of eternity, when a figure seems to be permanently frozen. The power of an image is not to have a beginning, middle, and ending, but that it’s a complete universe. It’s like the figures are permanently there”

As part of his oeuvre, Miles Aldridge also created a series of religious images called Immaculée inspired by Black Narcissus a film by Michael Powell and Emiric Pressburger which focuses on a nun’s journey from the sacred to the profane. Apart from the story itself Aldridge was very inspired by “the technicolor process of the film, the use of strong gelled lights, fake painted skies and sets”, and this is what he calls an “incredible orgy of color” – these early technicolor films look a bit unreal in a way just like Aldridge’s works.

The Immaculée series was also inspired by Falconetti’s closeness to the camera, which can be interpreted like a piece of performance art.

Miles Aldridge, “Immaculée #3”, 2007.

Frank Ockenfels III: inspired to inspire

Roxanne Vardi

Niio is proud to introduce a selection of artcasts by celebrated photographers in collaboration with Fahey/Klein Gallery, the leading contemporary photography gallery in Los Angeles. Curated by Nicholas Fahey, these selections dive into the work of the artists, presenting key series and iconic images.

Interview with photographer Frank Ockenfels III. Courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery.

Frank W. Ockenfels III is an American photographer, artist, and director who is best known for his portrait photographs of celebrities and diverse personalities such as David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, and Hilary Clinton. Ockenfel’s work has frequently been featured in leading magazines globally such as the Time and the Rolling Stone. The artist’s works have been displayed at exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide including Berlin, Amsterdam, New York, and Los Angeles.

Niio Art in collaboration with Fahey/Klein Gallery recently published an artcast titled “Frank Ockenfels III – Volume 3” which provides a window into the artist’s visual thinking. Over thirty years ago, Ockenfels started a process of journaling the product of which he calls Tech Books in which he would keep polaroids, written lighting diagrams, and his personal writings, specifically what he wanted to remember from each and every experience and project.

Once Ockenfels did away with the tech journals he started assembling objects, scraps of paper, drawing into the journals so that they became elaborate, and turned into pieces or found graphic elements instead of just photographs. To this end the artist has noted that this process “was a great way to flush my mind. You are so focused on being a photographer sometimes that you forget that the majority of photography is so inspired by other things like a Richard Serra sculpture”. In essence, Ockenfels’ artworks are no longer just portrait photographs but instead they become personal statements of the artist’s psyche and creative artistry. His artworks can be seen as re-presentations, as works that break the boundaries of traditional photography.

“You are so focused on being a photographer sometimes that you forget that the majority of photography is so inspired by other things like a Richard Serra sculpture”

Frank Ockenfels III, “Artwork”, 2019.

Referring to his tech books, the artist has mentioned that there is a lot that even he can learn from them as they allow him to reconsider why he captured certain projects as he did, and can make him think of the ways through which he approached his images. In the artist’s teachings he also liked to bring his tech books to classes, and through his student’s questions and questioning there was always something new that he felt he could learn about photography.

Ockenfels started out by shooting chrome, then went into negative, and lately has gotten into digital photography. Specifically referring to digital photography the artist has shared that he likes seeing “how far I can go, that’s when the interesting stuff actually happens. I find it more the abstract mind that I have less and less sense of time and space and what I am supposed to be doing. As I get older, its more so where I accept the moment and say this is what I’m supposed to be doing”. Thus, the artist prefers portraits which are less pre-defined and thought out and instead likes “the moment showing up and looking and seeing what I see about you that I would like to capture”. In turn, the artist’s representations leave the imprint of his unconscious on the photographic image.

Frank Ockenfels III, “Blank”, 2017.

The artist sees his journals as a place ‘to vent’, places that illustrate different points in his life. Ockenfels has stated that when he was younger he “didn’t care if anybody liked [the journals] or not, or was interested in them, but people started looking at them”. However, the artist didn’t want peoples opinions “because they are personal… its kind of like the Purist sense of art. Richard Serra would say ‘art is purposely useless’ it is a useless process thinking that anyone would be interested in seeing it, but it answers a lot of questions to yourself by the act of keeping journals, thoughts, memories, ideas”.

Frank Ockenfels III, “168 Thoughts”, 2019.

The artist thinks that inspiration is what a person should strive to do. “I think it’s important to inspire, almost more so than the creative process”. In his interview for Fahey/Klein Gallery Frank Ockenfels III shared that he had an experience a couple of years ago on a Brooklyn subway platform while he was coming back from visiting a friend when a young kid came over and said that he saw him on the internet talking about ‘the creative process’ and that he was completely inspired by that. He was a graffiti artist, inspired about the point of creativity. Referring to that specific instance the artist asserts “that to me is where I always wanted to be in life”.

“I think it’s important to inspire, almost more so than the creative process”

Frank Ockenfels III, “Damien Hirst (diptych)”, 2019.