James Fritzgerald Craig: Gerhard Richter

Showing posts with label Gerhard Richter. Show all posts

Friday, July 13, 2012

Video Work From 2005 to 2006:

What Defines Greatness
[2005]
Video, 7:15, Colour

Working from a statement by Friedrich Nietzsche that to be great you must be willing to inflict great pain and suffering, and rifting on the idea of the Übermensch; this video presents a heavily altered looping 1930’s cartoon of Superman being pummeled by a laser beam. Sound by Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline.

Sort of like a distilled and hushed version of all the landscape painting Gerhard Richter has done to date….
[2006]
Video, 3:16, Colour

As the title dictates this work is an ironic and meaningful approximation of Gerhard Richter’s landscape works. This work plays off found footage of a small stereotyped German town surrounded by forests. As music swells and the camera moves over the land the image gets progressively blurrier.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Ramnant Paintings: 2011

Ramnant (After Jacques-Louis David's Les Derniers moments de Michel Lepeletier 1793), oil and acrylic on canvas, 28x34 inches.

Ramnant (After Gerhard Richter's Hitler from 1962), oil on canvas, 28x34 inches.

The two paintings I am calling Remnant's, are based on two other paintings destroyed for simple seemingly upfront political reasons. Richter's painting was destroyed by his own hand after showing Hitler in a gallery show in Germany in the early 60's, and David's Le Peletier Assassinated was destroyed by Le Peletier's royalist daughter (he was a republican martyr during the revolution) after the French revolution failed, which is known only by a drawing, an engraving, and contemporary accounts.

I find the censure of both paintings fascinating, one by the artist, and the other by the subjects family reaching the same present day result. That result being the paintings physical destruction, but not the images death.

I based my paintings off reproductions that remain of the originals, bad photographs and riped engravings. I still like the idea of remaking old lost "problem" paintings, but have run out of ideas of other lost ones to make. If anyone looking at this has a suggestion of a painting, please leave it in the comments for this post. Thanks in advance.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Video Work From 2004 to 2007:

A Single Ray of Light on an otherwise cloudy day (A short reprise for Friedrich Nietzsche, who warned us of science, but for very good reasons) (2007)

Video, 6:15, Colour

This work features digitized, recolored, and generally junked up footage of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. The doctored found footage which is shown in reverse is meant as an attempt to make it all better or at least draw attention to the issue of science for sciences sake alluded to in the title.

Someone Else’s Girlfriend (2007)

Video, 1:40, Colour

“Someone Else’s Girlfriend” features heavily doctored and retouched found footage of an unknown person’s ex-girlfriend walking about on a beach.

Shawna Dempsey, from the 2008 Video Pool Catalogue:

"Using found and reprocessed old film footage, Craig creates a wistful portrait of an unknown woman walking into the water. The soundtrack is a remix of Beach Boys Mike Love and Brian Wilson talking in the studio while working on the album Pet Sounds.The title, the use of degraded Super 8 imagery and the unadorned vulnerability of the human voice combine to elicit memories of summers gone by. Memory revisited, memory revised, memory lost."

Sort of like a distilled and hushed version of all the landscape painting Gerhard Richter has done to date…. (2006)

Video, 3:16, Colour

As the title dictates this work is an ironic and meaningful approximation of Gerhard Richter’s landscape works. This work plays off found footage of a small stereotyped German town surrounded by forests. As music swells and the camera moves over the land the image gets progressively blurrier.

Beerdigung (after Richter) (2006)

Video, 2:01, Colour

A video based on the Gerhardt Richter painting titled Funeral (Beerdigung in German) from his acclaimed Baader Meinhof painting cycle. This work makes use of television footage from the same historical event.

Love me because nothing happens (2006)

Video, 5:33, Colour

Utilizing the functions of a VCR this work plays at the meaning of its title and the actual function of a pause button. This work presents a pointedly melancholic view of limits in technology and romance. Segments of a video titled “Sunny Side Up” by Alex Parrott are shown.

What Defines Greatness (2005)

Video, 7:15, Colour

Working from a statement by Friedrich Nietzsche that to be great you must be willing to inflict great pain and suffering, and rifting on the idea of the Übermensch; this video presents a heavily altered looping 1930’s cartoon of Superman being pummeled by a laser beam. Sound by Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline.

It’s terrible to be a painter (2004)

Video, 4:55, Colour

Showing the playback of a rewinding episode of a Bob Ross painting programme this video attempts at a dissection of the medium of video, and takes a melancholic view of the act of painting. Shot in one take.

City of the Future (2004)

Video, 6:20, Colour

This single channel video is an attempt at showing an abstraction of urban space. Utilizing atmospheric shots in and around the city of Winnipeg this work aspires to an ideal set by Jack Chambers in his 1970 film “The Hart of London”. Soundtrack is provided by Winnipeg based electronic artist 3x3is9.