Facade - Deceptive Outward Appearance.pdf

DEFINITION 1 - FACADE IS…
a deceptive outward appearance e.g.
- ”Her
fl
awless public facade masked private despair.”
- “He kept his hostility hidden behind a friendly façade.”
Synonyms:
masks, face, front, disguise, appearance, false display,
pretence, simulation, illusion, pose, sham, fake, act,
masquerade, guise, veil
a deceptive outward appearance
Façade
INSPIRATION

“My football career ended in 2013 when my shoulder popped out
of its socket. I was never going pro. So that
fi
nal whistle was
always going to blow after my senior year, but the injury sped up
the inevitable. And I was left without a sense of purpose. That’s
one great thing about football. There’s a clarity there. I knew the
season began on August 23rd and ended November 15th. I
knew we had to score more points. I knew my job on every play.
I knew where the endzone was. The purpose was tangible, the
lines were literally on the
fi
eld. In the real world things aren’t so
clear. I feel like 300 years ago it was easier to know why you’re
working. Obviously things were more dif
fi
cult, but at least on the
Oregon Trail you knew what to focus on. There were so many
basic needs that required your attention: warmth, shelter, food,
water. But I’ve been lucky, and right now those basic needs
require very little of my attention. Necessity has been replaced
by ‘nice to have.’ But do I really need more space? Or better
clothes? Or a nicer car? I’m not sure, but I still go to work every
day. I seem to be driven by some vague feeling that things could
maybe be better.”
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Photomontage
is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and
overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is
photographed so that a final image may appear as a seamless photographic print.
Renée Munn
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Rankin
Destroy
RANKIN
John Rankin Waddell, working name Rankin, born 1966, is
an English portrait and fashion photographer.
Rankin's "destroy" project was a concept which involved teaming up with a children's
music charity; Youth Music! Due to the charities 10th birthday, Rankin asked 70
musicians and visual artists to "destroy" their own portraits taken by the iconic
photographer. This would eventually lead to an iconic, original piece of work produced
by the artist themselves. The the chosen musicians for the project had also inspired
Rankin's son Lyle and his love of music.
Rankin's work has been created with the collaboration with music/visual artists. The
outcome begins with the photographing the artists portrait! This is natural to Rankin as
portrait photography is something which he specialists in. After the portraits have been
taken, it becomes the artists turn to start "manipulating them”
“Alanis had seen some photos of mine from
a series called ‘Highly Flammable’, where
the models were burning in the frame, and
that's why she commissioned me. It seems
apt that she chose to burn this image”
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

In her portraits, installations and street art,
Mexican textile artist Victoria Villasana applies
colourful embroidery to pictures of artists,
musicians and politicians. “I started using portraits
of people who I consider visionaries,” she says,
“as well as vintage photographs and cross-cultural
portraits.” Inspired by expressionism, surrealism
and pop art, she often chooses feminist icons
such as Frida Kahlo, Nina Simone and Beyoncé.
The use of embroidery is her nod to female
empowerment. “Working with fabric makes me
feel connected with an inner rebellious femininity.
Embroidery is undervalued as just a ‘woman’s
craft’ – but it’s something that reminds us of all
those amazing women in our lives that nurture us.”
Victoria Villasana
Embroidered
cultural heroes
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

El Lissitzky
The Constructor
Self-portrait
The essence of New Vision photography is pointedly expressed in
this picture, commonly known as The Constructor, which puts the act
of seeing at center stage. Lissitzky's hand, holding a compass, is
superimposed on a shot of his head that explicitly highlights his eye:
insight, it expresses, is passed through the eye and transmitted to the
hand, and through it to the tools of production. Devised from six
different exposures, the picture merges Lissitzky's personae as
photographer (eye) and constructor of images (hand) into a single
likeness. Contesting the idea that straight photography provides a
single, unmediated truth, Lissitzky held instead that montage, with its
layering of one meaning over another, impels the viewer to reconsider
the world. It thus marks a conceptual shift in the understanding of what
a picture can be.
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

John Stezaker
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

John Stezaker’s work re-examines the various relationships to the photographic image: as
documentation of truth, purveyor of memory, and symbol of modern culture. In his collages,
Stezaker appropriates images found in books, magazines, and postcards and uses them as
‘readymades’. Through his elegant juxtapositions, Stezaker adopts the content and contexts of
the original images to convey his own witty and poignant meanings.
2006
Collage
23.5 x 28.5 cm
John Stezaker
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Josef
Breitenbach
Patricia 1942
Josef Breitenbach was a photographer
whose manipulated images and stark
photographs were part of the Surrealistic
movement.
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

kensuke koike
Kensuke Koike is a contemporary visual artist.
B. 1980
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

MAN RAY
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

David LaChapelle
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

BIZZAR BODIES
Anelia Loubser
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Thorsten
Schmidtkord
Upside Down
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:
Anuschka Blommers &
Niels Schumm
As with the human face, the body's various constituent parts can be re-arranged, combined, repeated, isolated or dismembered
photographically in a variety of ways for comic or disturbing effect.
A seemingly simple reorientation (through 180 degrees) of the whole or part of a human face is a strategy used by some artists. Our brains
are confused but work very hard to make sense of the information. The central image by Blommers & Schumm takes advantage of this
ability with surprising results (Note: rotate the upside down portrait above to see for yourself).
Note: Turn this image upside down again to see how it works!

Croatian photographer Ino Zeljaks has created an interesting series,
titled Metamorfoza. The series consists of a multitude of portrait
compositions, each seemingly usual at
fi
rst, until you look a bit closer. Upon
looking closer, you’ll realize that each individual portrait is made up of an
amalgamation of portraits of different individuals, ever-so-cleverly pieced
together.
Brother & Sister (left) Sisters (right)
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:
INO ZELJAKS
Metamorfoza

- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

David Hockney
In the early 1980s,
Hockney began to
produce photo collages,
which he called “joiners"
Using Polaroids of a
single subject, Hockney
arranged a patchwork to
make a composite image.
Because the photographs
are taken from different
perspectives and at
slightly different times, the
result is work that has an
af
fi
nity with Cubism, one
of Hockney's major aims
—discussing the way
human vision works.
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement
that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and
inspired related movements in music, literature and
architecture. Cubism has been considered the most
influential art movement of the 20th century.
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Robert Frank's
multiple frames
Robert Frank is most famous for his road trip across the USA that
resulted in one of the most in
fl
uential photobooks, The Americans.
However, after a period in which he had given up making still
photographs, preferring to make experimental
fi
lms, Frank moved
to remote Novia Scotia, returning to photography, but with a new,
destructive attitude.
"I was really destroying the picture...I
didn't believe in the beauty of the
photograph any more."
-- Robert Frank
These images record powerful emotions, partly a response to tragic personal
circumstances, loneliness and loss. Using a Polaroid camera, he created multi frame
compositions, scratching into the
fi
lm or painting across the surface, embracing the
printing accidents that came with the technology. They unpick the notion of the single,
decisive moment. Windows and mirrors feature prominently. There is a re
fl
ective (literal
and metaphorical) quality to the images. They offer contradictory messages (I HATE
YOU. I LOVE YOU; HOLD STILL, Keep going) and off-kilter views. The frame depicted
within the frame often seems more important than the nominal subject - a hand, a
landscape, a TV, a toy car, a house. These are views of the inside of his head as much
as they are pictures of the outside world. Refer back to our original de
fi
nitions of
Abstraction; Frank is ticking all the boxes.
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

PAPER NEGATIVE + FILM
DOUBLE EXPOSURE
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Heinz Hajek-Halke
Heinz Hajek-Halke was a German experimental
photographer who co-founded the Fotoform group with
Otto Steinert. Hajek-Halke, born in Berlin, Germany in
1898, spent part of his childhood in Argentina.
DARKROOM
DOUBLE EXPOSURE
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Misha Gordin
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Born: January 20, 1989
Amalia Ulman, is an Argentinian-born
Spanish artist, whose practice
includes performance, installation,
video and net-art works
Amalia Ulman
Excellences & Perfections
Amalia Ulman shot to fame with a spoof delivered through
her Instagram account, which fooled both her own followers
and art-world critics.
Over the course of four months Ulman produced an
elaborate performance through Instagram posts, pretending
to move to Los Angeles and trying to fit in by having plastic
surgery and taking up Californian hobbies.
Ulman’s work was a brilliantly convincing version of the
celebrity Instagram craze where millions of ‘followers’
apparently seem to care what pop stars and reality TV
personalities had for breakfast.
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Alison
Jackson
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

A masquerade ball (or bal masqué) is an event in which
the participants attend in costume wearing a mask.
(Compare the word "masque"—a formal written and sung
court pageant.) Less formal "costume parties" may be a
descendant of this tradition. A masquerade ball usually
encompasses music and dancing.
Eyes Wide Shut
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Hendrik
Kerstens
Hendrik Kerstens is a Dutch photographer and visual
artist. He is known for his portraits of his daughter
Paula.
HENDRIK KERSTENS PHOTOGRAPHS HIS DAUGHTER IN THE STYLE OF DUTCH MASTERS WITH A CUNNING TWIST.
A number of the portraits of Paula are clearly reminiscent of Johannes Vermeer. The austerity of the photograph, its clarity, the
serene expression on the young girl’s face, and not least, the characteristic “Dutch” light, all combine to create this impression.
As the series progressed, he became increasingly interested in the game of creating a conceptual and humorous dialog between
past and present. The titles give the game away. “Napkin” looks like a maid’s bonnet. In “Bag”, a plastic grocery bag is shaped to
look like a lace hood. In other pictures no pretense is made to imitate 17th century clothing, but Paula’s face and Kerstens’ light
turn a thoroughly modern hoodie into a classic and timeless garment. Conceptually, Kerstens’ photographs play with the dialog
between the mediums of painting and photography, with seriality, and time. They address everyday reality while expressing his
love for his child, and the knowledge and development of his craft.
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman
Bus Riders
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Cindy Sherman
Untitled Film Stills
1977-80
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Cindy Sherman
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Edward Steichen
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Cecil Beaton
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

HORST P HORST
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Norman Parkinson
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

ERWIN BLUMENFELD
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

David Bailey
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Guy Bourdin
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

HELMUT NEWTON
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

slinkachu
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Sergueï Yurkévitch, Shadow,
Leningrad, 1981
Minor White,
Movement Studies,
Number 56, 1949
MOVEMENT & PORTRAITURE
Double exposure
The city of shadows
1991 - 1994
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Martin Parr Signs of the Times
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Frederick Sommer, portrait of
Max Ernst, 1946 Man Ray - Tears
Photos of Empty
Shoes with
Shadows and
Re
fl
ections
Shoot Hazy and Ethereal
Photos Using a Sandwich
Bag and Colored Markers
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:
masks, face, front, disguise, appearance, false display, pretence, simulation,
illusion, pose, sham, fake, act, masquerade, guise, veil
EXPERIMENTAL
PORTRAITS

Photographer Creates Portraits of
Family Members by Shooting
Possessions
The portraits in the series aren’t
of faces but of things.
Catrambone goal was to
represent the members of her
family by collecting special
possessions, arranging them
neatly on a flat surface, and then
photographing the arrangement
as a snapshot of a person’s life.
The photograph above is a
“portrait” of Ilva, Catrambone’s
grandmother.
FACELESS
PORTRAIT
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

How much can you tell about a person from the small
items they carry around every day? Do they provide a
more comprehensive picture of who a person is? Atlanta
photographer Jason Travis explores this question in his
project Persona.
It’s a series of diptych in which the top half of each image is a
portrait of a subject, and the bottom half is a photo of that
person’s essential everyday items.
FACELESS
PORTRAIT
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Joel Peter
Witkin
Bone House
Born: September 13, 1939 (age 77)
Joel-Peter Witkin is an American photographer who lives in
Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work often deals with such themes as
death, corpses, and various outsiders such as dwarves, transsexuals,
intersex persons, and physically deformed people.
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Surrealism
“The Art of Dreams and
Nightmares”
Features of Surrealistic Art
• Dream-like scenes and symbolic images
• Unexpected, illogical juxtapositions
• Bizarre assemblages of ordinary objects
• Automatism and a spirit of spontaneity
• Games and techniques to create random effects
• Personal iconography
• Visual puns
• Distorted figures and biomorphic shapes
• Primitive or child-like designs
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Humorous
Portraits of
People with
Faces Pressed
Against Glass
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Sellotape Face
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Gillian Wearing
60 Minutes of Silence 1996
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Gillian Wearing
Signs that say what you
want them to say and not
Signs that say what
someone else wants you
to say - 1992-3
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Gillian Wearing
Trauma 2000
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Erwin Blumenfeld,
Self-Portrait with
Paper Mask, New
York, c. 1958

Marcus Coates, British Moths, 2011
It consists of vertical (portrait format) pictures each about the
size of an A4 sheet arranged in a rectangular grid six wide by
four high. The repeat is formulaic to the extent that camera
position, lighting and so on do not vary from frame to frame.
And what is depicted is just the head of the artist, smeared in
shaving foam. That, inevitably, is mainly white, so the
background is dark. It’s called British Moths, 2011, and it’s
far, far bigger than the sum of its parts.

Diane Arbus
Outsiders
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Maurizio Anzeri
David Bowie - Lazerus
https://
thisobscuredesireforbeauty.tumblr.co
m/post/169497328282/theatre-
masks-berlin-1990-source
Theatre-masks, Berlin, 1990.

https://www.rupertshrive.com/sculptures
Rupert Shrive

ERWIN
OLAF
Leatherface:
The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre
Helmar Lerski
From Helmar Lerski’s ‘Metamorphosis through Light’, 1936. A series of 175 photographs of the same person’s face
made under endlessly different lighting conditions. For Lerski, a face was no more or less than a psychologically
charged surface that could be illuminated. He understood that there’s no escaping the ‘othering’ effect of the
photography of people. We tend to think of othering in terms of the unequal power dynamics of colonialism, racism,
patriarchy and so forth, and while images of people made outside of those dynamics are undoubtedly different and
progressive in many ways, the essential othering of all depiction can never be fully overcome. We see the exterior
and cannot know for sure anything about the interior, even when the photographer, the subject and the viewer have
the best intentions. Lerski had a background in German expressionist cinematography. He grasped the power of light
and that in photography that’s all there is. Light bouncing off surfaces to form illusions of one kind or another. He saw
straight through the bogus and bourgeois notions of the ‘sincere’ and ‘digni
fi
ed’ portrait, the rhetorical devices of
which are still with us today. The myth of revelation is as hard to give up as it can be to accept the unavoidable
othering of every portrait. And yet, and yet, are not the best portraits the mysterious ones? And are not the best
viewers the ones that accept the mystery, the eternal othering of depiction?

https://
www.boredpanda.c
om/folded-paper-
art-by-simon-
schubert/?
utm_source=googl
e&utm_medium=or
ganic&utm_campai
gn=organic
We have already seen wonderful sculptures that can be made out of a single sheet of
paper, but you probably didn’t know that it’s also possible to draw amazingly beautiful
artworks without using paint or any tools other than hands for paper folding.
A German artist named Simon Schubert (born 1976) has spent two years perfecting the
techniques of folding paper, and now it takes him up to a week to create each of his
elaborate works of art.
“The
fi
rst attempt was not really so successful, took quite a white to get the technique
perfect” – says Simon. The funny part is that he often had to convince people his unique
artworks are not painted.
“Most of the people who see the work are surprised that the pictures are created by
folding paper, they don’t believe it when I tell them. Many of them think I’ve used paint or
pencil to create the affect of light and shade. But when they realize the 3D artworks are
actually folded they are quite impressed.”
Simon Schubert
Portrait of Samuel Beckett
Stairs

Dario Campanile
"Portrait of a Young Girl Cast Paper Bas Relief Sculpture 1985"
This sculpture was done as an edition of 300, this was one of the prototypes, and
less than
fi
ve were ever completed. They are derived from clay sculptures done
by the artist by hand, and then cast by a paper caster who happened to have a
world class paper studio next door to Dario Campanile's studio. They were
produced for a solo show at the Art Expo New York in 1985. Due to an illness in
Dario's family during the Art Expo, he left early and
fl
ew home to Italy. Upon his
return a few orders were
fi
lled and only a few pieces were made for the publisher
before everything was shut down. Thus the cast paper sculptures that were
intended to be in editions never got out of the prototype stage.

Polly Verity
Paper Sculptures
Instagram @polyscene

Gillian Wearing
Between mask and mirror, 2017
Gillian Wearing
Trauma 2000

Below are 2 examples that in different ways, beyond
their seemingly everyday subject matter, may provoke
deeper re
fl
ections on the '
fl
atness' of photographs.
Gabriel Orozco's Breath on Piano, 1993 (above)
shows the trace of a breath, a
fl
eeting recording
of presence (or absence), captured upon a
surface. Might all photographs be described in
this way? Imagine this trace of breath was not
upon the piano but upon a glass frame that
contained the photograph of the piano. Would
this momentary breath-print (breathograph?) look
different? Would it appear any
fl
atter? When we
view photographs they become akin to a screen,
a barrier before us, and yet we tend to look
through and beyond this. Orozco's breath
(presuming it is his) reminds us of the artist's
presence. But equally it could be our own,
evidence of an encounter with a
fl
at surface.
Erin O'Keefe is a photographer and an architect.
Her work, informed by both of these disciplines,
questions the nature of spatial perception. Her
series 'Flatness' consists of geometric, and at
times quite illusionary, abstractions.
FLAT ASSIGNMENT
• How might you use photography to experiment with
the ways in which we see?
• How might you use photography to combine
viewpoints, to compress, to distort and to abstract?
On the surface, boring
down
Photographs are
fl
at, or at least they are when
physically printed or displayed on a
fl
at screen.
(But of course this can be argued against too: a
photograph can be folded; an image can be
projected onto a 3 dimensional form, and so on).
Consequently, any photograph taken - of
whatever - involves
fl
attening: foreground,
middleground and background come together on
a level playing
fi
eld.
QUESTIONS
• Are all photographs ‘
fl
at’? Is it
possible for some photographs to
appear
fl
atter than others? Is it
possible to eliminate distance in a
photograph?
• Do you ever really look at the
surface of a photograph?
• Can a photograph
fl
atten its
subject matter and surroundings
equally?
• Does a subject sit on the surface
of the photograph?
• Can a boring subject (such as an
everyday object) become more
interesting through being
fl
attened, abstracted or
imaginatively framed?
• What in
fl
uence does lighting have
on these considerations?
PHOTOS ARE
FLAT OBJECTS
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:
masks, face, front, disguise, appearance, false display, pretence,
simulation, illusion, pose, sham, fake, act, masquerade, guise, veil

Art critic Clement Greenberg argued
in his 1960 essay Modernist
Painting that the essential and
unique quality of modern painting
was its
fl
atness.
According to Stephen Shore (and
many others) one of the key
characteristics of photography is
fl
atness (TC#8). He uses the
following example by Lee
Friedlander to explain how this
works. A
fi
rst glance at this urban
landscape reveals some typical
Friedlander concerns - a liminal,
uncared for space; a disruptive
central subject and its shadow;
echoing forms - caravan and car,
tree and tree, a road to nowhere etc.
But look more carefully. In what
appears to be a conventional
foreground/middle ground/
background the picture space is
disrupted by the presence of a cloud
appearing to sit on top of the sign. It
has become an ice cream cone. We
know that the cloud is a long way
away and the sign almost within
touching distance of the
photographer, BUT they have been
fl
attened by being photographed. In
this case, both ice cream and
photography are
fl
attening.
Lee Friedlander - Knoxville, Tennessee, 1971
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:
PHOTOS ARE
FLAT OBJECTS

Fan Ho
NATURAL
FRAMING
Robert Adams
the principal front of a building, that faces on to a
street or open space e.g.
“The house has a half-timbered facade"
Synonyms:
frontage, face, elevation, exterior, outside,
annexe, extension, veneer, colour, show, false front

Windows provide us with a
ready-made frame. A
photograph of a window could
be considered a frame within a
frame. Several photographers
have explored this visual pun.
Shizuka Yokomizo - Untitled (from the series Stranger) 1998–2000
Michael
Wolf
Simon
Kosso
f
Lee
Friedlander’s
AMERICA
BY
CAR
Rear Window
https://vimeo.com/32100812
Here's a slightly di
ff
erent way of looking at framing and windows in the context of
fi
lm. Hitchcock was a
master of composition and in 'Rear Window' his hero is a documentary photographer played by James
Stewart. This short commentary of the opening minutes of the
fi
lm makes the point that Hitchcock uses the
motif of the window within a window to help tell the story. In feature
fi
lms like this, projected at the cinema,
we are seeing 24 individual photographic frames presented every second. This gives the illusion of
continuous movement. The artist Douglas Gordon reveals the careful framing decisions made by Hitchcock
in '24 hour Psycho', a version of the famous
fi
lm dramatically slowed down to 2 frames per second so that
every directorial decision is visible.
Synonyms:
NATURAL
FRAMING

John Baldessari - Kissing
Series: Simone Palm
Trees (Near) 1975
Annie MacDonell - Flatness,
Light, Black & White, 2013
Stephen Gill - from the
series Hackney Flowers,
2007
Other artists, such as John Baldessari and Annie
MacDonell have explored this concept of
fl
attening, of how
photographs transform (abstract) rather than just simply
represent the world around us. Stephen Gill, in his series
Hackney Flowers, emphasised the
fl
atness of photography
by layering upon the surface prior to re-
fl
attening / re-
photographing.
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:
PHOTOS ARE
FLAT OBJECTS

- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:
PHOTOS ARE
FLAT OBJECTS

dearphotograph.com/
PHOTOS ARE
FLAT OBJECTS
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Laurel Nakadate
Laurel Nakadate is an American video
artist, filmmaker, and photographer
living in New York City.
Experimental
use of
overlays
PHOTOS ARE
FLAT OBJECTS
- ”Her
fl
Synonyms:

Jerry
Uelsmann
Jerry N. Uelsmann is an American photographer and was an early
exponent of photomontage in the 20th century in America. His work in
darkroom effects foreshadowed the use of Adobe Photoshop to make
surrealistic images in the late 20th century, a process led by his ex-wife,
Maggie Taylor, at that time.
Synonyms:

Jesse Treece
Using vintage magazines and books, Jesse Treece creates
surreal and simple works, often using images of space and
children to create an inimitable perspective on everyday life.
Synonyms:

Karen Lynch
Synonyms:

Eugenia Loli
Synonyms:

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