Under the Influence

In image making it is not easy to be fully aware of the influences that inspire us to create. We are bombarded with imagery and the more we learn, the broader our frame of reference becomes. Ironically this narrows our ability to create original works as we discover how much has gone before but influence and inspiration are inevitable and essential parts of the creative process. Acknowledging this recognises that we cannot work in isolation. If we cut ourselves off from the complex world, we see our work only relative to the lowest common denominators of aesthetics around us. I feel it is a moral duty to investigate my influences and declare them. It seems photography as an art form is the most coy about this process. I am not sure whether this is a sort of corruption or ignorance maybe both or perhaps there is a little fear of being exposed.

We should not be afraid to discuss and explore our influences.

A few weeks ago, I came across a single image called 'Otto Jumping' which did well in a juried competition. It is an immediately striking image but I had this overwhelming feeling that I had seen it somewhere before. More recently, I was at the 'David Bowie Is' exhibition at the V&A, which incidentally, really impressed with its dissection of Bowie's creative process, and at this show I came across a great print of Terry O'Neal's shoot for Diamond Dogs.

This is just for illustration purposes only and I am certainly not making any assumption that the photographer was any more conscious of his influences at the moment of choosing this image than I was in viewing it but the reason why this contemporary image has value is that it is imbued with the genius of the O'Neal Bowie collaboration.

A very wise person once said to me that if you take an image and immediately like it, then it already exists in some form elsewhere and all we are doing is mimicking. Original work is possible but we will always bring our influences into the process of creation, so it is important to attempt to be conscious of what they are.

My issue isn't with the artist, I am not even critical here of any deliberate acts of plagiarism; we are arbiters of our own fate and if our need for affirmation is our primary goal that is entirely our own concern. The jurys, bloggers, curators and magazine editors however are the filters of what we see, they are the gate keepers of the credibility and respect of fine art photography and its legacy.

We all feel trapped by the debate on where photography is now; the 'is it dead' debate continues in those same blogs and magazines that have to endlessly fill their pages with something that 'seems' new. So we are still preoccupied with the post modern persuit of re-invention instead perhaps re-igniting the quest for the new contemporary image, stalled since the exciting days of Wolfgang Tillmans.

Perhaps when we start to pull back the curtain, we are afraid of our own little old weak man behind it pulling levers but we have a responsibility to challenge ourselves and the practices of other artists and decision makers, not aggressively but as a new landscape of discourse helping to explore the motivations that lead us to create. Perhaps then this pursuit of authenticity will lead to the development of a new way of seeing.

Here is one of my images from the series of 4 'Untitled', 2013 from 'PORTRAITS' showing at Tenderpixel, London and 'Women of Rissani, Morroco, 1971 - Irving Penn.

Women of Rissani, Morroco, 1971, Irving Penn & Untitled, 2013 © Richard Ansett 2013

'Autisation' of the Contemporary World

“Daydreams” is the third in the series of international projects, “Aut” is organized by curatorial group “Doroshenko Gryshchenko Clinic” and tries to comprehend the idea and process of “autisation” of the contemporary world and human. The previous two projects took place in Kiev in 2010 and 2011 with participation of curators and artists from Ukraine, USA and Canada. This year’s project will be curated by cult Russian critic Viktor Toporov and the co-founder of Doroshenko Gryshchenko Clinic, Oksana Gryshchenko. The exhibition’s theme - “Daydreams” - is dedicated to visionary art.

Viktor Toporov: “Instead of depicting objective (external) reality under the angle of this or that creative method, visionary art presumes depicting reality as subjective (internal), which is only indirectly connected to the objective reality: “unprecedented collection of past experiences” (as academician Pavlov defined dreams - daydreams in our case).

Visionary art has grown historically from religious and mystical practices (e.g. Biblical prophets) and was spread to clerical paintings of late Middle Ages, first of all, in the pictures of the Judgment Day. The key figure of the visionary direction in art was great English poet and artist William Blake, who has devised (drawing on Swedenborg and Bohme) his own theogony and cosmology, having described it in the collection of poems under a common title “Illuminated Books” and illustrated them with wonderful relief etchings.

Starting from the works of Blake (around 200 years ago and later), visionary art was secularized and diversified: it became the world of individual Doors of Perception (according to Aldous Huxley), the world of individual Altered States of Consciousness from Hoffman, Gogol and Edgar Poe to Daniil Andreev, Carlos Castaneda and Garcia Marquez. Similar processes took place in painting - from figurative romantic visionary art of Taras Shevchenko (less-known works will be presented within our exhibition) to suprematism of Malevich, not mentioning significant artistic endeavors of our days (once again covering a wide spectrum - from Lucian Freud and Maxim Kantor - another participant of our exhibition - to some Hirst).”

The concept of the project is connected with two issues: 1) separating true visionary art from its commercial imitation; in this regard, we fully rely on our curators); 2) realization of visionary art as a cognitive phenomenon connected - via Savant syndrome or directly - with autism.

The exhibition is multidisciplinary: it also includes public lectures (V. Toporov, M. Kantor, M. Trofimenkov), literary performances and a master class in “visionary” writing (Natalia Romanova), film screening (film “Hunter”, presented by leading actor and Nika Award winner Tatiana Shapovalova and Kiev critic Sergey Semenov), as well as a special screening of a multi-genre project entitled “Teutoburg Forest” (Kantor-Toporov).

The art part will feature works by artists from St Petersburg (author of legendary “Limonka” Pavel Losev, Grigoriy Yushchenko), Kiev (participants of the sensational exhibition “Apocalypse and Renaissance in the Chocolate House” Michael Merfenko and David Chichkan) and lightboxes developed in collaboration with IZOLYATSIA, winner of the 7th Arte Laguna Prize 13, Richard Ansett UK.

AUT3 showing at the National Museum of Taras Shevchenko, Kyiv UKR - April 5th till May 18th 2013.

One Nail in the Coffin

I remember the tories under Thatcher as the architects of an insidious moral agenda that alienated and polarised. I personally felt oppressed and attacked by Section 28, it was state sponsored queer bashing that criminalised my humanity and passively threatened all of society. It suppressed all with the morally narrow and self righteous views of a new petit bourgeoise, subjugating any of us who didn't fit in under this democratic tyranny.

The legacy of Thatcherite individualism still resonates now and obstructs any genuine attempts at multi-culturalism.

Thatcher wasn't coy about her agenda, "Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul." Moral taxation and reward policies; tax breaks for married couples whilst oppressing and marginalising non-hetrosexual relationships and the destruction of the a whole country's cultural heritage, especially in the North. Millions were paid to be unemployed as this new utopia was to be formed.

Out of this demagogy, came a new generation of artists inspired by an identifiable figure of derision and hate. But Thatcherism cannot take credit for this; it would be like the Nazi's taking credit for inspiring Primo Levi. I am part of this generation and the iconoclasm and the undercurrent of critique in my work may have been formed at this time.

Politics and politicians learned from Thatcher's downfall, they realised quickly not to make themselves a target and ever since, politics has become grey and intangible. Politicians are careful to avoid issues that can be rallied against, instead there is a perfidious drip of policy shifts and we feel impotent in its wake. BUT humanity always finds a way to escape through the cracks; great art for me is the cracks. it is the intangible balance of composition in the abstract, the unwritten words of a great novel and the under current of otherness beyond the narrative.

Victoria, from series 'The Big Society' © Richard Ansett 2008

Autistic Boy Wins 7th Arte Laguna Prize

Series Boys in a City Park was an evolution from the images of injury photographed in the Hospital Gardens in and around Donetsk, Ukraine during a summer residency in 2011 with IZOLYATSIA Foundation for Cultural Initiatives. The broken limbs in Hospital Gardens were an overt metaphor for an emotional fracture, but I was seeking an evolution towards something beyond that and less easily defined; a hidden damage.

My assistant and translator Yulya Shato contacted some different mental health organisations in Donetsk, one of which was a small support group for parents of autistic children. We arranged to meet them in a park in the centre of Donetsk.

It was a blisteringly hot and sunny day; close to 36º.  When we arrived at the park, nothing seemed 'out of the ordinary', people were going about their business and children and parents were playing on the swings and sandpits. We waited for sometime before realising that the parents and children playing were in fact our potential subjects. As we introduced ourselves I watched the children and could not see any indication of their condition or how it might visualise itself.

Only at the point of shooting, exposed to the camera, did the extraordinary complexity of autism as a relative condition reveal itself. During the impossible battle to position the children, their detachment from our reality became startlingly and movingly evident but it was only in hindsight, viewing the chaotic frames, that some of their intimate world was exposed.

Many thanks to Arte Laguna Prize 12.13.

'Boy #1, from series Boys in a City Park, UKR  /IZOLYATSIA © Richard Ansett 2011- Overall Winner - 7th Arte Laguna Prize 12.13 

Tea with Peggy Guggenheim

Richard Ansett is Peggy Guggenheim with 'L'angelo della Citta, Marino Marini, circa 1948.' - Guggenheim Collection, Venice

A Bird in the Hand

Here's a copy of the flier for the upcoming show of two separate but related new projects.

'Untitled' showing in the ground floor space is not a cop out title, it literally does not have a title or narrative in the conventional sense; it takes inspiration from Irving Penn's 'Women of Rissani, Morroco, 1971'. On the lower ground floor we are showing 'Lion Hunting in Essex'.

Opening night is Thursday 4th April. 7-9pm. All welcome.

Happy Anniversary Iraq

It feels like I am constantly being reminded that it is now 10 years since the start of the war with Iraq. I do not want to disrespect the suffering of the Iraqi people so I'll get some statistics out of the way first.

Source	Casualties	Time period
Associated Press	110,600 violent deaths	March 2003 to April 2009
Iraq Body Count project	110,937–121,227 civilian deaths from violence. 172,907 civilian and combatant deaths[1][2][3]	March 2003 to December 2012
Iraq Family Health Survey	151,000 violent deaths	March 2003 to June 2006
Lancet survey	601,027 violent deaths out of 654,965 excess deaths	March 2003 to June 2006
Opinion Research Business survey	1,033,000 deaths as a result of the conflict	March 2003 to August 2007
WikiLeaks. Classified Iraq War Logs[1][4][5][6]	109,032 deaths including 66,081 civilian deaths.[7][8]	January 2004 to December 2009

This anniversary partly can give us time to reflect on where we were then and the politics that bullied us into such a doomed conflict.The events leading up to the invasion culminating in the tragic and shocking death of Dr David Kelly, still resonates with me like something out of Stalin's Russia.

In 2010, I was asked to photograph the journalist Andrew Gilligan, we had arranged to meet outside a major Mosque in east London as part of story about Muslim extremism but he didn't show. It transpired that he was still in bed with the flu and had completely forgotten about the shoot. With some reticence he agreed to allow me to come very briefly to his home, as the press deadline was the next day.

When I arrived, I was greeted by the poorly fellow and was shown into his lounge which was a mess of books, papers, empty sweet wrappers and fizzy drinks bottles. It is an enormous privilege and buzz as a photographer to see the unrefined reality of someone else's life, there is much to learn from it. He sat for me for 10 minutes and I left.

I have always expected that Gilligan's role in the Iraq conflict would make him more of a celebrity but it seems he has quietly been working as a journalist in relative obscurity ever since his dismissal from the BBC. I did feel I was in the presence of an important protagonist that gave the government and especially Alastair Campbell a sharp poke in the ribs. I still believe history might make more of Gilligan but all the players in this grubby affair will never be able to completely wash away the blood  whether it is Iraqis' or Kelly's. They are rather macabre celebrities.

The National Portrait Gallery, London has a very dogmatic approach to its acquisitions; the subject must have earned their place in some way that they decide. Often it is celebrity that attracts their interest or those who have achieved some greatness in their field. It is an indication that I am not alone in my feelings about Gilligan and therefore no accident that they deemed his image worthy of a place in their historic collection. 

In the bottom left hand corner of the image by entire coincidence is the book 'The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain'. by Ian Jack.

Andrew Gilligan © Richard Ansett 2010 / National Portrait Gallery Permanent Collection

Detail from Andrew Gilligan © Richard Ansett 2010