Movies

January 21, 2018

Georges Rousse (1)

Abandoned buildings and offices, the depressing and creepy space in many people's eyes, are studios of Georges Rousse. He photographed those space, made his own interpretation, and then reproduced the abandoned buildings.

Rousse has different approaches of re-creating the abandoned space. The first one is painting figures. The walls, the floors... Those paintings are his imagination and interpretation of the history of those soon-to-be abandoned space. What had people done here? How did they feel? He expressed his feelings by making the figures floating, showing the excitement and so on.

Later on he painted sculptural forms and transparent shapes in the central space instead. This phase is more of an exploring and imagining the possibilities of the abandoned space. Discontinuous walls, beans and other elements somehow fall together under his creation.

When he realized he can enlarge the space by cutting a circle in his photographs, he built them without hesitation. This is very creative in that the rooms we usually live in are full of orthogonal, vertical and horizontal structures. Sometimes one circle is not enough for him, and he would just add another one, one more, another one again… Those circles are the lens through which he shows us the unexplored possibilities of those space.

His photographs became more complex when he projected his notes onto the walls, floors, and even random sections of the spaces he worked. Those spoken words are a more explicit len of his mind.

Rousse is an explorer. He treasures the soon-to-be abandoned space and gave them a final rebirth. 


George Rousse (2)

When I was watching the first film, I kind of pictures Rousse as someone a little bit depressed and dark inside since the abandoned space that he photographed a lot is usually messy and lifeless. Seeing him working with and smiling to so many co-workers in the Miyagi Art Project surprises me. Just like how he shows us the enormous possibility of the abandoned space, I feel the enormous possibility within him.

Despite there being so many staff, Rousse still paid attention to every detail in this project. He would communicate with the lady who fixed the walls and even did another wall himself. He ripped the tapes off the floors and wiped the floors. Even though this is a huge café, he still treat his project like any painter would treat his or her oil painting.

Café Loin is a peaceful café surrounded by beautiful sceneries full of green pine trees. However, Rousse chose a color that’s far from bringing people peaceful state of mind –dark blue. Dark blue is almost a symbol of being depressed, and when I see too much dark blue I almost would feel stressed and out of breath. Rousse managed to find the balance between the peaceful café and dark blue. We see the potential depression of the abandoned café and dark blue somehow injects a new type of energy into the space.When you see how the pink sunset interacts with the dark blue, you would know it has to be dark blue.

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January 21, 2018

Cindy Sherman Film

Camera, to Cindy Sherman, is a tool that helps her "lie." Some people choose to present whatever they see, but Sherman makes up stories about the characters and presents viewers images of different women.

Seemed like the main reason why she did that was her frustration of what the society expected her to do as she turned into a woman. She grew up as the first generation that watches television everyday. All the women at that time inspired her, not necessarily in a positive way. "Men watch women and women watch themselves being watched by men...ultimately women begin to present themselves in way they believe men want to see them. The end result is the loss of self." People just take it for granted that women are dependent on men, and women have no self-identification. Women are not supposed to work outside the kitchen; women can’t even open a ketch-up bottle themselves; women are supposed to prepare a nice cup of coffee for their husbands every morning… Moving to New York alienated Sherman from sweet home and comfort zone. She was overwhelmed by all those expectations. When she got a little depressed she would just shut everyone else out the door and dressed up like different women in front of her camera. She wanted at least someone to feel bad for having all those expectations of women when looking at her photographs.

Her photographs are powerful and perfect in that they are like instants in movies. It’s almost as if she created an entire movie out of the frame. We know immediately what the “movie” is about. We know who the woman is and what happened to her at that moment. A lot of memories and emotions would be stirred when looking at her photographs.