Grant Ernhart photography

This week in Chicago Harold Arts is having all kinds of programming which highlights the work of this past summer’s residency. I have contributed the group of photographs that you see above, they will be part of the show I Know What You Did Last Summer at the Co-Prosperity Sphere. In addition to what promises to be a great show there are performances and musical events happening at various venues all week. I Know What You Did Last Summer opens on Halloween and will start at 6pm and go all night long. They really know how to throw an opening in Chicago! I wish I could go and take part and see my fellow residents and what they actually made during our time in the woods. I have included the Harvest flyer with more information below.

I am extremely excited to have been chosen to participate in the first Graphic Intersections that the Exposure Project is organizing. I think this will be a really exciting collaboration and I will be very curious about the final results. The Exposure Project describes the idea behind Graphic Intersections as follows:

“In the spirit of artistic collaboration, The Exposure Project is pleased to announce the unveiling of a new, somewhat experimental photographic endeavor. Graphic Intersections, loosely inspired by the old Surrealist and Dadaist game Exquisite Corpse, is a project that will attempt to unite disparate artists in an interconnected, photographic relay of images inspired by one another. For those unfamiliar with Exquisite Corpse, it is succinctly described here:

‘Among Surrealist techniques exploiting the mystique of accident was a kind of collective collage of words or images called the cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse). Based on an old parlor game, it was played by several people, each of whom would write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold the paper to conceal part of it, and pass it on to the next player for his contribution.’

…The first photographer will be given a prompting word or concept to work from and will subsequently make photographs inspired by this idea. They will send us their favorite and most representative image from this session which we will then send along to the next artist. The succeeding artist, based solely on their visual, emotional, intellectual, or philosophical response, will in turn make photographs in artistic reaction to the one they were given. The artists involved will not be given any written material to accompany the photograph, nor will they know whose image they’re responding to. This is designed to propagate randomness and avoid preconceived biases. This process will continue until the chain has been completed…

As visual artists, our creative decisions are largely affected by a myriad of personal, social, political and aesthetic issues, all of which impact the photographs we make. With a such a diverse array of artistic identities included in one project, we hope that Graphic Intersections will facilitate greater communication and solidarity, not only between the photographers involved, but between the images produced.”

Participating photographers include:
Ben Alper
Anastasia Cazabon
Thomas Damgaard
Scott Eiden
Jon Feinstein
Elizabeth Fleming
Alan George
Hee Jin Kang
Drew Kelly
Mike Marcelle
Chris Mottalini
Ed Panar
Bradley Peters
Cara Phillips
Noel Rodo-Vankeulen
Irina Rozovsky
Brea Souders
Jane Tam
Grant Willing

Tomorrow night is the Root Division’s 7th Annual Art Auction. I have donated the photo below which is part of a larger series I am still working on centered around the town of Gustine, CA. I realize that half a day’s notice is a little short and I would have done myself and Root Division a better service by posting this earlier, but what can I say, I have been real busy lately. If you are in the city tomorrow night and want to hang out with some fancy people buying art some down and enjoy yourself, the silent auction begins at 7:30 and the live auction starts at 8:15. Last year was a really great time and I expect the same tomorrow night!

The Bay Area Video Coalition has curated a show around the idea of the Panopticon. This show is part of their on going series of exhibitions called Roh Stoff(Raw Materials).

The Panopticon was originally an idea for a new methodology of prison design and management put forth by Jeremy Bentham in England in 1785. In theory, the design of this new building would allow one guard to observe(opticon) all(pan) the prisoners but from a vantage point that would not allow the inmates to know if and when the guard was actually watching. The prison as Bentham wanted it built was actually never erected during his lifetime, but the idea of the Panopticon has endured in no small part because of the french theorist Michel Foucault. Foucault theorized that any structure of hierachy such as the army, the factory, the school and the corporation have all evolved to resemble a structure of power similar to Bentham’s prison. Foucault felt that within society we are always being normalised by the powers that may be watching because we are powerless to know if they are or are not watching our movements.

We do not have to look very far to find evidence of Foucault’s Panoptic theory. Next time you leave your home to go to work begin to look for and count all of the surveillance cameras that you encounter on your trip. The surveillance camera is the panoptic eye. It is always there but rarely do we know who is watching or if it is even on.

For their exhibition BAVC is actually setting up surveillance cameras and gathering footage to see what happens under the panoptic gaze. In January, there will be a closing party in which the product of the surveillance cameras will be on display along with the photographs of people who had pictures taken of them without their knowledge. I have some work in this show along with Ryan Kellman, Josh Smith and others. The photography will be on display starting October 13th you can stop in any time during BAVC’s regular business hours to view the work.

I have a couple photographs in an upcoming show at the Heaven Gallery in Chicago. The show is titled, You Rule Me and will be opening on October 10th from 7-11pm. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it to the opening but if you happen to be in Chicago that night or in the next couple weeks while the show is up stop in and check it out.

Yesterday, I added yet another commitment to my plate. I began working for San Francisco based photographer Michael Light as his studio assistant. I was honored when he contacted me asking if I might be interested in the job. I took the position not so much for the extra income but because I felt that I could learn a lot from him in regards to running a studio and navigating the art world. Michael has completed projects comprised of images that he has shot, as well as, large projects of found imagery, most notably 100 SUNS and Full Moon. He creates photographs that explore the classic notion of the sublime in the form of aerial photography. He actually flies his own 600 pound airplane over the areas he wants to photograph and then shoots the images with a 4×5 camera. As I looked over a recent catalog that he produced for his current exhibition at the Nevada Museum of Art I was surprised at the variety of images. I guess I had sort of equated aerial photography primarily with surveillance and that sort of aesthetic. However, the photographs I saw in the catalog varied from classic landscape to beautifully abstract imagery. It was interesting to realize how scale became a tool for abstraction in relation to how high above the ground he was when he took the photographs.

Another interesting thing about Michael’s process is that he seems to envision his projects in terms of books. Yes, he has wall mounted exhibitions in museums and galleries but as he told me during my interview he feels that books ultimately open a photographers work up to a larger audience. Most anyone can purchase a book of work if they want to and then they can enjoy that work however and whenever they might choose.  His books also vary from large runs such as his work with found imagery of atomic explosions for 100 SUNS, which has been printed in 19 editions world wide, down to small editions of very large books, which I will be working on in house. 

I am having a show opening in San Francisco this Thursday from 6:00-9:00! If you are in town please stop by and say hello. If you will not be in town on the opening night don’t worry… the show will be up until the 21st of November. The venue is my good friend Matthias Brandt’s shop Underglass at 268 Church St. in the Castro district of San Fran. He is a great guy and his shop is quite nice. He is looking to put Underglass on the list of places to see great photography here in the city and has other shows in the works after mine so check in with him from time to time to see what is going there. Thanks Matthias!

My good friend Darcy Bartoletti will be part of what looks to be an interesting group show in Los Angeles this coming September. The Carl Berg gallery will have the group show “New Wave” on view from September 6 – October 4, 2008. I saw that San Francisco artist Michelle Blade will also be taking part in this show. Not only does she makes some pretty great paintings she has a really amusing and often times inspiring blog called Eternal Summer check it out, see what she did today.

I wish I could see all of Darcy’s work put on display in the gallery. I will be curious to hear how he decides to install them. As I flipped through the files of his new work that he sent me for this post I really felt that it was as if i was looking through his journal. It was not that each drawing was a clear entry by which Darcy chronicled his daily happenings, but there were themes in the collection of drawings that seemed to me as if he was struggling to understand his position to certain things. Through looking at his work I began to think about spirituality, sex, boredom, loneliness and a desire to connect… to understand his place in the greater picture. Maybe that is really what I am trying to get at. In the collection of 40+ drawings that he sent me I really felt a desire to evolve, a desire to understand, while at the same time also acknowledging one’s desires and temptations. It is this struggle to conquer our “demons” and move forward that defines much of the experience of being alive. In his new work Darcy has put a bit of his own experience with the sacred and the profane out there for the rest of us to mull over. He his not preaching by any means, he is just saying he is only human in a very sincere way.

This is my dad and today is his birthday! I am one of the lucky people who can say that as a child and even as a teenager my parents and I really had a very little amount of animosity. I remember my parents as very supportive and encouraging people in my life. As I would come home and declare at various stages in my life that I was going to be a biathlete, then a Rolfer and then a photographer my parents did not even once shut me down. They were inquistive about these things and I felt that they trusted my judgement and my knowledge of who I was and what I valued. This trust and ever present love are probably two of the biggest factors that have helped me become the happy confident adult I am most days. So thank you Dad and Mom(even though it is just Dad’s birthday today). Thanks for being great!

And if anyone besides my parents actually reads my blog and if you were lucky enough to have parents that were even half as loving, involved and supportive as mine are,  then call them up today and thank them.

And Dad, I hope you have a great day, I’ll call you later.

The other day I was trying to get a print sent off for an up-coming show. That simple task turned into a really long ordeal but ultimately I finished the job. As I was paying the employee who had been helping me for the last 40 minutes or so said, “Hey you want a quik-pick? It is up to $95 million.” So just on a whim I said yeah why not.  I picked up my lucky ticket last Friday afternoon and have not been able to bring myself to see if I am the newest California millionaire yet. 

It has just been pretty satisfying to see that little ticket lying there on my desk and thinking about all the possibilities that it holds. I have been having a lot of fun deciding how I would spend my millions. I know that I would seriously reconsider going back to work rubbing other people’s backs(not that I even dislike my job… but I mean come on), I would give my girlfriend her trip around the world, pay off the school loans that my friends and I racked up while becoming educated about all things photographic, fund a few people’s projects, allow my parents to retire etc. etc. etc.

I am going to enjoy one more day of imaginative philanthropy. Checking my ticket will have to wait until tomorrow, because today I am off… to work.

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