Artist-Photographer Robert Bergman
On the drive home last night, I heard a story on NPR about Artist-Photographer Robert Bergman. He’s known for his portrait photography and it seems the only samples on the web are those that are available on the NPR site. Those 13 portraits are interesting and fascinating, but certainly a very narrow view of his work. He has one book, and I’ve put it on reserve at the library.
What struck me most during the interview (you’ll have to listen to it–the web page isn’t a transcript) was his inability to describe his artwork in a way that is accessible to the rarefied, erudite listeners of NPR. Even the interviewer and producer were flummoxed by his rambling, obtuse, impenetrable description of his artwork. The weirdness starts at 1:15 “it wasn’t exploring the putative differentiators…chained to the academic deconstructivist theory…new modus operandi and conceptualism … reacting to the cumulative effect of sequencing…” But then he’s able to “dumb it down” a bit later, at 2:50: “I would say that anytime we meet a person it is impossible for us to not somehow figure out what they’re about. We start doing that instinctively. Remember, I’m dumbing this down because you asked me to dumb it down.”
So, his artwork is about getting us to strip away our assumptions about a person by removing most of the context which would normally help us assess that person. His artwork, for us dummies, is about getting us to leave behind our prejudices. That is worthy artwork indeed. Its unfortunate that he has such difficulty making it accessible to the masses.
As a budding photographer, I’m fully aware that photography is part technology, part artwork. I’ve been spending a lot of time figuring out the technology, while attempting to develop my own sense of what I want to capture artistically. I certainly have a long way to go in both. When I heard his first description of his artwork, my first thought was “wow, I really don’t want to become someone like that”. I want to be able to describe my vision or purpose and have people immediately get it.
Rick,
I think there are additional images available at P. S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in NYC and at the Wall St Journal in conjunction with their piece about Bergman by Judy Dubrinski. There are more from the National Gallery of Art but I think they are only available to the press and I think they are the same as the ones you have seen from NPR. Also, the Yossi Milo Gallery has some that are not part of the NGA group and they might be more accessible there than from P. S. 1. Also, the P. S. 1 show has a wonderful catalogue which is really of the calibre of a book. It is available for sale from them but it wouldn’t be in libraries yet.
Rick,
I forgot to say that Bergman isn’t really as impossible as he sounded on NPR. They edited it in ways that made him seem more that way and they had baited him a bit. Go to the October issue of the Brooklyn Rail for an extended interview/discussion with Bergman and the critic John Yau. It gets into some of the same territory but without all the academic nonsense.