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Apotheosis - Grapevine - Robert ParkeHarrison

Afterimage, March, 2002 by Are Flagan

Every writer faces an abyss of choices when a blank page is revealed or a new word-processing document pops open. From that moment onward, one that frequently gives rise to chronic procrastination and belongs to the infamous writer's block due to its serious nature, every smudge of lead crafted and every key pecked reflects a series of decisions that drives the narrative in a direction inspired by that weighty inaugural trace. The cautious dilemma here is that this tale from the Grapevine may suffer from what might be termed a clash of contexts. Some exhibitions and lectures are perhaps not intended for critical scrutiny; they are offered under different pretexts, and the result of preparing a mismatch in rhetoric can be either comedic or inappropriate. The program offered at the George Eastman House in connection with the launch of Robert ParkeHarrison and his photographic works may fail within a rubric of public events that takes no intellectual or critical aim, but the implications of the proceedings offer ed can, as it turned out, not be entirely isolated and excused from participating in a larger discourse. After all, the promotional press release announced: "Saving the Earth with Robert ParkeHarrison: Photographer is one of Today's most Popular Artists."

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ParkeHarrison makes work that mixes photography, painting and sculptural props with old-fashioned darkroom techniques. Primitive yet elaborate constructions are photographed and the resulting creations are collaged into other image sources; some from his picture archives, others from the history books of photography (e.g., for Mending the Earth ('999) Timothy O'Sullivan's Steamboat Springs, Nevada (1867) was revisited). The process frequently Involves paper negatives that are cut and pasted together before a final image is contact printed. Flaws that are revealing of the process-strings used to suspend props and the hard edges outlining layers-are then retouched in numerous washes of monochromatic paint. Final prints are mounted to wood panels with an elevating frame behind them (envisage a canvas on a stretcher), and a finishing touch takes the form of an application of beeswax. The end result is a photography of mythical proportions that is camouflaged in paint and operates in singles rather than multiples.

The combined opus has been divided into several series; "Exhausted Globe," "Industrial Land," Promised Land," "Earth Elegies," that all return to the theme of environmental entropy with a cyclical regularity that would have made nature proud before global warming set in. A common denominator In every picture is the persona of "Everyman" who Is cast and acted by ParkeHarrison himself. Everyman appears to be part contemporary agent for ecological concern, attempting to repair a damaged landscape with methods that can only be considered metaphorical, and a post-apocalyptic survivor that fulfills much the same role by inventing new techniques to salvage what remains of the earth. ParkeHarrison as Everyman, who of course plays the demanding role of last savior and sole survivor of humankind, has acquired standardized attire that consists of a dark suit and a matching white shirt, combining a corporate uniform with the funereal propriety of Judgment Day to invoke further suspicions of a Mormon connection. After cit ing Native American creation stories, pictorialists who sought to retouch photography into art, and generally artists who construct sets and pose in them as formative to his narrative--thereby providing the literal recipe for each and every picture--ParkeHarrison contended that his choice of everlasting wardrobe was based on its neutral and timeless qualities, effectively representing a domesticated male that successfully travels across time and space between dichotic junctures like modern and antiquated, primitive and advanced.

At this point is should be obvious that we are about to trace the plot-line usually occupied by B-movies where references are used without sustainable logic and any attempt at analyzing reason can only end In despair. Such a situation may of course pass as highly artistic and profoundly postmodern if it was not for consistent application and articulation of entrenched modern(ist) principles. The relationship to technology established in the work and reiterated by ParkeHarrison in his lecture is founded on a persistent dictum of final solutions, rather than undesirable ends, that does not take into account the political and social negotiations of its potential forms and applications. Through the subtle introduction of frontier history as a vacant aesthetic device and validating backdrop, the choice of collaged paper negatives over Photoshop upgrades, the eulogized merger of handiwork with mechanization, and the use of primitive contraptions that reduce both technological advances and environmental actions to s implistic tropes, ParkeHarrison as Everyman arguably advocates many of the reasons why the earth actually needs saving. Firmly anchored within the tradition of a creationist deity (presented as white, male, technologically driven and sharply dressed for global business), the moralistic journey of this Everyman is one that seeks to establish an already familiar environment of Ideology and ecology where the natural and organic sprouts from the creative" hand of a severely delimiting space.

Apotheosis - Grapevine - Robert ParkeHarrison

Afterimage, March, 2002 by Are Flagan

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