Douglas McCulloh

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Douglas McCulloh (born 1959, in Los Angeles) is an American photographer notable for conceptual photographic projects based on "systematic randomness"[1] and chance operations.[2] McCulloh's work is "an extension of the traditions of street photography, social documentary photography, oral history and Surrealist chance operations", states photo historian Jonathan Green. "As such, it is grounded in some of the century's most powerful conceptual currents."[3] McCulloh is one of six photographers who in 2006 transformed an F-18 jet hangar into the world's largest camera to make The Great Picture, the world's largest photograph.[4] McCulloh also curates exhibitions, most notably Sight Unseen: International Photography by Blind Artists, the first major museum exhibition of work by blind photographers.[5] McCulloh, under the nom-de-plume "Quoteman", has also collected and posted online thousands of quotations about photography.[6]

Life

McCulloh holds B.A. degrees from the University of California, Santa Barbara in renaissance history and sociology and an M.F.A. from Claremont Graduate University in photography and digital media.[7] McCulloh writes that his "mother is a refugee and my father is a geologist."[8] Because of an upbringing that highlighted both uncontrollable change and deep time, McCulloh states he "has believed since childhood that the world operates mainly by chance."[8]

Career

McCulloh's art is conceptual in character, using chance systems to drive large photographic projects.[7] He is clear about the goal: "Chance liberates us from the limitations of our intention", McCulloh writes. "Chance subverts control, allowing art to become an opening into the world's full complexity."[9] "Everybody feels like they have control over things", McCulloh told interviewer Marilyn Thomsen in 2003, "but I think the world mostly operates by strange chance. If the world operates by chance, why not use [chance] as a way of encountering the world directly?"[1] In 2009, McCulloh summarized his methods: "I create systems driven by chance operations: random sampling, chance drawings, map transects. Then I set the systems in motion and record what chance provides."[8] Art critic Christopher Miles positioned McCulloh's strategy within art history: "In order to take both his own preconceptions and popular constructions out of the picture, Douglas McCulloh has done something clever and simple. McCulloh merely merged the tradition of social documentary photography á la Robert Frank with the Surrealist approach of creating a system that forces the artist to act at the mercy of chance."[10]

Major works

Chance Encounters (1992-2002)

Chance Encounters is a photographic sampling project controlled by a map gridded into 5,151 quarter-mile squares that encompass all of urban

California Museum of Photography director Jonathan Green.[2]

On the Beach (2000-2007)

With a high

California Museum of Photography.[16][17]

20,000 Portraits (2001)

McCulloh and collaborator Ted Fisher led 68 artists, photographers, and volunteers in a project that photographed 20,558 visitors to the

Los Angeles County Fair.[18] A short documentary about the project reveals the working methodology – four digital shooting stations built into the fair's fine art pavilion; one image of each person is made and a database created with subject's answers to five questions: first name, age, gender, and zip code, and "What makes you unique?"[18] 20,000 Portraits was in the vanguard of database-driven art projects and has been shown widely, most prominently in the LA Freewaves 2002 New Media Biennial in Los Angeles.[19]

The Legacy Project (2002-continuing)

The Legacy Project is a 15-year art project focused on a major closed United States military base:

Art Center College of Design, Cypress College, Orange Coast College, and the City of Los Angeles Angels Gate Cultural Center.[23]

Dream Street (2003-2009)

McCulloh won the right to name a street in

microcosm of the new economy, a site where issues of race and gender, immigration and exploitation, hopes and dreams animate a classic California landscape.[26][27] Susan Brenneman, writing in the Los Angeles Times, called Dream Street "a classic tale, recast for Southern California: the American dream, tied to the almighty dollar and abundant cheap labor, dependent, equally, on self-deception and inextinguishable hope."[24] "For those of us who live on one of California's streets of dreams", writes author D.J. Waldie "the history of how this one was made is of enormous importance as a warning and a guide."[28]

60,000 Photographs in Hollywood (2003-continuing)

McCulloh was given a commission to document Hollywood in 60,000 photographs by the City of Los Angeles' L.A. Neighborhoods Project.[29] "The result," states photographer and writer Aline Smithson, "is a massive and multi-layered artistic inquiry. Map-driven and infused with data and first-hand narrative, the project moves beyond traditions of the isolated photographic image. Instead the project emphasizes complexity, multiplicity, extreme volume, and the interplay of image, data, map, and text."[30] McCulloh's Hollywood work has been exhibited in the U.S. and Europe and has become part of the permanent photo archive of the City of Los Angeles.[29]

The Great Picture (2006)

The Great Picture hanging in its hangar-camera.
Main article: The Great Picture

The Great Picture is the largest photograph ever made as a single seamless image, produced on July 8, 2006, using a Southern California jet hangar transformed into a giant camera.[31] The 3,505.75 square-foot (325.44 m2) photograph was made to mark the end of 165 years of film/chemistry-based photography and the start of the age of digital photography.[32] It was made by The Legacy Group; (Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh, and Clayton Spada). Dimensions of the photograph are 31 feet 7 inches (9.63 meters) high x 111 feet (34 meters) wide.[32] Aspect ratio is 3.47:1. The photograph is of the control tower and runways at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, Orange County, California. The exposure was 35 minutes long and development took 5 hours, 70 people and 1,800 gallons (6,814 liters) of black-and-white chemistry.[33] The Great Picture has been written about in more than 500 publications, states art writer Liz Goldner, including Art in America, Photographie.com, AfterImage, Juxtapoz, Black and White, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune.[34]

Sight Unseen (2009-continuing)

McCulloh is curator of Sight Unseen: International Photography by Blind Artists for the

UCR/California Museum of Photography.[5] Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight stated that the "87 works by 11 artists and one collective" are "more akin to Conceptual art than to traditional camera-work."[35] Artists included in Sight Unseen are Ralph Baker, Evgen Bavčar, Henry Butler, Pete Eckert, Bruce Hall, Annie Hesse, Rosita McKenzie, Gerardo Nigenda, Michael Richard, Seeing With Photography Collective, Kurt Weston, and Alice Wingwall. Sight Unseen was shown at UCR/California Museum of Photography from May 2 to August 29, 2009, and has since traveled to the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C.; Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City; and Flacon, Moscow.[36][37] The exhibition is the first major museum exhibition of blind photographers, states Stacy Davies in ArtSlant.[38] Writing for Time magazine, Matt Kettman quotes McCulloh on the conceptual underpinning of the work: "The whole trajectory of modern art for the last 100 years has been toward the concept of art as mental construction, and blind photography comes from that place. They're creating that image in their head first — really elaborate, fully realized visions — and then bringing some version of that vision into the world for the rest of us to see."[39]

Published works

References

  1. ^ a b See Marilyn Thomsen (Spring 2004). "Chance Encounters: Photographer Doug McCulloh exposes strange realities in the land of dreams" (PDF). The Flame. p. 20. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 28, 2010. Retrieved December 29, 2010.
  2. ^ a b c d See William Wilson (November 27, 1998). "Some Telling 'Encounters' with Los Angeles". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 29, 2010.
  3. ISBN 978-0-9666936-0-7. Archived from the original
    on July 26, 2011. Retrieved January 4, 2011.
  4. ^ See Gillian Flaccus (June 14, 2006). "Jumbo Camera Taking World's Largest Photo". USA Today. Associated Press. Retrieved December 22, 2010.
  5. ^
    University of California/California Museum of Photography. Archived from the original
    on January 1, 2011. Retrieved December 29, 2010.
  6. ^ See photoquotations.com  ⁄  world's largest photo quotation resource
  7. ^ a b See Marilyn Thomsen (Spring 2004). "Chance Encounters: Photographer Doug McCulloh exposes strange realities in the land of dreams" (PDF). The Flame. p. 19. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 28, 2010. Retrieved December 29, 2010.
  8. ^
    ISBN 978-1-59714-103-1
    .
  9. ISBN 978-0-9666936-0-7
    .
  10. California Museum of Photography
    ". Art Week. Vol. 30, no. 1. p. 18.
  11. ISBN 978-0-9666936-0-7
    .
  12. ISBN 978-0-9666936-0-7
    .
  13. ^ a b See "On the Beach: Chance Portraits from Two Shores". Southeast Museum of Photography. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved January 5, 2011.
  14. ISBN 978-0-9789072-0-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  15. ^ See Laura Stewart (December 10, 2006). "On the Beach: Exhibit looks through the lens at surf culture" (PDF). The Daytona Beach News-Journal. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 21, 2011. Retrieved January 5, 2011.
  16. ^ See "Ocean View: The Depiction of Southern California Lifestyle". Laguna Art Museum. Retrieved January 5, 2011.
  17. Autry National Center of the American West. Archived from the original
    on July 17, 2012. Retrieved January 5, 2011.
  18. ^ a b See Ted Fisher; Douglas McCulloh (2001). (20,558) Twenty Thousand Portraits (Documentary). Retrieved January 6, 2011.
  19. ^ See "A look at 20,000 people and their interconnectivity". LA Freewaves. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
  20. ^ See Liz Goldner (September 2007). "A Photographic Memory". Orange Coast. pp. 112–116. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  21. ^ See "Ghosts of El Toro: Life, Death and the Inevitable Transformation of the American Military". Angels Gate Cultural Center. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  22. ISBN 978-0-9728544-5-0
    .
  23. ^ See Liz Goldner (September 2007). "A Photographic Memory". Orange Coast. p. 115. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  24. ^ a b See Susan Brenneman (May 31, 2009). "Down on Dream Street". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 11, 2011.
  25. The Press Enterprise
    , June 11, 2009. Retrieved January 11, 2011.
  26. ^ See "2010 SPE West Regional Conference "New Sites" Agenda". Society for Photographic Education West, November 13, 2010, Track B, 11am-12:30pm, Douglas McCulloh. Archived from the original on October 25, 2010. Retrieved January 11, 2011.
  27. ^ See Stacy Davies (May 1, 2009). "Runnin' Down a Dream". Inland Empire Weekly. Retrieved January 11, 2011.
  28. ^ See D.J. Waldie. "47. Dream Street". KCET > SoCal > Voices > Where We Are, May 6, 2009. Archived from the original on February 2, 2016. Retrieved January 11, 2011.
  29. ^ a b See "Next Stop: Hollywood" (PDF). Lasting Images: Newsletter of the Photo Friends of the Los Angeles Public Library History Department, Fall 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 24, 2011. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  30. ^ See Aline Smithson (June 22, 2009). "Douglas McCulloh: Four Evenings with Fine Art Photographers". Lenscratch. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  31. ^ See Sonya Smith. "World's Largest Photo taken in Defunct El Toro Base Hangar". Orange County Register, July 13, 2006. Archived from the original on December 24, 2010. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  32. ^ a b See "Guinness Certifies World's Largest Photograph and Camera". PR Newswire. July 13, 2006. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  33. ^ See Annie Rivera (October 6, 2007). "The Great Picture: The World's Largest Photo and the World's Largest Camera". Cypress Chronicle. Archived from the original on July 24, 2012. Retrieved January 11, 2011.
  34. ^ See Liz Goldner (September 2007). "A Photographic Memory". Orange Coast. p. 116. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  35. ^ See Christopher Knight (November 27, 1998). "Review: 'Sight Unseen' at UCR/California Museum of Photography". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 11, 2011.
  36. ^ See "VSA Presents Exhibitions at The Kennedy Center". The Kennedy Center. Archived from the original on August 28, 2010. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  37. ^ See "La Mirada Invisible: Colectiva Internacional de Fotógrafos Ciegos". Centro de la Imagen. Archived from the original on September 10, 2010. Retrieved January 11, 2011.
  38. ^ See Stacy Davies (May 25, 2009). "The Mind's Eye: Sight Unseen". ArtSlant Los Angeles. Retrieved January 11, 2011. [dead link]
  39. ^ See Matt Kettmann (May 17, 2009). "The Art and Heart of Blind Photographers". Time. Archived from the original on May 20, 2009. Retrieved January 12, 2011.

External links

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