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| Ron Jude, Untitled, from Alpine Star, 2006 |
Images from Ron Jude's Alpine Star at the MOCP
AT THE END of the main gallery in the MOCP, a series of small halftone images clipped from the news occupy a space tucked away from the rest of the artist's work on the first floor. This series, entitled Alpine Star, is presented as part of the Backstory exhibition including three artists whose work create narratives that flow between the personal and the collective. Ron Jude not only tells the viewer stories of the past through his image collections, but uses them to invite speculation and creation of new stories that call for a mining of the viewer’s own image archives.
The secluded gallery room provides an intimate encapsulation of the line of framed images on the walls. The layout acts as an armchair for viewing, and the vertical frame mimics the format of the origins of each photograph—a half-unfolded newspaper. The photographs appear as though they are clipped directly from the source; the local newspaper from Jude’s hometown, The Star News. The images are presented without any text, including individual titles. The images range from smiling school portrait to wide-eyed mug shot, and charred interior wall to quaint model log cabin. As the museum-goer navigates through the linearly hung images, narratives are assembled and disassembled. The happening that was attached to the photograph in the form of a headline is lost and the display of the images in a gallery setting confuses the illustrative intent.
The images are arranged into paragraphs, it seems. There are spaces among small groups of
images, the image of the charred interior wall hanging in the same group as the
wide-eyed mug shot and a pick-up truck in a snowy ditch. However the photographs are connecting
across these paragraphs, creating a poem that falls out of the linear
formation. The images come
together to construct a dim impression of a space where people’s interactions
with each other and the landscape become as cold as the snow evident in many of
the images and masked by the halftone print. The viewer becomes as the mustached chaperone reaching out
from the darkened corner. Every
image seems an obscure portrait, laden with cold seclusion. Faces unrecognizable
to the viewer become characterized through the context of the other images. These people are inhabitants of the
dense woods in snowy landscapes, and attendees of local ceremonies and school
assemblies.
This project, in addition to presenting a poetic display of images, brings in to view our scrupulosity of photographs. The physicality of the newsprint is made apparent in this display with spacers that lift the image from the background inside the frame. Because of this, the viewer is inclined to look at them as pieces of paper. In the format of a newspaper, photographs occupy a space between images that are as dispensable as they are in digital format and a form that seems to realize more material weight, like a family photo album. They are distributed widely, but the physicality warrants a number limit attached to the paper form. The viewer calls into question their understanding of illustrative imagery, to look more closely at images attached to text, and question the context of a photograph in relation to the photograph itself.
AT THE END of the main gallery in the MOCP, a series of small halftone images clipped from the news occupy a space tucked away from the rest of the artist's work on the first floor. This series, entitled Alpine Star, is presented as part of the Backstory exhibition including three artists whose work create narratives that flow between the personal and the collective. Ron Jude not only tells the viewer stories of the past through his image collections, but uses them to invite speculation and creation of new stories that call for a mining of the viewer’s own image archives.
The secluded gallery room provides an intimate encapsulation of the line of framed images on the walls. The layout acts as an armchair for viewing, and the vertical frame mimics the format of the origins of each photograph—a half-unfolded newspaper. The photographs appear as though they are clipped directly from the source; the local newspaper from Jude’s hometown, The Star News. The images are presented without any text, including individual titles. The images range from smiling school portrait to wide-eyed mug shot, and charred interior wall to quaint model log cabin. As the museum-goer navigates through the linearly hung images, narratives are assembled and disassembled. The happening that was attached to the photograph in the form of a headline is lost and the display of the images in a gallery setting confuses the illustrative intent.
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| Ron Jude, Untitled, from Alpine Star, 2006 |
This project, in addition to presenting a poetic display of images, brings in to view our scrupulosity of photographs. The physicality of the newsprint is made apparent in this display with spacers that lift the image from the background inside the frame. Because of this, the viewer is inclined to look at them as pieces of paper. In the format of a newspaper, photographs occupy a space between images that are as dispensable as they are in digital format and a form that seems to realize more material weight, like a family photo album. They are distributed widely, but the physicality warrants a number limit attached to the paper form. The viewer calls into question their understanding of illustrative imagery, to look more closely at images attached to text, and question the context of a photograph in relation to the photograph itself.
Distribution
of imagery through the news lends itself to a collective consciousness, and the
images become symbols associated with events. Alpine Star looks
at these icons in the setting of a small town and in displaying them together, offers
a projection of a way of life and a narrative onto this town. The viewer at once is made a participant
and a spectator to this narrative, holding the paper as we watch through the
halftone window.
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