Archive Study is a body of work where photos of flowers have been manipulated to discuss the problems with archiving flowers, or anything for that matter, with photography.

Result #1

It presents flowers as a series of abstract digital prints that often, especially in the case of Güreşs flowers, are enlarged to a scale of more than ten inches in height. As such, they look like abstract photographs. But they are not photographs; they are fragments of a collage of fragments, giving the whole a surreal, hallucinatory dimension that makes a perfect painting. Güreşs photos do not recreate any particular action or human action; rather, they provide visual hints to be taken. These hints are often the result of a process of reproduction and erasure, from which the full meaning of the individual image has yet to be realized. At the same time, these hints are used to generate an absolute symbolic image, in which the meaning of action disappears entirely and everything that is represented becomes a mere reference to the meaningless. In other words, Güreş is giving as much as possible of a solution to the problem of archiving, using photography as a convenient means.The project opens onto a dialogue between the postmodern, photographic production and reproduction, as well as between the monochrome and photographic abstraction. One of the most striking elements is Güreşs manipulation of the photographic image to emphasize the shimmering surface of the surface and to make a visible the certain rules of composition, as well as the fact that nothing is actually discernible in the images. This mirrors a dialogue with photography, which suggests that the procedure of reproduction is crucial for communication, that is, communication is at its most effective when it refers to the particular moment of observation, the single moment when the photographic image is available for a viewer.

Result #2

Archive Study is a body of work where photos of flowers have been manipulated to discuss the problems with archiving flowers, or anything for that matter, with photography. The series of photographs that compose the piece were taken by Messina and are reported to be the result of attempts to maintain the possibility of reproduction in the face of the inevitable loss of authenticity of reproductions. Such instances of transposition of photojournalism are also part of the very documentary project that encompasses all stages of post-Modernism.The photographer is not the only anthropologist in the world whose photographs are usually quite realistic. In fact, the distinction between art and reality is quite frequently a meaningless one. In a world where anything can be visualized or claimed to be art, it is therefore no coincidence that an artistic image is treated as fake, or that it is a product of a clandestine process; where, through a rather obscure form of photomontage, we are able to see, for instance, that we are in fact looking at a photograph of a painting, which is in fact the image of a figural image taken from a painting by Hans Hofmann.Such ambivalence of reality is one of the main concerns of photojournalism. Some artists, such as Carl Andre and Yves Klein, use photomontage to approach the problem of perception and a world of images, but others, such as Tracey Emin, make use of a photographic technique to generate images which act as a means of the work itself. However, Emin is not primarily interested in making images; she approaches the subject of the art object, as in her works of the late 80s, with a certain detachment and a certain irony. The presence of such ambiguous works is symptomatic of the present crisis in post-Modernism. It seems that in the wake of the loss of the photographic image, there are no more expectations of photography, but of the object.

Result #3

Archive Study is a body of work where photos of flowers have been manipulated to discuss the problems with archiving flowers, or anything for that matter, with photography. They have been manipulated to deal with the problem of photographs as evidence—the issue of documentation—and then examined in relation to postmodern criticism. For example, a piece entitled Cyberspace Disorder—essentially, a function of the perceived disorganization of a cultural sphere (a position that is here taken by the artist) is juxtaposed with a group of people who engage in computer games and find that the games are simply repetitions of the basic game of CCC. The whole thing is ironic, because the cyberspace disorder is both the most and the only thing left in the work after it has been manipulated, thus proving to the aesthetic point, and not the other way around.Yet there is a more theatrical aspect to the piece than this, a factor that is more aesthetic than epistemological, and the result of the transfer of the work from the realm of interpretation to that of commercial advertising. The piece is essentially a video-installation with its own soundtrack, as is often the case with video-installations. The work consists of a double-screen monitor with a picture of a wire chair and a video that plays continuously. On one monitor a man appears and plays a video-game character; on the other he is shown on the chair, talking about the problems with archiving flowers and the trouble with presenting an image of the reproduced scene. In an effort to stop the man from repeating himself in the video, the screen is cropped to only three or four feet from the chair. The camera cuts to the top of a building and to an image of a bridge. The video continues from there, through other objects, to the third monitor, in which the man speaks about the problem of archiving information about a video of a video-game (the one shown on the screen). It is the same guy who, when asked what he does (I dont know if hes a good programmer), replies, Im an archivist.

Result #4

. . . In the early 90s, Foster used a camera to take photos of flowers—a task that nearly ended in disaster. Foster attempted to reach an elusive hybrid, combining the material with the semiarchaic matter—emphasizing the trivial. So as soon as one planted the tulips, he erased them. There is no recognition of the roots of the flower beyond the lens. The flower is reduced to a petite if insignificant. The tulip is no more than an obvious tic. The hollowness of the flowers is more a gesture of social acceptance than the rejection of anything. It is a sign of passing time, an embarrassing blunder. In the works of both artist and photographer, the flower functions as a fragile presence, an unpredictable object.This gesture of reaction to the formal limitations of archiving/exposing photographs is far more revealing than the call of its parents. Foster has no qualms about the fact that there are limits to his control. The exhibition shows the method of construction; the works are not single, they are not natural, and their effects are not accidental. Foster is as inventive as they are masterful.

Result #5

Archive Study is a body of work where photos of flowers have been manipulated to discuss the problems with archiving flowers, or anything for that matter, with photography. . . . I attempt to create pictures that are just a little bit different from the kind of stuff that usually passes for photography. The flaky, almost avant-garde quality of Post-Modernist inversions, in which flowers in mirror images become completely different aspects of the same flowers, has been replaced with a display of objectivity and a confidence in the institutions ability to determine what is legitimate and what is not.The show was organized in two groups, the Flower and the Beehive, and a separate room containing copies of the books and the illustrations of the original work. The first group was of the beehives, a queer, artistic expression that was an alternative, subversive alternative to the monochromes. Several were devoted to the beehive itself, while others were more concerned with recuperating, in light of the collapse of the Romantic tradition, the use of color photography to depict the insects that pollinate the flowers. The floral images were also reproduced in photographs by the Adir Life Extension Foundation, while the photographs of the bees were taken by Rebecca Goldscheider. These images were then combined with photographs of the flowers and images of the nocturnal city of New York. The aim of both groupings was to highlight the work of gay, largely unknown photographers, who do exist, in the tradition of the Romantic, but are marginalized by that tradition. The only other kind of photography I can think of is the current pseudo-professionalization of photography. This is a challenge to the tradition of the amateur, to the very idea of the artist as photographer. The premise of a flea market is also an amateur premise, a challenge to the authority of the experts who collect and identify flea markets. All of this is precisely what is happening in the show.The flowers in the beehive photographs were chosen because they are usually considered relatively unknown, and thus looked strange.