Impermanence
Impermanence is the result of an almost three year exploration of the devastation caused by the fire that ravished Kendall Messick’s home in 2006. In nearly 200 images of the scene he has oscillated between his typical portrait and documentary practice and a more aestheticized pictorization to create photographs that are metonymic and act as a space of meditation and scrutiny. Many of these images are reminiscent of Aaron Siskind’s metaphoric abstract photographs from the 1960s that portray dripping paint, graffiti and peeling walls. However, unlike Siskind, Messick does not wish to impart a transcendent sensibility but instead, he calls attention to details and privileges a particular type of note taking. One sees in the development of such images, rendered over a period of one year, the artist’s attempt to assess the damage. Messick indicates that in the weeks after the fire, he spent much of his time itemizing his loss for insurance purposes. His abstract images convey a similar type of enumeration, not only of specific objects but also of the space that housed these objects. These images are simultaneously emotive and analytic, their visual impact owed to their composition. Messick’s use of a square format causes the image to be pushed out towards the edges of the pictorial field leaving no room for additional narrative. This, coupled with their diminutive size as compared to other works in the series, afford them a specimen-like quality.
As part of this body of work Messick has also produced surreal images that bring the viewer closer to the facts of the fire. In drawing us nearer, the more concentrated looking that is demanded by the abstract pictures gives way to a visual pulling back, suggesting the palpable weight of Messick’s reaction to the disaster. The artist’s method of managing the constant unfolding of ruin is to translate it into a series of vignettes that reveal more of the destroyed space. In contrast to the abstract pictures, these works recall film stills and are sharply photographed with acerbic color that calls Mannerist painting to mind. In them, charred corridors lead to rooms filled with scorched and mangled objects. In one, an open door reveals disembodied heads bathed in a ethereal light while in another, dripping streaks stain eerie blue walls. These elements make them enigmatic as their seemingly constructed nature belies the actuality of the event. One is caused to wonder how these heads came to be in this room, in this way? What is Messick trying to articulate as he invites the viewer to move with him down lonely corridors? The probing, almost forensic nature of some of his images suggests that Messick is also searching for the answers to such queries.
In Corapeake (1995) and The Projectionist (2007), two portrait-based projects that seek to record the passing of communities and the transience of life, Messick embedded himself in the ever-changing lives of his subjects in order to record the tenor of each passing day. These works contain a biographical element as Messick has always been drawn to such narratives. At first glance Impermanence appears to be a departure from such ruminations, however it is arguably the most intimate of his photo essays and is the first time he has turned his camera onto himself so extensively. In a series of pictures of objects entitled Conflagrations he recalls his portraitist and biographical devices to examine the fire’s aftermath. His likeness can be found in these objects, as they are beloved possessions that for the artist resurrect lost craftsmanship. His penchant for reclaiming the past may account for their fetishist treatment in his images. Portraits of head forms once used by haberdashers, fishing gigs traditionally forged by blacksmiths and Steuben glass vases cloaked in the fire’s residue become otherworldly, seeming to materialize as transient things. It is this space of interstitiality that reveals the photo-essay’s redemptive meaning. The images reflect Messick’s sense of wonder in the rediscovery of his objects. His goal in rendering them is to highlight the distinctiveness of change—to move from a universal discourse about the destruction to a more personal celebration of transformation.
A conflagration is an all-consuming fire typically started by human intervention. The heat from such a fire can be so intense that it creates a flow of oxygen, which allows it to feed on itself. Angel, a workman who while using solvent to strip varnish from a room’s wooden detailing, inadvertently struck his steal wool pad against a metal surface starting Messick’s conflagration. In the exhibition, Angel’s image appears in a set of black and white prints, some of which were taken just hours after Messick arrived on the scene. The color reality that describes the conflagration and predominates Messick’s other pictures is transformed in these images to indicate a change in the artist’s mood. Messick often uses this tonal variation to affect an emotional shift. Capitalizing on their warm tones, the photographer seems to be offering up a requiem by locating the images in a room that contains the last evidentiary remnants of the fire. Here, the site as artifact emphasizes the magnitude of the disaster presenting the fire as both historic and contemporary events.
Andrea Douglas
Curator of Exhibitions
University of Virginia Art Museum
Impermanence is the result of an almost three year exploration of the devastation caused by the fire that ravished Kendall Messick’s home in 2006. In nearly 200 images of the scene he has oscillated between his typical portrait and documentary practice and a more aestheticized pictorization to create photographs that are metonymic and act as a space of meditation and scrutiny. Many of these images are reminiscent of Aaron Siskind’s metaphoric abstract photographs from the 1960s that portray dripping paint, graffiti and peeling walls. However, unlike Siskind, Messick does not wish to impart a transcendent sensibility but instead, he calls attention to details and privileges a particular type of note taking. One sees in the development of such images, rendered over a period of one year, the artist’s attempt to assess the damage. Messick indicates that in the weeks after the fire, he spent much of his time itemizing his loss for insurance purposes. His abstract images convey a similar type of enumeration, not only of specific objects but also of the space that housed these objects. These images are simultaneously emotive and analytic, their visual impact owed to their composition. Messick’s use of a square format causes the image to be pushed out towards the edges of the pictorial field leaving no room for additional narrative. This, coupled with their diminutive size as compared to other works in the series, afford them a specimen-like quality.
As part of this body of work Messick has also produced surreal images that bring the viewer closer to the facts of the fire. In drawing us nearer, the more concentrated looking that is demanded by the abstract pictures gives way to a visual pulling back, suggesting the palpable weight of Messick’s reaction to the disaster. The artist’s method of managing the constant unfolding of ruin is to translate it into a series of vignettes that reveal more of the destroyed space. In contrast to the abstract pictures, these works recall film stills and are sharply photographed with acerbic color that calls Mannerist painting to mind. In them, charred corridors lead to rooms filled with scorched and mangled objects. In one, an open door reveals disembodied heads bathed in a ethereal light while in another, dripping streaks stain eerie blue walls. These elements make them enigmatic as their seemingly constructed nature belies the actuality of the event. One is caused to wonder how these heads came to be in this room, in this way? What is Messick trying to articulate as he invites the viewer to move with him down lonely corridors? The probing, almost forensic nature of some of his images suggests that Messick is also searching for the answers to such queries.
In Corapeake (1995) and The Projectionist (2007), two portrait-based projects that seek to record the passing of communities and the transience of life, Messick embedded himself in the ever-changing lives of his subjects in order to record the tenor of each passing day. These works contain a biographical element as Messick has always been drawn to such narratives. At first glance Impermanence appears to be a departure from such ruminations, however it is arguably the most intimate of his photo essays and is the first time he has turned his camera onto himself so extensively. In a series of pictures of objects entitled Conflagrations he recalls his portraitist and biographical devices to examine the fire’s aftermath. His likeness can be found in these objects, as they are beloved possessions that for the artist resurrect lost craftsmanship. His penchant for reclaiming the past may account for their fetishist treatment in his images. Portraits of head forms once used by haberdashers, fishing gigs traditionally forged by blacksmiths and Steuben glass vases cloaked in the fire’s residue become otherworldly, seeming to materialize as transient things. It is this space of interstitiality that reveals the photo-essay’s redemptive meaning. The images reflect Messick’s sense of wonder in the rediscovery of his objects. His goal in rendering them is to highlight the distinctiveness of change—to move from a universal discourse about the destruction to a more personal celebration of transformation.
A conflagration is an all-consuming fire typically started by human intervention. The heat from such a fire can be so intense that it creates a flow of oxygen, which allows it to feed on itself. Angel, a workman who while using solvent to strip varnish from a room’s wooden detailing, inadvertently struck his steal wool pad against a metal surface starting Messick’s conflagration. In the exhibition, Angel’s image appears in a set of black and white prints, some of which were taken just hours after Messick arrived on the scene. The color reality that describes the conflagration and predominates Messick’s other pictures is transformed in these images to indicate a change in the artist’s mood. Messick often uses this tonal variation to affect an emotional shift. Capitalizing on their warm tones, the photographer seems to be offering up a requiem by locating the images in a room that contains the last evidentiary remnants of the fire. Here, the site as artifact emphasizes the magnitude of the disaster presenting the fire as both historic and contemporary events.
Andrea Douglas
Curator of Exhibitions
University of Virginia Art Museum
