Filter Photo Interview: Curtis Mann
Curtis Mann, Reduction, 2011, bleached and torn chromogenic prints, 48” x 70”
Curtis Mann is a speaker for the 2013 Filter Photo Festival, at Harrington College of Design. Mann is an artist represent by a number of galleries, including Kavi Gupta Chicago | Berlin, and he has shown his work in a large number of prestigious exhibitions, including the 2010 Whitney Biennial. Mann earned an MFA from Columbia College Chicago in 2008 and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Dayton in 2002. In his latest body of work, Mann departs from geopolitical subject matter to embrace the photographic process at its most fundamental. You can read about his upcoming artist talk on the Filter site here.
Curtis Mann, broken photograph + tuttle, 2013, cut chromogenic development print, 30” x 45”
By Julie Leah Weber, edited by James Pepper Kelly
Julie Leah Weber: Let’s start with a bit of present-day context. You recently moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. How was the transition? I’m sure you’ve settled in with a new studio space and access to prime surfing locations? And even more recently you became a father.
Curtis Mann: The transition went well but looking back, even after only a couple of months, it’s also really been unsettling and a bit confusing. As an artist, so much of what you do is dictated by your surroundings and the physicality and schedule of your process. To use a surfing metaphor, it’s kind of like wiping out and trying to get your head above the foam and water to breathe and orient yourself. Right now I’m still gargling water a little. And then, as of a month ago, you throw the most amazing little girl in the whole world in my arms and, man, it’s a lot to process. Luckily, everything right now is in close proximity: my studio is attached to my home and my surf spot is seven minutes away.
JLW: How would you describe your subject matter and the content of your work?
CM: I like to look at and feel my way around the edges of utility and structure. I’m interested in using destructive processes that alter both physical material and the utility of that material. I’m looking for something else—not necessarily something better, just the experience of discovering new potentials, new realities. I enjoy disruptions in viewing, altered viewing angles, and the sense of touch. I look for final moments of alchemy that are more real than that which pretends to be real. Kind of like feeling and chipping away at the walls of Plato’s cave as an ulterior way of continuing our search for some sort of reality or truth.
I’ve taken this approach with found images, simple monochromatic prints, and recently with my own photographs and common structures such as moving blankets, chairs and found objects.
JLW: In your work there’s a lot of relation, whether formally or materially, to painting, drawing, sculpture, and collage. I wonder if you consider your work predominantly photographic or not?
CM: Those relations come from how I like to interact with materials. When you interact physically with a photograph, that interaction immediately rips it from the flat world of mirrors and windows, permanently placing it in the context of another medium. From there, I usually choose which one of the relations I’m specifically interested in at the time. Depending on scale, presentation, and other formal or conceptual considerations, I’m trying to place the work in the dialogue of sculpture or painting or drawing, etc. In terms of my work being photographic or not, I don’t worry much about that overtly. When you look back on the work, some projects start to lean toward the photographic and some away from it, but I guess in the end they are all grounded in the photographic. They’re concerned with the world through a photographic context and they use a photographic syntax.
Curtis Mann, Road Block Removal, 2010, synthetic polymer varnish on bleached chromogenic development print, 56” x 90”
gummygunk
2087
prguitarman
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
areudirty
