SLP

"I always like to work on leftovers, doing the leftover things. Things that were discarded, that everybody knew were no good, I always thought had a great potential to be funny. It was like recycling work. I always thought there was a lot of humor in leftovers" - Andy Warhol

To set up this proposal for my SLP, I am going to give multiple references, so when I finally layout my idea it won't sound so ridiculous.

The quote above, by Andy Warhol which explains his urge to use that which is discarded or considered irrelevant by the rest of society.

The photography of Stephen Shore, particularly the exhibition for American Surfaces in which he showed prints from a cross country trip that were developed by drug stores.

The incredibly large abstract pictures by Andreas Gursky, specifically, the Ohne series.

Well, with this much build up, I might as well get on with it. I had the idea for this a while ago and sort of let it percolate in my head for a while, never really getting the courage to actually decide to do it. However, right before writing this, I was reading an excerpt from Andy Warhol's autobiography for my Image as Readymade class. The quote stopped me dead in my tracks, because it perfectly described what I was trying to do. For my SLP, I want to compile a book of the pictures my cellphone takes of the inside of my jeans pocket. While this might sound stupid as hell, I believe I have set up enough precedence to fully justify this project. The project can clearly be read as a reference to Warhol's re appropriation of the everyday, and his desire to use the "leftovers." I personally see it as more of a reference to Stephen Shore's American Surfaces exhibition though, which was so revolutionary at the time as to be analogous to someone showing pictures taken by a cell phone at a gallery today. Artists didn't use drug store prints, that stuff was for normal people, in the same way that the large majority of modern photography (not 'art' photography), is taken by a cellphone. Lastly, the pictures will reference Gursky's Ohne series in a purely aesthetic sense, echoing his abstractions.

Now I just gotta get my cellphone to accidentally take pictures of the inside of my jeans again.