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Unmasked and Anonymous Blog
Welcome to the blog for Unmasked and Anonymous, where Wisconsin photographers John Shimon & Julie Lindemann will be writing and responding to your questions, in conjunction with the exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Please leave your comments and questions for the artists here; then check back to read their reply.
Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to interact directly with the artists. Return to the blog regularly throughout the run of the exhibition and contribute to the ongoing conversation.
You can find more information about John Shimon & Julie Lindemann on their website, as well as on Flickr and YouTube.
18 Responses to “Unmasked and Anonymous Blog”
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© Copyright 2008 Milwaukee Art Museum
Julie and Johnie,
Having worked on your website for many years, it has always been a highlight of my day if I get a “photo of the moment” update from you. It’s like unwrapping a christmas gift out of season.
I have been following the trajectory of your photographic narrative since your Riverwest days in Milwaukee and it’s been a truly satisfying visual feast. Being that I am from Manitowoc, I would have to say your images of disaffected youth of my hometown are the ones that keep drawing me back, both because of the visual content as well as the storylines – some like Nigel – ongoing.
A question for both of you: In terms of your entire body of work to date, what image or series of images continue for one reason or another, to startle you to this day?
We’re not sure startle is the right word because the photographs come from who and what is directly around us so they are all somehow comforting and familiar. Haunting, maybe.
Julie and Johnie,
How does music inform your artistic practice?
And, what are your top three favorite records of all time?
We met in a band so the whole working together with people to make something process is an integral part of how we approach making our pictures. Our favorite records change all the time. There was a winter when we listened to Cash IV every day in our studio. The prints became very dark. We have many old LPs picked up at thrift stores that we love. Some by Lawrence Welk, Hildegarde, Claudine Longet and 2 clowns with an accordion doing Carpenters covers remain in high rotation.
Dear John and Julie,
The show looks great on-line. I’ll make it up to Milwaukee to see it. Thank you for letting me know. It’s really fun to see some of the older images like “Glad Boy.” I remember these from when I was an undergrad at SAIC and you gave a visiting artist lecture to my large format class about 10 years ago.
Jim (the person with the old shop glasses who was almost your TA)
Glade Boy, oh yeh. There’s work from 1991 (when we first began photographing with the 8×10 on location in Manitowoc) to present in the show plus a multi-media installation with a film loop and video projection about Brad and Amber and the voodoo of the photographic process.
A fab show by a fab duo. You are too awesome!
I KNEW there’d be alot of people but MAN! Throngs of adoring fans made it a challenge to actually LOOK at some of the photos. I gotta go back.
But..to see a Julia Margaret Cameron in the same show with Brad and Amber! Gotta love it.
BTW, the catalog is beautiful.
As are youse! Ha!
We were surprised at the turn out. Crazy! It was incredible and like having our entire life flash before us. We did a post about it (See “The Red Sari” post by scrolling up to list). We hope people go back to look more carefully at the show–it’s a dark and quiet viewing experience best experienced alone.
reminded by your comments, Johnny, at the glorious reception for the thrilling exhibition, that “Time,… unties all knots. Judgements on people are never final, they emerge from summings up which at once suggest the need of a reconsideration. Human arrangements are nothing but loose ends and hazy reckoning, whatever art may otherwise pretend in order to console us.”
What a beautiful show- I am glad I made the trip from nyc. the photos looked so gorgeous. Big congrats! The talk was fun, very interesting for me to hear the background- since I never saw you teach it was enriching to have some words and thoughts behind what we see.
MAM is such an atmospheric place. the combination of the lake view and modern structure is so winning…
Amazing to see your work there along with the classic photos you hand-picked-what company your photos keep! I also enjoyed seeing a
group of young girls- teenagers- looking at the photo of the Penguin Drive-In and saying it was their favorite. No doubt they were studying poses and styles for future reference.
S and L,
I left work early the day of the opening to see the show without the distraction of the opening night crowd. I am so glad I did. It was a wonderful and enlightening experience to see the span of your career and your compassionate view of humanity and everyday life.
Along with your work, I was pleased to finally see the work by Walter, who for years graced Brady Street Pharmacy with his presence. I especially appreciated the display of photos that remain from Stanley’s early work and their sad reference to the Norman fire.
I look forward to returning to the show. I also look forward to seeing your future accomplishments.
The catalog is zine tastic!
As Holly would say, the show is the ho ha he!
I read a review about the exhibit that suggested Julie and Johnie encourage their subjects to be “performative, put on personas”. This was not my experience. I went into their studio in 1995 and was exactly who I was and that’s what they photographed. They captured what life not only looked like but felt like to me. What I see is the facade I needed to live in to survive. And I believe that is what they captured in their photgraph. Under the angry rebel was fear and insecurity (just to name a few). Although it may have been apparent to others I believed I was doing a good job at hiding. When the facade became transparent even to myself I had nothing left but to deal with life as it was handed to me. I was going to live or die and I chose to live. But not in the misery that was my existence. Growing is hard but it’s worth it. Being who I am is easy. I don’t have to put on a facade. I just have to be who I am and I am all of it. I am grateful for being reminded, through their photography, what life is not anymore.
Jolly I Say, What! The panorama of Jan and Bruce is excellent.
Awesome to see your pics among masters. I regret Bunny (Yeager) didn’t make the cut.
How did Gertrude Käsebier expunge the middle part of her self-portrait? Pretty cool intervention.
it would be better with other languages support, but thanks..
Every response to the MAM show on the blog has been very positive, as was M.L. Schumacher’s review in the MJS. I went to the Koss gallery with high expectations of seeing some outstanding photographs, but I’m wondering what I missed. Although some of the other photographers’ work was outstanding, I found the work of Shimon and Lindemann to be unremarkable. Unremarkable subject matter, unremarkable composition, unremarkable emotional response, unremarkable photographs. In my view their work suffered even more by comparison to the historic photos with which they were juxtaposed. Is it that they used 19th or 20th century equipment and techniques? Is it that they affect a retro look in their own personas with the clothes and glasses, etc? Surely there are photographers in Wisconsin whose work is more worthy of a major exhibit at the MAM. Much ado about nothing.
Thanks for seeing the show Dave and for taking the time to give us your take on it. Dave is a potter at Eitel Studio and works with his wife running Cedar Creek Pottery. Please note that the work of Wisconsin photographers Walter Sheffer, Stanley Ryan Jones and Francis Ford are included in the show.
The show was great! But you sould of had more artistic nudes from the Manitowoc and Maple Grove. Hail to the Chief’s of photography!
We await your next show of all artistic nudes of Wisconsin and Chicago and surrounding area.
New York City has enough nudes of their own. We do not need to invade New York at this time!
Faith and begorra to ye!
I loved the show’s punk energy and seeing the history of photography in one setting along with the Obama purple walls, was a nice touch to us democrat artists who have been seeing the same white walls for the last eight years under the Bush regime!
I know Jim Auer and Walter Sheffer looking down on us from “Art Heaven” would have loved it too. They were crazy about you guys and your old school platinum-palladium prints. No middle class, no middle of the road, commercial developing for you!
Did you send a catalog to Karl Lagerfeld in Paris? Like my favorite discontinued LAGERFELD eau de toilette, the show was CLASSIC!