Hans Aarsman: Sept 15

Hans Aarsman
From Pretty to Ugly and Back Again, Mysterious Ways of Beauty in Photography
Tuesday, September 15, 6:30 pm
Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor

Being a photographer Hans Aarsman has always had resentments towards beauty in photography. In this lecture, Aarsman, featured in the Nature As Artifice exhibition on view at Aperture Gallery, examines the myriad questions involved in taking photographs for purposes as varied as advertising, documentation, and personal mementos. How does our understanding of the beauty in these images differ depending their final resting place, be it ebay, a family album, specialist magazine or museum collection? Through his own experiences, Aarsman asks if—and how—artistic ambitions, aesthetics, and useful photography can coincide. Aarsman describes beauty as feeling like a way of forcing the world into an almost obligatory shape. In order to escape the trappings of beauty, Aarsman has changed his photographic approach many times, but, try as he might, beauty has always prevailed. He will present pictures from all periods of his attempts to finally find another kind of beauty.

http://www.aperture.org/events/detail.php?id=576