Analyzing Art Part. 1 - Duane Michal's Bathroom Art

When I'm out of inspiration (as I am now) and my paintbrushes feel heavy as lead, I seek motivation in the art of others. Today I stumbled on photographs by an American artist with the name of Duane Michals. I read that he's considered as one of the pioneers of the so-called staged photography. His images are the opposite of snapshots taken in the moment. He is more of a director than someone that depicts a natural situation. Many of the photographs consist of series or sequences of photographs organized around a particular theme. A sort of photographic short-stories for which what happens between and outside the picture is at least as important as what happens within it.

Michal's images exist in a place of displacement of meaning. A place where proportion and the order of things are slightly out of place: their meanings and values are slippery and queer. This is especially evident in "Things are Queer" - a series of nine photographs that immediately caught my eye. For every picture we see, we think that we now know and understand what we see, but in the next picture, our newly acquired knowledge is shattered. 

In the first picture we see a regular bathroom. In the next picture, a giant leg has suddenly stepped into it. Our sense of scale and proportions are challenged. The next picture is taken from a further distance. Here we see other objects that support the perception that the bathroom is small and that the man who now bends down to the floor is of normal human size. The next picture shows the same image again, but now as an illustration in a book. Simply mind blowing.

I can't help but feeling a bit jealous when I see these photographs, but they are most of all outstandingly inspiring. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did!

Until next time,

Love, Angelina