Who wears the pants?

Afterimage, July-August, 2005 by Amanda Norenberg

GARTH AMUNDSON: HOME EC.

SHIFT COLLABORATIVE STUDIO

SEATTLE, WA

APRIL 7-30, 2005

It's a pleasure to share one's memories. Everything remembered is
dear, endearing, touching, precious. At least the past is safe--though
we didn't know it at the time. We know it now. Because it's in the
past; because we have survived.
--Susan Sontag, "Debriefing," in American Review, September 1973

Garth Amundson's recent exhibition "Home Ec." at SHIFT Collaborative Studio in Seattle, WA successfully transformed the artist's personal collection of snapshots into a visual feast. Re-photographed wheels of color, large 27 X 27-inch circular pigment prints framed in white, danced along the white walls of the small, newly renovated space. The 15 varied soft-focus images depict the artist's hand holding small photos of himself and his partner against the back-drop of their home interior. Visible are the kitchen counter, the bathroom walls and the red butterfly chairs. Concentric, circular lines ring the edges of the prints like bull's-eyes. Black stitches visible along the periphery of the images betray the fact that we are really looking through a lens made of plastic bottles sewn together with heavy thread.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Along the front wall of gallery windows ran a shelf covered in bundles of photographs taken throughout the course of Amundson's same-sex relationship. Hundreds of small twine-bound images invited hands to leaf through them, but because only the top image in each stack was visible, they remained frustratingly off-limits. The sheer number of snapshots bulked together evoked a sense of weight and the passage of time. A pleasurable tension was created by the contrast of the earthy heaviness of the stacks and the lighter vibrancy of the images on the walls--pleasurable in the way that sitting in a beautifully decorated home covered in lush paintings, sipping tea and looking at a friend's photo album is pleasurable.

The work in "Home Ec." signals a change in media for Amundson from much of his previous work, although the imagemaking itself remains similar to his earlier project "Objective Distortions" (1999-2004). This is the first time he has exhibited in digital media, usually preferring the use of analogue or technologies like cyanotype, silver gelatin contact printing or gel medium transfers. Like a turn-of-the-century photographic historian, he continues to pursue his fascination with the sculptural relationship between image and object by creating hand-sewn plastic lenses in order to leave his own imprint on the work. Through cutting and sewing, he investigates the notion of adapting the ordinary lens into a variety of ribbed, long and bulbous shapes. The fabrication of these types of three-dimensional objects allows him to expand on the use of distortion as a tool of invention, while also questioning the idea of originality. The stitch marks literally act as a vehicle for tying the work together, and the mark making of the thread becomes a drawing tool. Sometimes the thread acts as a framing device, other times it makes the images pictorialist and blurry, almost like pinhole photographs. All the images made with these lenses are unique, with the thread marks acting as a sort of "territorial pissing" or marking of territory. However, these phallic objects also poke fun at the masculinized camera culture, creating intentional distortions and blurred images.

Amundson's newest prints are based on a catalog of images that span his 20-year relationship. The soft and dreamy distorted images explore the perceivably "difficult" topic of gay marriage, but also portray a very ordinary look at everyday life in the home, and capture the passage of time within the extension of a long-term relationship as defined by place and thing. "Home Ec." is a metaphor that represents the social construction of his relationship, or any relationship, and the fabrication of a home life. The blurry distortion acts metaphorically as a means of reflecting a constantly fragmented long-term connection. The thread represents reconstruction and putting back together, unconsciously binding the material and the content.

Balking at the idea that gay men are "supposed" to remain single, Amundson created the work in "Home Ec." to explore the constantly changing political arena surrounding the domestic sphere. The re-photographed prints and sculptural installation illustrate the mundane, yet challenging aspects of domestication and relationships. Says Admundson,

  As gay men with academic and art careers, we have been transients
  since we met, moving from one place to the next, establishing a home
  and trying to settle in. Ultimately, the home becomes a secure place
  for us. It protects us, and it's the only place where we can display
  affection and be truly comfortable. Comfort, intimacy and privacy are
  not entirely gender specific, but the necessity to create a safe nest
  or home becomes more urgent when couples don't fit into the standard
  model. (1)