Cleaner Details (2023)

In a short statement for the 'Sites' exhibition catalogue (1982), I wrote about "the eccentricities at large in the quotidian world." 'Cleaner Details' enlarges this notion, with the subject of found text and a close listening to the wildly prolific and eccentric voices in our everyday landscape. These more recent images-- made between 2006 and 2022-- reprise the concept of found text depicted in my first monograph- "Touchless Automatic Wonder: Found Text from the Real World" (LK, 2009: Borderland Books, Madison, WI). A selection of images from the book can also be seen elsewhere on my lensculture.com page. The earlier project presents work from a time when I was making mostly black-and-white images (1980-2008). This more recent selection of images sequences digital color photographs in a slideshow format. "Cleaner Details" was first projected in a continuous loop of 275 images, in a two-person show with visual poet Richard K Tipping, at his WordXimage Gallery (Maitland, NSW, Australia, 2023). The following sequence is an abridged version of the original slideshow. ------- Gratefully Acknowledged-- those whose work appears in, or whose presence is recorded in these images, including:  Marina Abramovic / Ann Behrmann / Black Lives Matter (Madison, WI muralist) / Lise Brachet / Casper (WY) US Army Air Force Servicemen's Club muralists / Flip Cassidy & East Jesus / Maurizio Cattelan / Jack Chick / Mary Chucka & Peter Hlavacek / Cruiseamerica RVs' photographers / Mark di Suvero / William Eggleston / Nick Engelbert / Patrick jb Flynn / Al Gore & Davis Guggenheim / Barbara Kruger / judith Leemann / Aleksandra Mir / jafar Panahi / Michael Putnam / Dr. Sameer / Madeleine B. Stern / RT Taylor / Tibetan Children’s Village, Dharamsala / Richard K. Tipping / UW-Madison Women’s Volleyball team / Paul Vanderbilt / Jeff Wall / Christopher K. Wilde / #withbeing / Wormfarm Institute