Grey Gardens (1975) / Guardian article [link]
A documentary film I had been meaning to watch for a while now, about the lives of Big Edie and Little Edie who were the aunt and first cousin of Jackie Kennedy. They lived together on the once beautiful Grey Gardens estate, now surrounded by rubbish and their belongings, the house infested with fleas, cats, and raccoons.
What interested me was their eccentric characters, their openness to the film crew, and their 'fall from grace' - it was implied they were scorned by the village of East Hampton, and how they were now living reclusive lives in squalor.
Hotshoe Magazine
I picked up a copy in the library, which had an interview with photographer Roger Ballen. I had seen parts of his work before, but I was interested in the dilapidated and derelict aesthetic of his photographs. It was an interesting interview, and made me think about the role of taking photos.
Key words from the article: figment, relic, enigmatic, isolated, eccentrics,
Leading me on to...
Photographs
Why do we take photographs? Memories, remembering, memento, souvenirs, objects, possessions, hoarding, why do we keep things?
Possessions & Hoarding
Relates back to Grey Gardens, as well as the case of the Collyer Brothers I remember reading a while ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/opinion/the-map-of-my-life.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FMemory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers
Collyer brothers photo gallery:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/collyer-brothers-brownstone-gallery-1.1187698?pmSlide=1.1187695
Love and Squalor On 128th Street
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/love-and-squalor
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/nyregion/the-paper-chase.html
1940s - Theresa Fox
1950s - Charles Huffman
1960s - George Aichele
the writer's Uncle Arthur: ''Believe it or not, I've never bought a single piece of junk,'' Uncle Arthur said. ''I found it all on the street. You'd be surprised what you find once you look. Pennies, nickels, dimes, safety pins, jacks, dice, mirrors, small bottles, dresser handles, screws, wire, cord, moth balls, cigarette packs, pens that say different things on them, bullets.''
He particularly prizes first-edition magazines, bus transfers and parking tickets plucked from windshields. ''People just leave parking tickets on their cars,'' he said wonderingly. ''I must have found thousands of dollars' worth. Every day I could pick one up.''
NY Times "What You Collect: The Ordinary and the Odd"
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/07/24/arts/design/the-keeper-collectors-reader-submissions.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FHoarding
- The Keeper - exhibition at The New Museum
http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/the-keeper
From the audio tour introduction: 'The keeper is an exhibition about collecting, saving, and preserving artworks, artifacts, objects and images. In other words it is an exhibition about individuals who have carried out unreasonable (?) acts of iconophilia or love of images. Through a series of portraits and case studies this spanned the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.
The exhibition raises questions about notions of value, and ownership. We ask what it means to hold on to something and what does it mean to lose it. We ask what it means to care for an artwork or for an object and we ask how and why we project feelings and emotions on certain objects of affection. As we are witnessing a resurgence of iconoclasm through the destruction of monuments and artworks in various parts of the world, the live projects brought together in this exhibition testify to a great faith in the power of images to comfort, heal, and bear witness to the traumas of history.
Walter Benjamin famously wrote that 'every passion borders the chaotic, but that of the collector borders on the chaos of memories' and the Keeper is an exhibiton about remembering and preserving memories through images....'
- Why Do We Collect Things? - Guardian article
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/09/why-do-we-collect-things-love-anxiety-or-desire
- The Psychology of Collecting - The National Psychologist
http://nationalpsychologist.com/2007/01/the-psychology-of-collecting/10904.html
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