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Course: The J. Paul Getty Museum > Unit 2
Lesson 3: Photographers- P.H. Emerson
- P.H. Emerson's naturalistic photography
- John Humble's photographs of Los Angeles
- Camilo Vergara documents the changing urban landscape
- David Hockney's "Pearblossom Hwy"
- Eileen Cowin on her series "I See What You're Saying"
- Carrie Mae Weems on her series "From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried"
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Eileen Cowin on her series "I See What You're Saying"
Combining text and photography, contemporary artist Eileen Cowin explores narrative within her work. Created by Getty Museum.
Video transcript
Voiceover: Eileen Cowin discusses
her 2002 series of photographs, I See What You're Saying. (slow piano music) Voiceover: All my work has
really been based in the idea of the relationship between fact and
fiction, and the line between the two. I think that I use my
photographic images in some way to get across an idea about storytelling. (turning pages of a book) I started working on these images because I became interested
in the idea of lying. Pick the title, I See What You're Saying. Let's say, you say, "I love you." Then someone says, "I love you too." Maybe the I love you too
is not really happening, it's not in the expression on their face, so you really see what
they're saying, literally. (slow piano music) The first [dictive] was the
very first one that I made. The images of a woman's eye and you
can't quite tell where she's looking, and then on the opposite
side is an image of a book where some of the lines
have been peeled away. If you go up closely, you'll be
able to see that it's a fairy tale. Anytime that you use text it has almost
an authority over the visual images. However, I try to make the images of
the eye and the woman with the fork, and the close eyes, and
the cupcakes so strong that it actually does challenge it. You're not saying this equals this. One thing will make you look
at something else differently. I don't think that I initially
thought about the senses when I first started doing this but I
wanted you to almost taste that cupcake, to feel that cold fork on your tongue. I wanted it to be almost
like a visceral feeling. Like that mustache over that icing. Like something coming out of
your mouth that seems sweet but if you really thought
about it, it's not really. Like a lie.