Surrational Images

January 25, 2005 8:38 AM

Surrational Images - A More Perfect World - The hallmark of Mutter's remarkable imagery is the distinct sense that the elements of each picture belong together, even though the combination may violate the laws of physics. Click pictures for descriptions.
posted by hypersloth (14 comments total)

Boring. Photshoppy. "Signed and numbered, blah, blah". Puerile artist commentary.
posted by 327.ca at 8:45 AM on January 25, 2005

Sigh... "Photoshoppy"...
posted by 327.ca at 8:46 AM on January 25, 2005

This chandelier picture immediately brought to mind Rosanne Scimeca's "Cleavage in Space".

I do agree that in the age of Photoshop, photomontages have become rather passe.
posted by DaShiv at 8:51 AM on January 25, 2005

This is my favorite, and also one that he hasn't commented on — not necessarily a bad thing.
posted by taz at 9:16 AM on January 25, 2005

The Mona Lisa is crap because I could just take a photo of a woman and Photoshop out her eyebrows.
posted by dreish at 9:18 AM on January 25, 2005

These images were not "enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software", they were done by hand in a photography shop.

I'm going to go and collect a few thousand pictures and arrange them so that, seen from a distance, they appear to create a larger image. A photographical mosaic, if you will.
posted by breath at 9:20 AM on January 25, 2005

Kind of a poor man's Jerry Uelsmann...in the sense of being more literal and obvious and less aesthetic (Mutter's fan's would say: less artsy-fartsy, you mean). Still, I like them. Seems like I saw the church aisle one somewhere before.
posted by kozad at 9:21 AM on January 25, 2005

I do agree that in the age of Photoshop, photomontages have become rather passe.

I think they've always been passé, technique over content, etc. Photomontage uses contrived images to upset the viewer's sense of what's "real", a challenge to the notion that the camera does not lie. Well, we're all postmodernist now and we know cameras lie all the time, so what's the point?
posted by 327.ca at 9:49 AM on January 25, 2005

I'm confused... but perhaps my thinking about nonprofit museums is old fashioned. Is this "American Museum of Photography", a museum, a for-profit museum, or a photography licensing/ selling web site disguised as a museum?
posted by R. Mutt at 10:05 AM on January 25, 2005

mmm, a staple of dorm rooms everywhere. I think I'll ready my FPP about "No Fat Chicks" posters.
posted by keswick at 10:06 AM on January 25, 2005

I've had that book for a while, but I tend to agree with the rest of the comments here that it's not nearly as interesting today as it once was. When I was a kid, I always thought photomontages were really neat, mostly because I've always loved photography and had no idea how it (the montages, not photgraphy) was done. Now that I know, and now that we have b3ta, worth1000, and, of course, SA, photomontages are only marginally more interesting, mostly because of the "analog photoshopping" novelty factor.

For my money, I'd go with another Mutter. (Well, Mütter actually, but still...)
posted by abiku at 11:29 AM on January 25, 2005

I've tried the "analog photoshopping" route in the darkroom, using multiple enlargers and painstaking masks. It's a real bitch. I'm never going to make those prints again (unless someone really, really wants one). Mutter gets an A for effort, but as Kozad said, he's nothing close to Uehlsmann.
posted by still at 3:16 PM on January 25, 2005

I guess not many people noticed the "For thirty years..." part in the bio.

Is M.C. Escher boring, now that java applets can render his work in seconds, rather than spending countless hours carving them into wooden blocks, backwards, to then be pressed?

Oh well, here's at least a salute to Escher using computer animation.
posted by hypersloth at 5:53 PM on January 25, 2005

Things in places I didn't expect to see them. Deep.
posted by nanojath at 7:25 PM on February 24, 2005