Walead Beshty

In first observing the work by Walead Beshty in this brief video documentary, it appears to be somewhat overwhelming in size, but also monotonous in the sea of blue images that fill the entire studio space. As an artist, but one that has yet to take a photography studio, it was enlightening to listen to Beshty discuss this exhibition and how it came into being as a result of creating other works. To see a body of work presented as a formal artwork, even through it was derived from what he described as waste or byproducts or other projects seemed very poetic. His comment on how this exhibition portrays its own coming into being is quite beautiful and, I believe, a type of photography that is more honest and realistic than anything I have yet seen during this course. I enjoy the dichotomy of seeing the purely representational images of objects, while at the same time, they are not – they are ghosts of a product or image. I have always enjoyed work that has a deeper meaning than what may be seen on the surface of the work, and Beshty’s body of work is no exception. I feel as if I see this type of poetry and concept of work more frequently in media such as drawing or painting, so it was interesting to me to see this represented through a form of photography. As an artist, I am in love with the process of creating work and, therefore, being able to see work where that process is visible. In terms of the size of the exhibition, I believe that it was wise of Beshty to include such a large number of cyanotypes (12,000) as a way to fully express the magnitude of his creative process – a smaller quantity, I believe, would not have been as successful.