My Experience at Residual Reality

Residual Reality was a unique experience because I have never attended an art gallery or looked at artistic photography. The gallery really opened my eyes to the scope of photography as an art form.

I had always thought that using photoshop or another type of editing of pictures was almost cheating because it wasn't the orginial picture. Residual Reality showed me that pictures can be edited in order to add cultural observations such as Robert Heinecken's cardboard cut-outs of magazine ads.

Heinecken's work in general was very shocking, but in particular the cardboard cut-outs that were throughout the gallery really put a new perspective on magazine ads. The orginal polariod ad was using sex appeal to portray that if you use a polariod camera you will look sexy and pick up chicks. Heinecken added a penis to the add ad and mocked the purpose of the ad in a shocking and creative way.

I also found Joyce Neimanas' work to be interesting because she showed different sides of everyday objects. The notepad with all the pages torn off left me thinking about the lost ideas on that paper, or where the paper is now. I interpreted the photo of back of the portrait meant that not everything should be taken at face value. Overall her work just made me think.

I enjoyed my experience at the opening and the round table discussion because I have never really met artists up close. I kind of expected artists to smoke cigarettes out of a Cruella Deville cig holder. They were much more personable and they shared some very interesting stories at the round table discussion. Also it was very clear how much Robert Heinecken had meant to all of the artists.