New York photographer Nora Herting: an innovative artist interview

September 29, 11:46 AMFort Worth Contemporary Art ExaminerRichie Budd

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Above from Face of Brooklyn, below Nora's kindergarten picture

A close friend, who has since passed, possessed a PhD in Communication, was in the process of developing ecological leadership models for CEOs, had created his own brand of metaphysical question based therapy, as well as led workshops with family, individual, and corporate clients to achieve Maximum Performance (copyright), and in any/every case was an exquisitely skilled communicator. He was known to have once said, “Most human-based ‘change work’ is eternally focused, in most cases to a fault, on the actual act of changing.” He could count on one hand the people in the whole world who were working in the field of the step before the change: the “getting ready to” stage. “If someone wanted to truly make an impact,” he said, “then one would sit on the stool of ‘fix’ in to’ and spend a lifetime working from there because most people want to change they’re just not ready.” Those people, including my friend, are called innovators.

The essence of tension prior to change is seen all across the board in Nora Herting’s photographs. She seems to have a gift for capturing the pivotal point right before the tipping point is breached. Her recent large-scale series Face of Brooklyn Portrait Project was sponsored by the Brooklyn Historical Society and was submitted to their archives this year. It’s an amazing documentation of Brooklyn’s present diversity. Spirit is a series of wallpaper-flocked photographs that celebrate the visual spectacle of competitive cheerleading.

Nora Herting is a New York based artist who’s recently shown at 100 x 100 at Parkers Box a Triangle Workshop Fundraiser and Website Launch Party (2009); Biological Imperative Gallery Aferro, NJ (2008); Like the Spice Gallery at Bridge Art Fair The Waterfront (2008); residency programs include McColl Center for the Visual Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and Triangle Arts Association’s Artist Workshop in DUMBO, New York.

Below is an e-mail interview that took place in late September 2009.

Richie Budd:
There is something gregariously pure and honest about where you leave the audience as viewers in relationship to your work. Can you talk to what it is you look for in your own photographs that make you want to share them? Or how do you decide to choose a particular photograph to display?

Nora Herting:
The criterion varies a bit depending on what I am expressing in each series of work. In each one I am communicating something a little bit different. I would like my photographs raise the viewers awareness to the nature of photography, as well as the actual subject in the photograph itself. So, in Free Sitting, a series I did about commercial portrait studios, the viewer has to think about the somewhat absurd measures that are employed when people make portraits of themselves. In Spirit, a series that captures young girls in the act of performing cheerleading routines, the viewer is reminded that bizarre instance that is recaptured in the photograph is only an isolated fraction of a second that has frozen these girls in such strange expressions and postures.

Who/where/what are you looking that inform your photographs? What photographers and other artists are you looking at?

John Currin, Jill Goldberg, Lorretta Lux all make brilliant, funny statements about how aesthetics and style contributes to how personality is conveyed in a portrait. I recently discovered the very clever, and funny video work of Maarten Baas.

Who is your favorite photographer/artist and why?

James Turrell is one of my favorite artists, his work is about light and space and perception. Being in one of his installations is as close to a spiritual experience as I have had. You have to have respect for a man who has spent two decades tunneling through a crater in the desert.

Can you share a short anecdote about your experience with your outstanding series: Face of Brooklyn Portrait Project? Was there a particular shoot that stood out or one that really pulled your heartstrings?

Sure. Here are two:
A few times, people who did not know each other would be in line to get the portrait taken and would end up deciding to be photographed together. This happened once with two very fit men and a young woman. Even though I was behind the camera, I could tell that there was some chemistry. A few days later, a friend who had assisted me with the shoot found an ad one of the men put in the "missed connections" section of craigslist for the woman that described the photo shoot. I loved the thought that the project had created its own social space for relationships to continue.

Despite the variety of Brooklyn neighborhoods I would photograph in, I was noticing gaps in the demographics of people I was photographing. In away this is inescapable because as the photographer, I cannot hide that I am a certain race, gender and age. So, people from other cultural backgrounds, were naturally much more reticent of having the pictures taken by someone who is unlike them. Toward the end of last summer, I was photographing in Midwood, which is many Russian Orthodox Jews. I saw a Bengalese woman with her children (photo inset). They were beautiful and I was desperate to get their portraits. The woman didn't speak any English, but her 8-year-old son did. I found myself trying to convince this little boy that he wanted to have his picture taken. After I explained to him that his portrait would be in a museum and he would also get a copy. He looked up at me and asked me the most difficult question any one has ever posed to me about my work "and why do we need this?" In the end, I got the picture.

Your series of photographs Portraits is a fascinating group that blurs boundaries. Below is a relating question taken from an interview with Walker Evans conducted by Paul Cummings for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution in 1971: PC: “What do you think are the qualities that, say, differentiate fine art photography from commercial photographers? Is it the way they look at things? Their attitude? What they photograph?”

The most obvious distinction is that a commercial photographer has a paying client she has to answer to: they are selling something. Because of this, what they get to emote in their photographs is more restricted. What artist-who-use-photography gives trade for financial viability is the luxury of time. A commercial photographer's assignment is going to span a very short period of time, while artists using photography can investigate the same ideas and series for years.

How did you decide to choose to do what you do? How did you come into the art world?

It is not like choosing a direction for a project is like deciding where you are going to go on vacation. It sounds passive, but truthfully I never feel like it is a choice. It is more of a compulsion, fascination or a question that I want answered. I know I have to go that direction when it feels like I am creatively obligated to go there. Spirit (the series about cheerleaders) was about when I was attending an academic photography conference that was sharing a convention center with a national cheerleading competition. I snuck into the competition and never returned to the conference. After that, I was hooked and felt like I need to reveal all the theater in drama in the sport.

More generally speaking, I am attracted to photography because what makes it powerful is what makes it a problematic medium for artists to work in. It is ubiquitous, its technological components are reflected in its aesthetics, it encompasses everything- both great benefits and difficult challenges of working in it.

You have an extremely interesting collaborative side job you do – the visual brainstorming. Can you discuss what that’s about and where we can find information?

At ImageThink we capture in words and pictures, all the ideas in a conversation. We do this live as the conversation unfolds on mural paper in the front of the room, so the participants can literally see their ideas unfolding. It is very satisfying to go into other fields and show people the power of visual thinking. You can learn more about it, and see a time-lapse video of Imagethink in action at: www.imagethink.net

We recently started a project blog where we create a visual of a New York Times Headline everyday: http://www.blog.imagethink.net/

In relation to your own art: What are you working on or thinking about now?

I am working on a book version of Face of Brooklyn, as well as new portrait studio portraits.

What’s coming up? Where can we see your work next?
I will be doing a street portrait studio booth on November 6th at Soho 20 gallery 547 West 27th street New York, NY.

Currently I have an exhibit up in conjunction with Brooklyn Artillery:
http://www.brooklynartillery.org/

NORA'S INFORMATION BELOW:

Nora Herting website 

ImageThink website

Other artist interviews:

New York with Aaron Johnson

Michael Schall: New York

Zane Lewis in New York

The Swede John Rasimus

George Zupp in West Texas