Visual Art The Bounding and Scrambling
posted by February 22 at 7:45 AM
onI am a native of rural New Hampshire: many dogs have chased my car. (As a teenager, I drove a Festiva, which is smaller than many men and beasts, and so a popular target.)
A dog usually will start his pursuit from the wing, bounding over an embankment or popping from a tangle of roadside weeds. After moving within five or so feet of the car, he will shift direction to begin running alongside the vehicle, barking if he’s got the breath for it. (Most have an innate ability to avoid being bumped or flattened.) If the driver does not accelerate, the dog will keep pace beside the vehicle, all bliss and stupid energy. For the car passengers, these attitudes are contagious—even more so than the ticklish, nice feelings one gets from the flapping ears and tongue of the canine-head-out-the-car-window, although that has mass appeal for good and similar reasons.
From 1995 to 1998, John Divola took photographs of isolated houses in the desert of the Morongo Valley in California. Dogs would occasionally chase his car, and he turned his lens on them, capturing all the excitement, the scrambling and bounding. Selected photographs from this series, Dogs Chasing My Car in the Desert, are on view at G. Gibson Gallery through March 24.
Divola’s use of a motor drive and grainy, high-speed film blurs his black-and-white images to varying degrees. Some look like well-executed charcoal drawings, coarse and carefully smudged, the running creatures ghostly. In others, Divola highlights the behavior of his canine subjects. In this crisp image, a dog is captured in mid-air, eyes on the camera, arms and legs stretched for flight. With a pole and some cable, he could be rigged up as an airborne carnival ride.
— Abigail Guay
Comments
Thanks, "Unpaid Intern"! Those pics. made my day.
This is the greatest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. And I'm old
Nice job, kid.
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