A Quote by Francesca Woodman

A lot of photography is making records of people, as objects, friends. It's like organizing a wardrobe - in terms of size etc. — © Francesca Woodman
A lot of photography is making records of people, as objects, friends. It's like organizing a wardrobe - in terms of size etc.
I thought of a lot of people from the same era when I was making a lot of records that had continued making a lot of records. A lot of it didn't seem terribly inspired.
A lot of people felt I was getting work because I was Boy George. My response at the time was that there's a lot of DJs making records, they're not all making good records, but they have the right to do that.
I think a way to behave is to think not in terms of representative government, not in terms of voting, not in terms of electoral politics, but thinking in terms of organizing social movements, organizing in the work place, organizing in the neighborhood, organizing collectives that can become strong enough to eventually take over - first to become strong enough to resist what has been done to them by authority, and second, later, to become strong enough to actually take over the institutions.
That's something I've dealt with my whole life, people making fun of me and my size. Everything from having a huge forehead to the size of my feet, and not being able to wear the same size shoes as my friends, definitely.
Have I learned something from making records? Yeah, I've learned a lot, because I've not only made eleven of my own records, I've also probably produced that many records for other artists, and then I've probably played on, or been a large part of another eleven records with other people.
If you spend a lot of time with activists, as I have, they're just ordinary people who instead of Netflix are getting together in church basements and making posters or making phone calls doing organizing work. It really is about finding a community of other people.
Performance wasnt something that I intended to do. I was doing work that was about process, about the meaning of the making, trying to have a love-hate relationship with the object. I always feel safer if I can bring the viewer back to the making of it. I try to do that in a lot of different ways, by residue, by touch, by these processes that are basic to all of our lives...that people might relate to in terms of process, everyday activities- bathing, eating, etc.
I realized early on that I was pretty good at organizing. A lot of it was about control. While my friends were out getting hammered at concerts, I was making money. I am a control freak.
At a fundamental level photography is much like pointing, and all of us occasionally point at things: look at that, look at that sailboat, look at that tree, etc. etc.
Now, the term 'friend' is a little loose. People mock the 'friending' on social media, and say, 'Gosh, no one could have 300 friends!' Well, there are all kinds of friends. Those kinds of 'friends,' and work friends, and childhood friends, and dear friends, and neighborhood friends, and we-walk-our-dogs-at-the-same-time friends, etc.
I don't feel anything about it. I really like "Staring at the Sun" - I like that song a lot. I haven't heard a lot of their records, but I know that they're cool. I know that the people who listen to them are really awesome and I like those people, so I know that I would like the band, I just don't own their records.
Photography is nature seen from the eyes outward, painting from the eyes inward. Photography records inalterably the single image, while painting records a plurality of images willfully directed by the artist.
I think words speak to us even though they may be written on a wall. So we hear them in our mind. We say it to ourselves. But they are also visual things. You draw them. They are designed. They are colored. They have a certain size. I put them in a certain place. So they are objects that have to be - artistic decisions have to be made in terms of the color and the size and the line and whatever.
People will always have the desire to make rock and roll records, and they'll always have the desire to sell rock and roll records. Most of the people making these records do it because it is a business, and if someone says, "You can't do this", they won't complain. They'll just keep making records, but they'll get blander and blander. There'll still be rock and roll, but compared to what it really could be or ought to be, I don't think it'll be all that terrific.
People think it is all about country music, and I know a lot of country music has come out of there, but like Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dillon was recorded there. A lot of great records; R&B records, jazz records. It's a lot of great players and great studios.
I believe that photography loves banal objects, and I love the life of objects.
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