Artist Critique: Aspen Mays

"The role that photography plays in science sets part of the conceptual stage for how the medium is interpreted through art (or how I interpret it). By that I mean, ideas about objectivity that are inherent to how the camera was first used in science and the necessary (imagined or otherwise) remove that it must have from the humans operating the camera is a rich source of exploration. The technological innovation in photography that often stems from necessities in science (and really astronomy in particular) add layers of complexity, meaning or potential for art to pull apart or tease out."  
                                                                                                                                       - Aspen Mays

I like Aspen Mays's artwork because she is able to incorporate photography with her interest in science and anthropology. In her work she shows how closely these things are tied together. Her photographs and installations are not pretentious or serious, they are humorous and simple. In particular I liked her piece, Untitled (Fireflies inside body of my camera). At first glance it just looks like a lime green photo, but once you realize the color was produced from fireflies in the camera the photo seems more interesting. I enjoy finding the creativity behind her photos.

Untitled (Fireflies inside body of my camera, 8:37-8:39PM, June 26, 2008) Archival Inkjet Print, 2008

In an interview, Mays describes her methods for creating "Every Book". Mays stated the following:

 "Einstein is such a loaded figure- I think we, as a culture, pin a lot of ideas about genius on him. He’s the solitary genius, the mad scientist, the truly original thinker, someone that had deeper insight into the mysteries of the world than the rest of us.  So I decided to see how many books my library (the John Flaxman library at the School of the Art Institute) had about Einstein…there were quite a few for an art school, but the library also belongs to a consortium of all the libraries of all the colleges and universities in Illinois, so I could access essentially all of the books about Einstein in the whole state. So I just started ordering them, little by little."

 
" I made a bookshelf in the shape of an arc so that I could organize the spines of the books along a color spectrum or a rainbow as they came in. It felt like a fitting tribute to Einstein somehow- to use the shape of the books to evoke gravity and an investigation of light the way an artist is trained through color theory- breaking it down into the visible spectrum (as opposed to how someone like Einstein might think of or describe light’s invisible properties). One of the most iconographic photographic portraits of all time is the one of Einstein with his wild hair and tongue sticking out. I wanted to think of the books as making up a different sort of photographic portrait of the man- without using those incredibly iconic images of him. It also felt apropos of a age when knowledge and access to information feel like they are becoming blurred and confused. I wanted to question what could be gained from this sort of cataloging and photographic documentation." 

After looking at Mays's work I think Einstein was right, a true sign of intelligence is imagination.