Image: Brian Belott
IMG MGMT (as in image management)…involves artists curating images off the Net, either because they routinely do that in their work or simply because more artists are exposed to or otherwise glom onto this material with the effect that it slowly seeps into their work (or doesn’t). In a sense We Are All Surf Clubs now…
Tom Moody‘s above summation is a response to the first two essays in the series by Saul Chernick and Kevin Bewersdorf, both of whom curated images off the web, though to clarify, IMG MGMT begins at this point, and expands. The rationale for this is primarily based on my interest in both the ease of download and upload of images to the web. In as often as I see Oliver Laric’s sentiment “I don’t see any necessity in producing images myself — everything that I would need exists, it’s just about finding it”, quoted amongst net artists, many of these same people are creating web cam videos and using cell phone pictures in their art, which suggests a greater interest in the idea than building a rigid practice around it (though I’m pretty sure no one was suggesting that in the first place). Representing artists like Stephanie Diamond, a photographer who explores virtually any method shooting a picture can occur, is an important aspect of the series, because it not only speaks to the ease in which images are created and distributed but the way it effects the culture.
Not that such grand themes were necessarily the impetus for the series. On a pretty basic level IMG MGMT is about giving artists a venue to show and discuss images they happen to have interest in. Moody draws out a few similarities between the Saul Chernick and Kevin Bewersdorf essays, which is useful for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that it adds a bit of shape to the series; both are collections, both follow a top to bottom list, both are not the artists “normal” work. Notably, only the first observation can be applied unilaterally to the project, though it’s reasonable to assume the participating artists will largely share the second and third commonalities (Diamond an exception to the third). Moody also observes a commonality explanatory text (Kevin Zucker‘s post also shares this), and interest in the other worldly, providing great counterpoints like Damon Zucconi and Jim Punk to the IMG MGMT series.
