Our first assignment was to take a reproduction of a famous painting and photograph it in three different contexts. The idea for this exercise came from John Berger's book Ways of Seeing, in which he discusses how the meaning and experience of a work of art changes when it is reproduced. His most poignant example is of a famous painting that is shown on television. All of a sudden it is broadcast into the homes of millions of people; it appears there surrounded by the viewer's things and, quite possibly, enters into the midst of a conversation or situation that has nothing to do with high art. Take a look at the blogs on the blog list in the right hand sidebar to see all the different ways this exercise was interpreted.
Here's one of my own: One (No. 31, 1950) by Jackson Pollock
