Duane Michals: Identity through a Window

While looking through the photos in the section about reduced opacity, I found that I really enjoyed looking at the images even though they were a bit haunting. The photomontages that use this feature, the reduced opacity, are not as sharp and aggressive as the photomontages from Hannah Hoch, and the other collage artists at whose work we have looked. The reduced opacity gives the photomontages a look akin to if a ghost were in a photo that was taken of a scene. I like how supernatural, but real, the photomontages appear.

I also really like how Michals uses photomontage in a contemporary manner. We looked at photomontages by famous painters, like Picasso, but Michals uses photographs on top of or with other photographs. He uses photographs and innovates collages in order to bring them into the present day of digital art. I appreciated Michals’ work because it’s apparent that he thinks about his work and doesn’t just throw images on top of each other.

I also enjoyed the montages in the “identity” section because although they are simple, they convey so much about who is in the picture and what makes up them. The seamstress picture, in particular, is one of the simpler photomontage, but I like how Michals chose to place the picture of the woman’s face over (or under) the photo of her sewing. To me, it portrays how important she takes her sewing seriously, but by having her sewing in the corner and not in the center of the photo conveys that there are other parts to her life.

I chose a photomontage that reminds me of Michals’ work in that it looks like a mirror into a man’s life by using reduced opacity and laying images over other images.