Artist Unknown is an on-going project that exists as both an online activity of found vernacular images posted to social media, an occasional exhibition of those same images printed and installed in various spaces, and a book
The images that make up Artist Unknown were all found on the Internet and were all taken in the twentieth century using analog cameras. At some point these pictures were separated from their original owners and reclaimed by others, who in turn chose to upload them to the Web. As they stand now, they occupy an undefined and immaterial space somewhere between the analog and digital worlds: they’ve been rescued from physical deterioration and at the same time opened up to the potential for endless manipulation and digital redistribution.
The images I work with were uploaded by countless individuals who, one imagines, found them in thrift stores and yard sales or perhaps found them, as I have, on the Internet and simply reblogged them. The people sharing these pictures participate in a kind of crowdsourced curatorial practice, posting pictures to Flickr, Tumblr, Pinterest or any one of a thousand similar sites on the Web and creating an archive of analog images larger than anything a single individual or institution could ever hope to amass. Without their labors this project would not exist, and I’m indebted to them for their unsolicited collaboration.
The images I’ve chosen from this sea of pictures speak to my own interests and preferences and are in many ways more a reflection of my own taste than they are a cross-section of picture-taking practices of the twentieth century. Still, even within the parameters of what caught my personal attention, certain themes and typologies appear repeatedly and would seem to speak to some shared cultural values and photographic interests. After finding over a hundred pictures of people hiding behind trees, for instance, or an equal number of pictures of children smoking cigarettes, it becomes apparent that there are shared moments, - beyond the expected birthdays and Christmas scenes (though those are here, too) - that people have been drawn to photograph repeatedly. The groupings I’ve arranged grew organically, born as much from the need to index and organize as from any desire to locate conclusions about the nature of vernacular photography or the human condition. I’ve no doubt that had someone else undertaken the task it would have manifested differently.
More image sets can be seen here: http://oliverwasow-artistunknown.blogspot.com/
