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JOHN DIVOLA : DOGS CHASING MY CAR IN THE DESERT AND ISOLATED HOUSES DETAILS: John Divola DESCRIPTION: Divola's dogs and the curious houses they guard allow us a glimpse of something truly unique and independent. Some find their individuality in the choices they make in local grocery or music stores, but here we see a different way of life. From 1995 to 1998 John Divola worked on a series of photographs of isolated houses in the desert at the east-end of the Morongo Valley in Southern California. Meandering through the desert, a dog would occasionally chase his car. Sometime in 1996 he began to bring along a 35mm camera equipped with a motor drive and loaded with a fast and grainy black-and-white film. The process was simple; when a dog ran towards the car he would pre-focus the camera and set the exposure. With one hand on the steering wheel and his camera out the window he exposed anywhere from a few frames to a complete roll of film. "I'll admit that I was not above turning around and taking a second pass in front of a house with an enthusiastic dog. It could be viewed as a visceral and kinetic dance. We have two vectors and velocities, that of a dog and that of a car and, seeing that a camera will never capture reality and that a dog will never catch a car, evidence of devotion to a hopeless enterprise." |
