“A tsunami of [Marc] Tasman”
Marc Tasman is a photographer, performance artist, tech-phile and instructor in the department of Journalism and Mass Communication at UW-Milwaukee. He’s not particularly interested in becoming a “rockstar” artist —not that he wouldn’t be into conducting dramatic, large scale installations or wrapping islands like Cristo. He’s more interested in documentation and creating tangible objects in a tech-obsessed culture where little is permanent.
In July 1999 from his “garden level” apartment in Hyde Park, Marc began a highly ambitious project, snapping one Polaroid self portrait per day. Well, eventually —when he set out, Tasman was shooting Polaroids like they were going out of style, which they were, so about nine months in he narrowed it down to one or two photos a day. Ten years (and, technically, one day) later, he’d amassed nearly 4,000 photographs. Collectively, the Polaroids play out like an animated flip-book, giving us a peek at the life and times of Marc Tasman; everything from his daily bathroom rituals to the birth of his son. Later this month, the photos will also be on view as part of the Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary art,comprising about 500 square feet of wall space for a veritable “tsunami of Tasman.” Wowzers.
As a continuance of his series on visual arts in Milwaukee, Mark chats with …uh, Marc about the tactile importance of a dying medium, the concept of the marketplace for contemporary artists and why it’s important to recognize the audience, even if you don’t know who or what the audience is.
Ten Years and One Day will be on view at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art from May 22 to August 15, 2010. You can find out more about Marc Tasman through his website.
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