Joshua Touster, Signing autographs, 'Real Men Wear
Pink Night,' Campanelli Stadium, Brockton, MA,
July 8, 2006, inkjet print
Ted Rice, Scott Heidelberg, test shoot,
1996, inkjet print
Ted Rice, 'Save a Tree-Go to Michael Garcia's Salon,' HMS Partners for Michael Garcia Salon, 1999, inkjet print
This exhibition presents the fine art and professional photography of Ted Rice (Mount Vernon, OH) and Joshua Touster (Watertown, MA). Also displayed here are examples of their work in print suggesting the editorial and graphic uses of photography as a vehicle for communication. A synthesis of fine art and commerce is found in the output of these skilled photographers who approach both facets of the field.
Photography is a facile medium with varied applications and audiences. The medium is chiefly understood, in the art world and in the academy, as a vehicle for personal exploration and expression. Liberal arts curricula typically overlook the applications of photography that are most pervasive—information, advertising and media. Divisions between artistic and commercial expression are real indeed, and yet in practice, the two routinely overlap and inform one another.
The images that most inspire Ted Rice have resulted directly and indirectly from his paid shoots. Rice’s Mastectomy series, and certain of his portraits, employ subject matter and studio set-ups afforded him through his work for corporate, editorial and medical care clients. This imagery tends to elaborate on non-traditional cropping, selective depth of field and other experimental techniques evident in his commercial work. Joshua Touster’s A Season on the Rox, an extensive personal documentation of the Brockton Rox (a minor league baseball team), is an outgrowth of his freelance career. Over the years, Touster has photographed diverse subject matter including: rock concerts; a 1980s Michael Jackson tour; professional and collegiate sports; special events for a range of non-profit, business and institutional clientele; weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs; and the medical industry. His Rox series is a natural extension of a photojournalistic vision evolved from shooting fast-moving, multi-dimensional events.
Those who practice the sophisticated language of professional photography are often versed in fine art photography, employing its creative strategies in their work-for-hire. Conversely, fine art photographers co-opt the visual codes of images produced in the service of commerce. In their lifelong artistic and commercial work, Rice and Touster work effectively across both worlds, demonstrating the cross-pollination of the two. Arguably, Rice’s and Touster’s most innovative work resides in the productive grey area between art and commerce.
Photography is a facile medium with varied applications and audiences. The medium is chiefly understood, in the art world and in the academy, as a vehicle for personal exploration and expression. Liberal arts curricula typically overlook the applications of photography that are most pervasive—information, advertising and media. Divisions between artistic and commercial expression are real indeed, and yet in practice, the two routinely overlap and inform one another.
The images that most inspire Ted Rice have resulted directly and indirectly from his paid shoots. Rice’s Mastectomy series, and certain of his portraits, employ subject matter and studio set-ups afforded him through his work for corporate, editorial and medical care clients. This imagery tends to elaborate on non-traditional cropping, selective depth of field and other experimental techniques evident in his commercial work. Joshua Touster’s A Season on the Rox, an extensive personal documentation of the Brockton Rox (a minor league baseball team), is an outgrowth of his freelance career. Over the years, Touster has photographed diverse subject matter including: rock concerts; a 1980s Michael Jackson tour; professional and collegiate sports; special events for a range of non-profit, business and institutional clientele; weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs; and the medical industry. His Rox series is a natural extension of a photojournalistic vision evolved from shooting fast-moving, multi-dimensional events.
Those who practice the sophisticated language of professional photography are often versed in fine art photography, employing its creative strategies in their work-for-hire. Conversely, fine art photographers co-opt the visual codes of images produced in the service of commerce. In their lifelong artistic and commercial work, Rice and Touster work effectively across both worlds, demonstrating the cross-pollination of the two. Arguably, Rice’s and Touster’s most innovative work resides in the productive grey area between art and commerce.