Thursday, September 11th, 2008

Official Filmwebsite: LINE OF BEAUTY AND GRACE * A documentary about Jock Sturges
Beauty, truth, identity, family life, an appreciation of nature and, not least of all, enduring love: nearly everything associated with an ideal human existence seems addressed in Line of Beauty and Grace, a documentary by filmmaker and photographer Christian E. Klinger about Jock Sturges, an American photographer whose vast body of work has held a unique position in the world of contemporary photography for more than three decades. (more…)
Fine Art, Interview: Art, Interview: Photographer, Interviews, Photography, Review |
Monday, August 11th, 2008

Interview with Christian E. Klinger about Jock Sturges ….
The official filmwebsite:
LINE OF BEAUTY AND GRACE * A documentary about Jock Sturges
Here is a beautiful, silent and politically incorrect interview with our director Christian E. Klinger from John Lingan about women, Jock Sturges, filmmaking and love….
SPLICETODAY.COM: This is the second in a continuing series of Splice Premieres, articles that profile artists, musicians, and filmmakers that are making careers outside the mainstream media. Along with interviews and background information, these articles will contain samples of the artists’ work, including unreleased or newly debuting material. The first Premiere was Zach Kaufmann’s interview with St. Louis alt-country band Theodore.
Christian E. Klinger’s first documentary, Line of Beauty and Grace, concerns the controversial American photographer Jock Sturges, whose plaintive images of nude children and young women have attracted accusations of child pornography. Sturges shoots his photos in Montalivet, a town in coastal France noted for its hospitality to naturist vacationers, and Klinger traveled there to film the photographer and his models as he worked. Sturges typically works with the same models for years on end, and he brings his family to the shoots, as well. Line of Beauty and Grace therefore documents an artist who creates his own spare, comfortable worlds in both his work and life.
The movie aired on German television and is now available on DVD from the website for Klinger’s production company, Amadelio Film. It briefly mentions the controversies surrounding Sturges’ work (a phenomenon, Klinger points out, that only occurs in America), but begins with the assumption that his photography is inarguably important and viable artistically. (more…)
Fine Art, Interview: Art, Interviews, Photography, Politics |
Thursday, January 10th, 2008

These interview scenes are unused scenes from the documentary about Jock Sturges (not included in the DVD)
Interview with Jock Sturges (Quicktime-Video)
Deutsche Version
Official Filmwebsite (Trailer, Gallery, DVD, 99 minutes)
Jock Sturges and beauty
In the summer of 2007, we travelled to the French Atlantic Coast to meet an artist whose images stand out from the diverse pool of contemporary photography. His subject matter is the human being. His tool is a large format camera. His goal is the depiction of nothing less than beauty.
He demands the truth from his photographs. For over 30 years, the American photographer Jock Sturges has dealt with beauty and truth, an idea of art, unfortunately, which is often scorned today. In order to recognize and appreciate that, which distinguishes his work, we must focus on the definition of beauty.

Jock Sturges. Nikki. Montalivet. France. 1996.
Beauty is first and foremost an abstract definition, a concept, difficult to determine. It has always been governed by history and culture. However, there is a certain degree of global consensus concerning to the notion of beauty. Not only do we define physical matter, such as humans, animals, plants or objects as beautiful, but also abstractions, such as ideas or the notion of the soul. Even Schiller in his essay (more…)
Fine Art, Interview: Art, Interview: Photographer, Interviews, Photography, Politics |