A Brief History of the "1 Image 1 Minute" Project

This project is a contemporary recreation of Une Image Pour Une Minute, a project originally produced by French director Agnes Varda for presentation on French television in 1983. In Varda's version, a photographic image appeared on television (in-between network programming), and someone--a curator, photographer, or art historian--would speak about the image for one minute.


Here I have asked contemporary photographers, artists, historians, and others to select an image that has significance for them, and write or speak about it for the equivalent of 1 minute. The result is a a compelling and accessible means of gaining insight into other artists’ and photographers’ perspectives. The project is also a way of reactivating photo history, cultural literacy, and of offering a closer look at images than the mere fraction of a second that most contemporary images are afforded.

Diane Calder


Diane Calder, Artist who writes
Yeondoo Jung, Tango Tango, 2000

I am intrigued by the dynamic interplay between the sassy couple in their sixties dancing across “Tango, Tango,” in Yeondoo Jung’s series of thirty heat transfer images on wallpaper. Jung straddles reality and fiction, referencing the sexual tensions built into countless Hollywood productions while sidestepping the practice common in our society of equating romance exclusively with those endowed with whiter teeth, thinner waistlines, thicker hair, and perkier body parts.

Jung chose the tango as a theme in part because “Dance is between two people, and through dance, people can communicate their mutual feelings without words.” I’d like to ask the Korean conceptual photographer how much he knows about the history of the Tango. Is Jung aware that the gauchos of Argentina purportedly practiced the tango with each other, taking turns to lead and follow, perfecting their moves before dancing with women? Since my husband has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, I often wonder how we will perfect our moves, taking turns leading and following while respecting each other’s needs and feelings.
Posted by

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Micol Hebron