BOB THE RECLUSE is developed, written and played by Robert Mack.
Robert is a photographer, filmmaker, and haiku video artist. He's drawn to such themes as insanity, faith, and death. Robert conceived the perkins project, a powerful photography and film essay on the subject of the criminally insane. This body of work by Robert and Grace Zaccardi received a major nine-week exhibition at THE BALIMORE MUSEUM OF ART and ten of their photographs are in the museum's permanent collection. Publication of the perkins project is nearing completion. MOMA and THE GETTY recently requested review of their work. Robert says: "A subject and photographer can enter into an unspoken pact of trust and when this occurs the resulting image can transcend the two participants."
As a documentary filmmaker, Robert produced and directed such films as la homefront (the Rodney King civil rights trial and resulting riots), robert schuller: portrait of a televangelist (profiling one of the world's most successful electronic preachers) and born again: in the usa his current feature documentary on televangelism and faith in America.
Over the years Robert continues to shoot what he calls Haiku Videos: short videos, without editing, which ideally capture a moment of experience, an instant when the ordinary suddenly reveals its inner nature.
Los Angeles Center For Digital Art
107 West Fifth Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
http://www.lacda.com
Robert Mack "The Bed Series"
12 / 11, 08 - 01 / 03, 09
Reception: 12 / 11, 7-9pm
From the "Bed Series" © 2008 Robert Mack
"The Bed Series" is Robert Mack's first solo exhibition debuting new work from his wrapped project consisting of photographic studies and experimental video. These explorations capture moody and performance / portraits of friends (artists, actors, and art scene denizens) at his home in the Hollywood Hills. The images are posed and taken in his bed; a sensual and personal environment that remains innocent and playful in the artists vision. Where Cristo wraps buildings, Robert wraps people. During these sessions, he wraps his subjects with sheer material, creating beautiful, intimate, even challenging images. He describes his videos as visual poems, or "haiku videos." The photographs and haiku videos capture a moment of experience; an instant when the ordinary, suddenly reveals its inner nature and asks us to take a second look.
About the artist: While living in Baltimore, Robert produced THE PERKINS PROJECT: NOT GUILTY BY REASON OF INSANITY, both a photographic study and documentary film on the patients at Maryland's hospital for the criminally insane. His and Grace Zaccardi's intense, stark, black and white photographs, received a fifty-nine image, major nine-week exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art.Ten of the photographs are in the museum's permanent collection. A fine art book publication is being produced. As a filmmaker, Robert produced, directed, and developed films on such subjects as insanity, racism, faith, and death. His current film project, END OF THE ROAD, is a feature film in development based on the novel by John Barth.
His fine art work has been shown at various galleries in the United States and in Europe. In 2008: both his photography and haiku video installation were shown at Berlin's Spesshardt-Klein Galleryand at the Berlin Film Festival as an artist collaborator on the www.twentyninepalms.ca project. His "Haiku Someone Said" was a juried winner of LACDA's recent international digital competition, selected by Howard Fox, senior curator of contemporary art at LACMA. Both The Getty and MoMAsenior curators of photography recently requested Robert's photography portfolio for review.
exhibition project (01/08)
GALERIE SPESSHARDT & KLEIN, 10969 BERLIN (kochstrasse 55 - 58)
press conference
february 9 12.00 h - 14.00 h
opening reception
february 11 18.00 h - 22.00 h
exhibition period
february 12 - march 2 2008
extended till march 15
also note:
29 Palms, CA at CHEAP gossip studio, filmhaus (atrium)
selected by
BERLINALE / FORUM
february 7 - february 17 2008
Robert Mack will be present for the opening, the press conference and during the Berlinale Filmfestival.
view installation shots of the exhibit http://spesshardt-klein.com