PICTURING VIOLENCE: AESTHETICS AND THE ANXIETY OF CRITIQUE

This essay written by Mark Reinhardt is about images of suffering. We are given the term "aestheticizing suffering" as our base of understanding his stance on the matter. Reinhardt believes that these images of suffering are artistically and politically reactionary meaning they invite passive consumption (the reader/viewer) and narcissistic consumption, condescension (the trait of displaying arrogance by patronizing those considered inferior) and even sadism. A lot of the imagery of war and suffering we see in magazines, newspapers on the t.v. and online avenues only give you a glimpse of what is really going on. 


Another theme of this essay was the photographic representation of suffering as an instrument used to "abuse and humiliate prisoners." Are images of people being tortured and suffering really to inform and mobilize relevant issues or are they only really causing injury to the individuals pictured or the culture and cause they stand for? Being photographed like many men/women captured in war makes you question why  we are given these images and of what benefit they are having on us, the reader. "The aestheticizing tendency of photography conveys distress and ends by neutralizing it." This quote sums up a lot of what Reinhardt is calling into question. Not knowing these people pictured, the images begin to group into past images we have seen of this nature, totally neutralizing our view we become the passive consumer. One image pops into my mind when thinking about images of war that are so overly saturated in media we have become unengaged by its tragedy. 

These images we all have seen before, whether they are the same images or different ones we all remember this tragedy. Yet having seen these so many times, scratch that thousands of times on numerous platforms they begin to stop having impact on us. This arouses the issue of the importance of the context of circulation and/or display. Why is it so important to thrust these graphic images and burn them into our minds forever remember this image? We cannot do anything about what has happened, we cannot help these people and ultimately we are left feeling emotionless. 

One more main theme is defining aesthetic's? "Are we supposed to be cheered by the triumph of artistry?" This question begs to be answered, does the image have more impact because it is composed formally, should it matter, why should we even care? Reinhardt goes to define aesthetic as a noun then as an adjective and each definition mentions beauty- how are these war images or images of people suffering beautiful? Are we supposed to be happy and exclaim how beautiful, when we see something so disturbing but formally composed? He questions how this affects our rendering of the images, if in fact it does make us pay more attention to what is going on in the images or detracts from the human suffering depicted. BEAUTIFICATION-IN-THE-SERVICE-OF-PLEASURE. I find this phrase to be humiliating, it makes humans seen like emotionless beings only looking for spectatorial gratification via photographs. 

Another couple images of war that I cannot forget no matter how hard I try. The worst thing is that these are a staple figure in our history, so we are forced to remember these things. (Images from the vietnam war-last image of a monk in America burning himself during the Vietnam war era). 

In Part Actual, In Part Virtual

In the introduction of The Civil Contract of Photography by Ariella Azoulay, there are quite a few memories that become the table-setter for her arguments. Azoulay makes it clear that photography is evidence for what has happened and it creates a relationship between the spectator and that particular photography, a "contract." The word contract is used to show us that we are bound to what we are seeing, or "watching" as she puts it and it holds us just as a contract does. She uses the example of Johnathan Walker the supposed "slave stealer" who was accused of freeing slaves and sent to jail for it. Walker' hand was photographed and eternalized by the photograph. Azoulay refers to this image as a "shell, a hat, a fossil."

The differences I see between Azoulay and Fried is that Fried talks more specifically about the art photograph rather then the war photograph/photojournalist photograph. I also want to make the distinction that Fried focuses on how one interprets the construction of the image rather then how Azoulay says the photograph becomes a contract between the photographed, the photographer, and the spectator. Fried mentions the more technical side of photography including the size and what does to our interpretation as well as the absorption of the beholder into an illusory image. In comparison to Azoulay, Fried does not talk about the lasting effects a photograph has on the beholder, this "contract" we are bound to after we have watched upon it. Azoulay is not talking about the illusion but rather the reality of the image.

Imagery-the Driver of the Media

This week we read Susan Sontag's essay called Regarding the Pain of Others, she analyzes our society quoting it as a "society of spectacle." This is to say that our media in today's confinement of newspaper, magazines, online resources and books are driven by imagery but specifically highlights war imagery. Sontag goes to question that without the photograph, is this really happening? Yes, it is really happening but the photograph makes it "real." The war has become a spectacle, our news has become a form of entertainment whether it is horrifying images or not. Yet, without having any real connection to these images we begin to feel immune to their horror using the example of the borgeouis sitting eating their breakfast reading about the war without any sympathy since our media has become so hyper-saturated with these tales and images it is all the same to them. Stemming from that idea Sontag then goes to say being "adept of proximity, without risk" viewers are safely able to question the sincerity in order to refrain from being moved by these images. With that, our appetite has become wet, and hungers for more (she uses the term "ghoulishness"). With photography we are offered a glimpse of this reality from a distance but when these images are hung in a gallery does this change what we are seeing? We then have more questions of rationalization as it asks the viewer to really pay attention, reflect and examine: Who caused what the picture shows? Who is responcible? Is it excusable? Was it inevitable?
These kinds of questions are what we should already be asking, but with only the representation of an image surrounded by a story we loose context of what the photograph really is asking us to see. Great point of Susan Sontag's.

 

Thomas Struth's Museum Photographs

This chapter focuses on Thomas Struth's 3 bodies of work entitled: Museum Photographs, Pergamon Museum I-VI and Audience. All three series is being photographed in museums or churches, to visually put these images into words would be to say Struth is engaging the idea of physical permeability of the picture plane. A collapse of space connects two separate worlds by means of the photograph. Each painting hung in these museums live in their own reality on a wall in a museum or church, yet, the photograph holds a moment in time when these figures were part of this, however this world depicted in the photograph is not our reality it only lives in the picture plane. 

Kunsthistorisches Museum 3, Vienna

Map 1

For example one of Struth's pictures Kunsthistorisches Museum 3, Vienna (refer to image) shows a man who is looking at paintings of a married couple looking towards each other despite the frames that contain them. He is a older man with white hair and a blue sweater, grasping his hands behind his back while studying the paintings.  Looking at this image you begin to be aware of this "imaginary moment" (refer to map 1). The woman in the painting looks as if she is staring right at the old man but if this photograph was taken at any other angle would the same effect happen? By assuming that the white haired man is not part of the conversation we realize that the collapse of space or the intersection of these two worlds connect painting and photography and creates a world we cannot identify with but resemble ours extremely closely. (refer to Art Institute of Chicago 2)

The Art Institute of Chicago 2

Map 2

Lee Friedlander "At Work"

 Boston, Massachusetts, 1986

The second major intension of Struth's Museum Photographs was to catch a beholder transfixed and completely absorbed (and unaware of being beheld) to represent "a world of their own, a world in that respect-so to speak metaphorically-distinct and apart from that of the beholder" (Fried, 127). (refer to map 2) While most of his museum photographs fit this description, there are few that do not. Including, Rijksmuseum I, Amsterdam, 1990 where a young woman is sitting on a bench placed in front a painting, she sits towards the camera starring at us. Not absorbed and ultimately not as interesting as Struth's other work. Fried then asks the question of Lee Friedlander's series called "At Work" if they are truthful or just faking it for the camera? Significantly, no one has ever suggested that his subject weren't truthful (refer to image Boston, Massachusetts, 1986).

Pergamon Museum I

Map 3

I would like to agree with what Fried has said about Thomas Struth in regards to Riksmuseum I, because by making contact with the beholder we lose sense of a 3 dimension and all of a sudden it becomes too obvious. Struth as well realizes that he needs figures to respond to other figures not towards the camera. In his body called Pergamon I-VI, Struth actually went to the length of setting up a shot. (refer to Pergamon Museum I) In this image you see the artifacts that let you know that these are constructed and posed, which I find to be almost seamless except for the mistakes Fried points out (refer to map 3) what I understand is that the exposure was about 15 seconds so in order to get the shot he needed to have the people set up. But then how do we know that this wasn't what he was trying to convey, just this time his figures were deliberately performing absorption. There is a quote the Fried goes back to often, "There is an ineffable but fatal difference in attitude between people behaving naturally and people behaving naturally for a camera" (Fried, 137). To me that really sums up what you see, without knowing your are being photographed you allow a part of yourself to be captured that you weren't even aware you possessed but to know you will be photographed one usually gives away a part of themselves that they know well. 

Audience 7

Audience 2

His earlier Museum Photographs differ quite a bit from the Audience series, just purely because of his presence as a photographer. Meaning to say that Struth quite literally stands in front of statues, paintings or in the midst of painted ceilings with bright lights and a big camera, attracting attention. This body feels a lot different then the earlier bodies, without a reference of what they are looking at except for small detail like the reflection in a pair of sunglasses (refer to Audience 7). These images feel more intimate then Museum Photographs or Pergamon Museum for the fact of our distance from the subject. (refer to Audience 2) I haven't had the pleasure of seeing this work before so I was please to see something new. 

What is Contemporary Art?

Contemporary Art and Contemporaneity by Terry Smith is a discussion of what "contemporary" really means? She throws around different terms to categorize what contemporary means in reference to the term modern. Smith goes as far as to say that contemporary art is but a compound of modernism; both stem from the same "recursive character." This idea that both words (genre's of art) come from the each other, means one will always decide that the other is to be questioned.

Smith goes to say, "that which emerges from within the conditions of contemporaneity, including the remnants of the cultures of modernity and post modernity; but which projects itself through and around these, as an art of that which actually is in the world, of what it is to be in the world, and of that which is to come." I understood that to mean that the contemporary artists is a re-inventor of a sort pulling specific ideas from modernity and creating something that is part of the world now but still includes hints of something that once was. It is an extension of modernity a revision of it, thus it is called "contemporary."

I was looking up definitions and I thought it went along well with how Terry Smith described contemporaneity, for the simple fact that modern is thought to be a synonym; interesting that even the dictionary knows that these two words come from each other. 

Later in the article Smith says that the role of a critic is to keep advancing and interpret art "of current, recent, and past art in order to keep it in contemporary play." If you think about the role of the critic, they are trained to look at works of art and understand the style, the purpose, the process and make a relevant understanding by today's standards, not only historical standards.

 The idea of "nowness" also comes into play, but what is now? "There are three times: a present of things past, a present of things present; and a present of future things," a formulation made by St. Augustine. I see this as a way of understanding the now, we can either see things from our point of view from the present-of the past-and of the future, there is no understanding "now" from any other point of view then the present, for we can not understand our past self as we do our present. Smith talks about this idea of the contemporaneity as this immediacy, prioritizing THIS moment in time, THIS instant of life. From my understanding contemporary artists understand the meaning of modern art and the history that goes with it, but to be a creator of the present means to embark on how one feels in the present, because there is no other way to feel except for what your feeling now (although you remember how you felt at one point, it can never be translated into the present as effectively as it would if it were your present).

I am thinking of one artist that revolves around the present, her state of mind, her feelings about life RIGHT now, it is moving because it is in the present, it isn't something that has already happened-it is ongoing. This is Lisa Lindvay.

The Sound of LIght: Reflections on Art HIstory in the Visual Culture of Hip-Hop

This essay by Krista Thompson contextualizes the hip-hop culture and its reference to art history, specifically talking about two artist Luis Gispert and Kehinde Wiley. A couple of key things I took away from this was:

• Material Consumption

• "Bling"

• Surfacisim, the power of surface light

Malick Sidibe- Pho to graphs

Malick Sidibe's was a photographer in the sixties and seventies focused on the youth of Bamako, when they gained independence there was an "open door for a Pan-African and diasporic aesthetics through rock and roll." Sidibe was considered to be the James Brown of Photography. After Bamako gained independence the national culture had been nearly destroyed by Colonialism. In this essay by Manthia Diawara she notes several different theologist specifically Aime Cesaire and Frantz Fanon. Cesaire refers independence as an "authentic state of being," meaning to say that having been governed over for countless years the Bamako people were denied the chance to interpret themselves and create an identity.

Having such a big influence in the sixties, James Brown started a cultural upheaval of the youth and further influenced the style, music and ideals of becoming Nommo themselves. The Nommo are twin offsprings of the Almighty God and posses both male and female organs thus relying on no one to reproduce; being both used as a singular and plural the Nommo is believed to be part god and part human, part fluid and part solid, part water and part snake. This idea of being perfect transformed the youth of Bamako to see Nommo-like qualities in James Brown, using his voice and power to understand the language of the instrument and the freedom of movement.

Malick Sidibe references this type of movement in his photographs, this new body language of the sixties. What Diawara says is the most important thing about Sidibe's art is "its ability to transform the copy into an original and to turn the images of the youth of Bamako into masterpieces of the Sixties' look." I would be so blunt to say Sidibe's greatest achievement with these photographs is his understanding of change and the ways in which independence changed his way of working, his outlook on culture and an understanding of their actions not devoid of politics but a tribute to what Manthia Diawara calls the diasporia aesthetics.