Charlotte
Cotton's book is intended as a survey of the field of Photography as
Contemporary Art. She dividends the book into eight sections:
1.
Photographers who have devised strategies
especially for the camera. Looks at the degree to which the focus has been
preconceived by the photographer;
2.
Story telling in art photography;
3.
Deadpan;
4.
Something and Nothing - how the mundane has
featured in art photography;
5.
Emotional and personal relationships;
6.
Documentary;
7.
Extending our pre existing knowledge of
imagery;
8.
Physical and Material
Cotton then goes on to look at the
origins of art photography, claiming it is in work of Eggleston, Shore, and the
Bechers.
Chapter 1 If This is Art
The common theme in this chapter is
artists who have had an idea, a concept, and manifested it with a series of
photographs.
Examples are:
•
Sophie Calle following a man to Venice
unbeknown to him and chronicling the events by photographs and notes, and
eating food of a different colour each day for a week. Interesting for first
part is how stalking someone you don't know would be viewed had a man followed
a woman;
•
Kulik's animal pictures;
•
Orimoto's Bread Man sequence where
photographer covers his face with loaves of bread;
•
Gillian Wearing asking people she did not know
to write a sign about themselves and hold it up in front of camera - again one
wonders whether a man could get away with this;
•
Deployed writing witticisms on images;
•
Davis,s series of images taken at night time
of windows reflecting the neon signs of fast food joints.
And there are many more.
I find this sort of imagery difficult.
I am not a big fan of contemporary art anyway. Much of it appears arrogant. It
almost seems to scream to the audience : "This is not skilful but I dare
you to say so." The "skill" is supposed to be in the drafting of
the concept, in using the medium to say something subtly. But I find the
message too obtuse to tease out in most cases. There is a sense in me that says
we have things the wrong way round: it is as if the artist/photographer
produces a work that is deliberately ambiguous and defies his or her audience
to find the message. To me, the artist should be clear about what he or she is
saying; enunciate it and let the viewer decide on whether the artist has
succeeded. It is not a guessing game. Now sometimes this happens, but often it
does not.
Secondly I am very unconvinced that
some of these series say anything useful at all. Simply do not get the point of
taking images of windows reflecting the Big Mac sign, for example. It seems as
if the artist is almost trying too hard - trying to find a concept using the
medium rather then using the medium of photography to demonstrate his or her
point. In order to make a name for themselves, too many
artist/photographers are simply inventing wacky topics with dubious
intellectual value.
Chapter 2 Once upon a Time
This chapter is about storytelling in
contemporary art photography. Some of the photographs make reference to fables
and fairy tales.
Often described as tableau or tableau
vivant photography as the pictorial narrative is concentrated in a single
image.
One proponent is Jeff Wall. I like Passerby
on page 48, clearly a staged photograph but the message
of fear in the dark night is clear.
Some photographers use earlier works
of art as an inspiration, e.g Tom Hunter's Thoughts of Life and Death.
One theme of tableau photography is to
depict figures with back to camera so that character is unexplained. Good
example is Hannah Starkey March 2002, of a woman sitting in an Oriental
canteen.
There is a school too that uses
children in mock ups of tales of fears and fantasies. Deborah Messa Polly's
image Legs is an example of using
female characters in allegories of tales. Here she uses the legs of Goldilocks
with the phallic tail of a pantomime lion. Van Lamsweerde and Matadin's Widow
is a disturbing image of a girl in black appearing to be possessed but dressed
immaculately.
Like Charlie White's Understanding
Joshua, series of images in which Joshua is part alien puppet. Cotton makes
point that this is a rare injection of humour into art.
Finally, Cotton turns to tableau
photography that finds allegory and drama in physical and architectural space.
Like Katherine Bosse's images of spaces designed for sexual play., e.g. Classroom
p71.
Like too Cerca Paseo de Marti on
p77 by Desiree Dolon. Depicts a Cuban classroom in which the empty chairs face
impassioned political statements on the blackboard and a portrait of Fidelity
Castro.
Got on much better with this chapter.
Could see more readily what the photographers were seeking to achieve, much
less the sense that subjects were being sought to fit the photography, more
that the photography reflected ideas. Or perhaps just mellowing a little...
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