Gerhard Richter/ the rhetoric of images

Session notes:

aim:

examine semiotic approaches to image analysis focussing upon key terms such as icon,index,symbol, denotation and connotation

Richard Prince - constructing personas

images involved with image making

Saussaure/Pierce

sign - communicate meaning

signifier - sound/image

signified - concept

arbitrary  - no reason, just is

Barthes - critiqued possibilty image

might convey a non coded message (direct)

system of associations

different elements in an image conspire (work together) to form its meaning

"Barthes suggests that at centre of photographic image, where we expect to find the denoted meaning, there is an absence, which is filled by rhetoric (persuasive speaking/writing) of associations"

depth - levels of meaning

Task:

Gerhard Richter has created numerous pieces of art in many different ways. But my favourites of his are from his 'overpainted photographs' in which he finds photographs and uses oil paints to paint on top of them. I have looked at his work before during sixth form and actually recreated images similar to his by painting on top of my own photographs. (unfortunately I don't have any pictures of this I can upload as they are all at my home in a sketchbook)

betty, 1989, 15x10cm

ohne titel(untitled) 1988, 10x15cm

laret, 1992, 15x10cm

"My concern is never art, but always what art can be used for."Gerhard Richter, 1962


"Photography altered ways of seeing and thinking. Photographs were regarded as true, paintings as artificial. The painted picture was no longer credible; its representation froze into immobility, because it was not authentic but invented." Gerhard Richter, 1964


"Unlike American artists Richter wasn't interested in the purity of art. Idealism had disillusioned him from an early age. Instead he painted images without glory; images that rendered the ridiculous, ordinary; the tragic, ordinary; the beautiful, ordinary. Throughout his career Richter has shrunk from giving a psychological insight into his art, leaving his admirers and critics guessing and at times confused. According to him, his work forms from structures and ideas that surround him, nothing more profound than that." from www.gerhard-richter.com


My favourites of this series are all from the beginning, as I feel the age of the photographs give them a much more vintage and aesthetic look that he loses as he continues the project into the modern day. 
I love the images and even though the photographs are found I don't think this detracts from the art form that they end up being.


I love the image 'laret' at the bottom. I think his subtle addition of blue paint onto the image is magical. I'm not saying in anyway that this is particularly challenging, in fact when I attempted this style with my own images I feel I made some beautiful images that could match his. Also by reading from the quotes I found above, I think it is also fair to say that Richter himself doesn't believe that he is doing anything particularly special or notable, I think he just enjoys what he is doing and the products of this. I feel he is not taking someone else's art (the photograph) and simply presenting it as his own, which is what some practitioners do and a process I detest, Richter actually creates a new piece of art. The original photograph can still be held as art, his images are something new and seperate, where he has made an addition which pushes the photograph even further. This is done with a different medium (paint) and by combining the two I think achieves results the photographer could never have. 


I feel there is also more value behind making new art out of found photographs, rather than someone else's photographs that are widely known and published, as I believe bringing found photographs into the public eye is an art in itself. If this didn't happen these photographs are likely to be lost forever as they are usually discarded, thrown away or being sold very cheaply at car boot sales. Richter is not trying to claim the photographs as his own, but highlighting the beauty of them by adding small detail on top of them. I think he does this very successfully and I love these images. 

Cindy Sherman - voyeurism/ the gaze

Session notes:
aim:
-examine notion of presences in relation to notions of nakedness/nudity
-define gaze, voyeurism, consider inter-relation in photography
-consider how male gaze generates female roles.. how in turn these construct notions of female identity through case study of Cindy Sherman


Larry Clark - kids, bully    films
project young adolescents into very adult roles


John Berger - ways of seeing
mens presence - promise of power he embodies
things
exterior to the man
shows what he can do for you and to you


womens presence - expresses attitude to herself
physical, aura, intrinsic
her body - how she appears to men
defines what can and cannot be done to her


woman has to construct her presence in terms of how she will be seen by men


men can gain this, money, objects etc
being impressive in the eyes of others


traditionally painting and even photography
painter/photographer male
model female
yet man is seen as creative force


principal protagonist of nude painting, the male spectator, is never painted
women look out of the paintings onto their spectator owners


surveyor of woman in herself is male - turns herself into object/vision/ sight


panopticism, internally looks at herself through eyes of a man - constantly


objectification - process of turning/treating someone as an object, object for use


the gaze - power to look upon others


indexicality of camera/photograph - takes you to the moment




Jeff Burton - mix genres of art/fashion/photography


'interaction with our environment which is saturated by images'












































Task:
Cindy Sherman, in her collection of photographs 'untitled film stills', completely changed the idea of a self portrait. She dressed up as women roles in films and photographed herself in these situations. There are 69 images in total.


'the images imply the very construction of identity is built on a representation'
it is her but represented in many ways, of characters in films. She could choose to be any one of the women she depicts yet none of them might be her true self.
Is there anything women posess that is their own about their own identities?


One of my favourites from the series is number two (1977).

I love the old and grainy quality Sherman uses in this set of images. This is because they are made to appear like the cheap '50 cent' publicity photographs that were common at the time. I find this image really interesting especially when considering 'the gaze'. Here the gaze is less straightforward than in normal photography as her face is actually a reflection. She looks into the mirror, back at herself, but it also feels like she could be looking at us, we in turn are looking at her. is complicated as looking at us would be extra-diagetic gaze but it is more than that as she also looks at herself.  She appears vulnerable as we can see her both from the front and from the back and her face looks wistful, almost questioning why we are judging her. 

The face can also be read as simply looking at her own image, the way she touches her skin seems as if she is almost testing something. Either seeing how she looks in that particular pose, possibly in preparation for using it in future. Or just touching her skin, to prove that she is a tangible object. She touches her skin gently, like she is unsure of herself. 

The towel is also an important prop as it does cover her nudity but at the same time highlights that she is naked underneath it. This again shows her vulnerability as it is suggestive to men even though that wouldn't appear to be her intention as we would assume she is just on her own after a bath or shower.  As a woman viewing this image I would assume she is scrutinizing herself in terms of how men see her and as I fully empathize with this feeling. This reaction again acts as a highlight of how stereotypical I believe the role and life of a woman has become. 

This image and the whole series comment on women's perceived roles within films but also society. Sherman attempts to demonstrate that society is socially constructed and contains 'roles' that we are women are projected into. I have read that Sherman actually discontinued the series because she said she ran out of roles to perform. This in itself demonstrates the point she is trying to make about societies view of women. As a woman I'm sure my reading of this image will be different to a males reading of the same image. I am not a feminist so I feel I have quite a balanced reading. 

Documentary photography

Session notes: 
aim - examine how Walter Benjamin contrasts traditional art forms with mechanically reproducible ones
-consider how this facilitates the development of documentary


1. Q:what does walter benjamin consider to be happening to art at the beginning of the 20th century?
A:are is becoming less authentic because it is becoming reproducible
because of new modes of production in how we make images


2. Q:what is the effect upon notions that are traditionally associated with art?
A:disregard terms traditionally associated with art - genius, creativity, mystery
ideas about 'original'
reproductions become negatives 'fake' 'forged'


3. Q:how does he consider that these changes transform the way that we come into contact with art?
A:benjamin says our experience of place is transformed by photography
don't have to go places, places come to you
indexicality
'ways of seeing' by john berger




photography, difficult to determine concept of originality
negative produced many times
someone else can even make a print from your negative, even after you are dead
prints by famous photographers often not printed by them, but photograph still theirs


contrast to one photograph, image taken by one person at one time
exact moment can never be reproduced
even this is difficult though, often collaborations/assistants etc
someone can also photograph a photograph


reproduction detaches the scene from the original.
original becomes not about what it shows but what it is (the original)


benjamin says nature(eyes/medium its accomplished) and historical circumstances determine sensory experience (way we see)


don't just see colours and shapes
see things in a way developed from our environment
see according to meaning, meaning contextually created, so see according to what is around us, what we're used to


aura: presence


transcending status of what it is
e.g statue of zeus, thought to actually embody zeus,
but just stone. becomes more than stone


photograph- light on photosensitive paper
but transcends this and has huge value


benjamin says art no longer about religion , magic, beauty
has become about politics


watching a film, thought process continually changing as you are bombarded with constantly changing images
compared to image, you can stand and look at it, and think about it for as long as you like


documentary photography developed and came into widespread usage at time of 20th century benjamin was writing
understood to depict reality, trusted
e.g. documenting the depression, took images to mass audiences
photography understood as trace of actual event (indexicality)


certain conventions such as leaving in edge of negative used to prove authenticity - brassai etc




-Allan Sekula - fish story, about shipping industry
how documentary could be (status of genre)
reaprailed and reapplied
"placed value against capacity of photographic to bring attention to social injustices, but considered that documentary images should reference, the conventions through which they are produced, social frameworks through which they operate..."


we get an interpretation of an image, based on our environment, opinions, often these come from other images!
examining how we comprehend images


video - Hito Steyerl - wants to make us aware of how documentary forms are construced 


























Task:
One of the pioneers of documentary photography and one of my favourites is Garry Winogrand.

These photos are from his photobook 'animals' (1969). A very lovely and amusing photobook which comments on humans relationships with animals in a lightly mocking way. 

"Garry Winogrand was influenced by Walker Evans and Robert Frank and their respective publications 'American Photographs' and 'The Americans'. Henri Cartier-Bresson was obviously another primal influence although stylistically different." (from masters-of-photography.com) You can definitely see the influences of these practitioners in his work.

What I love about Winogrand's work is his ability to capture these moments in time. The photographs work perfectly because of the exact second they are taken. For example with the image above, the woman is moving her mouth in a similar way to a camel, however the alpaca (I'm not exactly sure what animal that is but I assume it's an alpaca because of how fluffy it is) has a straight and very regal face. Again, with the middle image the rhinos stand whilst the children on the fence remind us a lot of monkeys. 

A contemporary photographer I like the work of is David Ellicson.

The style of work is actually aesthetically very similar to that of Winogrand and also Evans and Frank.


“This photograph of peasants is from the village of Valeni in the Maramures region of northern Romania enroute to a livestock market in a neighboring town. Villagers meet on Thursdays to trade gossip, sell animals and enjoy themselves. I was 25, adventurous and in love with black and white film when I checked out of the modern world and lived with a family in Valeni, farming and photographing and savoring the last vestiges of European folk culture. I met the Nemes family in a field while they were making a haystack at the end of the summer and ended up staying for a year. Romania has since joined the European Union in 2007 and the youth from the villagers now spend most of the year abroad in Italy and Spain working itinerant jobs. The EU has strict agricultural regulations and the future of traditional life in Maramures is uncertain. There are now even plans to create commercial farms”.


What I love about this image is how it could easily be from the same time as Walker Evans and Robert Frank because of its timeless quality. And from reading the paragraph above this is obviously what the artist aimed to achieve, showing a culture of the modern day that is in fact living in the past. His use of film aids this as the old masters of photography all used film as it was all that was available before the onset of digital photography. Ellicson shows the indexicality of photography as he transports us into the path of these farm workers who, in our modern culture, we do not come accross. In the same way the masters transported us to those affected by the depression, and Winogrand shows us humans as we might not see them.

Voyeurism

An introduction to the exhibition we are looking at and discussing. Taken from the Tate website: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/exposure. I actually went to the exhibition over summer and it was amazing.

Exposed

Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera

Tate Modern 28 May  –  3 October 2010

About the exhibition

"...promises to be a magnificent, intriguing, sometimes shocking, sometimes risque show". The Evening Standard

Exposed offers a fascinating look at pictures made on the sly, without the explicit permission of the people depicted. With photographs from the late nineteenth century to present day, the pictures present a shocking, illuminating and witty perspective on iconic and taboo subjects. 

Beginning with the idea of the 'unseen photographer', Exposed presents 250 works by celebrated artists and photographers including Brassaï's erotic Secret Paris of the 1930s images; Weegee's iconic photograph of Marilyn Monroe; and Nick Ut's reportage image of children escaping napalm attacks in the Vietnam War. Sex and celebrity is an important part of the exhibition, presenting photographs of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, Paris Hilton on her way to prison and the assassination of JFK. Other renowned photographers represented in the show include Guy Bourdin, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Philip Lorca DiCorcia, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Nan Goldin, Lee Miller, Helmut Newton and Man Ray. 

The UK is now the most surveyed country in the world. We have an obsession with voyeurism, privacy laws, freedom of media, and surveillance – images captured and relayed on camera phones, YouTube or reality TV.

"Much of Exposed focuses on surveillance, including works by both amateur and press photographers, and images produced using automatic technology such as CCTV. The issues raised are particularly relevant in the current climate, with topical debates raging around the rights and desires of individuals, terrorism and the increasing availability and use of surveillance. Exposed confronts these issues and their implications head-on."






























Session notes:
aim: contextualise analysis of the panopticon in relation to the photographic works that comment on surveillance culture. 
explore interactions between surveillance and voyerism


someone who carries out surveillance normally have backing of authority/company
controlling a threat


voyerism for self gratification, own pleasure (strict definition is sexual pleasure but I wouldn't say always)


Vito Aconci - following piece 1969
followed people until they went into a building..
personal curiosity? or to see how people react?


internalise, have we already got it inside us that people are watching us all the time, so if they do we don't notice?


dialogue, you can take the horse to water but you can't make it drink


Merry Alpen  - dirty windows 1994
love the style but not content
lots of politics, should we be viewing these?
should the photographer have done something about this?
can you step outside your own opinions/motivations to view the image?
hard when displayed so large! as they were at exhibition


Sophie Calle - venetian hotels
"examined the personal belongings of hotel guests and observed through details lives which remained unknown to me"
not panoptic at the time she does it because no ones aware of it, but panoptic to us as we see that she's done this and instills in our mind that we are always being watched
bringing the private into the public
especially things from bins! thrown away for a reason but she's removed and photographed it and shown it to everyone, not really fair, not her place I don't think
why the text? I think unnecessary 
she talks about it factually but then occasionally how she feels
what is this motivation?
"her work can be seen as a critical commentary on panoptic culture and enacts the role of the observer, whose professional demeanor is undermined by their own voyeuristic intentions"
betraying trust of employer and hotel guests


























Our task this week is to analyse three images from the exhibition. I have chosen three that I enjoyed looking at as I walked round the display.


The first image I am going to visually analyse is 'Woman moistening her lips, as others are checking out their own profiles, while looking in trick one-way mirror, in lobby of Broadway movie theater, Times Square, New York, 1946' taken by Yale Joel.

As the title states the photograph is taken from behind a trick mirror. This is instantly interesting as it means we are seeing the subjects exactly as they are seeing themselves. The fact that they are unaware of this means we are seeing a personal side of them that they do not necessarily want to be seen. They have no way to choose how they are being seen or portrayed by the camera. The fact that the photograph is taken from behind a mirror is more revealing than just being hidden within an object as when people consciously look in mirrors, we know they must definitely be thinking about their own appearance. 

It is interesting how causally the woman in front is looking into the mirror. Especially compared to the woman behind her who is having to lean past her in order to look into the mirror. The woman on the right is also amusing as she appears to not be looking into the mirror at all but at the woman in front. 

I don’t think the artist is criticsing the women in the photograph but more making an amusing comment on peoples perception of appearance. 

The second image I found really interesting and amusing in the exhibition was 'Lovers at the Movies, 1940' taken by Weegee (Arthur Fellig).

The photograph was taking using infrared and is I think entertaining to look at, I noticed most people would give off a small snigger as they saw what was going on in the image. The funny thing about the image is that we know it is a cinema, so can assume that it is fully dark. We therefore know that the couple assume that no one can see them, but actually we can. We can also see how blissfully unaware the other people in the cinema are of what is going on. 

This image is technically quite voyeristic as the couple are kissing, but it also relates to surveillance as it shows that even in times when people would assume no one was looking, you can never be sure.

What I love about the image is how timeless it is. It is in black and white and peoples fashion obviously shows it is not in the current day, but the concept behind the image will not have changed and I'm sure a similar image could be taken in a cinema today. 

The final image I am going to look at is 'Untitled no.22, 1997' from Mitch Epstein's series 'The City'.

I chose this image because when I saw it in the exhbition I instantly loved it because of all the flowers (which relates to my love of floral and garden photography) but I was unsure of what was going on in the image. Due to the nature of the other images in the exhibition I assumed that something sinister was going on which I was unaware of so I did some research into it when I got home.

I have actually found it extremely hard to find out exactly what is going on in this photograph. So for the time being I have come to the conclusion that it is up to my own interpretation.

Mitch Epstein said this about the series as a whole:

'

A series of photographs about the meeting of public and private life in New York. Issues of surveillance, and the blurred line between private and public space were central to the formation of the city. In the early 70's—when I first photographed New York—the street and public spaces were fair game for a photographer, and people not only tolerated but enjoyed having their picture taken. But in the 90s, I found myself questioning how a photographer functions in public space: what is acceptable and what is not, because people were, by then, sensitive to the intrusiveness of cameras (of all kinds) in our culture.

New York is a chaotic and layered universe. Everyone sustains his own solar system of family, friends, and associates within this complex universe—sanctuaries amid the chaos. The cityreconstructs the intimate core and the anonymous skin of New York. At the heart of this work is the meeting of two disparate worlds: what it means to separate them and what it means to put them together.

At its heart, as well, is my enduring interest in banality, and finding ways to draw from it whatever wit and irony I can. I'm especially intrigued by the meaning of myth and how everyday life can adopt a quality of myth when photographed. In this manner, myth can become a language of its own, and the mythic can illuminate that which is poignantly and simply human in a picture.

The myth of New York cannot be separated from the reality of it. These photographs are of a New York as imagined as it is real.'

I found this interesting to read but still do not fully understand the work. But I love the series and have come to interpret it is a kind of dream like observation of new york. Commenting on the everyday issues of such a big city, issues that anyone can see simply from walking around. Epstein simply photographs what he sees and leaves the images open to us to take what we like from (this is what I think anyway).


The photographs I have chosen are all quite visually different however they all deal with similar themes as they are all photographs that have been taken without the subjects knowledge. I like that they are not malicious in intent but more gentle musings about society, voyeurism and surveillance. And above all, they are beautiful images. Which I think is always the most important thing about photography.