Crucifixion scene and other photographies
The scene to imagine: You
are laying up the Good Friday, the smell of Prosecco in your nose and
ultraviolet light waves in the face. In your brain memory diffused
images of photographs that you have to make sensefull somehow. But
the sweetbread mash is too soft, the image too blurred, the interest
weak. Just an introspective picture that is not outwardly declared,
nearly uncommunicable. But this is the rescuing spark, because such
photographs really exist: the artists' group "Henry VIII's
wives" works almost systematically in the English and
Scandinavian region with photographs, which show really nothing
really. Instead they get meanings - in the word's full and broadest
linguistic sense - rolling. A recent project of the group (whose name
*
HENRY VIII's WIVES * conversely shows much more than it
says, as we know from the artists just this, that they - probably? -
are not zombies) is called "Iconic moments of the 20 th century
"and consists of reset photos of major world historical events
by a group of volunteers from a retirement home.
The resulting
reset scenes are for instance Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at the
Yalta Conference during the Second World War, the napalm attack
during the Vietnam War, or the execution of Lee Harvey Oswald,
broadcasted live on television. In strange ways these famous motives
are disfigured into unspectacular images by the nearly everyday
clothing of the actors and the restriction of their performing arts
to just a few simple gestures: a to the head oriented gun, a Hitler
greeting, a uniform. Crossed hands in the back are nearly impossible
to be understood as a painful handcuffing, and only if the context of
the photographic project is known, the mimetic undertaking of this
modern staging of attitudes becomes transparent. But previously one
looks, virtually banned, in a completely absurd-looking scene: Why
does the endangered not flee but remains as a stroller next to the
paranoid firearmed man? Why allows the grandmother to be photographed
in her embarrassing political automatisms ? Do these pensioners
really have to perform their uniforms to the photographers ? Fetish
Style in a Glasgow nursing home, you might say, people as victims of
their photographic iconization. But then, with the help of its
theory, everything in this project is normal, analytically and
enlightening, the retirees even in a special way culturally
interested, tolerant, fit for multiple interactions.
Quite
logically then, how they benefit from the reflection on historical
experience and its media agency, also the activ view recognises that
pictures are more than they show, and even just documentary
photographs can be less informative than created from internal
rituals of the participating parties. These internal relationships -
perhaps classically called "background" - do not have to be
recognizable in the image itself but may be covered by iconographic
formulas and almost ornamental superficial gestures. As far
deconstructive photography works and mediates only within its context
its content, sometimes just for the participants themselves.
The
Good Friday suggests to set parallels to crucifixion scenes, with the
most naiv programme of this pictures - son of God cruelly treated and
wept by his father - that shall be understandable in any
culture and by what standards ever. But, the fact that the
medieval church at first hesitated to (at least symbolically) nail
the son again - only after the Christian missionaries in the
Romanesque period * were in need of more impressive advertising media
this theme had been reactivated - suggests to see more in the scene
as a simple and effective compassion guaranteeing formula. Because,
once honestly, why should anybody feel compassion with an unknown man
in the best years (the scene should indeed create first instruction
requirements), who was due to juridical decision so severely
punished, and even get convictions of injustice? The more realistic
and cruel the scene the more it establishes the psychological
self-protection mechanism, the day-to-day law-and-order conviction
people use to keep lucky: That will have its correctness! [Diego
VELÁzQUEZ: Christ Crucified. c. C. 1632. Oil on canvas.
Madrid, Spain Museo del Prado.]
The idea sounds far more
absurd than is is in every day'use: Among quite famous, historical
thinkers of the Catholic Church as Thomas Aquinas theories of
distance and proximity to God are common. They distribute grace based
on different groups of people differently: Women are a bit further
away from God than men, homosexuals, etc. even further, atheists and
believers of not different religions heavenly far away, animals
finally completely outside of the field of God's grace, because
soulless. Such theories we still drag in certain halfconscious
cultural beliefs, such as the idea of gender alleged mathematical
talent, which, according to Aquinas, requires a kind of close
communication with the angels - for dressmen only! Yes, even the
Crucified drags the problem with him, to make a good impression even
if hanging on the cross such miserable. Even with the greatest pain
it is no good to look as if you just had deserved your pain - mean,
angry, unhappy, freezed, crude, asymmetric, toothless, ridiculous -
in fact, then, committed to an - albeit meagre - ideal male body. In
other words: The depicted Jesus on the cross: Jerusalem's first
topmodel. In Spain, known for being aesthetically and culturally
almost inhumane fond of ornamentalism, perhaps due to arabian
influences, Velasquez had created a kind of compress of the whole
aesthetic desires, a crucifixion has to fulfill: A beautiful man
without a single chest hair, sheved even under the armpits! - like
almost all the Christ-doubles incidentally - but in this very case
with delicate, feminine unmuscular arms, the beard behind the shadow
of the jaw hair, the feet put as in timid romanesque times, feminine
hips swung to the side, the legs gender harmonizing in length and
scope.
At the same time, of course, heaving the artist,
transcendence works (in a way anticipated revival) by adding beauty,
which is also the happiness of many models suffering from esurience,
which are particularly usual in Southamerica's deep catholic
countries, where they get noticed through real death-of-hunger. The
aestheticism of light and shadow, body shape and gesture of passion
then, helps the picture program to escape the "right!" -
protection allegation. This insight now renews the look on the higher
everyday photography in the fashion and magazine industries - first
still luxuriating in harmlessness, then with steeled eyes on the
erotic photography, that works just reversed - as an example, *
Philip Bréson * and, perhaps funnier,
Daniele Buetti (at Bernhard Knaus Fine Art, PULSE ART FAIR, NEW YORK,
May 27 to 30, 2008, F9.
 Daniele Buetti "Why should I be somebodys hope", 2008 Leuchtkasten Unikat 40 x 30 cm EUR 5.800 |
 Margret Eicher "Die fünf Tugenden", 2008 Tapestry 180 x 190 cm Edition 5 + 1 AP EUR 8.000 BERNHARD KNAUS FINE ART PULSE ART FAIR, NEW YORK 27. - 30. Mai 2008 / F9 |
In Bréson, suffering
is replaced by a surface aesthetics of mutilation, completely
negating the humanity of the person acting in the picture. Buetti,
unlike Bréson, however, addresses in the model-like models
with a simple comic language sometimes a possible perspective of
equality on this, though strongly projecting.
So well to prefer
the ordinary fashion and beauty photos...
some beautiful
specimens are in Gilbert Duivesteijn's Portfolio: *
DUIVESTEIJN *
In these pictures the
analytical trains of beauty are not aligned to refer to a person and
raise their value. Much more the quality of the model is precisely
that such motives lead away from the individual face. A good face
thus spreads, for example, symbols and little icons like the huge
lips of a pout to fuse them with something like the ornamental
lines of a silk drapery. Similar, gestures of Haute Coiture models
prove: The body posture must figure geometry. Forearms and elbows
build clearly prominent triangles, that fit together to surface
structures with the equally geometrical patterns of the surrounding
interior. Hair is a kalligraphical moment, or allowed to be a pastose
color space, caught by the structures of the picturesque
surroundings. In other words - so it seems surprisingly - flat is the
styling's absolute must of Coiture. The legendary theorist of
Colourfield-Painting and their genuine picturesque surfaces, Clement
Greenberg, would have had his joy at the wonderful fashion-covers by
Duivesteijns.
In beauty photography, finger nails, lips,
eyelashes and pupils become little color accents on the sand like
surface pattern of face and hair. The model looks of course in a way,
that nothing in the face provoces negative notice, but nevertheless
in a way that does not individualize, because in the photo you just
identify the ordinary details, at best nothing very special. The
mascara blush series for example, the upper lip looks quite
individual, which is why she is just not for lipstick advertising,
because unusually small. Beauty Series No. 3 shows in white lines a
pout: Middle crest, long strokes and the white upper arms differ from
the Model Hana, the third positioned by Heidi Klums previous season
of "Germany's Next Top Model". Even in Gangsta style the
other models refer to the staging variation of a line in the
picture's center instead of being emphazised as a motive, though all
her beauty interchangeable. So on this opportunity a praise for dear
Heidi, who has purchased the American series "America's Next Top
Model" by Victoria Secret for IMG and ProSieben has adapted this
for the German market. Like many other series from MTV, that
magnetize the entertainment and youth oriented channels Pro Sieben
magnetize and RTL, the German series are made with far more emphasis
and care, and are also much stronger perceived as a public spectacle
than the rather poor and unlovingly filmed and kept impersonal
American originals. With Barbara's rival Anni everyone has even then
pity if Hallhuber reduces her to a cupboard and covers her face -
that is know by the savvy television viewer to be burdened with bad
skin - with make up in inches. So, what one knows, one loves usually
and is than even prepared to see an ornamentalization and lamination
practized on the model for the standards of lifestyle photography as
a violation of the model's individuality. A completely different
advertising culture, thus, that has but not begun with Klum but
already has a tradition in entertainment stars like Verona Pot and
the various talkshow-presenters and Star daughters who are both in TV
as well as in various magazines. With Klum, even though Bikini Star,
the whole thing gets into the living-room of the middle-class, as
Brandolino once put the middle-class frying sausage and its
living-room on the documenta. For this reason, the Topmodel series
are quite keen on flirts with the academic, also in contrast to the
educational indifference of the American version.
What we thus
still want are photographs, which show people as individuals, without
being documentary, but without the conceptual deconstructive
discourse (as they are also in the artistic or cultural determined
photographic productions of Cindy Sherman or TheGirls). Motives can
be found where characters are, who mediate their history themselves,
or are at least prepared to let staging around them speak. A view
with the camera eyes by *
Francesca Galliani * in the underground scene of New
York and London, checks the photography what can be told visually.
The Italian-born New Yorker moves meaningful and uncompromising on
the borders between commercial photography and art photography, which
at least in the *
current portfolio *, as erotic photography, even
under the theme "transgender" with a rather well-known
strategies of higher-style with picturesque pastose background,
surface labeling, and paint ons. The "transgender"
component is relatively invisible, apart from some individually
dressed nightflies. The nudes are, in any case, really women,
admitted (having become invisible) with what history ever. Besides
classical poses of beautiful models in this area, and very pretty
picture edits of the background, which appear all-diffusing and
graphically (but not covered with superficial ornament), can at the
Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Glamour, etc. photographer's website photos be
found that show a raw tore up punk style, or which at least lead away
from the naked girls decorated with rectangles in Rauschenberg's
style: In "Love for Sale" (under "Nudes"), in its
critical moment, posing actually can appear in the sense of a problem
already raised along the catholic paradox of the crucifixion scene -
without really overwhelmingly recognizable as such and thus to be
blasphemous in a certain way.
In her portraits, in
particular in number 12 of the portfolio, the individual color spaces
of the image are formally simplified by over-exposure effects, the
overall picture alienated to pop art paintings. The photographed woman
with black and white Bauhaus T-shirt on a powerfully curved bosom is
involved in the entire image area as a model for Duivesteinj. But
this portrait is individual. The style of the image processing fits
to the photo's model, such a formative element of the many waves
cult, and not disappears behind one of Pierre Bourdieu's "Subtle
differences". The comparison with photography number 8, showing
its prom before a James Bond scene, demonstrates that the reduction
to hard color, contrast and color spaces is typical of the portrait
series of Galliani. From this affinity for the "raw" style
of the depicted - particularly visible in the childlike design of the
musicians-cover photo 1 to 3 - is just visible, that the photographer
identifies with the photographed. Thus, she is far away from admiring. Beautiful in these portraits of the photographer, who works also
for Haute Coiture and Lifestyle Magazines, are too the portraits of
golden styled couples whose arms are painted with tattoos, as if they
wore Hermes with their golden bracelets and fair curls. Another
example of the overrun of bodypainting - conventions is the fuzzy
black-and-white photography number 28 of the "Nudes",
showing a model covered with paintings lying next to a bed, with a
towel on his head, as in a good mood event (we ignore allusions to
"italian" scenes), and just not in the sexual context, but
just painted for the sake of fun. Some pictures of Newton casual
shots are perhaps similar, but while the former somehow always look
oriented at the heterosexual visual prey, actually never missing
bottom pinching und bosom grabbing. The picture by Galliani is
actually rather documentary-narrative, the blur justified by the
"Wait, I'll just make a photo of you" shining though the
picture (which of course does not mean that a blurred photograph with
the subject or title * Body Painting, sex smeared * by itself would
have anything negative). A good example of photography, which is
conservative insofar as the pictures have something to show and tell,
and therefore can play aorund in the the area of commercial,
picturesque scenic photography and the feminist-lesbian-off culture,
too. Intellectual photography, who are made in cultural or artistic
quotes, however, is this not. Nevertheless, it is astonishing that
Galliani has never been issued in Germany.
The English photographer Martin Parr, however, is not only well known, exhibited and published in Germany but also in well-known newspapers, magazines and museums. His * website * in compulsory nostalgic look, shows the eccentric perspective and object choice of his photographs in the worlds founded as a basis for the Spectator for an "analysis of visual sign of the globalization with unusual visual experiences ". Thus, Parr thinks, the ability to have against the "propaganda"of the visual tackle flooding improves. While Parr compared to Galliani or Duivesteinj is the one, who is furthest away to the image of the informational overflow - his models are with no light, interior, mascara or lipstick subsequent image processing, - on the other hand, he is the epitome of a "Paparazzi": a sensational photographer, shooting people in public life in their normal, but for the public unusual everyday situations, depicting Russian millionaires at a party, Sheikh women and child models with catwalk-painting, a man with a cat covered by jewels. While we do not know the individual persons before Parr's camera advised and captured them, we recognize the images' representative function - the money that Abwegige, Überstylte - which represent Parr selected as Chancellor or President of the State and Party. The more contextual representation of objects and accessoires reveals the extent the principles of the heavily ritualized, distancing representation follows the internationals alignment of representation and manifestations but is, even if not necessarily, connected with a rapprochement, but could also be limited practically on a series of shop windows could be limited.
This
critical idea participates in the since long obsolete belief of a
natural physiognomy's reliability - that leads the issue back to the
Good Friday already addressed in this issue. The unvarnished,
suffering Christ on the cross is a man in the best years free from
suspicion, the cruelty of his situation just an acting scene.
Deviations from this almost terroristical "base image" by
age, gender, costume or inclination soon have the consequence that
the paradox between "What a horrible injustice," and "This
has been done with accuracy!" tilts in favour of the latter
view. Parr as critic of the alienation and detachment to see, is a
step in this direction and would underestimate his image objects
ability for acting out group-stage conventions. Let' take thus the
stylist's cat made up with jewellery calmly as an example of
something that is not only worthy to be hunted by upscale Paparazzis
but also deserves and may enjoy its daily feed.