How can photography be thought as a Postmodern medium?

[natalia_gubareva]

To H.P What problems? Yes, my first language isn't English but I'm heading my paper in English. For some reasons when I published this text here it made these symbols " and ' look like ?

[h._p.]

Well, if you added paragraph breaks and some punctuation, that would be a start.

 

Then you have sentences like "In the modernist sense photography couldn?t be considered an art because it acquires its autonomy and should be an independent form of expression from other disciplines to become a traditional medium." Apart from being nonsensical, you've mixed tenses and you're presenting a theory as a statement of fact.

 

I'm quite sure you're keen on what you're doing but the whole thing is quite painful to my eyes.<div></div>

[natalia_gubareva]

Well, if you added paragraph breaks and some punctuation, that would be a start.

 

It was ok in my word file and then when i copied it in here, it appered to be the way you see it. Sorry.

 

I'm really trying to write this paper but the whole art language for a non-native speaker is really hard to understand and especially to write. I really tried my best to tell the ideas expressed in this paper.

[ellis_vener_photography]

Before you start rewriting try reading

<A HREF = http://www.george-orwell.org/Politics_and_the_English_Language/0.html>

"Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell</a>. The language you are using to say

what I think you are trying to say seems to be tieing your thinking up in knots. Knotty

thinking isfun if you are into bondage but is bad for most other subjects.

[robert_k1]

[Disclaimer] I am a newbie at this kind of discussion. So take my post with a grain of salt.

 

I just read "Criticising Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images" by Terry Barrett, and found it to be a great intro book. Barrett covers a lot of ground in an objective, logical and unthreatening manner. The theory chapter touches upon modernism and post-modernism, etc. and has numerous references.

 

Somewhere in the book, Barrett pointed out that a photographer's intent (and hence his/her own perception which category he/she belongs to) may differ from how critics may view his/her work.

 

This is supported by another book I recently read, "Art Photography Now" by Susan Bright. In it, here's what Cindy Sherman said about her own work and her critics:

 

"I also realized that I myself don't know exactly what I want from a picture, so it's hard to articulate that to somebody else - anybody else."

 

[snip]

 

"I would read theoretical stuff about my work and think, "What? Where did they get that?" The work was so intuitive for me, I dindn't know where it was coming from. So I thought I had better not say anything or I'd blow it."

[h._p.]

If you're going with this, at least try making some sense...

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The early 1960s was a period of structural and cultural change thoroughout most of the world. The most significant of these changes was the rise of mass media communication. This was coupled with the rapid development of new technologies for the dissemination of information.

 

The end of World War 2 coupled with the destruction of the old European empires and the struggles for independence by erstwhile colonies, had culminated in a new set of political, cultural and ethic ideas. In America and much of western Europe, the 'sixties saw the success of various social movements which increased the sense of identity by women, African Americans, and other previously discriminated groups.

 

The world of art, also, experienced a period of rapid change, the demise of modernism permitting the blossoming of new, complex and ever-shifting ideas that led to an artistic climate of unprecedented intellectual ambition, which came to be known as postmodernism. Keith Davis states that the leading artistic trend of postmodernism was "a dematerialization of the traditional art object".

 

As part of this trend, artists began to explore the idea of art and its place in society, as opposed to creating art of monetary value.

 

However, the new ideas required new modes of expression and representation and photography has become one of the most important of these. As critic Andy Grunberg writes: "Conceptual artists sought to rescue art from dominion of the precious object, and photographs were considered ideal because they were so little valued, until Conceptual Art helped them make them valuable".

 

The result was that artists no longer viewed photography as a secondary instrument used for reproduction and documentation. Instead, it became central to contemporary postmodern artistic practices. According to Douglas Crimp, photography can be seen as "a watershed between modernism and postmodernism".

 

In the modernist sense, photography could not be considered an art until it acquired its autonomy and thus became an independent form of expression. John Szarkowki attempted to make photography a modernist medium, an art form that could distinguish itself in its essential qualities from all other forms, by saying: "the pictures reproduced in this book [The Photographer's Eye] have in fact little in common; these pictures are unmistakably photographs. The vision they share belongs to no school or aesthetic theory, but to photography itself".

 

However, photography is too multiple, too useful to other practices to be an art form within the traditional definition of art. Thus when photography was revaluated as a modernism medium, photography seemed to be one of the causes of the end of modernism due to its subversive nature. The entrance of photography to the museum on a par with other traditional media; the growth of photography courses in university art departments; the rapid dissemination of a series of new approaches like Pop Art, Conceptual Art, Book Art, Body Art, Performance Art, Earth Art, Photorealism and many others all permitted artists to embrace photographic form of expression enthusiastically.

 

The most famous painters in the Pop Art era, such as Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and Ed Ruscha, were amongst the first who started using photographic images and techniques in their works, during the early 1960s. For example, Robert Rauschenberg began incorporating photographic reproductions onto canvas by means of the silkscreen process. In Retroactive I (1964) he uses apparently incompatible pictures of an astronaut, oranges, John F. Kennedy and Gjon Mili overlaid with bright strokes of paint.

 

Like Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol used the photo-silkscreen process to make paintings based on photographs taken from the popular press. His most striking works include the repetitive images of Campbell's soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles, S & H Green Stamps and other commonplace objects.

 

Since that time more and more artists from various disciplines, who regarded themselves as working in the postmodernist era, have started to use photography as their medium. Postmodernist artists made a strong emphasis on the nature and the power of representation, which made photography the key postmodern medium.

 

According to Walter Benjamin, the media of film and photography played a central role in the new cultural experience of media-dominated society, characterized by mass production and the expansion of the use of images. He pointed out that in the world where everything is duplicated, there is no reality, there is only representation.

 

Posmodernist artists sought to undermine this idea of representation. Since all the images referred to other images, and were thus copies of the copies, their favourite artistic strategies were appropriation, simulation, and pastiche. These strategies involved the copying of already existing styles, images and symbols from other artists whom they admire to create a unique piece of work. This copying "highlighted the status of representation as a perpetual re-presentation".

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

It ain't perfect but at least now it makes some kind of sense...

[peter_evans4]

<p>It's good to start off on the right foot. That being so:</p><p><em> The early 1960s was a period of structural and cultural change thoroughout most of the world. The most significant of these changes was the rise of mass media communication.</em></p><p>All of what follows seems to be about "advanced" nations. (Indeed, all of what follows seems to be about a single nation, the US.) In the US the newspapers had been vigorous since the late 19th century, and the radio and the telly had been ubiquitous since the 30s and 50s respectively. How did mass media communication rise in the 60s?</p>

[h._p.]

Don't ask me, Peter. I just edited it into something that's readable. I surely don't agree with it.

[beeman458]

"Today the most common used strategy in post modern practices around the world would have to be appropriation /Quoting."

 

You just pretty much described everybody since the beginning of time. What you described above is called learning. We all borrow from those around us and from those who came before us, otherwise we're reinventing the wheel, every time we wake up.

 

"Any more ideas why ph is a postmodern medium?"

 

The above question if flawed in that photography isn't a postmodern medium (the material or technique with which an artist works: watercolors) as photography is an action: writing with light. There is no such thing as a Postmodern medium as everything can be used to reflect Postmodern ideals. PoMo photography is, in real terms, nothing more then the imbuing of the image with content as opposed to being a recording of what's in front of the camera; reportage. Postmodern photography is irony and deconstruction rolled into one. It's not about borrowing as we all borrow.

 

In order to understand Postmodern photography, you have to realize what it isn't (I repeat myself), Postmodern art. These are two different animals and if you try to look at Postmodern photography through a Postmodern lense, you won't be able to make any sense out of what your seeing.

[beeman458]

"I fear you have problems..."

 

That's an understatement as everything to me, is confused and overlapping. I stated cutting and commenting but it got to be a bit out of hand, my opinion, so I decided to stop.

 

------------------------------------

 

"...the demise of modernism..."

 

Modernism is alive and well. It never died. Postmodernism is a branch like that of a tree. A new branch does not end the life of a tree.

 

"However, the new ideas required new modes of expression and representation and photography has become one of the most important ones."

 

Photography freed up the other arts from the real and allowed the other arts to explore and left the real to photography where the other arts couldn't compete.

 

"According to Douglas Crimp, photography can be seen as ?a watershed between modernism and postmodernism?."

 

I'm going hammer this point. Postmodern photography has "absolutely" nothing to do with Postmodern art. It's not complex. There is no watershed. They're two completely different animals which developed along two completely different parallel timelines.

 

I'd say, if there is a watershed, the watershed is in the philosophies of "other arts" and "photography"

 

Photography moved forward in a traditional Modern form with Stieglitz at the turn of the century as the "other arts" made a left with the Dadaists and accelerated with WWI, Breton, Surrealism and the Mexico City, Paris, Berlin, NYC, Communist connection of the time; realizing I'm oversimplifying in my above.

 

Yes photography was usurped by Postmodern activists (artists), but photography itself continued on a simple, innocent and unassuming reportage track for decades after the tumultuous 20's, unincumbered by Postmodern artistic think, up to and through Lisette Model, mentor to Diane Arbus.

 

No disrespect intended in my above as I bailed at the above point and I write my comments with all due respect and thoughtfulness towards the OP.

[kevinconroyfarrell]

Well, Ms. Gubareva, I do understand what you have written. I think the writing would

improve, however, if you were to take just one of the things you write about, say,

representation, and write your whole paper on that. The idea of pictures that are only

representations of other pictures, what Baudrillard called 'simulacre,' is an interesting one

that stimulates my curiosity. The reader of your paper is going to want depth and

exploration, expansion. You have listed many possible theses, any of which could be

developed into a paper. You seem to want to write down everything you have read and

learned. I understand this desire, we all have it. The problem is that to produce coherent

writing you must choose one small, limited subject and develop it. This will allow you to

write out YOUR responses to the material, which is crucial and would probably be

interesting to read. Instead of trying to learn all the elements of postmodernism, how

about trying to learn just one really well?

[natalia_gubareva]

Kevin Farrell thank you so much for support and ideas. I think I gonna do what you have suggested. The only thing I'm confused a bit what photographers should I choose. I already started writing about Cindy Sherman. However, I'm confused if Sherie Levine would be considered to be a photographer post 60s? Most of her works were done after 1980s.

 

I was also thinking about taking Diane Arbus but I'm getting really confused what postmodern ideas and strategies she was expressing?

[beeman458]

"I'm getting really confused what postmodern ideas and strategies she was expressing?"

 

She inserted herself into her images, via her subjects. When you look at her images, realize, she's looking back at you. I base this on my studies of her and her life before she committed suicide.

[kevinconroyfarrell]

Well, Ms. Grubareva, I just saw a Diane Arbus retrospective and I was struck by her

ironiccaptions. For instance, she has one entitled something like, Woman and dwarf.

Another is

called something like, Mexican dwarf at home. A lot of her

captions refer inappropriately (or, appropriately) to the race or ethnicity of her subjects, or

to unusual physical conditions, such as dwarfism or giantism.

Phrases like "black man" or "Jewish couple" are to be found among her captions as are

adjectives such as "patriotic." I would

say Arbus is using

irony to bring up racial politics and racial tensions at a time when the civil rights

movement was getting underway in the United States, as well as ethnic tensions, the

Vietnam War and physical conditions referred to in the past as "handicaps."

 

Maybe she is speaking in the

voice many of us use in private, when we refer to someone's race even though publicly this

is not

allowed and should supposedly not be important. Or maybe she is blurting out someone's

race or ethnicity when normally it would be whispered. You know, people will say

something like, "I don't mean to be a racist but..." and then, in a whisperd voice, "he's

black." She is commenting in a whimsical, playful, ironic way on things upon which we are

not supposed to comment.

 

The captions of Arbus' photographs are parodies of sincere captions one has read on

other photograhs. Maybe you could say the captions of Diane Arbus refer to other

captions, making them representations or simulacre. The racial and ethnic references hold

further

irony in that they are just as apt today as when she used them forty-odd years ago. That

is, racial tensions exist now as they ever did in the United States and, indeed, the world.

 

 

Another ironic caption reads something like, "Miss Debutante 1930 at

home." The

picture is of an older beauty queen posing as if for a beauty photo, but at home in her

bed and at the age of perhaps fifty-five or sixty. There is irony to the photograph's having

been taken in 1959, or so, while the

caption

reads "Miss Debutante 1930..." Normally the word "former" might be used and perhaps

more explanation given. As it is, the style is deadpan humor delivered in the form of a

one-liner. To simply

say, "Miss Debutante 1930 at home" rings oddly to our ears considering the amount of

time passed between the event referred to in the caption and the moment the photograph

was taken, in other words, between the age we expect "Miss Debutante" to be based on

the words we read, and her actual age shown in the picture thirty years after having been

Miss Debutante. This is sly and destructive humor. The idea, I thought, was about

the way we discard

winners like things once they have served their purpose. But instead of making this

photograph a sad

image, Arbus chooses to present it as a humorous one, if a little darkly so, driving home

the

point all the more forcefully that "winning" is largely an illusion and that "winners" are to a

large extent actors playing a role in an imaginary drama that symbolically represents the

myth of winning, as opposed to winning itself. In a world of simulacre, everything is

artificial, even winning. We manufacture disposable "winners" and then throw them aside

when they have

out-lived their shelf-life. The irony in Arbus' pictures is destabilizing, in that it calls

assumptions into question. In this case, it might be assumed the winner lives happily ever

after. Diane Arbus shows us, whether we like to see it or not, that the ever after is not so

happy and that winning amounts to much the same thing as losing. Is she calling the

American dream itself, which is largely one of becoming a winner, into question?

Postmodernism

is about skepticism with established values. Postmodernism is about dissaffection and

dissatisfaction with popular myths. By calling what we assume into question, i.e., the myth

that

winners live happily ever after,

Arbus attacks and destabilizes a whole cultural viewpoint, i.e. the myth that winning is the

goal of

life. This is a classic use of irony, to

attack values we regard as false. Arbus' irony further serves to rally together those who

agree with

her in opposition to the false values she attacks. Her weapon is humor and her strategy is

to ironically undercut seemingly straight photographs of strange looking people with

captions that reveal underlying discord between myth and reality.

 

I know everyone tells you to read yet another book, and I do not know how much time you

have, but a glance through Wayne C. Boothe's "A Rhetoric of Irony" would help. It is a very

straightforward book that explains the uses of irony and discusses some of the problems

attached to it, such as the question, How do we know when someone is being ironic? Even

reading the opening

chapter might help a lot. Irony allows a lot to be said in few words, since it is suggestive as

opposed to literal. Irony rallies the faithful to laugh at the false values of the opposition.

Certain things can only be said through irony.

[kevinconroyfarrell]

Sorry, that first sentence should contain the phrase, "...ironic captions," which was

unfortunately run together as one word.

[ellis_vener_photography]

<I>, I just saw a Diane Arbus retrospective and I was struck by her ironic captions. For

instance, she has one entitled something like, Woman and dwarf. </I><P> Was it a

photograph of a man and a giant, or an image of any thing other than a woman and a dwarf?

otherwise that could hardly be considered ironic --just pure description. Or was there a black

fly in your Chardonnay?

[natalia_gubareva]

Thank you so much for this brilliant idea. I already wrote about Diane Arbus but I suppose I gonna re-write lots about her based on what you've just wrote about her.

 

There is only one thing I got confused I can't fing anywhere this image you're talking about "Miss Debutante 1930 at home". It's not in her book and Internet knows nothing about this owrk of her.

[kevinconroyfarrell]

Give me a minute to try to find it.

[kevinconroyfarrell]

Here it is.

[natalia_gubareva]

Yeah, I've seen this image so many times, however never paid attention to the capture. Thank you a lot.

[kevinconroyfarrell]

The subject's name is Brenda Frazier, and this picture was shot in 1966 by Arbus for Esquire

magazine. The title is from memory I am afraid, but she came out or debuted in 1938. Arbus

was interested in winners as a subject. She writes about it in her famous grant application.

You will have to research this. By the way, there is a database of art images that may help

called artstore. School libraries get it so maybe you could find it that way. Artstore, on the

internet at a school library.

[kevinconroyfarrell]

Irony is one of those things you cannot prove is present, Ellis. People dispute whether

certain statements were meant to be taken ironically. I would say a less disputable

example of Arbus' irony in a caption would be her calling a boy wearing a "Bomb Hanoi"

button a "very patriotic young man." I think once we have it that some of her captions are

ironic, we might start to look for irony in others. Not all captions will be equally clear cases

of irony and some may indeed be devoid of irony. You may be right about "Woman and

dwarf," but it rings oddly to my ears. Why not "Woman and Man?" Do we refer to dwarves,

even in 1960 and even in a photograph, as dwarves? To me it sounds as if you had a

picture of a black man, an asian man and a white man and woman and you called it,

"Picture of a black, an asian and a man and a woman."

[ellis_vener_photography]

you could call it anything you like.<P>

Irony, as defined <A HREF = http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/LTIrony.html> here</a> is

<P><I>The term irony is derived from the Greek eiron (dissembler), and denotes that the

appearance of things differs from their reality, whether in terms of meaning, situation, or

action. That is, it is ironical when there is a difference between what is spoken and what is

meant (see verbal irony ). what is thought about a situation and what is actually the case;

or what is intended by actions and what is their actual outcome (see dramatic irony.)</I>

<P>The second of the definitions

<A HREF = http://www.webster.com/dictionary/irony>here</a> is: <P><I>2 a : the use

of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal

meaning b : a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c :

an ironic expression or utterance</I><P>One of the definitions

<A HREF = http://www.thefreedictionary.com/irony> here</a> is<P><I>A literary style

employing such contrasts for humorous or rhetorical effect.</I><P>The VirtuaLit site

<A HREF = http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/irony_def.html> says

</A>:<P><I>

 

As a figure of speech, irony refers to a difference between the way something appears and

what is actually true. Part of what makes poetry interesting is its indirectness, its refusal to

state something simply as "the way it is." Irony allows us to say something but to mean

something else, whether we are being sarcastic, exaggerating, or understating. </I><P>

<A HREF =

http://www.precautionarytales.net/2005/08/definition-of-irony-oxford-english.shtml>

This blogger </a>says<P><I>

 

 

 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines irony as 'a state of affairs that appears perversely

contrary to what one expects'</I><P>

Kevin, maybe you are thinking of something other than irony? The titles of Diane Arbus'

photographs are very direct and unironic -- they describe exactly who the photograph is

of. her photographs have much in common with those of August Sander, a german

photographer of the early twentieth century. Irony is often used to emotionally distance

oneself from the subject one is writing about or photographing. Since one of the things

Arbus worked hard at demolishing those kind of emotional distancing effects prevalent in

standard portrait photography it follows that she or her heirs would hardly be likely to

ladle them back on with "ironic" captions. <P>What I do believe is that she could

sometimes use her camera to cruel effect on both the subjects of her photographs and

equally cruelly on the viewer's prejudices.

[kevinconroyfarrell]

Quoting the dictionary to me is pretty patronizing, Ellis, as is explaining who August Sandler

was. I will overlook that. I am going to disagree with you about Arbus' use of irony. She could

not possibly have thought or meant to say a young man with a "Bomb Hanoi" button was

literally "patriotic." The very use of that word should raise suspicion.

 

What would be interesting is if you were to expound on the emotional distancing effects

prevalent in portrait photography and what Arbus did to eliminate them from her own work.

[beeman458]

"She could not possibly have thought or meant to say a young man with a "Bomb Hanoi" button was literally "patriotic." The very use of that word should raise suspicion."

 

Would it help to put the image into context?

 

http://artsbus.gmu.edu/Readings/archives/arbusNYT2005.doc

 

http://www.dianearbus.net/pictures/flag_boy.htm

 

Not to be confused with this pic, which many do:

 

http://www.dianearbus.net/pictures/flag_hat.htm

 

You (generic you) decide if there's irony in the image.