WEEKLY DISCUSSION #21 Elliott Erwitt "Segregated Water Fountains"

[AlanKlein]

<p>Do you think the picture was somewhat staged? The man doesn't seem in the right position to drink water, as if Erwitt told him to move slightly to the right for a better camera view of the fountain and man's face and not just catch the man's back. </p>

[James G. Dainis]

I wonder in what sequence Mr. Erwitt took the two photos, the one with the man and the one without. One photo shows a man getting a drink of water and then one notices the two signs. In the other, one notices the two signs immediately and it is like a slap in the face.

 

Maybe Mr. Erwitt took a photo of the two fountains alone and then thought, "It would be better with a human element in the photo". Or, he took the photo with the man and then thought, " It would be better with the two fountains alone". That would tell us whether he was trying for a statement or for irony.

 

Today those photos are a commentary on the way that things were before the civil rights movements. Back in 1950 visitors from the North might have been amused at seeing those water fountains. "Can you believe these Southerners waste time on things like that?" without really giving thought to the indignity of it all.

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Strange, not sure why I can see the links but you guys can't. Here's a link to the web site I'm getting them from.</p>

<p>http://fashionblog.am/2013/11/retro-elliott-erwitt/#sthash.IouAczhi.dpbs</p>

<p>The first three "ironic" ones of Erwitt are 1) the rear nude statue with the male figure seen between the statue's legs, 2) the mannequin in the window which seems to be catching the eye of the woman passing by on the street, and 3) the three people looking at the empty picture frame in the gallery. The 4th, more serious, ironic Erwitt photo is of the woman with the flower in the foreground with the militia with weapons drawn in the background.</p>

<p>The Lange photo is on this website:</p>

<p>http://www.shorpy.com/dorothea-lange-photographs</p>

<p>It's the one called <em>Following the Cotton: 1937</em>.</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>FAIW, Fred, Erwitt would certainly not be the first person ever to depart from his usual fare to make a political statement about something morally offensive. I'm reminded of a Norman Rockwell painting regarding desegregation and the protection of students by the Federal government:</p>

<p>http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/08/28/Style/Images/normanrockwell.jpg</p>

 

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Regarding those "access denied" links, it appears the website/blog owners have discouraged direct linking to photos, presumably preferring visitors go through the web pages on which the photos are hosted. I'm encountering that more frequently as websites attempt to thwart direct linking of photos to high resource sites like Facebook.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Amy - "Should a single work necessarily be evaluated on the basis of the majority of the others?"</p>

<p>I think so if the goal of the evaluation is to be able to have a clearer idea of where the artist was coming from when s/he created the significant space that is the photograph. Erwitt created the photograph in order to communicate something, and knowing what else he had to say photographically helps us as viewers to discern what he intended to say given all the other possible 'hearings'. The techniques and general style used in other photographs helps familiarize us with his voice and voicing. How did he make his points in his broader body of work? If he used humor and kitsch habitually as grace notes, then more likely than not he also employed those presentational elements in Segregated Water Fountains. If in his work he habitually cracked jokes of one kind or another, it isn't unreasonable to say that to some degree he did so in Segregated Water Fountains too.</p>

<p>My take on Erwitt, after considering Fred's comments, is that Erwitt was capable of focusing on the evils of racial prejudice, but his larger body of work shows him as incapable or unwilling to also focus on the issues of poverty and class. Dorothea Lange <a href="http://www.shorpy.com/node/15484">http://www.shorpy.com/node/15484</a> asks us to consider more broadly the life of a landless peasant and the landed aristocracy she labors for. Landlessness and consequent poverty combine with race segregation to self-pepetuate, but for Erwitt the issues of poverty and class aren't made salient in Segregated Water Fountains, we see one dimension in the work under discussion, the evil of segregation and that is all.</p>

<p>Likewise Erwitt offering of a photo of a flower v bayonet is wistfully cherubic, avoiding as he would (in that he was a mainstream interpreter of events) the serious critiques existing at the time of our foreign policy and of the Vietnam War. See for example Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam - A Time To Break Silence" 1967 Riverside Church Speech <a href="http://mrdsneighborhood.com/2012/01/12/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-s-riverside-church-speech-on-april-4-1967-beyond-vietnam-a-time-to-break-silence/">http://mrdsneighborhood.com/2012/01/12/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-s-riverside-church-speech-on-april-4-1967-beyond-vietnam-a-time-to-break-silence/</a> Partial:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask — and rightly so — what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Compared to King, Erwitt's flower v bayonet is makes diffuse the salient issue of the day, and in some ways I would think Erwitt also made diffuse the plethora of factors lurking behind segregation.</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Nicely said, Charles.</p>

<p>Lex, thanks. Was thinking the same thing. Bummer.</p>

<p>Sarah, I agree and never meant to suggest otherwise. No artist or photographer ought to be bound to just one genre and no one shouldn't be allowed to stray in different waters than their norm. I just think the political statement of Erwitt is superficial, somewhat easy, and relies on a kind of irony I find less than deeply insightful or moving.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>Compared to King, Erwitt's flower v bayonet is makes diffuse the salient issue of the day, and in some ways I would think Erwitt also made diffuse the plethora of factors lurking behind segregation.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Charles, I think that you are asking a bit much of a single frame.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Two frames, Lannie, which when considered together, do bring me a little closer to Erwitt the commentator, Fred having dragged me there kicking and screaming.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Here is a third <em>Alabama, 1955 (Southern Charm) </em><a href="http://www.catherinecouturier.com/assets/images/artists/Elliott_Erwitt/photos/Elliott%20Erwitt%20Alabama,%201955%20(Southern%20Charm).jpg">http://www.catherinecouturier.com/assets/images/artists/Elliott_Erwitt/photos/Elliott%20Erwitt%20Alabama,%201955%20(Southern%20Charm).jpg</a></p>

<p>I don't see in that additional image anything that goes beyond a conversation about racial prejudice.</p>

<p> </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Erwitt's images often appear lightweight or simplistic in communication, but I think that is an easily assumed reading. He sometimes tricks us with the simplicity of his images. Somewhat like seeing the cover jacket of a novel and expecting that to reflect the interior. He is for me a very humanist minded photographer, while seeking the humorous or amusing side of the human condition and behaviour with his very curious and well trained eye. We have seen other such photos that simply appear cute without saying very much. One of the photos that Fred posted,</p>

<p><a href="http://fashionblog.am/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/20100318_erwitt_france.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://fashionblog.am/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/20100318_erwitt_france.jpg</a></p>

<p>appears very simple and unilayer in its apparent message, that of people curiously looking at a blank frame in a gallery while ignoring the portrait at left. I think it speaks to more than that. What they appear to be looking at is a small notice that might well be saying "The.....painting of.....has been removed temporarily for restoration and will be returned to the gallery on July, 15, ....."</p>

<p>It is less important what the message is in the frame but probably more so about the need of many of us to see a text when looking at images. Perhaps Erwitt has seen many visitors who seek an explanation before viewing a painting and is inspired by that human behaviour. The painting requires more effort to communicate with it and understand its qualities, whereas a text is more of a spoon fed relationship.</p>

<p>Not all of Erwitt's images are layered or deep but I think one problem is that the simplicity of his imagery often incites the viewer to look no further. I don't care much for Norman Rockwell's art, asI feel it is most often overstated in its simplicity and misses subtle commentary that can be more powerful than the obvious. The Rockwell painting of the small black girl is better and I am glad to have seen it here. Erwitt I think shares some things with Rockwell, but I would argue that his work is often more layered and speaks in greater length to the human condition in many cases (but not all). He provides an apparent simple message, but does not close the door on further exploration of why his subjects act as they do. </p>

 

[shutterbud]

<p>What?<br>

It's a<em> bad</em> photograph.<br>

End of discussion.<br>

If you want I can post a photograph of a bowl of noodles and we can go on and on about China vs The West for six pages?</p>

[dhbebb]

It's a bad photograph. End of discussion.

 

As I said earlier, the water fountain shot (either with or without the black guy drinking) is not the world's greatest composition, or indeed the world's greatest sociological statement on racial discrimination (again, as I said, a hot contender for this title, meaningless as the title ultimately is, would be the Robert Frank picture of the New Orleans trolley car).

What I feel IS interesting about the picture is that it has been hailed as Erwitt's greatest picture, perhaps by critics who feel somewhat embarrassed by the fact that Erwitt's forte was not hard news, that he was not particularly good at handling hard news stories, and that he had a clear penchant for humorous and eccentric material.

I do not feel in any way that he was attempting to be humorous with the water fountain picture, but Erwitt's dog pictures and many others attest to his fondness for humor.

Once again we see how hindsight, social awareness acquired after the fact and changing fashions affect how we see images. I was surprise to read how another poster dismissed one of my favorite Erwitts (the kissing couple seen in the car door mirror) as sentimental mush - all I can say is that I have a huge book of Erwitt's work, which I find holds my interest from beginning to end in a way that few other photographers' work does (of course some individual pix are more interesting than others).

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I said: <em>The show seemed full of devices, less than subtle ones, and ones that just didn't communicate to me or express much that seemed to have depth. From fat women's legs to cute dogs to reflections in car mirrors at the beach, it seemed more about the visual pun than any particular sensibility of voice. Not that there's not a place for this and that there weren't some more interesting among them.</em></p>

<p>David, is this the comment you're referring to when you say <em>"I was surprise to read how another poster dismissed one of my favorite Erwitts (the kissing couple seen in the car door mirror) as sentimental mush"?</em> I perused the thread again and didn't immediately see any other comments about this particular photo except mine. And I searched for "sentimental" and didn't find an instance of it except for your own use of it. Maybe you just wrote that offhandedly, which I understand we all do at times, but if you were thinking of my comment, it doesn't accurately reflect what I was saying. I wasn't dismissing the photo by any means. I was discussing it and describing it as I see the greater context of Erwitt's work. As a matter of fact, I probably see it as one of the more pivotal photos in his body of work, which I don't happen to love but also don't dismiss. My main point was that he often uses, and does in the rear-view mirror photo, fairly obvious devices (and I wasn't thinking of sentimentality) and also tends to like to use ironies, which I often find less humanistically expressive.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>David, to be clear, it may not as you say be the greatest shot on racial discrimination, but my point was that it is at best <em>only</em> a shot of racial discrimination, that is, the scope of his social critique wasn't particularly broad and on that you and I seem to agree.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>the scope of his social critique wasn't particularly broad</em><br>

Certainly. I would imagine that to a certain extent LIFE assignments were handed out on the taxi-rank principle, in other words the next assignment to be made was given to the nearest photographer looking for a job. Elliott Irwitt clearly had a preference for the off-beat and quirky, his best pictures are of this kind, and there are no signs that he had any overt political agenda. As I said, it is somewhat ironical that the run-of-the-mill pic of the water fountain has been hailed in retrospect as one of his greatest!</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>""there are no signs that he had any overt political agenda""<br>

<br>

His own answer to the question:</p>

 

<p ><em><strong>"</strong>Politically I am rather left. I admire people who think like I do."</em></p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em><strong>"</strong>Politically I am rather left. I admire people who think like I do."</em><br>

Oddly quite a few people say something like this. I once knew the producer in charge of recording the bubblegum band T. Rex who also claimed to be left wing (presumably he was subverting the bourgeoisie by filling its children's brains with garbage). I had GREAT difficulty keeping a straight face!<em><br /></em></p>

[charleswood]

<p>I admire people who think like I do too!</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Me too, and I'm "rather left" too, but, I find inspiration from people who think differently - within reasonable limits !</p>

<p>In general, I think Erwitt surely had a political agenda, but he also, as so many professional photographers, knew how to shoot images in demand by those who were ready to pay. First during his years in the Magnum Agency, which gave him the opportunity to travel throughout the world, and later, as mainly film maker and maker of films for television, making people laugh : "<em>Making people laugh is one of the greatest successes one can hope for</em>" he said. Making people laugh of themselves was maybe his main objective with most of what he did in photography and film making. Sounds to me like a political agenda worthy of an artist.</p>

 

<p > </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>What I take away from Erwitt as a photographer is not so much the overall portfolio of his perceptions or compositions of humanity (and dogs), but:</p>

 

<ul>

<li>his curiosity, intelligence and ability in seeing things that most photographers (and many other artists) don't;</li>

<li>the ability to see common things in a different way;</li>

<li>his preference of everyday ordinary things rather than those of many overblown compositions of fine art or pictorial photography.</li>

</ul>

<p>Whether one likes his view of ordinary life and his compositions, or not, or find their communication to viewers to be too truncated, he can teach us something of his eye for and his approach to the ordinary. </p>