modernism and post-modernism

   In art, Modernism is a term generally used to describe the deliberate attempt of the 20th century to break with the artistic traditions of the 19th century, based on the forms and the exploration of the techniques in contrast with the content and narration. In visual arts, figurative art is replaced by abstract art. Postmodernism develops itself in reaction to modernism, and has to compete with the new fashion modernists  divergent.

Postmodernism would be so a reaction to modernism.

Throughout these decades, the implicit or explicit reference to postmodern has been recurrent, although the term Postmodern does not refer to a movement nor a current of aesthetic but to a historical crisis of philosophies or theologies. In a few words Postmodernity is a posture of resignation, loss of modernist illusions in favor of individuality and "freedom to choose our criteria of truth."

    For Art, Postmodernity rejects modern standards such as novelty or originality, the artistic criticism is descriptive and not evaluative anymore. Art must integrate itself to the economic world and consumption.

Art since 1960 has become hybrid, heterogeneous, and it is surely the identifiable "style" (personal or national) that denies postmodern art. Quotation, irony, parody, pastiche, imitation all of these are artistic procedures used by postmodern artists. Everything becomes relative, but it would be pointless to see only anti-modernism, nowadays postmodern art is also the desire to redefine categories as subject, object, copy, work.

Reading and viewing:

Visual and cultural studies : http://homepage.newschool.edu/~quigleyt/vcs/postmodernism.pdf

Postmodernism: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/postmodernism.htm

Art since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism by Hal Foster

"Notre chat Ulysse et l'ordre de Martine"

Semiology is the science of decoding signs and sign-systems, applied to visual arts since the 1960s. The aim of the treatment of images as a kind of language (with its grammar - the rules - and usage. the particular contribution of the artist), which can be deconstructed into its component parts, is to 'break the flow' of communication by encouraging a questioning approach. So when 1970s and 1980s artists spoke of 'deconstruction', they did not mean 'tearing down' their studios.

        Considering this definition, this photograph taken by Henri Cartier Bression in 1989 is semiotically explicit. 

The picture is showing a black-bodied cat, lying with white legs outstretched on an armchair, and the shadow of a man standing in profile, probably bending over the cat. Only the shadow is apparent, the man is not. There is here an opposition between presence and absence. 

      The chair is the only object on the picture, the framing does not allow us to see the decor of the room. In the background we can only see the floor with the shadow of the armchair and maybe a window. 

     The man is not into the frame by choice, there is only the presence of the human shadow, which creates a game of field/off-field. The cat is situated in the centre of the picture, capturing first the eye of the viewer. Only the high angle view makes it possible to guide the viewers attention to the centre, the middle of the chair.

      The image composition has two strong points: the cat and the shadow, two dark marks on a white armchair, underlining the contrast of the lights. The orientation of the shadows are distinctive features. Plus the armchair's curves and the cat's curves denote a state of relaxation. The man's head and the cat's head mark a certain harmony and balance between the two beings. 

The fact that the image is in black and white creates a game of shadows which creates a space in-depth. According to the lighting it is possible to guess the sun orientation. The morning light (side lighting) marks an impression of sweetness, a softness which here again creates a feeling of relaxation.

  The contrast between light and dark combined can be interpreted as a contrast of values with a space organisation represented by the opposition of the light and the dark. 

     There is another opposition in the picture between flat and relief. The armchair is in relief thanks to the flash of the camera but the chair cover is quite flat, as the armchair has two different zones of lighting.

The black parts of the cat absorb the light except for the legs, the only white parts of the cat. If Bresson chose to put this black cat on a white armchair it was in order to make the cat even more obvious.

As to conclude, we can see that both figures differ with the presence/absence game, with the body and shadow. Thus the cat and the man are easily distinguished.

The presence/absence game leaves the man of the body off-field. The picture has two bodies and one shadow. The presentation of the two shadows behind a body can be interpreted as two reflections or the cat's soul.

The body refers to reality while the shadow refers to unreality. The game of shadows gives an impression of reality and unreality. The visual semiotic enhances the game of relations between contrariety, opposition and similarity.

The meaning of this subtle game between real and imaginary could reflect the human life with

a proper balance of things, harmony and balance creating a complementarity.


Reading and Viewing

Robert M Seiler : http://people.ucalgary.ca/~rseiler/semiolog.htm

Roland Barthes : http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/barthes.htm

Semiotics/ semiology : http://classes.design.ucla.edu/Fall07/154A/resources/alt_semiotics.pdf

Elements of Semiology by Roland Barthes

Bureaucracy seen by Jan Banning

   The photographer Jan Banning was born in 1954 in Almelo, Netherlands, from indonesian parents. From 1981, after having studied history and worked at various jobs, he devotes himself to photography. His work both journalistic and conceptual photographic is published by many newspapers and magazines: De volkskrant (Netherlands), Süddentsche zeitung Magazin (Germany), and the New Yorker (United States). In 2003 he creates his own publishing compagny, Ipso Facto. He is publishing Sporen van Oorlog, which presents twenty-four portraits of men (including his own father) used as slave laborers by the railway compagny in Sumatra during the Second Wold War. There is also his book The Price of Paradise, devoted to the agricultural and rural country of Easter Europe having recently joined the european Union. 

     It's while doing a report on the administration command Mozambique, in 2002 that Jan Banning has begun to be interested in rituals of bureaucratic power.

    Indeed for the photographic project names "Bureaucratic" the Dutch photographer Jan Banning is interested in the bureaucracy of the world. He took pictures of several bureaucrats.  An interesting comparative study of systems of bureaucracy. The countries were selected on the basis of political, historical and cultural: Bolivia, China, France, India, Liberia, Russia, the United States and Yemen. In total, 68 were taken. The cultural differences, traditional and behavioral between different nations are sometimes striking.

Viewing:

Jan Banning : 

http://www.janbanning.com/

http://janbanning.photoshelter.com/

Robert Frank

   For over fifty years, Robert Frank is one of the photographers the more influential in the way he has broken the rules of photography and cinema, challenging the boundaries between fixe images and moving images. Born in Zurich, Frank starts from 1949 to take pictures that reflects his pursuit of artistic freedom and renewal of the medium's expressive potential. He travels in many countries in South America and Europe. Several of his series are exhibited: Peru (A949); London (1951-1952), offering a rare and attractive look on the endangered city aspect, Wales 51953) is devoted to the life of a miner and his family struggling against difficult living conditions. In 1954, Robert Frank begins a journey across the United States thanks to a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation. The book The Americans, published for the occasion, first in France and then in United States in 1959, had radically changed the language of the narrative photographic and upset  the notion of "good image". Among the most famous series: Chicago 5A959), made during the congressional elections, or Detroit (1955), showing the daily life of workers on the assembly lines of Ford factories. The images of The Americans, showing the psychological complexity of relationships between  individuals (including racism in southern states), work as metaphors for the country's situation at that moment.

   With the success, Frank decides in 1958 to partly give up photography and to devote himself to cinema. Although, according to the artist himself, this experience will be much less successful. In 1996, Frank receives the Hasselblad Award for his contribution to the development of photography. He has managed to impose tone and style that will mark the next generation

(photograph from The Americans)


Reading and viewing: 

Pace/Macgill Gallery : http://www.pacemacgill.com/robertfrank.html

NPR : http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100688154

The New Yorker : http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/14/090914fa_fact_lane

The Americans by Robert Frank 

Black, White, and things by Robert Frank

Lomography

What is Lomography about?

It is playing with photography.

Film is now pretty obsolete because of digital, but it retains unique properties and it is a different creative process. LOMO brings to life this difference. Each camera is original and takes original pictures. These plastic cameras are the opposite of high-fidelity. 

Lomography is the opportunity to let the chance to do its job. It is also a form of resistance to digital. An opportunity to use a 35mm film and then waiting for the results as well as the rediscovery of the images after processing by a laboratory. 

Lomography is practiced by thousands of users around the world and "lomographers" exchange their pictures on this website : http://www.lomography.com/ 

Lomography is a registered trademark of Lomographische AG., Austria. It sells products and services in the photography field. It has initiated an entirely new photographic movement called lomography (word created from the Lomo LC-A, a camera not created by it but which has acquired exclusives sales.)
The compagny has also established a website named Lomorgaphic Society International, selling the cameras and accessories that the compagny distributes, and also allows the users to show their pictures. This website includes some 500,000 followers, the "lomographers". At the national level, they organized themselves into what they call their embassies. 

There are different Lomography cameras such as the Lomo LC-A (Lomo Compact Automat), a compact camera with a fix lens 32mm. Not precise and quality pretty bad      the users claim the use of these defects. 

Other effects pointing up by the Lomographic Society (color saturation or high contrast) have nothing to do with the camera and are obtained by different methods (such as cross-processing) which are usable with any analog camera.

Viewing:

http://www.lomography.com/

Stephen Shore

   As an autodidact artist Stephen Shore starts photography really early, when he discovers the book "American Photographs" from Walker Evans. When he is 14 years old, he sells three of his pictures to Edward Steichen for the MOMA collection before he meets Andy Warhol and Factory. In 1971, The Metropolitan Museum of Art devotes an exposition to him, yet Stephen Shore becomes the second photographer to be devoted while alive after Alfred Stieglitz. Two years later Shore decides to travel all over America to take pictures of his daily and landscapes encountered during his journey. He repeats then this experiment every year, and put together a serie of pictures edited in 1982 and in 2004 by Aperture called  "Uncommon Places". Real anthropologist, Stephen Shore collects pictures of hotels where he sleeps. Moreover, Shore considers color photography as an art in itself, which is absolutely innovative in an era where black and white is a must. Close to Wiliam Eggleston, he is also influenced by photographs of industrial buildings Becher but also and especially by the documentary approach of Evans. Evidenced by his images showcases, shop signs and streets, characteristics of his "Amarillo Tall in texas" project. His analytical approach and the feeling of fullness that comes from his landscapes are also frequently compared to the aesthetic of the painter Edward Hopper.

Reading and viewing:

L'intermède : http://www.lintermede.com/pages-stephen-shore-lecon-de-photographie-jeu-de-paume-rencontre.php

Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Shore

The J. Paul Getty Museum : http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=3666&page=1

The Nature of Photographs: A Primer by Stephen Shore

Roland Barthes : Camera Lucida

   In this essay the writer Roland Barthes wonders about photography, not as a photographer, but from the point of view of a spectator (the viewer) . Thus, he tries to determine what is photography "in itself" and what touches him exactly when he is looking at the photograph. He identifies two  constant phenomena from his observations : He  calls studium the feeling taking over him while looking at a picture (it means here the general interest he has for an image, the expression of a taste determined by culture and sensitivity when the movement goes from the photograph to the spectator) and mentions subsequently the punctum  "breaking the studium"  leaving from the picture to pierce the spectator (here it is a feeling referring to something specific, often elusive -almost of psychoanalytic order- differing for each viewer referring to something hidden). Therefore the punctum would be what gives the picture its value for the viewer, because it leads the observing subject beyond the mere passive spectator's experience.

A really interesting and reachable essay, considering that Roland Barthes goes from an experience that everyone could have done in his life, taking pleasure in analyzing the components. Barthes, thanks to his cleverness makes universal a personal experience. The book contains many nice passages, especially the one when he talks about a photograph of his mum child, and starts also an enlightening  reflection about truth and reality.

Reading

Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes

Irina Werning Back to the future

Amazing work from the Argentinian photographe Irina werning who confronts the past with the present thanks to old photographs updated in 2010, or new photographs sent 30 years back. A wonderful look at the past.

To illustrate this time warp, the photographer puts in situation the same people photographed 30 years ago. The models wear the same clothes, they have the same expression on their faces, the composition of the images is identical such as the light, the grain, and the frame to make the present really close to the past. Only the age of the model is changing. The goal of this adequacy arisen from the curiosity of a photographer is to invite people to their future. 

The opposition of two ages 

These photographs echo to the advertising campaign called “Don't age too fast, keep it fresh” as well as the picture of Phil Poynter to contrast between youth and oldness. As for Irina Werning provides a simple fact of evolution, without opposition. However, it should be pointed that the ages drawn in parallel are not the same: the argentinian photographer draws a parallel between childhood and adulthood whereas Phil Poynter and Virgin confront two phrases of adulthood. No envy or narcissistic-nostalgic look in Irina Werning pictures: just a loving look at the past.

Viewing:

Irina Werning's website : http://www.irinawerning.com/back-to-the-fut/back-to-the-future/

Robot vs Badger (virgin radio) http://www.robotvsbadger.com/images/virgin-radio-–-keep-fresh/

The feminist Shadi Ghadirian: A struggle for women's rights

   Shadi Ghadirian is using and abusing irony to criticize the  dogmatism of the regime, sidestepping  with cleverness censorship. Thus, in the serie "Like Everyday" (2001) the artist draws a portrait of fully veiled women whose faces have been replaced by household items such as iron, broom, teapot... Inspired by her own experience of married woman- this serie is made shortly after her marriage to the novelist and artist Payman Houshmandzadeh- her photographs raise the questions, in a critical way, of the status of women in Iran, and beyond refer to the more universal of the woman, which is systematically reduced to alienating domestic work. Now teacher, editor and director of her own Iranian website dedicated to photography, Shadi Ghadirian first became known with the series Untitled series from The Qajar (1998-1999). This serie in black and white depicts the women of her family and friends, who haughty pose in traditional costumes of the Qajar dynasty of the earlier 20th century, accompanied by articles imported from the West and forbidden in Iran such as Pepsi cans, a motorcycle helmet, newspapers, books... Making a parody of orientalist paintings, Shadi Ghadirian also highlights the schizophrenia of iranian women, who, despite the marginalization and oppression are more than ever in search of openness and modernity.

Ghadirian is as many other Iranian artist women looking through her work to regain control of her body and her life by asserting her own identity. 

(Photographs from Like Everyday project)

(Photographs from The Qajar project)

Reading and viewing:

Shadi Ghadirian : http://shadighadirian.com/index.php?do=photography

Saartchi Gallery : http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/shadi_ghadirian.htm?section_name=unveiled

Cool Hunting : http://www.coolhunting.com/culture/culture-clash-s.php

On photography written by Susan Sontag

   The book "On photography" by Susan Sontag is considered as one of the books of reflexion the most important on the topic. Written in 5 years (from 1973 to 1977), the six volumes have strongly influenced any thought on photography including this observation : "writing about photography is writing about the world".

   As soon as you read the first pages the ton is set. Several precepts fly into pieces in an effusive of ideas about the place of photography from its origin to the 70s. Susan Sontag mentions for example the first Kodak's slogan in 1888, "you press the button, we do the rest" along with the large hoardings located front of the Indian villages, calling upon the new comers to take their cameras out - "The photographer is super tourist, visiting natives and bringing back news for their exotic doings and strange gear..." .

In her description she highlights the errors committed by the surrealists and involves herself in denouncing the destruction of Sanders' work by the Nazi regime. She also takes a stand against the American propaganda through the obstinacy of the Farm Security Administration. She subsequently pays tribute to Hine's work for the National Child Labour Committee which will change the laws on child labor. If there is a certain nostalgia ( shock caused while reading a book about concentration camps) for old photographs, dear to Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag  discusses on the work of American artists such as Whitman, Steichen, Hine, Evans, Stieglitz, Brassaï, Warhol and Robert Franck.

  The author compares the hope of a manifestation as Family Man in 1955 and the Diana Arbus work who, by her honesty, imposes a moral triumph and reminds through her work the realities of the American society and calls for more transparency in reminding effectively that "to photograph is to confer importance"

Reading and viewing:

Susan Sontag, on photography: http://www.susansontag.com/SusanSontag/books/onPhotographyExerpt.shtml

Phil Gyford's website : http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2010/08/23/on-photography.php 

On photography by Susan Sontag 

Jeff Wall

   Jeff Wall was born in Vancouver, where he is still living nowadays. In the 60s, he studies Art History at the University of British Coloumbia while participating in conceptual art movements and learning photography by himself. In 1974, after receiving his MA, he teaches in a school of art in Halifax, then at The University of Vancouver.

During a trip in Europe, in 1977, he discovers a painting made by Vélasquez and the reflection on the representation that this one involves. Yet realizing that the pictorial matter provokes an anachronistic effect on the viewer nowadays, as the painting is now absent from the daily, he decides to take up and address the major problems traditional pictorial by means in accordance with our "up-to-date" times, project which he will start the year following.

Thereby his photographs often refer to famous paintings of Manet and also Delacroix, Watteau... In printing them first on a transparent paper in large format, he puts them afterwards on a white cloth in order to accentuate the light, then, he puts them in a box with electric lighting. This device procures to his work a spectacular character. According to him he restitutes to photography the great presence and the radiance that the painting has lost and allows to his pictures to rival with the visual effectiveness of the omnipresent advertising .  Thus photography provides him a way to be "the painter of the modern life", as he insists in quoting Baudelaire. 

(photograph inspired by a painting of Manet)

Reading and viewing:

Rogallery select artworks online. com : http://rogallery.com/Wall_Jeff/wall-bio.html

The Art Institude of Chicago : http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/jeff_wall/overview.html

Vancouver Art Gallery: http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/pdfs/Jeff%20Wall%20Study%20Guide.pdf

Jeff Wall Catalogue Raisonnée 1978-2004  by Jean-Francois Chevrier 

Jeff Wall: Complete Edition by Thierry De Duve