Chapter 8 "The New Street Photography" (For week 4)

Michael Fried calls chapter 8, Street Photography Revisited, which is a perfectly sensible title for the chapter but I decided to call it the new (or I supposed contemporary street photography).

Often when we think of street photography we think of the greats, starting with Cartier-Bresson and moving towards Winogrand and Frank. It seems though (to me at least) that an interest in street photography has dwindled  recently, perhaps it has been over done or it has said all that it can say. In chapter eight, Fried talks about three contemporary photographers who have put a new spin on the idea of street photography, Jeff Wall (yet again), Beat Streuli, and Philip-Lorca Dicorcia.

When you type "street photography" into Google images search, you get a lot of black and white images, mostly of people crossing the street or sitting and waiting outside.

The picture above is an example of one of Garry Winogrand's black and white (typical of you will) fairly close up street photo. I truly think that Winogrand was a great photographer of his time but work like this now seems rather dated. After awhile the issue of awareness or non-awarness became an issue in street photography. Was the photographer always aware of what they were going to capture, was it intentional?

Though it is in the book I have added the above photo, Jeff Wall's Mimic, for reference. Here Wall is working in his usual format of staging an event but at the same time he is using the look of street photography. Someone who is not well versed in photography or familiar with Jeff Wall might even believe that he has captured a real moment here but we (as the readers of this book) know that he has not.
Thanks to Fried, we know that Wall has hired actors for this picture and has told them how to act, but then again this scene is not completely fictional this is something that one could perhaps see while walking down the street.  This image obviously has to do with social issues and as Fried says, acceptance or non-acceptance. (p. 236) Does Fried consider this work to be anti-theatrical because it is an happening that could occur?
Of coruse since it is Wall there are many layers here. The idea of working around social issues comes from Baudelares interest in painting "modern life" and the image itself has an art historical refrence to Caillebotte's Paris Street Rainy Day". (Below)

A key composite of this painting and Wall's photo is the way the subjects are placed in the frame and where they are looking. In the painting the couple moving towards us seems to be ignoring the man that is about to pass them on our left, or perhaps they are just absorbed in something that is to our left out of frame. In Mimic the Asian man and the woman seem to be unaware of what the bearded man is doing. Fried says that the Asian man seems completely unaware but I feel like even know he many not be in the right angle to view the distasteful gesture that he still senses a harshness being projected towards him. The female counterpart however does seem very much unaware as she stares off into the sun. I found Wall's description of the "micro-gesture" on page 237 very interesting. Wall believes that the bearded man is performing such "micro-gesture" which means that he is acting on a deeply rooted subconscious social judgement, or in other words he is not fully aware of his actions, instead this offensive gesture is something primal, within him.
The meaning beneath Wall's image seems to be much more important than the meaning behind a lot of street photography mainly because it was planted here by the artist. He did not capture this moment but it is believable, this is what Wall calls "near documentary". (p. 238) Fried says that this way of working is still anti-theatrical because it is not over done. I found it interesting that later in the chapter Fried mentions Barthes remark in Camera Lucida where he calls street photography theatrical, because the way of shooting becomes like a performance. (p.239) Wall is in a way mimicking (pun intended) street photography here but he is not the one performing the subjects are, and in typical street photography, like that of Winogrand, he is the one performing not the subjects.

Beat Streuli's work is also a new take on Street photography yet he is working much differently from Wall. Streuli sets up video cameras, usually in crowded urban locations and uses multiple techniques to get different effects. In The Pallasades, Birmingham [England] he used a telephoto lens and projected the video in slow motion so that the viewer feels as though they are focused on a specific individual even though the scene is very crowded. In other video projections like 8th Avenue and 35th, New York City, the camera is focused on a specific location and people move in and out of the viewers frame of reference. I unfortunately can not find an example video to show here but if you visit his website they are available there. However below is one of Streuli's video stills.

Here the subjects captured by Streuli seem to be uninterested with each other and are possible just absorbed in the idea of getting where they are going, they are almost depicted in a trance like state. Fried comments on how Streuli sets up the videos in a way that we as viewers are removed from making judgements about the individuals, we are simply observing. (p.244)We are watching them in these transfixed states that Fried says that Wall might call "micro-gestures". (p. 245) Fried also comment on a "warmth" that the videos or stills have this might be due to the way that Streuli doesn't lead the subjects to be criticized or as Fried sates the was that their "diversity is highlighted and minimized at the same time".  (p.245) The viewers are not objectified.
Streuli does shoot straight photos as well in the same sort of manner. He captures people unaware and makes upclose shots of them with a telepohto lens, somewhat working in the style of Garry Winogrand, but from a greater distance. Does this mean that contemporary street photographers like Streuli are becoming lazy through the help of technology or is technology enhancing what they can do as photographers?

The image above is an example of this technique used by Streuli. He also incorporates the use of strong sunlight to create contrasty images where the background behind the subject goes back, taking them out of context in an almost unnatural way.

When Fried mention that Beat Streuli made straight photos with a telephoto lens from a distance I immediately thought of Michael Wolf's series The Transparent City shot in Chicago. A few years ago the Museum of Contemporary Photography showed this work. I happen to work there and not more than a few weeks ago I had an interesting encounter with a patron. I was sitting at the front desk and as the man was leaving he pointed to the Michael Wolf book on the shelf and told me that he was in there. He even grabbed the book and showed me the image of him sitting in his office. I wish I would have asked him in more detail how he felt to be photographed like that but he seemed more amused than anything.
Those of you unfamiliar with Wolf's work he shot (with a telephoto lens) into office buildings and apartments in Chicago, catching people unaware but also in a much more private setting than Streuli's subjects who are out and about on the streets. A lot of the work makes the people in these buildings appear to be just floating in glass boxes but they are also mixed in with super up closes pixilated images of the people.

Above is an example of how I described the people to be floating in boxes, if you will, by Wolf. And below is an example of the close up pixilated sort of image that Wolf also uses. However this one is somewhat comical due to the subjects knowledge and reaction to being photographed. Perhaps this pixilated images is too different in the way that it is also Wolf's only image where the subject is confronting us or beholding us, we somehow share an exchange even though we can't see his eyes, which to me is an interesting concept. 

The last photographer Fried mentions in this chapter is Philip-Lorca diCorcia (one of my personal favorites). His work has a similar feel to Streuli's and Wall's in the way that the subjects seem absorbed in their own moment. His earlier work made in the late 70's focused on his family even early on he started out with his now famous technique of hiding a light (out of the cameras view) that would be triggered when he snapped the shutter. Through this technique (even at the early stages of it) he managed to create an ambiguous scene that highness the viewers attention to the drama that seems relatively unexplainable to us. This technique also captures the subject in a way that they are belivably absorbed in a moment (like Mario 1978) but at the same time we as viewers are aware that this scene is set up due to the lighting and almost perfect composition. 

Mario, 1978

diCorcia's more well know work developed in the 90's when he began hiding lights along urban streets and waited to trigger them with the shutter when an interesting person or possible scene came along. diCorcia is quoted on page 253 saying, 

"the street does not induce people to shed their self-awarness. They seem to withdraw into themselves. They become less aware of their surroundings, seemingly lost in themselves. Their image is the outward facing front belied by the inwardly gazing eyes."

I like how this gives insight to how he is interested in the subjects self-absorbed states. 

Fried Says diCorcia's work is different from past or traditional street photography because of it's "dramatic to-be-seeness" (p.253) or in other words, it is very obviously made for the viewer in the way that it is pre planned yet he still waits for a random moment. 

I also found Fried's description of diCorcia's work as being "violent" especially in images like Los Angeles, 1993. (Below) Fried explains these images to be more explotive (especially in comparison to Streuli's work). He basically says that Streuli's work is warm, while diCorcia's is cold. (p.254) While I see capturing people with a harsh flash as being more obtrusive, I'm not sure if the term "violent" is necessary. Obviously diCorcia's method eventully makes the viewer aware of what is happening when Streuli is not. I don't see this as being a matter of violent or not, perhaps diCorcia is more aggresive in the way of getting what he wants as an artist. 

diCorcia's other street photography like project is Heads doen in 2001. These images are very similar to Streuli's from the use of high contrast lighting (of course diCorcia's in artifical) which causes the background to drop to black and create a dramatic effect. Also both projects were done in the early 2000's in New York City. diCorcia's work differs in the way that it seems more judgemental than Streuli's, even with no background and the absorptive facial expressions, viewers tend to read more into the images in Heads. Perhaps this is due to the fact that diCorcia seems to pick subjects that have more character thus giving them a more narrative like feel. Below are examples from diCorcia's Heads project.

Philip Lorca diCorcia is well known for many other projects where he uses the same techniques, for example his doc-ish project on male prostitutes and his somewhat randomly put together project, Story Book Life done in 2003. Fried mentions Story Book Life in correlation to the other work mentioned in this chapter but I feel as though this project doesn't fit. While I like the work in Story Book Life it doesn't seem to have a street photo like feel, to me it reads much more cinematic, ambiguous, and staged similar to Gregory Crewdson. 

It does seem as though recently street photography is diminishing. As proven by Fried there are photographers who are putting a new spin on the style of street photography, new spins such as, staging scenes to look like street photo, using video to capture street scenes and using telephoto lens to capture subjects un- aware better than ever. It seems that technology is doing it's part as a strong force in the contemporary art world to change the way art is made, especially here, with the new telephoto lens', video recording devices (as previously said) and even the use of radio activated strobe lights. One of the biggest differences that these three photographers embody that the work of older street photographers does not is the to-be-seeness of the work. All three artist create work with the viewer in mind. 

It might be sort of a stretch but in a way I see some documentary photographers using techniques similar to the old school street photographers. Of course documentary photography has been around for a long time too, and usually leans to be more formal but there are some examples where it feels a bit more street. Of course this could be said for photojournalism to but that's a tangent I'm not ready to go off on. Instead I'll leave you with a few examples of Paul D'Amato's Barrio project. While it's true that Paul got close to a lot of his subjects, some of the images in this project depict subjects who seem absorbed in their own moment and unaware of the camera pointed at them. 

Three Beginnings: Theatrical or Anti-theatrical, Tableau & Absorption (For Week 3)

Fried provides us with a clear layout from which contemporary photography stemmed in the first chapter of his book. The first of the three beginnings accounts for the new uses of photography by three young photographers.


Beginning 1: Theatrical or Anti-theatrical


The first beginning starts with three contemporary photographers, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Jeff Wall, and Cindy Sherman. In the late seventies all there photographers began looking at the same subject matter but in different ways; the movies and where movies stand as an art form or not. Film of course had been around since the late 1800's starting with silent films and modifying over time. (Film, much like art has been changing with technology over the years.) By the 1970's movies have become much more complex with strong adventures narratives and impressive cinematography. 
Although no matter how impressive or even artsy film can be Fried says that film is not modernist art, no matter how experimental it can be. (p. 13)  The experience of losing yourself in the movies (that the three artist above are somewhat interested in) embodies the idea of the modernist, using the inherent qualities of the medium to it's full potential and function over form. Movies are a sensory experience, the viewer is visually and audibly stimulated. Also the viewer is given a place to sit or remain through the whole film, that and the darkness allow the brain to focus entirely on these other experiences. Movies are also modernist in the sense that they have come from traditional theatre but they are expanding on it. "Cinema escapes theatre" as Fried says (p. 13) On page 13 Fried also states that cinema can't be modernist art because it is no better than theatre it only has the power to have more control over it''s audience. 


Hiroshi Sugimoto became interested in what would happen if he shot long exposures in movie theaters throughout the entire film length. These pictures seem to be especially successful because of their lack of people in the audience. Leaving the exposure open for hours causes the screen to become a perfect glowing white box that beautifully drapes light over the vintage interior . Fried says that the blank screens become a sort of abstraction and its shinning references a hypnotic object. (p. 14) This goes back to the idea of cinema being used to control the audience, the large screen seems to have a power over the viewer, usually even bad films hold the attention of the viewer for quite sometime. 

The second artist mentioned for her part in working with the idea of film through photography is of course Cindy Sherman and her famous Untitled Film Stills. Sherman worked on these iconic images from 1977 to 1980. I have seen these images numerous times where she stages scenes from B movies where she the acts out the role of the female actress but I had never read until now that she purposely looked for scenes where the actress looked expressionless she did this in order to make the scene less emotional and less cheesy. While Sherman is "performing" for the camera she is not acting in a theatrical manor. (p. 7) The theme of hypnosis just like in Sugimoto's work is present here in the lack of emotion. the characters seem to be focused on some sort of internal thought rather than influenced by their surroundings. 

I believe that somewhere in the text Fried references a comparison between Sherman's work and the plays done by Bertolt Brecht. I have studied Brecht a bit for another class so of course I found this comparison interesting. It is also interesting with in the idea of theatre sucking the viewer in or the viewer getting lost during a film. Of course Brecht was a playwright so film does not apply here but Brecht was known for epic theatre and using techniques such as breaking "the fourth wall" and Verfremdungseffekt also known as the distancing effect. Brecht would do things like switch scenes to musical numbers abruptly and use signs to note the switching of scenes. The actors would also break out of character and address audience members so that the audience did not become to immersed in the roles and would instead become a critical observer. Technically Cindy Sherman is interested in this sort of "breaking the fourth wall" moment within a still, the viewer is suddenly lost as to what is happening because the character is not giving us any information.


This is kind of a stupid example but incase you are a little bit lost here's an example of breaking the fourth wall used in the show Scrubs. 

I've spent a bit too much time on this first section but I found it particularly interesting and I don't want to leave Jeff Wall out completely especially because as an artist I am very interested in Wall's methods of displaying work. I am interested in how Wall's use of light box prints (and light box prints in general) change the context of a photo. 

I think that especially now these light box images at large sizes especially have an essence about them that is much like watching a movie screen or a flat screen tv. I also think that people are attracted to things that seem bright and shiny much like a moth to a street lamp. Wall's Movie Audience Portraits relate very well to Sugimoto's  images of the movie theatre screens. Both are strangely blank. Also Wall is similar to Sherman here, connecting the blankness of the people depicted in the portraits. 

The movies seem to have a hypnotic effect in many ways and all three artist seem interested in ways this can be seen or broken. All three also eventually show how film and photography are uniquely different in the ways that viewers experience them and how they affect the viewer. A viewer can get lost in  photograph but they don't have to or in other words photographs are less controlling than films. 

Beginning 2 : Tableau

I got a bit rambley on the first part so beginning number two might be more to the point. Again Fried brings up three artist again to represent this other movement in contemporary photography. The idea of the "tableau" previously brought up in last weeks readings.  Between 1978 and 1981 Jeff Wall (Fried's favorite?), Thomas Ruff and Jean- Marc Bustamante were all making large scale prints intended for the wall. Previously photography had of course been displayed as art in frames on the wall but it was at such a small scale that made it seem segregated from large works such as paintings. The small size was also more intamte, it could be held or seen in a book. I made a note to myself on the side of the page saying:

small photos = can be put anywhere (frame, matt, wall, book, hands, in a box, anywhere)

large photos= has to be hung on a wall, what else could you do with it?

Jeff Wall's large scale light boxes are brought up again here with Destroyed Room. At five by seven and a half feet small details can be picked out of the busy scene. Perhaps not solely pertaining to this new contemporary way I found the fact that Wall was referencing old french paintings through his photography to be very interesting. 

Jean- Marc Bustamante was also making his own 'tableaux' at three feet by 4 feet. Bustamante usually photographed desolate scences that seemed to once has a human precence but now felt abandoned. Bustamante thought that through the large scale, lack of color and the scene itself made the viewer responsible for what they saw. In other words or a long the lines of art historian Ulrich Loock's statment on page 21, the scenes do not suck the viewer in right away but their empty eeriness and lack of detsil forces the viewer to look for meaning. 

I see Wall and Bustamante's work being similar for of course their size, the fact that they are both trying to draw the viewer in (thorugh different methods) and the way that both reference past paintings. 

On top is Delacroix's Destruction of Sardanapalus and below is Jeff Wall's Destroyed Room. 

While Bustamante's Tableau no. 104 ( of the cypress trees) is not a direct reference to any painting it is comparable to the minimalist work of Barnett Newman (on the left). 

 

Not to overlook Thomas Ruff who was taking "passport style" portraits of his fellow art school students and blowing them up to a couple feet wide and long. There is no real reason that these images need to be this size but the larger size now gives them more power to be confronted by the viewer or to confront the viewer.

Beginning Three: Absorption

In the third part of this chapter Fried talks about three writers or specifically three pieces of writing. Of course all three relate to photography not through subject matter neccesarliy but through their approach or analysis. 

The Story of Adelaide is a typical love story which ends in tragedy but the tragedy itself is what we are interested in here or as Fried states, "as the pictorial issues of the time."(p. 26)  The author of the story purposely sets up the fatal scene in a sort of literary picture. First the scene itself is grandiose, set in cathedral. Next the monks (and Adelaide's husband) are pictured to be deeply absorbed in a religious ritual however the husband glances at his desperate wife but looks away from here and reverts back to his absorption, thus leading to her death. 

Fried speaks of mid 1750's french paintings that only depicted people absorbed in their work. If it was not believable that the subject in the painting was absobered in their task or thought than the painting was concidered theatrical and unworthy of being shown. The painters at this time were not concerned about the viewer or rather they were not making the pieces for the viewer.

The idea of absorption depicted in this way is relatable to Cindy Sherman's film stills yet again, her characters (while she is performing) are absorbed in something other than the viewer. I will mention again later Jeff Wall's Dead Troops Talk again but the soilders depicted in that photograph are all absorbed in something in the photo and not the viewer as well, not one of them stares out asking anything from the audience. Of course Wall is also a contradictory to this idea of the french painting absorption, those paintings were not made for the viewer but the idea of the tableau is solely to be viewed. 

There is also the story The Temple of Dawn by Mishima who speaks of voyeurism, perhaps the main essence or practice of photography. In this story he speaks of the dangers of voyeurism leading to and obsessive like state (absorption) where the viewer beholds what they see without ever really seeing it in it's true form. The same goes for photographs. Photography allows us to see people, places, and things in states (or just in general) ways that we would never actually see them in real life. This can lead to a disconnect between the work and the viewer if thought about too hard. 

The third writing of Susan Sontag talks about the way photography attempts to capture a person absorbed in a moment. She also talks about the idea of voyeurism in the large tableau photographs. Specifficaly Dead Troops Talk. Here she notes the absorbed soldiers who do not waste their time on the viewer because the viewer is only a voyeur, they can't relate to the devastation in the image. She suggest that there is always sort of a disconnect through viewer and subject in images of pain or suffering. She also says that images of suffering should not be well done or even tableau in a way because their beauty will over ride the subject matter that the viewer is supposed to feel for. 

The top image is of course Jeff Wall's Dead Troops Talk. The bottom image is an example of Diderotian French painting (the absorption idea)  done by Jean-Baptiste Greuze. 

Fried ends the chapter in a remark that I found interesting. What I took from it was that we live in a world or an age that is constantly "contaminated" by being beheld, photography is perhaps the only esthetic that beholds this contamination. (p.35) Photography in its simplest form is voyeuristic, and photographers are almost always looking at contamination in some form, trying to raise questions about it and sometime answering them. Photographers behold the contaminated world.

Employing These Ideas Now:

When I tried to think of a contemporary photographer currently using all three of these begging themes; a reference or a critique to/on theatrical or cinematic, the tableau form (with the viewer in mind), and the idea of the subject being absorbed and the audience beholding the subjects I thought of two photographers. Of course together they produce the same work. Canadian brother Carlos and Jason Sanchez make large scale dramatic work that have a narrative quality. The scenes are often physiological reflections of the subjects and/or dark, frightening and eerie. Their images have been compared to film still most likely due to their strong sets, lighting and subject matter. They are tableau in the since that there are made large so that the viewer will be drawn in to analyze the scene and piece together their own account of the narrative at hand. All the subjects in their photos seem to be entirely absorbed in either the scene or themselves, their subjects never look at the viewer. I see their work being similar to Jeff Wall's work with maybe more of a continuing narrative. 

The Misuse of Youth, 2007

Easter Party 2003

John Mark Karr 2007

The Everyday, 2009

To see more examples of the Sanchez brothers work visit their website. 

What is Contemporary Art Now? (Week 2)

Before we get to the contemporary heres a way that helped me to organize the time periods of art:

Now for the present:

Contemporary art as we know it is conundrum of sorts. We have been in the contemporary phase now for over three decades and still no name has been coined to describe the art being made. By definition, all art at one point in time has been contemporary. Art made in the past was contemporary at the time of its creation and so will be of art made in the future.  This brings us to the valid question that Terry Smith asks, what is contemporary art now?  What is the art that has been made for these past three decades about, what bonds it together other than the time of its creation?

While the authors of the provided texts have described their ideas of how to explain the contemporary I have gathered their ideas and organized them in a way that made the most sense to me, four key themes if you will. 
Just like every other period of art history artist in the contemporary are making work in different mediums and under different themes.  The major themes that I have found through the reading are interchnagable at times or at least connectable.

Smith speaks of the deliberately  ambiguous, a strategy that I have often noticed myself in contemporary art. For example Elmgreen and Dragset’s Powerless Structures – Traces of a Never Ending History, depicted below.

Art like this asks many questions of the viewer but never answers them. According to Smith, high art or high quality conceptual art pieces like the above are concerned with posing questions about themselves. Here the contemporary is much like the  past periods, Modernism and Postmodernism that both internally critiqued their own practices. Modernism critiquing the medium or the aesthetic and Postmodernism critiquing the meaning of the art work.

New media and digital imagery seem to be a key theme that separates the contemporary from any other period.  With the creation of the internet in 1990 the contemporary period began and so many things changed. Through the internet art became more accessible and a new way of appropriating art became available as well. Technology itself is always changing thus changing mediums as well as transforming ways to show art. Could this be another reason why the contemporary is so hard to define, because it is changing at such a rapid pace?

Jean-Francois Chevrier uses the term ‘tableu form’ to describe large scale, detail oriented photographs.  Examples of artist who use this form are photographers such as Jeff Wall of Gregory Crewdson, both who create large scale, almost cinematic, detail heavy scenes. These large works take away from any intimacy that the viewer could have felt with the piece, instead the viewer feels distant from the work and can not identify with it or the subjects.

 Jeff Wall's After Invisible Man, above offers the viewer so much detail but yet the scene is almost unreadable, we can not connect with the man who's back is faced to us or with the fantastical scene that has been created. This somewhat relates back to the idea of the deliberately ambiguous, this is a well constructed piece that seems to give us no answer, only questions. Perhaps a lot of this is due to the heavy digital reconstruction of his work. 

Gregory Crewdson's cinematic scenes made thanks to expansive technology are also too whimsical for us as the viewer to identify with. 


On the other hand is the theme of Globalization, expanding culture and equality. Both Smith and Azoulay talk about the importance of globalization in contemporary art. This theme is thought to engage all viewers in a way that they can either connect with the subject or gain some sort of information. 
The Merriam- Webster Dictionary defines Globalization as: the development of an increasingly integrated global economy mark especially by free trade, free flow of capital and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets.
Basically the idea of globalization itself spreads equality throughout different cultures. 
I think that art that address these themes is especially important. Art that addresses current issues functions as art as well as historical documentation and a way to spread a message to the masses. 
Fried talks about how some photographers take a more 'artistic approach' to this theme and especially the sub-theme, images of violence and suffering. Fried talks about work like Luc Delahaye's images of conflict and how they are too large scale or 'tableau' to identify with. 

Above is one of Delahaye's images. Perhaps it is because i am not experiencing it in exhibition format but I feel drawn to this image in the way that Azoulay describes images of violence and suffering. Azoulay says that through images of suffering the spectator is given a responsibility, she believes that the subjects of suffering are looking past the camera to potential viewers. Through these images we are asked to show sympathy for the subjects and through that action we somehow identify with something we may have never experienced. I think that this is such an important way that photography works today, it can expose us to things that we may not ever really experience ourselves.  


The last theme is Mixed forms and style. Of course this theme is not specific to the contemporary but it is often used. I feel like I have seen it especially in architecture and film and of course the ever present mixed media art. Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycles are a well known example of a mixture of different styles and concepts. 


I mentioned how some artist might encompass most or all of the themes mentioned. The main one, who was also mentioned in two of the articles as being a good example of a contemporary artist is William Kentridge. I have always been personally drawn to Kentridge's animated short films dealing with the South African apartheid. Through this work Kentridge brings together at least three of the themes I mentioned. He combines the traditional medium of drawing with film ( a new media) thus making a mix of forms that have to do with the concept of globalization, expanding culture and equality through images of pain and suffering.