Here are my notes, with quotes, on the allan sekula essay "Dismantling modernism, reinventing documentary (notes on the
politics of representation) " taken from the book "
Dismal
Science, Photo works 1972-1996".
Although I may not
have completely understood everything Sekula has talked about, and I may even
be missing the whole point of the essay, there are many sections from it which
I have found interesting and useful to a discussion about the progression and
state of documentary photography, as well as finding a few interesting pieces
of work along the way.
“The rhetorical strength of documentary is
imagined to reside in the unequivocal character of the cameras evidence, in an
essential realism.... the camera serves to ideologically naturalize the eye of
the observer. Photography, according to this belief, reproduces the visible
world: the camera is an engine of fact... photographs, always the product of
socially-specific encounters between human-and-human or human-and-nature,
become repositories of dead facts, reified objects torn from their social
origins.” (pg121)
Sekula raises an
interesting notion of the camera as a replicator of facts, of reality. Sekula also
discusses notions of truth and accuracy through the camera.
“The same picture can
convey a variety of messages under differing presentational circumstances.
Consider the evidence offered by bank hold up cameras... unpolluted by
sensibility... (If) these cameras have an aesthetic, it is one of raw,
technological instrumentality... but a court room is a battleground of
fictions. What is it that a photograph points to?.. The outcome, based on the
“true “reading of the evidence, is a function less of “objectivity “than of
political manoeuvring. Reproduced in mass media, this picture might attest to
the omniscience of the state within a glamorized and mystifying spectacle of
revolution and counter-revolution.” (pg121)
The
importance of presentation, and how it can affect the reading of an image. This
is something Susan Meiselas discussed with her mediations exhibition (Roth,P(2008)
“Documentary
photography has amassed mountains of evidence. And yet, in this pictorial
presentation of scientific and legalistic “fact” the genre has simultaneously
contributed much to spectacle, to retinal excitation to voyeurism, to terror,
envy and nostalgia, and only a little to the critical understanding of social
world” (pg122)
Although the camera
and photography provides plenty of “evidence”, it is still actually quite
useless. Which is contradictory to the term, evidence.
“A truly critical social
documentary will frame the crime, the trial, and the system of justice and its official
myths. Artist working toward this end may or may not produce images that are
theatrical and overtly contrived; they may or may not present texts that read
like fiction. Social truth is something other than a matter of convincing
style.” (Pg122)
Being truly critical
in documentary means exploring the whole situation and contexts, and creating a
large body of work which reflects this, and creates a more truthful and
accurate account of a situation being documented.
“The culture journalist’s
myth of Diane Arbus is interesting in this regard. Most readings of her work
careen along an axis between opposing poles of realism and expressionism. On the
one hand, her portraits are seen as transparent...vehicles for the social or
psychological truth of her subjects.... at the other extreme is a metaphoric
projection. The work is thought to express her tragic vision (a vision confirmed
by her suicide) each image is nothing so much as a contribution to the artists
self portrait” (pg123)
 |
| Identical Twins, Roselle New Jersey, 1967. Diane Arbus. |
Sekula states that there
are two contrasting, almost contradicting readings for Diane Arbus’ work, yet
they are both valid and justifiable.
“..Their work begins
with the recognition that photography is operative at every level of our
culture. That is, they insist on treating photographs not as privileged objects
but as common cultural artefacts” (pg 124)
Photographs as artefacts.
On every level, not just high art. Common artificacts, which ties in to Thomas Sauvin's
work, using family photographs as artefacts.
He also refers to Martha
Rosler in his essay, another writer who is critical of the documentary genre. A
humorous term I found was the “find-a-bum school of concerned photography.”
Perhaps a reference
to Rosler's criticism, where so called documentary photography is mere
“concerned” photography (Cottingham, L. 1993). There is not too much social struggle on show,
or on part of the photographer. And if there is, it is used to elevate the
photographer. The term find-a-bum links to this; find a person in a more lowly
position than you, photograph them, and be celebrated for displaying the
images.
"Lonidiers “evidence”
consists of twenty or so case studies of individual workers, each displayed on
large panels laid out in a rather photojournalistic fashion. The reference to
photojournalism is deliberate, I think, because the work refuses to deliver any
of the empathic goodies that we are accustomed to in photo essays. Conventional
“human interest” is absent” pg131
“Unlike Smith, Lonidier
takes the same photographs that a doctor might. When the evidence is hidden
within the body, Lonidier borrows and copies x ray films. These pictures have a
brute, clinical effect. Each workers story is reduced to a rather schematic
account of injury, disease, hospitalization, and endless bureaucratic
run-around...” pg131
Sekula criticises the
work of W. Eugene smith, like Rosler did also. His Minamata work is what the
often refer to, and shall also be writing a post on it.
he then talks of the work of Lonidier, praising it for being a true documentary for its use of evidence as imagery. For purpose, as evident. W.Eugene
Smiths work is more emotionally charged and dramatic than documents.
 |
| JAPAN. Minamata. Takak ISAYAMA, a 12 year old fetal (congenital) victim of the Minamata Disease, with her mother. 1971. © W. Eugene Smith/Magnum Photos |
“...both films reveal
the importance of oral history and song for maintain working-class traditions,
both emerge from the filmmaker’s partisan commitment to long term work from
within particular struggles. Neither of these films qualifies as the standard “neutral”
airplane-ticket-in-the-back-pocket sort of documentary” pg 132
Sekula talks about how
creating work as an insider to a culture is important and more valuable than
the work of an outsider.
Airplane-ticket... reference to large amount of
photojournalists, possibly agency based, sent to a faraway place to investigate
some social problem or news story, create some emotionally charged images and
fly home to be celebrated as a great photographer, and people can pretend to
care for an hour. Similar to the “find-a-bum” school, but on a global level.
References
- Sekula, A. (1999). Dismantling Modernism, Reinventing Documentary. In: Dismal Science, Photo works 1972-1996. Illinois: Illinois State University. pg117-138.
- The Uneasy Documentary Vision of Susan Meiselas, the nation, available at http://www.thenation.com/article/uneasy-documentary-vision-susan-meiselas last accessed 1st april 2013
- Cottingham, L. (1993). Crossing Borders, Martha Rosler. Available: http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/crossing_borders/. Last accessed 1st April 2013.
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