Post Modern Photography: Idea Before Image

Postmodern Photographic Theories (approximately 1970-2000):

"Post Modernism

Post Modernism is categorized by the dissolution of traditional boundaries between art, architecture, popular culture, and (mass) media. Post modern works have been been accomplished by an open-ended process of borrowing ideas, art forms, and representations from the past and the present. (Robert Hirsch, Seizing the Light: A History of Photography)

Post Modernists believe meaning cannot be determined by surface appearances since everything from a photograph to a television program is a text that must be decoded. The act of deciphering the “text” and unveiling the hidden assumptions behind it is what Jacques Derrida calls “deconstruction.” (Robert Hirsch, Seizing the Light: A History of Photography)

The notion that there is not a single truth of experience is at the core of postmodern thinking. That is in direct opposition to the modernist view of trying to discover the “essence” of essential meaning in the world." (Robert Hirsch, Seizing the Light: A History of Photography)

Context

Post Modernism embraces the idea that the context that a piece of artwork is shown or seen changes its meaning or interpretation. Post Modern artists tried to understand how art might be viewed under different circumstances.

Appropriation

Appropriation is the act of borrowing imagery or forms to create something new. The act of appropriation is usually associated with Post Modern art practices and Roland Barthes' idea of the “death of the author.” Barthes maintains that all ideas or recycled and modified. Every idea is, in fact, a conglomeration of past ideas. Hence a work of art is a collective vision, not a singular one.

Conceptual Art

Conceptual Art is works in which the idea is equal to, if not more important than, the finished product. Conceptual art can take many forms, from photographs to texts to videos. Sometimes there is no object at all. Emphasizing the ways things are made more than how they look, conceptual art often raises questions about what a work of art can be. Conceptual art is also often difficult to collect or preserve as it can be the artist's own experience that is the work of art. (Art 21 definition)

Identity Politics

Identity, in an artistic sense, is associated with how one views oneself, how others perceive you, and how a society as a whole defines groups of people. Important to one's identity are ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and class, as well as education, childhood, and life experience. For many, being an artist is not just an occupation but also an ethical responsibility. Much art today deals with what it means to be an artist in today's rapidly changing world. (Art 21 Definition)

Semiotics

Semiotics is the relation of language to things not natural but determined by culture. Language is a self contained system of signs made of two components: the signified and the signifier. Signifier = word, signified = mental associations of the word, conscious or unconscious, informed by culture.

Semioticians analyze these mental associations to understand how a society creates meaning and to find hidden meanings. Visual images, such as photographs, can communicate meaning in this way and, thus, can be analyzed as signs.

For more Postmodern Theories and definitions click here.


Postmodern Artists

Warhol

Andy Warhol if often considered the Father of postmodern art practice. Warhol was originally trained as a Graphic Artist and rose to fame with his giant silk screens of celebrity personalities, like Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe. He worked from his New York loft space, coined The Factory, alongside teams of people. He often exhibited enlarged versions of everyday objects, such as Brillo Boxes and Campbell's soup cans. Warhol sought to break down the barriers between high art and low art (fine art and design), disrupt the conventions of the gallery space, and turn popular culture into an acceptable fine art subject-matter. For Warhol, art was a subject not separate from but part of everyday life. His works must be appreciated for their gesture, concept, and message as well as their aesthetic appeal.



Andy Warhol, Lavender Marilyn, 1962
Warhol created this image by enlarging a newspaper photograph and silkscreening it on to canvas. In other words, he appropriated the photograph.

Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Sherman and Prince started to incorporate aspects of appropriation into their artistic practices in order to expose truths about gender relations and identity. Sherman created a series of over 100 photographic film stills; each photograph was printed 8" x 10" (the size of a traditional still). In each film still, Sherman, herself, would play the character of the leading lady, thereby exposing Hollywood's stereotypical, female "types." Prince, on the other hand, re-photographed images from Marlboro cigarette advertising campaigns in order to expose the romantic mythology associated with the American male figure.



Richard Prince, Marlboro Man



Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still, 1978

Sophie Calle and William Wegman

Calle and Wegman are both Conceptual artists who incorporate humor and spontaniaty into their works in order to reveal issues regarding human experience. Calle challenges traditional artistic practices by making art work out of specific, systematic constraints. For example, In The Shadow, Calle hired a private detective to follow her and take photographs of her. In Blind, Calle interviewed Blind subjects and photographed their most beautiful sights (the ocean, for eample). Calle's work often explores ideas of representation; how do you picture somebody or someone? William Wegman, on the other hand, photographs dogs in distinctly human poses. His photographs, often humorous, technically flawless, and oddly sincere, poke fun at human beings and the lives to which they aspire.



Wiliam Wegman, On Set, 1994



Sophie, Calle, The Shadow, 1981

Lorna Simpson and Nan Goldin

Simpson and Goldin's photographs challenge ideas of representation. In other words, both women attempt to give the viewer insight into minority experiences. Simpson's seemingly simple artworks combine text and photograph to expose stereotypes and power structures that burden black women. Her works have a direct relationship to semiotics and language theories. Goldin, on the other hand, documents 1980s, queer sub culture. She gives us an intimate, loving look at the lives of the people she calls her "family."



Nan Goldin, Ivy with Marylin, Boston, 1973



Lorna Simpson, Wig II

Re-imagining the American West: New Topographics and the Roadtrip

New Topographics

New Topographics is a movement in photographic art that evolved from the New Topographics Exhibition, which was conceived by William Jenkins, assistant curator of photography at the International Museum of Photography, Eastman House in Rochester New York. The 1975 exhibition featured photographs of man altered landscapes or, more accurately, lands upon which humans have erected houses, buildings or other structures that attest their presence (though actual people are eerily absent). New Topographics was a form of documentary photography. Even though the images were not intended to be judgmental, in hindsight they are extraordinarly telling about urban sprawl and other environmental issues. The photographers included were Robert Adams, Lewis Batz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, and Henry Wessel, Jr.

The New American West

By the late 1960s, the American Western Landscape looked different than it did when early photographers, such as Carlton Watkins, and Timothy O' Sullivan, made their albumen prints. Camera technology also changed. The Leica 35mm, hand-held camera became popular by the mid 40s, and artist such as Stephen Shore and William Eggleston began to experiment with color photography. Leading American fine-art photographers no longer made pictures of the awe inspiring, natural American landscape. Instead, their pictures often revealed the suburbanization of the American West and the standardization of American society.



William Eggleston, Memphis, Tennessee, 1969-70





Stephen Shore, Church and 2nd St. Easton, PA 1974



Robert Adams, Midday, Pike’s Peak, Colorodo Springs, 1968-1971




Robert Frank, Parade, Hoboken, New Jersey, 1955-1956

Swiss Born photographer, Robert Frank, immigrated to the United States from Europe right in the midst of the second World War. In 1955, he received a Guggenhiem fellowship that enabled him to travel across the United States and take personal, poetic documentary photographs of American life. He arranged over 83 photographs into a book, titled The Americans. The book was a critical, loving look at American culture. Television sets, cars, jukeboxes, and flags were prominant subjects. Initially, the photographs were denounced by the press, but today The Americans is celebrated as a moving and honest interpretation of American life. The book was influential publication that inspired photo-book makers and documentarians alike.

Bellow you will find additional information regarding the New Documentary tradition.
American Documentary

The Photo Exhibition and Museum of Modern Art

Brief History: Photography at the MoMA

MoMA first opened its doors in 1929 under the directorship of Alfred Barr. From the beginning, Barr imagined that photography would be integral to the museum’s collections. In 1937, Curator and Scholar Beaumont Newhall mounted Photography 1839-1937, the first major photo retrospective in the United States. Newhall championed the art and fine craft of photography. By 1940 Newhall became MoMA’s first photography curator. In 1947, Edward Steichen replaced Newhall; Steichen promoted a populist view of photography. In 1962, Steichen hand picked John Szarkowski to proceed him as MoMA’s photography director. Szarkoski promoted a new kind of fine art photography, which he coined "The New Document". In 1967, Szarkowski mounted "New Documents", a show that featured works by Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Gary Winogrand.

Family of Man

The "Family of Man," an exhibition curated by Edward Steichen, opened at the MoMA in 1955. The exhibition incorporated works by over 200 photographers. The installation of the photographs mimicked a picture magazine page lay-out. Photographs were mounted ceiling to floor and clustered by topic (Love, Marriage, Birth, Childhood...) The exhibition was "conceived, in Steichen's words, `as a mirror of the essential oneness of mankind throughout the world'".

"Although the 273 photographers represented included distinguished foreigners... most were American,s and/or were members of American agencies or, especially, contributors to Life Magazine. Some critics, particularly in Europe, viewed the exhibition as Cold War propaganda and a projection of American values in a thinly universalistic disguise... (Oxford Companion to the Photograph)

The exhibition was a significant event in cultural history of the 1950s, and in American cultural diplomacy. It also marked a further stage in the museumization of photography, though paradoxically just as television was replacing still photography as the world's most pervasive visual meduim." (Oxford Companion to the Photograph)




Exhibition Views, Family of Man, MoMA, 1955

John Szarkowski &New Documents

John Szarkowski, the predecessor to Edward Steichen, was born in 1925 in Wisconsin. At twenty-two he was the staff photographer for the Walker Art Center. By 1962 , when he became the Director of Photography at the MoMA, he had already published several books on photography and his still images were included in many major collections. Szarkowski's exhibition program at the MoMA promoted a Modernist Cannon of photography and highlighted young talent, such as Arbus, Friedlander, and Winogrand, whose work combined real-life documentation with modernist sensibilities. Szarkowski's influence upon photography was tremendous. In his book "The Photographer's Eye," he called for a new form of photography that drew meaning from five major photographic characteristics: The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, and Vantage Point.

Please click the link below to read Szarkowski's introduction to the Photographer's Eye:

Photographer's Eye



Child with a Toy Hand Grenade, Diane Arbus, 1962



Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, 1969



New Mexico, Gary Winogrand, 1957

"New Documents exhibition was conceived by John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art in 1967. It featured the work of Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Gary Winogrand. Szarkowski said of the photographers: `their aim has been not to transform life, but to understand'. The artists overall objective of candidly documenting people going about their everyday lives, however, may have been overwhelmed at the time by viewers perception of the images-- particularly those of Arbus-- as essentially bizarre". (Oxford Companion to the Photograph). Still Arbus, Friedlander, and Winnogrand all made tremendous images that spoke about the American condition and personality.

Magnum Photography and the Picture Magaizine

Life Magazine Cover, 1936 (year of its inception)

By the late 1930s, photojournalism had established itself as a viable form of photography. Most photojournalism is assignment driven, meaning photographers are sent out by clients (editors at magazines and newspapers) to capture specific events or places. The documentary project, on the other hand, is usually artist driven, concieved, directed, and executed solely by an artist and his/her team.

Big picture magazines, such as Life and Look, helped to define mid-twentieth century photojournalism. Life Magazine was originally started by a man named Henry Luc, who had previously founded Time in 1923 and Fortune in 1924. Life Magazine quickly gained popularity. The magazine combined entrainment, news, and special interest stories; it also promoted American middle class life and patriotism. In deed, Life Magazine developed the very concept of the "photo essay." It endorsed such photographers as Robert Capa and W. Eugene Smith.





W Eugene Smith, Nurse Midwife, 1951 (photo essay on midwife Maude Callen in South Carolina.)
This slide represent a typical lay-out for a Life Magazine "photo essay," a magazine story told primarily through photographs, not text.



Vu, September 23, 1936, page spread containing Robert Capa’s Spanish Civil War coverage with the Falling Soldier photograph


Magnum Photography

Magnum was founded in 1947 by a group of photo-journalists, including Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson. It was "the first self-governing, cooperative photographic agency, whose members also owned the copy-write of their work"(Oxford Companion to the Photograph). In other words, it was a group in support of the photojournalist, that gave image rights to the photographer, rather than the magazine. Magnum photographers spread across the world and covered all major events. Since its inception, Magnum holds high photographic standards and supports only top notch, well recognized photographers.



Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, Henri Cartier-Bresson 1932

Henri Cartier-Bresson, a parisian photographer credited with transforming photojournalism in to a true art-form, has influenced many young photographers who came after him. He originally coined the phrase the "decisive moment," the moment when surprise, chance, form, and content converge into a single image (as exhibited in the picture above).



Madrid, Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1933

Click the web links below to access more information:

American Photojournalism
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Magnum Photography

Documentary Tradition Part II

A short version of the Great Depression

On October 29th, 1929, the Stock Market crashed, propelling this country into a decade known as the Great Depression. Three years later, approximately one out of every four Americans was unemployed. By 1932, Roosevelt replaced Hebert Hoover in the White House; he immediately began to implement his recovery policy, known as the “New Deal. The "New Deal" consisted of various government programs that helped to aid the economy, farmers, and the unemployed. FDR established the CCC (Civilian Conservation Core), The WPA (Works Progress Administration), and the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act, which later became the FSA or Farm Security Administration).

The Farm Security


In 1937, President Roosevelt established the Farm Security Administration (formally the Resettlement Administration) to help assist struggling farmers through the Great Depression. In 1935, a man named Roy Stryker headed the FSA’s or RA’s Historical section, a team of photographers charged with showing the “city people what its like to live on a farm”. Although the FSA photographers were aware of the historical significance of their photographs, they often had to produce pictures that glorified the Government Relief efforts. Still , over 10,000 FSA photographs exist today in government archives; many of these photographs have become important historical documents that accurately depict the lives of rural families as they struggled during the Great Depression, FSA Photographers included Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Jack Delano, Russell Lee, Gordon Parks, and Marion Post Wolcott.


The FSA Photographers and the Great Depression

Migrant Mother, Dorothea Lange. 1936



Cotton pickers 6:30 a.m., Alexander plantation, Pulaski County, Arkansas, Ben Shahn, 1935



Hale County, Alabama , Walker Evans, 1936


Here are some useful Links information on photography and the Great Depression:
Migrant Mother
Hard Times

The Documentary Tradition Part I

Photographs are often categorized into different genres: documentary, fine art, and commercial (to name just a few). What makes a photograph a document? What is the difference between a document and piece of art work? Can a document be a piece of artwork? What is the relationship between the document and the idea of truth? Can a photograph really be truthful? When we evaluate photographs, it can be helpful to ask ourselves the following questions:

• Who took the photograph?
• Why and for whom was the photograph taken?
• How was the photograph taken?
• Does the series or full portfolio explain more than a single print?

The Oxford Encyclopedia of photography defines documentary: "In the broadest sense, all photography not intended purely as a means of artistic expression might be considered ‘documentary’, the photograph a visual document of an event, place, object, or person, providing evidence of a moment in time...Yet the term ‘documentary photography’ has a more specific meaning. The Life Library's Documentary Photography (1972) defined it as ‘a depiction of the real world by a photographer whose intent is to communicate something of importance—to make a comment—that will be understood by the viewer."

We will keep this definition in mind as we look at some early documentary projects. Would you call these photographers Documentarians?

Eugene Atget



Eugene Atget, Lampshade Merchant 1899-1900

Atget captured over 10,000 views of Paris with his large, wooden, glass-plate camera. His aim was to capture views of the old city of Paris, a city disappearing to modernism. He strived to make photographs of both Paris' architectural details and colorful residents. Although hailed first by the Surrealists as a master artist and later by the MoMA Photo Director, John Szarkowski, as a photographic genius, Atget, himself, was a business man and a loyal Parisian who merely mourned the city's transformation.

Edward Curtis



Edward S. Curtis circa 1910

Curtis' work concentrated on the American Indian population. Over the course of his career, he exposed over 40,000 negatives and printed over 2,200 pictures. Although he initially published his books because her wanted to document the dying Native American culture, some argue that his Pictorialist tendencies and romantic view on Native life clouds his vision of Native people, and instead, merely reiterates the stereotype of the romantic, untamed Indian. Needless to say, this series is extremely controversial. Still, many photographers admire Curtis' strong style and commitment to his subject-matter.

Jacob Riis



Jacob Riis Bandit's Roost, 59-1/2 Mulberry Street, 1888 

Riis, originally from Holland, immigrated to the United States in 1870. He worked for three years as a laborer and lived in the tenements in Manhattan's Lower East Side before he became a photo journalist and documented the urban poor. He spent years photographing the poor living conditions on the Lower East side, an unpopular subject at the time, and eventually he published a book titled "How the Other Half Lives." Some people argue that his photographs helped influence legalization and changed laws regarding housing conditions. Other people take issue with his photographs because they cater to the rich and privileged and exploit the poor.

Lewis Hine



Hine originally trained as a sociologist in Chicago, Illinois. Once he moved to New York, he taught sociology in many area schools. Initially, his interest in photography grew out of his interest in sociology. He first picked up the camera in order to better study the immigrant groups on Ellis Island. Later, he began to document child laborers; he worked tirelessly to protect the children and reform labor laws. He quickly gained recognition as a photographer as well as a sociologist.

Below Please find useful websites on early documentary photography:
Metropolitan Museum of Documentary Photography

Modernism: European avant-garde and American Straight Photography

Modernism in Photography (approximately 1945-1970):

American modernism, as opposed to European avant-garde modernism, is usually attributed to photographers, such as Alfred Steiglitz and Paul Strand, who “used the realism of the medium to create beauty from everyday life, and to make statements about the nature of photography, rather than about the world. Their work often abstracted reality by eliminating social and spatial context; by using viewpoints that flattened pictorial space, acknowledging the flatness of he picture plane; and by emphasizing shape and tonal rendition in the highlights and shadows as much as the actual subject matter". (Oxford Companion to the Photograph)

"Photography became art by transcending its reality bearing function through the subjectivity that photographers, as authors of their images, managed to instill in their pictures”. Modernism, which was championed by art critic Clement Greenberg and MoMA Curator Belmont Newhall “emphasized formal and aesthetic qualities that defined “masters” and “canonical” images that transcended their historical and social context”. (Oxford Companion to the Photograph)

In Europe something different was happening. Modern artists, such as the Surrealists, Constructivists, and Bauhaus artists, "sought to break-down the traditional definitions of art, and the barriers between art and design, often with the utopian aim to merge art with everyday life." (Oxford Companion to the Photograph) The European avant-garde embraced technology, developed mixed media practices, and often championed art that explored social and political concerns.


When we speak of modernism, however, typically we are referring to American ideas of form, space, and the medium. "In the post 1945 period, American Modernism became dominant in the West, emphasizing specialization and purity, and downplaying the political engagement of earlier avant-garde groups: to be modern, each discipline had to refine the definition of its own competencies." (Oxford Companion to the Photograph)

Below you will find an outline of various modern photographic practices, as well as links to more information on each modern genres. In class this semester we looked at three different types of European Modernism: the Bauhaus artist from Germany, the Surrealists from Paris, and the Constructivists from Russia.


The Bauhaus



The Bauhaus was an art school founded by architect Walter Gropious in Germany in 1919. Gropious sought to break down the barriers between art and design. All Bauhaus students participated in an intensive foundation study, which emphasized design and craftsmanship. Once foundation studies were complete, students could specialize in a particular discipline. Lazlo Maholy Nagy taught photography at the Bauhaus. Moholy-Nagy embraced technology and the camera and encouraged his students to find new ways to perceiving the world. He also used the Photogram to teach basic principles of design, such as form, layout and balance. Moholy Nagy coined te term "New Vision" to explain his artistic teachings and practices.

See link below:
Photography and the Bauhaus



Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Untitled, 1925



Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Boats, Port of Marseilles , 1929




Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Hand Photogram, 1925

Surrealism

• Surrealism originated in the late 1910s and early '20s as a literary movement that experimented with a new mode of expression called automatic writing, or automatism, which sought to release the unbridled imagination of the subconscious.

• It was officially announced in Paris in 1924 with the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism by the poet and critic André Breton (1896–1966); soon after, Surrealism quickly became an international intellectual and political movement.

• Breton, a trained psychiatrist was influenced by the psychological theories and dream studies of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and the political ideas of Karl Marx (1818–1883). Using Freudian methods of free association, their poetry and prose drew upon the private world of the mind, traditionally restricted by reason and societal limitations, to produce surprising, unexpected imagery.

• The major surrealist Photographers were Man Ray and Andre Kertesz



Andre Kertesz, Distortion, 1933



Man Ray, Untitled, Rayograph, 1922


Man Ray, Glass Tears, 1930



Man Ray experimented with alternative processes, such as solarization, split negatives, and Rayograms, his unique photogram process. He wanted to make psychological works of art that tapped into the unconscious.

See Link Below
Photography and Surrealism


Russian Constructivism

• Constructivism was spearheaded by graphic artists, Alexander Rodchenko and El Lissitzky

• The Constructivists, as they were called, believed that it was photography’s mission, in conjunction with the graphic arts, to supplant painting as socialism’s leading representational medium.

• The Constuctivists rejected Pictorialism, as practiced by Rejlander and Robinson; they claimed that Pictorialism was elitist and individualistic. Instead, they embraced aspects of Lazlo Moholy Nagy's “New Vision.”

• Constructivist's subject matter became machines, mass produced objects, and industrial development becuase these things clearly represented a future-minded, contemporary, society.



Alexander Rodchenko, Chauffeur 1929


Modern Photography In The U.S.A

Photographic Modernism in the United States is associated with Alfred Steiglitz and the 291 Gallery on the East Coast and Edward Weston and the F 64 Group on the West Coast. Initially, Steiglitz first exhibited European modern paintings at his 291 gallery. In fact, Picasso, Cezanne, and Degas were among the European artist to exhibit at 291. Modern photography, like Eropean modern painting, privileged form over subject-matter and attempted to flatten space into single planes of color and shade. By the 1910s Steiglitz hailed a young photographer by the name of Paul Strand as the new modern master. Strand's photographs successfully flattened space and abstracted the the world in front of the camera lens. Years later, however, Paul Strand left the United States for Mexico. In Mexico, he abandoned traditional modernism and made a series of documentary films that explored a diverse group of subjects.

In the early part of the 1900s, leading West Coast photographers. such as Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams, formed a photography group, known as F 64. F 64 Group named themeslves after the smallest aperture setting because (as you know) the smallest aperture ensures the most depth of field and clearest images, The F-64 Group rejected Pictorialism, which was still the leading trend in art photography at the time, and sought to make the West Coast, as opposed to New York, the hub of photography.



Alfred Steiglitz, The Steerage, 1907

The Steerage is one Steiglitz's most famous works. It is celebrated for its modern sense of space and design. This photograph also represents a transition in Steiglitz's own photographic practice. Initially, Steiglitz gained recognition as a popular Pictorialist photographer who made romantic, soft focus images, but the Streerage showcases attributes of straight photography or modernism, a crisp in-focus image, thoughtful design, and an elimination of spatial context.



Paul Strand, Wall Street, 1915



Edward Weston, Nude, 1925



Ansel Adams, Lodgepole Pines, Yosemite, 1921