ku # 563/64 ~ what really matters
Friday, March 27, 2009 at 09:42AM 
Blue sky reflection and tree stump • click to embiggenIn the next week or so I hope to visit NYC to see a photo exhibit at MOMA - Into the Sunset: Photography’s Image of the American West. The exhibit is comprised of 150 pictures (dating from 1850 to 2008) by 70 photographers that, according to one review - Mythic West of Dreams and Nightmares, "evokes that tension between myth and reality" regarding the American West.
The reviewer, Ken Johnson, opines that the exhibit:
... ultimately presents an all-too-predictably bleak view of America’s realization of its Manifest Destiny ... [W]hile photographers paved the way psychologically for transcontinental expansion in the 19th century, 20th-century modernists like Minor White and Ansel Adams helped to shape a new romantic poetry for an intensely industrialized society ... [A]fter World War II, however, that picture could no longer be sustained. It became a cliché for the tourism and real estate industries ... [F]or landscape photographers of the 1960s and later the West became a place where despoiling by industry and commerce could be revealed at its most unvarnished ...
As many of you already know, there is little if anything in that synopsis regarding the historic trajectory of landscape photography with which I would disagree.
I also tend to agree with Johnson's assessment regarding the "all-too-predictably bleak view of America’s realization of its Manifest Destiny" as depicted by "landscape photographers of the 1960s and later". The then (1960-1975) cliche-breaking work of photographers working under the banner of New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape has been continually practiced / emulated to this day and, in the process, become a bit of a cliche in its own right.
IMO, it should be stated (as a sort of withering defense) that the cliche is sustained and somewhat justified in as much as the continued (and really f**ked up) attempt to implement the American realization of its "Manifest Destiny" provides far too many "New Topographics" picture making opportunities. To ignore those opportunities and retreat into flights of landscape fantasy does not do justice to the medium's capabilities / possibilities re: truth and the real. Nor, for that matter, does it contribute in any meaningful way to our current notion of reinventing the American Dream - re: change we can believe in / hope.
That said, Johnson asks questions and, in doing so, presents a challenge of sorts:
Why does the exhibition project such a dim vision? Is it impossible for serious contemporary photography to see something better? Is failure and disappointment the real, unavoidable story? Or is it another myth, a paradoxically reassuring narrative to which many high-minded people now unthinkingly accede? If so, what would be the alternative? That could be an unknown worth exploring.
These questions/challenges have been on my mind for quite a while. Check out urban ku # 49 ~ a new place for some of my thoughts on the matter (dating back a couple of years) - and be sure to notice how I used the word "hope" long before that guy sitting in the White House did as well as an early example of a stutter step diptych.
Now, I could wax poetic and acerbic for days on end regarding how I believe that my pictures are an outstanding example of what is "worth exploring" as an alternative to the "dim vision" of "contemporary photography" but, not wanting to fall into the trap of making "sanctimonious declarations" that imply that I have "a higher calling" or that I am " blessed with divine insight", I will cite the work of Mary Dennis - a picture maker whose eye, IMO, is looking in all the "right places" for a new sense of hope.
Specifically, check out Mary's Display / Nature/Discordant / Scenic 1 & 2 / Road folders.
IMO, and in spite of its surface appearances which evince a nod towards more traditional pictorial / romantic methods of presentation with her use of color/contrast/saturation (however true and/or accurate they seem to be), that work avoids descending into "sappy sentimentality" and camera-club cliche. I have the distinct sense that Mary addresses her referent(s) with a genuine feeling of respect that "preserves its authenticity but still allows the photography-observer to move well beyond the 'actuality of the real world'".
In viewing her pictures - most of which are of the commonplace, I am never left with the impression that she is attempting to raise up the notion of despair but rather that she has a sense that all is not lost if we can only look in "the right places" - the very "authentic" ones she is showing us - in order to remember / relearn what really matters.
Or, if the phrase "what really matters" upsets your relativistic-sense apple cart - the idea that "what really matters" is, well, relativistic in nature, then how about this - she illustrates and illuminates a sense that all is not lost and if we can only look at the overlooked and learn/see what it has to teach us, the world just might be a better place.
And, IMO, although Mary's pictures address many of the same referents typical of New Topographic pictures, her work rejects, or does not fully embrace, the world-weary cynicism that is one of the so-called hallmarks of New Topographics style pictures. She pictures as if what she pictures really matters in and of itself, as opposed to just what it might signify - although, IMO, if you look at it "with your head at a certain angle" (thanks for that one, Gordon). it signifies much worth considering.
The only problem with Mary's work (and that of quite a few others) is that it has yet to be discovered by the Art World, Photography Division. IMO, that is simply because that world is still held captive to the academic lunatic fringe and their gallery/museum minions who prize the connoted - the more obtuse / self-referential / convoluted, the better - over the actuality of the denoted.
Reader Comments (2)
I had a chance to look at the Into the Sunset book that accompanies the exhibit last week, and was really struck by the juxtapositions of iconic historical images against equally iconic modern New Topographics images. I wonder if the show sequencing slices through history like the book -- quite enjoyable and thought provoking.
First things first - the Art world mortifies me Mark. Can you imagine a middle-aged, about to be empty-nester, homemaker from the Midwest mingling with the “academic lunatic fringe and their gallery minions?” I get a sniggering shudder down my spine and a hearty laugh in my belly just thinking about it. Anonymity and obscurity suits me just fine, thank you. I’m really very okay with not being “discovered.”
Secondly, I do strive very hard with my images to “preserve authenticity.” Honesty and straightforwardness (that good old Midwestern ethic) are hugely important to me. But I do like to play with it a bit, suspend it in midair a little, mold it like putty and rearrange the pieces (figuratively speaking) every once in awhile so it doesn’t look like everything you see everyday. I’m glad that you feel authenticity coming through in my work because if it didn’t, I would feel like a fraud.
And to be honest, I have absolutely no answers or ideas about what really matters or should matter to anybody but myself. I have made a commitment in my life to being a constant observer and to look for personal meaning in the commonplace but I could see how it would bore most people to tears. Some people need Mt. Everest, all I need is a funny reflection in a window. Let them have their journey while I have mine. I do believe however, that it’s a supreme waste of time to exist on this planet for the short amount of time you are given and not spend any of it looking around at anything other than what’s immediately in front of you.
Thanks for spending the time to really look at my pictures Mark. You always help to keep the flames burning. Not just by looking at and commenting on my work but by offering interesting and provocative thoughts, words and pictures about a multitude of subjects related to photography and photographers.