I once was blind, but now I see

Turnip • click to embiggenIn light of Pope Benedict XVI's recent meeting in the Sistine Chapel with over 250 artists (of all types) wherein he tried to kick-start an effort to improve the Catholic Church’s engagement with contemporary artists, I thought I would offer the following excerpts from the ...

LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II TO ARTISTS

1999

To all who are passionately dedicated to the search for new “epiphanies” of beauty so that through their creative work as artists they may offer these as gifts to the world.

“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gn 1:31)

1. None can sense more deeply than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of the pathos with which God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands. A glimmer of that feeling has shone so often in your eyes when—like the artists of every age—captivated by the hidden power of sounds and words, colours and shapes, you have admired the work of your inspiration, sensing in it some echo of the mystery of creation with which God, the sole creator of all things, has wished in some way to associate you ....

..... 6. Every genuine artistic intuition goes beyond what the senses perceive and, reaching beneath reality's surface, strives to interpret its hidden mystery. The intuition itself springs from the depths of the human soul, where the desire to give meaning to one's own life is joined by the fleeting vision of beauty and of the mysterious unity of things. All artists experience the unbridgeable gap which lies between the work of their hands, however successful it may be, and the dazzling perfection of the beauty glimpsed in the ardour of the creative moment: what they manage to express in their painting, their sculpting, their creating is no more than a glimmer of the splendour which flared for a moment before the eyes of their spirit ..... Every genuine art form in its own way is a path to the inmost reality of man and of the world. It is therefore a wholly valid approach to the realm of faith, which gives human experience its ultimate meaning. That is why the Gospel fullness of truth was bound from the beginning to stir the interest of artists, who by their very nature are alert to every “epiphany” of the inner beauty of things.

... 10. ... true art has a close affinity with the world of faith, so that, even in situations where culture and the Church are far apart, art remains a kind of bridge to religious experience. In so far as it seeks the beautiful, fruit of an imagination which rises above the everyday, art is by its nature a kind of appeal to the mystery. Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, artists give voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption.

11. In the spirit of the Second Vatican Council ... the Fathers of the Council stressed “the great importance” of literature and the arts in human life: “They seek to probe the true nature of man, his problems and experiences, as he strives to know and perfect himself and the world, to discover his place in history and the universe, to portray his miseries and joys, his needs and strengths, with a view to a better future” ... at the end of the Council the Fathers addressed a greeting and an appeal to artists: “This world—they said—in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, brings joy to the human heart and is that precious fruit which resists the erosion of time, which unites generations and enables them to be one in admiration!”

... 15. ... The Spirit is the mysterious Artist of the universe ... I would hope that all artists might receive in abundance the gift of that creative inspiration which is the starting-point of every true work of art ... Dear artists, you well know that there are many impulses which, either from within or from without, can inspire your talent. Every genuine inspiration, however, contains some tremor of that “breath” with which the Creator Spirit suffused the work of creation from the very beginning ... the Creator Spirit reaches out to human genius and stirs its creative power. He touches it with a kind of inner illumination which brings together the sense of the good and the beautiful, and he awakens energies of mind and heart which enable it to conceive an idea and give it form in a work of art. It is right then to speak, even if only analogically, of “moments of grace”, because the human being is able to experience in some way the Absolute who is utterly beyond.

16. ... my hope for all of you who are artists is that you will have an especially intense experience of creative inspiration. May the beauty which you pass on to generations still to come be such that it will stir them to wonder! Faced with the sacredness of life and of the human person, and before the marvels of the universe, wonder is the only appropriate attitude ... Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence. It is an invitation to savour life and to dream of the future ... Artists of the world, may your many different paths all lead to that infinite Ocean of beauty where wonder becomes awe, exhilaration, unspeakable joy ....

.... “From chaos there rises the world of the spirit”. These words of Adam Mickiewicz ... prompt my hope for you: may your art help to affirm that true beauty which, as a glimmer of the Spirit of God, will transfigure matter, opening the human soul to the sense of the eternal.

IMO, there's actually some good shit in there.

civilized ku # 285-86 ~ street photography, pt. 2

Dog and Man ~ Thanksgiving Day • click to embiggenA little while back, in an entry titled civilized ku # 208-11 ~ see people walk, eat, ride .... or, crazy niggers doing crazy shit, I referenced a piece, White People Are Looking At You (link in ku # 208-11) by Sebastien Boncy.

That piece was a critique of Pieter Hugo's pictures from his book/exhibit THE HYENA & OTHER MEN. To make a long story short, that critique was centered around the idea of the "racial context that the work travels in" - a "context" that is basically summed up rather neatly by the critique's title of White People Are Looking At You.

Boncy does not ascribe to the idea / infer that Pieter Hugo is a racist or that the making of his pictures are motivated by racism. In fact, he "gives Hugo the benefit of the doubt ..." taking "...it for granted that Pieter Hugo is a talented and conscientious photographer and assumes he has not a racist bone in his body." Nevertheless, Boncy states:

Somehow, that isn’t enough and I’m still disturbed ... [M]aybe it has something to do with the way Hugo and his defenders are so quick to dismiss or minimize concerns about the racial context that this work travels in.

All of that said, 'long about now, you might be wondering why I am mentioning all of this again.

Well, long story short once again, this past Thanksgiving holiday I was confronted with a rather sticky / ticklish dilemma .... while at my inlaw's home for Thanksgiving dinner, I was introduced - by means of a glowing endorsement (from those same inlaws) - to a book of pictures, Tumperbee ~ PHOTOGRAPHS OF ANTIGUA by Melchior DiGiacomo.

Mel is a close personal friend of my inlaws and, to a certain extent through their relationship with Mel, a friend of mine. To be perfectly clear, our relationship is based almost exclusively around the medium of photography - I have known Mel and have had the all too infrequent pleasure of his company and his pictures for about 12 years or so.

So it was, with that background in mind and with the White People Are Looking At You piece coming immediately to mind, that when asked to express my opinion about the book, all I could muster up was that I would get back to them (the inlaws) in a week or so. That was because even though I could state without reservation that Mel was, like Pieter Hugo, a talented and conscientious photographer without a racist bone in his body, I could also state that, like Sebastien Boncy, that wasn't enough and I was still disturbed.

Mel's pictures of Antigua are first and foremost pictures of the people of Antigua (see a few HERE - IMO, a not very representative sample of those in the book*), specifically those to be found in an area known as the Old Road Village - an area, if Mel's pictures are to viewed as representative of "reality" and "truth" (I am certain that they are), of poverty, relative squalor, and deprivation.

Mel's familiarity with the area / village and its people has been acquired over 3 decades of annual visits to a nearby resort, Curtain Bluff, where he was first invited to photograph tennis events held at the resort. Over the years he became familiar with and greatly accepted by the people of the Old Road Village and, as is his wont and obsession, he began to picture them with regularity. The result is the 192 page book.

The pictures in the book are "pure" documentary / street photography at its absolute best, even if most of the streets in evidence are little more than well-worn animal paths. Mel paves no new ground here, genre-wise, but there can be no question that Mel is a much better than a first-rate picture maker.

So, where's the (my) beef?

Despite ample testimony in the book's various introductions and preface of Mel's acceptance (one might even say "loving" acceptance) by the people of the Old Road Village together with his affiliation with the Old Road Fund - a fund set up by the Curtain Bluff Resort for the benefit of Old Road Village people "to be able to realize their dreams", I can't help feeling that the entire enterprise - the Old Road Fund and, to a lesser extent, the book itself (funded and published by a group of Curtain Bluff people) - has a distinct whiff of rich whites guys trying their best - in classic White People Are Looking At You fashion - to make themselves feel good.

To be specific, the fact that Curtain Bluff Resort - accommodations (in season) ranging from $1,200-3,900US a night - exists in such close proximity to the squalor and poverty of the Old Road Village and its people is more than a little bit of a shining example of race/culture/economic disparity / discrimination at its worst (or is it, "best"?).

The fact that the OR Fund has enabled over 200 children from the area attend tennis camp - tennis camp?????? - in the US does little or nothing to dispel my feelings of the voyeuristic and condescending White People Are Looking At You variety. I mean, come on, after viewing Mel's pictures, I am suppose to believe that sending kids to tennis camp is enabling them "to realize their dreams"?

The Fund boasts that "Over the last ten years alone, the Fund has sent to the US ... 15 to universities and six for medical help." That's a "stunning" .6 children per year for medical help and 1.5 children per year to university - how very very white of them.

With a little word substitution, Sebastien Boncy's comment about "The people sipping wine and spending money at most Hugo openings (substitute, "while looking at Mel's pictures") are highly unlikely to have any significant knowledge of Nigeria (substitute, "the Old Road Village") or even first-hand knowledge of being part of the black-beans-for-dinner-three-nights-in-a-row club ...' seems to be highly appropriate here. I must also state that I am getting more than a little weary of hearing rich white guys and other people of privilege tell me, as is stated in one of the book's introductory pieces, about the "dignity" and "pride" they see in people who live in poverty and squalor as the result of discrimination of one kind or another.

Pictures that evidence the lives of people who live in poverty and squalor as the result of discrimination of one kind or another can present a powerful indictment of those conditions when the pictures are made with care, sensitivity, and a sense of compassion and for the most part Mel's pictures appear to be convincingly so conceived. For that I applaud both his pictures and his efforts.

Unfortunately, I can not say the same for the Old Road Fund. Indeed, some good works is better than no good works, but, as evidenced by Mel's pictures, it seems that very few of the people of the Old Road Village are on the road to being able to realizing their dreams as the result of the OR Fund efforts.

In closing, let me again borrow, with a little word substitution (underlined), from Sebastien Boncy:

This is not about Mel Digiacomo or his book/pictures really. It’s about the necessity for dialogue about issues of race/culture/economic disparity / discrimination. It’s about remembering that systematic race/culture/economic disparity / discrimination is hidden in every aspect of our contemporary lives and it is very disturbing for any concerned marginalized out there when people are too quick to close down that avenue of discussion.

Nowhere in this book, is there a hint of dialogue / discussion about issues of race/culture/economic disparity / discrimination. Unless, of course, you assume - and assume you must since there is not a statement of intent / artist statement nor a single caption in the book - that Mel's pictures constitute that dialogue - a point on which he does not enlighten us (other than perhaps letting the pictures speak for themselves) which only serves to support Boncy's contention about ....

... the unpredictable lives of images and how good intentions are often the least of all factors ...

... in how pictures are perceived and understood.

*the picture of the young girl in the white dress/hat (communion / confirmation dress?) is perhaps a perfect visual metaphor for the voyeuristic and condescending notion of White People Are Looking At You - the main and secondary subjects are black and lurking there in the white glare of the tv screen is the picture maker (Mel's a "white people", albeit of Sicilian descent).

That said, of all the pictures in the book, this is the one I would most like to have on my wall. It is a tremendously powerful picture on many levels, not the least of which is the manner in which it makes one contemplate the aforementioned White People Are Looking At You conundrum.

man & nature # 285-88 ~ another Saturday, November 14th triptych

Remnants of old NYS Rt. 28 ~ near McKever, NY • click to embiggen
Remnants of old NYS Rt. 28 ~ near McKever, NY • click to embiggenDuring the autumn after the leaves are on the ground, remnants of the old NYS Rt. 28 become visible in places along the new Rt. 28. The new Rt. 28 isn't all that "new" - the old Rt. 28 was replaced by the new road in the 70s.

In most places the old Rt. 26 is well along the road to reverting back to nature but in other places it is still in use, albeit in a dirt road reincarnation. That's because the old road goes to places that the new one doesn't. In a very few instances and in very short stretches, the old road is still maintained as a paved road in order to service some permanent residences that were previously on the "main" (old Rt.28) highway.

In seasons when most autumn glimpses of the road are obscured by leaves or snow, one can still signs of the road in the ever-present remnants of the old telephone / electric poles that are still standing along the old route as evidenced in the above picture. In that picture you can notice both the really old poles on the left side of the road and their "newer" replacements on the right. Both are long out of use.

The old Rt. 28 was the road that I traveled on in the back seat of my parent's car on our way to our annual Adirondack summer vacation. As I travel the new Rt. 28 - which is often as it a big part the one and only highway that traverses the Adirondacks - the occasional glimpses of the old Rt. 28 that are on view during any season, always trigger a flood of memories of time spent on the old Rt. 28.