Chapter 2 focusses on artists who tell stories with their photographs. Either as retellings of pre-existing stories, or artwork or more open ended narratives. This type of photography is also referred to as 'tableau'.
Philip-Lorca diCorcia appears in this chapter also for his work where he essentially creates scenes or stories for real life characters he works with.
In many instances the photographs involve significant setup and involvement from large teams of people. Gregory Crewdson would appear to be one of the most extreme examples of this, with highly complex, elaborate and extremely engaging and engrossing sets.
However, there are notable exceptions to this. Christopher Stewart shot a series which appear to be staged but aren't setup at all. As such I don't really get why his work is included in this chapter? Interestingly, his shot included in the chapter is probably my favourite of the chapter....
The story telling often gives the photographs a fabled aspect and there are common themes at play such as childhood, religion. But these themes are often dealt with in an ironic and/or dark way.
The photographs don't seem as pointless as I found some to be in the first chapter, but I still struggled to find many photographs that really grabbed my attention. However, this may be partly due to the size of the photographs in the book (the technical aspects of presenting the work to the viewer including context, format, surface and size are clearly considerations for the artists), and also the fact that only 1 shot of each photographer is included. I think I need to study some of them a bit more closely to see if I get more from them on closer inspection.
Amend - 24/11
Started trying to read a bit more about Jeff Wall who is quoted as being a major proponent of tableau photography. I came across an article in a series called "Best Shot" in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/may/05/photography-jeff-wall-best-shot). It's an interview with Jeff Wall where he talks about his (you guessed it,.... ) best shot.
The photograph to me looks quite unassuming. Candid even. But it was actually planned for over a year. The room was created specifically for it and it was taken at a specific time of year. One of the women in the shot does live in the flat, but only because she was asked to do so by the photographer.
There is not much in the article which would seem to state why Jeff Wall thought the shot was noteworthy, other than that it was evolved through a fairly open ended (but still constructed), creative process. So is the preperation rather than the shot, the point? I'm not sure.
I also tried to find more on Christopher Stewart (it was surprisingly difficult to find much information). The shots I did find all had the same staged feel, even though they actually weren't. However, I guess it depends on what is meant by staged? If the subjects are being themselves, doing what they would be doing even if the photographer was not there, is it staged? But we all behave differently if we know someone is about to take a photograph.
Tom Hunter takes photographs tell (or recreate), stories about the people around him in Hackney. If I understand correctly he wants to imbue the people with a sense of value, beauty, character and even reality which the mainstream press and it's reportage photography was robbing them of. A lot of his work recreates classical scenes in order to help this strategy.
I don't really see how Rut Blees Luxemburg's work fits into the tableau genre. There doesn't seem to be anything particularly constructed here and as the shots are usually without people and often without anything that could be considered a prop, I'm not sure how she fits in. However, her nighttime photography does have a subtle narrative quality to it - but more than that of most other photographers? I'm not sure. Irrespective, I find a number of her shots quite compelling
No comments:
Post a Comment