An imaginary assignment (and a real study visit)
You have to choose between two portfolios of work for a competition. The competition is a global award for photography and sustainability and the theme this year is ‘Power’. Do you choose the portfolio by Daniel Beltra, Spill, that includes this image:
Or would you chose the series ‘When it Changed‘ by Joel Sternfeld which includes this image:
This is part of the challenge facing the jury of the Prix Pictet this year and I think the two images illustrate the scale of that challenge. The first image clearly has a visceral impact, an apparently pure environment is being despoiled as a result of humanity’s greed and incompetence and our attempts to constrain the damage look pathetic. The second image is more subtle, it draws our attention to the fact that change, if it comes, will be as a result of long, tiring, potentially boring meetings. You need to know some of the back story – who are the actors is this drama? And if you look for more than a few moments, you see that it is men discussing the future of mankind, the women listen or take notes.
So which would you choose and do you believe that photographs can effect change?
The 2012 Prix Pictet is announced on 10 October and the shortlisted work will be on show at the Saatchi Gallery from then until 28 October. The OCA is organising a study visit to the exhibition on Saturday 20 October, starting at 11am. We are still confirming the tutors who will be involved, but we are expecting a good student turnout. To book your free place email enquiries@oca-uk.com
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Fascinating dilemma
If you stick literally to the theme of POWER, I would go with the 2nd image because it is generally men in suits who enable events like that pictured in the first image to occur. In my humble opinion I don’t see either of them as particularly difficult or challenging photographs to take, (if you have access to a helicopter that is or the credentials to enter this sort of meeting) although have to admit to the more visually shocking appeal of the first due to its subject matter. It is an image that tells us directly what it is about- spilt oil burning on the sea held back by the flimsiest of barriers, that may or may not hold. The second image requires us to have political thoughts and some understanding of bureaucracy and its achievements and failures, I think it might make a difference if we know who these particular people are or if they are at a particularly crucial event. The decision between these two would be made I assume on whether this is really about the visual image and its impact or whether the judges are looking for a more cerebral interpretation.
I think I disagree, and that skill and subtlety are evident in both.
I get the sense of fragility from the oil picture, the fragility of power, harnessed precariously as it is and being the source of wealth (power), energy (power) and politics (power); how tenuous this is. The second picture defines power as it is these days in the hands of the corporate few, exclusive and expressing strength (power) to the outsiders trying to get in. I think the second image; it speaks to how power is held, disseminated, abused and wielded.
I wish I could still believe that photographs can effect change but I fear that I don’t. I do, however, think that images can reinforce people’s formed or nascent opinions and that might make them do something to try to effect change. Preaching to the converted is not a waste of time, far from it.
As to which portfolio…it all depends on the rest of the images, the point of a portfolio is that it is the sum of the parts but if the two images give the flavour of the rest than I am glad I am not making the choice!
One can see the rest …
http://www.prixpictet.com/
My favourite is perhaps Guy Tillim’s fallen statue!?
I think such images can inform us about the way the world is which gives us a more informed chance to change the word; they do not change the world directly.
There are more there—but not all of the submissions until sometime in September.
Tillman’s statue and his other view show the transient mutability of power. And whilst I agree they provide a window to gain insight, they also prick our conscience about how we delivered these tools of control, and how we will likely passively observe the transfer of this power to other foreign powers. The consequence is we will surely watch the inevitable cycle of deprivation continue, powerless to intercede. I am afraid I agree with Peter, that we have little chance to change the world by photography, by words or maybe even by deeds.
I agree. I believe that photography/art generally has the power to confirm a bias one way or another but with some rare exceptions like Guernica, has little impact on actually changing people’s views.I think this is particularly true of political art.
Do you agree that a study of the ‘art audience’, ie people who regularly attend art galleries/reviews would tend to confirm an existent bias among these individuals anyway?
Oh, and the first image is infinitely more powerful if one considers the subject matter, it’s intended effect, and the sheer visual impact of the oil on fire. It is an effective and engaging photograph, more direct and memorable.
The second image has a confused narrative – are we dealing with feminist issues or environmental ones? It lacks conceptual bite and is a little boring visually.
I would have used black and white prints. Colour in this image serves no purpose and a more graphic/stark monotone image would have been more interesting and arresting. It would also convey a sense of time and the lack of consensus that blights environmental action.
Personally I would choose the second image, it is more subtle and coming from a feminist background makes me extremely cross so has an impact at that level.
As to whether photography can promote change, I think yes. Photographs of the Vietnam War certainly brought events to public awareness and had a political impact. The same can be said of animal vivisection, environmental events and I remember with horror even now seeing the pictures of gas chambers at Belsen and Auschwitz at school 45 years ago. I certainly hope that has helped changed our attitude to war. Sometimes sadly I doubt it.
Yes, I guess Sternfield’s image would make a feminist angry but to me it shows a valuable feminine quality, the ability to listen, something that men in power seem unable to do.
You see listening, I see ignoring. Three outsiders that can only observe or listen to where the power is held, in a contemptuous camera.
Obviously I’m still feeling a bit cynical as i find myself thinking at least they’re not shown serving tea and cakes. Then I go on to wonder how many female photographers are on the short list and how many female judges are on the panel…(the answer is that they are significantly under represented) then I find myself wondering if a female photographer would photograph this subject in either of these 2 ways….that’s why I looked up the (3 out of 10) female photographers that are on the short list…!
There are more images on the links Gareth has supplied, in which women are photographed as conference participants in the same way that men are.
I find the photographs of the oil spill far too beautiful for the subject matter, I don’t know what the full portfolio contains but the samples on the link have a large number of very beautiful overhead shots counterposed with only one of oiled birds. The helicopter shots seem to flatten the oil slick making it abstract and beautiful I don’t find them at all visceral, quite the opposite in fact.
I would question whether any global prize in photography can ever do anything to improve things on the sustainability front, from a cynical viewpoint I might wonder whether it actually encourages photographers to jet around the world making images which are unlikely to change anyone’s behaviour in any way other than to encourage other photographers to do the same thing 🙁
If I was voting on the 2 images I’d vote Joel Sternfeld but there are other shortlisted candidates and on the basis of the samples on the prix pictet list I’d like to see more of
Rena Effendi’s work.
I’m still battling to understand even a little of the concept about the sublime and landscape—and willing to be shot down in flames, or led in a different direction, or given some insight, or whatever—but here’s my tuppence worth. [And this may be hijacking the original intent of the thread—for that I apologise.]
Anne—you mention that the oil spill images are too beautiful for the subject matter. But isn’t that part of it? At the Liz Well’s lecture that I attended—and hardly understood—she mentioned that part of the strength of the images by Su Grierson is that while the composition is seductive, it is the content that is repulsive. And found this was similar when I visited the Burtynsky exhibition—that the composition and colours in the image were far more beautiful than the content deserved. [There was also a photographer who did a series for Oxfam recently where the images of the people were more like a fashion shoot—and he got a fair amount of flak for that. BTW—if anyone knows who I am referring to, could they let me know because I have forgotten and have been trying to find it recently.]
Anyway, I digress. What I mean to say is ‘because the subject matter is ugly, do we have to depict it as ugly’; and ‘have we become so used to seeing ugly as ugly’ that we are now immune to it; and by adopting a different approach, can we not ‘fool’ the public into seeing the subject matter with different eyes?
So I’ve gone completely off-topic; and maybe I should have posted this in the student forum? I miss having a group of people to bounce my ideas off…!
On the Oxfam photographer could you be thinking of Alejandro Chaskielberg Vicki?
Gareth—thank you!! Yes, that is the one I was thinking off—although looking at them now they are slightly less fashiony than I somehow ‘remembered’—but they are still this ‘different’ approach which makes us look more than we might have looked if they had been the more familiar.
But, cannot believe that it was on We are OCA that I first saw those images—in a time before I realised the need to record everything in my log!
The way I understand the sublime is that it isn’t beauty – they’re not the same thing and they effect us differently.
In my experience it is very hard to have any sense of the sublime on a computer monitor:-(
Anyway my comment was my personal view which I explained the reasons for – perhaps other people do find them sublime?
Anne
I’m really sorry if you thought that I was making an attack on your personal opinion—that was not my intention at all. I’m just still trying to join the dots here about all this stuff. Maybe I was not that clear.
It was not my intention to say that the image, or any of the others that I mentioned were examples of the sublime—I was saying that I do not understand this whole concept of the sublime, and that this type of image was mentioned by Liz Wells in her lecture: “Beyond Documentary—Currencies of the post-industrial sublime”.
I was also not equating sublime with beauty. I’d sort off moved on to the next thread in my head by then—the fact that you had said that the photographs of the oil spill were too beautiful for the subject matter. But I guess my two thoughts ran into each other in the post.
Sorry for any confusion caused.
No I didn’t think that Vicki, We’re probably both confused. I was just wondering if Beltra’s images are meant to be sublime? I don’t find them so at the moment but that doesn’t mean no-one else would, I might just be in a non-sublime kind of mood.
Last time I tried to read up on the sublime for some reason or other, I think there was a helpful(ish) article on Oxford Art Online. I imagine Burtynsky is meant to be sublime ? I didn’t go to that study day though and haven’t really looked into his work more closely than neccessary as its really not my kind of thing.
One aspect of the sublime is that the magnitude of the thing (whatever it is) engulfs you.
Maybe Peter has some reading suggestions on it;-)
Edmund Burke’s “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful” is the classic text !!
Hey Amano
You were with me at the lecture—so you know if I did not understand that, there’s no way I’m going to make sense of Burke’s treatise. Now if someone wrote an idiots guide, that might set me off in the right direction! 😉
I think that Kant rather than Burk is more relevant to Modern and Post-modern ideas of the sublime along with Schopenhauer and Hegel. Francois Leotard has discussed the concept and the book Beauty by James Kirwan (out of print!) might be useful. A version of the Kant treatis Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime is here
Thanks Peter. Have downloaded from google books; but not sure if I’ll make any sense of that either!
Liz Wells also mentioned Kant and Descartes but seemed most stimulated in Burke; I find them all interesting but not easy to take onboard – philosophy needs time to absorb unless one only has an intellectual interest in it.
Liz Wells also mentioned William Morris’s lecture of 1877 “The Lesser Arts” also Thoreau’s “Walden”
The link to William Morris’ lecture on The Lesser Arts …
http://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1882/life1.htm
(Birmingham 1882)
@Amano
Thanks for that link—have downloaded it too!
Well I guess Morris is a bit old fashioned but he is the kind of artist I admire; his socialist outlook from before socialism became the political movement it is today, I find refreshing.
There is another book …
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Sublime-New-Critical-Idiom/dp/0415268486/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_cart_4
This is a compendium put together by Philip Shaw as part of the New Critical Idiom series and mentions all the above (Burke, Kant etc and more such as Coleridge). Wonder if Peter has a view on this book … !!?
Not looked at it I have to confess.
Going from the preview of the two images shown i am pleased that i am not one of the judges involved,they have a difficult task ahead.
From the portfolios of the shortlisted photographers, this looks as if it will be a very wide ranging exhibition. I’ve applied for a place.
An interesting talk prior to this study day …
http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/shop/product/category_id/1/product_id/1426?session_id=134797898034bc2f9927d7230dc86ce5870e01400b
I can’t make it but would had I could!
The art of journalism is to posit facts and provoke questions and elicit answers. The “assignment” here is to chose between two photographs, when in fact both are required to generate the attention necessary to probe the issue as to where change actually occurs. I would say that the response to the assignment is that the job is already done… it takes both images to sell the story.