It's not about the Manet…
This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.
Saturday saw an OCA study visit to the V&A exhibition Light from the Middle East and the Laura Letinsky show Ill Form and Void Full at the Photographers’ Gallery. We were ably supported by tutors Simon Barber and Robert Enoch, who on his first outing as a study visit leader gave a passionate introduction to Laura Letinsky’s work and then repeated it equally passionately for a second group. I’ll leave further reactions to the visit to students who hopefully will post links to their learning logs in the comments below.
I want to concentrate on just one image for the Light from the Middle East exhibition, Raeda Saadeh’s ‘Who will make me real?’ There was a wealth of fascinating work in the V&A show but this image demanded my attention and provoked so many thoughts and questions I thought I would try and follow a few threads here.
Firstly, the work quotes directly from Manet’s Olympia. In doing so Saadeh is following in the path of Jeff Wall whose Picture for Women quotes Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère and has inspired articles and more lately a book.
However for me, the Manet link less interesting that the broader questions posed by the work. Olympia itself was the latest in a series of images of the female nude in western art (those interested might like to look at these comparisons and there is certainly plenty on the web to read about Olympia). I think there are at least two other threads work pursuing:
The title: ‘Who will make me real?’ could be a reference to the John Berger’s assertion in Ways of Seeing, that “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves…she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight”. Is it the looking at Saadeh that makes her real? Or is it a reference to her status as an Arab with Israeli citizenship – a status frequently ignored in the football team approach to considering and reporting the Palestinian situation (for more read this piece on the Contemporary Practices website)
Secondly, consider the papier-mâché costume worn by Saadeh, here the V&A website description is illuminating: ‘Saadeh is encased in Palestinian newspapers, which conceal her body from neck to ankle while revealing its contours. The covering is both flimsy and apparently immobilising, resembling a papier-mâché body cast. Any sensuality implied by her pose is disrupted by the harsh realities reported in the newspaper.’
A breathtaking photograph and one I cannot stop thinking about.
52 thoughts on “It's not about the Manet…”
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Clever title 🙂
A really interesting and varied visit. My thanks to all who attended as it’s always good to get varied opinions.
I’ve recorded my thoughts about the visit on my learning log
Thanks Dave
I notice your refer to Saadeh’s defiant gaze and this is one of the aspects of the photograph which I found striking. One of the reasons I feel is the scale of the work – the gaze is visible in the small image above, but the impact is dramatically greater when experienced on the gallery wall.
It was a really enjoyable and fruitful day—both exhibitions were interesting for different reasons—so once again thanks to the OCA for organising this visit. I got far more from the ‘Light from the Middle East’ exhibition than I anticipated—and have made a couple of very short posts about it on my blog. A more in-depth one to come at some stage this week.
The Letinsky show was very different from what I have seen before—and I can vouch for Robert Enoch’s enthusiasm and passion—and I was in the second group.
Gareth, the link to the Contemporary Practices website is really useful—and your explanation of what drew you to ‘Who will Make Me Real’. I have some other thoughts on this image—but they need to mull a while. The image that really caught my eye was Mitra Tabrizian, ‘Tehran 2006’—and I can see Jeff Wall links in that too—although it might be because I am looking closely at him at the moment—and reading the David Campany book you mentioned—still hard to get my head round how a person can write a whole book about one image even if it is only a thin book!
Thanks once again—and if anyone has not seen the exhibition yet—I’d recommend you try make time for a visit. I bought the catalogue too—which is very well produced!
Forget the Manet (and a lot of that was very forgettable ) and the V & A. I went to see the Man Ray and was hugely disappointed. Man Ray seems to be something of a poseur whose main talent was self publicity (a la Andy Warhol). There are a few portraits of merit amongst a lot of mediocre ones. Julia Margaret Cameron was much more interesting.
Come on you photographers: disagree.
Initially, I was disappointed by the Man Ray but on reflection came to admire the images for the dexterity of the photographer. It was an A list of subjects (some of them I had not heard of) which is to be expected at the NPG who are primarily a portrait and not a photographic gallery, but Man Ray knew what he was doing. Many of the compositions are superb and he was constantly innovating! A lot of his most important work was there … including 3 portraits of Picasso at different times of his life.
Surely worth a visit but don’t expect instant gratification – Man Ray came from the world of surrealism and Dadaism rather than that of the more superficial magazines such as Vogue who commissioned him.
“Who will make me real” Is it a reference to how the media constructs our ideas of feminity ?
I think it could anned and of course there is no reason why there cannot be multiple references. The verse is worth quoting in full:
Was I born of a lie
in a country that did not exist?
Am I one tribe at the confluence of two opposing bloods?
But perhaps I am not.
But of course I am not, your equations prove it,
even while lowering my voice I do not hear the sea,
nor do I hear the light
Who will make me real?
Threatened, therefore being,
Fearful, therefore frightening
Erect, therefore a flame tree
Who will make me real?
Lebanon: Poems of Love and War by Nadia Tueni
Context is everything! the start of the poem changes it. Also the content of the newspapers is another unknown to me as they may be nothing at all like ours.
True indeed anned. For those interested in learning more about Raeda Saadeh’s work there is a short monograph. I have just got it from Amazon this morning so have not read a great deal of it but it looks fascinating
“Context is everything!” … one thing I learnt from this day was that knowing something about the photographs beforehand really helped to appreciate them. My knowledge came from the introduction in the catalogue rather than newspaper reviews!
Also the context of knowing about Olympia, the Bechers, etc. probably comes in handy. Newspaper reviews can be quite/very rubbish since they don’t always seem that interested in informing and enlightening. 🙂
The V+A write, “Any sensuality implied by her pose is disrupted by the harsh realities reported in the newspaper.”
Err … well I can’t read the newspaper because I don’t know Arabic but this sounds a bit over the top. The newspaper prevents us from see her nudity just as often newspapers stop us from seeing the facts and the truth they suggest because of a particular slant that the newspaper adopts.
The newspaper prevents us from seeing her sensuality by it’s physical nature not it’s content!
Thanks for this post Gareth! Something to contemplate as I write my blog .. to be posted soon.
I like that idea Amano
The newspapers were interesting, not knowing what was written, has that some hidden message or truth. Being practical I wondered if it just a paper mache covering, in which case did she have it applied there and wait (it seems to follow her contours) or was it just a cover, previously made that she slipped under.
Not knowing the Manet reference I thought it just posed a lot of unanswered questions and as such made me want to look into it more.
I think there were many pictures where a western view would have a different interpretation and this was one. A Middle Easterner would be able to read the papers and so would take their meaning into account when interpreting the picture. We don’t have those clues. Gareth told me the content of the newspapers and it affected my judgement, I can imagine the impact if I could read them myself.
Ah … so the newspapers contained particular references … I wonder what those were? I was not aware that their content was relevant.
How does anyone feel about Taysir Batniji watchtowers project. Was he right to chose a project that he couldn’t actually photograph. I felt there was a lack of ownership because of the indirectness. Thoughts?
It struck me as ethically bankrupt. The copyright is not his, the idea belongs ultimately to the Bechers and the risks were contracted out.
For me it was among the least convincing of the pictures on show
I completely agree, my notes read “So? I’m not sure what they are doing here!” He didn’t even take the photos.
I really don’t see why contracting out the taking of the images makes any difference to the work. This is an art work not a photography course exercise after all and the reference to the Bechers work brings a sense of irony and a historic reference to the piece.
Much work is being made with found images, Mishka Henner for example, under the broad umbrella of ‘photography’ and no one is concerned if an image is printed by someone else and so often the shutter is pressed by an assistant anyway, so where is the difference?
I found this one of the more powerful pieces.
The fact that the artist had to get someone else to make the photographs is a reminder of the ominousness of these buildings which loom out at one with much more drama than those of the Bechers.
My thoughts at the time were about the risk in photographing sensitive military installations and had the artist considered (or how he felt) about delegating the risk.
I agree (with Dave in case this post turns up in the wrong place). Contracting out printing or a press of the shutter is not the same as contracting out being shot at. In one case it doesn’t really matter – in the other its potentially life or death.
For better or worse this ‘artistic’ choice informs my reading of the image.
Batniji to whom these photos are attributed, is a Gaza-born Palestinian and therefore not able to travel to the West Bank. Should a Palestinian who wants to make an artistic statement about Israel be denied doing so?
About the aesthetics he says of the photos, “They are out of focus, clumsily framed, and imperfectly lit. In this territory one can not install the heavy equipment of the Bechers or take time to frame the perfect position, let alone afford to wait for the ideal conditions.”
Let’s look at it in another way, an architect designs a building, but he doesn’t involve with laying bricks. So is it his work or not? However, most people tends to value the design but not putting together the building, so the architect got his name heard but not the brick layer.
However, I do find the idea of contracting out the work very strange. I think it is because the medium is photography and traditionally it is a one-man-show. But then this “photographic world” is expanding and certain things become less clear. For example, for Gregory Crewdson’s work, do you consider him as a photographer? He doesn’t operate the camera himself. The other question then, can we hire a professional, say fashion photograph to shoot our assignment, and hand it to OCA? Well, we can still provide the idea of the shoot but not executing it ourselves. But is it still our work?
The point here is that the photographer was prevented by the politics of the region from making the images himself, this sems to me to be a part of the work giving it another leayer of meaning.
I had assumed from the start that was its primary meaning. My problem is that it is so obvious it scarcely seems worth risking someone’s life for. Is any art that valuable? Would we still accept his right to be identified as the photographer if someone had died as a result? Or would we feel differently?
If he was portrayed as the curator of these images would they still be as powerful? They would certainly feel more honest to me.
“My problem is that it is so obvious it scarcely seems worth risking someone’s life for.”
Do we know this is the case?! What prevented large format or tripod photography is that it would have been noticed and presumably prevented while snapshots would not attract attention.
I am not sure that there is an implication of ‘risk of life’. Batniji, by accident of birth, residence and the convoluted politics of the Middle East simply is prevented from access to the West Bank.
I agree we cannot know the exact risks the actual photographers faced, but experience suggests that a Palestinian caught photographing an Israeli military installation is unlikely to be sent on his way with a cheery wave.
Whatever the circumstances the images have clearly stimulated an interesting ethical discussion, so in that sense they are more successful than my initial assessment.
A very interesting and, for me at least, intellectually exhausting day (and I mean that as a positive. There was plenty to see and lots of thoughtful insights. Thanks especially to Gareth for his Manet insights and Robert for his enthusiastic inspiration into reading Letinsky. My blog is here.
Great write up Chris. ‘Jama Fna Angels’ was also one of my favourites and you are quite right that it has to be seen full size on the wall. There is an interesting illustration of how web reproduction is potentially misleading if you compare the first three reproductions here
Hajjaj’s work creates a collision between Arabian and Western culture, blurring the line that has scarred us since 2001. The ‘Jama Fna Angels’ group portrait is strong. Though some of his work clearly reflects fashion/style photography’s ‘allure’ and ‘cool’ there is a Matisse-like play on colour and pattern in some of it. A good photographer to study if you’re doing the Colour Assignment in the Art of Photography!
The reference to Manet’s Olympia is resonant because that is a painting of a prostitute. Saadeh is at the same time appropriating/using as she experiences being used/appropriated. It is a strange act of defiance.
It also brings up the question of ‘who creates identity/history/reality?’ The newspapers over her body suggests more than oppression, but a sort of pressure from outside that both conceals and shapes the perception of self.
I’m not sure about this reference to Manet’s Olympia …
Manet’s prostitute lies in a much more relaxed position, she looks more comfortable … Saadeh’s legs are not crossed while the position of her hands is different … her pose is awkward.
In the introduction to the catalogue, Weiss refers to a photograph from c.1893 by Comtesse de Croix-Mesnil entitled “Portrait of a Mahometan Woman”
That’s a useful link Amano and of course the image references a tradition of portrayal. I think the Manet reference becomes more obvious when the image is seen as part of the body of Saadeh’s work. This link to an image of exhibition of Sadeehs’ work gives a bit more context.
I guess it the gaze that connects Saadeh’s image with that of Manet’s Olympia – yet the nudity of the latter is in opposition to the covering up of the former …
I think you will find that the link is much more general than this discussion suggests. The form of the ‘odalisque’ is common throughout western art history and Manet’s ironic version is probably the one that a contemporary viewer is most likely to be reminded of here. It is not a mater of a direct transcription but a reference containing so much more than the sum of its parts. By nodding in the direction of Manet et al we have all that these images stand for as well as what is directly in the image before us.
I found something much earlier which is the original sleeping lady artifact discovered in Malta, believed to represent fertility, forerunner of Mary?
The way I was introduced to Olympia (by a female art historian? if that’s relevant or not!) was that in it Manet broke with tradition because Olympia met the gaze of the viewer rather than having a demure submissive kind of demeanour. I’m sure this was described to me as Manet trying to make her “real” rather than portraying an imaginary female who existed purely to make male viewers feel better about themselves. This female wasn’t submitting demurely
Knowing that changes how I see the photograph (and title)
Berger’s pointed statement forces us to notice a phenomenon that may be both cultural (as in the case of the odalisque tradition of “men looking at women being looked at”) or instinctive. Notice how the women in Hajjaj’s photographs have both a cultural identity and an instinctual one. They want to be traditional and cultural (represented by their clothing) because that has meaning for them, at the same time they also want to be beautiful and attractive women (represented by their make-up, poses and alluring looks).
When it comes to being ‘real’ we may find much role-playing is going on – even at a psychological level, creating an uncertainty of being. (I think it was the architect of Disneyland that said, “People don’t want to be what they are, they want to play roles!”) But actually, this is THE SEARCH. By creating art freely and imaginatively, we often bring up these unconscious associations, which can be surprising and uncomfortable, but help us to a more truthful sense of being and living.
I suppose you might also say that Olympia looks out at us as though we were her client, and so makes us complicit in her prostitution.
That would be the case if the newspapers weren’t blocking our view anyway.
My blog about Middle East exhibition is here
Just to add my take on both exhibitions, they seem to have created a great deal of debate.
Light from the Middle East
Ill Form and Void
I found both exhibitions interesting and especially the debates we had ourselves about what the images mean. Letinsky’s was particularly relevant as I’ve been doing still life for one of my projects. Also the different planes and how she made the images sort of look like 3D. I am wondering how it was done.
As an aside I took the No 10 bus back to Kings Cross, no squashing on the tube, plenty of room, heaven after a busy day!
Have a look at this Aperture interview: http://www.aperture.org/2013/01/interview-with-laura-letinsky/
If you have the space to set up a corner of a room to experiment in, you should be able to practice some of the ‘optical illusions’ that Letinsky was making with folded paper, light and shadow and viewpoint.
Also, when next in the National Portrait Gallery, have a look at Hans Holbein’s painting The Ambassador’s: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/hans-holbein-the-younger-the-ambassadors.
That strange shape leaning across the lower part of the painting is a wierd optical experiment that when viewed from the side of the painting appears to be a skull: i.e. the Vanitas connection in this painting of two men and thier possessions. Point-of-view is important in the Letinsky work at the Photog’s Gallery because it’s ‘reality’ is dependent on the single eye view of the camera.
Remember also the matte finish of the prints, that made the picture surface difficult to perceive? Indeed, those drips on some of the photos, could have been either on the print or in the picture. The shine on the fruity trees in the Light from the Middle East show exemplify the photograph as a ‘window’ onto another space. Letinsky was trying to remove the window.
Further to an exploration of Saadeh’s work – check out this performance
My thoughts are here
Letinsky to follow!
I finally got around to committing some ideas to blog…it grew..as they inevitably do…I may add more later who knows…and as yet have to tackle the second exhibition but for now am going to rest the brain cells :o)
Sorry about the delay. I meant to write it up earlier but I got tired up by projects. My blog post of the study visit is here