Tag: Exercise

Exercise—autobiographical self-portraiture

Francesca Woodman

  • American (1958–1981) photographer, largely black-and-white self-portraits.
  • Produced over 800 untitled prints. Numerous posthumous solo exhibitions, estate managed by parents.
  • Rhode Island School of Design, moved to New York in 1979 to pursue a career in photography.
  • Influenced by Surrealism and Conceptual Art, her work often featured recurring symbolic motifs such as birds, mirrors, and skulls. Medium format.

After viewing a lot of the images produced by Francesca Woodman during her brief photographic career, I don’t find much warrant for Susan Bright’s conclusion (2010) that Woodman’s work alluded “to a troubled state of mind.” It could be that Bright has chosen to concentrate on some of the darker images that Woodman produced, particularly those containing masks, those that blur her identity (sometimes by covering her face or by blurring herself through motion), or those containing eels.

Instead, I wonder if Bright is doing a sort of post hoc interpretation or confirmation bias with Woodman’s pictures, starting with the artist’s suicide and reading it back into her work. If one was not aware of how Woodman died it would be possible to see many of her images as the products of a young woman discovering the different sides of her personality, her sexuality and her humour. Not all of the self-portraits are cheery, but nor is anyone, all the time.

At the same time, I imagine that any viewer of a body of work is capable of doing just the same thing: starting with a fixed judgement about its meaning and then (not surprisingly) finding evidence for that fits.

Elina Brotherus

  • Helsinki, Finland (1972– ). M.S. in analytical chemistry, University of Helsinki in 1997. M.F.A. in photography, University of Art and Design Helsinki.
  • Member of the Helsinki School. Lives and works in Finland and France.
  • Work is primarily autobiographical. Documented infertility and “involuntary childlessness” in 2011-2015 series “Carpe Fucking Diem” and 2009-2013 “Annonciation.”

Gillian Wearing

  • Birmingham, (1963– ). Chelsea School of Art, bachelor of technology degree in art and design, 1987. BFA Goldsmiths, University of London, 1990.
  • Documents everyday life through photography and video. Individual identity, the private and the public spaces. Distorted identity, role playing, masks.
  • Work with strangers. Confessional art (Signs). Mock anthropology.

Reflection

My thinking about self-portraiture has changed over the last few years, perhaps as a result of the learning journey I’ve been on with the OCA. I admit that I suspected self-portraits were often a sign of narcissism or self-obsession, but I better appreciate that there can be a number of motives for using oneself as a model: the wish to explore questions of personal or group identity; delving into psychology; using oneself as a proxy for humans as a whole; or practical issues of cost or access to models (I understand that Cindy Sherman often photographs all through the night, making minute change after minute change to makeup, costumes and sets as part of her process—this wouldn’t necessarily lend itself to working with live models). So yes, an element of self-indulgence could be present in self-portraiture, but not necessarily. (Is an element of self-indulgence present in every of art? Why create at all, except for some satisfaction of the self?)

After looking through dozens of images created by Woodman, Brotherus and Wearing, I am intrigued. The three have not created Instagram selfies to sell a product, or sex, or their own ego brand, but are clearly involved in pursuing something more serious. It’s not always clear to me what that something is, but I know that I would like to see more, rather than less. If anything, I admire their vision, drive and imagination, and wonder how I might approach my own self-portrait for A3 (I have an idea already).

I am not entirely sure what the significance of Brotherus’ nakedness is. In some cases, it may connote a vulnerability or honesty in that there is no protective layer between her, the camera and viewer. Given the attention that she pays to clothing and props in many of her self-portraits, I wonder if her deliberate choice of when to be naked has an anonymising function: clothes are often markers of age, status, occupation, etc., so removing them compels the viewer to see Brotherus as a broadly representing woman/women (if sex/gender is what she is trying to convey) or simply as a human. In one interesting series, Brotherus appears clothed beside an older, naked man (identified as her teacher), while she appears naked in two images with people identified as her students—I wondered if the progression from clothed student to naked teacher implied a gradual ‘unveiling’ of the artist within, or if there was some sort of transference from teacher to student… or perhaps both.

References

Bright, S. (2010) Auto Focus: The Self-Portrait in Contemporary Photography.  Cited in Boothroyd, S. (2014)  Photography 1: Context and Narrative.  Open College of the Arts, p.74.

Elina Brotherus (s.d.) At: http://www.elinabrotherus.com (Accessed on 2 October 2019a)

Elina Brotherus (s.d.) At: https://martinasbaek.com/artists/elina-brotherus/ (Accessed on 2 October 2019b)

Francesca Woodman | artnet (s.d.) At: http://www.artnet.com/artists/francesca-woodman/ (Accessed on 26 September 2019)

Francesca Woodman – 97 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy (s.d.) At: https://www.artsy.net/artist/francesca-woodman (Accessed on 26 September 2019)

Francesca Woodman Photography, Bio, Ideas (s.d.) At: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/woodman-francesca/ (Accessed on 26 September 2019)

Gillian Wearing (s.d.) At: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/Gillian-Wearing (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

Gillian Wearing | artnet (s.d.) At: http://www.artnet.com/artists/gillian-wearing/ (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

Gillian Wearing – 29 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy (s.d.) At: https://www.artsy.net/artist/gillian-wearing (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

Gillian Wearing Art, Bio, Ideas (s.d.) At: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/wearing-gillian/ (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

LensCulture, E.B.| (s.d.) Elina Brotherus. At: https://www.lensculture.com/elina-brotherus (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

Photographs tell as much about the observer as they do about their author.« (s.d.) At: https://www.collectorsagenda.com/en/in-the-studio/elina-brotherus (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

Searching for the Real Francesca Woodman (s.d.) At: https://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/7-francesca-woodman/ (Accessed on 26 September 2019)

Tate (s.d.) Finding Francesca – Look Closer. At: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/francesca-woodman-10512/finding-francesca (Accessed on 26 September 2019)

Tate (s.d.) Gillian Wearing CBE born 1963. At: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/gillian-wearing-cbe-2648 (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

Eyewitnesses?

Although a few years old now, one of the best examples of citizen journalism exposing abuse of power in Canada was during the 2010 G-20 Summit in Toronto. During the Summit, the Toronto Police Services corralled more than 1,000 demonstrators, journalists, spectators and passers-by and detained them in Canada’s largest-ever mass arrest. The Police were widely criticized for the action and the subsequent treatment of detainees, with some labelling the holding centre “Torontonamo Bay” (Kassam, 2016).

Although professional journalists were among those detained, many others claimed amateur journalist status and were responsible for some of the most immediate pictures of what was happening from inside the cordon. The distinction between professional and amateur journalists is an important one:

  • professionals generally have some kind of training, a professional code and file stories via an accredited media outlet;
  • amateur / citizen journalists may or may not have had training, have no code and may “publish” their reports via unaccredited media.

In short, whether we agree with them or not, professional journalists generally aspire to some sort of objectivity in reporting and work for a media outlet whose views are known (Basen, 2010). Amateur / citizen journalists, on the other hand, may have no such standards and may be acting on behalf of a known organization, an unknown actor or simply for themselves.

Now that everyone is equipped with a portable recording and transmitting device, the promise of citizen journalism is that it offers an immediate and unvarnished reflection of the reality of what is taking place around them—the lack of professionalism of the citizen journalist becomes a virtue and viewers gain access to unmediated truth.

With the current 24-hour news cycle, it is impossible for professionals to be on the scene of every happening and amateurs are often there first to provide a window on immediate experience. This sounds tempting, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Everyone, even a citizen journalist, has a viewpoint—these viewpoints are limited at best, and skewed at worst. A prime example is Nuseir Yassin’s daily blog on Palestine (Rezk, s.d.). Yassin offers brief news and views in English on a situation that many Westerners find puzzling and does so in a way that is irenic and appealing. His ‘moderate’ views on the Israeli-Palestinian situation (both sides are at fault and their problems could be solved by greater understanding) are comforting and appealing to many, but may arise from a position of privilege that chooses to establish a moral equivalence that does not do justice to the history of the conflict. This view of the world is easily grasped, but it glosses over a lot of inconvenient details.

The fact that everyone has a viewpoint should not be a reason to ignore citizen journalism, however, for there are places where state or corporate control of the media means that the only alternative to the approved narrative will have to come from citizens (see Zhang, 2018). Perhaps the better way is to acknowledge the existence of viewpoints, including our own, and to subject all of them to scrutiny.

References

Basen, I. (2010) The new journalism and the G20 | CBC News. At: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/the-new-journalism-and-the-g20-1.938517 (Accessed on 2 June 2019)

Zhang, P. (2018) Can citizen journalism work in China? Villagers give their verdict At: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2170419/can-citizen-journalism-work-china-villagers-give-their-verdict (Accessed on 2 June 2019)

Kassam, A. (2016) ‘More than 1,000 people detained during G20 summit in Toronto can sue police’ In: The Guardian 7 April 2016 [online] At: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/06/toronto-g20-summit-police-lawsuit-civil-rights-abuses (Accessed on 2 June 2019)

Rezk, D. (s.d.) Nas Daily: Palestinian blogger delivers upbeat message to millions – but he can afford to. At: http://theconversation.com/nas-daily-palestinian-blogger-delivers-upbeat-message-to-millions-but-he-can-afford-to-106828 (Accessed on 2 June 2019)

Toronto’s tarnished image – G20: Street Level (s.d.) At: https://www.cbc.ca/canada/g20streetlevel/2010/06/torontos-tarnished-image.html (Accessed on 2 June 2019)