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D R A F T -- 12/10/07
Against Nature
Artist’s extended statement for a
photographic exhibit at the
Contents: For the most part, the photographs presented in the current exhibit owe their inspiration to a recent excursion my wife and I took to the Pacific Northwest, including the city of Victoria in British Columbia. Some earlier photographs are shown as well, these, primarily illustrating or derived from architecture, plus there is at least one so-called "abstract" architectural image that may be said to have been nurtured within the computer, itself (# 24).
Thus in some of the scenes taken directly from nature, as in the fogged-in, rather apocalyptic images of Crater Lake, or the sunlit views of Mount Rainier, it might appear that the photographer’s role is limited either to the process of aesthetic selection or to applying some technical facility that helps render the images in a pleasing or effective manner. And while this may be true – generally speaking – it should be helpful to know that the selections, the compositions, and the role of interplay between, say, light and dark might have been conceived with a passive or even an active regard for images of contemporary art – in their abstractions, minimalisms or painterly qualities – or from other sources that help us attribute an aesthetic to the forms we identify and value. Similarly, some works may have been inspired by the photographer’s years as a student of art and a teacher of art’s history, the imprint of which may have become just as indelible and unconsciously absorbed as are the forms of nature itself. For instance, the
turn-of-the-century Beaux-Arts style of San Francisco’s Palace Thus, the images in this exhibit have largely abandoned photography’s original, if self-deceptive, goal of creating two-dimensional surrogates of the observed world – where visual fidelity was held paramount. Rather, they serve as a foundation upon which an edifice may be laid that looks inward as well as outward. The ostensible goal, if there be one, lies somewhere between art and artifice, and in that sense ultimately stakes a position which might be said to be opposed to nature with respect to the notion that it is constantly revising nature in its efforts to supplant technical vision with imagination. Nature, Photography, Knowledge and Style [top] These days, photography, as an industry, is so ubiquitous and society and photographs so crucial to our knowledge system that when the average person confronts the countless images that clutter daily life, he tends to presume (or is expected to accept) that the photograph is a transparent window positioned between him (as viewer) and the world it represents – and that the photograph’s creator merely projects the world as we know it, as we would like to know it, or, given enough cynicism, how others would prefer we know it. This transcendence occurs even when the viewer is aware, and perhaps especially when the viewer is aware that photographic techniques and the photographer’s aesthetic stand between him and the image subject. On one hand, we call (and have always called) this overlay that distinguishes the primary perception from the ultimate creation, style or manner; seen cynically, it is called “spin” or bias. For this reason photographic style is sometimes thought to “obstruct” the process of relaying the world photographically. Naïve or “artless” photography among some practitioners has recently come to signify a primal truth, or a truth before art – presuming that art has no productive role in the creation of verisimilitude. John Keats’s well known quote “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” seems to polish both sides of the coin at once. Yet, among those works that plainly are intended to represent our seen world, it is unusual that they imply that they are something other, or something more than a representation of the subject that inspired the image. Thus, when we see such a photograph in, say, a nature magazine, we are expected to presume that the image fairly represents its subject – a flower, a mountain or an animal, for instance. Nonetheless, frequently we are only offered and accept caricatures or coy stereotypes made banal via overexposure or indoctrination. Nor do we automatically expect to see how the photographer interpreted or changed his subject to suit his own purposes. Cynicism is not expected. We are not routinely informed, nor are we consciously aware that the photographer planned his picture to the most minute detail – that he knew what kind of light he needed – that he worked hours before dawn to be ready at the right place and at the right time. If executed well we are generally unaware of what was done to the photograph post production. We overlook the photographer’s role and his function as director and producer of his own tableaux. He remains invisible – at least to the casual observer. Indeed, at photography’s birth it was heralded that the photograph was objective, that it did not introduce distortions and omit fact – what it seemed to be, it was. On the other hand, when we draw our attention to painting and related arts, be they contemporary or historic, we easily acknowledge the primacy of the artist’s unique style – of seeing the artist’s subject through the self-conscious filter of his own personal, cultural or historical preferences. Often, by virtue of its manner or style, a work is so uniquely individualized that it readily suggests the identity of the maker. How many people instinctively can identify works by Monet, Renoir, or Degas, etc.? Through a kind of aesthetic evolution, we no longer take their stylizations as roadblocks to viewing the natural work, as they once were. At times quite the opposite is true; in these works we prefer the stylizations and distortions to unadorned nature. The same is true in photography, of course, as when photographers develop a distinctive personal style for their "fine art." In these cases they are not "illustrators" in the nominal sense of the term. In such works the presumed relationship between the motive to illustrate and the artist’s aesthetic intention is reversed: the style and the art dominate the will to illustrate. Simply put, this is the principal distinction that separates illustrative and photojournalistic images from much so-called “fine art” photography. These distinctions lie in the dichotomy between what you see and what your mind wishes to see – between “nature” and “dream.” Moreover, we have abandoned the conceit that photography at its root is a naïve endeavor – one that projects likenesses, not human interests and values – even when the subject seems not to have been “blemished” by the artful methods of photography. Imaging and Transformations [top] The current exhibit combines nature and architectural photography – both commonly presumed to belong to the idiom that embraces mere illustration. As the photographer, my goal differs from the illustrator. I see photography as a springboard with which to create what might be called a “stylization” of content through transformations that may be imposed more or less aggressively, as warranted. Ultimately such stylizations, while derived from nature and even sometimes consistent with nature, may be categorized as “against nature” inasmuch as they serve to supplant or correct it. Most such transformations are benign and may be rooted in devices found in every modern photographer’s digital toolkit – there to “fix” what emerges from his camera. Other techniques are employed to “fix” reality or to impose entirely new visions upon reality. Still others permit the photographer to dispense altogether with any preliminary source that might be perceived as “real” or known through objective perception. A Personal Style [top] At some point along this continuum, if it is there at all, the photographer’s visual personality or personal style begins to emerge as the unconscious result of absorbing a culturally determined manner or aesthetic. One cannot pretend to know in which direction or in what way such a style may materialize. After the fact, moreover, the creator, if he attempts to describe his achievement, I'm glad to say, is in no better position than that of the critic, since any maker’s description of intent carries no special privilege. The job of critic and the job of creator when vested in a single person would seem to embody potential conflicts of interest. Observers should be encouraged to think twice about the images placed before them and be careful not put blind trust in an author’s proclamations and self-analyses. While some works may obviously have been “processed” to stamp images with culturally determined ideas and styles, in others the objective could easily have been to overlay a patently representational image with the photographer’s personal manner. It is the role of the viewer to decide whether the “alterations” are simply gratuitous, merely entertaining or whether they reveal a content exposing or suggesting an underlying point of view of real significance. I can’t deny that all works on some level embody, knowingly or not, personal perspectives. Were I to be asked what my own goal as a photographer may be, I would be caught somewhat dumbfounded since the creative act often precedes the cognitive act (if the later ever occurs). So, it is most likely would say something that seems meaningless or over-generalized on the surface, such as “to make something artful,” or more precisely put, to make “art.” But what is art in such a context? Alas, the answer to this query may point to an unarticulated subtext -- no doubt one that differs for each person for whom the question is important. For this writer (still broadly), at its root art is merely that which we isolate from our experience sometimes, among other things, to serve as a mirror (or lens) with which to enable or encourage us to see our world through the eyes of others or to allow others to see their world through the eyes of the artist – be these, for instance, visions of glory, despair, love or beauty. The above is just a “framework,” of course, but it is what is inside the frame that creates significance, reveals purpose and manifests achievement. Defining these exposes often unanswerable questions, the posing of which may only reveal the inability of words precisely to convey visual content. The Pictures [top] It is not difficult
to discern that the images in the current exhibition, “Against
One observer has noted that in the Crater Lake photos vapor and light have swept away nearly all evidence earth tectonics. In some images no land mass may be seen at all and the patterned light that filters down from the clouds plays a mercurial game upon the waters, permitting no solid and no stabile structure to be evident. The celestial fog has eroded (if only temporarily) the prevailing geometry of the land mass, leaving only destabilizing hints of potential space, dimension and form.
In real life, the view from one side of the lake to the other varies from five to six miles. As were other imposing natural formations, to its first inhabitants Crater Lake was sacred; its existence and the path to it were held secret to outsiders until well into the nineteenth century. Although large, the high altitude of its cavity protected it from sight when viewed from below. Today, it still enjoys some of its primordial isolation and is visited by relatively few tourists, at least when compared to those who visit parks such as Yosemite and Yellowstone. In contrast to the
portraits of vapor and light that characterize the Crater Lake images, the images of Mount Rainier
are seen as the epitome of mass and clarity (a
lucky day, perhaps) as they take their cue from the broadly escalating When we are in its vicinity, the mountain dominates our experience and holds us close. Famous mountaineers who have earned their stripes surmounting Everest have often adopted the nearby town of Ashford as home and make their living as guides to those who wish to be challenged by its rising presence. Moreover, Rainier serves as a training ground for future Everest climbers. One Rainier citizen told me that there are climbers who have defeated Everest and yet cannot manage to conquer “The Mountain,” as locals call it. Many other peoples have bestowed Rainier with a sacred significance. On our visit we encountered a pilgrimage of Buddhist monks who had marked Rainier as one of their consecrated sites. It is said that the physical mass of The Mountain is so overpowering and applies so much pressure on the ground below, that, literally, it floats on a pool of magma. Unusual cloud formations are not uncommon and are treated as spiritual rarities. One extreme writer attributes them to the secret visits of extraterrestrials. The geometries of the lake and the mountain, elements of the same cascading mountain range, oppose each other and offer visitors what might be described as female and male facets – the open bowl counters the protrusion of the holy mountain. Architecture in this exhibit tends to parallel what nature has wrought elsewhere. The straightforward “geometries” of nature (a word rooted in the science and mechanics of measuring the earth) force the user to acknowledge their influence on built habitations, and expose the rhythm of architecture’s primitive origins, suggestive of the evolving design of ritual human structures and functional constructions.
Consider, for example, the interior view
of New York’s
Like the Pantheon, the Guggenheim also serves to memorialize the “gods,” but, in this case, of course, they are the "deities" who have helped create our civilized world – the celebrated makers of our arts and artifacts. Speaking metaphorically, the Guggenheim Museum is a vessel – a covered protected space. Though not subterranean, at once it is a kind of kiva and suggestive of the sacred caves of our prehistoric artist ancestors and of tholoi structures – enclosed, protected round places like the so-called Treasury of Atreus in Mycenae. The Guggenheim as a centralized space was built to secure its contents while inviting, and simultaneously excluding, the outside world. In this way it defines itself as a place of privilege. Moreover, it (and all its scattered Guggenheim cousins) belong to the tradition of the kunstkammer, progenitor of the modern museum, which, by virtue of its varied holdings emblematically exerts and demonstrates the owner’s power and cultural hegemony throughout the known world. As noted before, in much the same
way Crater Lake is In contrast,
As for the images, themselves, the observer may note that most of the architectural pictures in this exhibit are not presented as views through the frame – nor do they faithfully document how the works actually appear to the observer. The familiar silvery patina of the Disney Concert Hall, omnipresent in our commercial media these days, is nearly impossible to find among these images. Ultimately, each image takes its form from the frame. The frame, therefore, is not a window through which the observer is offered a view; in so much as it serves to organize the images’ forms as they play upon the planar surfaces of the photographic media. What you find within the confines of the frame references itself to its boundary. The image and the world it inhabits does not exist beyond the frame’s perimeter. The modern root of this method and principle, of course, lies in cubism and in other schools of conceptual visual thought, which through abstraction and re-structuralizing attempt to convey thoughts and ideas not generally apparent. The works on exhibit are framed in a relatively unique manner. An unprinted border separates the bevel of the mat board from the printed image. My intention in this is two-fold: 1) to underline the fact that the image is an object in its own right and not a view through the window of the cut mat, that is, the frame exhibits an object and not a view, and 2) given the above, to remind the viewer that fundamentally all art is different than reality and to spark the question: why.
Artist's Biography Artist's Statement
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