Untangling Roles of the Vernacular Within Contemporary Photographic Practice

Photo provided by the author

Post by Lin VanderVliet

I recently came across the following quote by the artist Robert Gober:

Whenever I give a talk about my work I am invariably asked who my influences are. Not what my influences are, but who...As if the gutter, misunderstandings, memories, sex, dreams, and books matter less than forebears do. After all, in terms of influences, it is as much the guy who mugged me on Tenth Street, or my beloved dog who passed away much too early, as it was Giotto or Diane Arbus.¹

I enjoy Gober's quote for what it suggests, the intimacy in citing or revealing one's artistic influences—where what at first appears an academic inquiry in fact reveals the tendency to exacerbate a diaristic itch. That the metaphorical “gutter” of what our influences are could include the innumerable, often vernacular photographic images we regularly engage with—those which affect us through means both unspectacular and breathtaking—is certainly an intriguing possibility worth investigating.

Above is my second grade class portrait, taken when I was just seven years old. My expression sits somewhere between a scowl and the verge of upset. In efforts to look older, I'd sucked in the space between my chin and lower lip, forming a vacuum between my teeth and the inside of my mouth, causing a dimpled texture on my chin. It was a careless decision I'd made on a whim, now immortalized in the form of a wallet-sized image. This is what I looked like at age seven, it says, perpetually and mildly discomforted.

The impact of such impressions are explored in "Photography and Fetish" (1985), an essay by film theorist Christian Metz, which discusses the photograph's indexical nature and subsequent potential to function as fetishistic keepsake.²  Metz argues, that this is inherently based in the photographic dependency upon the spectator, whose willful gaze ultimately determines the 'duration' of the visual experience, and also in our tendency to designate the seemingly 'real' or 'authentic' as responsibilities we expect the photograph to uphold.³  Though we may approach photographic imagery with a level of skepticism (thanks partially to the advent of Photoshop), we can't help from wanting to believe in an entirely "honest" image—to hinge our faith in the camera as producer of representational "truth." This desire is evident within a majority of vernacular photographic uses including scrapbooking, album keeping and social media image sharing.

There is both an innocence and ferocity to the way we tote around cameras during our travels and collect photographs like souvenirs. I am reminded of my own behaviors in relation to the albums I grew up with and the photographs I use to curate my presence today, the locket containing my grandparents' mirroring images, and of the times I've held onto pictures like talismans. In fifth grade, I used to carry around a standard sized print of my two dogs, cozied in their bed in my plastic folder. In high school, it was the picture of a crush, printed off the Internet and adhered to the inside of my agenda with a thick coating of laminate tape. Today, I have well over 2,000 photos stored on my phone. I thumb through each of them regularly for the sake of good luck and personal ritual.

© Sophie Calle
From Talking Pictures: People Speak About the Photographs That Speak to Them, 134.

In addition, there is frequently an edge of subtle malice in the images. Here (as always in regards to the notion of ritual), I think of an image of the artist Sophie Calle, in which the photographer describes a ubiquitous Polaroid snapshot taken of the back of her neck and the unexplainable presence of a thin red mark like a tiny laceration on its surface.⁴  She describes how it prompted her to stay indoors for nearly eight days, possessed with a gripping fear.⁵  This isn't, of course, to say that all vernacular images—whether of ourselves or others—possess such triggering capabilities, but rather of potential.⁶  It reminds us of the significance of the everyday, and how it can impact us in ways quite profound. When we are explicitly depicted (like in Calle's image), vernacular photography serves as a reoccurring point—a fetish activating a host of aggregate thoughts in which we find ourselves implicated. 

Vernacular images, of course, move beyond those personally important to oneself. The quintessential vernacular photograph is typically among the sort you might find at a yard sale in the middle of nowhere—worn corners and sepia tinged. Stern faces, tight lips and uneven exposures; collectible ephemera seemingly displaced from an original narrative, practically begging the imagination to engage in calisthenics like filling in the captions of a cartoon drawing. The recent exhibition, Unexpected held at the Philbrook Downtown in Tulsa, Oklahoma features a collection of vernacular photographs from mid-century America, owned by collector Marc Boone Fitzerman.⁷ Marked by only the makeshift captions which title each image, the photographs themselves make no distinctions between each other, offering only clues of narratives that can never be finished.⁸  We've no explanation for the automobile laying idly on its back, and there's only so much we can surmise about the woman rushing head first down a rickety water slide, or the man draping the forelimbs of a horse over his shoulders.⁹  Each depicted instance is equally confounding and mysterious. 

http://philbrook.org/explore/exhibitions/unexpected

http://hyperallergic.com/126554/the-decisive-vernacular-photograph/

As for the use of vernacular imagery in contemporary practice, I recently came across a series titled, Imagine Finding Me, in which artist Chino Otsuka, inserts herself into the context of family photos by positioning her adult presence alongside that of her childhood self.¹⁰  While the immediate takeaway of this might initially seem that of a gimmick-y exercise with the intended goal of dazzling viewers by pressing the envelope of Photoshop's capabilities, a closer examination reveals the conceptual breadth behind the artist's work and the possibility that these personal, vernacular images are what her influences are. In deliberately seeking out vacation photos with which to perform her "trick," Otsuka parallels the transience of her youth and the impermanence of her travels.¹¹ There's irony is how the grown figures of the aritst have been permanently montaged to their surroundings; a painstaking gesture evocative of the youth which can never be permanently held. The images are captivating because we enter their presence knowing we've been deceived. The series' title is based on this revelation and Otsuka dares us to accept the challenge. Unlike the predominate mindset which imbues much vernacular practice, however, the artist's images defy their expected role as evidence in challenging a perceived digestibility; we cannot approach these as mere artifacts or a collection of discarded ephemera. This applies as well to the work of well-known artists such as Hans Peter Feldmann and others who have built their careers upon the practice of arranging and organizing found non-art objects and everyday imagery.¹² Where Otsuka mines for inspiration within her own vernacular “gutter,” Feldmann draws from others'.¹³

© Chino Otsuka
From http://flavorwire.com/433664/photographer-inserts-her-adult-self-next-to-her-childhood-self-in-family-photographs/5

© Hans-Peter Feldmann, One Pound Strawberries (2004)
http://www.initiartmagazine.com/article/img/HPFeldmannStrawberries.jpg

What we are ultimately left with upon observing the work of Otsuka and Feldmann, is a glimpse into the deep reservoir of influence permitted by the everyday. If Gober's words are to be believed, the vernacular offers evidence of the complexity of the human condition and the ways in which our brains both process and respond to our surroundings. While it may be impossible to fully unpack or tease apart every burst of energy that sustains us (or inspiration that strikes,) the influence of the familiar is often closer at hand than we're aware of. 

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Lin VanderVliet recently graduated with Honors in Studio Art from Rollins College in Winter Park, FL. Her work seeks to promote a sense of  underlying anxiety by combining photographs with typed text. Reoccurring themes include: a fascination with performance, absurdity, the uncanny and expressions of personal catharsis. Currently, she lives in New Jersey.

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1  "Boulevard: An Interview with Katy Grannan" Daily Serving, accessed November 1, 2014,  http://dailyserving.com/2011/01/boulevard-an-interview-with-katy-grannan/

2 Christian Metz, "Photography and Fetish," The MIT Press 34 (Autumn, 1985): 87, accessed November 1, 2014, doi: http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.rollins.edu:2048/stable/778490.; 81

3 Metz, ”Photography and Fetish,” 82

4 Carole Kismaric and Marvin Heiferman. Talking Pictures: People Speak About the Photographs That Speak to Them (Chronicle Books, 1994), 134

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 "The Decisive Vernacular Photograph," Hyperallergic, accessed November 1, 2014, http://hyperallergic.com/126554/the-decisive-vernacular-photograph/

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 "Photographer Insterts Her Adult Self Next to Her Childhood Self in Family Photographs," Flavorwire, accessed November 1, 2014, http://flavorwire.com/433664/photographer-inserts-her-adult-self-next-to-her-childhood-self-in-family-photographs

11 Ibid.

12 "Photographs versus Contemporary Art: Beyond the Pleasure Principle," Fotomuseum, accessed November 18, 2014, http://blog.fotomuseum.ch/2014/11/ii-photographs-versus-contemporary-art-beyond-the-pleasure-principle/

13 "Interview: Hans-Peter Feldmann," initi Art Magizine, accessed November 22, 2014, http://www.initiartmagazine.com/interview.php?IVarchive=33 

Review: Sophie Calle at the Museo de Arte Moderno Medellín

Sophie Calle (© Tom Griggs)

BASICS
Sophie Calle’s exhibition Historias de Pared opened at the Museo de Arte Moderno Medellín (MAMM) on March 21st and will be up until June 3rd. The show will then travel to Bogotá’s Museo de Arte del Banco de la República. The exhibition consists of four works – The Blind and See the Sea in the MAMM’s Sala Norte, Exquisite Pain in the Sala Sur, and the 72-minute video No Sex Last Night screening three times a day in the Sala de Proyectos Especiales (10:30 am, 2:30 pm, 4:00 pm).

SNAPSHOTS OF THE WORKS
In The Blind (1986), Calle asked a group of people born blind to describe their conception of beauty. She presents a portrait of each of the respondents, the text of their response, and one, two, or three images that represent the content of that response (in one case there are no images).

For See the Sea (2010), Calle met people living in and around Istanbul who had never seen the sea. She brought them and filmed their response. The videos each present a person or people seen from behind with the sea beyond them; after a few minutes of looking out towards the water, they turn to face the camera so we see their response. There are five videos presented on separate flat-screen monitors mounted to the wall.

In 1984, Calle’s lover broke up with her by phone after she had been traveling alone in Asia for 92 days. It was, up until that point, the worst day of her life. Fifteen years later, she was ready to deal with the episode artistically in Exquisite Pain (2000). The work is divided into two parts. The first is a series of 92 photographs and documents of various sizes, framed and hung side by side, each stamped sequentially with the days remaining before the day of “unhappiness.” For the second part, she presents diptychs. She asked friends after returning to France what had been the day that they had suffered most, and presents their response as embroidered text on a sheet, with a related photograph above. Alongside it she gives a version of her own story, also embroidered into a sheet, with a photograph of the phone where she received the bad news in New Dehli above. 

The film No Sex Last Night (1992) documents a cross-country road-trip Calle took with the artist Gregory Shepard in a convertible Cadillac. They drive from New York to Mills College in California where she would teach the following semester. Each had a video camera to record the real-life narrative of the trip from their perspective, presenting competing visions of their relationship.

Installation view of Exquisite Pain (© Tom Griggs)

CURATION AND INSTALLATION
The four works span the length of Calle’s celebrated career and balance two works focused on her personal life with two works which center on the lives of others. It pairs The Blind and See the Sea as an installation in the same room together; Calle envisions them as sister projects. Calle herself designed and oversaw the installation. The show flows through the limited space of the museum’s galleries, filling the spaces completely without feeling cramped.

The installation is better than previous productions at the museum, but is still problematic. There were some unfortunate problems typical of the MAMM during the press conference with Calle: slanted wall texts and non-functioning videos. During two repeat visits over the following weeks, however, the issues had been resolved.

Remaining deeply problematic, unfortunately, is the installation of The Blind. Glare destroys the higher of the two tiers of images, the glass of the tilted images picking up the museum lighting and making the images only viewable from an exaggerated angle (see image below). It’s a bad marriage between the pre-existing lighting conditions and the to-the-millimeter pre-set triangular installation formation Calle uses for the work in which she places the top images high on the walls. I understand she can’t vary the organization of the existing work, but I don’t see any conceptual reason for her deviation from her usual straight-line horizontal installations and, at least in this case, the deviance fails her.

Installation view The Blind (© Tom Griggs)

COMMENTS ON THE EXHIBIT
Well, we’re not here for visual beauty. Writer and photographer Hervé Guibert wrote the preface for the catalog to Calle’s first retrospective at the Paris Museum of Modern Art and said, “She calls herself a photographer, but Sophie Calle can’t even manage to take a proper photograph.” In the same catalog, critic Yves-Alain Bois writes, “Firstly, her pictures are invariably bland, uninteresting.”

The photos of Exquisite Pain are snapshot average, those of The Blind are as visually stimulating as reading text. No Sex Last Night combines more snapshot stills with home video. See the Sea has higher-end production values, but again form functions simply to communicate an idea. With Calle, as long as the form doesn’t get in the way, it’s done its job and here it has.

What we are here for is to witness her explorations of voyeurism; to see her erase of boundaries between art and life and fiction and reality; to engage with work that presaged an entire era of questions around public / private, surveillance, and the public revelations of intimacy that dominate the social dynamic of our contemporary lives.

Of the four works, The Blind stands out for the ingeniously simple, direct proposal of the work and its equally efficient resolution. This is Calle at her best; pushing the lines of documentation and art, exploring curiously, and reporting back to us with the power of the basic proposal maintained and displayed.

See the Sea attempts to repeat this direct simplicity, but here we see how thin the line is that Calle needs to walk between truth and fiction for her work to succeed. What feels honest in The Blind feels contrived in See the Sea. The orchestration and constriction she places on the event strangles the moment: each person is shown from behind so we don’t actually see their reaction in the defining moment of first encounter and then each, after a few minutes, turns to face the camera to show what feels like a forced attempt to prolong their emotional response. Except for a video featuring five children, all have a similar reaction to their first look at the sea – stoic, tearful, emotionally moved.

See the Sea (© Tom Griggs)

See the Sea (© Tom Griggs)

This uniformity of their responses, the singular emotional pitch across all the videos, and the lack of other types of reactions - of smiles, of wonder, even of indifference - seems disingenuous; “art” has unified their response. Calle has said, “I don’t care about truth; I care about art and style and writing and occupying the wall.” Here, however, she needs the sense of emotional truth of the subjects to maintain the blur between art and life, and it doesn’t. Only the children, who after going through the organized ritual of their response, run and play in the water, feel genuine. The rest are scripted into fiction, the line between fiction / reality remains clear, and the work is weakened by it.

Exquisite Pain is an idea overburdened by its elaborate production and complicated conceptual framework. Its enormous physical presence, the hundreds of framed images, the daunting amount of text, and the multi-part conceptual proposal collectively cost the observer the immediacy of the initial emotional spark of the idea - and with that, its power to move us.

No Sex Last Night is often funny and has just enough of a narrative pull. It’s a window into Calle as an obsessive, on how she places head over heart; into how she plays the role of passive observer to her own life, making decisions simply to see what will happen, playing out life with a sense of its absurdity and of theater production. The press release says, “The viewer is challenged to face the possibility of reconsidering the cultural roles imposed by gender, sexuality, power and tradition. Throughout the process, Calle seeks to redefine through personal research, the terms and parameters of the relationship subject / object, public / private, truth, fiction and role games.” That’s a lot to read into this. I'd argue the viewer is equally challenged to stay for the whole 72-minutes; I was the only one in attendance for the screening who did.

Installation Exquisite Pain, part 2 (© Tom Griggs)

WRAP-UP
The show is by far the biggest museum event in the six years I’ve known Medellín and something of a coup for the MAMM. Their curatorial team directly arranged Calle’s participation and the show helps cement the museum as national quality, showing it no longer needs to look to Bogotá’s Museo de Arte del Banco de la República for curatorial help and guidance. The installation and management is better than previous shows at the MAMM, but still needs polishing.

This show doesn’t do much to push or challenge any of the prevailing thoughts about Calle’s career – it’s a balance of some of the greatest hits with no particular fresh interpretation of the work. In sum, its like going to a stadium show by an aging rocker; you know what you’re getting and the songs by heart, you bring your lighter, you sing along.

Sophie Calle (© Tom Griggs)