Tag: Cindy Sherman
Research Point: Elina Brotherus
The course text, in an effort to confer greater context on John Szarkowski’s notion of photographs as Mirrors, Students are directed towards the work of Elina Brotherus. (A video of Elina Brother speaking with OCA students is available through the OCA student portal)
Elina Brotherus is a Finnish photographer known for documenting herself and her experiences honestly while laying bare her vulnerabilities. Brotherus says her photographs have “always been taken when something was actually happening, I haven’t reconstructed situations after the event. I made Wedding Portraits (1997), when I got married, Divorce Portrait (1998), when I got divorced, and I hate sex (1998), when I felt that way. So I wasn’t showing various women’s’ roles in Shermanesque fashion, but living my life and trying to capture something genuine and real about it in the pictures”(Brotherus).
Recognising a decisive moment and developing the ability to react and capture it became crucial to Brotherus’s practice. “The camera had to be easily accessible, often I already had it ready on a tripod in the corner of the room. I did make my pictures for the camera too, but the more unforced the photographing became, the more the presence of the camera could be ignored” (Brotherus).
Suites Francaises (1999), Brotherus’s seminal work, was made while undertaking an artist’s residency in France. With “touching and comic effect”, Brotherus’s series playfully explores her struggle with “the separation from her normal life and her inability to communicate fully in a foreign language” (Cotton 2009, P.165). In 2011 Brotherus returned to France, invited for a teaching role, staying in the same monastery guesthouse as before. The series, 12 Ans Après (1999 / 2011-2013), is the result in which her new images form a poignant dialogue with the older photos (Brotherus 2018), or rather the passage of time is clearly visible.
The images below, features on the cover of Charlotte Cotton’s Book, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, distributed by Thames & Hudson.
In her series, Annunciation, Brotherus documented her personal journey as she underwent five years of IVF treatment which eventually proved unsuccessful. The title, Annunciation, directly refers to the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angle Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus, the son of God. Brotherus’s composition frequently references art history and the work of classical painters. Annunciation is no exception as Brotherus modernizes and reinterprets classic works as well the meaning of the Annunciation itself. Brotherus has intended the series to give ‘visibility to those whose treatment leads nowhere. The hopeless story with an unhappy end is the story of the majority. My way of discussing the matter is to give out the pictures, not to give an interview. I’m not sure if I will be able to actually speak about this. I’m still too sad. This is the saddest thing that has happened to me since my mother’s death’ (Brotherus).
Elina Brotherus has, through her series Model Studies, attempted to shift the focus away from her personal life and investigate the role of the artist gaze and observations in self-portraiture. With the series, Artists at Work, she has taken this observational exploration further as she collaborates with two painters. She poses for them, while at the same time photographs the entire process. In this series she is both artist and model, while the painters are also both artist and model. ‘Who’s watching who? who gets the last gaze?’ (Brotherus), is the question Brotherus explores through the series.
Elina Brotherus found that the camera has managed to console her in difficult times, “I have actually noticed that I reached for the camera more readily when I was unhappy. I worked the pain into a beautiful object that could be looked at detached from myself, and this consoled me a little”.
It was interesting to hear that Brotherus prefers to leave her work aside for a period of time before editing. Returning to the work with fresh eyes and a more reflective approach improves her overall workflow, principally her interrogation and conceptualization of the images. I have been editing and sequencing my images in much the same manner as Brotherus does, which involves moving around small prints of work in order to see what works and what doesn’t. “It’s like building a puzzle, but … you don’t have just one right answer, but … loads of different solutions. And different exhibitions can be different solutions”.
Brotherus’s work is a mirror of her own life, yet it does also, using Annunciation as an example carry a deeper meaning and highlight the plight of others who’s treatment leads nowhere.
Reference
Bright, S. (2010) Auto Focus: the Self Portrait in Contemporary Photography, London: Thames and Hudson.
Brotherus, E. (2018) Elina Brotherus [online], available: http://www.elinabrotherus.com/photography/ [accessed: 4 Mar 2018].
Brotherus, E. (2013) ‘Elina Brotherus – Annunciation’, Slash/Paris [online], available: http://slash-paris.com/en/evenements/elina-brotherus-annonciation [accessed 4 Mar 2018].
Cotton, C. (2009) the photograph as contemporary art, new ed. London: Thames & Hudson.
Kaili, J. (2002) ‘The enchantment of Reality ‘, Decisive Days, available: http://www.elinabrotherus.com/assets/pdf/interviews/kaila_enhancement_01.pdf [accessed 4 Mar 2018].
Louisiana Channel (2013) ‘Elina Brotherus: The Human Perspective’ , available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRX9up0MKqU [accessed 4 Mar 2018].
Identity Place Photos 