Exercise: 3.3 Representing the Marginalised

Write a reflection in your learning log about some of the ways in which marginalised or under-represented people or groups could be badly or unhelpfully portrayed. How might being an insider help combat this?

Thinking back to research I carried out as part of the Context and Narrative module, I recall Martha Rosler writing about such an issue. Rosler used the example of Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine, who both used photography in the argument to effect social reform. Riis captured the squalid conditions of New York’s tenements of the 1880 and 90’s and photographed “his subjects as helpless victims, beaten down by an oppressive system” (Dreier 2017). Hine photographed the appalling exploitation suffered by child labourers, in both factories and on the streets, with the aim of ending it, and without ever forcing false sentimentality (Badger 2017). “Hine was known for inviting his subjects to reveal what they wished of themselves rather than trying to catch them or coax them into wearing expressions of anguish or emptiness” (Dreier 2017).

Jacob Riis

While Rosler acknowledges Riis and Hine’s intent, she also suggests that the reformers were naïve to think that their work was simply highlighting the need for social reform, when in fact they “did not perceive those wrongs as fundamental to the social system that tolerated them” (la Grange 2005 P.113). Ultimately, Rosler believes that the reformers were aiding the argument for charity, which maintained the position of the maginalised, and in effect exploits them. Rosler makes a strong argument, but I feel that social change cannot come about without initial awareness of the prevailing social issues. Riis’s images “implicitly divided the poor into two categories: deserving and undeserving” (Warner Marien 2010, P.205), and he has been criticised for intruding on the lives of the poor. Nevertheless, Riis’s work has come to stand for social change, even if his images have pigeon holed the the drunk and unemployed less favourably.

Lewis Hine

In photographing people on the fringes of society, Diane Arbus was essentially capturing “the gap between intention and effect”, or the “point between what you want people to know about you and what you can’t help people knowing about you” (Arbus). Rosler believes that Arbus, in photographing their flaws, objectifies her subjects, allows the viewer to “stare … without feeling empathy” for them (la Grange 2005 P.114). In opposition to Rosler, John Szarkowski believed her images revealed “no less than the unique private lives of those she photographed” (Howarth 2005, p.72). Arbus obviously gained the trust of her subjects as she photograph some of them on numerous occasions. Arbus’ privileged upbringing had her believe she “never felt adversity” and photography became a “means of escape” (Arbus). Sontag described Arbus’ fascination with freaks as venting “her frustrations at being safe” (Sontag 1977, p.44).

Diane Arbus

Essentially, the motives of the photographer come into play. Are they photographing for “exoticism, tourism, voyeurism…trophy hunting-and careerism” (Rosler) or do they have the best interests of the subject at heart? When speaking about the continued desire by photographers to photograph the Bowery (New York slum photographed by Riis), Rosler refers to subjects as “the victims of the camera”. This depiction of the subject as a victim raises interesting moral questions for photographers. There is a very fine line between sensationalism and giving a fair and honest view. A level of responsibility and consideration should be applied when covering the marginalised.

 How might being an insider help combat this?

I don’t believe that being an ‘insider’ automatically ensures success when representing the marginalised or under-represented. However, I do feel that the inside position affords the skilled practitioner the potential to reduce or remove stigma and other generally accepted presumptions or misconceptions. Nan Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependency , was groundbreaking as it captured intimate moments of love and loss, ecstasy and pain through sex and drug use. Goldin and her friends are seen as they revel at dance clubs and bond with their children at home, they suffer from domestic violence and the ravages of AIDS (MoMA 2017). In her essay, Inside/Out, Solomon-Godeau presents Nan Goldin’s series, Ballad of Sexual Dependency, as the perfect example of the insider position. Goldin has a deep personal relationship to the subject matter, and at times includes herself as a subject. Solomon-Godeau describes the images as being of a “confessional”(1991) nature, which allows the viewer to assume an intimate relationship to the photographer and subject. Solomon-Godeau’s essay says that “the camera does not distance her (Goldin) from her subjects but creates clarity and ’emotional connection’, she is not a voyeur as the people are her ‘family’ and it is her history” (la Grange 2005, P.126).

Nan Goldin

Interestingly, and reading a little further, Solomon-Godeau (1991) describes a third possibility, where the romantic tradition of the alienated artist, is perceived to guarantee the artist’s integrity and reveal truth. She cites Robert Frank’s The Americans as such an example, and confirms that while revealing a level of truth, it is not definitive. The question that Solomon-Godeau ultimately presents is whether truth and reality, can ever be properly represented by photography, or indeed any other medium. It seems to me, that there are no definitive answers or definitive questions. Do you need to be an insider to fairly represent the marginalised? Lewis Hine was not an insider. His “low-key approach persuades us that his photographs are truthful” (Badger 2007, P.46). As a viewer, I bring my own experiences and preconceptions to the act of viewing an image, regardless of what the photographer has intended. As a photographer, I believe that I have a responsibility to both the subject and viewer, and I deliver my intended message within a reasonable margin of accuracy. At the most basic level, I see the insider/outsider approaches to photography, as a tool, in much the same way a writer will tell a story from a point of view of the first or third person.

Reference

Badger, G. (2007) The Genius of Photography: How photography has changed our lives, London: Quadrille.

Campbell, D. (2004) Horrific Blindness: Images of Death in Contemporary Media [online], available from: https://www.david-campbell.org/wp-content/documents/Horrific_Blindness.pdf [accessed: 9 Mar 2018].

Dreier, P. (2017) ‘The Radical Images of Lewis Hine, Documentary Photographer’, HuffPost Blog [online], 6 Dec, available: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/the-radical-images-of-lew_b_5893064.html [accessed 9 Mar 2018].

Jobey, L. (2005) ‘Diane Arbus: A young Brooklyn family going for a Sunday outing, N.Y.C. 1966’, in Howarth, S., ed., Singular Images: Essays on Remarkable Photographs, London: Tate Publishing, 67-7.

La Grange, A. (2005) Basic Critical Theory for Photographers, Burlington, MA: Focal Press.

Rosler, M. (1981) In, Around, and Afterthoughts (on documentary photography [online], available from: http://web.pdx.edu/~vcc/Seminar/Rosler_photo.pdf [accessed: 9 Mar 2018].

Rushdy, A. (2000) Exquisite Corpse, Transition 83.

Solomon-Godeau, A. (1991) Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions, and Practices, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Sontag, S. (1979) On Photography, London: Penguin Books.

Sontag, S. (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others, London: Penguin Books: Hamish Hamilton.

Warner Marien, M. (2010) Photography: A Cultural History, 3rd ed., London: Laurence King.

 

 

 

Lee Friedlander

Lee Friedlander’s oeuvre can be characterised by a unique ability to create ordered compositions from otherwise chaotic scenes, often juxtaposing simple elements with playful guile. A highly influential figure in the history of photography, Friedlander has been recording the American social landscape since the late forties.

The American social landscape, describes an entire generation of American photographers who were more interested in “distilling personal experience rather than in projecting a socio-political viewpoint” (Badger 2007, p.140). Lee Friedlander used the term in 1963 to describe his work in an interview with Contemporary Photography magazine (Kieffer). The term was firmly established as a photographic genre following two compendium exhibitions in 1966, Twelve Photographers of the American Social Landscape, exhibited at the Brandeis University and, Towards a Social Landscape, exhibited at George Eastman House (Friedlander exhibited at both).

Lee Friedlander – Haverstraw, NY, 1966

Lee Friedlander – New York City, 1966

The 1967 exhibition, New Documents, curated by John Szarkowski at MoMA, elevated Lee Friedlander, along with Gary Winogrand and Diane Arbus as major figures in the contemporary photography world. The introduction to the exhibition stated that “their aim has been not to reform life, but to know it. Their work betrays a sympathy – almost an affection – for the imperfections and the frailties of society. They like the real world, in spite of its terrors, as a source of all wonder and fascination and value” (Szarkowski 1967).

Lee Friedlander – Provincetown, Massachusetts, 1968

At fourteen, while working part-time in a camera shop, Lee Friedlander’s relationship with the camera began. He moved to New York after dropping out of art school, where hanging around the jazz clubs, he found work photographing album covers. The energy, freedom and improvisation he was exposed to during his time on the jazz scene carried into his photography. Throughout a career which spans more that six decades, Frielander primarily shot black and white 35mm film on a Leica rangefinder camera. His photographic influences are deeply routed in the work of Eugene Atget, Walker Evans, Weegee, André Kertész and Robert Frank. A seminal moment for Friedlander, and indeed many photographers of his time, arrived with Robert Frank’s book, The Americans. Sean O’Hagan describes it “one of the most important photography books of the 20th century” (2009). The Americans essentially redefined documentary photography and established, what Szarkowski referred to as “a new iconography for contemporary America” (1968).

Lee Friedlander – Santa Monica, California, 1996

Key to the development of photographers of Friedlander’s generation, was the increasing interest in the medium by the large art museums, allowing him to forgo commercial drudgery in pursuit of more personal work which he made for nobody’s satisfaction but his own (Badger 2007). With a Guggenheim fellowship grant, Friedlander set out across America as Evans and Frank had done before him. Lee Friedlander’s photographic style was exciting and fresh, blatantly break all the rules. In his images, key elements are often obscured by poles and signage, his own shadow regularly creeps into the frame, he skillfully disorientates with car mirrors and store front reflections, giving multiple perspectives of his world in a single image.

Friedlander gererally presents his work in books by category. His series’ of books include nudes, monuments, jazz musicians, signs, cars and self-portraits, to name a few. He has a very interesting and diverse range of self representations in his book of self-portraits. Friedlander’s work is in some way a diary or record of his movements and experiences. In taking a photograph he records how an object within the frame looks at a precise moment in time. But in so doing, he also record the physical act of capturing that precise moment. Photography is a physical act. It is the physicality of photography that attracts Lee Friedlander to the medium, “you can’t make a picture of New York or Los Angles without being there. You have to be there” (Friedlander). Friedlander has spent his life recording the social landscape, preserving forever, precise moments in time. By acknowledging his own presence within the frame, he is probably better than most at doffing his cap to the physical act of recording these precise moments.

Reference

Badger, G. (2007) The Genius of Photography: How photography has changed our lives, London: Quadrille.

Fraenlel Gallery (2015) Lee Friedlander [online], available: https://fraenkelgallery.com/artists/lee-friedlander [accessed 20 Dec 2017].

John Paul Caponigro Illuminating Creativity (2015) Lee Friedlander [online], available: http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/photographers/conversations/lee-friedlander/ [accessed 20 Dec 2017].

Kieffer, M. ‘Lee Friedlander: Composing the Real‘, The Culture Trip, available: http://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/washington/articles/lee-friedlander-composing-the-real/ [accessed 20 Dec 2017].

MoMA (2015) Lee Friedlander [online], available: http://www.moma.org/collection/artists/2002 [accessed 20 Dec 2017].

O’Hagan, S. (2009) ‘Robert Frank’s The American still shocks 50 years on’, The Guardian, 30 Nov, available: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/nov/30/robert-frank-the-americans-exhibition [accessed 20 Dec 2017].

Rosler, M. (2006) Decoys & Disruptions: Selected writings, 1975-2001, Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.

Warner Marien, M. (2010) Photography: A Cultural History, 3rd ed., London: Laurence King.