Notes, queries on Marco Breuer's Notes, Queries
Jeffrey DeShell
"The mechanism of the camera is such that even if one aims it at nothing,
it will still depict something." (1)
Without a camera, not nothing. Nothing else.
What is the something?
What is the thing?
What is being de-picted?
Here.
"Mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical
dependence on ritual. To an even greater degree the work of art reproduced
becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic
negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the authentic
print makes no sense." (2)
But one can't. And one can.
There's only the original.
The photograph as art object. As unique thing, non-reproducible, present,
auratic. As an entity inviting contemplation. Like a painting. Is this where
we want to go?
The physical act of making, rather than the act of taking, a photograph. Adding
and subtracting, folding, puncturing and piercing (all those verbs of violence),
instead of the more cerebral arranging, finding, framing and printing. To
bring out rather than to capture. An intimacy. Dangerous. Bloody. Beautiful.
Objects with history. Not the history of documenting (taking) other objects,
either with a camera (Atget, Steichen, Adams) or without (Man Ray, Schad,
Atkins), not the history of something else that was, but the history of themselves,
the history of their coming into being, history as such. Pure fiction, in
that these objects do not refer. Or refer only, or at least primarily, to
themselves. Black holes.
There is more here, present, visible, than a mere trace of becoming. There
is more than the hint or allusion to the past. The objects exist as the drama
of their becoming. This is actual, not metaphorical. The past as present.
The past is present.
This is not Barthes' history, where the content of every photograph is "the
return of the dead." (3) This is a history of an object, indifferent
(maybe) to death.
Not "that-has-been." That is.
" Abstraction" is too weak a word for this.
Look.
Gum Bichromate
In (Outward Manifestations of) Something Else (4), there was a scratching
out, an inscribing, a writing on photographic paper.
" 'BE JUST' is what is written there." (5)
Here we have addition, not subtraction. The background becoming foreground.
In front of our eyes.
A writing with (not on) paper.
Depth (of field) literalized. Perspective here is no longer a mirage (Van
Eyck), dependent upon a single focal point somewhere behind (outside) the
surface. Everything is present. If something appears to be closer in space,
it is closer in space. It is.
JUST BE.
Truth in photography. What an ugly word.
Start again. Another layer. See what takes. See what gives. First of all,
start with a paper inappropriate to the task. A paper that will need to be
worked, that will need to be sanded, punctured, pierced, folded, in order
to allow the emulsion to adhere. A paper that will need to be corrected.
"Patterns are transferred onto the paper by laying it on various surfaces
while sanding." (6)
Sand. Coat. Expose. Rinse. Dry. Sand. Coat. Expose. Rinse. Dry. Sand. Coat.
Etc.
A rhythm of creation (coating) and negation (sanding).
See what happens.
Create. Negate.
Create.
Negate.
Everything.
Another layer. Le Photo-Club de Paris. Robert Demachy was oh so French. A
quick look at his gum prints demonstrates he liked his women. Not quite "Origin
of the World," but close. More Playboy than Hustler.
But still.
A certain comprehension then, a capture. A foreclosing of the otherónature,
womenóinto the same. Demachy's word is 'transcription.'
" A work of art must be a transcription, not a copy of, nature. . . .This
special quality [of art] is given by the artist's way of expressing himself.
In other words, there is not a particle of art in the most beautiful scene
of nature. The art is man's alone, it is subjective, not objective."
(7)
This is dandy, for the subjective (male) gaze.
Taking.
Poeís "Oval Portrait." You kill what you portray. "And then
the brush was given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment, the
painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but in the next,
while he yet gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast, and crying
with a loud voice, 'This is indeed Life itself!' turned suddenly to regard
his beloved:‚She was dead!"
Already, decisions made. This is 1894 after all. A blurring, an expressing,
a distorting, an abstracting. As if that made it all right. As if we couldnít
see.
What's going on.
This is no return. Is there?
Back, back to the time of algae. British algae.
Cyanotype
" The cyanotype or blue print is one of photographyís oldest printing
methods. Sir John Herschel was making cyanotypes as early as 1841. The cyanotype
was a very popular process during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries."
(8)
" The cyanotype (blue print) was one of the first photographic printing
processes, being used by Anna Atkins for the first photographically illustrated
book in the early 1840s. It is a simple process that can be used - with suitable
supervision for childrens' workshops, but has also been used by a number of
photographers to great artistic effect. It also has the advantage of being
very cheap." (9)
Back to the origin, back to the source. Can we trust this? Nostalgia being,
after all, just another form of depression.
Let's look.
In "Untitled (E-28)," a nearly geometric patterning of blue wash,
with lighter blue and almost white streaks. Layered again, not spatially (impasto),
but by a varied translucency (tint). Letting light in.
A simultaneous see(k)ing through and obscuring.
But obscuring. . . what? There's nothing we can't see. It's all there. Including
an illusion of obscurity. A fiction of not being able to see everything we
want.
Everything we want.
Look.
The more emulsion there is, the less light there seems to be. "The very
solution that makes the paper sensitive to light starts to obstruct light."
(10) A good definition of language.
" Untitled (E-24)." A chance meeting between emulsion and paper.
"Slopped" on, and allowed to flow. To flow back, back into history,
back into an illusion of history. Compare this with Anna Atkins' algae cyanotypes.
It appears representational. Documentary. Natural. An accidental quote?
The question of the past, of history, persists. "The past is never dead.
It's not even past." (11)
Why the retro techniques? Why the early technology?
The artist answers: "For Notes, Queries I utilized the early
photographic processes of gum bichromate and cyanotype in an attempt to point
towards a moment in photography's history when the medium was exploratory
and fluidóa site for inquiry not yet dictated by conventions or expectations."
(12)
A return to the time before decisions were made. Before photography became
fixed into referentiality.
Was there ever such a time? Didn't photography always want to be documentary?
First portraits, then cityscapes, then war. Can we see cyanotype as an alternate
tradition?
Algae. Blueprints.
The Spanish American War.(13)
We shouldn't underestimate the power of representation to absorb its negative,
what is not yet representational. The history of art can be seen as a series
of dialectical moves where the antithesis of abstraction is continuously synthesized
into a new form of representation.
The power of representation.
Look.
Obstructions
" All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.
. . Its [mankind's] self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can
experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order."
(14)
Photograph: photo (light) + graph (to write) = writing with light.
N and V. I love these new photographs. I love to photograph all of my beautiful
friends.
Photogram: photo (light) + gram (something written, letter of the
alphabet) = something written with light. N. These photograms are beautiful.
Photogrammetry: photo (light) + gram (something written, letter of
the alphabet) = the art of writing with light. The use of aerial photographs
to produce planimetric and topographic maps of the earth's surface and of
features of the built environment. N. The photogrammetry of this war is useful
and beautiful. From its very beginning photography has been used to document
war. See Matthew Brady et al. And from its very beginning photography has
been used to lie about war.
"When Gardner arrived at the decisive scene of the war at Gettysburg
two days after it had been fought, he set about photographing 'Home of a rebel
sharpshooter.' However, before taking the picture he had dragged the body
of a Conferedate [sic] some thirty metres to where he lies in the picture,
turning the head towards the camera." (15)
"Let me say a word about satellite images before I show a couple. The
photos that I am about to show you are sometimes hard for the average person
to interpretóhard for me. The painstaking work of photo analysis takes experts
with years and years of experience, pouring for hours and hours over light
tables. But as I show you these images, I will try to capture and explain
what they mean, what they indicate to our imagery specialists. Let's look
at one. This one is about a weapons munition facility, a facility that holds
ammunition at a place called Taji. This is one of about 65 such facilities
in Iraq. We know that this one has housed chemical munitions. In fact, this
is where the Iraqis recently came up with the additional four chemical weapon
shells." (16)
The past is never past. It's not even dead.
From the artist: "The original images were extracted from the flow of
daily 'news' photographs. . . Most of the images are aerial views, many are
satellite images of 'targets': terrain that has been destroyed (or is about
to be destroyed)." (17)
From the air. The illusion of point of view. The illusion of objective (aesthetic)
distance.
The illusion of knowledge. And the painstaking process of acquiring that knowledge.
In spite of everything. In spite of all. In spite of all obstruction.
The illusion of obstruction.
The fabrication of illusion. The illusion of fabrication. The illusion of
illusion. The illusion photocopied. Rubbed. Raked. Patterned. Fabricated again.
Illusion squared. Cubed. At least.
The photograph is.
Not an illusion.
Not history erased. Or represented.
Presented.
Look.
Here.
Now.
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Notes:
(1) Bill Arning, MIT Visual Arts Center.
(2) Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."
(3) Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida.
(4) Marco Breuer, "(Outward Manifestation of) Something Else," Von
Lintel Gallery, January 22 to February 28, 2004.
(5) Franz Kafka, "The Penal Colony."
(6) Artist statement.
(7) Robert Demachy, "On the Straight Print," edited by Bill Jay,
in Robert Demachy: 1859-1936.
(8) Bostick and Sullivan website, http://www.bostick-sullivan.com/c_cyano.htm
(9) http://photography.about.com/library/glossary/bldef_cyanotype.htm
(10) Artist statement.
(11) William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun.
(12) Artist statement.
(13) "Thus, for example, it was used during the Spanish American War
because of the difficulties of using other photographic processes in the field."
http://www.vernacularphotography.com/VPM/V1N1/the_cyanotype.htm
(14) Benjamin, "Work of Art."
(15) "Gardner wrote:'ëOn the nineteenth of November, the artist attended
the consecration of the Gettysburg Cemetery, and again visited the ëSharpshooter's
Home.í The musket, rusted by many storms, still leaned against the rock, and
the skeleton of the soldier lay undisturbed within the mouldering uniform,
as did the cold form of the dead four months before. None of those who went
up and down the fields to bury the fallen, had found him. "Missing," was all
that could have been known of him at home, and some mother may yet be patiently
watching for the return of her boy, whose bones lie bleaching, unrecognized
and alone, between the rocks at Gettysburg.' Fine words, indeed, adding to
the drama. But hardly creditable. Souvenir hunters would have removed the
rifle within days. In any case, the weapon in the photograph was not used
by sharpshooters. It may have been Gardner's prop." Robert Leggat, http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/gardner.htm.
(16) Colin Powell, "Statement to the United Nations Security Council,"
February 5th, 2003.
(17) Artist statement.
All images courtesy of Marco Breuer and Von Lintel Gallery, New York.