“The medium makes it difficult for anyone, including the photographer, to distinguish between sketch and finished work. This line of reasoning underscores one of the major issues that artists using photography rather than traditional media face: how to distinguish between the sketch and the finished work. For photographers like Cartier-Bresson, Friedlander, and Winogrand, whose work is founded upon the idea of capturing a momentary configuration from the continuously active flux of public life, the process of creating a succession of negatives inevitably concludes with the selection of one of those negatives (sketches) from a proof sheet. That negative then becomes the source of the finished work. But the process is also open to the overproduction of exposures. It is easy to decide to make negatives even when there is little promise of an acceptable picture, leaving that decision to the later examination of proof sheets. Worse, many photographers find it difficult to accept the necessity of ruthlessly editing these sketches, and end up overproducing unsuccessful prints, which, due to the same weakness, find their way to publication and exhibition. In such situations the power of the best work is diminished by association.
Now it is true that even artists in other media overproduce; that is, most of their work too is not of the same calibre as their own best work. No artist can produce a major work every time a picture (not a sketch) is made. No artist is strong enough (nor usually financially stable enough) to discard every work that falls short of the best. Why then press, or even raise, the issue with photographers? … Because photography lends itself to an overwhelming exaggeration of the problem: new technology is increasingly being made to encourage mindless exposure of film. When, late in his career, Winogrand attached a motor drive to his camera, it made a tragic disease of his tendency to overproduce. Like the sorcerer’s apprentice he lost what little control he had. The technology of painting generally restricts the probability of this situation occurring (though there have been painters who have worked hard to override that restriction - Picasso comes to mind).
After seeing thousands of pictures, I concluded that Winogrand was essentially a mediocre photographer who occasionally got lucky. As soon as I was thoroughly convinced of that, and disgusted to the point of throwing in the towel, I would come upon a magic picture and feel the truth of how Winogrand had managed to take clues from Doisneau, Cartier-Bresson, Dan Weiner, Weegee, Feingersh, and numerous others (less and less, it seemed to me, from Frank, Evans, and Callahan), and changed the course of what we have come to call “street” or “social landscape” photography. But the cost was high.
What Winogrand was interested in seeing photographed was quite clear to me when I finished. Winogrand documented his social reality. What we can learn from his work, among other things, is the importance of having a sense of the difference between what we say and do, what we say and feel, what we hide and what we reveal. The work clearly reflects Winogrand’s awareness of his own conflicts. And I think it is fair to say that what has been shown and reproduced is an honest presentation of that.”
- Carl Chiarenza, from the essay, Standing on the Corner – Reflections Upon Garry Winogrand’s Photographic Gaze – Mirror of Self or World?
“On the horizon of fantasy you always have the presence of the barred other. That is why fantasy is always linked to angst. What is the cause of angst? The first answer given by Lacan is that angst is caused by the other’s desire. Why? Because the other’s desire is an x, and an x, an unknown, always produces anxiety.
Lacan provided a parable to help us understand anxiety: Imagine a giant female praying mantis approaching you while you are wearing a mask without knowing what kind of mask you are wearing. If you happen to be wearing the mask of a male praying mantis without knowing it, you have a reason to feel angst. You see here the limit in which angst appears. Angst is linked to the x but it is not the x itself that arouses anxiety. It is, rather, the object you might be without knowing it.”
- Colette Soler, from Reading Seminars I and II
“One of the minimal definitions of a modernist painting concerns the function of its frame. The frame of the painting in front of us is not its true frame. There is another, invisible frame, the frame implied by the structure of the painting, the frame that enframes our perception of the painting. These two frames by definition never overlap -an invisible gap separates them. The pivotal content of the painting is not rendered in its visible part, but is located in this dislocation of the two frames, in the gap that separates them. This dimension in-between-the-two-frames is obvious in Kazimir Malevich; what is his Black Square on White Surface if not the minimal marking of the distance between the two frames? Again recall Edward Hopper’s lone figures in office buildings or diners at night, where it seems as if the picture’s frame has to be redoubled with another window frame; or, in the portraits of his wife who, close to an open window, is exposed to sun rays. Here we have the opposite excess of the painted content itself as regards what we effectively see, as if we see only the fragment of the whole picture, the shot with a missing counter-shot. Again, recall the droplets of sperm and the small foetus-like figure from The Scream squeezed between the two frames in Edvard Munch’s Madonna. The frame is always-already redoubled: the frame within ‘reality’ is always linked to another frame enframing ‘reality’ itself. Once introduced, the gap between reality and appearance is thus immediately complicated, reflected unto-itself: once we get a glimpse, through the Frame, of the Other Dimension, reality itself turns into appearance. In other words, things do not simply appear, they appear to appear. This is why the negation of a negation does not bring us to a simple flat affirmation: once things (start to) appear, they not only appear as what they are not, creating an illusion; they can also appear to just appear, concealing the fact that they are what they appear.”
- Slavoj Žižek, from A Plea for a Return to Différance
“You are beautiful like demolition. Just the thought of you draws my knuckles white. I don’t need a god. I have you and your beautiful mouth, your hands holding onto me, the nails leaving unfelt wounds, your hot breath on my neck. The taste of your saliva. The darkness is ours. The nights belong to us. Everything we do is secret. Nothing we do will ever be understood; we will be feared and kept well away from. It will be the stuff of legend, endless discussion and limitless inspiration for the brave of heart. It’s you and me in this room, on this floor. Beyond life, beyond morality. We are gleaming animals painted in moonlit sweat glow. Our eyes turn to jewels and everything we do is an example of spontaneous perfection. I have been waiting all my life to be with you. My heart slams against my ribs when I think of the slaughtered nights I spent all over the world waiting to feel your touch. The time I annihilated while I waited like a man doing a life sentence. Now you’re here and everything we touch explodes, bursts into bloom or burns to ash. History atomizes and negates itself with our every shared breath. I need you like life needs life. I want you bad like a natural disaster. You are all I see. You are the only one I want to know.”
-Henry Rollins, awwwwww
“Often we feel a communication gap between us and you. Playing the saddest rock and roll in these alienated beerhalls, we’re shy and clumsy with the words mostly but need to say this now finally or once and for all.
We live in rich countries - we got more kinds of kicks / entertainment than we need. Also, we’re gifted with access to so much information. “Facts” and knowledge… If you don’t already know that millions of innocents are maimed, starved, tortured, shot or exploded in our own name by our own politicians, then nothing we do or say’ll ever convince you…
There are millions of us worldwide who don’t want any more blood on our hands. There are millions of us who want to stop this murderous nonsense forever. Together we can tear their crummy monsters down. It’s not a naive daydream (there are more of us than them).
It could start happening tonight or tomorrow. (It’ll begin in the tiniest little ways.)
Please think on how to make it happen. These are urgent times. Find the faintest light there and run towards it slowly. When the call goes out, please march with other strangers / friends.
There’s a sweetness in clumsy efforts. Stubborn hope always trumps lazy greed. And gentle hearts tear vulgar castles down. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid.”
- show flyer for Godspeed You! Black Emperor
