During this course I have
researched the work of leading figures in the history of photo-montage,
including John Heartfield and Peter Kennard, whose work predominantly consists
of the blending of two or more images. However, I have become increasingly interested
in art that consists of the blending of one or more images with (a) passage(s)
of text. The written word has the power to create atmosphere and emotion in the
mind of the reader, just as an image can. A combination of both has, at least,
the potential to amplify these feelings, provided an appropriate juxtaposition
can be found. For this reason I have looked at blending text into some of my
images during the later stages of the project. Two influences in this area have
been the Americans Peter Beard and David Wojnarowicz.
Peter Beard (1938 - )
The writer, artist, photographer
and diarist Peter Beard is a true polymath. He has spent much of his life
living in Kenya, where he has been a protector of endangered wildlife. He has also
been a renowned fashion photographer and was a close friend of, amongst others,
Andy Warhol, Karen Blixen and Francis Bacon. However, he is perhaps best known
for his amazing diaries (or, perhaps more accurately, journals), which fuse
photographs, writing, newspaper cuttings, artwork, food labels and much more to
produce intricate, multi-layered, rich visual experiences. I was particularly
attracted to the pages in which he has blended images of some of the fashion
models that he has worked with together with other material. One example is
shown below (Image 1). The rich imagery created by this type of work can certainly
produce an emotional response, although the nature of that response is hard to
gauge - Beard’s diaries are essentially documenting his life rather than trying
to overtly make a political point (although he has been and doubtless still is
concerned with political and, in particular, environmental issues).
Image 1 (Peter Beard)
David Wojnarowicz (1954 – 1992)
David Wojnarowicz was a painter,
writer, photographer, filmmaker and performance artist, active in the 1980s and
early 1990s. Following a troubled childhood he became a part of the New York
avant-garde arts community. He was gay and saw many friends, as well as his
lover, become victims of the AIDS epidemic in the late 1980s. As a consequence
of his experiences he became an AIDS activist and his work took on a strongly
political content, concentrating on the social and legal injustices inherent in
the response to the AIDS epidemic in the USA. Image 2 is one potent example of
his work during this period, combining text and images to produce a powerful essay
on the injustices felt by sexually active gay people at that time. Wojnarowicz
was diagnosed with HIV in 1987 and died of an AIDS–related illness in 1992.
Image 2 (David Wojnarowicz)
Comments and Learning Points
The art of Wojnarowicz and Beard
has little in common, other than for the fact that both Americans have produced
work that merges images and text. Beard’s work is arguably more creative and
certainly more complex, as well as having a more pleasing aesthetic.
Wojnarowicz’s work is direct, uncompromising and juxtaposes text and imagery to
make a strong political point. As such it has the capacity to stir the emotions
of the viewer in a different way to that of Beard. Both types of image are
equally valid, although perhaps Wojnarowicz’s work is a clearer example of
conceptual art. I have developed and tried to fuse some of the ideas displayed
in both the images shown here with my own ideas, in order to produce two new
images for my photo book – the last two to be inserted. Many other artists
combine images (painted, drawn and/or photographed) with text and I suspect
that I will investigate this type of work again in the future: it interests me
greatly from an artistic perspective. The work of the two artists discussed in this post is
therefore a late but very important influence on my output.
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