Major Project Influences (19): Peter Beard and David Wojnarowicz. Photo-collages and Photo-montages of Images and Text

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.

Major Project Influences (18) and Book Review: Richard Billingham - "Ray's a Laugh"

(Re-printed edition by Errata Editions (New York) as part of their "Books on Books" series)

It would be remiss of anybody attempting to produce a photo book referencing members of their own family not to cite Richard Billingham’s classic photo book, ‘Ray’s a Laugh’, first published in 1996, as being of relevance. The book, which features Billingham’s photos of his dysfunctional family (in particular his father Ray, who was an unemployed chronic alcoholic), has become a classic of post-modernist photographic realism. The photos were taken between 1990 (when Billingham was 20) and 1996, shortly before the book was published. I first saw some of Billingham’s prints of his family a few years ago in an exhibition at The Fitzwilliam Museum, in Cambridge. However, the book has long been out of print and copies of the first edition (the original print run was for 3000 books) sell second hand for several hundred pounds – well beyond what I would be prepared to pay for it. Luckily the book has recently been made available as a ‘facsimile’ edition as part of a series by Errata Books (New York) and I have purchased a copy. Although the quality of the prints in this new edition is poor the power and emotional charge of the published photographs is still very evident.

What I find remarkable about this book is not the powerful day to day photo-realism of seeing a socially deprived ‘problem family’ living a disempowered day to day existence on the bread line, but the fact that the photographs were taken by a member of that family, somebody who had the strong will and artistic drive to move to the University of Sunderland to study for an art degree whilst regularly still returning and re-integrating with his family and taking more photographs of them. When Billingham started taking photographs of his family his parents had separated and he lived with his father, taking intimate and emotionally charged photographs of Ray that were for his own personal use – Image 1 is a typical example.

Image 1. Ray (Richard Billingham: "Ray's a Laugh")

Later, Ray moved back in with Billingham’s mother Liz at her flat and Billingham’s younger brother Jason returned to the household, having been in social care. The family portraits, now taken in the new environment of Liz's flat (complete with a menagerie of animals, decorative furnishings and wallpaper), continued to provide an intimate and brutally honest portrait of family life, featuring Liz and Jason as well as Ray (for example see Images 2 and 3). The book features photos of cats, dogs and a pet rat taken in the flat, together with a single (urban) landscape and three appallingly bad wildlife photos, the latter representing the only photographs in the book that were taken outdoors as Billingham sought to escape family chaos for a short time.

Image 2. Jason and Ray (Richard Billingham: "Ray's a Laugh")

Image 3. Liz (Richard Billingham: "Ray's a Laugh")

Photojournalism often highlights the lives of people in socially deprived areas of society, for example those living on the streets, migrants, prostitutes, drug users and abusers. However surely nobody had, prior to the publication of this book, produced anything so brutally honest about their close family. Billingham’s images take us into his home. They make us feel emotions that must have manifested themselves in his mind and they make us shudder and think “there but for the grace of god….” And yet, for all the sadness, for all his father’s drunken antics that are captured on film (see, for example, Image 4) and all the hopelessness of his parents’ situation there is still a feeling of a family bond, even of love between family members.

Image 4. Ray (Richard Billingham: "Ray's a Laugh")

Why did Billingham take these intimate photos in the first place? As Charlotte Cotton describes in her essay describing the evolution of “Ray’s a Laugh” in the ‘Errata’ book, they were never intended for publication. Billingham describes taking his first photographs of Ray at home (Ray was living with Richard after Liz had left) as a means of documenting what was happening to them, physically (for Ray), as well as psychologically and emotionally for both. He has commented that he felt like a wildlife photographer, documenting the behaviour of a particular species (his family). He took a shopping bag full of these family prints to the University of Sunderland, where some were used to produce sketches and paintings of his father. Here the photographs were seen by a tutor (Julian Germain) who alerted his friend Michael Collins (then picture editor of The Daily Telegraph) regarding their potential. Thus a process started, which ended with the publication of “Ray’s a Laugh”.

How can I relate “Ray’s a Laugh” to my own project work? The family photos that I took were, unlike Billingham’s images, never candid. All the archival photos that I have used were relatively formal and often posed. Nevertheless the deterioration in my mother’s health and mental state can clearly be traced photographically, from the ‘early years’ following my father’s death to the photos taken at Christmas 2006, a month before she died. The fact that I am confident enough to use these latter images, which I still find hard to look at, in a photo book that will be viewed by people who are not a part of my family stems from the confidence gained by studying the candid nature of Billingham’s images. “Ray’s a Laugh” is an important stepping stone in the photographic journey from Modernist formalism to Post-Modernist realism.

Major Project Influences (17): Surrealist Photography

For many years I have enjoyed the art of the Surrealists – in particular the work of Salvador Dali. In the 1930s, when the movement was at its peak, painting, sculpture and prose were the dominant art forms that the Surrealists used to express their individual interpretations of dreams and psychic states. Photography was generally viewed at this time as an objective medium for realism and therefore hardly suitable for artists wishing to express their thoughts in an abstract or ‘dreamlike’ form. However, the Surrealists’ love of experimentation and invention not only overcame this potential hurdle but led to the discovery and development of new photographic techniques. By the time the Surrealist movement faded as war broke out in Europe some of its finest and most memorable works had been produced in photographic form.

Whilst the contribution of Man Ray to photographic art (photograms, solarisation etc.) is generally considered to have been of the greatest importance, my own work for this project has been influenced more by the montages and double exposures that were (painstakingly, in the darkroom) produced by Surrealist photographers, many of whom remained largely unknown and/or unheralded. A number of these works were included in ‘The Radical Eye’ exhibition at Tate Modern in 2016-17 (see elsewhere for a  Review). I will mention here just a small number of examples of Surrealist work to give a flavour of how they were not just ahead of the times but how they also influenced my current project work.

Herbert Bayer (1900-1985) came from the Bauhaus school of photographers but produced several imaginative, hallucinatory photomontages that were absolutely typical of the output of the Surrealists. “Lonely Metropolitan” (Image 1) is perhaps his best known work – the use of hands and the overlay motif can be found in my current project work. Bayer loved to experiment in the darkroom in order to produce apparently impossible photographic effects: a typical example of this can be seen in my review of “The Radical Eye” exhibition.

Image 1. Herbert Bayer: "Lonely Metropolitan" (1932)

Erotic subjects were commonplace in the work of the Surrealists and Heinz Hajek-Halke’s montage, “Erotica – Close Up” (Image 2), is a typical example. Once again, the overlaying of one photograph over selected parts of another photograph has been liberally used in my current project work.

Image 2. Heinz Hajek-Halke: "Erotica - Close Up" (1930)

Double exposures were also liberally used by the Surrealists. An interesting example is the photograph of Max Ernst, one of the driving forces in the Surrealist movement, by the Surrealist photographer Frederick Sommer (Image 3). Ernst was himself a prolific polymath, who produced many photo-collages in his lifetime. The use of digital double and multiple exposures has formed a major part of my repertoire in the current project.

Image 3. Frederick Sommer: "Max Ernst" (1946)

Of course photography does not always have to resort to trickery and darkroom techniques in order to influence my work. Lee Miller (1907-78) was best known as Man Ray’s assistant and muse, but was an extremely accomplished photographer in her own right (see my post reviewing the major retrospective exhibition of her work at the Imperial War Museum).  Her photograph “Portrait of Space” (Image 4), with the camera apparently looking out onto a barren land through torn fabric, provided me with ideas for a couple of my own images. It is sad and ironic that, like my mother, Miller struggled with clinical depression in her later years.

Image 4. Lee Miller: "Portrait of Space" (1937)

Whilst I have cited specific examples of Surrealists’ work that has influenced me in this post their use of experimentation, abstract ideas and novel concepts has also provided me with inspiration for my current project, as well as for past projects. It is reasonable to assume that my future work will also be influenced by Surrealism.

Major Project Influences (16): Individual Images

In my logbook and blog I have discussed the influences that many artists and photographers have had on my course work and output. In some cases the artist’s influence has changed the direction of my project work. In other cases it has changed my way of thinking about my work, helped me to crystallise my ideas, assisted me in translating memories into images or hinted at how I can evoke emotion in the viewer, through the use of my text and images. These influences have been critical to the development of the project to the stage where the end point (a photo book) is in sight.

However, along the rocky road to the completion of the major project I have been influenced by single images produced by photographers whose output has otherwise often had no effect on my work. A small number of examples are highlighted here.

Jack Davison

Jack Davison is a young English portrait and fashion photographer, some of whose work appeared in an article for the December 2015 issue of the British Journal of Photography. One image (Image 1), part of a commission for ‘Garage’ magazine, caught my eye. The use of torn paper, revealing a second subject through the split in the man’s head, spoke to me of division, torn emotions, stress and the juxtaposition of two different experiences - all relevant to memories of my relationship with my mother. How and why Davison produced this image is unclear – it may have been a single photograph of an old advertisement hoarding or fly poster in which the torn top poster reveals a second poster underneath. This is not as important as the effect that the image had on me and the ideas that it gave me, some of which have been incorporated into more than one image from my (as yet) unfinished photo book, with the possibility of more to follow.

Image 1 (Jack Davison)

David Jimenez

I know of David Jimenez’s photo book ‘Infinito’ only through a few images, including one of the cover (Image 2), and a short description of the ‘mysterious’ contents that are incorporated on page 271 of Parr and Badger’s ‘The Photobook: A History Volume 3’ (Phaidon). However, the cover page did provide one solution to a problem that I had had in photographically representing the time towards the end of my mother’s life when I was spending most of my time with her dealing with her financial affairs, cooking and doing pretty much everything except giving her the emotional help that she so badly needed. The resultant image (Image 2a), which visually represents part of the accompanying text, may not be incorporated into the final photo book (I’m looking at alternative representations), but the connection with the Jimenez image is clear to see.

Image 2 (David Jimenez)

Image 2a (Martin Johnson)

Anne-Marie Glasheen

Although I didn’t realise it at the time the ‘Memories’ themed issue of the Journal of London Independent Photography (LIP; winter 2008, no.11) would prove to be very influential for my current project. The journal included an article in which writer, poet and photographer Anne-Marie Glasheen used double exposures of women from several generations of her family, against a wooded background, to represent her memories of them (e.g. Images 3a and 3b). The effect is quite ghost-like and mysterious and has been influential in my portrayal of my own family members in a number of images, although for my project I have tried to juxtapose and blend two or more photographs where there is a strong connection between each of the images. The type of double exposure used by Glasheen has cropped up on a few other occasions – wherever it does, study of the image(s) evokes memories and emotions inside me. Note that the wooded background for images 3a and 3b is the same.

Image 3a (Anne-Marie Glasheen)

Image 3b (Anne-Marie Glasheen)

John Levett

I have written elsewhere about the influence on my work of the photographer John Levett. In the same ‘memories’ themed issue of LIP (see above) he writes movingly about his relationship with his parents and, in particular, his mother. Not only was his writing (which takes the form of an imaginary ‘question and answer’ session with himself, a device that he uses rather well in his work) both moving and very relevant to my own project but his photographs, which initially appear to be rather crude and poorly exposed and presented, are actually strongly evocative of the past and his relationship with his mother. The strongest of the images, which is used for the cover of this issue (Image 4), uses the photographer’s hands to provide a human link between the artist and the photograph of his mother. A number of my own images use a similar device in different ways. This image has provided the largest influence of any single photograph for my current project work.

Image 4 (John Levett)

Major Project Influences (15): 'Instagram'

There’s no doubt that, when it comes to new technology, I’m a bit of a Luddite. This applies particularly to the use of mobile phones (I just use my smartphone for making phone calls and sending text messages, as well as very occasionally for taking photographs on the rare occasions when I don’t have a camera handy) and social media (I don’t use ‘Facebook’ or ‘Twitter’ and see no reason for doing so in the future). However, my images do occasionally find their way onto others’ ‘Flickr’ accounts (see, for example, some Antarctica images at https://www.flickr.com/photos/naturetrek/sets/72157667613083114 if you don’t believe me) and I am starting to take an interest in some of the most interesting of the millions of images that are downloaded every day onto others’ ‘Instagram’ accounts.

‘Instagram’ is essentially designed for (mainly) young mobile phone users with apps that allow them to instantly process, download and share their phone images with others via the internet. Often the mobile phone is their only camera. Many people use ‘Instagram’ simply to share pictures of family and friends, show where they are on holiday at any given time, etc. However, as one would expect from young, bright, socially aware people who perhaps have no interest in pursuing photography as a career but are full of ideas, some really creative images are appearing on peoples’ ‘Instagram’ accounts. I wouldn’t have any knowledge of this if it were not for the fact that a rash of books, featuring some of (I assume) the most creative ‘Instagram’ work around, were not appearing in the ‘photography’ sections of major booksellers.

Producing books of some of the best ‘Instagram’ images and selling them at (Waterstones) prices of £8 to £17 must be ‘money for old rope’ as far as publishers are concerned, but for mugs like me who look at and occasionally buy these books, the creativity behind some of the images is a regular source of ideas and inspiration. My work is heavily influenced by the creativity provided by others and some of the ‘Instagram’ images that I have found have had a direct or indirect influence on my current project work. Perhaps the most influential book has been ‘Insta Grammar Nordic’ (Lannoo), which features images by a variety of Nordic mobile phone users. Many of the results are atmospheric and some can have an emotional effect – the images are very evocative of the region. Several of the most interesting images have been downloaded by an ‘Instagrammer’ called ‘@KRISTINENOR’: some of her images can be found at: https://www.instagram.com/kristinenor/. Whilst a wide range of subject matter is featured it is the abstract or semi-abstract images (for example Image 1 and Image 2) that impress me. I haven’t seen the use of huge areas of dark (negative?) space, as in Image 2, before – it may or may not be original, but it seems to me to be a potent weapon in the armoury of a photographer who wishes to create a certain mood and atmosphere in their work. Large areas of light space, as in Image 1, are more commonly seen in images, but the use of a hand (trying to get in?) is again very effective in creating atmosphere, according to how the viewer interprets the image.

Image 1 (Kristinenor)

Image 2 (Kristinenor)

The idea of the photographer holding up a photograph or a photo frame, in order either to highlight a part of the subject matter beyond it or to juxtapose the frame with the remainder of the image, is not new. However, Kyle Steed (@kylesteed; www.kylesteed.com) uses the idea in imaginative ways (Image 3). His work can be found in ‘The Instagram Book’ (Ammo). John Levett (see the separate post in this blog) also uses ‘held’ photographs in his work and these influences have worn off on me, as three of the images in my photo book refer to this type of work.

Image 3 (Kyle Steed)

Other influences have been absorbed but not yet used – they may come in useful for future projects, but there is probably still time for me to develop any particularly relevant ones within the current project. One atmospheric example, shown in Image 4, was produced by Pei Ketron (@pketron; www.penelopesloom.com) and can be found in ‘This Is Happening’ (Chronicle Books). What does the future hold for ‘Instagram’? One thing is for sure: many more ‘Instagram’ books will appear in the coming months and years.

Image 4 (Pei Ketron) 

Major Project Influences (13): Rosy Martin

During my research I stumbled across a small section of Rosy Martin’s project: “Acts of Reparation” at the ‘Uncertain States Open Call’ exhibition in 2015. My tutor recommended that I should look at her work because, as for my ongoing project, her photography often deals with memory and loss, in particular relating to the deaths of her parents. I therefore decided to look again at “Acts of Reparation” and to see how it related to my own work.

For over 30 years Rosy Martin has, either individually or through collaborations with other artists (including Jo Spence), developed an original photographic practice, termed Phototherapy, in which re-enactment is combined with photography to examine role-playing as a means of exploring and understanding memories. This ‘therapy’ is designed to explore individuals’ identities and understand and/or control emotions concerned with, amongst other things, bereavement, grief, loss and reparation.

Although her projects are not just restricted to phototherapy, most of Martin’s work (and, in particular, “Acts of Reparation”) strongly reflects this practice. In this project she dresses in her parents’ clothes and tries to assume their identities, both physically and emotionally, before photographing herself, sometimes reflected in a mirror, as she would wish to remember them. In her mother’s case (see, for example, Image 1) this work is particularly poignant as Martin was her mother’s carer towards the end of her life when her mother was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, an illness that can be both demanding and distressing for relatives and friends of those affected.

Image 1; Rosy Martin, Photograph from "Acts of Reparation"

These images are designed not only as personal acts of reparation but also to reach out to the viewer to address reflective nostalgia and loss. They act as a personal memoir of the ‘good’ parents, perhaps as they would have wished to be remembered, perhaps deflecting some of the heartbreak associated with illness and bereavement.

At the risk of sounding sexist, role playing that goes to the extremes of dressing up and portraying somebody else appears to be restricted to women in the world of photographic art, with Cindy Sherman and Gillian Wearing springing to mind. This does not devalue the act in my eyes, but perhaps points to differences in the way that individuals seek reparation. I would certainly not demean the importance of Phototherapy as a potential device for many people in successfully dealing with grief and exploring memory. Also, attempting to use photography as a means of effecting reparation certainly strikes a chord with me as, after all, is my project not about reparation?

What value can I gain from studying Rosy Martin’s work? Firstly, I find her use of mirrors in some of the photographs, such as Image 1, interesting. Although I have dabbled in the ‘artificial’ use of mirrors in my project this work has not, so far, been successful. Perhaps a more intimate photograph, connecting me with an image of my mother, could be a device for exploring some of the events and periods in our lives that I still need to represent pictorially, provided that the presentation can provoke a response in the viewer. Secondly, Martin’s use of visual clues to explore memory and the passage of time is also very important in my work – even if I’m trying to do this in a very different way.

One final point: taking on the role of carer enabled Rosy Martin’s mother to stay in her own home, amongst cherished possessions and memories, until she died. One of my many regrets, which is expressed in the text for my project, is that because I did not take on the role of my mother’s carer after I retired (it would have been extremely difficult but possible for me to do so) my mother had to leave her home and she died in residential care. My attitude to reparation may differ somewhat from Rosy Martin’s, but for me some things can never be repaired.

Major Project Influences (12): Aviv Yaron

My project involves trying to produce images that provoke an emotional response in the viewer. This is not easy, as I have been discovering over the last year or so. One focus of my research has been in trying to find images by other photographers that provoke an emotional response when I look at them. To be honest, I haven’t found too many! However, at the latest (2016) ‘Uncertain States – Open’ exhibition at the Mile End Pavilion, London, I did find some images by Israeli-born photographer Aviv Yaron which caused me to look again and again. Not only were these photographic prints aesthetically pleasing to my eye but, when hung together, the ‘fractured’ landscapes (entitled “In Another Place”) created an uncanny and very strong atmosphere – and if a photograph has atmosphere it is well on the way to generating an emotional response in me. Image 1 shows a typical example.

Image 1; Aviv Yaron, from “In Another Place”

I was lucky enough to meet the artist at the exhibition and chat about his work. “In Another Place” consists of a series of photographs taken of the rubble that is all that remains of the Palestinian village of Simsim. Following the creation of the state of Israel, the Palestinians were expelled from the village in 1948 and moved to the Gaza strip. In the place where the village used to stand an Israeli kibbutz was founded: the kibbutz is still there today. There is no sign to indicate what had once been here before or that this had once been Palestinian land. Yaron grew up accepting that this was the ‘promised land’ and that he was one of ‘God’s chosen people’. Only recently has he started to come to terms with the fact that another culture held rights to the land and that this culture was forcibly removed, indirectly giving rise to some of the most tragic events in modern times.

Yaron chose to photograph the landscapes on film and then to chemically mark his negatives before producing prints. The results, whilst unpredictable, clearly add another layer of complexity to the photographs. Yaron remarks that the production of the additional visual surface in this way is “as if presenting a physical testimony to the passage of time, and providing an appearance to the unseen”. He also comments that “The surface blemishes and traces appear to be etched into what could be experienced as the topology of one’s memory”. It is clear that for him this series of images represents a journey and a passage of self-reflection, examining the significance of past events through a multi-layered approach.

Having understood the significance of this work provides me, the viewer, with the necessary emotional response. Of course the landscapes on their own could have told the same story, but somehow the marks add another layer of significance, both literally and metaphorically. They also seem to reflect the struggle that the artist has had to come to terms with his past and with the history of what happened in his mother country before he was born.

What can I learn from this work? I can take encouragement from the fact that marking the negative has produced an image with both aesthetic appeal (admittedly a subjective response) and a kind of surreal complexity (see, for example, Image 2) that draws me in to find out more. Having understood the background to the project, looking at the photographs again held my attention and produced an emotional response. Perhaps my own multi-layered images can produce a similar response in the viewer, particularly if I can harness the power of the landscapes of the Yorkshire Dales, where my story unfolds, as part of the story.

Image 2; Aviv Yaron, from “In Another Place”

Research, Book Review and Major Project Influences (11): "Ukadia" by John Goto (Djangoly Art Gallery, 2003)

John Goto is a photographer who uses his images to satirise and poke fun at society and the establishment, whilst raising important socio-political issues (in particular the gulf between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’) that are current in today’s society. His works often use photo-montage in order to explore these themes and, mainly because of the relevance of this technique to my own work, he was recommended for further study by my tutor.

‘Ukadia’ is essentially the book of an exhibition organised by the Djangoly Art Gallery, which featured three of Goto’s best known works, ‘Capital Arcade’, ‘High Summer’ and ‘Gilt City’, these works being produced between 1997 and 2003. The works seem to represent well both Goto’s style and his philosophy, based on other research and my study of the galleries on his web site. I’ll look at each series in turn and give an overview of his work and its relevance to my project afterwards.

‘Capital Arcade’ (1997-99) features ten satirical photo-tableaux, relating to “the collapse of socialism” in ‘New Labour’ Britain. The tableaux feature managerial and consumerist society, set in an imaginary ‘out of town’ new shopping arcade. Each of the composite images relates to a specific work of art by artists ranging from El Greco to Joshua Reynolds. Goto clearly has a deep and sophisticated understanding of art history, which allows him to relate the messages in the original art works to his own ironical messages about modern day society. To be honest I found the messages hard to follow and had to rely on the essay in the book by Robert Clark to appreciate their significance. ‘Unit 3, Capital Arcade’ (Image 1) gives a flavour of Goto’s style.

Image 1: John Goto, "Unit 3, Capital Arcade"

Based on El Greco’s ‘Christ Driving the Traders from the Temple’, the temple porch is represented by McDonalds’ foyer and the Christ figure by an oriental person, who is surrounded by trendy people in brand name gear, representing the traders and apostles. Notice also the man with the 1990s mobile phone!

Whilst Goto’s coded messages are sophisticated and political and his images undoubtedly must have taken a lot of time and effort to put together, he makes no attempt to hide the fact that they are montages. I imagine that he must have drawn from a library of hundreds, perhaps thousands of images of people photographed in the streets. The images are impressive in that they were put together digitally at a time when image manipulation using digital technology was in its infancy.

‘High Summer’ (2000-2001) takes Goto’s Britain away from shopping malls and out into the idealised arcadian landscapes of Poussin and Lorrain, 17^th century French landscape painters who are much admired by the photographer. He has combined the classical landscapes of Stowe, Rousham and Stourhead with (often) fake Palladian temples and classical ruins and re-positioned these, in montage with contemporary landscapes (beaches, valleys, hills, lakes and streams) to produce visually ravishing, if entirely artificial landscapes. These scenes are then deliberately spoilt, or at least changed, by the addition of people engaged in various contemporary activities. The myth of the perfect landscape becomes the reality of a landscape used and often abused by joggers, cyclists, hunters, joyriders, the army and the air force. Indeed, Goto’s vision is often doom-laden with visions of impending flooding (image 2 – an early reference to global warming?)

Image 2: John Goto, "Deluge"

In ‘High Summer’ Goto’s satire is directed both at the perceived eccentricities of human behaviour and at our dual capacity for creation and self-destruction. By setting his scenes in beautifully composed, atmospheric imaginary landscapes his work becomes far more aesthetically appealing and perhaps carries a stronger message than does ‘Capital Arcade’.

‘Gilt City’ (2002-2003) sees Goto return to the urban landscape. The 20 images in this series mainly depict urban ‘outsiders’, such as beggars, flower sellers and touts, against a backdrop of corporate city buildings. In many images reflections of suited ‘city types’ in the windows of the buildings emphasise the differences between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ (a recurring theme in Goto’s work). A typical example is ‘Beggar’ (below), in which a man begs using a McDonalds drinking cup, holding it as if in prayer. The dome of St Pauls, an icon of London’s financial centre, is conveniently reflected in glass behind him. Is there a connection between McDonalds and begging or is the cup simply used to connect the beggar with the capitalist society?

John Goto, "Beggar"

In contrast to the earlier works, here Goto dressed and photographed friends and associates in the studio, then digitally placed their images into his many images of the ‘square mile’. These images are technically simpler and (presumably) more straightforward to produce than his previous series, but their meaning is often harder to place – in many cases, as noted in the essay by Mark Durden that accompanies the series, his work carries mixed messages. In particular, his images of the ‘Bear Tamer’ and ‘Bullfighter’ (a reference to the ‘bulls’ and ‘bears’ of the Stock Market) reverse their relationship with the ‘bull’ being represented by a cute calf and the bear appearing as a reflection in the window behind the ‘Bear Tamer’, apparently ready to pounce. The subtlety of some of the other images would have been lost on me if there had not been a discussion and explanation in Durden’s text. The bottom line of this work appears to be that “Capitalism has become a pervasive, monolithic force, which assimilates any signs of subversion or defiance”.

Whilst the images of this final series have lost some aesthetic appeal when compared with ‘High Summer’ they do seem more focussed and more contemporary. They are also more closely aligned to the type of image that I am attempting to produce for my own project work.

Final Comments and Learning Points

In these three visually very different series of works John Goto uses photo-montage in order to present a satirical, socialist, at times almost apocalyptic view of the state of modern society, with its inequalities and injustices. As digital imaging technology has developed, the sophistication of his montages has increased to the point where in the final series it is quite possible to believe that the images were single snapshots. Whilst the ‘High Summer’ images have the greatest aesthetic appeal their message is tempered by the fact that they are clearly montages. The ‘Capital Arcade’ series, with its fairly rudimentary collaging of multiple images, appears over-complicated in its message, except for art buffs and those prepared to put in a considerable amount of time in order to understand their message. The ‘Gilt City’ images are simpler and have a more realistic appearance: their messages are hard to glean, but their relative structural simplicity allows the viewer to have a go at deciphering this meaning, even if ultimately even the expert may fall short.

How does Goto’s output affect my own work? As with the first two series discussed here I am making no attempt to conceal the fact that the images for my project are photo-montages. Furthermore, I have produced one or two images that, whilst much less aesthetically pleasing, place human figures in a landscape environment. These have not been successful and, at the time of writing (November 2016), are likely to be dropped. However, I think that I can develop some ideas along the lines of the third series, juxtaposing two or more images to make a point or tell a story, perhaps encouraging the viewer to find the key to their significance from within the picture. Coincidentally, one early image that I produced, which my tutor likes (and is therefore likely to be incorporated into the final portfolio!), is Image 4 (below), a composite reflecting on my mother’s move into residential care. This image has some relation to ‘Gilt City’ in the manner in which it juxtaposes (in this case) two images to make a point.

Image 4

However, Goto’s composites fail to move me. Together, they carry a message and that is not an emotional one. I will have to look elsewhere for inspiration in that regard.

Major Project Influences (10): Susan Burnstine

Susan Burnstine is an American photographer, now living in Los Angeles. Her distinctive style has been developed by using home-made cameras and lenses produced from a variety of materials, which invariably contain flaws resulting in peculiar effects, predominantly varying degrees of blurring but also magnification of certain areas of her images. Always shooting in monochrome, the effects of these lenses are to produce dream-like, often nightmarish, almost abstract images in which the subject matter can be ascertained, but is only partially resolved.

I first came across Burnstine’s work as the cover photo and sleeve images for The Guillemots’ CD album ‘Walk the River’, in which the title and feel of the album’s title track are (in my eyes, at least) superbly reflected in her photographs (Images 1 and 2).

Image 1: Susan Burnstine, "Walk the River", Album Cover

Image 2: Susan Burnstine, "Walk the River", Sleeve Image

These images have the appeal of creating a brooding atmosphere and at the time (2012) encouraged me to investigate the deliberate introduction of blurring effects into my own images, although I used ‘Photoshop’ rather than home-made lenses to achieve this. The project never got off the ground, but now I’m considering again the deliberate introduction of blurring and other ‘effects’ in order to try to generate more emotion in some of the images for my current project. Blurring also refers to the concept of memory, where memories become faded with time. I’ve already introduced blurring into one of the images that I’m working with (which I may or may not use) and I am also looking at deliberately blurring one or more of the constituents of some other image montages. Will it work for me? If it doesn’t I may not pursue the work any further, because then it will be unlikely to work for the viewers of my images.

Susan Burnstine has produced two photo books. The first, ‘Within Shadows’ (cover photo shown in Image 3), is very expensive and difficult to get hold of, being out of print. Burnstine states that this work was prompted by powerful, nightmarish dreams that afflicted her during childhood and later during adulthood, particularly after she had been traumatised by the premature death of her mother. 

Image 3: Susan Burnstine, Cover Photograph for "Within Shadows"

More recently I have obtained the second book, ‘Absence of Being’, which was prompted when the dreams returned, following the death of her father. She writes down the dreams when she wakes, then tries to represent them on film as a type of therapy. There are some particularly striking images in "Absence of Being", which consist mainly of urban landscapes. My favourite photograph, "Beyond the East River", is shown below (Image 4).

Image 4: Susan Burnstine, "Beyond the East River", from "Absence of Being"

Susan Burnstine's work deals with memory and loss in a unique manner. Her atmospheric images provoke an emotional response in the viewer and provide an example of how blurring can be used in a positive manner. Making images that produce an emotional response from the viewer is one of the key aims (and arguably the most important remaining aim) of my project and this work illustrates one way in which I could achieve this.

Major Project Influences (9) - Sophie Calle and Book Review: 'Double Game' (Violette Editions, 2007)

Sophie Calle is a French conceptual artist, producing works and installations of a personal and/or autobiographical nature and using photographs to document her art. Her works often take the form of rituals and frequently involve interactions with others on streets in cities, detective work, journeys and performance incorporating arbitrary rules, recorded in intimate detail and in a self-deprecatory manner. However her style is, as far as I am aware, unique and impossible to categorise. I first came across her art at the ‘Walk On’ exhibition in Birmingham a few years ago, where the text and photographs of ‘Suite Venitienne’ (see below) were pasted along approximately forty feet of wall space. Fascinated by her pseudo-detective story, I spent half an hour reading through it from start to finish. The book ‘Double Game’ contains ‘Suite Venitienne’, together with several others of her best known works. The book references American author Paul Auster’s 1992 novel ‘Leviathan’, in which a number of her earlier works are used by Auster in creating a fictional character called Maria. These works are all included in ‘Double Game’. Auster created some additional rules for Maria to follow and Calle used these rules to produce further conceptual works. Finally Calle went to New York and invited Auster to invent some new rules for her to follow, in performance, in the city. The resultant work of art, ‘Gotham City’, concludes the book.

Calle has borrowed one or two of the ideas from Auster’s book and introduced them into her own art, but the bulk of this book consists of the photographs and text from some of her best known art works, including ‘The Striptease’, ‘Suite Venitienne’, ‘The Detective’, ‘The Address Book’ and ‘The Birthday Ceremony’, which are all referenced in Auster’s work.

In ‘The Striptease’ Calle mentions how, at the age of six, she used to undress in an elevator on the way to the sixth floor of the block of flats where she lived with her grandparents and run naked along the corridor to their flat entrance. In 1979, twenty years later, she was performing striptease on the stage of a strip club, not far from her grandparents’ home. The performance was recorded for her on camera (early stage: Image 1).

Image 1 (Sophie Calle)

Why she chose to do this, even as a way of producing performance art, is not covered in the book (although Auster presents some possible causes in his own book, a section of which [relating to Maria] is incorporated into Calle’s book). However, Calle’s audacity at taking on this role, presumably mainly for the sake of art, characterises much of her work.

In ‘Suite Venitienne’ (1981) Calle acts out one of her favourite roles, playing the detective as she visits Venice to find and then follow a man whom she had met at an opening shortly beforehand. Having discovered where he is staying she follows and photographs him as he moves around the city (Image 2). What I find particularly interesting about this work is how the seemingly bland and uninspiring documentary photographs cleverly combine with the text to immerse the viewer in an atmospheric and intense adventure.

Image 2 (Sophie Calle)

In ‘The Birthday Ceremony’ (1980-1993) Calle decided that, every year on her birthday, she would invite the number of people corresponding to her age, including one complete stranger chosen by one of her guests, to dinner. She kept her presents from these occasions, showcasing and photographing them every year (Image 3). However, it appears that the ritual was frequently interrupted, due to her need to attend events elsewhere around the time of her birthday as her fame (notoriety?) grew. She eventually abandoned the ritual on her 40^th birthday.

Image 3: Birthday Presents 1985 (Sophie Calle)

The final section of the book deals with a project, entitled ‘Gotham Handbook’, in which Auster asked Calle to carry out “personal instructions for S C on how to improve life in New York City”. These included smiling at and talking to strangers, performing small acts of kindness towards beggars and homeless people and cultivating and beautifying a small spot on the streets of the city, imbuing it with her own identity. Calle’s interpretations of these instructions, which included taking over and decorating the right half of a double phone booth (Image 4), are described in some detail. The end of the project came shortly after the telephone company returned the booth to its original state.

Image 4 (Sophie Calle)

I really enjoyed reading this book. Sophie Calle stretches conceptual art to its limits (if, indeed, there are limits) in these works and yet makes her art very accessible. She is undoubtedly a ‘one off’, perhaps very difficult to understand or to relate to but also incredibly creative. I admire the bare-faced cheek and bravado of some of her works, which sometimes lead her into deep trouble. She writes well and her photographs, superficially bland, run together with the text describing her projects to create atmosphere and emotion, apparently without effort.

What can I take from this book to inform and enhance my own work? Perhaps the most important learning point is that the intelligent combination of text and a portfolio of photographs can be used to not only document an event but also to provoke interest and emotion in the viewer.

Major Project Influences (8) - Adrian Clarke and Book Review: 'Gary's Friends' (West Pier Press, 2007)

My tutor recommended that I look at ‘Gary’s Friends’, both because of the relevance of the subject matter and because as a photo book it might give me some ideas about how to construct a book about my relationship with my mother.

Adrian Clarke gave up his career as a lawyer, specialising in cases of miscarriage of justice, in order to become a professional photographer. However, he retained his interest in human interaction, swapping clients for sitters. ‘Gary’s Friends’ is a collection of portraits of people affected by violence, alcoholism and drug addiction in former mining villages in County Durham and in Middlesborough. Each of the 40 portraits is accompanied by an account from the sitter of how they had lived their lives. In addition, Clarke includes some ‘gritty’ urban and rural landscape photographs of the area in which the sitters lived.

The book, which was published nearly ten years ago, has met with critical acclaim from a number of sources, both as a photo book and as a social statement.

Review

Children of broken marriages, violent and/or alcoholic parents, juvenile delinquency, early exposure to drugs, gangs, alcoholism, prostitution, violence and heroin addiction are themes in a bleak picture of shattered lives, surrounded by an industrial wasteland following the closure of local mines. Clarke paints a bleak picture of his subjects, all of whom are connected, in some cases tenuously, to Gary Crooks, ex-drug addict, drug dealer, gangster and armed robber. Each portrait is placed opposite autobiographical text, succinctly paraphrased by the photographer.

When I first opened the book I started reading the text before looking at the portraits, but I soon switched to first observing the portraits and then trying to second guess the story of the subjects before reading the text. It seems that other readers of this book may have used a similar technique – in his introduction, Alexander Masters memorably suggests that Kay (Image 1) “might be a holiday operator testing a hotel bed in Tenerife, but is actually an alcoholic sitting in her rehab room”. It soon became clear that there were few winners in these stories, although many talk about making new beginnings.

Image 1; Kay Moore (Adrian Clarke)

Amidst all the personal carnage there are stories of minor heroism, in particular from the mothers, such as Christine Crooks (Gary’s aunt), who never abandoned her son Philip (see Image 2) despite his continuing heroin addiction.

Image 2; Christine and Philip Crooks (Adrian Clarke)

Image 2 is a great example of how Clarke brings out the character of his subjects very well in the family images, where the subjects can and do interact. When the sitters are alone it becomes harder to predict how their lives have turned out. Nearly all the portraits were taken indoors, either in the sitters’ homes or in institutions, using natural light. Sometimes they are cropped tight but on other occasions their surroundings (usually in a sitting room) give the viewer the chance to get a feel for their immediate environment. It was only when I looked through the portrait photographs again, ignoring the text, that I realised how much of the sitters’ characters were revealed in the photographs.

The landscape photographs further add to the bleak picture created by the text. Cemeteries, dead end streets, motorways and urban and rural decay all feature, with the image of a man walking his dog past a derelict garage (Image 3) being typical.

Image 3 (Adrian Clarke)

Those of us who read this book are likely to be in far better shape than the subjects that he describes. This should not allow us to be critical of them. What would have happened to me if I had been born in one of these villages, perhaps to a single mother who could only make her living out on the streets? Perhaps I might have been born a heroin addict (an example is described in the book). Only the strong and/or lucky can make good having been brought up in an environment such as this and how strong you are as a person is dictated, to some extent, by your genes – it’s a vicious circle, in which the easy solution appears to be to turn to crime and/or to take to drink or the needle. Clarke delineates a major social problem that is not limited to the communities that he so eloquently describes, but he does not offer a solution.

Photo Book Organisation

Following some introductory images and the written introduction by Alexander Masters, Adrian Clarke’s book sticks to a rigid format. Text is placed on the left hand page and portrait images are opposite the text on the right hand page. If, as it often does, the text goes onto a second page, it is accompanied by a non-portrait image opposite. I am planning to also place passages of text on the left hand page, but to follow each passage of text by an odd number (1,3,5) of images, to be placed starting on the right hand page but then alternating between right and left until the final image is placed on the right hand page. A new piece of text will then be placed on the next (left hand) page unless a new chapter is to be started (my current intention is to split my photo book into four or five sections, although this may change in the future). Clarke’s is the first photo book that I have found where there is a substantial amount of accompanying text and where the formatting has some similarity to the way I would like to format my own photo book.

Final Comments and Learning Points

Adrian Clarke’s text and images speak eloquently of a broken or crumbling community at a certain time, where lives had been and were being ruined by social deprivation, shortages of jobs, boredom and social decay. As such, this work carries a powerful punch. Will it change (or has it changed) society? This is doubtful, because it is likely only to be read by the ‘converted’. We are also, of course, looking at an unrepresentative cross-section of the community. Surely not everybody in the area was taking drugs, was an alcoholic or a prostitute. Some people would have tried to break out of this apparently dead end existence and doubtless some will have succeeded. New housing estates (mentioned in the book) will have brought comparatively well off commuters into the area: new supermarkets to serve them and industrial estates to replace the rubble will have brought jobs. The community will be changing, hopefully for the better.

The use of a combination of text and images here produces powerful and at times emotional messages. This is exactly what I am trying to do in my own project, so Adrian Clarke’s book represents an excellent lead for me to follow. Likewise, the construction of the photo book provides a useful template for me to investigate.