Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Chapter 10 of Michael Fried's "Why Photography Matters As Art As Never Before" is titled "good" versus "bad" objecthood: James Welling, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Jeff Wall



Fried begins this chapter speaking about a photograph by James Welling titled Lock.  Fried compares this photograph with the abstract sculptures of John McCracken. Fried then takes the time to note the difference between the objectivity of these two similar artworks. He then delineates a difference between “good” and “bad” objectivity. (It is to my understanding that) In this case, Fried presents Welling’s Lock as an example of “good” objectivity stating, “the concern in Welling’s photograph with the specificity of this particular two-by-four, with its individual history and identifying nicks and blemishes, comes out the other side of minimalism or literalism into the world of real and not ‘generic’ objects.” (p.304) What he is trying to say here (in so many words) is that what Welling is doing, is raising the status of the plank, putting it on a pedestal, giving the object weight, and thus causing us to consider what is important about this object. Assumably, Fried would then consider McCracken’s work not objective, because of the other factors that come into play when viewing his work. When looking at McCracken’s work, one would undoubtedly consider the space surrounding the planks, the colours of the planks, the repetition of the planks, etc. This removes an emphasis from the object and causes us to consider the elements of design rather than the object itself.

Fried then begins to talk about Bernd and Hilla Becher’s work, presumably for their honest attempt to look at the structures/things they photographed objectively. Fried gives multiple quotes and makes many statements backing this idea. He talks about how the Becher’s photographed in mostly overcast lighting to eliminate shadows, how they photographed every structure identically, and from multiple directions to show the object completely. It is apparent that the Becher’s truly view their photographs as merely documents, as a simple and convenient way to deliver the object to the viewer. In a perfect world the Becher’s would be able to have a show where the structures themselves were actually present in the room, and no photographs would need to be shown.






Fried also draws our attention to the format in which the Becher’s work is displayed, grids. He also can’t help but inform us that the grids form a much larger singular work….yes, you’ve guessed it, a tableaux. Despite the infuriating relentlessness of Michael Fried’s fetish for the Tableaux he makes several good points as to why the Becher’s work is tableaux and how the grid (and yes, the tableaux) transforms their work. Here is a paraphrased quote from the chapter (I have changed a few unnecessarily obscure words, so is more easily understood): The viewer is thereby invited to know from the 9,12, etc, individual instances, the potential “presence” or operation of a single type (of structure) and at the same time to enjoy a heightened apprehension of the individuality or uniqueness of the particular instances relative both to one another and to the latent or implied type. Fried is bringing up multiple ideas here, all of which have been brought to light through the use of the great and almighty tableaux form. The grids are separated bye type of structure. When a grid is viewed as a whole it operates to represent one singular idealized form, in our minds we composite all of the images together, making one perfect imagined form. When viewed at a closer distance, we are able to easily see the differences and similarities between each image/object.



A comparison is made between The Becher’s work, and that of August Sander and Francis Galton. Although Sander approached his subject matter in a similar way to the Bechers, he is quickly discounted due to his aims of classifying and portraying contemporary trends in classes rather than objectifying. Fried informs us that Galton’s procedure was typological (as was the Bechers) and that the image eventually took the form of a grid. Despite the similarities, however, Galton’s work was much different from the Bechers. Galton’s work required him to predetermine how many faces he would choose to composite together, thus limiting his potential objectivity due to the fact that he must make decision on which faces to include and which to exclude. Fried then makes the case that because Galton’s composited photograph far outweighs the individual portraits that frame the center image. He also states that the Becher’s work implies this composited type of image, but it is never shown.






The rest, is well….over my head.

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