NEWSgrist - where spin is art

Vernacular Photography: Archaeology & Retro-Futurism

A few excerpts that struck me from two separate reviews that touch on photography and the vernacular:

via Village Voice:

Project Spaces at Location One and White Columns
Follow us, dear reader, into the secret annexes
By Martha Schwendener
Wednesday, July 9th 2008

[...] In the project room over at White Columns, Oliver Wasow works more like an archaeologist, sifting through annals of recent photography. Just as archaeologists favor ancient garbage dumps for the mother lode of information they provide about a past culture, Wasow's "Expansible Catalogue" also focuses on junk--or at least the kind of photography that doesn't make it into art-history books.

Wasow's photos, displayed in a hodgepodge of sizes and frames, are hybrids of pictures he took and joined digitally with images cribbed from unidentified sources. Certain themes repeat: the digits of historically significant years ("1945" looming tall over a heap of rubble); an abandoned wagon wheel surrounded by tufts of prairie grass; a retro-futuristic landscape with domes protruding from the ground.

Some of Wasow's interventions are so subtle that it's hard at first to tell what he's done, though others contain more obvious fantastical elements (like a landscape lodged in a living room). But what's funny is how we often know, intuitively—or, more precisely, through repeated exposure to pictures in books or media sources—what many of these images are supposed to "mean." The isolated wagon wheel signifies the sacrifice and hardship of our western-bound forebears; the huge year dates and the domes, some kind of post-apocalyptic future.

What's also interesting about Wasow's project, though, is what it tells us about how we read photography. Art photography was and is about staking out a signature style, while vernacular photography is interesting for almost the opposite reason: Certain weird tropes get codified and repeated over and over. Only, in Wasow's work, the familiar and the strange mix together to create a new, expanded (expansible!) vocabulary of images.

Wasow borrows the title of his project from Wallace Nutting, an early-20th-century photographer who sold his photographs in department stores. He's also borrowed Nutting's distribution system: Images here are sold, in signed, unlimited editions, for only $10 to $100. Now, virtually all of us can be collectors. If only we all had those backyard sheds to house our private museums.

via Artnet Mag:

ANONYMOUS IS A PHOTOGRAPHER
by Robert Moeller
7-30-08

[...] By 1900, George Eastman finally had the camera he wanted. For 20 years or so, Eastman had layered improvement over improvisation, purchased competing patents, and produced camera after camera. With the introduction of the "Brownie," which could be sold for only $1, a corner had been turned. This magical box, with its image-making power, allowed almost anyone to become a photographer -- and many did.

The Brownie remained in production, in various versions, until 1970, and was responsible for producing millions upon millions of snapshots. Amateur photographers turned the camera on their immediate surroundings, and their pictures remain provincial and mundane, of interest largely to their own circle of family and friends. The resulting works orbit around tradition, the home and family, and are often as deliberate as they are naïve.

Interestingly, though technology has changed, our ways of recording the personal haven't. Though the analog snapshot may have been rendered obsolete by the digital age, one needs only to peruse a photo-sharing website like Flickr.com to understand that our collective finger remains on the shutter. Not only do we all take pictures, but we all take pictures of the same things.

In this vast sea of images, some stand out. A tension, a chafing between innocence and intent, can produce surprising results.

[...] As Sarah Greenough writes, optimistically, about the snapshot in her vibrant introduction: "Liberated from the constraints of the marketplace, they are curious mixtures of originality and conventionality that often present highly inventive pictorial solutions -- whether by accident or intent -- while simultaneously preserving inherited subjects and poses."

[...] As Marvin Heiferman notes, "Snapshots may appear to be naïve, but they are seldom innocent." In Now Is Then: Snapshots from the Maresca Collection, in which Heiferman's essay appears, the tone struck is earthier than The American Snapshot, perhaps reflecting the tastes of the collector, Frank Maresca. Himself a photographer, Maresca brings a wider lens to bear: the inclusion of people of color, a knowing sexuality, hints of violence and disarray.  

Even the photographs themselves seem rough and weathered, mementos pawed over and gazed upon. In one photograph from the 1960s, a boy dressed in a suit poses in front of a television set. The photograph is so lined and creased that its texture adds a swirling, painterly intensity to the picture. Maresca's collection has an urbane grittiness that is missing from The Art of the American Snapshot, which seems more pastoral and quiet by comparison.

As Maresca says in an interview included in the book, "These pictures would have something ‘off’ about them." And that something resonates with a tabloid fury that these anonymous photographers must have known as well.

[read on...]

Found Art (Soho): Unmonumental 52

Found Art (Soho): Unmonumental 52, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

 

Found Art (Chinatown): Unmonumental 51

Found Art (Chinatown): Unmonumental 51, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

 

Back to the Futura!

via Crooked Timber:

 

Back to the Futura

by John Holbo on July 26, 2008

So, about that Obama-in-Berlin poster.

No, I'm not going to make fun of the small handful of right-wing blogs that got fake-alarmist about it, hinting that it kinda sorta looked Fascist. My question is related, however. Being a sensible and knowledgeable sort of person, as opposed to some sort of crazed wingnut, when I look at the poster I see not Fascist art but an homage to German modernist styles of the 1910's and 20's. Being the sort of person who futzes with fonts, I also see an example of art that would have been actually illegal under the Nazis. Quoting from German Modern, by Steven Heller and Louise Fili [amazon]:

After the Nazi's rise to power in 1933, however, when the Dessau Bauhaus was closed (the school had moved from its original home in Weimar in 1925), it was forbidden to use modern design or sans-serif typefaces such as Futura, which Goebbels called a "Jewish invention." Rigid, central balanced composition returned and traditional (and often illegible) Fraktur type was touted as symbolic of the glories of the nation. (17)

The Bauhaus was birthplace to New Typography, by Jan Tschichold, father of Futura. [UPDATE: No, sorry, it was Paul Renner. But the font was associated with the Bauhaus.] I've long been curious about how this whole 'forbidden to use modern design or sans-serif typefaces such a Futura' was enforced in practice. (I like the idea that maybe the Germans lost the war because of a font gap. They were all going blind, trying to read the Führer's orders in Fraktur.) But I've never actually read a full discussion of this, and I’ve read inconsistent brief mentions.

Example: the wikipedia entry for Art of the Third Reich has this to say. "The poster became an important medium for propaganda during this period. Combining text and bold graphics, posters were extensively deployed both in Germany and in the areas occupied. Their typography reflected the Nazis' preference for Fraktur over modern sans-serif typefaces, which were condemned as cultural Bolshevism (although Futura continued to be used owing to its practicality). The use of Fraktur was prevalent in advertising--which was a state monopoly--and books published during the Third Reich."

So were they allowed to use Futura or weren't they? Obviously they wouldn't have been allowed to use Gotham, which is the Futura-resembling but definitely American typeface Obama uses. It doesn't look German. But exactly how did the Nazis set about stamping out serifs? "Lost Serifs Sink Ships!" I'd be curious to read about the minor craziness that must have ensued.

The source for this section of the wikipedia article is Graphic Design: A Concise History, by Richard Hollis [amazon]. Which I've not seen. But I can't imagine such a title has much room for extended discussion. It makes sense, on reflection, that advertising would be a state monopoly, because it’s such a potential source of subversion. Sticking big letters on everything. It also makes sense that you can't oblige everyone to advertise using Fraktur. You can’t read that stuff on a moving bus or train. The wikipedia article also discusses the rather well-known fact that there was a serious schism in Nazi art promotion/censorship circles between those who that wanted to champion suitably Nazi-fied aspects of expressionism as dynamic and modern (Goebbels was one of these, until the Führer put his foot down) and the rest. So it isn't wrong to think that some Nazi art looks like German expressionism. Although it is certainly wrong to think that all German modernism looks like Nazi art.

I found a review by Heller of Art of the Third Reich, by Peter Adam:

Disappointingly, Adam gives short shrift given to graphic design. The Nazis are often credited with the most successful national "identity," ever designed; and its visual propaganda was among the most effective in the modern world. Adam allows that the ideals behind the other arts were manifest in applied art, but does not give the same exacting detail into creation of, say, posters and advertisements as he does the other arts. Given the totality of Nazi control, it would have been fascinating to know why Goebbels brought back German Fraktur to replace sans-serif, which he was reputed to have called a Jewish invention. Or why some years later the more legible sans-serifs do make their way back into German typefoundries replacing Fraktur as a dominant typeface.

Maybe the typeface wars of the Nazi era are unwritten history. I'll just conclude with a few final thoughts.

The art for the cover of the Adam book is interesting because it looks – to me, anyway – like more tasteful 20's-style expressionism/Russian constructivism than the Nazis actually produced for their war posters. I can understand why book designers would do this. It's a way of saying: don't worry, this isn't actually a Nazi book. It's a book about the Nazis. But eventually the effect of this sort of thing is to make 20's-style expressionism look more Fascist, to our eyes.

And here are a couple of relevant images from the Heller book. First, a poster that looks sorta like the Obama poster, compositionally:

It's from 1919.

Then, a couple of examples of how expressionism really has trouble not looking irrelevantly sinister, in light of subsequent developments. The evil Jew is going to steal our awesome magnet! No, I take it you are supposed to identify with the sinister, hook-nosed devil-motorist. I want more power!

Here's another weird one. Our metal package fasterers are so great that you could use them to handcuff someone to a cement block and, presumably, throw him in the river to drown? (You’ll sleep easier, knowing your customers are sleeping with the fishes?) Is it supposed to be a joke? Is it just a somewhat badly designed ad, because it’s too morbid? I dunno.

These posters are from 1915 and 1919, respectively.

{ 61 comments… read them below or add one }

The Long Run & The Bigger Picture

Photo courtesy Obama Campaign. NOT AFRAID TO PROVOKE Barack Obama taught at the University of Chicago Law School for 12 years. Former students say he tested many of the ideas of his presidential campaign in the classroom.

I'm nearly finished reading Obama's first memoir, Dreams from My Father. It's riveting, and I recommend it for anyone wishing for more insight into the man.

From Publishers Weekly:

Elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama was offered a book contract, but the intellectual journey he planned to recount became instead this poignant, probing memoir of an unusual life. Born in 1961 to a white American woman and a black Kenyan student, Obama was reared in Hawaii by his mother and her parents, his father having left for further study and a return home to Africa. So Obama's not-unhappy youth is nevertheless a lonely voyage to racial identity, tensions in school, struggling with black literature...

An odd article, via NYTimes:

The Long Run
Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Apart
By JODI KANTOR
Published: July 30, 2008

CHICAGO -- The young law professor stood apart in too many ways to count. At a school where economic analysis was all the rage, he taught rights, race and gender. Other faculty members dreamed of tenured positions; he turned them down. While most colleagues published by the pound, he never completed a single work of legal scholarship.

At a formal institution, Barack Obama was a loose presence, joking with students about their romantic prospects, using first names, referring to case law one moment and "The Godfather" the next. He was also an enigmatic one, often leaving fellow faculty members guessing about his precise views.

Mr. Obama, now the junior senator from Illinois and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, spent 12 years at the University of Chicago Law School. Most aspiring politicians do not dwell in the halls of academia, and few promising young legal thinkers toil in state legislatures. Mr. Obama planted a foot in each, splitting his weeks between an elite law school and the far less rarefied atmosphere of the Illinois Senate.

Before he outraised every other presidential primary candidate in American history, Mr. Obama marched students through the thickets of campaign finance law. Before he helped redraw his own State Senate district, making it whiter and wealthier, he taught districting as a racially fraught study in how power is secured. And before he posed what may be the ultimate test of racial equality -- whether Americans will elect a black president -- he led students through African-Americans’ long fight for equal status.

Standing in his favorite classroom in the austere main building, sharp-witted students looming above him, Mr. Obama refined his public speaking style, his debating abilities, his beliefs.

"He tested his ideas in classrooms," said Dennis Hutchinson, a colleague. Every seminar hour brought a new round of, "Is affirmative action justified? Under what circumstances?" as Mr. Hutchinson put it.

But Mr. Obama's years at the law school are also another chapter -- see United States Senate, c. 2006 -- in which he seemed as intently focused on his own political rise as on the institution itself. Mr. Obama, who declined to be interviewed for this article, was well liked at the law school, yet he was always slightly apart from it, leaving some colleagues feeling a little cheated that he did not fully engage. The Chicago faculty is more rightward-leaning than that of other top law schools, but if teaching alongside some of the most formidable conservative minds in the country had any impact on Mr. Obama, no one can quite point to it.

"I don't think anything that went on in these chambers affected him," said Richard Epstein, a libertarian colleague who says he longed for Mr. Obama to venture beyond his ideological and topical comfort zones. "His entire life, as best I can tell, is one in which he’s always been a thoughtful listener and questioner, but he’s never stepped up to the plate and taken full swings."

[read full article...]

...and a riposte to this article from The Huffington Post:

The Times' Distorted Professor Obama
John K. Wilson
Posted July 30, 2008 | 09:41 AM (EST)

Today's New York Times features a lengthy story by Jodi Kantor about Obama's time as a teacher at the University of Chicago Law School. Since I took a class from Obama in the mid-1990s on "Race, Racism, and the Law," I thought I could offer some insights into Obama, and what this article gets wrong. Although the article offers some interesting insights, it also distorts Obama's past and tries to attack Obama's candidacy by using his experiences at the University of Chicago as a way to confirm many of the false assertions made about Obama: that he's a politician who doesn't stand for anything, that he's an aloof elitist, that he only pretends to listen to opposing viewpoints.

The author even tries to smear Obama as someone who taught law school with an eye toward his own political ambitions:

Mr. Obama's years at the law school are also another chapter -- see United States Senate, c. 2006 -- in which he seemed as intently focused on his own political rise as on the institution itself.

It's not even clear what this means, but it seems to suggest that Obama's careful, thoughtful approach as a teacher and colleague in the law school was all a guise he used to avoid taking positions which, presumably, he feared might be dug up a decade later by reporters investigating his presidential campaign. This notion is, of course, thoroughly insane. What the author should have concluded is that Obama's years at the University of Chicago Law School show without a doubt that Obama's careful, thoughtful approach to issues today is not a centrist political cop-out; instead, it's a fundamental intellectual approach that Obama followed long before he ever sought political office.

According to Kantor:

Now, watching the news, it is dawning on Mr. Obama's former students that he was mining material for his political future even as he taught them.

This is a particularly odd comment, suggesting that Obama was simply using his students as a way to prepare for his political ambitions. In reality, Obama as teacher and Obama as politician was inspired in both roles by certain values and thinkers, and it's no surprise to see similarities.

There's a particularly offensive attempt to dismiss Obama as an affirmative-action hire given a job solely because of his race:

Mr. Obama had impressed Mr. McConnell with editing suggestions on an article; on little more than that, the law school gave him a fellowship, which amounted to an office and a computer, which he used to write his memoir, "Dreams From My Father." The school had almost no black faculty members, a special embarrassment given its location on the South Side.

Let me assure you, it takes a lot more than that to embarrass most of the University of Chicago faculty. They have been thoroughly comfortable with the idea of an overwhelmingly white faculty teaching overwhelmingly white students about the law in an impoverished black neighborhood. Obama wasn't hired because he was black; he was hired because he was smart, and having been the president of the Harvard Law Review is a major qualification. It's routine for hiring to be made based on a personal connection, and Obama was given some office space with the hope that he would teach there in the future. I've taken classes with Michael McConnell, and although I disagree with his very conservative views, he's not somebody who goes around making cynical quota hires. The University of Chicago faculty hire whomever they want, and there is no real pressure to create diversity.

[read on!]