EXIT
Pictorialismo Pictorialism Jeff Bark / Elina Brotherus / Toni Catany / Marie Cosindas / L.J.A.D. Creyghton / Desiree Dolron Pierre Gonnord / Bill Henson / Tom Hunter / Kim Keever / Laszlo Layton / Shinichi Maruyama Sally Mann / Sheila Metzner / Youssef Nabil / Carla van de Puttelaar / Anoek Steketee TEXTOS / ESSAYS: Ulrich Pohlmann, Michel Poivert, Phillip Prodger
Jeff Bark. Untitled, 2007. Courtesy of the artist and Michael Hoppen Contemporary, London.
Pictorialismo Pictorialism
A New Art? A Different Nature! Ulrich Pohlmann
Photography influenced 19th century artistic perception
photographers had already begun to depict every facet
more than any other medium. Once the Daguerreotype
of visible reality. Painting thus benefited from
and the Talbotype became known to the public, the
photography considerably, particularly through
age-old hierarchical order of the arts was shaken and
photographic studies of natural and climatic
artists were forced to reorient their aesthetic forms of
phenomena that, due of their fleetingness, could hardly
expression. Paul Delaroche’s oft-quoted statement
be studied directly.2 These pictures were often taken by
1
"Painting is dead, long live photography!," in 1899,
major 19th century photographers, such as David
intensified the relation between photography and
Octavus Hill & Robert Adamson, Gustave Le Gray,
painting. However, Delaroche was not prophesising the
Roger Fenton, Henri Le Secq, Julia Margaret Cameron
end of painting, but rather defending the conception
and Eadweard Muybridge. This application was
that photography could become, along with other
prevalent well into the 20th century, as demonstrated
devices, such as the camera obscura, the camera lucida,
by the example of Eugène Atget, a supplier of
or projections with mirrors, an important aid for artists.
illustrations for artists such as Utrillo.
As early as 1855, photographers had managed to
Even artists "unsuspected" of realism such as Arnold
gain access to the studios, first in France and England,
Böcklin, and painters as stylistically diverse as Gustave
owing to the greater technical advances of the medium
Courbert, Rosa Bonheur, Ernest Meissonier and
there, and later in Germany, Austria and Italy. For many
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, used photographs in the
artists – painters, illustrators, architects and sculptors –
creative process, as a means of rendering artistic
it was natural to make use of photography to
perception more precisely. Photographic nature studies,
substitute models and for preparatory studies, as part
the so-called études d’après nature were very popular
of the creative process, and for this purpose they
among painters such as those from the Barbizon school,
collected photographs. These archives, which were
whereas the photographic stagings of tableaux vivants
generally dispersed after the artists’ deaths by the
and literary scenes were drawn on widely by pre-
auctioning of their legacies, or by other means,
Raphaelite artists. It is not surprising that in the art
contained prints representing the realms of
academies of Germany, Austria, Italy and France
architecture, landscape, still-life, portraiture and nudes,
photographic archives were also used as a teaching
as well as snapshots or studies of movement. Within
tool. The first systematic photo-archives used for
the first few decades of the invention of photography,
academic purposes therefore came into being. These
E X I T Nº 30-2008 32
Pierre Dubreuil. The Painter Edmund Victor Jamois, 1911.
Pictorialism: The Rejection of Modernism. Photographic theatricality and antimodernity Michel Poivert
A century apart, both contemporary photography and
where the representation is never "given", but rather
Pictorialist photography belong to moments in time in
"created", thus holding the world at a distance. The
which photography is inscribing itself in history,
staged image and documentary style, while stylistically
asserting itself as an artistic practice. However, the
opposed, are nevertheless both forms of objectification.
question is not to establish whether certain
The moments in time when photography and art
contemporary artists have adopted the techniques and
have a common history are also the times when
the effects of the Pictorialist photography of the 1900s.
photography has been understood as a representation.
It is not a question of heritage, as this filiation does not
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Pictorialism
exist. On the other hand, if we compare these two
embodied the first artistic movement to be built up
historical moments we can observe the permanence of
around photography. Its entire aesthetics was based on
an aesthetic which favours the "staged" image over
the idea of the staged photograph. Is this the reason
the "natural" image in photography.
why Pictorialism has been caricatured as a historical
A whole segment of photography can be defined as
"error", or as an "aesthetical heresy" for so long, while
a "staged" image. This kind of photography willingly
straight photography and modernist aesthetics
turns away from a conception of the natural image
triumphed? This "impure" photography denounced by
which understands photography as the direct recording
the "purists" has taken the historical form of
of light, and therefore as a faithful impression of the
degenerate photography. But since the 1980s and the
world. Staged photography presents the belief of the
emergence of contemporary photography, more or less
transparency of the recording in opposition to the
consciously, this pictorial photography has again
expressive force of mise-en-scène and artistic
become – in its very impurity – an aesthetic reference,
photography. Logically, it is also opposed to the
viewed from a different angle.
aesthetic of naturalist effects developed by the tradition
How should we view Pictorialism and contemporary
of reporting and photojournalism. Paradoxically, the
photography together? A line of aesthetic force links
staged image is closer, while being radically different,
these two "ends of century". This line can be
to documentary aesthetics. Like a documentary-style
characterised by evoking the notion of the antimodern.
image – the document in this case being considered
This antimodernity rests on the rejection of technical
outside of any use value –, the staged image asserts its
determinations of progress, among which
value as an artefact, as well as its considered nature,
instantaneousness takes first place. This antimodernity
E X I T Nº 30-2008 74
Henry Peach Robinson. The Lady of Shalott, 1861. Courtesy of the Gernsheim Collection, Harry Ransom Research Center, The University of Texas.
Thinking in Colour. Interview with Marie Cosindas Amber Gibson
Your initial training as a painter seems to have had a huge influence on your way of taking photographs. The fact that my early photographs did come from a painterly tradition and not a photographic one was no accident: I wanted to be a painter. So many of the photographers that I admired and was influenced by were painters at some point in their careers as well: Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Horst, and many others. It was Edward Steichen who inspired me the most, although my work did not emulate his style. It was so haunting and beautiful, it made me want to live in that era. I studied the period of the Pictorialist movement and especially looked at the photographs that Steichen made from early 1900 to 1910 that had made photographic history such as Self Portrait with Brush and Palette and The Black Vase with Figure. What could be more painterly? It was the first photograph to be bought by a national art collection and when it was hung in the National Galerie in Brussels, it outraged the artists of its day. Look at his nudes, landscapes and portraits: he did it all… I spent a lot of time with Grace Mayer in her office at MoMA looking at Steichen prints and I met him on a few occasions as well. From a portfolio of black-and-white prints that I was asked to submit in 1961, he purchased three for the Photo department and one for himself. In 1965, the year before my solo show at the museum, he looked at my color work too. You are often been cited as a pioneer in the field of colour photography. When you began, were you conscious of exploring unknown territory? When I began using Polacolor film I wasn't aware of the direction that my work would take – or that I myself would eventually take. I attended one of Ansel Adams’ workshops in 1961 and after looking at my portfolio of black-and-white prints, he noticed that my work had a narrow range of tonalities. He said that I was making black-and-white photographs, but was thinking in color: that sunk in somewhere. He then presented me with a 81a filter to look through that reduced everything to black-and-white. It had to do with the way I chose my light, my environment and my subject matter. I was totally unaware of this. At times, when I looked through the ground glass of my camera’s viewfinder, I would wish that the color would find its way to the final print. This happened in 1965 when I was assigned to make a floral still life in color for a major Polaroid advertising campaign. What followed was a month of intense work with the film. I tried everything: mixing light, temperature control, long exposures, extended development time and filters – and did everything I wasn't supposed to do. The film responded. The results were like no other color that I had used. It was the first time I felt like painting again. Although I was one of about twelve photographers who were first given Polacolor film E X I T Nº 30-2008 104
Marie Cosindas. Asparagus Still Life I, 1967. Courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.
Carla van de Puttelaar. Untitled, 2000. Courtesy of Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris; Flatland Gallery, Utrecht; and Box Galerie, Brussels.
Carla van de Puttelaar. Untitled, 2000. Courtesy of Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris; Flatland Gallery, Utrecht; and Box Galerie, Brussels.
Bill Henson. Untitled, 2005-2006. Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.
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Bill Henson. Untitled, 2000-2003. Courtesy of Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.
Index of Artists
Jeff Bark. Minnesota (USA), 1963. His career as a photographer began in fashion, but the lack of creative possibilities it offered led Bark to turn to art photography instead. The relationship between painting and photography is reconsidered in elaborate tableaux which present dense pictorial allegories where the influence of Dutch and Renaissance masters is evident. Series include Abandon, urban interiors whose inhabitants present varying kinds of hermetic indolence, and Woodpecker, naturalistic outdoor scenes whose characters hint at the isolation of contemporary life. He is represented by Michael Hoppen Gallery, London. www.jeffbark.com Elina Brotherus. Helsinki (Finland), 1972. Her early work aimed to attain consciousness of her own life by making self-portraits. In recent years, she has become interested in the link between the human body and landscape, in keeping with the Romantic tradition. In the series New Paintings, Brotherus used the camera to investigate the relation between painting and photography. In the titles reference well-known pictorial works. Suite Françaises explore classic photography themes and the way in which language provides order to chaos. These series are a reflection of her move to France and communicate a vision of her day-to-day routine. She is represented by gb agency, Paris. Julia Margaret Cameron. Calcutta, India, 1815 – Sri Lanka, 1879. At the age of 48 an unusual gift changed her life: a camera. What began as a pastime soon became a full-time occupation. Her photographs, mostly portraits and allegories, did not follow the conventions of the time: Cameron was not interested in technical perfection (nor was this easy to achieve, for she was self-taught) or veracity of detail, but instead strove to capture the essence of her subjects, their emotions and personalities. She thus created a new type of photographic truth. She is now considered to be one of the greatest Victorian photographers. Tony Catany. Llucmajor, Majorca (Spain), 1942. A self-taught photographer, his works reveal a strong interest in the more aestheticist aspect of the history of photography, as well as many of the medium’s technical procedures involving craftsmanship, such as the Calotype and Polaroid transfers. Outstanding among his pictures’ formal characteristics is the highly skilled use of light and shadow in the compositions. He has published numerous books, such as Flowers of Life (1990), Soñar en
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dioses (1993), and Obscura Memoria (1994). In 2001, he won the Spanish National Photography Prize. In 2000 the MNAC devoted a complete retrospective exhibition to his work. Alvin Langdon Coburn. Boston, USA, 1882 – Rhos-on-Sea, UK, 1966. He was an amateur photographer until, influenced by Steichen, he decided to devote himself to photography professionally. He opened a studio in New York and produced views of the city, capturing fragments of buildings, creating distorted perspectives and abstract images. In London, he took up celebity portraiture. He belonged to movements such as Photo-Secession and Vorticism. The latter derided 19th century sentimentalism and advocated more violent images, exalting the iconography of the machine, energy, counterpoised planes and angular lines, which always resulted in depersonalised and abstract images. Marie Cosindas. Boston (USA). Cosindas trained as a painter and during the early 60s she took photography workshops with masters such as Ansel Adams and Minor White. Her work is among the best exponents of the experimental colour photography of the 60s. At a time when aesthetic tastes showed a preference for street photography, she demonstrated a marked interest in romance, the opulence of Victorian portraiture and stilllife painting, with pictures that involved many props, floral arrangements, printed fabric and models in unusual poses. Her work is distinguished by the balance between detail and the warmth and the emotional intimacy of the scenes. She is represented by Robert Klein Gallery, Boston. Gregory Crewdson. Brooklyn (USA), 1962. His work is of a narrative nature and seeks to communicate the anguish and fears of the contemporary subject. The imagery embodies certain aspects in common with psychoanalysis and the aesthetic of Lynch’s films. Formally they are highly staged compositions, dramatisations saturated with colour, in which objects and characters are representative of a very personal and repetitive symbolic vocabulary. Solo shows include: Fotomuseum Den Haag and Fotomuseum Winterthur, both in 2006; and Domus Artium 2002, Salamanca, 2007. He is represented by Luhring Augustine, New York. L.J.A.D. Creyghton. Apeldoorn (The Netherlands), 1954. The exploration
L.J.A.D. Creyghton. The Holland Album, Vaals, 2005. Courtesy of the artist and Flatland Gallery, Utrecht.
E X I T Imagen y Cultura / Image & Culture Revista trimestral / Quarterly Magazine • Año 7 - #30 Mayo / Junio / Julio 2008 • PVP España: 20 Euros