Anne Collier
Marc Foxx Gallery
Closed December 20th
Anne Collier’s photographs put me in crisis and I’ve boiled my dilemma down to this – representational photos, in their repetition and display, often alienate a viewer from their content, and while so many important photographers working today seek to resist that unfortunate effect, Collier almost seems to promote it, to present that alienating effect in full jaded negativity. Collier seems to take us to the cynical terminus of photography -- the machine and the gallery draining the life from things, placing us at a distance from things. For me, that is a crisis.
Let me explain myself further. Consider the case of Collier’s photo Sylvia Plath, 2008. Basically, an old record collection of what has to be a Plath poetry reading sits on the floor of a gallery. There is a landscape on the cover of the box, a landscape that is mirrored by the grey gallery floor and the shocked white of the gallery walls. The collection is dwarfed by the space and placed at a distance. The actual content of Plath’s tortured, vibrant poetry is far away from the photograph. We could say that the photograph itself keeps us from it.
This does seem to be the case for Thomas Ruff, the German photographer who mechanically blurs the sensational and blows up wide and big the banal. His portraits are as ordinary as they come except that they are so large. His architectural photographs show the most boring of exteriors. In his nudes and jpegs, he takes things like pornography and war photography and either blurs them into being barely recognizable or zooms in on them until they are just a haze of pixels. Here is a case of the photograph doing what it does, its natural ability to zoom in and out, to crop, to interpret, but Ruff seems to overcome the alienating effect. We think about sensationalism and what it means, we are drawn into the ordinary, but we are not allowed to be complacent, we are not allowed to be alienated.
Maybe I am just a silly optimist, but I think resisting the alienating effect is absolutely essential in art. I hate to be critical of Collier, and perhaps someone can show how I’ve misread the work and that these are actually quite human and heartening photographs that use media to let us back into our lives. Until then, however, I have to go with what I’ve written above.
Marc Foxx Gallery
Closed December 20th
Anne Collier’s photographs put me in crisis and I’ve boiled my dilemma down to this – representational photos, in their repetition and display, often alienate a viewer from their content, and while so many important photographers working today seek to resist that unfortunate effect, Collier almost seems to promote it, to present that alienating effect in full jaded negativity. Collier seems to take us to the cynical terminus of photography -- the machine and the gallery draining the life from things, placing us at a distance from things. For me, that is a crisis.
Let me explain myself further. Consider the case of Collier’s photo Sylvia Plath, 2008. Basically, an old record collection of what has to be a Plath poetry reading sits on the floor of a gallery. There is a landscape on the cover of the box, a landscape that is mirrored by the grey gallery floor and the shocked white of the gallery walls. The collection is dwarfed by the space and placed at a distance. The actual content of Plath’s tortured, vibrant poetry is far away from the photograph. We could say that the photograph itself keeps us from it.
We could consider more cases. There’s the photograph of a photograph of a beautiful view out of a window in Studio Window, 2008. We are thoroughly removed from that lovely window -- the window holds little reality for us. The reality is instead that the mechanical, cold image does its work and its work is troubling. Furthermore, the installation of the photograph in a gallery brings a double alienatin
g effect, one more removal. Then there is Guilt (p. 107), 2008, where Collier has photographed what is probably one of many, many pages where we can write what we are guilty of – the horror of those brackets “(p.107)” – we are trapped in the mechanical image, we are trapped in ourselves, humanity is distant. The most sobering of all of Collier’s photos are her eye photos, where the human eye is surrounded by a white border and placed on a pile of photos in a box of photo paper. What is implied is that each eye in the lens is like every other eye in every other lens and this can be repeated into infinity.
g effect, one more removal. Then there is Guilt (p. 107), 2008, where Collier has photographed what is probably one of many, many pages where we can write what we are guilty of – the horror of those brackets “(p.107)” – we are trapped in the mechanical image, we are trapped in ourselves, humanity is distant. The most sobering of all of Collier’s photos are her eye photos, where the human eye is surrounded by a white border and placed on a pile of photos in a box of photo paper. What is implied is that each eye in the lens is like every other eye in every other lens and this can be repeated into infinity. So basically, the potential emotional impact of silly sentimental things like landscapes, poetry, human progress, and human vision are drained by the photographic process. The photos we see are empty of everything but the various chains of reproduction (photograph, gallery, display) that void their gushing. To some, I am sure this is a wonderful thing – we can see these sentimental things for what they are, that they are just wailing and grinding of teeth ground to halt by technology. To some, that is an important lesson.
I, however, need something more than the lesson. I need to have the humanity somehow be let back in the process. You don’t have to like Sylvia Plath. In fact, she can be too much, way too much. She’s a tortured, bad lover. She’s out of control and messy. Sometimes, it’s just awful to read her. But the fact is (and this is what bothers me about the photograph discussed above), we must deal with Sylvia. We must make for damn sure that she continues to live and not avoid her. Hers is a heat that is too hot to touch, but definitely something that will keep you warm if you let it. Ted Hughes (and Plath’s lover) said it best when writing to Poet Donald Hall about her, “When poems hit so hard, surely you ought to find reasons to their impact, not argue yourself out of your bruises.”
I found myself thinking about Hughes’ comment when viewing Collier’s photographs. Certainly, it is true that photos can alienate us from life and that is an important truth worth knowing. I am not arguing with Collier’s theory or even her display style – these are perfect prints, immaculately displayed. What instead I am worried about it that to just let the photograph do its work
without any (maybe foolish) ambition to stop it, well, maybe this is a case of arguing ourselves out of our bruises. The photos make Plath, Guilt, Self-Help Books, and sublime vistas die before us in the gallery in a quest for some sort of truth about media. Maybe the hope is that in their death, they are reborn and appreciated in our minds, but this does not seem to be case for Collier.
without any (maybe foolish) ambition to stop it, well, maybe this is a case of arguing ourselves out of our bruises. The photos make Plath, Guilt, Self-Help Books, and sublime vistas die before us in the gallery in a quest for some sort of truth about media. Maybe the hope is that in their death, they are reborn and appreciated in our minds, but this does not seem to be case for Collier. This does seem to be the case for Thomas Ruff, the German photographer who mechanically blurs the sensational and blows up wide and big the banal. His portraits are as ordinary as they come except that they are so large. His architectural photographs show the most boring of exteriors. In his nudes and jpegs, he takes things like pornography and war photography and either blurs them into being barely recognizable or zooms in on them until they are just a haze of pixels. Here is a case of the photograph doing what it does, its natural ability to zoom in and out, to crop, to interpret, but Ruff seems to overcome the alienating effect. We think about sensationalism and what it means, we are drawn into the ordinary, but we are not allowed to be complacent, we are not allowed to be alienated.
Maybe I am just a silly optimist, but I think resisting the alienating effect is absolutely essential in art. I hate to be critical of Collier, and perhaps someone can show how I’ve misread the work and that these are actually quite human and heartening photographs that use media to let us back into our lives. Until then, however, I have to go with what I’ve written above.