Post Modern Photography: Idea Before Image

Postmodern Photographic Theories (approximately 1970-2000):

"Post Modernism

Post Modernism is categorized by the dissolution of traditional boundaries between art, architecture, popular culture, and (mass) media. Post modern works have been been accomplished by an open-ended process of borrowing ideas, art forms, and representations from the past and the present. (Robert Hirsch, Seizing the Light: A History of Photography)

Post Modernists believe meaning cannot be determined by surface appearances since everything from a photograph to a television program is a text that must be decoded. The act of deciphering the “text” and unveiling the hidden assumptions behind it is what Jacques Derrida calls “deconstruction.” (Robert Hirsch, Seizing the Light: A History of Photography)

The notion that there is not a single truth of experience is at the core of postmodern thinking. That is in direct opposition to the modernist view of trying to discover the “essence” of essential meaning in the world." (Robert Hirsch, Seizing the Light: A History of Photography)

Context

Post Modernism embraces the idea that the context that a piece of artwork is shown or seen changes its meaning or interpretation. Post Modern artists tried to understand how art might be viewed under different circumstances.

Appropriation

Appropriation is the act of borrowing imagery or forms to create something new. The act of appropriation is usually associated with Post Modern art practices and Roland Barthes' idea of the “death of the author.” Barthes maintains that all ideas or recycled and modified. Every idea is, in fact, a conglomeration of past ideas. Hence a work of art is a collective vision, not a singular one.

Conceptual Art

Conceptual Art is works in which the idea is equal to, if not more important than, the finished product. Conceptual art can take many forms, from photographs to texts to videos. Sometimes there is no object at all. Emphasizing the ways things are made more than how they look, conceptual art often raises questions about what a work of art can be. Conceptual art is also often difficult to collect or preserve as it can be the artist's own experience that is the work of art. (Art 21 definition)

Identity Politics

Identity, in an artistic sense, is associated with how one views oneself, how others perceive you, and how a society as a whole defines groups of people. Important to one's identity are ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and class, as well as education, childhood, and life experience. For many, being an artist is not just an occupation but also an ethical responsibility. Much art today deals with what it means to be an artist in today's rapidly changing world. (Art 21 Definition)

Semiotics

Semiotics is the relation of language to things not natural but determined by culture. Language is a self contained system of signs made of two components: the signified and the signifier. Signifier = word, signified = mental associations of the word, conscious or unconscious, informed by culture.

Semioticians analyze these mental associations to understand how a society creates meaning and to find hidden meanings. Visual images, such as photographs, can communicate meaning in this way and, thus, can be analyzed as signs.

For more Postmodern Theories and definitions click here.


Postmodern Artists

Warhol

Andy Warhol if often considered the Father of postmodern art practice. Warhol was originally trained as a Graphic Artist and rose to fame with his giant silk screens of celebrity personalities, like Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe. He worked from his New York loft space, coined The Factory, alongside teams of people. He often exhibited enlarged versions of everyday objects, such as Brillo Boxes and Campbell's soup cans. Warhol sought to break down the barriers between high art and low art (fine art and design), disrupt the conventions of the gallery space, and turn popular culture into an acceptable fine art subject-matter. For Warhol, art was a subject not separate from but part of everyday life. His works must be appreciated for their gesture, concept, and message as well as their aesthetic appeal.



Andy Warhol, Lavender Marilyn, 1962
Warhol created this image by enlarging a newspaper photograph and silkscreening it on to canvas. In other words, he appropriated the photograph.

Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Sherman and Prince started to incorporate aspects of appropriation into their artistic practices in order to expose truths about gender relations and identity. Sherman created a series of over 100 photographic film stills; each photograph was printed 8" x 10" (the size of a traditional still). In each film still, Sherman, herself, would play the character of the leading lady, thereby exposing Hollywood's stereotypical, female "types." Prince, on the other hand, re-photographed images from Marlboro cigarette advertising campaigns in order to expose the romantic mythology associated with the American male figure.



Richard Prince, Marlboro Man



Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still, 1978

Sophie Calle and William Wegman

Calle and Wegman are both Conceptual artists who incorporate humor and spontaniaty into their works in order to reveal issues regarding human experience. Calle challenges traditional artistic practices by making art work out of specific, systematic constraints. For example, In The Shadow, Calle hired a private detective to follow her and take photographs of her. In Blind, Calle interviewed Blind subjects and photographed their most beautiful sights (the ocean, for eample). Calle's work often explores ideas of representation; how do you picture somebody or someone? William Wegman, on the other hand, photographs dogs in distinctly human poses. His photographs, often humorous, technically flawless, and oddly sincere, poke fun at human beings and the lives to which they aspire.



Wiliam Wegman, On Set, 1994



Sophie, Calle, The Shadow, 1981

Lorna Simpson and Nan Goldin

Simpson and Goldin's photographs challenge ideas of representation. In other words, both women attempt to give the viewer insight into minority experiences. Simpson's seemingly simple artworks combine text and photograph to expose stereotypes and power structures that burden black women. Her works have a direct relationship to semiotics and language theories. Goldin, on the other hand, documents 1980s, queer sub culture. She gives us an intimate, loving look at the lives of the people she calls her "family."



Nan Goldin, Ivy with Marylin, Boston, 1973



Lorna Simpson, Wig II

Re-imagining the American West: New Topographics and the Roadtrip

New Topographics

New Topographics is a movement in photographic art that evolved from the New Topographics Exhibition, which was conceived by William Jenkins, assistant curator of photography at the International Museum of Photography, Eastman House in Rochester New York. The 1975 exhibition featured photographs of man altered landscapes or, more accurately, lands upon which humans have erected houses, buildings or other structures that attest their presence (though actual people are eerily absent). New Topographics was a form of documentary photography. Even though the images were not intended to be judgmental, in hindsight they are extraordinarly telling about urban sprawl and other environmental issues. The photographers included were Robert Adams, Lewis Batz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, and Henry Wessel, Jr.

The New American West

By the late 1960s, the American Western Landscape looked different than it did when early photographers, such as Carlton Watkins, and Timothy O' Sullivan, made their albumen prints. Camera technology also changed. The Leica 35mm, hand-held camera became popular by the mid 40s, and artist such as Stephen Shore and William Eggleston began to experiment with color photography. Leading American fine-art photographers no longer made pictures of the awe inspiring, natural American landscape. Instead, their pictures often revealed the suburbanization of the American West and the standardization of American society.



William Eggleston, Memphis, Tennessee, 1969-70





Stephen Shore, Church and 2nd St. Easton, PA 1974



Robert Adams, Midday, Pike’s Peak, Colorodo Springs, 1968-1971




Robert Frank, Parade, Hoboken, New Jersey, 1955-1956

Swiss Born photographer, Robert Frank, immigrated to the United States from Europe right in the midst of the second World War. In 1955, he received a Guggenhiem fellowship that enabled him to travel across the United States and take personal, poetic documentary photographs of American life. He arranged over 83 photographs into a book, titled The Americans. The book was a critical, loving look at American culture. Television sets, cars, jukeboxes, and flags were prominant subjects. Initially, the photographs were denounced by the press, but today The Americans is celebrated as a moving and honest interpretation of American life. The book was influential publication that inspired photo-book makers and documentarians alike.

Bellow you will find additional information regarding the New Documentary tradition.
American Documentary

The Photography Exhibition and the Museum of Modern Art

Brief History: Photography at the MoMA

MoMA first opened its doors in 1929 under the directorship of Alfred Barr. From the beginning, Barr imagined that photography would be integral to the museum’s collections. In 1937, Curator and Scholar Beaumont Newhall mounted Photography 1839-1937, the first major photo retrospective in the United States. Newhall championed the art and fine craft of photography. By 1940 Newhall became MoMA’s first photography curator. In 1947, Edward Steichen replaced Newhall; Steichen promoted a populist view of photography. In 1962, Steichen hand picked John Szarkowski to proceed him as MoMA’s photography director. Szarkoski promoted a new kind of fine art photography, which he coined "The New Document". In 1967, Szarkowski mounted "New Documents", a show that featured works by Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Gary Winogrand.

Family of Man

The "Family of Man," an exhibition curated by Edward Steichen, opened at the MoMA in 1955. The exhibition incorporated works by over 200 photographers. The installation of the photographs mimicked a picture magazine page lay-out. Photographs were mounted ceiling to floor and clustered by topic (Love, Marriage, Birth, Childhood...) The exhibition was "conceived, in Steichen's words, `as a mirror of the essential oneness of mankind throughout the world'".

"Although the 273 photographers represented included distinguished foreigners... most were American,s and/or were members of American agencies or, especially, contributors to Life Magazine. Some critics, particularly in Europe, viewed the exhibition as Cold War propaganda and a projection of American values in a thinly universalistic disguise... (Oxford Companion to the Photograph)

The exhibition was a significant event in cultural history of the 1950s, and in American cultural diplomacy. It also marked a further stage in the museumization of photography, though paradoxically just as television was replacing still photography as the world's most pervasive visual meduim." (Oxford Companion to the Photograph)




Exhibition Views, Family of Man, MoMA, 1955

John Szarkowski &New Documents

John Szarkowski, the predecessor to Edward Steichen, was born in 1925 in Wisconsin. At twenty-two he was the staff photographer for the Walker Art Center. By 1962 , when he became the Director of Photography at the MoMA, he had already published several books on photography and his still images were included in many major collections. Szarkowski's exhibition program at the MoMA promoted a Modernist Cannon of photography and highlighted young talent, such as Arbus, Friedlander, and Winogrand, whose work combined real-life documentation with modernist sensibilities. Szarkowski's influence upon photography was tremendous. In his book "The Photographer's Eye," he called for a new form of photography that drew meaning from five major photographic characteristics: The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, and Vantage Point.

Please click the link below to read Szarkowski's introduction to the Photographer's Eye:

Photographer's Eye



Child with a Toy Hand Grenade, Diane Arbus, 1962



Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, 1969



New Mexico, Gary Winogrand, 1957

"New Documents exhibition was conceived by John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art in 1967. It featured the work of Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Gary Winogrand. Szarkowski said of the photographers: `their aim has been not to transform life, but to understand'. The artists overall objective of candidly documenting people going about their everyday lives, however, may have been overwhelmed at the time by viewers perception of the images-- particularly those of Arbus-- as essentially bizarre". (Oxford Companion to the Photograph). Still Arbus, Friedlander, and Winnogrand all made tremendous images that spoke about the American condition and personality.