REFLECTIONS ON A PANEL DISCUSSION OF 'CONFLICHT PHOTOGRAPHY' AT THE LONDON ART FAIR.
I have to hand it to the London Art Fair. Not only do they work very hard to bring attention to the range of dealers in and around London, they are also champions of photographic inclusion with their ‘project space’ and also Photo50. The London Art Fair is working very hard to have some dialogue with photography, and they deliver it with lectures and the display of young talent at their fair. This year, I attended a panel lecture entitled ‘Documenting conflict: factual record or fine art?’ given by the following:
- Sophie Wright: culture and print room director, Magnum Photos.
- Kathleen Palmer: acting head of art at the Imperial War Museum.
- Francis Hodgson: FT Photography writer and former head of photographs at Sotheby’s.
- Dr. Julian Stallabrass: reader, Courtauld Institute of Art
The discussion began to a packed room, with Sophie Wright initiating the discussion with a selection of images from the Magnum archive. The point here was to illustrate the historical images of war/conflict photography, but Wright also included Antoine D’Agata’s superb images of self-abuse through drugs and sexual exploits (and I do mean exploits) all hand-crafted (with Francis Bacon’s painterly gestures) to the figure through long exposures in the dim dens of explosive sexual tensions which D’Agata used to frequent.
Perhaps the most important of the topics the panel touched upon was how we interpret the reportage and quantifiably artistic aspects of war photography. All of the key players were brought into focus, from Don McCullin to more recent images makers like Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin – whose abstract images of exposed colour paper in Afghanistan question the role of photographer, representation, and photography in war. It is of note that Broomberg and Chanarin are not typical photojournalists, but more akin to artists who are interested in documents, and the manipulation of documents.
Many of the works in the project space had much to do with these issues. Our own booth bore the atomic bomb element, while just across the way at Gallery F5,6 (from Munich) was an arresting series of works by British conceptualist photographer (again, not photojournalist) John Goto, whose works were two-sided images hung in double glassed frames; one side of each being an interesting image that looked much more like an abstract painting from the 1960s than a photograph. On the other side of these more abstract images were the actual images that Goto had taken the blown up pixilation from – images of human atrocity he had found on the internet. Small slices of these images were pulled to create the pixelated and beautiful abstraction that hung on the wall – the obvious references to beauty, reality, and destruction/abjection were made clear through the presentation.
The panel certainly had made very plausible points for discussion, but I want to focus on a question that I put forward to the panel in general.
My question was:
How do we as a society deal with contemporary photojournalists or conflict photographers, when we now have certain ‘agencies of agenda’ that promote their works to be seen in the commercial venture of the gallery, or adulation of the museum show? Can we reason that a photojournalist (an aforethought ‘objective’ recorder of truth) is still to have the same intentions in war/conflict when we know he/she may be also shooting these images with the thought of selling them to collectors or museums, and not just news agencies?
Before we start, I should make a note of what my definition of an ‘agency of agenda’ in photography is. In the simplest notion, an agency of agenda is a paradigm that governs someone’s actions, or ultimate desire for approval, in a certain format of image-making. If we use the example of a photographer (as is pertinent), I believe one agency of agenda could also be very similar to say what A.D. Coleman refers to as the ‘directorial mode’. There are various directives that work within the set of these agencies. One is not better than the other, but their shared outcomes are very different, and in respect to humanitarian or journalistic objectives we should resign ourselves to understand the difficult nature that some of these agencies represent.
My concern here is that a new agency of agenda within journalistic/conflict/war/objective-based photography could be a commercial directive that informs a particular work. Instead of shooting an image for, let’s say, an inherent truth (and yes, I am all too aware of the problem of objective-based truths in image making...) or a recorded document, we now have a set of characteristics which govern the photographer’s need to sell, or be placed within the context of an artistic practice. This mode can be sometimes rendered through installation – the size of the photograph; the implementation of gratuitous Photoshop enhancements, etc. This situation becomes uneasy when we begin to liken this agency to a subjective narrative, thereby further complicating our implicit belief that the image itself has a currency to it that needs little reimbursement from commercial agencies other than the supposed ‘truth’ of the document, and the press-pack pay cheque.
When we look at the works of Luc Delahaye, for example, we have a perfect example of these notions or potential agencies at work. In his seminal work ‘Recent History’ we have what began as a stylized war photograph now morphed into a work of art derived from (as some critics have sought to reason) the work of Gustave Courbet – a French nineteenth century academic painter. This particular work of Delahaye’s is often referenced alongside Courbet’s ‘A Burial at Ornans’ (1851). The compositional elements and general death/funerary theme are readily seen, as is the large scale and painterly colour palette. Gone from this large body of work is the rhetoric befitting a simple war document – as it is blown up into large scale and all of these particulars fall into place, we now see something new defining it. None of these implements, however, are problematic in the scope of photography. The problem lies in what we interpret the photographer’s intention to be when he made this image of war torn agony. As a direct record of conflict, it stands to devalue the loss of human life when placed in the context of an art gallery. It is as if to say ‘here is my artistic gift to the museum or gallery venture. I stand here as testament to a truly horrible situation and I further stand to make this tragedy into that of a historical painting which can be bought and sold or sponsored in high currency’.
Are we to really believe that this allusion to the past, and the idea of history-painting as it relates to the commission-based granting of yore, actually quantifies the agony of the people involved when we speak about editions or museum layout? Whether Delahaye (again, as an example) meant any malice or not, we must surely ask ourselves why his pursuit and rendering of this type of image exacts a fair exchange in the artistic commercial arena? Can we really value these images in editions or museum shows at the cost of the simple notion of human currency over artistic need? And further, can we justify heralding these image makers with shows and sales when we know that by their very intent of agency (gallery show/commercial/museum, etc.) we are giving into a spectacle that will be renumerated with hard cash and adulation?
How does this challenge our perception of the photographic document when we know the collaborator/photographer is implicit in governing his abilities to make an image of tragedy for sale, or available for paid viewing? Why do we exemplify with shows, sales, gallery etc. this new breed of supposed photojournalists, when their initial intent must be to make sales or be revered in the museum or gallery context? How can we trust their images? Why do we exemplify this behaviour? Or does the problem lay with us, as viewers? Do we have the need to encourage this narrative of inhumanity for the sake of something to put on our walls, or be titillated by, because we are that debased, that into our art investment portfolios, that into our need for exploitation?
O.K, I realise that this is all a bit long-winded, but I did expect to get at least some answers, seeing as part of the discussion was related to the idea of conflict photography in the fine art arena. However, let it be clear that I am not at all sure my question was properly understood, but seeing that I wasn’t asked to elaborate further, I gave them a fair chance to respond. Sophie Wright’s immediate reaction to my question regarded more her own position at Magnum, and how the role of Magnum itself was undergoing some format of change due to the taking-on of photographers like Antoine D’Agata, etc. She was very quick to point out that the former role of Magnum as a press agency (albeit one that played by its own rules...) was no longer the same; and that they, in fact, had no issue with distributing these images (or Sebastian Salgado or James Nachtwey images...) to galleries as well as press teams. My exact point, however, was more about the dichotomy presented to the photojournalist and his initial interests shifting from objective records to commercial venture, and how the trust that we (as a society) should not question intent when faced with the ugly side of commercial venture. It isn’t that I do not realize that everybody who picks up a camera has a vested interest in the subjects ‘bad’ or ‘good’. I just feel the need to understand the role that money plays in a photographer’s interest in being a recorder of events.
The point of this may be eclipsed by the fact that throughout photographic history there have always been photographers who used the artist laws of composition (or, for lack of better a term, ‘picture-making’) to report on the travesties of war. Examples abound – Gardner’s ‘Dead Rebel Sharpshooter’ and Fenton’s ‘In the shadow of the valley of death’ have both been examined in their capacity for truth.
It is known that Gardner moved some bodies around to make better photographs, and that Fenton recorded his experience by moving some 280 cannon balls around so as to better ‘get the picture’; but I really want to know why we continue to place importance on photojournalists and war photographers and their efforts if they are somehow to end up as a exercise in financial gain or artistic celebration?
I agree that, under the circumstances, the level of bravery (or stupidity...) in the line of fire should not remain challenged; but I want to know why we are expected to give these photographers a validity that surpasses an art photographer, when their aims are certainly convoluted and close to the same desire if they sell the works on the gallery wall? Maybe I am deceiving myself to think Nachtwey’s ‘Inferno’ is a masterpiece of photojournalism and not an artistic canon of human suffering. Maybe I should have known Capa was a complete bullshitter from early on. After all, I read ‘Blood and Champagne’ and could only see Capa as a talented debutante who used his grit as a war photographer to step up a level in society. You see, if we reduce these qualities of the photographer we must also reduce the quality of the photographic record. We must reconsider the photographs of flag-raising in Iwo Jima, of the dead loyalist, and of the Eddie Adams-type executions of the world as they become spurious and add a very dangerous quality to truth and reality in photographic representation. We even might as well go back to courtroom drawings and etchings of important events, as in this context it is about as believable and reliable as a ‘representative’ photograph.
I think in our rush to herald photojournalism and conflict photography through the doors of the museum, we need to really re-examine our base notions of what we consider to be differing qualities of photographic document in practice. If we are going to continue to make distinctions of communications through photography then we must also begin to dissect the basis for each photographer’s ambition when we are challenged by the presentation of new agendas, or impetuses within the work. If we cannot distinguish between an objective notion of truth (at its base) from that which separates the final format of viewing in an art capacity, we surely cannot have a system of communications that solicits anything but a misappropriated sense of values.
Again, I want to thank the London Art Fair and its panel for putting forth a very highly charged and ponderous discussion on the idea of Conflict Photography. It is by these associations in the field that we all come to understand photography’s integral role to our lives, our art, and ultimately our society. Without careful attention to the detail of photographic intervention, we would never be able to promote further thought. I wish every event had as valued a discussion and panel representation.
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We also would like to take the opportunity to point out the following article written by Sophie Wright for the British Journal of photography. Sophie discusses the future of art photography not only within the London Art Fair, but also in the UK. For anybody interested in photography this article should be interesting.
http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=873387.
