Pastiche Rationales With Pastiche

7/28/2019 Pastiche Rationales With Pastiche

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StevenBaitzStudentNumber:10335086

PHO2102PhotomediaAestheticsandHistoryLecture:KevinBallantyne


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Table of Contents

WalkerEvans.....................................................................................................................................................................3

Pastiche:WalkerEvans.................................................................................................................................................5

EdvardMunch...................................................................................................................................................................6

Pastiche:EdvardMunch...............................................................................................................................................9

E.J.Bellocq......................................................................................................................................................................10

Pastiche:Bellocq.........................................................................................................................................................12

References......................................................................................................................................................................13


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WalkerEvans1903 1975

Between 1938 and 1941 Evans, with his camera was hidden under his coat, took photographs of

subway passengers, unbeknownst to themselves. Evans reason for doing this was to create

portraits that were unposed, unaffected and to try to get to the essence of people emotionallyexposed and unguarded. His portraits excluded any possibility of exchange between the

photographer and the subject. (MOMA, 2000)

As written by J ames Agee in his forward to the book of Evans photographs Many Were Called;

Only in sleep (and not fully there), or only in certain waking moments of suspension. Of quiet, of

solitude, are these guards down; and these moments are rarely to be seen by the person himself,

or by any other human being.(Evans, 1966)

As seen in his photographs it appears that there is another dimension exposed in peoples

behaviour on the subway. The travellers personal space have been encroached, and it seemsthat because it is the passengers choice to be there, the reaction appears to be one of creating a

personal space bubble within which all things are private and no other passengers intrude. This

is similar to peoples behaviour in a lift, without the restriction in space and the feeling of being

boxed-in.

As well as the unposed portrait aspect I wanted the pastiche to try to capture the above mentioned

obliviousness to other passengers. As such, I reviewed Evans photographs that had more than

single subjects. My final choice on pastiche material was the following photograph:


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Technical issues

Primarily the issue of legality was one of which I was acutely aware. Prison is a difficult place to

present a Pastiche from!

Evans book was originally (1959) titled The Passengers and comprised photos taken between

1938 and 1941, was not published until 1966 under the name Many were Called after an

exhibition by MOMA. The various sets of outrage at method and content effectively delayedpublication. It was regarded as unethical then, and illegal today sshhh dont tell.

The pastiche photographs was taken unknown to the subjects (My wife and daughter) who had

exhibited the ownership of space they were in and fully ignored all other passengersincluding

myself. I was seated with the camera in my lap (I had to move once to get a better position and

avoid some overpowering fluorescent lighting), lens inadvertently pointing in the general direction

of the subjects, shutter turned onto silent. It wasnt hidden in my jacket, but was hidden in plain

sight. In reference to Evans style and method, I shot a series of photographs from that position.


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Pastiche:WalkerEvans


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EdvardMunch1863 - 1944

Edvard Munch was an Expressionist, and as such, he represented the world from a

subjective perspective, distorted to produce a strong emotional effect.

... distortion, fragmentation, and the communication of violent or overstressedemotion. (Trombley, Bullock, & Lawrie, 1999, p. 301)

The best known of Munchs aphorisms concerning the relationship between art and

photography; The Camera cannot compete with brush and palette as long as it

cannot be used in Heaven or Hell.(Eggum & Holm, 1989) He did however make

extensive use of photography as an aid to his art, both as a basis for his portraits and

as an inspiration for a new concept of reality. (1989)

This statement fired further the debate as to whether photography is art. This

question has continued to be posed since before the time of Alfred Steiglitz, and islikely to continue for many years to come. I found this symbiosis between art and

photography intriguing and the aspect of using photography as an aid to his painting

an interesting perspective.

His use of photographs to aid his artwork can be seen in the following examples:

NakedWoman, 1902


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Herbert

EschesChildren, 1905

I have chosen The Scream (1893) as a pastiche project. Although Munch did not

apparently paint this artwork from a photograph, the pastiche intends to provide a

photo that he could have used.

Quoting Munch on the painting; "I walked along the road with two friends the sun

was setting I felt a breath of sadness Suddenly the became red as blood. Istopped and leaned against the railing, tired to death seeing the flaming skies like a

bloody sword the blue black fjord and the city My friends walked on I was left

standing trembling with fear feeling one tremendous scream going through nature.

(Eggum & Holm, 1989, p. 41)

The paintings perspective is a sharp single point downward looking perspective,

giving the viewer the impression of the sloping floor of a stage. The angle is a critical

aspect to the painting, and was treated as a prime condition, without which the

nature of the painting could not be represented.

As a subject The Crier (sculptor - Gerhard Marcks) was chosen. The Perth Crier is

dedicated to victims of torture, a purpose close to Munchs feeling one tremendous

scream going through nature. Interestingly, a second cast of the statue is in Berlin

where Munch spent some of his most successful years.

The downward perspective was the most difficult obstacle to overcome as a street

perspective of the statue could only result in the opposite perspective of looking up.

Permission was requested and kindly given to photograph from the roof of the WA Art

Gallery, and this provided a closer perspective to that chosen by Munch. In terms ofcapturing the essence of The Scream, achieving this perspective was critical.


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The position and perspective for the photograph was selected to incorporate the other

visual elements of the painting in the pastiche.


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Pastiche:EdvardMunch


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E.J.Bellocq1912 - 2002

Bellocqs photographs of prostitutes taken in the early 1920s in Storyville have several intriguing

aspects. The depiction of the prostitutes show a consideration and non-judgemental perspective

of sex-workers that is unusual. There's a nonthreatening presence with an unprecedented degreeof empathy permeating his work, rather than the usual sense of someone in a power position

objectifying his or her subject. (Goldin, 1997)

Of the many interesting perspectives involved in Bellocqs photographs, the following were of

special interest to me:

The defacing of several photos

The inclusion of areas of the photograph that appeared to be intended to be cropped

Defacement

The defacing was originally suspected to have been done by his brother Leo, a J esuit Priest, but

evidence put forward by a NOMA curator, Steve Maklansky indicates that that these defacements

were done while the emulsion was still wet. (Waddington, 1996) As such, the defacements could

only be done by someone, if not Bellocq himself that was close at the time the plates were

processed.

This raises the question as to why the defacements were performed, Possibilities include, religious

aversion, protection of identities, or perhaps simple jealousy of another.

Religious Aversion

Bellocq, unlike other male photographers - from Weston to Cartier-Bresson to Strand to

Friedlander - Bellocq never severs the head from the female nude in the shot. (Goldin, 1997)

The severing of heads has had connotations in various religions: There are parallels to this kind

of defacement in Islamist iconoclasm, and also in J ewish history. The defacement of images

served the same purpose as decapitationJ ust as Rabbinical tradition suggested ways of

neutralising existing images that satisfied the spirit (if not always the letter) of J ewish proscriptions

on figuration, so the Hadith [Islamist prophet] afforded some guidance as to what to do with theimages. Two basic alternatives emerge from the various Traditions: recontextualization in a

manner that made clear that images were in no way venerated, or decapitation, so that they

became inanimate, that is, devoid of a soul. (Flood, 2002).

Protection of Identities

In his article, Rex Rose statesEveryone who gave it a thought assumed that Leo had vandalized

the plates as soon as he acquired them in order to protect the identities of the women, many of

whom went directly to the society page after Storyville closed, but in many cases, Bellocq

photographed the same woman twice, and while one negative sustains damage, the other remains

untouched, thus her identity still remains obvious. (2002) If it was to protect the identities, whywere plates not simply smashed?


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It is possible also that Bellocq simply performed self censorship.

The real reason is an enigma that is unlikely to be solved.

This pastiche on Bellocq attempts to address the issues of defacement and secondly the

perspective that included a view of the surroundings that add a deeper dimension.

The pastiche was created by the use of a background layer composed of a photograph of a

magazine rack and some illustrations of old magazine covers obtained from the Internet.(Unknown, n.d.) In addition a photograph was used from a current magazine depicting women as

sex objects, akin to that of prostitution. (Schaur, 2013)


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ReferencesEggum,Arne,&Holm,Birgit.(1989).Munchandphotography.NewHaven,CT:YaleUniversityPress.

Evans,Walker.(1966).ManyWereCalled.NewYork,NewYork:HoughtonMifflen.

Flood,FinbarrBarry.(2002).BetweenCultandCulture:Bamiyan,IslamicIconoclasm,andtheMuseum.TheArt

Bulletin,84(4),

641

659.

Goldin,Nan.(1997).BellocqEpoque.Artforuminternational,35(9),88.

MOMA.(2000).WalkerEvans&Company(D.FrankelEd.).NewYork,NewYork.

Rose,Rex.(2002).TheLastDaysofernestJ.Bellocq. Issue10.from

http://www.corpse.org/archives/issue_10/gallery/bellocq/

Schaur,Irene.(2013,April2013).ObrigadoBrazil.Playboy,114,115.

Trombley,Stephen,Bullock,Alan,&Lawrie,Alf.(1999).ThenewFontanadictionaryofmodernthought.London:

HarperCollins.

Unknown.(n.d.).MediaHistoryDigitalLibrary. Retrieved28May,2013,fromwww.mediahistoryproject.org

Waddington,Chris.(1996).UNLOCKINGBELLOCQ'SSECRETSNEWFACTSANDNEWPHOTOSROUNDOUTTHE

PORTRAITOFTHECRESCENTCITY'SMOSTFAMOUSPHOTOGRAPHER:THIRDEdition,Times Picayune(pre

1997

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