Art 330/530; The Post-Ocular Age: Photography and Abstraction

In his 2009 book, The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography, Lyle Rexer describes a kind of epiphany he had while looking at an exhibition of modernist photographs at the George Eastman House.  Bored by the exhibition of the unnamed photographer, he wandered into the historical collection and "lifted the hood" on a print by William Henry Fox Talbot.  Images printed in the 19th century are often protected from light by a fabric covering which must be actively lifted in order to view the image.  This action in itself, of instantly exposing to ambient light the otherwise darkened subject seemed to activate the image, and to simultaneously conjure the experiences of those who were alive at photography's inception.  He relates this sensation to viewing Gordon Matta-Clarke's film, 1974 film Splitting, which documents the artist cutting a house in suburban New Jersey, suddenly exposing the inside to a shaft of light, and simultaneously rendering it sculptural object.  "There occurs a spectacular moment of what can only be called rebirth...like being present at a birth that was also a transformation...I suddenly realized that much of what I had assumed about photography and what it might disclose was wrong." (Rexer p.10) The act of physically splitting the house in two is about the moment it transitions into a sculptural object, transcending its former functionality.

Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting, 1974

 

Still from Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting, 1974

 William Henry Fox Talbot, View of the Boulevards of Paris, 1843

Rexer asks, "Why the concern with photographs that withhold at a time when photography inundates us with pictures that disclose so much, and when surely nothing is now left unseen or unknown?" (Rexer, The Edge of Vision, p. 9).

Rexer suggests a different approach to naming or describing what we know as "abstract photography" in an attempt to arrive at a better understanding of the questions it poses. As an alternative to "abstract photography," Rexer suggests the term "novel seeing", a vision of things that have not yet been seen-investigative or undisclosed photography, rather than abstract photography.  At its most extreme, it offers objects defined by their concrete, material existence, referring to nothing outside themselves."

"Viewed in this light, the long history of photography looks very different from the formal, sociological, technological, or biographical descriptions we are used to. We find that the investigative dimension of photography is its one constant, intrinsic to its modernity, an outgrowth of its positivist, scientific roots. Indeed, this photography makes us rethink our notions of positivism, because in both post-Newtonian science and photography there is a conviction that experience manifests deep unities that are not logically or immediately perspicuous. We can broaden the vision of Moholy-Nagy's 'eyes outside our bodies' from the perspectival and scientific realms to the aesthetic and spiritual. We feel throughout the history of photography a chafing at its limits, an impatience to mere visuality, and a wish for some more intimate expression of the world's relation-but one somehow made available through the eyes.

"This makes the photographer into a strange kind of artist, at least in the modernist sense-part showman, part magician, part stage-manager. The photographer does not "create" but harnesses and directs. The photograph itself is a piece of performance art, and the performer is light-its passing through and encountering things in the world."
(Rexer, The Edge of Vision, p.11-12)

This quote evokes the spirit of Jackson Pollock as well, working with paint rather than light...

Jackson Pollock, 51, directed by Hans Namuth and Paul Felkenberg. Music by Morton Feldman.

American Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock is well known for creating large scale "action" paintings, in which his movements over the canvas can be seen as performative; throwing and dripping paint in rhythmic motions across the canvas.  He refers to his first teacher, Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) in this documentary as a character to react against. It was liberating to 'check out of reality' and express from within. Benton's work can be characterized by realistic figurative images. Scenes of everyday people in mid 20th century American life; elevated to mythic status.  Benton created several large murals in public places in the Midwest, and his house and studio in Kansas City, MO, is open to the public. You can even get his wife Rita's spaghetti sauce recipe while you're there. 

Thomas Hart Benton, Achelous and Hercules, 1947