GUEST

“Photography between Labour and Capital”

excerpt from the essay by Allan Sekula, in Photography/Politics Two, pub 1986

“Why stress these economic realities at the outset, as if to flaunt the ‘crude thinking’ often called for by Bertolt Brecht? Surely our understandings of these photographs cannot be reduced to a knowledge of economic conditions. This latter knowledge is necessary but insufficient; we also need to grasp the way in which photography constructs an imaginary world and passes it off as reality. The aim of this essay, then, is to try to understand something of the relationship between photographic culture and economic life. How does photography serve to legitimate and normalise existing power relationships? How does it serve as the voice of authority, while simultaneously claiming to constitute a token of exchange between equal partners? What havens and temporary escapes from the realms of necessity are provided by photographic means? What resistances are encouraged and strengthened? How is historical and social memory preserved, transformed, restricted and obliterated by photographs? What futures are promised; what futures are forgotten? In the broadest sense, these questions concern the ways in which photography constructs an imaginary economy.“

CLOTHES FOR THE JOB

Love the flying suit designs…

All from the book “Clothes for the Job” which was published by the Science Museum, 1985. The clothes is in their archive collection, which I hope to visit soon…

Just got hold of Allan Sekula’s ‘Performance under Working Conditions’, and there is so much in there that connects to my residency project – theatricality, performative and photography… and the place of the socio-political in relations to those, so pleased to have it come my way…

impossebility of telling…

I wanted to write more, so much more, but my temporary job has been so non-stop that I feel like a zip file, all packed full of information, impressions, encounters, thoughts, notes, images…it wil take some time to decompress it all…and find words that make sense of the whole experience…

But should the words do that?

Leah Wild, sociologist I interviewed, and whose lectures ‘Sociology of the Body’ I enjoyed immensly (I hope to post excerpts from our interview here at a later date) said that language is not adequate to describe the fragmented experiences of our lives as through language we try to explain, make sense, and follow its own logic. While I agree that language imposes its own rules and regs, (Foucault, and semiotics and post-structuralists sprint through mind at high speed) I also wonder how to use words, eg in the blogging style of writing, to translate-process-create stories, of our artistic practices. Also, feel more and more that it is in this tension of ‘making sense’ that my artistic labour lies. What has the residency been about beyond the immediate concern with work and labour? Can it be told yet? How to tell it?

The fragments – the instances – the moments of encounter – short relationships – spaces shared, exchanged – access to all areas – this is not North nor is it West – I have been working for 10 years – hand shake – hierarchies – structures – routines – access to all areas – labour valued and labour under valued – educated guest – educated guess – chance – event – knowledge – knowledge – knowledge – action, change, impact – comitment – political position – value – retribution – experimentation – performance – corridors – photography – economy of value – ethnography of value – making sense – making a living – living in making – the visible – the invisible – the told – the untold…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

I was just alerted to a wonderful series of photographs by Irving Penn called ‘Small Trades’, which were on show at the Getty Centre, New York, January this year.

I really like the performative in these images, the way their working clothes become costumes, and their tools their props, while they ‘act out’ their profession.

His portrait photographs, but unfortunately not this series are currently on at the London National Portrait Gallery, until 6 June 2010…

As per Getty site: “Working in Paris, London, and New York in the early 1950s, photographer Irving Penn (American, 1917–2009) created masterful representations of skilled tradespeople dressed in work clothes and carrying the tools of their occupations. A neutral backdrop and natural light provided the stage on which his subjects could present themselves with dignity and pride.” More info and images on http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/penn/index.ht…

And Getty Centre has just had an exhibition titled In Focus: The Worker presenting a photographic history of working people across many cultures. http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/focus_worker/…From the info on their site, it does though seem to be still rather focused on depicting workers in a traditional sense of a word, manual workers, who have been a much photographed subject in the history of photography – makes me wonder if that is because the painting in its history has largely depicted the aristocracy and a privileged class. Been given an interesting book recently, which was published as part of an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery a few years ago, “Below Stairs”, about 400 years of painting depicting servants – will post couple of images that I like from that book soon, as I particularly like those where the servants fell asleep, and this sleep could be construed as a form of protest, though I know that in fact it depicted exhaustion. But, it did make me fantasise what would happen if workers simply fell asleep at their work place… http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/below-st…