Chapter 9: Intention and Exclusion

Chapter 9 discusses four photographers’ intentions examining various subject matter yet creating a similar aura through their work. The photographers discussed in this chapter are Thomas Struth, Thomas Demand, Candida Höfer, and Hiroshi Sugimoto. The main connection these photographers have with each other is the absence of life, the quietness, represented in each print. In each composition the subject needs human interaction for it to have meaning and a purpose. The topic for this reading is not just the exclusion of life in these photographs, but also the exclusion of the viewer.

Thomas Demand

Höfer and Struth’s work show the interaction of life present in the scenes without the presence of actual life. They both examine situations that are not possible without a human presence. These images seem to reveal an easy, eloquent taste that reflects of the passage of time and the solitude that seems fairly normal. With this exclusion of life the viewer wants to enter this scene and acknowledge the scenes presence, but yet at the same time the scene is intimidating. In Höfer’s image Ballettzentrum Hamburg III the chair is not facing the viewer, rather looking off scene as if it isn’t acknowledging our presence looking in on it.

Thomas Struth: Hörder Brückenstrasse, Dortmund

Candida Höfer

Similar to this is Sugimoto’s Sea Scapes which Sugimoto examines multiple seas and photographs them all the same way by splitting up the frame in half. Though all the images are of completely different bodies of water they are all the same. There is no life, no reference to any sort of disturbance from a ship or plane; it is another world. Thomas Demand’s images bring in a new idea to this continuation of the exclusion of life. Since Demand constructs his models from images he has obtained through other media, he is able to have complete control over the outcome of the scenes look. He doesn’t just leave life out of the image he goes past that by removing all signs of life, literally. This type of absence is very intimidating for the viewer because, not only is it a negatively acclaimed scene, if one was to be in the scene they would be lost. There is no way to know where you are, to move to the next room, and no way to get out. Also the use of paper, from which Demand creates all his scenes, is very fragile which can tie into this unwelcoming image.

Hiroshi Sugimoto Sea Scape

Michael Kenna

I believe that throughout this chapter Fried argues that the subject is determines everything about the photograph. Fried states, “ the object, not the beholder, must remain the center of focus of the situation, but the situation itself belongs to the beholder – it is his situation.” This statement exemplifies the importance a subject has, that the subject is chosen by the artist and reflects the intentions of the artist. But the viewer must take from the image what he/she wants or can. I agree completely with this because the artist chooses to photograph whatever will express their ideas, but that when the viewer is put into the situation as the onlooker of the situation they are given responsibility to accept or oppose this situation. Once the art is given to the onlooker the artist’s influence of the piece technically has no influence on the onlooker.

Peter Schjeldahl states, one of Thomas Struth’s commentators, “we do not feel necessarily that the photographer knew the secret,” in reference to what Struth was trying to show. This is what photography is, a complete secret. When we look at a photograph there is always something that seems not normal other than the obvious lack of proceeding time. When we look at Struth’s image Hörder Brückenstrasse, Dortmund (image above) we are looking into an empty, quiet world we are not a part of at the moment. But in actuality we are in that world at the same moment as that of which we see it presented; feeling we are not present. This has as much relevance to Struth as it does to Höfer, Sugimoto, and Demand. There is also a similar essence in the Cindy Sherman Movie Stills. Though one gets a feeling, from all these photographers, of the subject, a minimal understanding of the scene. There is a lack of time, and understanding of what has happened and what is to come. Sherman displays the element of human life in her work, but without the presence of herself the same attitude, essence, and feeling would still exist in all the images.

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