Azoulay reiterates her connection of the subject, photographer, and viewer as being a reflection of identity between the three. Azoulay describes that the way Laub represents the subject as being just a person like herself and the viewer that they lose their citizenship of nationality and gain a worldlier, theoretical citizenship in the gallery or presentation space. The image of the Arab woman walking into the sea brings this point directly to the top. By allowing the figures to silhouette into darkness denies all affirmable citizenship due to the fact that we can not see who the figures are. Not only are we left with the unknowing reasons for her being in the water, where she is going, and what ethnicity she is we begin to bring ourselves into a closer connection with the people. They are no longer just subjects of a photograph they become everyone involved in process. When becoming absorbed into the image we lose all critical response to how we should perceive the people, we begin to accept them as ourselves and to want to help them. Our thoughts transform from reflectance to action.
Laub continues her portrait series of suffrage with victims of near-death encounters and sexual assault. Here she relates these two forms of victims to those who were a part of the holocaust and other extreme atrocities. This brings the importance and meaning of her subject matter, instances we hear about each day, to that which will continue to haunt countless millions for eternity. Though there is no reflection as to one being more atrocious than the others. These portraits reaffirm the connection of the individual, photographer, and spectator a step past the basic identity among the three by giving the individuals a voice, literally, in the process. Laub allows the individuals to write text on where they live and how it is perceived. By this Laub not only displays their physical appearance, but also their perceived identities, as they believe they are seen by on looking eyes. This process eliminates the possible disarray or destruction sometimes led on by the awkwardness of a title as it relates to the image.
For me there is something fretful about Mark Reinhardt’s criticisms of suffrage. This first point will be short, possibly meaningless, but I am irritated at his desire to put down aesthetic interpretation. He mentions how the message of suffrage is lost when implemented with a form of aesthetic though his sub-chapter titles, in particular The Tale of Two Towers, is an adapted aesthetic interplay, a pun, of a well known literary novel and a devastating occurrence in our history. I just want to know how he can find reason to do what he claims is a failure in acknowledgement.
Instead of the traditional approach of photographs being used to alert and inform people the images from Abu Ghraib were used for humiliation of it’s inmates. The photographs of inmates being tortured were intended to cast shame among those in the images. This brought forth a reaction also not familiar to the typical viewer; resentment instead of sympathy. The desired outcome had backfired on those who used the images, and those in the images who were intended to feel humiliated used these images as a way to reveal the atrocities they went through. Reinhardt emphasizes on the fact that in our media we presented these images to the public but never of a dead American soldier. He discusses his beliefs on the matter, which I completely disagree with. I don’t feel that the media is in any way responsible to present those dead to its widespread public. Though it is not proper to represent the enemy in this way either, but giving the families and the dignity of the dead soldiers to the humiliation that could occur this would be horrendous.
The second theme Reinhardt talks about is the imagery after the 9-11 attacks. The two photographers discussed in this are Thomas Ruff and Joel Meyerowitz. Joel was the only photographer allowed to enter Ground Zero to photograph. This is possibly the only time Reinhardt is not aggressive with his distaste of aestheticism and suffrage. Joel uses the aesthetic properties to present his subject as being destroyed potentially in process of being rebuilt. There is a lapse in theoretical understanding of what is occurring, though it is obvious that through our understanding of the even that it is not in the process of being rebuilt. Joel reveals this building as that. There is no dead bodies or any identities of chaos that is occurring in the instance of the exposure. Though there is extreme amount of suffrage in the scene, visually it is left out. Ruff’s appropriated photograph of the towers after the hit of the planes examines the scene similar to Joel’s but that literally in the buildings, invisible to viewer, there are countless people dead or suffering.
Reinhardt discusses the acknowledgement that photographs require when dealing with themes such as suffrage rather than just knowledge. This acknowledgement of the individual photographed from the viewer means that the viewer knows and understands their new counterparts suffrage and problems. It brings to the face the concern that is being dealt with or that has been dealt with, timely speaking. This process also brings back Azoulays connection of the individual, photographer, and viewer. Through this acknowledgement the viewer is not just another “viewer,” but a potential enforcer of decisions that can occur from this connection of Azoulay’s connection of the three.
In the selection of acknowledgement Reinhardt discusses the project of Alfredo Jaar’s The Eyes of Gutete Emerita. This series is a reflection of the Rwanda genocide of 1994. Reinhardt discusses the layout of the project being a triptych light box composed of rotating text and an image of the subject’s eyes. Along with this triptych is Jaar’s series of photographs in book form. Reinhardt is disappointed with Jaar’s decision of produce a book instead of presenting the images on the gallery walls. In my opinion Jaar’s decision was proper. By having the subject look through a book instead of images on a wall he requires the viewers to get up close and personal when glancing at the suffrage. Sometime when affronted from huge images people tend to back away, especially with sensitive subject matter as this, and not look upon the images as in-depth and with a personal connection. The book format allows the viewer to hold the individual presented to them, see them in a sensitive setting, and gives them a way to bring the suffering images outside the gallery and present them everywhere and anywhere.
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| Richard Avedon |
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| Richard Avedon |
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| Robert Mapplethorpe |
Your claim that Reinhardt is in favor of publishing photos of deceased American soldiers isn't exactly true. While he points out the disparity in the media -- which chose to include pictures of dead Iraqi soldiers but not of dead Iraqi children and also not of dead Americans -- he uses that fact to point out that such photographs may indeed do harm to their deceased subjects (or at least be traumatic to any survivors and/or living relatives). In fact, he shows on pages 18-19 how photographic depictions of the dead do indeed undermine the dignity of the deceased except under those circumstances when the deceased and/or their surviving families want to release those images, over which they should have some control. He describes this strange circumstance as the problematic of withholding and display, which he believes is the real issue at hand when people complain about the aestheticization of suffering....
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