CHRISTINE FRISINGHELLI

William Eggleston: Morals of Vision

“Morals of Vision is the title of an artist’s book by William Eggleston, compiled in 1978 and published by Caldecott Chubb in New York: the artist’s book or production of sequences of pictures, portfolio, was for a time Eggleston’s preferred mode of presenting his photography. They allowed him to combine his works—individual photographs created in an ongoing process of recording, selection and production rather than being themed around a particular concept—in groups of varying sizes. The titles lend coherence to the groups of pictures and, at least temporarily, give them their own context of meaning within the overall work. “14 Pictures”, the first portfolio of fourteen dye transfer prints, was done in 1974 while Eggleston was teaching at Harvard and starting to work with video; the starting point for “Election Eve”, a description of the Mississippi Delta landscape, was the election of Jimmy Carter in November 1976. Formally (two volumes of 100 photographs) the book “Election Eve” goes back to “Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War” of 1866.
Eggleston’s video work in 1973/74 found expression in several hours of black-and-white tapes which he called “Stranded in Canton”. The video camera allowed him to capture various occurrences in real time in a continuous, detached manner, as a seemingly incurious observer. Everything in front of the camera appears to be of equal importance; here we can already discern the first traces of his idea of a “democratic camera”, a concept that he would formulate in the phase of his work marked by “The Democratic Forest” ten years later.
A picture as a flash-back: the mid-sixties, William Eggleston is in one of the nascent automated photo laboratories observing for hours on end the small colour photographs incessantly coming out of the film processors as if on a conveyor belt. Again and again he visits these laboratories, at night, for this is when the machines are working. For nights on end with great fascination he studies the thousands of wedding and family photos, conventionally composed pictures of travels and children’s parties that have captured memories and important events in people’s lives. As these were the same technical means that he himself used, he felt it important to learn from these observations, and the commercial photo laboratory was the place that offered him easiest access to this knowledge, a place where he could study how everyone who took colour photos worked with this medium: an experience that William Eggleston referred to as exciting, instructive and unforgettable.

Text feature in Camera Austria International 72/2000, pp. 3–13.

ELIZABETH COWIE

Perceiving Memory and Tales of the Other. On the Video Art of Milica Tomić

The radical achievement of Milica Tomic’s work lies in her deployment of formal strategies which engage the audio-spectator not only viscerally and subjectively, but also conceptually. Each work involves issues of identity and memory and these are both personal and political issues; there is, however, no simple juxtaposition. Tomic instead produces a subjective engagement through the objective, and politics lies both on the side of the subjective and on the side of the conceptual in her work and in this respect it closely follows that of the Palestinian Lebanese artist, Mona Hatoum. At the same time Tomic explores and extends the audio-visual dimensions of video installation as a process in time and space within her recorded images, and within the gallery itself as site and moment of audio-viewing. What distinguishes the video installation is not merely the way it exceeds the single screen of cinema or television but rather the way it demands – and performs – a new position of audio-spectatorship, of encountering the sounds and images. In the gallery space duration is more important than time while the sequence of audio-viewing is no longer controlled. As a result Aristotlelian narrativity is undermined and there is a loss of a privileged “before” which produces an “after” and instead the experience as duration is emphasised. The audio-spectator in the gallery is mobile, perhaps just passing through, and might stay two minutes or ten minutes and see the ending before the beginning. The different space and time of active contemplation and its correlative implication of distance afforded by the gallery is both used and challenged by Tomic through devices of suprise and cognitive overload, while processes of identification are both a formal element of the works and an affective construct in the audio-viewer. What all of these depend upon is memory, and it is this which engages the conceptual and the affective in her work. There is a gap between remembering one’s own past and remembering a public past, a learned history, and both of these are distinct from memory as affect. Tomic’s work involves the audio-viewer in “perceiving memory” as affect and as a political demand upon us to remember.

Text feature in Camera Austria International 72/2000, pp. 14–20.

BRANIMIR STOJANOVIC

Milica Tomić: The Politics of Memory

Milica Tomic’s project entitled “Memory…” consists of interventions performed on memorial monuments dedicated to World War II. In this way, within the political field articulated by such monuments, the artist tries to ask the question as to how historical memory is supposed to be possible in view of the fact that today history has been pronounced dead. The doctrine of the end of history, constituting as it does the core of the ideology of the end of ideology, says nothing about historical memory, so that the question arises as to whether an end of history also implies an end of memory. Or is not, paradoxically, the very opposite true, namely that the doctrine of the end of history was established because it is in fact impossible to forget the real end of history—this being barbarism—that occurred during World War II? Does the embarrassingly long repression, indeed explicit prohibition, of the possibility (to remember) not demonstrate that Nazism, politics, thought—quite simply the purported inconceivability of the decisive actor of World War II—have induced us to pronounce the matter to be over and done with and unhistorical? Is this not the real source of the ideology of the end of history? The matter gets more complicated if we consider the opposite pole of the actors of World War II: the victim and the Holocaust are, by definition, inconceivable. The Holocaust is the inconceivable trauma of the era, the inner borderline of all thought and speech, a paradoxical situation in which we have nothing to say to the victim and the victim has nothing to say to us.
And yet precisely if the borderline experience of the victim is held to be incommunicable, is not precisely this a second source of the doctrine of the end of history? Thus, we are in a situation in which thought and speech have been utterly discontinued; the perpetrator and the victim are put together into a space of the inconceivable and unspeakable, a black hole that swallows up historical memory and thus becomes the source of the ideology of the end of history.

Text feature in Camera Austria International 72/2000, pp. 21–24.

YILMAZ DZIEWIOR

Sharon Lockhart: Concept, Structure and Passion

(…) At first glance, one might be tempted to compare Lockhart’s new photos with early pictures by Lothar Baumgarten, for example. Unlike the equally documentary-style black-and-white photos of Yanomani Indians taken by Baumgarten, who lived with the tribe in Venezuela for more than a year, photographing them going about their daily chores in diary style, Lockhart’s pictures do not claim any intimate familiarity with their subjects. The fact that Lockhart refrains from observing everyday life distinguishes her photos quite fundamentally from Baumgarten’s standards and any ethnographic strategy. Unlike the Yanomani Indians he photographed, who appear rather passive as observed subjects, the Brazilians in Lockhart’s photos look back at the observer.
The supposed documentary nature of Lockhart’s works is overarched by a conceptual aura, by the knowledge of an inner logic. The artistic means of abstraction outweighs the claim to authenticity. Despite this “artificiality” and the staged composition, many of Lockhart’s new photos evoke a suggestive atmosphere that approximates to the imagined reality of Brazil. The strength of her new film and the current photos taken in Brazil is not only due to the aforementioned cinematographic references, but also to the conceptual stringency. (…) The photos taken in Brazil not only amplify the stringency of Lockhart’s previous works as a result of their documentary aloofness, in some ways they also revert to conceptual strategies pursued by the artist for a long time, for example the use of snapshots from a private context.
Some of the cinematographic aspects of Lockhart’s films can also be found in her photos, which is not surprising in that the artist usually works in both media at the same time and creates film and photographic productions in mutual dependence. This dependence can be seen quite clearly in some of her early series, when film and photos show the same people. This is not the case in the photos and the film made in Brazil. Alongside individual photos and small series, she made three major cycles of photographs: the aforementioned series “Apeú-Salvador: “Aripuanã River Region: Interview Locations”), and “Apeú-Salvador: Maria da Conceição Pereira de Souza with fruits of the island”. (…)
The second series, “Interview Locations”, was made on her trip with the anthropologist Ligia Simonian. Lockhart accompanied Simonian on a field study in the Amazon region Aripuanã, photographing the interior of the dwellings in which the anthropologist had conducted her interviews. Generally these locations in Lockhart’s pictures are empty of people, only isolated furnishings, a radio, a bedcover or other traces of everyday life, indicate the presence of people. There are only two exceptions in which you can see a child looking into the room hiding in a corner or from behind a wooden fence. In these cases, Lockhart consciously incorporated a factor of chance, a procedure that I indicated above as being particularly characteristic of her current work. This surprising element unexpectedly returns the view of the subject, the empty room, and its details.

Text feature in Camera Austria International 72/2000, pp. 25–36.

JOHN SLYCE

Reading Lessons. Susan Lipper’s “Trip”

Susan Lipper’s photographic series “Trip” is a display of signifying artifacts. Highly vernacular in tone, if not in its cadence or operative structure, “Trip” is a collaborative textual amalgam of words and images that circulates in the form of both an installation and a book.
The collaborators – Lipper works here with the writer Frederick Barthelme – come from very different worlds and have their own genealogies and hubristic formations. The New York-based Lipper was trained as a photographer at Yale and is a product of a particular institutional moment with its own place in a documentary tradition. Barthelme, who directs the writing program at the University of Southern Mississippi and is the author of eleven books of fiction, has a parallel existence as a known, if somewhat obscure, conceptual artist of the late sixties and early seventies. Since that same time, he has also remained a member of the avant-rock group “The Red Crayola”. What each of these artists bring to the making of “Trip” accounts for about all that is fixed and certain in this fluid project full of multivalent and potential meaning. Those meanings I discuss here are of my own invention. The “Trip” you take will likewise be your own, although in this it will not be a wholly undirected venture.
As predominantly an itinerant artist who works solely with photographic images, Lipper’s commitment is more to the literacy and meaning of photography than to the depiction of place. Yet place, and particularly travel, has shaped a great deal of her appreciation of a photographic language with its means and efficacy, possibilities and limitations to communicate both within and across visual and verbal cultures.

Text by Frederick Barthelme to this photograph:
Hit by a car and left for dead, is what she told everyone. Could have been worse, but he died anyway. They were not made for each other in the first place; it was all put your little foot, put your little foot, all the time, that’s all she ever said. She… well, she danced like a tiger, but told him she was ready to just stand there for him, if that’s what he needed.

Text feature in Camera Austria International 72/2000, pp. 37–44.

ROLF SACHSSE

Marginalien zur Fotografie. Bildoberflächen - Neue Momente einer alten Debatte

Text feature in Camera Austria International 72/2000, pp. 45–46.

CHRISTIAN KRAVAGNA

Stefan Römer: How critical can pictures be?

Stefan Römer’s photo series can be seen as an attempt to focus on several aspects of the contemporary conditions of the public sphere in the urban space with the means of street photography. Unlike the aforementioned discursive or action-oriented projects, in which Römer himself also participates on occasions, and in contrast to the affirmative positivism of the neutral view à la Streuli, Römer’s photography looks for paradigmatic images that tell us about the regulation of the public space and the behavioural conditioning of subjects. Whereas street photography, as Abigail Solomon-Godeau notes, is generally based “on the assumption that meaning is fortuitously found in the world and framed in the image” Römer’s focus is above all on manifestations that are already owed to processes of the production of meaning, on visual surfaces in which “meaning” is already “framed” in a certain way. Dominant ideological formations, but equally so articulations of contradiction, are manifested in traffic signs, window displays, advertising spaces or graffiti. The public space is not only portrayed in Römers photography as a contested commodity that is conquered, defended and, not least, traded, but quintessentially also as a medium by means of which these battles are fought and in which they are depicted.
For example, one block of advertising themes from the series “Was kostet es öffentlich zu sein?” (What is the price for being public?) shows how political concepts and economic interests work together in the (re-)organisation of urbanity. The differences between the left and right have become outdated in the conception of the “postideological” age. Various parties are claiming the political “centre” for themselves, thus making it an empty phrase that a real estate firm, for example, might render with the slogan “We let out the centre”. Even if the centre in this case topographically implies the city centre, it is equally the political void that allows unchecked commercialisation of city centres. While the “Sauberland” (Cleanland) logo with its smiling sun may belong to a staid firm of cleaners, it nevertheless implies a number of right-wing discursive elements, from political Mr Cleans, to driving homeless people and the drug scene out of public spaces, to the purity of “national community.” Companies who promise “luxury for everybody”, as another poster does, fuelling the phantasm of total consumption, have firmly internalized the cleansing of groups of society who are not able to consume the way they want people to. Other pictures of this series show traffic signs (man taking woman by the hand; woman taking child by the hand), a mobile police station or, in a comparison of a pin-up machine and a “No photographs” sign, how people are supposed to consume pictures but not produce them, drawing our attention to the conceptions of patterns of movement and structures of views that prevail in Cleanland. By framing this series with two black-and-white pictures of passers-by, Römer reminds us of conventional street photography that usually fails to show what instances of controlling and monitoring public life are found in the public space itself.

Text feature in Camera Austria International 72/2000, pp. 47–52.

ÖSTERREICH 2000:

Contributions

ART IN RUINS
Hannah Vowles & Glyn Banks (arbeiten seit 1984 zusammen), leben in London (GB). Einzelausstellungen (zuletzt): 1999 “Appearances Are Against Us”, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton; 2000 “Party Time”, Galerie Camera Austria, Graz; “Trust Us/Double Take”, Windows Gallery, Prag.

PIERRE BOURDIEU
1930 – 2002; war Professor der Soziologie am Collège de France in Paris; 1994 Goldmedaille des CNRS; Herausgeber der Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales sowie der Reihe Raisons d’âgir.
Publikationen (Auswahl): Die feinen Unterschiede (1979), dt. bei Suhrkamp, Reinbek 1982; Sozialer Sinn (1981), dt. bei Suhrkamp, Reinbek 1987; Das Elend der Welt (1993), dt. im Universitätsverlag Konstanz 1997; Gegenfeuer. Wortmeldungen im Dienste des Widerstands gegen die neoliberale Invasion, dt. im Universitätsverlag Konstanz 1998; Die männliche Herrschaft, angekündigt bei Suhrkamp, Reinbek 2000.

BERNHARD CELLA
geboren 1967, lebt in Amsterdam (NL) und Wien (A); Künstler; letzte Publikation: “cadeaugeschenkgift”, erschienen bei edition selene, Wien 2000. arotis@ping.at

COR DERA
geboren 1956 in Heerlen, lebt in Haarlem (NL);
Ausstellungen (zuletzt): 1999 “Discovery”, PPOW Gallery, New York; “New Natural History”, National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford; Hasselblad Center, Göteborg; “Camera Work”, Galerie Fotohof, Salzburg; “Cut and Paste”, Galerie Fiedler, Köln; 2000 “Breaking the ice”, Kunstverein Ludwigsburg; “Bloemen van de nieuwe tijd”, Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch.

JÁNOS ERDÖDY
geboren 1953 in Graz, , lebt in Wien (A); Studium an der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien (Bruno Gironcoli); Bibliothekar und Künstler.
Projekte (Auswahl): 1994 “EU-OI-ÄU”, Installationen im Forum Stadtpark, Graz; 1994 Installationen zu “el Himm”, Wiener Secession; 1995 “Mausoleum in Progress”, Installation für Werner Schwab, Schauspielhaus Graz; 1995 TV- und Hörfunk-Spot “EL HIMM” für Humanic; 1996 “SCHWABPost”, mailart-Ausstellung mit Werner Schwab, Musuems Quartier, Wien.

RAINER GANAHL
geboren in Bludenz, lebt in New York (USA); Künstler.

FRANZ GRAF
geboren 1954 in Tulln, lebt in Wien (A); seit 1997 Gastprofessur an der Akademie für bildende Kunst in Wien.
Einzelausstellungen (Auswahl): 1995 Bonner Kunstverein; Wiener Secession; 1996 Galerie Renos Xippas, Paris; 1998 “Dangerouse Liason”, Fiskurin Gallerie, Reykjavik; 2000 “SORRY”, Galerie Krobath Wimmer.
Gruppenausstellungen (Auswahl): 1998 “Crossings”, Kunsthalle Wien; “Stammheim Project”, Kassel; 1999 “Zeichnen. Österreichische Zeichnungen der 90er Jahre”, Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg.

HANS KUPELWIESER
geboren 1948 in Lunz am See, lebt in Wien (A); Professor an der Technische Universität Graz.
Einzelausstellungen (Auswahl): 1990 Wiener Secession; 1994 “Trans-Formation”, Museum für angewandte Kunst, Wien.
Gruppenausstellungen (Auswahl): 1998 “Im Reich der Phantome. Fotografie des Unsichtbaren”, Kunst.Halle.Krems; “Lifestyle”, Kunsthaus Bregenz; 1999 “zeichenbau”, Künstlerhaus Wien. Kunst im öffentlichen Raum: 1995 Denkmal jüdischer Friedhof, Krems; 2000 Szene-Salzburg, Vorplatz, Salzburg.

ANN-SOFI SIDÉN
geboren 1962 in Stockholm, Künstlerin, lebt in Stockholm (S) und New York (USA).
Einzelausstellungen (zuletzt): 1999 Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm; Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin; 2000 “Warte mal!”, Wiener Secession; “Who is invading my privacy, not so quietly and not so friendly”, The South London Gallery, London.
Gruppenausstellungen (zuletzt): 2000 Kwangju Biennial; “Immodest Gazes”, Fundacio La Caixa, Barcelona; “Organizing Freedom”, Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

HENK TAS
geboren 1948 in Rotterdam, lebt ebenda (NL); Künstler.
Einzelausstellungen (zuletzt): 2000 “Why me Lord?”, Toorch Gallery, Amsterdam; Govinda, Washington D. C.
Gruppenausstellungen (zuletzt): 2000 “Late at Night”, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam; “Totem!”, de Vishal, Haarlem; “Bloemen van de nieuwe tijd”, Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch. Publikation (zuletzt): Why me Lord?, angekündigt für 2000.

TERRE THAEMLITZ
Künstler, lebt in Amerika; bekannt für seine theoriebasierten audio releases für das Frankfurter Label Mille Plateaux sowie für sein eigenes Label Comatonse Recordings, in dem er Computermusik mit textueller Analyse und Design kombiniert; sein neuestes grafisches Projekt, SANRIOT, verarbeitet Porträts von Karl Marx und ist von SANRIOs Hello Kitty inspiriert: www.sanriot.com

GREGORY VOLK
Kunstkritiker und Kurator, lebt in New York (USA); schreibt regelmäßig für Art in America u. a.

CHRISTIAN WACHTER
geboren 1949, lebt in Wien.
Einzelausstellungen (Auswahl): 1995 »Netz und Knoten«, Forum Stadtpark, Graz; 1997 “Im Referenzmeer tauchen …”, A.C.I., London; Camera Austria, Graz; 1999 “surplus”, Künstlerhaus, Kinogalerie, Wien.
Gruppenausstellungen (Auswahl): 1995 “Fisch und Fleisch”, Kunst.Halle.Krems; 1996 “Antagonismes”, Centre National de la Photographie, Paris u. a. ; 1997 “CON©EPT”, Galerie Gradska, Zagreb, u. a.