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Art After Modernism: RETHINKING REPRESENTATION

Edited alld \\"ilh all illtrodllct ioll 1)\"

B H 1.\ N \U L LI S Forc\\"onJ Iw ~ I AHClA lTCKEH

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\n afttr 1Il{)fit-mi"'Ill .

(DocUl llcnllll;: soun::cs in oonlcrnl)(H' 10 art )

Bibltogmphy: p.

Includes index.

I . PO:>tnlOdcmisrn-Addresscs, essa~-s. loclUrt'S.

2. \n.,. ~lodcm-20th cenlllry-,\dd~, k:C1 Urc". I. Wallis.. Brian. 195:l- II. i\Xi 56.5.P66 . .\7.. 198.. 700' .9'0..

ISBN 0-8: 9":!5-563-2

ISI}'1 0-8:9'2:3-564-0 (phk.)

essays, Sene. ,

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Ocsi~rned b~ Io.':a ty Homans, 1-lon18lh /S:,i:.gi\er

Phot~'I"8phs selected and 8ITanged by I.OUl,*, LJl \\I"r. in ....-.Il:th"nllion \\j,1t Briall \'('allis

Endpapers : A"dy Warhol. Horsdl(ldl 1'C$/. 198-+. (lcrylic tnl ('illI \'1\". 10 x 16' (3.0i ,,( i .88 m). (Photos: courtesy Leo CHStd li Callery)

FrollLispiece: Barham Kruger, Ou.r LQS.6 is Jour Cw'", 198i. photomontage. ?2 x .. 8" ( 1R.3 x 122 cm). (Photo : courtesy the ani;;t)

1>t:nnissioll3 lO reprint essays in dlis \olulIlc \\','n:: gcn('rolbl ~ grn.JlI(-d by lhe original publishers unless OlhcJ"\I.ise indic:aled .

Contents

Foreword \ ' 11-'!orela Tucker

1ntroducUon Brian /I allis XI

I. Image / Author / Critique Pierre ,\lenard. AULhor of the Quixote

Jorge Luis Borges 3

TIle Oliginil li lY of Ihe .\\ 3m-Garde: ,\ PoslIllodem H{'peli lion 1;5Rosalind A"muss

1l{,C:lli~m for Ihf' C~III-.(' of Fu ture Hc\"ululion

;;0111.\ ' , lcker 31

~:lII. Dismantling Modernism The Hi", of ,\Old , \"nrhol

Roberl IllIghe.~ 0> Arter A"H1 II -Cardc Fiil n J. Iloberfllafl 59

Photograph y Art, ' r AI1 Photography II higail Solofl/ol/-Coc!erlll 75

Hr ' \ ' jf'Wit Lg ,\loclt 'rn; :S1 Crilici,:,111 8' ,\Ian ' ""'!\'

III , Paro\}sms of Painting 103 Fif!ur('~ uf Au thuril Y. Ciph"I~ of Hegrc~:,ion . Benjamin 11, f). /Juddoll 107

Flflk from Ih e Hadic

Photngraphy Mter Art Photngrnphy

A B I CAIL SOL O MON -C OD EA U

-ua.-. - Il~- 1::1

Mirrors and Windows

In 1977, John Szarkowskl org_lzed a large photography exhlbl. tion at the Museum of Modem An under the title " Mirrors and ~lindowS, " premised on the critical conceit that the 200-odd prints included could be apprehended eitJler as records of some exterior reality (windows) I or as interiorized visions revelator), of the photographer's own inner being (mirrors) .

Critical response to the exhibition was mixed . One persistent refrain , however, was that many of the pictures could easily be shifted from one category to the other and make just as much. or as little, sense.

In retrospect, what seems most curious about the organization of the

- om

II-

Installation views of the exhibition. Mirrors and Windows: American Photography since 1960, at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, July 26-0ctober 2, 1978. IPhotos : courtesy The Museum of Modern Art, New York)

exhibition-a signi fi cantly more ecumenica1 emporium than its recen t predecessors at Mo~'lA-w8S the inclusion of artists, such as Hoben Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, and Andy Warhol. For like the proverbial foxes in the henhouse, the

inclusion of these artists-and more specifically, the issues raised by their re spective uses of photography-posed an explicit challenge to the brand of modemism enshrined in MoMA's Department of Photography.

Common to the photographic usages of these three arosrs was an insisterice on what Roland Bartbes termed the deja-Iu (already-read, already-seen) aspect of cultural production, a notion alternatively theorized , with respect to postmodernist an practice. as a shift from production to reproduction.1 In eontrast to modernist art photOgraphy's claims in regard to the self-containment of the image and the palpable presence of the author, works such as those by Rauschenberg et alia emphasized in everY way possible their depen

dency on already-existing and highly conventionalized imagery drawn from the mass media. Thus at the same time that modernist boundaries bet'W'een "high" and " Iow- ~ cultural {OnTIS were breached or obscured (an imponant

1. See ror cxllmple the essays in TIle Anti-Aesthetic; EssaY' Oil Postmooem Cultm"f, cd. Hal roster (Port Townsend, Wash.: Ba)' Press, 1983). WaJtcr Benjamin, particularly in his essays " The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," and "TIle Amhor 85 Producer," discussed the implications of this shift. The fomtcr essay is included in Illuminalions, 00 . Hannah Arendt, tnuls. HIUT)' Zohn (I"e.. Yon" Schocken Books, 1969) and the laner in Rejledioru: ways. Aplloris".",. AlltOOiogrophiooi Writillgl. ed . Peter Demet2, trans. Edmund Jephcou (Nell-' York: Harcourt Brace Jo\'ano\~ch, 1978), pp . 220-238. [The latter aI50 reprinted in this volume. see pp. 297-309.]

P hotograpby After Art Photograpby 75

component of pop an 11 decadf' carlier' . the rnod(,nli." St rcs5 on the purity of

the l.l~thClic sih'nifier was effeCli\ ely j(,l li~ned. The culture of posrm~'emislll has been theorized in ,'noous \\"ays and

approached frorn VU riOliS perspecuves. \rhether premised on the shift from industrial capitali :;m and the national :)lale to managed capital and the multi national corporation. or ident..ifi(od wiTh the new infonnalional economies and the profound CffCCLS of ma...~ communicatioJls und global consumerism. the OC('llrrence of basic stmcturaJ clumges in society argllcs for a subsequellt ailerBrion in the terllls of cultural prvdlll:lion. Thlls. while it is possible to currently idcruify an anti -modernist impulse which signals the declining 8Ulhoriry of modernist culture. posunooemislll has ~cn thought to possess a critic.'l1 agenda and distinct features of iTS own .

BI.II however OIlC wishes 10 theorize po:'Illlodemi::.1 iui (and one cannot Spt'uk of II critical consensus). The imr()liHIlC" of plH)tography wiThin it is undcniobll ~Iore interestingly. till' propenics of photographic imagery which haw made it a pli \'ilegcd medium in pOST modern art arc precise ly those which for generations an photoh'raphers ha\'e bten conc."Cnled to disavow.

\X"i1.hout in HI1\" wa" wishilw to (,1055 onr the vcrY reu l dirrerences between . . 00 '

Rauschenbcrg. Huscha. and \x"m-hol. their re~rJCjtive u5CS of the medium had le:,s to do with its formul quruities per se than wilh the ways tlUlI photography. in itS nonna1i, e and ubiquirous uses. HClUall~ functiolls . ...\S photography has histOrically come to mooialt', if not wholly represent. the empiric thai a lung lind exciting hi::tlory of one-ofnkind pllotvgmphs cxi.its. Twu po:,5 ible Themes suggest Ihemselves: lIni(I"C hy proc~ and unique by ("OIl;,{jOIl 'i chvice" :'\ecdles.:. 10 SHy. it is the lauer ulllllI ,-ui\(' thm has. 5inc(" at If'il'>t the da~ 3 of tile Photo-Secession. scf\cd as all imponant strategy in realib'lling photogr.:tphic dis("QlIr5C to m nforrn to dw dellland3 of print connoisseurship.

The generic cli::!lil1cl ion I am attemptillg 10 dra\\' bct\\'('t'll phlllUgraphic usc in P05HlllXlern isJ'n and U11 photogmphy lies in the fonner's pOf(:' nli i~1 ror institutional and/or rcprescmativlla) critique. anruysis. or address. iJnd the laller's deep .. stIlled inabi lity 10 ucknowlcdge any need even 10 think 31>OIIf such matters. The contrad ictory positioll in which C"Ontcl1l porary art photOgraphy now finds itself with respect to bOlh self- defin iljon and the instituTional trap

2. Douglas Crimp . . '1llc PholOgmphic Activity of Po:;tnuxlcmGm," (klober. no. 15 ( \~ 'i nter 1980): 91 101. and Rosalind Krouss. Sculptu re in the EXPfllldcd Field,' Cklober. no. 8 (Spring 1979), 31 -4

(Above left ) Edward Weston. Excusado. 1925. Black-and-white photograph, 91h x 71h (24.2 x 19.0 em). Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona. (Photo: a) 1981 , Arizona Board of Regents) ; (Above right) Bernd and Hill Becher. Waterrowers, 1980, Black-andwhite photographs, each : 20Y. x 16Y.- (51.6 x 41 em); overall : 6lY. x 49" (155.1 x 124,7 cm). (Photo: cou rtesy Sonnabend Gallery, New York); (Bonom) James Welling. 4. 7.84. 8, 1984. Black and-white photograph, 8 x 10" (20.3 x 25.5 cm ). (Photo: courtesy the artist )

LI pS, or magazines. ,rhen Prufessor Bunnell employs the term " tradition" to

3. " PhoLOgmphs and Professionals 111 ; - n,t Pn'"l CoILoct.ori .\ ClL'slelier 14. 110 . 3 (July-A ugu:.t 1983) : 88-89.

PbolOgrap~y After Art P~otograpb)' 79

,.1

'

pings of its newly acquired status is nowhere bener illuSlnlted than in the headscratchings and rumblings of museulll curators confrolHcd w!th the task of constructing some kind of logical framework for the inclusions (and exclusions) of photography in the museum . ,\hhollgh denizens of the an photography establishment arc welJ aware thm something disjunct from traditional an photography is represented by ~tmodemist uses of the medium, the tenns in which they are accustomed to thinking pcc\'ent ulcm from disceming precisely the issues that are mOSt at stake, And while occasional ly. in Ii moment of media slippage. a photogra phy wri ter is assigned to re\,jew a particularly well-publi cized artist such as Cindy Shennan or Barbara Kruger, for the most pan there is little discursive overlap between these two distinct domains .

Thal the tnldit ional art. photography constmct today fu nctions as a theoretical no less than a creative cul -de-sac is revealed in a recent round-table discussion in t.he pages of The Print Collect.or's News/eller. Sin(,'c 197:3. every five years, six dcsih'TIuled phoLOgmphy experts (the onc practicing photographer being Aaron Siskind ) ha\'{' cOlllpared notes on tile current state of the an . The interchange here takes place between gallery owner Ronald Feldman and Peter Hunnell. ~l c.\lpil1 Prof~r of Photography and ~Iodem Art. at Pri 'l

indicate whitt Shem lall and others of her ilk arc not partlclpaung in, he is indica Ling his bcljef that the tradi Lion thaI malleTS is the one cafyed out by art pholOgraphers (or those who h,we ht'ClI nssimihllcd in lO that t.mdition). and not the global production of imagery SO profoundly inslnlmcmai in the production of meaning. ideology. and desire.

The pholOgmphic usages I lUll here designati ng as pOSLlllodcmist are in no wa~' 10 bc~ nudcl'StCHXI as colu. kind of school. 51yle, or ,ing imo some O\cn:.rchi llg 8C'5thetic. Quitt the contra ry: the kinds of production represented b~ anis!!' as di~pHra l c i)S John Bllld {~ui . Yif"tor Burgin. Hilla and Bernd Becher. and Dilll Graham. or mure rccent ly by youngf>r al1.i 515 Stich as Sarah CIUl rlc;":l \\ ol1h. Barbara Kruger1 Louise Lawler, Sherrie Le\'ine~ Richa rd Prince, Cindy Shf rH Ii111. Lnmie Simlllons_ or Ji m \r clling c\,idence a considerable mngc of eonCtTlI5. What they share is an ubduratc r~is ta nce 10 fOl1nal analysis or plul'emcnt within the modcmist pamdigm. A formulation of conunon critical ground would eneompass H shared propensit y to contest n01ions of subjectivity_ originali ty. und (most programmatically in the work of Levine and Prince) authorship. It is here . perhaps, th.'II il is possible to locate the most obvious departure from tht' ethos of 1.111 pholOgmphy :md here. too. where the Duchampian legacy is most clearly ciemon;":l lrcw..d. Such work SI>cci fically addresses the conditions of commodificalion and felishizaLion that enfold and inform an produ('tion . The purview of sllch practi{.'es HI'(' the realm of discu rsi\~ty . ideol0t.'y alld n"pn-'St,.... mation. cuhural and hi~tOrical ~petificity_ meruling and conte."(l.

lanertll.lgf' and significiuion. That pholOgnlphy should thus fi.:.,'l.'Tf" as a cl1.I ciait.cnn in postmodem.ism

seems bOlh logic ..tl lind (al lens1 retrospet1iwly) incvitable. Vinually e\'ery critical and throrc1icHI issue with which posunodernisl all m~ly be said to engage ill one- st'1IS(' or another CHn be located wi thin photography. Issues Illivillg to do with autho~hip_ subjecti\"iIY. and uniquencss are built into the vcry IUl.t mc of the pholOgraphic proccss itself: issul:s devolving on the simulat mm. the sH. and the social and srxual positioning of the \'iewing"rNltYI>C. subject ar(' ('('ntntl 10 Ihe pl'oduel ion and funclioning of ach-en_ising and other mass- media fonns of photography. Postmodcmist photoh'T,(lphic acti\'ity may deal with allY or all of th('5(' clements and it is won_h noting too thal even v.-ork constnJctoo by t.he hand (e.g ... Troy Braullltlch. Jack Coldstein_Hobel1. Longo) is frequently predicated on the photogmphic image.

{Seriality and repeti tion. appropriation. intcncxltlalilY. simulation or pastiche: these are the primary devices employed by poslrn()demisl ani!)ls. Ctilized singly or in combination. ",hill is of impol1ulIc(' in the ronlcxt of this ess.ay is the way each device call b(' cmployt'Cl us a refusal or subversion of the pUlati \-e autOnomy of Iht.' work of an as concci\'t'd within modemisl acsthetics . The nppcanmce of such practice.., in the 19705 5C('meri 10 IxmcJla the possibility of H sociaUy grounded. cri tic~" . and potentiall y radical art practice that focused on issues of rrprcsentlltion as ~uch . Collectively_ use of such devices to prompt ditllf'cticHI ~lIld critical mode; of rwrccplion and analysis may be tel11100 deC:X:HI stnJctivc. (T his deoonstnlctivc impulse is of special importance for feminist theory nnd a l1 pmctice in pal1 icular, in thm Ihe space of representation is increasingly theorized as the vcry site of feminist 5tmgglc.) Thus. if posunodcmist practice has displaced notions of the self-sufficieJl(:y of ule aesthetic

Ulgan SelomGtHleao 80

signifier with n new toncern for the referent. it rnust al30 be said that il i!) wi lh t.he referent a~ a problem .. nOt as a given."

\rithin the range of poslJllodern isl a.rt, it is tll~ works that dismalttle traditional notions of authorship or which mOS1 spccifiCfllly address thf' institu tional ru-rui.scursive bpace of Hit dUll best dcrnonstrate a dC(.'onslructive 01; enlaLi0t..B?iand Bal1.hcs' 1968 b-Xly '-Tllt: Death of the Author" remailb Ihe ur-tCXl tu dcl inelilc Lhe implicHl.ions of tht: shifl a \\"a ~ from the author as both source and locus of meaning. asserting inslead thai meall ing is never in\'ellled, much less locked ill : \r e know no\\' tha t a lexi is not a lillc of " 'ords relea:,ing a single -l.heologiCflr meaning (lhe -message' of ,he AlI lhor-Cod) bUI a mu ltidimensional Sp~lce in which a va.rie[y of wriLings. none of them olihri nal. blend anel clash. The tl'xt; is a Lissue of quotations dmwll from lhe innumerable centers of culture. . ' . . Succeeding the Author, the scrip lor no longer benrs within hirn pa53.ion:;. humors. feeling3. impressions. but rathcr this immense di l'tionil~ from which he draws a writing t.hat can know itO hah: li fe never does lIIon:.- than imiwle the oook. and lhe book itself i.::r unly a ti:,Suc of signs, an irnil.ution that is lo~1. ill(inile1~ deferred . ' :' ..r- _ ~

For Bal1.hc:,. Ihe refu&ll of aUlhorship and originalily was an innately re\olulionary stance "si l1("(" 10 refuse to fix meaning is. in the end_ to refuse God and hi~ hyposl

thei r insti tutional spaces. By instirutionru spaces, I refer not only to the space of exhibition . btu to oJi the discursive fonnalions-canons, art and photOgraphy histories, cJiticism. the ,narketplace-that together constitute mc social and material space of an.

"lnese fonnations have been crucial agents in me recent n:.1>ositioning of photography as H modernist an foml. Such a massive reconsideration mandates that the apparatuses of canon fonnatioll. connoisseurship. kUllStwis.sellsclw/t. and criticislTI be nUlrshaled 10 impose lhe triple unities of anist, style. and oeuvre on the protean field of photography.' The principal problem of intentiona liT Y(which might apl>Car TO snbowgf' slich an enterprise) has been neatly sidestcpped by recoll rse to a moor-rnist formulat ion of a photographic olllology: Once phoTOgraphy is theorized in terms of inherent properties (time. the frame. the delHi\, Il-te Thing itself. and thl"' vrnllage Ix.im, in John Szarkowski's efficient distillation) i nsh~ad of its actual ust's. any piclUrc and any photographer can in principle entcr the canon. This enables the portal of the ern-lOll to Lake on the 8uribulcs of a revoking door, and messy questions of intention and conte.xl can be effecu\'cly banished.

An_pholOgraphy and postmodelllisl photography do not , in any case. encompass nil the field. The tl1tdiuonalllscs arid forms cominllc: documentary praclices. reponage. and all the uulitari;:tIl and com mercial fu nctions photography has regularly ful[jUed . Perhaps the most du rnble legacy of art phOlC\,f1J'8phy has I)("('J) its :,lI("(:ess in e5tabli:,lting that phologrnphy is a InediuHl like any other with which an anisl might work . Bul 8 too-circumscribed (:onception of hvw the medinrn should be used, a::l well as a blind and unquestioning adherence 10 TI]I"' rnoclf'rn isl \'alues which Il istvricall~ d enncd iT. has produced the current impn5Se of (111 photogmphy . Refuge from The generall y lackluster. albeiL plenTiful coillemlx.rary producLion of art phOTography is now routinely taken by rl'OI)tlllOdel1lil)Tanists now using pIIOtoh'111

:. -nli., an- hi 'iloncal 5t ffih'gy is cfk

Vincent leo. Untitled, 1982. Blackand white photograph. 16 x 20" (40.6 x 51 em ). (Photo: courtesy the artist)

Connie Hatch . The DeSublimarion of Romance, a series of photographs with text. as presented in wedge, no. 6 (Winter 1984), pp. 20-21

tIM, _TN for liquor

top tt.r ....,. --~red ow-l-. ...ed

pit-eyed shlt-bce-d

snockeTed

shl(ker

Martha Rosier. The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems, 1974- 1975. From martha rosier. 3 worts (Halifax: The Press of the Nova Scotia Col lege of Art and Design, 1981). pp. 24-25

.\Iartha Hu~l t' r'5 'The Bowcry in Two Inadequate Dt'.:)ClipliH' S~ .. ll lIl". ' a wurk ernplllyillg lext and phulogmphs is yct ,1IIuther exa,mplc ur photOl! raphic work that ("on rorms to no :,p{'('ifit' rubric. hUI demollstral e5 nev(,l1hdl'!!3 phi )' tOgraph~ 's IX'Tl'lllill l fur rigorot.... crilic':l!. ilnd ronceplUally sophi:-'li('ul("(1works. Pai ring illlil ~?'s of Bowery 5tun-frolHs and doorways emptif'xi or Iheir bums wilh fI lexico ll or drllil kenne~s. no~ l ('r cfflX't.:) a ('ritiqlll' of tradi lionnl s(H.:iHI dt' I(.:umentary. ,HI "xl1ll1iwuiOIl or th(' lacunae of represc nl tHion. alld all (.xrwrillwnr in " re fu~al" as a politica ll ~ infonned ;,tn practicc, Ho.:)lcr~ work " 1.i.tlt-!l orr' on two familiar cun'f' n l~ ill photOgrnphy {the libemJ hUlllani.'" Irudiliun or "conct:fII C'd" ducllllicmary. and the fonnali:,t cdebrmioll of ,\nwri(l.l n vernacular culture" but i:. in no \\'I.I~ a cri Tical parody as is L('O'::o . or a bllpplclJ'lt'lIwl critique in any simple rashion . RosIer's laconic. rrolllal photographs ('\01..(' the shade of \ralker Evans and cennin of his progeny. bur puint ('dl~ ~lJhve l1 die aesthetic premises that inform ,heir photography. Thr- ari ~ ' (wrllti (' P''I'CI.'l'tioll of exemplary rorll1 10 be found ill . ::oay. sharecropper's shantics. drlt"s nOI cross O\'el' to th (' :,treet.:. of Llw Bow(' I~' .

The pil'lir"5 uf phOlographit m ntCIll an" likewise di~lIlantlfd IJY Hosler. who rt'lnark:" in the essay thm aC('OllI pi.lllies the work : " lrn fX'ri ~tli :,rn hl'("("