Comments on: Salgado: Misery and Art http://www.ruthgroup.org/2009/12/20/salgado-misery-and-art/ Reclaiming American Democracy Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:52:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: WKirkland http://www.ruthgroup.org/2009/12/20/salgado-misery-and-art/comment-page-1/#comment-62734 WKirkland Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:31:06 +0000 http://www.ruthgroup.org/?p=24472#comment-62734 Bob, I know and return often to Sontag's book. She is of course much more thorough in her concerns than I am. What really struck me was the immensity of the displays, even <b>that</b> that are displayed, and therefore the jump from reporting and advocacy to being "art." I suppose art has always had an advocacy arm, Goya's "Disasters of War" being among the foremost. It would be interesting to know how these were displayed, or distributed in the early 1800s and what effect they had on viewers... I suspect they were seen most often reproduced in broadsides, not seen in galleries, mixed in with other art. Hmmmm.... Bob, I know and return often to Sontag’s book. She is of course much more thorough in her concerns than I am. What really struck me was the immensity of the displays, even that that are displayed, and therefore the jump from reporting and advocacy to being “art.” I suppose art has always had an advocacy arm, Goya’s “Disasters of War” being among the foremost. It would be interesting to know how these were displayed, or distributed in the early 1800s and what effect they had on viewers… I suspect they were seen most often reproduced in broadsides, not seen in galleries, mixed in with other art. Hmmmm….

]]> By: Bob Meyer http://www.ruthgroup.org/2009/12/20/salgado-misery-and-art/comment-page-1/#comment-62733 Bob Meyer Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:44:28 +0000 http://www.ruthgroup.org/?p=24472#comment-62733 Susan Sontag's Regarding the Pain of Others is an extended meditation on this subject. You may not agree with every word she utters (I don't), but it's a good place to start a conversation. I've been thinking about this ever since Viet Nam (remember the girl running down the road) and the civil rights movt (the vicious dogs being sicced on children) and I have yet to come up with an answer. A lot depends on context. The two photos I just mentioned woke some people up. Used the right way, photos can do that. Maybe Brady's conveyed the horror to people who had no idea. Maybe Robert Capa's falling soldier (Spanish civil war) did - it sure got to me. But today's context where anything can (and will) be profaned, bastardized, commercialized is different. The problem didn't start with photography. Think about Goya. Those images conveying the horrors of war have survived for a reason; although so has war, or course. Or even Gruenewald's <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Grunewald_Isenheim1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grunewald_Isenheim1.jpg&h=801&w=1136&sz=135&tbnid=RyRaNw35FlAHuM:&tbnh=106&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Disenheim%2Baltarpiece&usg=__0HjGvQSRp3ZjapK-H4aAQsImMTQ=&ei=uuMuS5LXGY6gswOX8qS9BA&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=2&ct=image&ved=0CAkQ9QEwAQ" rel="nofollow">Isenheim altarpiece</a> - realistic depiction of suffering for religious purposes. Maybe gave a few sinners pause, who knows? Then there's the opening sequence of Alain Renais' <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4784910586890911682#" rel="nofollow">Night and Fog</a>, a film about the concentration camps. It presents what Renais calls an (aesthetically) "pleasant landscape" But that's Renais' point: anything can lead to a concentration camp. This film mixes the unwatchable and the aesthetic like nothing I've ever seen. I had to avert my eyes. But that's me. I still don't know what to make of it. Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others is an extended meditation on this subject. You may not agree with every word she utters (I don’t), but it’s a good place to start a conversation.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since Viet Nam (remember the girl running down the road) and the civil rights movt (the vicious dogs being sicced on children) and I have yet to come up with an answer. A lot depends on context. The two photos I just mentioned woke some people up. Used the right way, photos can do that. Maybe Brady’s conveyed the horror to people who had no idea. Maybe Robert Capa’s falling soldier (Spanish civil war) did – it sure got to me. But today’s context where anything can (and will) be profaned, bastardized, commercialized is different.

The problem didn’t start with photography. Think about Goya. Those images conveying the horrors of war have survived for a reason; although so has war, or course. Or even Gruenewald’s Isenheim altarpiece – realistic depiction of suffering for religious purposes. Maybe gave a few sinners pause, who knows?

Then there’s the opening sequence of Alain Renais’ Night and Fog, a film about the concentration camps. It presents what Renais calls an (aesthetically) “pleasant landscape” But that’s Renais’ point: anything can lead to a concentration camp. This film mixes the unwatchable and the aesthetic like nothing I’ve ever seen. I had to avert my eyes. But that’s me. I still don’t know what to make of it.

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