Book review: Finnegan, C. (2015). Making Photography Matter.

Finnegan, C. (2015). Making Photography Matter: A Viewer's History from the Civil War to the Great Depression. 1st ed. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.

Since mid-20th century, students of art, literature, and education have been taught something that for a very long time would have seemed counter-intuitive, that the books and images that make up the subject of their studies have no embedded meaning. The reading of texts and images is conceived as a process of construction, of an interaction between the creator and consumer, with the culture, or perhaps cultures, acting as mediator.  Texts are understood to have particular meanings to particular readers in particular contexts at particular times.  What Cara Finnegan (an associate professor of communication at the University of Illinois) sets out to do in this book, and seems to achieve quite ably, is to demonstrate the particulars of how this process played out in the reading of photographs within four historical contexts in the late 19th and early 20th century United States.

In China, people are never far away.

Exhibit Review: Of Women By Women, Charlotte, USA

Of Women By Women: Selections from The Do Good Fund
The Light Factory, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

The Do Good Fund is a Georgia-based charity building a museum-quality collection of post-war Southern photography. The fund lends its collections to museums, galleries, and other institutions interested in promoting photographic art, and its latest is on display at The Light Factory, a Charlotte, North Carolina gallery and institute of photography education.  Of Women By Women fairly well describes the exhibit theme, an unexpectedly powerful collection of images that left me wanting to see more. The images did not appear especially agenda-driven, apart perhaps from the preponderance of subjects that appeared to be working class and rural poor. The display, as can be seen in the photos here, was simple but effective.  On my visit a young lady welcomed our small group, explained the background to the exhibit, and then left our group alone to wander and view.  If I were living in Charlotte, I would be happy to explore more of Light Factory’s exhibits and education offerings.  It looks like a happening place in a happening neighborhood.

The Do Good Fund maintains an online catalog of its collection, for those who’d like to see what they’re doing but won’t be making it to the southeast United States.  Check it out at: http://www.thedogoodfund.org/

The Light Factory: http://lightfactory.org/

Susan Worsham

Margaret's Rhubarb

2010

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Book review: Ihei, Kimura. Akita. 1978 (2011).

Mutsumi found this book at a beer bar in Ikebukuro Station.  We were slaking our thirst after a long day of walking, not there for the books.  In fact we were lucky they didn’t have a table for us when we came in.  We sat at the bar instead, near which is a bookcase with a small collection of mostly magazines.  When we found Akita, we cleared the bar, started at the front, and worked our way through what must have been around 200 plates, all black and white, and shot in the post-war period, from the 1950s-70s.  As the title indicates, the subject is the prefecture of Akita, still a rural area of Japan that from the looks of these images has changed drastically in the past half century.  Apart from the occasional bit of English – the word “post” on a postbox, for example – or a motorcycle or car in the background, it seems these photos could have been taken 100 years ago, or even 500 years ago.  There are no signs of mass produced anything – no TVs, radios, cell phones, watches, name brands, baseball caps, or even something as simple as zippers.  All the clothing appears to be hand-made, everyone walks or in winter uses sleighs, motor power is provided by animals, and home life appears to center around eating, drinking, talking, and smoking.  The images are absolutely amazing for revealing a way of life that when it was recorded neither the subjects nor photographer could have imaged disappearing within 50 years of having been recorded.  Sometimes we can’t see the significance of what photographers record until years later, after which we are incredibly thankful for the investment in time and effort, despite others not being able to see the value in the work as it was being produced. Thank you, Kimura-san.

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Exhibit review: Jigoku Wonderland: Buddhist Hell Scenes, Tokyo, Japan

Jigoku Wonderland:  Buddhist Hell Scenes
Mitsui Memorial Museum

Opening day was not as crowded as expected.  Not crowded at all, in fact.  Mutsumi said it was because this was a B-grade exhibit, not something likely to draw hordes of fashionistas.  The building was perhaps more impressive than the exhibit, an early 20th century construction that has been designated an Important Cultural Property.  The exhibit featured approximately 100 pieces ranging from the 13th century to the present, all connected to the theme of hell as conceived in Japanese Buddhism.  A few texts were on display, but most items were paintings, drawings, or sculpture.  As with the work collected in the exhibit of the Belgian Fantastic, many of the paintings and drawings demanded close inspection to appreciate the detail filling out the corners of the canvas or paper.  Common themes included the depiction of Emmao and the ten judges of hell, the corresponding ten levels of hell, and the various tortures perpetrated by the guardian monsters against their human victims, which consisted in the main of burning, boiling, dismembering, and impaling.  Altogether this was a well conceived and interesting collection of art.  It might have been improved by a suitably gruesome soundtrack of roaring flames, sawing bones, banging metal, dripping blood, breaking bones, screams and moans.  Museum management needs to rethink customer relations.  We were told off by a guard for using our mobile device within the exhibit.  We were not photographing or talking on the phone, just searching maps for our next destination.

A selection of small images of some of the exhibit items is available on the museum's Japanese language website:  http://www.mitsui-museum.jp/exhibition/index.html

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Exhibit review: A Life 1968--2017: Shunji Dodo, Tokyo

A Life 1968--2017:  Shunji Dodo
Gallery 916, Tokyo

This was the most inspiring exhibit of summer, the one that opened new possibilities in my own work.  The inspiration wasn’t terribly radical.  It was more like a sympathetic understanding of possibility, of seeing my work in Dodo’s, and his in mine, and realizing mine might one day look as interesting.  I appreciated seeing how what would seem ordinary worked well, which suggested I can perhaps look again at such scenes when they present themselves.  I saw many images which seemed excessively dark in their exposure and development, far more than I would be comfortable working with but suggesting that such images are not outside the range of possibility.  Dodo created both posed and spontaneous street portraits, the former largely in rural communities, the latter in urban. Despite their somewhat repetitive appearance (of groups of people smiling at the camera), I began to appreciate the posed images for revealing the character of the photographer, someone able to convince large numbers of strangers to participate in his work.  Two types of images made me want to try my own experiments:  still life of the commonplace, stuff you might come home with in your pockets or in your bag; and images of half-things, cars or people, for example, shown only partially and inviting the viewer to fill in the rest.

Review: Tokyo Photographic Art Museum

While this is a lovely facility in an upscale neighborhood, I was disappointed on three counts.  The first seems to be rather common to Japan, the prohibition of photographing exhibitions.  I would have liked to have taken an image or two for this blog.  I’ve been to exhibits that actually encourage the taking and sharing of images on social media as a form of free advertisement.  It makes for a more interactive experience of art than simply acting as a passive consumer/viewer.  Secondly, there is no permanent display.  Apparently there used to be, but it was long ago removed.  And lastly, there was no display during my visit of Japanese photography.  Fortunately, I found an excellent exhibit of a Japanese photographer -- photography permitted -- at Gallery 916.

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