Exhibit review: Dayanita Singh: Museum Bhavan, Tokyo, Japan

Dayanita Singh:  Museum Bhavan
Tokyo Photographic Art Museum

According to the bio provided by the museum, Ms Singh is a well-known photographer who began her career doing commercial work before "retiring" to develop her own projects, a retrospective of which made up this exhibit. Included was a documentary series on Indian eunuchs, on which she has published at least two books, perhaps the most direct and honest work on display, images which spoke of a need to share her witness clearly and unambiguously.  The remainder of the exhibit consisted of two installations, which the artist refers to as Museums, including a series of books, called Pocket Museums, that fold out accordion-like to reveal a group of images arranged in themes that unfortunately weren’t terribly obvious. Seven of these were presented in frames up to a meter long, each with its own title, with copies on sale in the gift shop.  Other Museums were presented as collages arranged in large wooden frames, featuring images of a type in which I am interested – architecture, still life, textures of everyday life – and may have better appreciated in a different context.  Apart from the museum on women, and another on files (consisting of images of rooms stacked top to bottom with paper files), I didn’t see how the images in the other Museums hung together, what kind of stories they were attempting to tell.  Perhaps I wasn’t trying hard enough.  Or perhaps I was trying too hard.  The most difficult piece of work in the exhibit consisted of 20-30 images of a box wrapped in red cloth, all shot with the same set-up, with no change in perspective, framing, or exposure.  The box was wrapped, shot, unwrapped, rewrapped, and shot again. Over and over.  Close inspection, the description notes, reveals small differences in how the box was wrapped.  This is the kind of work that might indulge the image maker’s experimental impulse, but is perhaps best left in the photographer’s private collection. Photography in the exhibit was prohibited.  The two images here are copies of the TOP Musuem's flyer. This is not an exhibit I would especially recommend and not one that I would visit again.

Dayanita Singh's website:  
https://dayanitasingh.org/

Tokyo Photographic Art Museum announcement:
https://topmuseum.jp/e/contents/exhibition/index-2779.html

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Explaining Images

When I see extensive writing that attempts to explain imagery almost to the point of defense, I’m often reminded of Martin Mull’s insightful quote: “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”  Dan Winters - Road to Seeing

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Photography in the Academy

I never heard of Neal Rantoul before running across this piece in my FB newsfeed.  It explains quite well my experience of doing photography in an academic context.  I can't say that I've seen nearly the volume of this type of work, so can't possibly agree or disagree with Rantoul's generalization on its quality.  From my student experience I do know that there is far less emphasis on craft and much more reading, analyzing, and writing in order to contextualize the bit of actual photography you do when you are not engaged in documenting your work.


A Disturbing Trend

I’m old. Believe me, I know it. I’ll be 70 in a few months. That fact may make it hard for you to take me seriously, but bear with me for just this post. With age comes wisdom, right? What I want to write here is that I think the field of photography by those making art is changing in a disturbing way. Read on.

Photographic series or bodies of work are being explicated, explained, contextualized, rationalized, and elevated with text or verbal rationals. You’re thinking: so what? That’s no big deal. Let me start with a short history and then let’s take a look at current practice.

Contemplative Photography: Chapter 17: Equality

View of Sharjah from Twar

There are no further exercises and the book concludes with a brief recapitulation of the essence of contemplative photography.  The authors are emphatic that CP is not a style or subject, but a method of seeing.  As such, anything that can be seen is a suitable subject.  “It is not what you shoot, but how you shoot it.”  The point of departure is nonconceptual vs conceptual.  The former is CP, the attempt to depict a discovery, where the latter seeks to mine the visual field for a preconceived idea.  [This contrast - and the college’s dependence on a conceptual approach - is the primary reason I have put aside formal photography education.]