Behind The Camera - The Forumist

The popularity of photography is enormous at the moment, both as an art form and a vital tool in social media. Nobody can be without a smartphone – how else could we constantly update our Facebook and Instagram accounts?

It is part of our daily routine to inform everybody of what we are doing at that very moment and to check out what everybody else is up to. A generation of anxiety, perhaps, but I guess it’s called evolution.

At the same time the ﬁne-art auction houses and galleries are witnessing a continuous boom in the art-photography market. The American photographer Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #96 (1981), one of her more serene-looking self-portraits, from the “centerfold” series, went for $3.8 million in 2011; a couple of months later, Andreas Gursky’s Rhein II (1999) went for $4.3 million. This might be hard to understand, especially as the Gursky photograph is from an edition of six and the Sherman photograph is one of 10. So you could buy an oil painting by a contemporary artist such as John Currin for the same amount, despite the latter being a unique piece.

This is more or less controlled at the art market’s highest level: the top dealers and gallerists in co-operation with the collectors, who are often hedge-fund billionaires and oligarchs who have no problem at all with these price tags. They like the idea of an edition, even if it is as low as six or 10 (it could be considered “original”) – they need a large number of works to achieve a big turnover, and they will get that from ﬁne-art photography. The bottom line for these people is that it’s about earning money, so the more art you make, the bigger business you do as a collector and an artist.

To understand how photography reached the level of recognition it recieves today we need ﬁrst to look at some historical facts and events. In the ﬁrst half of the 1800s the medium was more or less invented by Joseph Niépce and put to use shortly afterwards. Long exposure times and limited capacities from the lens restricted the images to portraits and still-lifes. Documentary photography also started around this time, as seen with Roger Fenton’s famous photographs of the Crimean War (1853-1856). It was the ﬁrst such photography to document a war that was taking place far from England, but the modern techniques used, including wood-block printing, enabled the public to get a good view of the ongoing campaign.

Fenton had a mobile darkroom that enabled him to produce his photographs continuously, like an early version of a camera phone. He took many shots of landscapes ﬁlled with tents and troops, as well as portraits of the ofﬁcers and soldiers, but the best is an image called Valley of the Shadow of Death. In this, a dirt road leading to Sevastopol is scattered with cannonballs after heavy shelling from the Russian side. It has to be said, though, that these early versions of the camera restricted Fenton to only depicting things that were not moving, and he was not allowed to portray the dead and wounded on the battleﬁeld. However, he was still able to capture a realistic and brutal portrait of war, making him a truly important pioneer in the early days of photography.

As photography was increasingly taking over the role of portraiture and documentation, painters were ﬁnding their work was becoming obsolete. This led to a surge in creativity and new directions in painting in the early 1900s, such as cubism, futurism, suprematism and constructivism. New territories in art and society were being explored. And when Dada and Surrealism erupted there seemed to be no limits to artistic freedom.

In 1913, the artist Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky, 1890-1976) visited the (in)famous art show the Armory Show in New York. He was greatly inspired by the top avant-garde artists of the era he saw there, and by Duchamp‘s intellectual approach in particular. He became an exhibiting artist using mainly painting and objects. But on ﬁnding himself dissatisﬁed with the photographers who were documenting his paintings, he started to do it himself. He proved to be very good at it, and so helped other artists document their work, while also painting many portraits of them. He quickly understood the versatility and possibilities of photography, and started experimenting with both ﬁlm and photography in a Dadaist and Surrealistic manner.

He invented his “rayographs” by composing symbolic images in the darkroom, and made beautiful images using the solarisation process with the help of his stylish girlfriend at the time, Lee Miller, whose eye can be seen in the artwork Indestructible Object (1923). He even did fashion shoots with Vogue and created several iconic works that really set the standard for avant-garde fashion photography. Indeed, Man Ray’s own great versatility makes him one of the most important artists/photographers of the era. Even though photography had been introduced as an art form by this time, it was a while before the public accepted it.

Great art was still dominated by painting. When the then successful illustrator Andy Warhol (born Andrew Warhola, 1928-1987) wanted to become an artist in the late 1950s he found it hard to choose the style and imagery he wanted to use. After discussions with fellow artists and friends he realised he should work with the world around him, especially that of American advertising, which was experiencing a golden age at the time.

He quickly discovered how to work with the art world and, by using photography as his main source, he created some of the most famous works in the history of modern and contemporary art. He understood how to create art without having to sit in the studio and paint endlessly, and he turned his famous Factory studio into exactly that: a factory producing silkscreen paintings with the same motifs in different sizes and colour combinations, for example the Flowers series (1964-1965), which were based on a photograph by Patricia Caulﬁeld, as well as the Marilyn paintings (1962), for which the image was taken from a publicity photo of Marilyn Monroe for the ﬁlm Niagara. Clever indeed, as he made long series of these paintings compared with large editions of photographs and prints. His works are still original paintings, but many are available and yet they retain the value of an original.

Warhol understood how to make an interesting story with his art and the people associated with his Factory. He also recognised the importance of having in-house photographers. The ﬁrst one was Billy Name, known for documenting the early silver era of the Factory. His work can be seen in the classic exhibition catalogue Andy Warhol, from the retrospective held at Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1968. Warhol wanted to ﬁnd the most instant and rewarding way to get his images and was always interested in what new technology had to offer.

His early portraits using the screen-print technique were often an assemblage of photo strips from photo booths usually found in New York’s Subway stations. An example is the magniﬁcent work Ethel Scull 36 Times (1963), for which Warhol sent the millionairess down to the photo booth at Times Square to get a good array of snapshots. After this period he moved on to use his favourite instrument, the Polaroid camera. With this Warhol could go anywhere and get the images for his silkscreen portraits. He was overjoyed by the images produced by the Polaroid because the wrinkles on people’s faces vanished. He used the Polaroid Big Shot model, which was produced solely for portraits and had a ﬂash diffuser, which created the soft light and tone that he loved.

When compact cameras appeared in the late 1970s, Warhol took an instant liking to the makes Minox, Olympus and Konica, especially when everything became automated and included features such as the built-in ﬂash and autofocus. He took his camera to all VIP events and clubs such as Studio 54, taking snapshots of the in-crowd – Liza Minnelli, Bianca Jagger and all the cool kids. He gave the public a direct view of them relaxing in private and in a happy mood. It all resulted in the brilliant book Exposures in 1979, which was put together by Christopher Makos, the in-house photographer from the late 1970s to the 1980s.

Every night Warhol gave him all the exposed ﬁlm he had used and Makos would choose ﬁve images from every roll and make photographs of them. All this, combined with Warhol’s recordings from his encounters with the glitterati, his gossipy phone calls the morning after events and the fact that he had his own magazine – Interview – made him a precursor of what is happening in today’s social media. He would have been thrilled with Facebook, Instagram and all the other similar platforms currently available and the swift way you can spread your nonsense. But comparing prices for his paintings to the prices of ﬁne-art photography is breath-taking: last November, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) (1963) went for $105 million – quite a leap from the photographs mentioned at the beginning of this piece.

In 2000 the ﬁrst camera phone was introduced to the market; it was a starting point of a whole new era. But instant availability really exploded when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, a smartphone with a touch screen that connected to the internet and, more importantly, the new social networks that were appearing. We were now in possession of one of the greatest weapons of truth. Wrongdoings and crimes could be displayed in an instant; everybody is a now reporter. For good or bad, billions of images are transmitted via the internet each hour. But looking at today’s selﬁes, food pictures and the endless ﬂow of cute little animals can become frightfully boring and uncreative. There is still a great need for creative photographers and artists to pave the way for us ordinary users of the camera. Looking at the work of two photographers of today we can see a more artistic and enigmatic attitude emerging and they seem to have a liking for the classic black and white photo. The artist Jenny Källman (born 1973) uses photography as her main medium. She often depicts young women in the exterior, showing no or very little action. The images have a snapshot/documentary feel but they are deliberately arranged. It’s a private world we are attending as an onlooker and we have a hard time understanding what is going on. A feeling of uncertainty evolves into something unpleasant, but it is hard to put your ﬁnger on it. The black and white images are excellently executed and Källman has succeeded in creating her own solemn world. Her latest book, Surveillance, contains some of her best work.

The world of Hedi Slimane (born 1968), artist extraordinaire, is a totally different one. As the creator of the super-skinny silhouette for Dior Homme, Slimane is one of the most creative fashion designers of today. He is also a hugely accomplished photographer, often documenting youth culture in the larger metropolitan areas. The portfolios Berlin and London – Birth of a Cult are just two great examples of his oeuvre. Slimane has since taken over the creative direction of Yves Saint Laurent, now renamed Saint Laurent Paris, and turned the old brand into a very hip and young label (yet expensive). He also does a lot of the photography used in the brand’s advertising campaigns. The imagery is always of youth with a touch of outsider rock’n’roll attitude. He has teamed up with some of the more famous icons from the rock circuit, and is planning to turn his customers into white-faced, black-eyed, depraved-looking rockers clad in tight black outﬁts. He uses the chiaroscuro technique for his portraits, which gives a feeling of the Hollywood-noir style. The photos have a serene feel, a kind of determination; this is his trademark. Both Källman and Slimane glance in the rear-view mirror, but they transfer their versions with a contemporary stance. For photography the road now lies open, and it is controlled by its users – you, dear reader. But it is not the technique that matters so much, it is the understanding and acceptance of the odd minority and gender equality that sets the new standards, especially as seen in the work of these latter two artists.

Credits: Words by Axel Mörner

Links: Man Ray exhibition shows at Millesgården until June 8, 2014, Andreas Gursky courtesy of the artist. Andy Warhol: Fondazione Roma Museo, Palazzo Cipolla, Rome (until Sept 28, 2014) Untitled #96 (1981) by Cindy Sherman, courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures. Andy Warhol photographs Danziger Gallery. Hedi Slimane photographs courtesy of the artist’s website.

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