Part Three - Putting yourself in the picture: Project One - Autobiographical self-portraiture: Exercise - Reflection

I'm struggling now... I don't find self-portraiture that interesting, unless there is a surreal or fantastic element, as with Francesca Woodman.  I am 100% more interested in the world I inhabit, rather than the portrayal of my own being, and I think for me, I would only really be interested in self-portraiture, if I knew first-hand the author or artist and cared personally about their life...So I'm afraid to say that I don't feel very motivated to do this exercise.  Apologies now to blog readers if this seems a negative and unimaginative post.

The idea of making work about myself doesn't fill me with dread, I don't mind being on the other side of the lens for souvenir/joke shots, and my life isn't boring either.  I just don't have anything to say about myself.  I want to explore the world, not my own identity (perhaps that is my identity!).  I'm more of a "get on with it" person; now I tend not to self-indulge in deep emotional torment - I have done in the past, but today I have a much more of a "live in the moment" and "look forwards" approach to life, rather than to dwell on stuff that I can't change.  I don't even use my own photo for my Facebook profile (because I prefer to find something funny to use - I like to laugh)!  It's not about denial of existence, or lack of self-value, I just literally don't have anything to say.  At the moment.  Perhaps I'm lucky?

But... onwards and upwards with the exercise, which is to reflect on the pieces of work discussed in this project, and do some further research.  I will however be brief!

The artists in question are:

• Francesca Woodman (see previous post) -portrayal of depression using humour to cope?
• Elinus Brotherus - work relating to failed IVF treatment
• Gillian Wearing - exploration of roles in family history

Elina Brotherus

When I started to research Brotherus, as is often the case now, I realised that I had seen "Le Nez de Monsieur Cheval" (image available from the artist's website) - I think in one of my many books... but also in an exhibition.  I don't quite understand this picture though...

I struggled to find information about Brotherus' work online. I can see by the email traffic from student blogs that I follow that I have missed an OCA artist's talk in Wapping, and although I might not like the photography, I do find it an interesting and learning experience to engage with other photographers (again..note to self..).  I have found a few big Scandinavian landscapes, where she is both nude and clothed in the shot.  I broadened my search to include the word "Annunciation" and found one image in the "Photography, Motherhood and Identity" exhibition at the Photographer's Gallery (and I also remembered seeing the OCA post about this).  The image in question shows a lost "Alice in Wonderland" type portrayal of Brotherus sitting on a sofa, pressing the remote cable release (resembling umbilical cord?).  Of course, knowing the background to the image of her failed treatment, this is very sad.  But I am genuinely struggling to persist with this research, I haven't had children myself (by choice), haven't had IVF, and can't relate to the experience.  I relate more to The Dad Project by Briony Campbell - see previous post, as this is a family relationship I experience (thankfully my dad is still alive, although ancient).

Gillian Wearing

Again, this exploration of roles within a family is something I would never engage in.  I just get on with it.  I looked at some of the images (in Google Images) and found them a bit strange.  Unlike Brotherus and Woodman, Wearing seems to be putting masks on.  Is she hiding?  What is she hiding from?  I do have a copy of Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Post-memory by Marianne Hirsch, which I have read but not written about, which also explores the topic of family roles in photography, but I have never felt relevant to my photography.  The photographs I take of my family are souvenir shots.  But I have never wanted to document or explore family relationships in this way.  What I found lots more interesting, and which I have seen before, was Wearing's work on Signs featured in The Guardian online.  I found this interesting because as a society we all have a tendency to make assumptions about people based on their appearance: quick judgements without taking account of any context.  In Signs, Wearing effectively broke down those barriers to enable people to say what they are really thinking, for example the policeman, who is supposed to brave and ready to deal with confrontation, asking for "Help".  In this project, she is actually demasking as opposed to masking, and I find this more intriguing.

The exercise asks us to think about some questions about these pieces of work (note Wearing refers to the family masks work - not the signs work):

• How do these images make you feel: Woodman - intrigued; Brotherus - sympathetic; Wearing - disinterested
• Do you think there's an element of narcissism or self-indulgence in focusing on your own identity in this way?  Woodman - no - I think this is a coping mechanism; Brotherus - initially no - again a coping mechanism, but how long did the project last - there may come a point where it would start to become self-indulgent?  Wearing - no - it's an exploration of relationships and dynamics
• What's the significance of Brotherus's nakedness?  I have no idea, not something I've ever wanted to do.  Is it to get rid of everything - to declutter the mind and body to expose the inner being?  Is it a reference to a newly born child?  Is it to do with lost innocence, awakening, the realisation that your life will never be the same - like a rebirth?
• Can such images work for an outsider without accompanying text?  For Woodman, yes, these are interesting images in their own right.  Brotherus and Wearing, no, I think you need the text to understand the images.  They have specific context, meaning, story, and research elements.
• Do you think any of these artists are also addressing wider issues beyond the purely personal?  I think Wearing is addressing the issue of role and identity being linked to appearance - she is questioning whether by changing appearance we can step into someone else's position.  Woodman, I don't know - I think she is more primarily dealing with her own pain.  Brotherus - yes I think she is - she is tackling the whole subject of grief, and how hard it is not being a mother (if that is what you want), and documenting the impact of such an invasive process.  Would people go through with IVF if they knew already what it is like?

Websites

• Elina Brotherus available from http://www.elinabrotherus.com/news/ [accessed 1 February 2015]
• Home Truths at WeAreOCA available from http://weareoca.com/photography/home-truths/ [accessed 1 February 2015]
• Photography, Motherhood and Identity at The Photographer's Gallery available from http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/photography-motherhood-and-identity [accessed 1 February 2015]
• Private lines: Gillian Wearing's signs in pictures available from http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/mar/04/gillian-wearing-signs-in-pictures [accessed 1 February 2015]

Part Three - Putting yourself in the picture: Project One - Autobiographical self-portraiture: Research - Francesca Woodman

The first research exercise of Part Three asks us to examine the work of Francesca Woodman and to make a commentary on Bright's analysis (OCA, p74):

"It is difficult not to read Woodman's many self-portraits - she produced over five hundred during her short lifetime - as alluding to a troubled state of mind.  She committed suicide at the age of twenty-two".

The first place I looked to find some of Woodman's images was at the Tate: here I found 18 images showing some of the self-portraits described in the statement above.  My initial reaction was that I agree, they are compulsive: I was drawn by the surrealism initially.  As I looked closer, I saw a portrayal of tension between vulnerability and a desire to self-expose.  As if Woodman wanted to be seen (or heard), yet was uncomfortable doing so.  We mostly see sections of her body in strange situations, for example, naked from the waist down, or curled around a bowl containing an eel.   We hardly ever see her face, and therefore, hardly see her soul?  I tried to look without reading the captions as I wanted to see what I could draw from these image without being prompted.  I felt that it's as if Woodman wants us to see her, but only controlled parts of her, not her entire being.

Interesting that her images are all square format, which to me means that they are deliberate and to the point.  She is not giving us the context of a rectangle with more detail about the environment - we are permitted to see just a brief and neatly framed section of the scene.  There is no additional or superfluous information.  I also like the pseudo "Polaroid" format with hand-written annotation - did she mean these to represent snap shots?  Brief glimpses of her life?  Is this consistent with my earlier thought about the desire to show the self, but only a tiny bit?  Only the bits she wants us to see?  What is she hiding?

I found another site showing more of Woodman's work at Victoria Miro (gallery).  The first image shown on this webpage (untitled) shows Woodman's hands and wrists wrapped in birch bark.  My first reaction was that the texture and shape of the bark around her arms creates the appearance of self-harming scars.  Would I have thought that had I not read the above statement and just seen the image with no context?

The third place I looked was at the Guardian.  Annoyingly, I found out that there had been an exhibition at Victoria Miro in the autumn last year.  I would have liked to have seen that.  Note to self....pay more attention to The Guardian!  The article recounts conversations with Woodman's friends and family, and so provides greater context around her photography.  The biggest surprise in this article, is that her mother Betty states that Woodman's work is funny.  It's about angles (I can see that), hence the name of the exhibition "Zigzag", but also humour; the birch tree bark image, is about recreating finger-less gloves.  This then begs the question, how much of our conclusions and interpretations are primed by a biased viewpoint of somebody else?  Or is a mother (understandably) trying to cover up and protect a daughter's vulnerability and darkness?

In the article, Cooke quotes Woodman's friend Betsy Berne:

"In the past, Woodman’s suicide – she jumped off a building in lower Manhattan – has been linked to a funding application that had been turned down. Berne disputes this. “She had an illness: depression. That’s all there is to it.” "

This is a first-hand account that Woodman was troubled; as Bright says, she had a troubled state of mind.  I think this is clear from her photographs.  Why does she hide beneath a door?  Why does she kneel naked in a pool of paint?  Why does she appear to seduce a giant fossil?

The answers to these questions are of course unclear, and sadly, as Woodman is no longer alive, they can never be answered with certainty.  It's clear she suffered mental anguish, from both the photographs and her suicide, but I wonder if her mother is also right - are the photographs meant to be comical?  Is this Woodman's way of coping with depression - to create comedy?

Anecdotally, many of our brilliant comedians also suffer from depression, for example, John Cleese and Stephen Fry.  Are depression and humour inextricably linked?


References:

• Bright, S. (2010) Auto Focus: The Self-Portrait in Contemporary Photography, London: Thames & Hudson, in OCA Context and Narrative Course Materials (2014)

Websites:

• Francesca Woodman available from http://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/7-francesca-woodman/ [accessed 1 February 2015]
• Francesca Woodman 1958-1981 available from http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/francesca-woodman-10512 [accessed 1 February 2015]
• Searching for the real Francesca Woodman article by Rachel Cooke in The Guardian (2014) available from http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/aug/31/searching-for-the-real-francesca-woodman [accessed 1 February 2015]