Exercise: In, Around and Afterthoughts, Martha Rosler.

In, Around and Afterthoughts. Martha Rosler.

My first comment is how US centred this essay is concentrating as it does on practices and politics applicable to the US alone.  It was written in 1992 and as such now seems stuck in yesterday’s politics and speaks of the 1980s in the present tense.  

The opening two paragraphs sets the scene as what Rosler sees as documentary photography as practiced in the USA.  The differences between the USA and Britain is covered in the first note.

Rosler uses the existence of photographs of squalor taken at The Bowery as an illustration of images from the past acting as fact; that the past cannot be denied because of their presence.

These Bowery pictures were only possible because of the German invention of flashlight photography.  The photographer Riis employed this technique to great effect in the early 1900 hundreds.  

There seemed to be little interest in the plight of the poor until reformers, like Riis and Sanger, pointed out that the diseases and conditions of the poor may later visit upon the rich.  Rosler argues that charity is merely a device to assuage the consciences of the rich and at the same time keep the poor in their place.

If Rosler is to be believed there was little interest in improving the lot of the poor and even thought that the poor deserved to be poor and little could be done to assist them.  In the USA there was no political left and so the poor had no voice.  It was acceptable to visit the poor and take pictures of them but the use of images was designed to improve the lot of the photographer alone.

In Britain at this time the left had a powerful presence, with both the Labour Party and the unions set up to challenge the status quo. The left had a voice and full representation in the political system and was not afraid to use it.

The documentary photograph was reduced to the glossy coffee table magazine and the gallery wall.   This was where the rich could look down on the poor without having to actually meeting them.  

Rosler states that during the period 1960 to 1980 there was a separation in the appearance of action on poverty and any actual action.  No blame for the plight of the poor was to be laid at the door of Government; the only institution allowed to be at fault was World Communism.  

Rosler points out that all too often the photographer becomes more important that the subject showing how brave they were in going to these grim and dangerous places to bring out the the pictures stories.  This was not all the doing of the photographer but often the editor or publisher.  No matter how principled the photographer, the system often won.  All too often the name of the man at risk of death for his beliefs remains unknown; only an image, while the photographer wins prizes for his work.  Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Woman’ remains the world’s most published and copied image while the subject, Florence Thompson, was little regarded and remained poor.

The fate of the mudmen of New Guinea is used to illustrate the fate of many indigenous people.   Their cultural heritage is reduced to a set of props for the entertainment of tourists and travellers.  The practice of dressing up the locals to make them look more authentic or of dressing up visitors to look like the locals has long been practiced in both the country concerned or in the studio.

Is this any different from the ‘Cultural Shows’ one is exposed to in Spain or the aboriginal Australian acting native for the modern tourist.  These are no more real than the mudman props of the past.  Those who wish to see the genuine in Spain will seek out the seasonal Feria or find a non-tourist bar.  In Australia a visit to the Top End will give a true picture of aboriginal life.  As in all times the real is there for those who seek it,  for the rest there is charade.

Photographers can only capture the image; it is up to history to say whether this or that image was worth taking, and in turn stands the test of time.  A photographer can only record what he has framed.  The rest is lost.  If he is principled then the truth is revealed, if he is not, then a lie is told.

There is a quote in the essay from The San Fransisco Sunday newspaper about how KCBS Radio “..must deliver what’s critical to life in a way that’s packaged even perversely.. There’s a certain craziness that goes on in the and we want people to understand that we can chronicle it for them.”  I just listened to todays news bulletin from KCBS and heard not one item from outside the USA.  In fact most of it dealt with Californian news only and most of that about The Bay area.  The USA may be the biggest super power world police service but the residents of the USA are as ill informed as ever.