I think the deadpan look, especially as practiced by Alec Soth, is a tool to engendering false empathy from the viewer. Especially when you read the stories associated with the people he photographs - they have absolutely horrid, tragic lives, and here they are looking at you with this vacuous, ennervated expression, which gives the appearance of magnifying their tragedy tenfold. It makes you see them as victims, when in many cases they are anything but.
Timely that you should say that, yesterday I was at Concordia U for the talk on photo, and in the hall of a building they had an exhibition of photographs. the people were Cambodians who lost limbs because of landmines.
The portraits were taken with 4x5 polaroid, with visible peel borders, on a white background, deadpan full-body. The prints were about 6 feet tall, printed on white canvas, and hanged from the ceiling. There was 16 prints, and they cut through the space of the hall diagonally.
You can have a look at some of them on the photographer's website here:
http://www.vtonyhauser.com/landmines.htm
It did not move me. Was it because of the combined clichés (polaroid, white bckgnd, deadpan, etc)? Perhaps.
Here's a quote from the artist about the photos: "I purposely chose to isolate [these people] from their natural surroundings. I hoped this would elevate them and, at the same time, reveal my admiration for their strength. They live with the daily fear of land mines."
To me it felt like a butterfly collection: "hey, let's take 16 people who lived through horror and pin them into my retrograde aesthetics so that people can see how sensitive I am, oups! I mean, how important the issue of landmines is." I don't see how the white background elevates them. How about putting some angel wings at their backs, while we're there? That will elevate them eh?
I don't see the imagination, the research, the originality, nor do I see there the suffering, courage, and daily fear. What I see is a photographer slumming, reaping the harvest of horror around the world to polish his status. I don't see the compassion, the empathy (or the sympathy, whatever it is).
I saw it, on the other hand, in the sculptures of Marc Quinn. At the DHC/Art gallery in Old Montréal, there is a retrospective of his work, and his greco-roman-like sculptures of people with missing limbs, like Alison Lapper, hit the spot. Here's a photo of it:
Dead Link Removed
I choose this one because I saw it recently, but also because Quinn approaches a subject with missing limbs, like Hauser does. There is a profound difference. Quinn is using the conventions of greco-roman sculptures, whom we are used to see with missing limbs, but instead of depicting people possessing them all, he specifically chose people who are really missing them.
What it creates is a dissonance between the ideal of beauty we associate with classical sculptures and the reality of bodies. For some reason, few people like to think of people missing limbs as beautiful, but a sculpture lacking them can be. Quinn proposes that this is hypocritical, and he shows true admiration for his subjects by sculpting them. And they ARE beautiful sculptures, some of which showing embraces, mother and child, people doing physical activity, etc.
It's the click of imagination that's missing in Hauser. Quinn is clever with his art historical reference, but he thinks of something new for his subject, he works out a particular treatment that chimes with his subject.
Hauser on the other hand gives monotone, ponderous pictures of people who are anything but. His intent, according to his website, is "to confront younger viewers with the devastating consequences of land mines around the world." How is that confrontational?
