On the topic ‘End Times’
Regarding What is Real in Photography
We have a tendency to believe what we see, because "seeing is believing." We believe a photograph captures the truth because we clearly see ourselves on paper. While deception is not a new concept to art, photography may create one of the largest betrayals yet to one of our 'absolutes': a photograph is real, and that is how it is. Native Americans do not object to having their picture taken because it captures their soul, but rather because it tricks one into seeing the soul where it does not exist.
Photography has always been a very personal medium. The connotation we cannot seem to escape is the relation to our historical memory: we’ve used the photograph to witness the present as well as remember the past. Photography was not created for the purpose of art, but rather as a tool. In this tradition, it seems we have mis-catagorized contemporary photography by believing what we see as a reality, not a vision. Ansel Adams never saw what his photographs captured: he worked countless hours, countless years, to create the scene that his mind wanted. We didn’t flinch: we bought it as reality. Art had always been a medium of vision and expression. Artists make what they see, not what is. When we walk up to a photograph only to see it is actually a painting, we are amazed! But to walk up to a painting only to realize it is a photograph? No way. To believe that photography does not capture the real is instinctively impossible.
The confusing thing about the transformation of photography into a digital realm of art is that we don’t always see the hint, the proof, that we are being tricked. Photographers have played with this new technology to create magnificently abnormal scenes. A stock market floor, confused with seamless repetition, awes us with the potential photography holds for demonstrating an artistic vision, an altered truth.
But now these photographs are of children, children in pain nonetheless. We suddenly pause with our enamored amazement in photography and switch to a feeling of trespass and harm. A crying child naturally brings up emotion for adults and stir up an instinctual reaction to protect and care for the subject, to seek out the source of their pain and destroy it. The ‘trick’ is suddenly too good: Mrs. Greenberg’s talent with her medium may have finally crossed the line of what we know and what we believe.
Anyone who has seen one of Jill Greenberg’s pieces in person has had the fleeting suspicion they were paintings. Up close, the surface is unreal: it is saturated with colors and detail. The sensation of the never-ending now, the desperation, hope, despair, and agony are intended responses of the photographs, not the technique used to capture them. Because we ‘know’ a photograph must be real, these photographs must be wrong. But these images do not come from a photograph taken in a studio. The full-fledged emotion is what was added. This is Mrs. Greenberg’s ability, style, and her talent as a photographer. Referencing her other work it is easily deduced that her photographs are not of reality, but of a fashioned hyper-reality. This filtration through the artist’s eye onto paper is by definition what makes an artist.
Mrs. Greenberg is expressing this concern through what she does for a living: photography. She wants the faces we see in this series to feel the potential future ‘present day,’ but the children photographed did not feel this or anything like it. Without understanding the process and work utilized by the artist, without seeing the template used, we cannot judge the photographer’s ethics or actions. It is unfortunate that the content of ‘End Times’ is being overlooked because Mrs. Greenberg may be too good at what she does.
‘End Times’ is being subjected to a debate taking place outside of the art community. This debate is not about the new face and reality of photography, but rather about whether people agree that the artist is a bad person. Did she harm the children she photographed --making her a child abuser or child pornographer? Is she a cruel person, like Hitler? These are the questions being posed. Not even in movies, where we see ‘truth’ unfold in front of us, do we believe it is as truth. We have trained our minds to interpret a movie as a story, which is why we try over and over again to convince our children that the little boy’s mother didn’t really die --it was acting. Why, suddenly, are we looking at an artistic medium and wholeheartedly believing what we see on the surface?
Because we care deeply, seeing an image of an American child so incredibly upset elicits a reaction. It is a good thing that people show deep concern for these children as well as others, and this is what the artist wanted from her work. Anyone who has voiced concern over the exhibition cares for his or her children. Hopefully this concern will lead to a greater good. Hopefully the attention can be focused on protecting our children so that they can grow old and lead a full life. Staying alert and educated with the conflicts in the world, taking seriously the ever-escalating power in the mid-east that is ushering on the new Holocaust for Western Civilization, seeking out those Americans who are actively welcoming the war to pave the way for the fulfillment of their vision of the apocalypse. These are the things that may help the future remain as fortunate as we are in the present day.
. I agree with Liv, I mean, there are worse situations, and we as siblings (I was the big sister from hell ), parents, "responsible" adults, do that to the kids every day, and they are capable to get over those little "dissapointments".
