Struth study visit
OCA study visits are largely designed to network students and help them develop their critical perspectives, but just occasionally they also present opportunities to develop practical skills. Saturday’s visit to the Whitechapel Art Gallery Thomas Struth retrospective provided ample opportunities to hone one’s social documentary skills. The confluence of about 1000 English Defence League demonstrators, considerably more people who were unimpressed by their presence and 4,500 police officers, made getting to a from the Gallery a logistical challenge. With exquisite timing, Transport for London had closed large parts of the underground system for the weekend. Nevertheless, those who found a way to Tower Hamlets were handsomely rewarded by the tour by Michael Lawton.
The exhibition opens with a huge print (seen here) from Struth’s Audience series and Michael was at pains to point out the extent to which we were being alerted to need to consider our position as viewers as we toured the gallery. Scale and the way in which it changes your perspective of the work was a consistent theme through the visit, in the next room a triptych of Tienanmen Square, Las Vegas and Times Square highlighted the insignificant scale of the human form in relation to the icons and edifices of superficially different systems. This was particularly evident in the New York image where the Taxi Driveresque figure is dwarfed by the LED female face.
But it was the image of underside of the space shuttle (image 2, here), its scarred ceramic tiles spread across top of the image like an inverted cobbled street which brought the group to a pensive halt. Described by Michael as a kind of ‘post-modern sublime’ the sense in which this technology was both familiar and unfamiliar was palpable. Michael went on to say that Struth had explained that he was ‘showing the real without a narrative’. This particularly stuck a chord with me as so much science and technology news is so heavily mediated (an sequence of incomprehensible images, often featuring people at work in white coats, is ‘explained’ with a voice over telling us what is happening and why it will change the future). Staring at the Struth images of the messy reality doesn’t make the incomprehensible technology comprehensible, but it conveys a sense of unfinished business; not so much a story as a glimpse.
The parallels in the room given over to Struth’s Paradise images, of unknowable complexity are perhaps obvious, but it is the series about which I have changed my mind the most completely. Previously I hand embarrassingly said it left me cold. Revisiting the room after the visit, standing in the silent room, I was left with a sense of horror. The floor to ceiling images said ‘Stop. Look. Paradise doesn’t need you. It is not a human conceit, it just is and it will carry on just being long after you foolish people have messed up your chances of surviving.’
The sense of humankind frittering chances in the last chance saloon was reinforced on leaving the gallery.
—————————————–
Students unable make the study visit may be interested in seeing and reading the recommended resources for the visit:
Geoff Dyer Guardian article
Gallery of the Paradise Series
Interview with Thomas Struth on the Paradise Series
Students who attended the visit, please comment on your impressions below or post a link in the comments to your learning log.
I am grateful to tutor Simon Barber for the images in this post.
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Thanks for all the links Gareth.
I couldn’t attend this study visit but I visited this exhibition myself a few weeks earlier, I hope its OK if I put my impressions down too, not being able to go to the study day means that its particularly good to hear what other people made of it.
I went on my own and it was a quiet day (just after the riots) but I couldn’t help rather strange about looking at photographs of people looking, it makes you feel self-conscious and vulnerable in a way to be stood there looking yourself … but I got over it and carried on regardless. I should think that would have been harder with a demonstration going on outside. Anyway I think this was the series I liked the best and that was most thought provoking. I remember the photograph of the Pantheon impressed me – that the motion blur had separated out the moving people leaving those lost in contemplation more visible and almost huddled together in the enormous space of the structure.
I had wondered about the connection between the jungle and the technological equipment photographs – both seemed inpenetrable and left me feeling more aware of myself looking – feeling kind of confounded in my attempt to grasp it yet still looking.
Although the Street photographs didn’t do a lot for me they made me realise that him working in series as he does might be a way of inquiring into something by looking at differing manifestations of it to find a commonality. Which is something I hadn’t thought of before – so even those were interesting in a way.
I too couldn’t make the group visit but went to the Thomas Struth exhibition on my own later. My comments are below.
Are Struth’s images of people viewing works of art the ultimate in postmodern image-making? the viewer being viewed – a strange kind of voyeurism.
Two images stood out for me: Struth’s photograph entitled San Zaccaria which shows the interior of the San Giobbe Chapel and Giovanni Bellini’s famous altarpiece (1505), and the one in which a group of people are looking at Delacroix’s Liberty leading the People – a famous propaganda image from the time of the French Revolution.
Both paintings are famous for being illusions: the first is an illusion created by the invention of perspective – the flat altarpiece appears to recede into the back wall of the church; the second image (Liberty) is an illusion created by Delacroix to depict the victory of the revolution in France when in fact it was a piece of propaganda by the violent and ruthless intellectuals who ruled France at that time, Eugene Delacroix was the poster boy for the Revolution. Did Thomas Struth pick these two pictures for this reason? I need to read up a bit on this….
Another series at the same exhibition are Struth’s cityscapes – ordinary bare streets with no people, printed in black and white. Whereas Eugene Atget’s photographs of Paris Streets were, albeit people-less, filled with a sense of events, of things about to happen or just happened, Struth’s empty streets seem to be that ’empty streets. Maybe we’ve seen too many empty streets…
Really enjoyable day, the gallery, the networking and the nascent riot outside. I have blogged my thoughts , so won’t spend too much time in this thread
http://sclarke-landscape.blogspot.com/2011/09/study-visit-thomas-struth.html
I also took an opportunity for a some shots of my own, seen here
http://sclarke-landscape.blogspot.com/2011/09/day-out-in-london.html
Unfortunately I was late so I missed the first half hour. Although I did read, only a bit, about the work and photographer I went in with an open mind. I can say that the work doesn’t really speak to me and many times I was just looking; was that his intention? I don’t know for sure.
That said, I found the work very interesting in terms of colour and scale. The only series I felt affinity towards is the Paradise Series… I loved it! I couldn’t quite managed to block out the noise and the goings on outside in order to submerge myself into the jungle photographs. After experiencing the Paradise series was when I could see the connection with the technology series although where I am in terms of the work is still a bit vague.
Must be said that I had a good time and wished I had arrived a lot earlier in order to interact with other students. My blog page for the exhibition is here for those who would like to have a look.
Thank you Gareth and everyone else who had made possible the study visit.
Struth Exhibition 03/09/11 Whitechapel Gallery
I found this an interesting and in some ways an exciting exhibition, and in drawing my thoughts together I wish to reflect on the reasons for my responses, and to identify what I’ve learned from the experience.
To begin with, I’ll look at my field notes as these represent my thoughts at the time, and add to them any memories that persist since the event yesterday. I’m not going to describe the exhibits in detail – just sufficiently to identify key points and learning.
Firstly there was a section about ‘audience’ in which Struth photographs people viewing works of iconic significance, such as art, great buildings or scenery. The ‘audience’ section was placed first in the exhibition, and of course also is a reminder of ourselves looking at the materials. I am not clear on the motivation for this choice of subject, but clearly it was of interest to him to the extent that he wanted to conceal cameras alongside pictures in a gallery to photograph people viewing the works on display. This was not a desire that was realised in practice. It also does not appeal to me as a theme, perhaps because the study of audience reaction was part of my professional life for many years, and it is time to move on.
The next point I noted was that the pictures were produced at on a large scale, several of them extending to about 3 metres. Most were mounted directly onto Perspex, and the colours were often quite luminous. The sheer scale of the pictures was effective in itself, but was also often used to show the small scale of individual people in relation to the larger environment in which they were situated (e.g. Milan Cathedral; El Capitan). There seemed to be a theme in much of the work about the insignificance of ‘man’ – although clearly that was not the case in the studies of families which were grouped together later in the exhibition.
Next I noted a section where Struth was interested in various aspects of technology. I particularly liked a photograph showing the underside of a space shuttle whilst work was being carried out beneath it using a visually dense jungle of tools and supports (but no people in shot). It reminded me very much of the opening sequence in a sci-fi film (I forget which) where a space ship flies across the top of the screen for several minutes, moving away from the viewer and showing more and more of its huge size. In the film there was nothing but space under the ship. In the Struth photo, by contrast, there was nothing but supports, wires and tools – showing how dependent the shuttle was upon ground support, and how far we had to go to achieve anything remotely like the science fiction of the film.
Other technology photos (e.g. the Grazing Incidence Spectrometer; and the Stellerator Windelstein; Times Square) used a similar approach, showing a jungle made of wire branches and leaves made from circuitry components. It all looks visually bright and somehow random, belying the fact that the machinery actually worked and had a purpose – the ghost in the machine. I was reminded of making an amplifier from a kit, in about 1970. When the box of materials was opened it looked like a shovelful of resistors, a handful of transistors, a sprinkling of wires and a baking tin with holes in it. I was tempted to mix them all together and bake in an oven for 90 minutes at Gas Mark 8. I asked myself, does this mass of stuff actually fulfil a purpose? This is a sense of wonder that has persisted in me ever since I saw the insides of a television at the age of six, and found there was nobody in there!
The set of ‘jungle paradise’ photos that followed seemed to me to parallel those of the technology, and left me wondering what, if anything, was the hidden purpose of all these branches and leaves? Also the idea of calling these photographs ‘paradise’ when there was not a single human being in them was quite challenging. Is paradise going to occur when we have all gone, and the Garden of Eden returns?
The simply title “Semi-Submersible rig” was a photograph of a very large, very red drilling rig moored at a dockside. There were pictorial lead-in lines created by the mooring ropes. The massive scale of the rig would not have been apparent, save for the appearance of a figure in the foreground apparently mending his bicycle. This was one of the few colour pictures where the frame was not completely full. Yet is was partitioned into large zones which were clearly defined and each contained the usual Struth mass of miniature details.
There were other parts of the exhibition which had less impact for me, and these were the families section and the centrally symmetrical street scenes. I did like the idea though of the families posing themselves for the photographer, who apparently only required them to look into the camera’s lens. This seemed very effective, and a technique worth trying.
So what have I learned?
• That images such as these can provoke some serious thought, way beyond the initial response of ‘I like or don’t like that’.
• You don’t always need a focal point and something to lead the eye through the picture.
• Artistic pictures can be technically excellent as well!
• That I want to continue with tight framing of pictures, and filling the frame completely can be very effective.
• You need very large prints to achieve some of the effects seen here, particularly the frequent comparison of the very large with the very small.
• Visiting an exhibition can be fun and enlightening.
Jim Smith
My reflections are here:
http://stansocablog.blogspot.com/2011/09/study-visit-whitechapel-gallery-london.html
I believe Struth’s audience work is very much about turning tables and making the viewer the subject (and others to be honest – the family series are looking at the actual viewer…). I’ve written about this before for UVC, which is a useful course for coming to terms with work like this.
Anyway, mixed feelings about the exhibition to be honest. The quality of some of the prints was slightly disappointing I think, especially when compared to when reproduced smaller. The image making is interesting though, what with the various choices he’s made.
My blog’s at http://www.robtm.co.uk/RobTM/Other_Stuff/Entries/2011/9/4_Thomas_Struth_%40_the_Whitechapel_Gallery.html
In the spirit of photographing people looking and following on from viewing the Struth exhibition, I took this image http://tinyurl.com/3ktub77 as well as the more conventional ones.
Having viewed Struth’s work and the Diane Arbus material currently on show at the Tate Modern, I have found myself asking acting like the child asking the incessant and increasingly annoying series of “why” questions.
Haven’t come across the one definitive and satisfactory answer yet just lots of different ones. Anyone else had success? – that’s another question! – I’ve got to stop… 🙂
Hi
Thanks for a great study visit. I posted my thoughts on it on http://luminouslight.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/thomas-struth-study-visit-2/
Mike
I meant to have included a flavour of the questions that are bugging me at the moment. It is a sort of sequence and goes something like this:
Why do we produce images?
Comes the answer – for other people to look at!
Why do we want people to look at them?
Comes the answer – to show them something that we want them to notice!
What sort of people?
What if they don’t see what we want them to see?
Does it matter if only those that are tuned into a particular way of seeing can appreciate what we are getting at?
How can we make others feel/see what we do?
How much sign posting should be included?
Is it better to let people form their own ideas about what we are trying to say?
The questioning goes on and on….
It also translate onto viewing the work of other photographers in books and exhibitions – Reading the commentary on their work, I’m left questioning how close is it to what the photographer is wanting to convey? How much are the comments someone else’s interpretation that is of itself coloured by all sorts of influences.
Being able to talk and discuss the issues with the photographer is a real bonus. Viewing interviews is also good. Having the chance to listen to photographers like Jim Goldberg, Tim Hetherington, Bruce Gilden etc talking about their work (and others) adds a lot.
Here’s a link to my blog and my post on the Struth study day. Thanks for organising the event.
http://dpp-ammonite.blogspot.com/2011/09/thomas-struth-study-day.html
I’ve written up my impressions in my study log here, so I won’t repeat myself.
I’d like to say well done and than you to Gareth and the team for this visit, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
http://lerpysphotographyblog.wordpress.com/thomas-struth-retrospective-whitechapel-gallery/?preview=true&preview_id=1182&preview_nonce=dacaa53cca
Thanks to Gareth and all those at OCA who arranged the visit. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was great to meet fellow students.
I noted five themes to the images on show:-audiences; buildings/natural world; technology; family portraits and streets. Some i liked and others i didn’t!
Gareth i am afraid i still agree with your first impressions of the Paradise series-they seem to me very average images which only have impact because of the scale they were displayed at. I know this was part of the reason for choosing the study visit to this exhibition and i think it worked exceptionally well in that regard! In a sense i found them similar to the technology images-i was left in wonder at the science behind their production, just as i was left in wonder about the science behind the technology images.
I very much enjoyed the audience series and thought they were exceptional images showing how different people engage with the same event. I also enjoyed the family portraits, not so much because i thought any individual image was exceptional but because they reminded me of the power that building a body of work over many years has. I think the street pictures also showed this–as individual images you (or at least I) might not give them a second glance but as a series shot over an elapsed period of years they became interesting and a comment on the cities they were taken in.
Over all i enjoyed the day and found the show thought provoking. Thanks.
As ever I have conflicting views on visiting exhibitions in a group, on one hand one has the ability to discuss, debate and learn from fellow photographers as well as the tour leader. On the other hand I find I’m not able to view and form opinion at my own pace, one is led both physically and conceptually as opposed to taking a journey of exploration untainted by knowledge. I also felt a bit like a part of a group of voyeurs, eating up the space in the gallery, overpowering and overwhelming the personal and the intimate.
I was surprised by the sheer scale of the images and the technical quality, print wise, no doubt helped by the use of a large format camera, but seeing images so large was impressive.
I felt at times the exhibition had too many themes running though it, yes they were linked mostly but I was unsure about the inclusion of the street photographs and the Paradise images as part of the overall.
I loved the audience series, the attention to detail and the concept of watching people watching appealed to me as did the cultural differences in the way we watch. This theme was carried over into the family portraits which were again culturally diverse with the subjects staring directly back into the lens of the camera and, of course, in the viewing straight back at the viewer. It’s a technique often used in painting or photographing women, where the viewer is in the ascendency but here I felt the tables were turned and the subjects were almost scrutinising the viewer. These portraits were the highlight of the show for me.
I liked the technology images with the use of scale and filling the frame, though unlike Gareth I didn’t find them unfamiliar, perhaps because of my grounding in engineering and electronics. The meticulous attention to detail both confused and intrigued, these were not images taken in with a quick glance but ones to imbue, wander around and ponder
I found the Paradise images difficult, I understood the concept but didn’t feel they fitted that well into the exhibition as a whole and they didn’t particularly inspire me. I suspect I may have not given them a second glance normally and it was only the scale that gave them any impact. They did link into the two city images (natural as opposed to urban jungle) which I did like.
The street photography seemed out of place in the exhibition though I liked it as well as the documentary approach that was taken by Struth which built a story over time in a highly consistent manner.
Overall I really enjoyed the day and the exhibition, it was thought provoking and engaging. The video was also excellent and gave a real insight into the artists work, meticulous preparation and time involved in realising a long term project.
Firstly – thanks OCA for providing the opportunity and to Gareth for hosting the day. It’s been interesting to read the blogs and comments so far. I left with conflicting feelings. I was definitely affected by what was going on outside the Gallery – heat, chaotic travel services and the imminent demonstration. For me this made the Exhibition itself seem almost unreal – the immensity of Struth’s images of machinery with their complexity and detail; the absence of people in his city scenes and the way he seems to emphasize the sameness of different places as opposed to their differences. It’s just coming to me now as I’m writing this (having already posted my blog) that what affected me the most was the lack of empathy somehow – that orientation towards and from others which makes us human.
I’m still absorbing the impact because it affected me deeply. I certainly know that I don’t want to be that type of photographer despite the skill involved. I also know that I don’t want to be the type of photographer who gets into the thick of whatever mayhem might be going on in the streets. I must admit I was quite shocked to see how people were going right up to the police and shoving telephoto lenses in their faces at the time they were trying to maintain calm. Hopefully there is lots of middle ground left for me to explore.
Catherine
http://cblearninglog.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/an-oca-study-visit-to-the-thomas-struth-exhibition-whitechapel-gallery/
I think your comments on the family photographs are fascinating Catherine. I was not aware of Bert Hellinger’s work – your blog post is a very good example of how students bring knowledge to their courses and their tutors and fellow students.
Interesting to read other students blogs, it is always worthwhile joining one of the arranged visits because you can always take something away, even if it’s realising you don’t appreciate a certain style or photographer, makes you wonder why and what it is that you can’t connect with.
I posted my link a few days ago on the flickr forum but have added a few more observations/thoughts since then.
Thanks to everyone, students and tutors for making it a good day out. Here is the link to my blog post
http://janfairburnoca.blogspot.com/2011/09/thomas-struth-exhibition.html
I enjoyed the study day and some of us stayed to look at the pictures when there was no-one around. Impressions changed when there was space.
The first image here is the one we saw on the way out – having been advised to get out the way by the police we had another drink in the cafe and then escaped onto the backstreets down Brick Lane out of Tower Hamlets on police instructions and to Old Street tube station. Saw and took some pics of different graffiti on the walls.
Spent the rest of my time before the train departed going round the British Library – Out of this World exhibition and St Pancras International.