From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 09/20/01-01:46:34 AM Z
Lukas,
I leave your entire message below because I was so glad to read it again,
maybe some others who read hastily the first time would like to also.
You raise profound questions about art. I don't know any answers, maybe
beyond me as an artist, but surely in my mind today.
I'd walked to Union Square, which has coalesced as a site of grief, &
people's "shrines", covering most of the park, candles, flowers, slogans,
with the statue of Washington on horseback suddenly flag (and "peace"
grafitti) bedecked. What are all over the neighborhood & more wrenching
than ever as hope dies, here become a veritable sea of the "missing" --
two long fences -- "wall of hope" and "mural of hope" -- pictures of the
lost in hundreds (& probably hundreds to come) pinned & taped up, all
looking so alive & beautiful, many of the men, incidentally, holding their
babies.
I went in part out of restlessness, "regular" art seeming at the moment
unurgent -- with the notion of photographing the Washington statue for a
giant gum print. Maybe you saw it on TV (the satellite trucks were there,
but NEW ones, NOT from the West side highway -- where do they get so
many?). Maybe their telephoto lenses conveyed it better than my 55 mm --
which framed the scene OK, but somehow lost the aura, the feeling of
exquisite grunge, OK, the transcendency. Or seemed to in the view finder.
Is a straight photograph of this "art", or bathos, or even advertising --
which TV is anyway, so no problem. If Andreas Gursky did it, we'd say
exploitation. I took maybe 10 shots: maybe the camera will perform a
miracle.
But aren't most of the "political" artists you mention abstractionists
(certainly music) ? Even Goya is stylized, not "realistic"... It seemed
today also that the air and the sound and the sense of the space were
essential.
Your story of the Afghani boys is perfect as told -- & heart-rending just
as narrative, that is, words, but what becomes of them as photographs ?
...Without captions couldn't they be any ragamuffins --the TEXT is the
story (seems to me) or at least essential to it.
I'll add that many of the signs at the park were pleas for peace and cries
from Muslim-Americans that murder & terror are unIslamic. Various folks
offered to bring me to Jesus, & in what I take for a new wrinkle wanted to
give me a free CD on the topic. And bless him, a sikh striding down 4th
avenue WITH his turban on, and not a head turned... The crowd was so
varied, motley, one-worldish, international "diversity"-looking it could
have come from central casting, tho I doubt Hollywood could have invented
the props. One sign did say STRIKE NOW, tho it didn't say whom or where or
what. But another had a picture of John Wayne x'd out, with "This is no
time for cowboys" in black marker. A photo copy of the "Wanted Dead or
Alive" first page of the Daily News had "Our grief is not a cry for war"
in marker.
PS: Being 2 blocks from Strand, I indulged on the way home. FLASH: they
have the Frizot "A New History of Photography" a bargain at $39.95, now
for $29.95. (But it's lethal -- drop it & break a toe.) Since you ask,
Strand is worth the trip alone. Fella today says "12 miles of books." I
said the sign says eight miles. He said "we lied."
best,
Judy
On Wed, 19 Sep 2001, Lukas Werth wrote:
> While I fully understand that one sometimes feels the insignificance of
> one's personal activities in the face of such events as we are now
> witnessing, I really don't think art is only an aesthetical exercise.
> Political messages rather have long been an important aspect of art, and
> what is more, they are also heard. Examples spring to mind from Dante's
> "divine comedy" via Verdi's "Nambucco", many German painters of classical
> modernity (George Grosz, Otto Dix, the Dada movement) to untold
> photographers. Art does help to shape our perception of reality.
>
> I also don't think that the particular possibilities of alternative
> processes as individualist means of expression are irrelevant here. In
> fact, as Pakistan appears in the world's headlines, and as last week's
> events inevitably carry in their wake a rediscussion and reevaluation of
> Muslim cultures and values, I begin to have a fresh look on my own
> photography in Pakistan.
>
> I feel there is a human element lacking in all the excitement and
> saber-rattling in these days which I have at least tried to capture. But
> the possibilities of art I have in mind, and the grief for the missing
> human element for me are embodied best in an opportunity for a picture, or
> some pictures, which I regretfully missed.
> (As this post becomes personal and even more off-topic now, readers who are
> in danger of falling into a coma should best stop here.)
> On my last stay in Pakistan, I frequently passed by some slum settlements
> of Afghan refugees between the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Once I
> saw two boys on the roadside waiting for a hike: poor, unkempt, with sacks
> over their shoulders, marking them as waste paper and rag gatherers, with
> those caps marking them as Afghanis. I stopped, and within a few seconds, I
> had seven or so excited children in my old jeep, smiling at me, asking me
> in their broken Urdu where I would go. Originally they had intended just to
> go one or two crossings further, but they were so excited when they
> discovered I was a foreigner (I told them) that they wanted to come with me
> all the way to my destination (a shrine).
> They talked to me, and told me their stories and about their lives all the
> way. On my arrival, I bought them some food (to be had cheaply there),
> asked them to wash my car for which I would give them something, also to
> have an eye on it, and went about my business. I took them back in the
> evening, because they had no ideas of how to return. I have given the same
> boys a lift on several later occasions, whenever I saw them again.
> Although they lived in dire circumstances, for them Pakistan was a haven of
> piece, savety and relative abundance. The elder ones had hair-raising
> stories to tell, but they still had their hopes, reasons to laugh, and to
> be happy about, for example, a free ride.
> I apologize if this appears a little sentimental, but I see the same faces
> in the TV in these days, thousands of innocent people driven by fear away
> from their homes, from powerty to misery, and when I consider the
> possibilities of a war, either as bombardments or on the ground, I ask
> myself how many of them will be made victims - already are made, in fact.
> Do their lives not count? Are they no persons, no individuals?
>
> I have not made any pictures of those boys or their homes. It did occure to
> me once when I was there, even to visit their homes, but I refrained for
> several reasons, one being time, and they were not my topic. It is
> sometimes not easy to photograph in such places, to make people co-operate,
> and to prevent them from posing. But I now strongly regret this omission,
> and feel I should have taken my 8x10 there also. It was, after all, all the
> time in my car.
>
> Lukas
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