Contextual Studies:
Contextual Studies is all about what's going in the World and about different photographers way of life.
Things are Queer:
Duane Michals:
Duane Michals' work for "Things are Queer", is really intriguing, very diverse and is quite unusual.
This is a series of sequential narrative images; this means that it is a story that is unfolding through these direct still images. Some of Michals' oeuvre has certain philosophical ideas, meaning that he mostly photographs death, gender and also sexuality. These particular shots to me, means that Michals is comfortable photographing nudity based shots and that the models/people are very comfortable with their own bodies.
For this series of photographs for, "Things are Queer", it reminds me of Gulliver’s Travels, by this I mean that there is a giant man of the average size, in composition with the tiny bathroom and in the next shots with a tiny book that looks like it’s come straight out of a dolls house. This also has some juxtaposition, by this I mean that it has various contrasts from dark to light and also from big to small, this is quite interesting and is pretty clever, juxtaposition would be that a bathroom is associated with cleanliness however this is not the case. In this bathroom it is dirty, grubby and quite depressing.
In the first of these intriguing shots is that they display a bathroom, with an image above the sink. Here we notice this image and think it is quite dark and very gloomy. Also, we can see that there is no taps on the bath, toilet, and even the sink. On image 2 here we see an enormous hair leg, however the leg is only hairy the foot however, is shaven and his toes are showing these are also quite hairy. What does this mean? Why is his foot shaven? While this series continues, the camera moves back to reveal such a tiny bathroom with an normal sized man in between. The camera carries on retreating back and we then see a giant thumb on a page of a book, here the book to me symbolises that the book must be quite small or small enough for a man's thumb to look abnormally big. But it turns out that we have witnessed someone looking at the picture in the book, of a man standing in a strangely tiny bathroom.
The man we heard of before is reading this book in a really dark alleyway, or a tunnel, this adds a real depth to how dark this series of images is and it quite exciting to look through. I was particularly amazed by how this was created. Then on the last image we come full circle and we see the bath, sink and toilet over again, with the added picture above the sink.
I noticed that in these shots the bath, toilet and sink have no taps this to me would suggest that there broken and do not work, this is rather peculiar and is quite worrisome. Most of the sanitary ware is worn down and it tells a story that something might have happened in this room before these photographs were taken. These images make me think that it is quite psychological as it plays on your mind and conscience, as it takes everyday objects and changes them around a bit, therefore this is quite an outrageous piece of art and also is abnormal. I like the idea of this as it is pretty unusual and I quite like this feel that it is full of meaning.
On image 3 the man is look down, looking down at what? I think that he's either looking down at the toilet or he could be looking at his unshaven toes, this makes me feel uneasy and is a Perturb this basically means that it's disturbing. Also there is no reflection of the man’s head or upper body, all you can see in the reflection is the man’s leg and his toes. In the reflection as well, you can see that the sink is turned on its side which gives a sense of unease and it is quite wacky. To me though I think that the leg in the reflection is a sense of spiritual being, as there is no other kind of reflection in this image. Also this image is image 4, as it has gone into the book which is quite unusual as well, this must mean that something must have happened in the book to go along with this kind of imagery.
However, in the first image we see the tiny bathroom suite, along with an image above the sink. At first this image means nothing to us, but if you then look through the end images it all makes sense now. This tiny image above the sink has been imposed from the end images which is very extraordinary and makes us scared in a way, as it is again psychological. These images are also quite depressing as the idea of a dirty bathroom, wouldn't appeal to most people in being beautiful, yet in a way it is. It's rather intriguing.
The shots of the man holding the book is quite foreboding as the colour is rather dark whereas the images beforehand and even the last few images are rather light so this to me has a sense of foreboding as it is again, unusual and is quite spooky. I quite like this sense of photography as it makes you think about all these different elements and it is very suspicious.
Here is a quote from a website which has provided me with the information for the title page being called "Things are Queer"; this is not being said about the sexual identities but to the world itself. "The world is only queer because it is known only through representation that are fragmentary and in themselves are queer, their meanings are always relative, a matter of relationships and constructions. In contradiction to this title, the series seems to say the things themselves are not queer, rather what it is queer is the certainty by which we label things normal and abnormal, decent and obscene, gay and straight."
Michals’ shots could stand for the current ambitions of lesbian and gay studies to go beyond documenting specific homosexual identities and cultural practices. Increasingly its charge is to investigate the mechanisms by which a society claims to know gender and sexuality. Homophobia is not a mere by product of the ignorance and prejudice of a segment of the population, but an aspect of the way power is organized and deployed throughout society. As lesbian and gay theorists are fond of pointing out, the word heterosexual was only coined after homosexual--both terms are late nineteenth-century inventions.
Daune Michals’s work is genuinely outstanding and it has made an impact on the way I think about stuff now after looking at his work. This makes me want to look into things before I go ahead and think before I just jump straight into it. Also In Michals’s beautiful photographs, queerness then becomes an ideal; the circularity of this series suggests that the image is inexhaustible and unknowable. But in the end, art's pleasures, its humour and mystery, they do help us to know the world in all its queerness.
This is a series of sequential narrative images; this means that it is a story that is unfolding through these direct still images. Some of Michals' oeuvre has certain philosophical ideas, meaning that he mostly photographs death, gender and also sexuality. These particular shots to me, means that Michals is comfortable photographing nudity based shots and that the models/people are very comfortable with their own bodies.
For this series of photographs for, "Things are Queer", it reminds me of Gulliver’s Travels, by this I mean that there is a giant man of the average size, in composition with the tiny bathroom and in the next shots with a tiny book that looks like it’s come straight out of a dolls house. This also has some juxtaposition, by this I mean that it has various contrasts from dark to light and also from big to small, this is quite interesting and is pretty clever, juxtaposition would be that a bathroom is associated with cleanliness however this is not the case. In this bathroom it is dirty, grubby and quite depressing.
In the first of these intriguing shots is that they display a bathroom, with an image above the sink. Here we notice this image and think it is quite dark and very gloomy. Also, we can see that there is no taps on the bath, toilet, and even the sink. On image 2 here we see an enormous hair leg, however the leg is only hairy the foot however, is shaven and his toes are showing these are also quite hairy. What does this mean? Why is his foot shaven? While this series continues, the camera moves back to reveal such a tiny bathroom with an normal sized man in between. The camera carries on retreating back and we then see a giant thumb on a page of a book, here the book to me symbolises that the book must be quite small or small enough for a man's thumb to look abnormally big. But it turns out that we have witnessed someone looking at the picture in the book, of a man standing in a strangely tiny bathroom.
The man we heard of before is reading this book in a really dark alleyway, or a tunnel, this adds a real depth to how dark this series of images is and it quite exciting to look through. I was particularly amazed by how this was created. Then on the last image we come full circle and we see the bath, sink and toilet over again, with the added picture above the sink.
I noticed that in these shots the bath, toilet and sink have no taps this to me would suggest that there broken and do not work, this is rather peculiar and is quite worrisome. Most of the sanitary ware is worn down and it tells a story that something might have happened in this room before these photographs were taken. These images make me think that it is quite psychological as it plays on your mind and conscience, as it takes everyday objects and changes them around a bit, therefore this is quite an outrageous piece of art and also is abnormal. I like the idea of this as it is pretty unusual and I quite like this feel that it is full of meaning.
On image 3 the man is look down, looking down at what? I think that he's either looking down at the toilet or he could be looking at his unshaven toes, this makes me feel uneasy and is a Perturb this basically means that it's disturbing. Also there is no reflection of the man’s head or upper body, all you can see in the reflection is the man’s leg and his toes. In the reflection as well, you can see that the sink is turned on its side which gives a sense of unease and it is quite wacky. To me though I think that the leg in the reflection is a sense of spiritual being, as there is no other kind of reflection in this image. Also this image is image 4, as it has gone into the book which is quite unusual as well, this must mean that something must have happened in the book to go along with this kind of imagery.
However, in the first image we see the tiny bathroom suite, along with an image above the sink. At first this image means nothing to us, but if you then look through the end images it all makes sense now. This tiny image above the sink has been imposed from the end images which is very extraordinary and makes us scared in a way, as it is again psychological. These images are also quite depressing as the idea of a dirty bathroom, wouldn't appeal to most people in being beautiful, yet in a way it is. It's rather intriguing.
The shots of the man holding the book is quite foreboding as the colour is rather dark whereas the images beforehand and even the last few images are rather light so this to me has a sense of foreboding as it is again, unusual and is quite spooky. I quite like this sense of photography as it makes you think about all these different elements and it is very suspicious.
Here is a quote from a website which has provided me with the information for the title page being called "Things are Queer"; this is not being said about the sexual identities but to the world itself. "The world is only queer because it is known only through representation that are fragmentary and in themselves are queer, their meanings are always relative, a matter of relationships and constructions. In contradiction to this title, the series seems to say the things themselves are not queer, rather what it is queer is the certainty by which we label things normal and abnormal, decent and obscene, gay and straight."
Michals’ shots could stand for the current ambitions of lesbian and gay studies to go beyond documenting specific homosexual identities and cultural practices. Increasingly its charge is to investigate the mechanisms by which a society claims to know gender and sexuality. Homophobia is not a mere by product of the ignorance and prejudice of a segment of the population, but an aspect of the way power is organized and deployed throughout society. As lesbian and gay theorists are fond of pointing out, the word heterosexual was only coined after homosexual--both terms are late nineteenth-century inventions.
Daune Michals’s work is genuinely outstanding and it has made an impact on the way I think about stuff now after looking at his work. This makes me want to look into things before I go ahead and think before I just jump straight into it. Also In Michals’s beautiful photographs, queerness then becomes an ideal; the circularity of this series suggests that the image is inexhaustible and unknowable. But in the end, art's pleasures, its humour and mystery, they do help us to know the world in all its queerness.
How does Duane Michals See The World?
Duane Michals was born on February the 18th 1932 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, into a typical working class environment. His parents were of the Czech Origin, his father was a steel worker and his mother a housekeeper. Like those of another Pennsylvania, Andy Warhol. Early on in their careers, Michals would photograph Warhol, producing a singularly striking portrait.
Michals' interest began in art when he was just 14 years of age, when he began taking Saturday Afternoon water-colour classes at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. Michals had received a B.A from the University of Denver in 1953, and though he made a decision not to pursue a fine arts career at that time. He had developed a keen interest in the work of other artists. It was during a three week visit to Russia in 1958 that Michals first experienced his love for Photography. Using a borrowed camera, he recorded a series of plain, yet very elegant portraits of the people he encountered during his travels, these were images that would lead to his first public exhibition in Livingstone.
Wishing to Americanize the original family name from Mihal, Duane's parents had it changed to become Michals. Mrs Michals, was employed in the home of a wealthy couple who had a son, called Duane. Mrs Michals must have liked this name very much, or perhaps she was a little fond of the little boy, for she named her son Duane as well. As a boy, whose name he shared; however, the two would never have gotten an opportunity to meet. Though probably highly regarded of their namesake, the "original Duane" - as a recent biography, not without a certain stinging of cruelty, called him - committed suicide during his sophomore year in College.
The whole issue of the name Duane, and all it suggests of frustration, doubts of regarding identity, a virtual rivalry for his mother's love, unsatisfied curiosity the ambiguity surrounding the death of someone who was more himself than he was - and more legitimately so - may not entirely explain but may well symbolize the majority of the basic themes and the recurrent aspects found throughout Michals' work.
His obsessions are with duality, and the usual accouterments of the mirrors and the subtle reflections and his double career as an artistic and a commercial photographer; time divided between doing the work necessary to provide for material comforts and that done for personal pleasure, or between the city and the country; a taste for such binary opposites as spirit and matter, appearance and reality, youth and old age, the artist and the models, or life and death; things split in two; twins; veiled threats of obliteration; hidden faces; emptiness; superimposed images; disappearances; transparent presences; ghostly silhouettes; double exposures; and the omnipresence of death.
The whole issue of the name Duane, and all it suggests of frustration, doubts of regarding identity, a virtual rivalry for his mother's love, unsatisfied curiosity the ambiguity surrounding the death of someone who was more himself than he was - and more legitimately so - may not entirely explain but may well symbolize the majority of the basic themes and the recurrent aspects found throughout Michals' work.
His obsessions are with duality, and the usual accouterments of the mirrors and the subtle reflections and his double career as an artistic and a commercial photographer; time divided between doing the work necessary to provide for material comforts and that done for personal pleasure, or between the city and the country; a taste for such binary opposites as spirit and matter, appearance and reality, youth and old age, the artist and the models, or life and death; things split in two; twins; veiled threats of obliteration; hidden faces; emptiness; superimposed images; disappearances; transparent presences; ghostly silhouettes; double exposures; and the omnipresence of death.
Techniques:
Michals' work is almost as autobiographical as that of Lartigue, for example. However, it differs radically in that Michals does not surprise the moment, he creates it. Unlike, Lartigue, who, in his youth would station himself at a bend in the paths of the Bois De Boulogne in Paris. Patiently awaiting to capture the apparition of elegant ladies in their best attire, Michals is never on the lookout to catch a body in motion. He provokes movement in order to put it on film so as to produce movement in the soul. To do this he would use models, whether professionals or not, complex technical processes, and intelligent staging. He occupies a place of honor in the ranks of those photographers, less numerous than at the turn of the century, who are dedicated to what A.D. Coleman called "The Directorial Made".
Photography is, of course, the art of duplication par excellence. However, the function of duplicating reality does not satisfy Daune Michals, who insists that the important thing is not the appearance of things, but rather their philosophical nature. But what if their philosophical nature were in their appearance Neither the artist nor the thinker in Michals can completely escape this terrible suspicion.
Duane Michals is one of the few photographers where his equipment is inconsequential. I honestly believe he couldn't care less about what film or camera he is using. Naturally a camera that will not break, and film that will record. He most definitely has his favorites, but his vision is so caught in creation all else is a necessary evil. I do know that Michals shoots almost exclusively 35mm. A Nikon F series, and like so many Plus-X or Tri-X. Because he shoots available light, most likely the latter. His extensive use of double and multiple exposure is well known, yet a simple technical process. The handwriting is written in cursive with a fountain pen(Hood).
In 1966, Michals began to provide his photographs with handwritten titles which he then expanded into more and more detailed explanations. In some cases they even became independent literary texts. With the verbal elaborations Michals wanted to increase the recognition value of his otherwise strictly visual story telling which was a skill. At the same time he had provided the "mechanical" imaging tool, of photography in which with a personal, graphic touch. Later on, he had enhanced this effect on his photographs in which he would over-paint his pictures.
Michals' self-staged photo sequences became famous, which sought to overcome the restrictions of the single picture. "I was not satisfied with the individual picture because I could not bend it to provide additional disclosure. In a sequence the sum of pictures indicates what cannot be said by a single picture." Michals used three to fifteen shots to compose picture stories which, however, were not usually complete narrations but were mysterious events meant to raise question and to entice the viewer into further contemplation. By using these photo sequences Michals translated picture stories,, frequently accompanied by descriptions, of everyday events to ubiquitous in the photojournalism of the fifties and sixties into an artistic statement.
Photography is, of course, the art of duplication par excellence. However, the function of duplicating reality does not satisfy Daune Michals, who insists that the important thing is not the appearance of things, but rather their philosophical nature. But what if their philosophical nature were in their appearance Neither the artist nor the thinker in Michals can completely escape this terrible suspicion.
Duane Michals is one of the few photographers where his equipment is inconsequential. I honestly believe he couldn't care less about what film or camera he is using. Naturally a camera that will not break, and film that will record. He most definitely has his favorites, but his vision is so caught in creation all else is a necessary evil. I do know that Michals shoots almost exclusively 35mm. A Nikon F series, and like so many Plus-X or Tri-X. Because he shoots available light, most likely the latter. His extensive use of double and multiple exposure is well known, yet a simple technical process. The handwriting is written in cursive with a fountain pen(Hood).
In 1966, Michals began to provide his photographs with handwritten titles which he then expanded into more and more detailed explanations. In some cases they even became independent literary texts. With the verbal elaborations Michals wanted to increase the recognition value of his otherwise strictly visual story telling which was a skill. At the same time he had provided the "mechanical" imaging tool, of photography in which with a personal, graphic touch. Later on, he had enhanced this effect on his photographs in which he would over-paint his pictures.
Michals' self-staged photo sequences became famous, which sought to overcome the restrictions of the single picture. "I was not satisfied with the individual picture because I could not bend it to provide additional disclosure. In a sequence the sum of pictures indicates what cannot be said by a single picture." Michals used three to fifteen shots to compose picture stories which, however, were not usually complete narrations but were mysterious events meant to raise question and to entice the viewer into further contemplation. By using these photo sequences Michals translated picture stories,, frequently accompanied by descriptions, of everyday events to ubiquitous in the photojournalism of the fifties and sixties into an artistic statement.