Sep 2011
Thomas Struth @ the Whitechapel Gallery
04/09/11 16:54
Yesterday was the OCA tutorial at the Thomas Struth exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. The day almost started on a poor note as I left it a little late for my trip to the station, but I did make it on time (just). I’d hoped to do get knuckled down on an essay during the journey, but I must say the early hour wasn’t conducive to the activity. Things seemed to get worse when I arrived in London because of the underground works that meant that I had to take 5 different trains in order to arrive at Whitechapel (instead of Aldgate East). And to cap it off, there was a confrontation between the EDL, their opposition and the police. No, I chose not to hang around and take photographs by the way.
Into the exhibition, Michael Lawton (from the gallery) gave an interesting introduction to the work on display. Basically, he spoke of the belief systems that Struth adhered to (although he doesn’t strictly adhere to anything - he breaks his own rules), of his Gestalt approach and the contents of the frame. Although Struth originally trained as a painter, there is no denying his approach to photography is that it is a photograph, and not a substitute for a painting - certainly in terms of traditional painting composition; in what we will call “the old days”, painters would include everything in the scene and this cannot be said of Struth. The subject usually fills the frame, going beyond the borders of the image and into the outside world. In certain instances, this becomes claustrophobic - there’s no breathing space in the image. Ok, this is a generalisation and isn’t true of all of his work...
The exhibition featured 5 different sets of work, described as Audience, Streets, Paradise, Families and Buildings (actually from Audiences, Museum Photographs, Paradises, Places of Worship, Unconscious Places, Family Portraits, Japan, Streets of New York City, Düsseldorf and New Works). The first pieces on show were from the Audiences series, showing people looking at artwork in galleries - the tables are turned and the viewer becomes the viewed. The photographs reminded me of my own experiments and mini-series from the Paris Air Show, although I’m sure mine will not take being enlarged to almost 1.8m in height! And yes, the physical dimensions of the prints are impressive, although is it too much?
It was mentioned that the gallery setting “normalises the scale of the photographs”, and yes, I can agree with this. However, there were certain photographs that, for me, didn’t work because of the scale - or at least, didn’t work for me in the way I would want them to. This is perhaps different to the way that the artist would want them to, I know, and more on this later. Moving on from the first images of the audiences, the next room contained a number of images from different series, although most of them did feature people looking... Of particular note in here was a photograph of Times Square in New York. Viewed at the large size intended, the scene is recognised as Times Square and the eye proceeds to explore the scene, pulling out details like the man looking upwards in the bottom left corner, the time, the weather information and such like - there’s so much detail to take in. When seen smaller, as in the accompanying book (Thomas Struth: photographs 1978-2010), it is the face above the Nasdaq that really draws the eye. When viewed large, yes, it’s there, but it’s almost as if it is too large within the frame to be a focal point. The smaller details are all still there to explore, but the scale changes everything.
Some of the new work was quite different as it was difficult to form a narrative, as mentioned by Gareth. I suppose the images could almost be product shots to a degree, photographs of bits of engineering (a spectrometer for example) for inclusion in a catalogue. This is because we are unable to ascertain much about what is going on, we have none of the experience to imprint on the photograph and form that narrative - not sure what Barthes would have to say on this... This lack of narrative in the image gives us two options as a viewer, disregard it and move on, or study it further in the hope of finding something - a pattern, a logic or indeed the “point” of the photograph. The layman will likely do the former, but as a photographer I tried to do the latter. I found bits of detail, but a pattern or logic? No, I didn’t, but then I think this was the point - it’s a photograph of something functional and not designed to be aesthetically pleasing. A visual chaos if you like that follows different, purely functional rules. I also see some relationship with the Paradises series - it is what it is without there being a clear (or should that be “traditional”) focus point.
Moving on to Paradises (and missing out Families and some street scenes from the exhibit layout), this was the work I felt least convinced about. Perhaps a clarification is in order: at the scale displayed, I was least convinced by it. The prints are impressively large, and the scale and perspective did produce a sense of being enveloped within that environment, that jungle space. Putting aside the complete organic chaos within the scene (which could either be completely objective or very carefully chosen in order to promote that chaos), I felt the need to move in close to the photographs and closely inspect them, and to be honest I don’t feel that the quality was such that it stood up to such scrutiny. The scale immediately makes things a little soft, but one image in particular really disappointed me - nothing seemed in focus, especially when compared to the reproduction in the catalogue. Despite the gallery normalising the scale, the intentions of the artist and all the other factors, the book version wins hands down. Now, this could be due to me moving in close when the intention is to stand back, but if we’re not meant to get close, put a barrier. Otherwise, without specific direction, the viewer looks as they want to look. And what’s the point of being large if we have to look from further away - why not print smaller and look from closer? It begs the question: is it large for large’s sake?
I know I’ve only looked at certain elements here, but that’s probably enough for now. Great to meet up with the students and tutors again, and thanks to Gareth and co for organising the event. As it happens, I’ll probably not bother with the future London events unless I can tie it in with something else - £100+ in train fare, etc. is quite pricey just for the gallery, but as I say, if I can tie it in with something else then fine. Gallery visits, etc. in the north of England should be fine though...
Into the exhibition, Michael Lawton (from the gallery) gave an interesting introduction to the work on display. Basically, he spoke of the belief systems that Struth adhered to (although he doesn’t strictly adhere to anything - he breaks his own rules), of his Gestalt approach and the contents of the frame. Although Struth originally trained as a painter, there is no denying his approach to photography is that it is a photograph, and not a substitute for a painting - certainly in terms of traditional painting composition; in what we will call “the old days”, painters would include everything in the scene and this cannot be said of Struth. The subject usually fills the frame, going beyond the borders of the image and into the outside world. In certain instances, this becomes claustrophobic - there’s no breathing space in the image. Ok, this is a generalisation and isn’t true of all of his work...
The exhibition featured 5 different sets of work, described as Audience, Streets, Paradise, Families and Buildings (actually from Audiences, Museum Photographs, Paradises, Places of Worship, Unconscious Places, Family Portraits, Japan, Streets of New York City, Düsseldorf and New Works). The first pieces on show were from the Audiences series, showing people looking at artwork in galleries - the tables are turned and the viewer becomes the viewed. The photographs reminded me of my own experiments and mini-series from the Paris Air Show, although I’m sure mine will not take being enlarged to almost 1.8m in height! And yes, the physical dimensions of the prints are impressive, although is it too much?
It was mentioned that the gallery setting “normalises the scale of the photographs”, and yes, I can agree with this. However, there were certain photographs that, for me, didn’t work because of the scale - or at least, didn’t work for me in the way I would want them to. This is perhaps different to the way that the artist would want them to, I know, and more on this later. Moving on from the first images of the audiences, the next room contained a number of images from different series, although most of them did feature people looking... Of particular note in here was a photograph of Times Square in New York. Viewed at the large size intended, the scene is recognised as Times Square and the eye proceeds to explore the scene, pulling out details like the man looking upwards in the bottom left corner, the time, the weather information and such like - there’s so much detail to take in. When seen smaller, as in the accompanying book (Thomas Struth: photographs 1978-2010), it is the face above the Nasdaq that really draws the eye. When viewed large, yes, it’s there, but it’s almost as if it is too large within the frame to be a focal point. The smaller details are all still there to explore, but the scale changes everything.
Some of the new work was quite different as it was difficult to form a narrative, as mentioned by Gareth. I suppose the images could almost be product shots to a degree, photographs of bits of engineering (a spectrometer for example) for inclusion in a catalogue. This is because we are unable to ascertain much about what is going on, we have none of the experience to imprint on the photograph and form that narrative - not sure what Barthes would have to say on this... This lack of narrative in the image gives us two options as a viewer, disregard it and move on, or study it further in the hope of finding something - a pattern, a logic or indeed the “point” of the photograph. The layman will likely do the former, but as a photographer I tried to do the latter. I found bits of detail, but a pattern or logic? No, I didn’t, but then I think this was the point - it’s a photograph of something functional and not designed to be aesthetically pleasing. A visual chaos if you like that follows different, purely functional rules. I also see some relationship with the Paradises series - it is what it is without there being a clear (or should that be “traditional”) focus point.
Moving on to Paradises (and missing out Families and some street scenes from the exhibit layout), this was the work I felt least convinced about. Perhaps a clarification is in order: at the scale displayed, I was least convinced by it. The prints are impressively large, and the scale and perspective did produce a sense of being enveloped within that environment, that jungle space. Putting aside the complete organic chaos within the scene (which could either be completely objective or very carefully chosen in order to promote that chaos), I felt the need to move in close to the photographs and closely inspect them, and to be honest I don’t feel that the quality was such that it stood up to such scrutiny. The scale immediately makes things a little soft, but one image in particular really disappointed me - nothing seemed in focus, especially when compared to the reproduction in the catalogue. Despite the gallery normalising the scale, the intentions of the artist and all the other factors, the book version wins hands down. Now, this could be due to me moving in close when the intention is to stand back, but if we’re not meant to get close, put a barrier. Otherwise, without specific direction, the viewer looks as they want to look. And what’s the point of being large if we have to look from further away - why not print smaller and look from closer? It begs the question: is it large for large’s sake?
I know I’ve only looked at certain elements here, but that’s probably enough for now. Great to meet up with the students and tutors again, and thanks to Gareth and co for organising the event. As it happens, I’ll probably not bother with the future London events unless I can tie it in with something else - £100+ in train fare, etc. is quite pricey just for the gallery, but as I say, if I can tie it in with something else then fine. Gallery visits, etc. in the north of England should be fine though...
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