Google Hangout post for 29th Nov

This work is for assignment 2 of BoW and is currently still a work in progress. Any thoughts on the project would be appreciated.




A still image of the body print composition for the bottom of the inclined base:

An excerpt from the book "The Men with the Pink Triangle" that may accompany this piece of work to help anchor its meaning and give some context:

Update:

This proved to be a very useful session with the other OCA participants. The feedback on my proposed structure was that the concept was good but the visual presentation still needed refining. The overall consensus was that the mine cart structure that sits on top of the inclined base was an unnecessary element. Stan thought it looked somewhat toy-like which was representative of the overall piece because of its tabletop scale. I would like to make this structure life size (although probably not a task I would be able to tackle for practical reasons). Stephanie and John thought the piece would be stronger without the mine cart. Stephanie made a very good point, that I am voicing the same message three times over with this piece; the text caption, the bodyprint, and the mine cart, all say the same thing. When this was pointed out I could immediately see that the viewer's eye flicks back and forth between the mine cart and bodyprint image - they compete with each other. The bodyprint element becomes stronger on its own and the message remains the same.

I am coming around to the idea of using just the base and bodyprint... Although I love my mine cart! What is that Stephen King comment on improving your writing? That a writer needs to "kill your darlings". I can feel the pain...

Comments were also made about choice of colour. What message was the colour tone of the bodyprint sending. John called the print 'alluring' and I've had some Facebook comments about it being beautiful. We had a useful discussion about the nature of the aesthetics of an artwork and how to hook an audience with its aesthetic appeal regardless of the seriousness of the message.

My choice of using fabric to cover the base was also commented on. John commented that the structure looked 'shroud like' and similarities to the bodyprint on fabric reminding him of the Turin shroud. I've made this connection too - not sure what to make of these thoughts at the moment. To be honest I'm not totally sold on the use of fabric either. I'm still thinking about it...

Some useful references:

Primo Levi - If This is a Man

Zadie Smith - On beauty

Steffi Klenz

Pauline Boudry/Renate Lorenz - N.O. Body

Poly Vinyl - may be useful as an alternative to my fabric printing choices.

Physical Learning Log Scan

Brighton Photo Biennial 2016 - The Dandy Lion Project

These exhibits were part of Brighton Photo Biennial 2016. We visited both venues as an organised group of OCA students and it was interesting to hear and discuss other people's viewpoints on the work.

The Dandy Lion Project

This work uses the convention of advertising and fashion photography to:

'highlight young men in cityscapes, defying stereotypical and monolithic understandings of black male identity, by adopting Edwardian-era fashion and fusing this with traditional African sartorial sensibilities.'

I had difficulty reading this work. I'll openly admit that I have a bias against fashion photography - apart from making people, clothes, and objects look cool what is the point; it's just designed to sell stuff; and even though, as the tutor Clive White pointed out, the work is subverting the genre of fashion to communicate the message of stereotyping and identity, I can't get past the fancy clothes and shoes.

Of course the colourful clothes are kind of the point of the work. They are used to create a sense of identity in order for 'tribes' to communicate their status to others. We see this all the time with teenagers, followers of particular designer brands, or members of a golf club. So in retrospect now that I've had time to think about the work I can appreciate the intent - but the visual aspect of the work itself - not so much.

One aspect of the work I also take issue with is in the curator's statement that the images challenged the traditional notion of maleness. I totally disagree with this statement. The clothes are heavily masculine in their characteristics. The men mostly wear suits, with traditional waistcoats and leather shoes. The colours and patterns are bold but the look of the clothes could not in any way represent an androgynous outlook. I think the work helps to challenge Black stereotypes but the work and the wearers of the clothes are thoroughly embedded in the gender stereotype box.

The Dandy Lion Project

Brighton Photo Biennial 2016 - Reimagine

The theme for the 2016 Brighton photo biennial deals with identity by looking at the representation of minorities and urban sub cultures through the lens of photography:

"Beyond the Bias – Reshaping Image, explores photography’s role in defining and informing our understanding of subjects such as: gender and sexuality, the representation of the body, the politics of style, subcultures and the subversion of social and cultural norms."


Reimagine

I attended as part of the OCA study group weekend and we began our trip by looking at 'Reimagine' a collaborative exhibition between two photographers, Bharat Sikka and Olivia Arthur. The project photographed LGBTQ+ people in Mumbai, India and Brighton, UK. The work shown was made on large format film, using mainly B&W for India and colour for Brighton. On a first walk through I noticed that the work appeared to be separated by photographer and that made me wonder how much collaboration had taken place.

The content of the India work appeared more somber. This is due to the nature of the subject, where LGBTQ is still a highly political issue in that country. The choice of B&W also influenced my reading of the work. I was struck by an image where a couple (men?) appeared to be embracing on a beach in the shadows at night. The figures were distant and blurred, and there was a sense of danger because of the vulnerability of being exposed in a public place but also trapped because there was no private place to go. The portraits were more relaxed and taken inside and being in a private space, contrasted well with the public space images. My reading of the images were confirmed by the statement in the artist's handout:

"When I started making work in Mumbai I focused on private spaces. In their own space a sitter can be comfortable, really be themselves. People were being open about themselves and their sexuality beyond what I had been expecting, or hoping for. But I began to realise the context was missing for the project, that I needed something to show the sitter's boldness and the cultural background they were willing to show their image in... [...] Down by the beach, on the steps by the waterfront, even on the hard shoulder alongside the freeway, couples would try to find some privacy in a dark, but very public space."  

The Brighton work appeared more relaxed and celebratory and had an element of fantasy and creativeness - mainly because the sitters were in the process of exploring themselves through clothes and body image. One of the standout portraits for me was of 'Loki". A bare chested man wearing a taffeta tutu is leaning out of a window. The room is in shadow and his body is half exposed by the sunlight. The metaphor in this image for me was all about the contrast between the projected and public face of masculinity (the bare and muscular chest juxtaposed by the lower body wearing a tutu in half shadow) and exploring a more feminine identity that needs to be kept private and suppressed - for the majority of males.

Loki "I grew up on a rough council estate. When I moved to Brighton I felt I was comfortable in a community that would accept a six-foot skinhead that could wear a taffeta tutu."

Pre-hangout post for OCA Nov study group

Here are my pre-hangout questions. I've put them at the top of this post and before my explanation of my work for ease of reference during the hangout:

• Do I go with physical pyramid shapes or prints; or both?

• The title of the work is currently 'Unnatural'. 'Target Practice' has been suggested by the Brighton crit tutor Clive White in reference to a story I relayed from the biography. The title is dynamic and engaging but 'Unnatural' more fits the ethos of the dehumanised nature of the work.

• I like the idea of bigger physical pyramids (3 feet high) but am concerned about the logistics and costs?

The background to the work can be found here:

For my BoW I'm working on making constructed imagery to reference the treatment of Homosexual men that were incarcerated in concentration camps during WWII. I have done some tentative research and read a biography of one of the men published in 1972. From this starting point I made some constructed imagery, printed them out and began to fold them into triangles. I then re-photographed the physical triangles, placing them on a tiled effect background. I liked the fractured nature of the folded images. The triangles now present only parts of images (particularly the body parts) and this fits with my idea that in order to oppress people they first have to be dehumanised. I have also tried to isolate the triangles by photographing them against a 'clinical' background.

For more background there is a link to my assignment 1 here and a selection of images below:

assignment 1

Notes:

• I've had feedback from my tutor with some very useful points of reference to follow up and some further reading which I am about to undertake.
• I've finished the biography of the concentration camp survivor and this has thrown up a number of new images so I made some sketches.
• I'm also torn between the final prints and the physical triangles. The triangles are more tactile and I've also (since reading the biography) been thinking about making other shapes and creating an installation.
• The OCA crit at the recent Brighton Photo-Biennial was also useful. Clive White suggested the triangles would look good in a much larger physical form (about three feet high) and could imagine the viewer moving through them in a gallery space. I really like this idea and I agree that the tactical nature of the physical pyramids (as opposed to prints) is very appealing to me.

Update:

The session went well and the allocated hour went very fast indeed. Apart from the tutor Peter Haveland there was one other student (John Umney) beside myself. We discussed John's thinking around the curation of a contemporary landscape exhibition he will be putting together. I found Peter's suggestion on how to approach this very informative.

I presented my triangle work (the current working title is 'Unnatural' and may end up as 'Target Practice'). We discussed the problem of the re-photographed images looking flat as prints. They come alive as physical folded objects and this is very much in line with my thinking too. I am constantly drawn back to the physical pyramids/triangles; so much so that I hardly ever think about the prints now. We talked about size and scale of the objects themselves and the possible outcome for exhibition. One option that was suggested by both Peter and John was to use video to record the triangles in a space. By moving the camera around, the physicality of the objects would be much more apparent than in the prints. This is a very interesting idea; one that I hadn't quite reached in my own thinking at present as I am more consumed with just making more images at the moment. I will definitely experiment with video to see how it comes out.

I was also asked about the meaning behind the tiled backdrop for the print version of the work. I explained my thinking on this although how the work is read and perceived by the viewer will have different readings.

I found this session productive and will definitely join up to more hangouts in the future.

Documenting Nazi Persecution of Gays: Josef Kohout/Wilhelm Kroepfl Colle...

The Men with the Pink Triangle - Heinz Heger

The Men with the Pink Triangle (Heger, 1989.) is the first biography that tells of the atrocities committed on Homosexual men in concentration camps during World War II. The narrative is told from the perspective of Josef Kohout who at 22 years old was imprisoned under paragraph 175 of the Nazi's newly strengthened laws against homosexuality. His sexuality had been discovered because of a message Josef had written in a Christmas card to his lover. Kohout answered a knock at the door of his family home to a Nazi official, was ordered to report to a local interrogation centre, and was not seen by his mother again for over five years; by this time he was a broken man, both physically and mentally. His parents were ostracized by friends and neighbours because of their sons supposed 'crime' and Josef's father eventually committed suicide because he was unable to cope with the long suffering abuse. As a young man, full of hopes and dreams of becoming an architect, Josef left the house that day never to see his father again.

Once Josef returned home to his mother he had to again suffer under the identity of a 'homosexual degenerate criminal'; one enforced on him by the local people and he endured the shame of the judgement of others; people that had most likely participated (even by being neutral) in the Nazi regime in some form or another.

Josef was lucky. Many men convicted of homosexuality were returned to prison after their abuse and torture in the camps - their time having no effect on the length of sentence served. For these men there was no liberation after the war. This is a crime against humanity perpetrated by democratic countries and the war crimes tribunals who refused to even acknowledge that homosexual men had suffered as a group under the Nazi regime.

Many decades later Josef related his time in the camp to a close friend, detailing what he saw and experienced there. The book written under the pseudonym of Heinz Heger and making no mention of Josef's real identity was published in 1972. This is only a few years after the decriminalising of homosexuality (1969) in West Germany. It was important that Josef's identity even 30 years after these events unfolded be protected.

The 1970s was a time of political awakening for many LGBT people; after decriminalisation Gay people were openly coming together and taking a stance against majority cultural oppression and brutality. Dissemination of collated gay life experiences were helping to inform a political LGBT identity; they shone a light on the injustice that many had suffered and who had no-one to tell their tale. The Men with the Pink Triangle is a very important hidden history and I will be returning again to the events that took place in the camps to make images that will inform my body of work.



Heger, H. (1989). The Men With The Pink Triangle. London, UK: GMP Publishers Ltd.