photographic and literal mysticisms

last week, i touched on the topic of the 'new mysticism' in contemporary photography in a discussion of the Young Curators, New Ideas show. one of the artists in the show (and also alleged as a new mysticist), Noel Rodo-Vankeulen, emailed me a thoughtful response on photographic mysticism and his own work.

"Great Grandfather with Freemasons," above, is one of my favorite photos of his. i love the way it mixes family history, portrait-as-document, analog vs. digital, and pokes at the mystery and ritual of freemasonry with some freaky, postmodern special effects. it's from his series Nocturne.

Noel says:

"I can’t speak for the other photographers in the show but for me this tendency, to highlight and/or deconstruct the medium’s properties (photographic mysticism which we can be critical of, and photographic mysticism that is attached to all photography whether we like it or not), is heavily rooted within my upbringing. This is to say that, unlike previous generations who used photography as a crucial way to understand, confront and engage with social issues, political unrest, and war, my relationship to photography is related to my upbringing by the intrusive and numbing hand of media (news, movies, TV, computers, etc).

I know war and heroism through highly graphic movies, vehicles of unrealistic archetypes. The ways of the universe (both spiritually and spatially) have been prodded into my consciousness by robots streaming data back from the very edges of the solar system. God is no longer a viable entity and the psychotropic drugs don’t get her/it/him to speak - realistic computer generated pixies and dragons are far more telling.

With all of this in mind I refuse to buy into the medium’s influential ability to mean significantly (its importance as a vehicle for substantial change in an all but uninterested world), however, this doesn’t mean that photography being produced today is uninspired or vacant, it's just aware of its relative unimportance. So this may explain why there is an inherent “prettiness” in so much photography as well. I take this notion and make banal beauty to subvert the notion of having to live up to the medium’s past and present quality control. My photos are small, often single editions of minimal captured prints. I want people to consider how digital and analogue image-making co-exist now and forever, how our thirst for better, faster, stronger, shapes our understanding of value in a medium tied to craftsmanship.

A quote by Wolfgang Tillmans on The Sonic Blog sums our present relationship with photography perfectly:

“The initial question everybody asks when confronted with a photograph is, who is it? Where is it? When was it made? How it was taken? A photograph is always seen through its content and rarely through its presence as an object in itself.”

I take a photograph to show you an object, loving its business both in thought, tangibility and commerce."


thanks so much, Noel, for your thoughts—and for letting me post them. (and i think there are several topics here that are worth discussing in more depth, too, especially questions of beauty and questioning the photograph's referent.)

three questions for carmen winant, part 3

part three of three questions for Carmen Winant. (thanks again, Carmen! come back and visit anytime.)

Subjectify: What are you looking for when you photograph a subject?

Carmen Winant: I think that contemporary photographers are inclined to posture their subjects as either completely aware or unknowing of the camera’s gaze. (I always think of how Hellen Van Meene’s young subjects rarely acknowledge the camera. Even when they do, their gaze seems hazily unfixed and unspecific.) But of course there is a liminal space—between the manufactured nature of Gregory Crewdson’s work and the sincerity of Robert Frank’s—and that is what I am continually striving to tap when taking pictures of the people in my life. Because the two poles can be quite seductive, it is easy to overlook the substantive and interesting ground between the performed and the unstaged. I think several interesting young photographers right now, like Gilda Davidian and Amy Elkins, are exploring that grey area of representing subjectivity without much distance or irony.

Richard Avedon said that he wished there could be no camera at all, that his eye could be his only mechanism of transferal. For me, however, the camera is a protagonist in producing strong portraits. I shoot film with a Hasselblad 501c, and it requires a deliberate set-up, a relatively long time to focus (which I sometimes consciously extend to increase the slight discomfort of my sitter), and an almost violent, gun-like release. I want a contrived and a sincere subject, and it doesn’t seem to me that the two have to deny each other.

Concerning the difference between a portrait and a biography, my friend, poet Geoffrey Hillsebeck wrote to me once:

A portrait doesn't make a claim while a biography does. That’s often the difference between visual art and the written word. Do portraits always present what is mysterious in the subject; do they always confront you with the impossibility of the enterprise? Can one know Madame X or Rembrandt better by standing in front of the paintings longer, the way one gets to know friends better by spending more time with them? Rembrandt said he wanted to get at the "deepest inward emotion" of his subjects. Biographies never try to do that. They are always supremely conventional, in structure, organization, approach. They are works of history usually, not imagination.

three questions for carmen winant, part 2

part two of this week's conversation with emerging photographer Carmen Winant.

Subjectify: Your mother seems like a remarkably willing subject. Does she enjoy being photographed by you? Is she central to your project Close?

Carmen Winant: I have always admired photographers who photograph their own families in earnest – Sally Mann, Tina Barney, Larry Sultan, and Elinor Carucci, among many. They make it look so effortless. It is a classic motif, but in some ways it’s harder than photographing strangers. In my case, I am most interested in exploring the tension (and uncomfortable overlap) between familial and erotic intimacy.

My mom doesn’t always enjoy sitting for the camera, but she has been incredibly generous. I regard my mother lending her body to my work as a gift, and am really encouraged in her own belief in the power of picture-making. She is also really striking, which certainly doesn’t hurt in creating a compelling image.

I have taken lots of images of my family that I cherish but that they understandably find too personal to promote in the world. So, I really admire my mother not only for allowing me to take the images, but to show them.

three questions for carmen winant, part 1

shortly after i first saw Carmen Winant's portraits featured on Conscientious, i got an email from her out of the blue. she had just started a new process of engagement, if you will, pledging to post a photo online every day for a year at daily afterthought--and she wanted to talk blogs.

although i liked many photos in the portfolio that Jörg had linked to, they didn't suck me in as complete projects. it was Carmen's written voice that compelled me, and the single, out-of-context images that she was posting up each day at daily afterthought that reeled me in. (i mean, how many people have a fresh and good new portrait every day? even dipping into their archives?) though she's still playing with different approaches and themes, Carmen has a pretty consistent vision. her best photographs, to my eye, are unexpectedly sensual and deeply emotionally engaged. consider me seduced.

i'm pleased this week to offer three brief questions / discussions with this emerging photographer about her work and her confrontation of the subject.

Subjectify: In many of your portraits I feel that your compositional eye has a way of closing in on, or immobilizing the body. As objects, the bodies are posed, perhaps, but particular, imperfect and unsentimental. Are there specific things you are trying to express in your work about bodies and their relation to spaces?

Carmen Winant: My photographs have always been concerned with the body. Before I began photographing, I was a very technical illustrator, and all my illustrations also took on the body exclusively. I was a competitive distance runner from age 15 – I ran track and cross-country for UCLA – which I think informed my fascination with the physicality of the body. And then, as I became a feminist and concerned with debates around identity politics, I became open to seeing the body’s potential in art to manifest critical gender issues.

I am of course always thinking about the body’s relationship to context and space. But beyond that, I am interested in the body’s relationship to the absence, or denial, of space. This is most overt in my ongoing series Dark Matters, in which the space becomes a reductive, recessed vacuum. I was attempting to make a series of pictures that were both classical and radical by oversaturating and overexposing to the point of total darkness. Usually I go too far, and the negatives are often way too thin to use.

In addition to removing referents, I tend to narrow in pretty tightly on the bodies of my subjects. In fact, I was repeatedly asked in UCLA critiques why I didn’t just back up already and give the viewer some space to breathe. I think this is really evident in the series Close. And thinking about it now, it’s telling that I chose to shoot environmental portraits (the At Home project) in cramped New York City apartments, that wouldn’t afford me the space if I wanted it. So, the spatial confinement is always a component. It can feel a little claustrophobic, so I try to be careful about not overloading my images with information. If an image is successful, the body will serve as the only punctum.

Finally, I tend to photograph my subjects’ backs quite a lot. My mom has a theory that my preoccupation is due to my own medical diagnosis at age 17 of severe osteopenia, which requires me to get my spine density tested and monitored with some regularity. I like to think that it is another (more deliberate) method of drawing in the viewer with an intimacy that is very carefully and tentatively measured. A turned back can represent several conflicted signals of bodily power. It clearly indicates a loss of control for the sitter, who is perhaps being looked upon without their knowledge. Yet a turned back is also a refusal; ultimately, the onlooker is the one being denied or powerless. Also, I am interested in the notion that the audience enters subjecthood through a turned back, as in, we can only be absorbed into the subject through the back of their head. I feel that all successful and complicated portraits have to have this element of emotional incongruity.

full text of jessie mann's interview

someone sent me a reminder that i had promised to upload a full text version of the Jessie Mann interview that ran here last week. (you people are freaks. freaks! i love it.)

seriously, for the unexpurgated interview (all 8,192 words, including an additional bonus question), you can now view and download it as a Google Document here.

and here are the individual blog posts that make up the interview, with photographs:

Jessie Mann interview Part 1: knowing Jessie

Part 2: on modeling for other photographers

Part 3: on musehood and subjectivity

Part 4: liberating the subject

Part 5: gender, sexuality, and performance

Part 6: shooting in the mirror

Part 7: kahlo, art, and painting

jessie mann interview, final part

today's post wraps up Subjectify's seven-part interview with subject extraordinaire, Jessie Mann. at the end of today's question, Jessie talks a bit about her own work as a painter—to see more of her paintings, please check out her website here.

(for those psychology fans out there, there is a bonus question below about Jungian personality types. to find out your own type, take a Myers-Briggs typology test here.)

thanks again to everyone for reading seven days of the interview (and to Jessie for bearing with me!), and for your great emails and comments. it's been fun.


Subjectify: Is Frida Kahlo an influence? I feel that her self-portraits are unmatched, in a way, for the powerful sense the viewer gets that she was reaching out again and again for something... Do you think that you are reaching out for something as you approach the kind of work you do as a photographic subject? Is it different than what you are reaching for in your own work as a painter?

Jessie Mann: Frida Kahlo has been an influence for me since childhood. Her books were on the lowest shelf of my mom’s art library, so they were some of the first I engaged with. It is interesting to have had a relationship with an artist’s work for as long as I have, so much of the way in which one understands an image remains untouched despite all the information one may gain over time about the work, or the artist, or even about life. One of those untouched understandings is that sense of reaching, which you mention. I felt that immediately in her work and I do think it is something that I connected with even as a preliterate child. That is one of the great things about her work—you can read it right away, its truth is on the surface. That feeling of reaching is one of the strongest sensations I associate with portrayal. It doesn’t feel like tugging at something, or like pulling, but more like jumping, like the long jump, like you could throw yourself across some line. I imagine for her a lot of that reach was a desire to exist more fully outside of her body. To make more real her abstract self in order to in-substantiate her pain ridden existence. My motivation is different though my desired end result is the same. I think I simply want to assert the mythological self because it has been shortchanged, not me.

As to how this relates to my experience painting—that is tricky. I think the photos are where I play with the literal and the mythic. They are where I engage myself in the art—and tackle specifics. The paintings are selfless and abstract. They are more about the nature of reality—organic patterns and light, than about any specific aspect of life or culture. I don’t feel that I am trying to go anywhere when I paint, or that I am trying to bring myself to anything, but rather that I am trying to expose something about where I already am. The photographs feel to me, like Frida’s work, as if they are moving through time, the paintings are stillness. There is a necessary ‘autobiography’ in that effort to capture a moment of experience, which the photographs also play with. The paintings speak of surroundings more than the interiors and reflections in the photos, but they both become a template for the spirit behind identity.

Subjectify: Bonus question—I’ll throw this one in because you’re a Jungian—what’s your Myers-Briggs personality type?

Jessie Mann: INFP.

jessie mann interview, part 6

part six of Seven Questions for Jessie Mann...

Subjectify: What’s going on in Untitled Plate 29? Are you looking in a mirror?

Jessie Mann: Yes, I am. A lot of the pictures were taken through a mirror, in fact. The use of mirrors in different ways is part of Len’s photographic practice. Furthermore, I found it helpful for technical and experiential reasons—I could check my placement and the scene—I could see what he was seeing. After we had taken a few through mirrors for technical reasons, Len and I began to see the poignancy of the act. The mirror functioned as a stand in, or metaphor for, the mirror world of our creation—my reflection: the mirror self which I assert. During the process of shooting the photos, by looking first at a reflection of what we were making I was reminded immediately of the other side of perception—both in the individual viewers mind and in the noosphere at large. The mirror image also references the reversed and upside down image Len is working with, and the flipped again final image we strive for. The above-mentioned plate was made very early on in our collaboration, and is one of the first of a trend that would develop wherein the mirror itself—or the studio behind the backdrop—would show in the picture. This coincided also with Len’s ideas of showing the wig line or my dirty feet marks on the background paper. To let the literal slip in to the image.

The mirror and the slipping backdrop help to remind the viewer of the self-conscious creation of it all. It is to assert, always, that it is the make believe that matters not the extent to which it is believable. It is our way of engaging the viewer in the putting together of it, it is a wink—that we know we’re acting but that you should just play along—or in the words of Erving Goffman—we tacitly agree to help each other preserve the performances through which we present ourselves to the world—but in our case and with the mirrors and slipping wigs it is not all that tacit, after all.

One of my favorite ‘mirror pictures’ is the Madonna one—which is a good example here, because not only is it one of images in which the mirror plays a significant role but also it is a good example of a woman—to hark back to the last question—who entirely crafted her own character and was able to create a fully realized woman (strong, creative, productive, and feminine) in the process and, she, as well, explicitly referenced the queer-queen love.

The entire plane of the photograph is the surface of a mirror, except for the stage and the actress. Furthermore, I am looking into the camera which is reflected back at the viewer, so that they too are engaging the lens. I am holding the shutter release in this one (not in this case to go back and give agency to the character as we discussed above, Madonna certainly doesn’t need any but) as a means to reference the ‘pose’ or the self-conscious vogueing which Madonna perfected. Also as a means to reference the extent to which Madonna created herself—something not seen often in today’s stars.

Len sits in the back of the room watching—also in costume—and seen as a reflection. This reminds the viewer that they are implicitly in the room, a reflection of themselves. That they are playing a part—I can see them, and they can see themselves. This is an awareness that Madonna certainly possessed—that she was a voyeur as much as an exhibitionist, she wanted to watch us looking. But also of importance here, and again I think the mirror plays a part in this, she realized that she too was exposing, not just herself, nor just ourselves, but the freestanding myth as well—she seemed always to know that she was playing the part of the anima—to which she and the public, were servants. Again, this is the reason for the slipping wig, and the double version of the figure in the image, to reference the costume used and the spector self created therein. Madonna knows it is all about the show, the reflection is the truth, that fundamental and superior to the self, is the character—the archetype—the myth.

jessie mann interview, part 5

part five of Seven Questions for Jessie Mann. the gay part.

Subjectify: Self Possessed definitely tackles ideas of gender and performance, and the subject or muse as a feminine archetype. Do you subvert that dynamic in your role as the conscious subject? The characters you portray in Self Possessed include Mapplethorpe and Warhol. I imagine that their queerness helped them disrupt the traditional barrier between subject and artist in their work. How does that function in your project ? Does Len Prince’s sexuality, or yours, have an impact on your work together to question the role of the subject?

Jessie Mann: This one is my favorite question! I like your use of the word queer—it is my favorite for such discussions, and so I will stick with it. For ease, I will once again break this question down into two broad topics: the first, being the idea of gender and its relationship to the subject in art and culture. The second being the role of sexuality in this collaborative project and others. To start, I do try to subvert a few ideas. One of them being that women in art are silent objects. Another, that women in collaborations were inevitably exploited or in someway manipulated into acts of self exposure. And still another, the idea that it is women who have exclusively populated the role of muse and/or artistic object. By speaking about my role, from my position, I am able to at least assert that one woman was not silent—is not silent, was not exploited, will not be exploited. That it is possible for the muse or the subject to bring artistic action to a collaboration. I try to get people to question the assumptions we make about women in art, and the subject in general. I am often asked why I didn’t “just take self portraits?” But a very important part of this project is to assert that the act of collaborating with the artist is artistic, that what women have been doing for so long, is “enough”—I don’t have to take the pictures myself; I can even pose nude for a man (gasp) and it can still be me making art. Additionally, by portraying Warhol, Dali, Mapplethorpe, and Beuys I am reminding people that the use of the self, the body, and one’s character in art is not something reserved for women, while at the same time giving a nod to the fellows that gave me the precedence to take on this theme.

It seems to me that both queers and women are particularly appreciative of the distinction between self and character. Here I would reference Wilde as a prime example of this self aware posing that is widely practiced by queers and perfected by the all-too-rare brave woman. Why this talent is most frequently, or even exclusively, developed by queers and women, is perhaps another chicken or egg question. Do women and queers feel the social need to separate identity from character, is the external flamboyance assigned to women and adopted by queers a result of social roles/pressures or is a certain amount of flair and show simply a part of the wonderful nature of said human beings? This is maybe another question I don’t really have the answer for, but I do love the discussion.

And though the overlap between queer culture and the cultural identities of women is infinitely interesting to me, I would like to take this opportunity to turn the question around. Why don’t straight men make characters of themselves? Why is it that queers and women share this trait but straight men don’t? Is it that they think of themselves or are seen as the fallback position—no need to define yourself when you are vanilla—everyone else has to add flavor, or is the straight male identity lacking in character? A notable exception to the rule that ‘the straight man’ doesn’t make a character of himself are writers. Hemmingway, Hunter S. Thompson, and Phillip Roth with his alter ego Zimmerman, all made characters of themselves as much as they wrote new ones into existence. Perhaps, something of it has to do with the position of the observer. From that stance, the outside, the viewer develops a sense of the play of it all. Or, maybe, the artistic spirit can, in fact, be channeled into ‘character making’ as a medium, and ‘outsiders’ simply tend to make good artists.

Finally, on the point of sexuality—I think it is relevant to this project that Len and Jason Paulson, who did a majority of the make up and styling on these photographs, are partners. I think that is a cog in the dynamics of this project that people are not generally aware of when they are introduced to this work. One blogger, reviewing the work, wrote that it was just another example of the dirty old man looking at the young girl posing. Just more of the male gaze. I found this hilarious. Definitely not for the first time, but maybe for the first time since people have been allowed to be open about their sexuality, we have been openly documenting an archetypal love—the queen for the queer and vice versa. I wonder how many collaborations of this kind have gone down to history in silence. The sexual dynamics of our team also allows the character I make of myself freedom from just that male gaze. In might be that the absence of a sexualized air, a familial environment (if you will) allows me to fully integrate my character as a woman—self possessed—sexual yet not objectified—a character—yet one who writes her own dialog. When I asked Len about this question, he said that gay men get this work better; they are looking for the nuances of meaning in a dialog that uses their language, in short, they are not distracted by the tits. I don’t know if that is really true, but there is so much of this work that speaks to queer identity and the many suits (of armor perhaps) that women wear. Someone once said that Monroe flirted with the camera, Len and I might just be pulling a ‘deadpan camp’ right back at the camera— itself known for its pregnant silences and contrived blankness.

jessie mann interview, part 4

part four of Seven Questions for Jessie Mann...

Subjectify: In "Self Possessed," I get the feeling that some of the roles you take on are role-models for you in the type of self conscious subject you want to be, but some of the characters are ones that you want to liberate or give some agency to. . .i.e. reach back and hand them the cable release for once… Are there other muses out there that you feel are kin to what you are doing with subjectivity? Who inspires you?

Jessie Mann: You are right that nearly all of the subjects (who were once or are actually real people) are people that I admire in some way—a few of the characters I ‘do’ made work themselves that I depend on theoretically with this work, the giants on whose shoulders I stand, such as Kahlo, Warhol, Beuys, and Sherman. And again, you are correct in that I very often want to go back and bring some information or awareness to the scene; to augment the collective understanding of a character—fictional or real. Often it’s too late to give it to the character themselves—but I can honor them and in a way, as you say, liberate them. I can use the freedom of speech, which I am granted as a postmodern character, to give their freestanding abstract a new agency.

There are so many inspiring characters out there which we have yet to do—and I am very excited about what’s on the list. Len and I have taken about 9 months off, so the list is overflowing right now, though on the bright side I have been able to grow my hair out. Recently, I have been interested in Jonathan Meese as a contemporary artist who is making part of his artistic practice the act of turning himself into a character. Also Francesca Woodman, whom I have shied away from, because of the tragedy in it—for a long time I only wanted to do characters that seemed self possessed as opposed to tragic—but I am coming to reconsider her work and whether or not it—the work itself, is tragic, or if it wasn’t more of a repository for her faith and hope in the power of the image and the life of the mirror self. We last did Dali and I got a real kick out of it, I have been wanting to do him for such a long time—he made such a fabulous character of himself—he was so outlandish—I really wanted to try that suit on, and there were so many fun gender issues to address.

Are there muses out there that I think took to their role as subject self-consciously?—tons. Are there muses out there that have examined the subjectivity unique to the perspective of their abstracted character and the ways in which that subjectivity challenges the normal understanding of self? Not that many. I think, to pick up the Woodman point, had she lived, she might have gotten to a point wherein she expressly autonomized the mirror self she was creating (Perhaps that was what she was attempting with the suicide?). Also, Sherman’s clown pictures I think very much reference the specific experience of mask wearing—there is a tragedy to them or at least something unsettling—as if she is pointing out there is something behind it all which we are still not seeing—the sadness under the painted smile. Though, to contrast, the mask is not speaking for itself of itself, just as her abstracted girls did not address the camera, but were captured in action. So, perhaps the prostheses works are the most in sync with this discussion, as they addressed directly the creation of a near separate self which the viewer then imbued with character and a certain autonomy.

jessie mann interview, part 3

part three of Seven Questions for Jessie Mann. photos above: The Damaged Child (1984) by Sally Mann and Untitled Plate 88 (2005) by Len Prince.

Subjectify: Many people have been famous for being subjects or muses. Some have brought vulnerability, allure, oddity, tragedy, etc. to the role. But you are one of relatively few people who have taken the reins of your subjecthood, and really approached it critically and consciously, again and again. Why do you think that is? (Even in pictures of you as a very small child, you project a very feisty sense of autonomy. Are those qualities part of what makes you poke at the classic role of the subject?)

Jessie Mann: I would like to break this question down into two parts—why I have approached my subjecthood critically and self consciously and why said self consciousness and autonomy has been a consistent part of my projected self even since childhood. I think the answers to these questions lie in my intellectual passion for the position I have found myself in and in my intrinsic character, which does seem to have a ‘feisty autonomy’; in short it breaks down into nurture and nature. Once I started working with Len and embraced this action as art, I began to think more deeply about the role of the subject in art and the nature of the self created therein. I began to think about my subjecthood, not just in terms of the issues of exploitation and the other facets of the social response to the subject—which had gotten me to the subject matter in the first place, but also in terms of the ontological nature of the abstracted character or subject. I began to research these ideas and as I honed in on writings about the anima in modern art I found myself returning to Jung. In his writings on the anima and the collective unconscious I found a scientific(!) inquiry into the spirit which moves through art—a discussion of the ways in which the unconscious informs us of our true nature through abstraction and creation. In my studies I went from Jung to Beuys, to Heidegger’s metaphysics, to Steiner, and Kandinsky. From there to Ken Wilber, Tarkovsky and quantum theory and back to Jung again— I was looking for some proof, I guess, that there was more to this action of giving to the camera than just the theoretical rebuke I was trying to make, or even the pleasure I derived from the action. I wanted to isolate that moment of spiritual exposure in art, and dissect it. It was this intellectual fascination with the quasi scientific function of the photograph on consciousness, self and identity which brought me to look so closely at the nature of the abstracted character. As such what I want the viewer to see in my expression is not someone looking into a lens but someone looking deeply past themselves.

When I read in Jung “there are present in every psyche forms which are unconscious but nonetheless active—living dispositions, ideas in the Platonic sense, that perform and continually influence our thoughts and feelings and actions” I understood it as the definition of that spirit which I knew could be exposed when I let myself function as a symbol itself. This is what is behind that anima, so often referenced, but so rarely explicated or specifically considered, in modern art. Rather than a negation of the self in art, or the assertion of self, I attempt to make the self, through abstraction, ubiquitous, in order to expose that selfless current which flows behind all artistic expression. As my research continued I studied the artists who also used themselves as a medium to create this effect, I studied those artists who, to again quote Barthes, used art and the abstract character to dissociate consciousness from identity. I would bring these folders of notes to shoots with Len, I was seriously like a Jehovah’s witness during this period. He would just roll his eyes at my youthful artistic zealotry and he would put aside the folder, and insist that we just make art for a little while (Being older and wiser he knew that being an artist is making art, not just understanding it). You know how college kids are. Nevertheless, this intellectual examination of subjecthood was played out in the photographs as my relationship with the camera deepened and my connection with the part I was playing became more informed. I think my quest to understand what it is I did and who I was, in its many stages and varying levels of abstraction, allowed me to bring self awareness and thereby self possession to the characters I manifested, not to mention passion.

But onto the second part of the question—even before I had heard the word postmodern I interacted with the camera self-awarely. When I began to examine who I am and what I do—personally in addition to theoretically, as we all must, I had to consider this strange feeling of connection which I have with the camera, which I have felt for as long as I can remember. I think it is this deep connection, built from years and years of consideration and practice, which has led me on such an intense pursuit of knowledge regarding the process of being in art and engaging the mythic. This connection itself is not intellectual—it seems to be rooted in some child like belief in the magic of make believe which makes this work and my discussions of it anything but dispassionately ironic. In the end I don’t know (I am not in a position to determine it) whether I developed an intense relationship with art and the camera because of my exposure to them. For the sake of total honesty I should admit that I did graduate preschool with an honorary degree in dress up. Whatever it is, all I know is that when I am working in front of the camera I feel like I am closest to truth; like I am looking past myself to the abstract (and potentially creatively generative) idea that I will become. As a child I think I knew, what I briefly forgot during my rebellion, that to spark the imagination is to make the world more rich with possibility.

jessie mann interview: part 2

here's part two of Seven Questions for Jessie Mann. the photo above is of Jessie at 18, by Katy Grannan, scanned from the February 2000 issue of Harper's Bazaar.

Subjectify: I was so interested to find out that in addition to posing for your mother (and before the work you’re now doing with Len Prince in “Self Possessed”), you also modeled for photographers Justine Kurland and Katy Grannan. Did you always know that you would continue modeling and musehood? Did you ever rebel against it?

Jessie Mann: Even while I was working with Justine, and after I had posed for Katy—I still didn’t recognize that what I was doing was an artistic or creative action. It was just something I did, like breathing. I had no real sense of starting it, neither did I think of it as something I could stop. When Katy came to my boarding school for shoots, or when Justine and I would drive around the Virginia countryside talking about images and scouting locations, I did not think of myself as a creating agent. Ironically, it was through regarding the public response to mom’s photographs that I began to consider the role of the muse, not through the action of “musing.” As I digested the manner in which the public automatically dismissed our [my siblings and my] possible collaboration and enjoyment in the creative process which culminated in the Immediate Family series, I started to focus on the sad fact that this is a pervasive response in regard to the subject of art, specifically when that subject matter is a woman. It wasn’t until late in my conversations with Justine about the role of the subject and my frustration with the assumption of exploitation (while working in front of the camera) that it dawned on me that what I doing, was related. Honestly, it came to me very slowly that I could use this thing, this love I had for a connection with the camera, to tell the story about the very position, of being in front of the lens. A story often distorted or overlooked entirely. It is embarrassing how slow it all was when I think about it now. I think I came to understand the importance of the position of the subject while I worked with Katy and Justine but it wasn’t until I was already started on "Self Possessed" that I realized the full artistic agency of the muse. This delayed response was, you are correct in your question, because I did rebel.

Never did I rebel against the act of being a muse or subject. But I did rebel against the idea of ‘the muse’ as it is currently established and I also rebelled against being an artist in general. Of course it is a challenge to be the artist child of a famous artist, but what really put me off admitting to being an artist was that I had this sense that I had to do something concretely good in the world, and I couldn’t see that the only true way to do that, was to do something you love. I thought I had to do something serious and hard.

When I met Len Prince, I blurted out this bundle of ideas about the subject as an active agent in art, about how the story, from Alice’s perspective, has yet to be written, about how it had to be done through the looking glass, how I thought I might have an abstract character capable of symbolic action… and Len said “I need a muse”. Of course, given that I was a self hating muse at this time, I was a little insulted that he thought that was all I had in mind. It was only once we worked together, once we built our first set together, and gathered props like giddy playmates, only once we had made our first image together as collaborators, that I realized what a powerful thing it was—to muse. What a gift it was to have found a partner who defined muse in a way that made me love the word. I realized that I had been practicing an artistic craft all these years. When it finally dawned on me that art could make arguments better than words, when I realized that art could transmit knowledge and awareness, as much as any science—when I saw how elegantly art could code for both subjectivity and consciousness—I was like a convert. At that point, there I was, with my medium right under my nose, and a story to tell, and I reconciled with it all. With my rebellion over and already preliminarily engaged with Len on the zygote of Self Possessed, I found myself a zealot. I began to bring a new determination and purpose with me to the shoot, because I knew then that there was a way to express the ideas about self and subjectivity that I had so long considered, and I was lucky enough to have been granted the experience necessary to know how to do it. And then, there I was with yet another wonderful artist to explore ideas with. It was at that moment, knee deep in doing it, that I knew that this is what I would do forever and it was what I was meant to do.

I console myself that I am not the only one who was a little slow to realize the Aristotelian phrase “You are what you do everyday.”

subjectify interview: seven questions for jessie mann, part 1

this week on Subjectify, a special and long-awaited theme: Jessie Mann week!

most photo fans know Jessie as one of the subjects of her mother Sally Mann's photographs, including the controversial and beautiful 1993 project Immediate Family (above). in them, Jessie shines out at the viewer as a singular character: feisty, naked, direct, stubborn, and free. this is how i thought of Jessie, and when i researched her a bit more, i got more and more interested in her path and her take on her experiences in front of the lens. i found out that Jessie, now 25, is a painter, has posed for numerous other well-known fine art photographers and artists, and has given considerable and sustained thought to her role as a subject and "muse." this work includes an ongoing project conceived with New York photographer Len Prince, Self Possessed, which tackles the role of the subject in art history and photography head-on. after reading Jessie write about Self Possessed in Aperture, and then reading this extensive interview with her on Wayne Yang's blog, i knew i wanted to talk to her.

over the past few months, i've corresponded with Jessie about questions at the heart of our shared interest in the function, meaning, and pleasure of portraiture and specifically subjectivity in photography. needless to say, she's put a lot of thought into the subject. over the next few days, i'll post highlights of our interview. (the full unedited discussion, for those who can't get enough, will be posted up at the end.)

enjoy—and/or argue, send comments, follow up questions, etc.


Subjectify: You wrote in Aperture that people often come up to you and say “You don’t know me, but I know you” and that you take their words as true—they do know you. What do they know?

Jessie Mann: I think the conceptual issue exemplified by this anecdote might just be the most difficult of the questions raised by my life experience, and by extension, Self Possessed (my collaborative photography project with Len Prince—which examines the role of the subject in art). The ways in which perception and documentation alter the self, as well as consideration for the nature and seat of that self, are concepts which are examined through our collaboration and implicated in this statement I hear so often. By exploring what of my ‘self’ is contained in my abstract, or symbolic form, I am challenging where the “I” traditionally exists. When strangers claim to know me—I have to ponder what they know and who I am. Do I exist in my inner monologue alone?

Where do we most fully exist? Which self—external or internal—is more valid? Are we living in our heads—our own thought is all we have to be certain of? Or is reality, the rocks we stub our toes on, as opposed to the pain we feel, where our self is of greatest substance and meaning? Does the external world of other’s thoughts (collective thought, thought as an abstract) ground us in a subjective nature? When I say it is true they know me, I mean it, I have come to grant that abstract self possession of an “I”ness.

Having run up against the external self others have created for me, I have spent a lot of time considering the nature of the self—internal, social/biological, and symbolic. Yet, as I have said, this is something everyone has to deal with. We are all, and have always been, addressing the nature of ourselves.

When people approach me with that statement they are simply telling me their truth—they know a Jessie Mann, who corresponds in some way to my physical presence, and I know of no version of them. Now, one could say (and I did at one time say myself) they don’t really know ME, though. But how can I so confidently say that, maybe the abstract version of myself is the more real me; the self more imbued with life than the self resting in my deep inner dialog. How do I determine where “I” really am?

Possibly because I had to confront it so much, I began to let go of [my] automatic response, wherein I protect an entirely personal, primary and self contained self. I began to consider what exactly it was these strangers were telling me. I mean, they seemed sincere, they were telling me a truth from their perspective. Could what they say to me be more true than my instinctual mental negation—‘they don’t really know me’?

They do know me. They know a me I might not even know, but it may in fact be the me which stores my ‘self’ most certainly. My private self is fleeting but deep, my social self has a longer duration and is more interactive, so to speak, but my symbolic self gains the attributes of the symbol—its is translatable, it is multifunctional—as it is abstract and can thus be applied to a variety of specific concepts, and it is autopoetic.

When people believe that they know me, when people do, in fact, engage in knowing me through their mental experience of a photograph—some part of my nature (maybe not that part which is most deep in me, but a part which is active, nonetheless) was transmitted to them through a work of art, and one must, to be fair, at least consider that art, therefore, works. Yay.

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coming up:

Interview Part 2: on modeling for other photographers

Part 3: on musehood and subjectivity

Part 4: liberating the subject

Part 5: gender, sexuality, and performance

Part 6: shooting in the mirror

Part 7: kahlo, art, and painting

interview part two: daniel shea and caitlin arnold

today, part two of yesterday's interview with Daniel Shea and Caitlin Arnold. the photos above (by Daniel, top and Caitlin, below) are more that can be seen on their websites.

now we get to the juicy stuff: subverting the idea of the democratic power of pictures, wrangling with the subject, and close readings of Daniel and Caitlin's favorite photos by each other....

Daniel: So would you describe yourself as a portrait photographer? Is that important? Does it some how set up a frame of reference both historically and conceptually?

Caitlin: Yes and no. I know that some of my strongest images happen to be portraits but there are other photographs of mine that are equally as successful because they ad context to the issue at hand.

I don't think it's important to label myself as a portrait photographer but I think we get labeled these things and it's hard to get out of that mold, you know? For the past seven months or so I've been photographing girls in adolescence, focusing on how fast they are maturing. Yes it's really hard to photograph maturity or the essence of it but I think that I'm starting to figure out what kind of pictures describe this time.

Daniel: That's a huge thing to tackle. Are you looking at the issue broadly or do you find yourself gravitating towards something specifically within that framework?

Caitlin: Lately in critiques we've been talking about moving in a more specific direction. I think that I've found it and now I have to actually take the pictures and make sure they work. I'm going to be focusing on mother/daughter relationships, recreating scenes from my adolescent years and getting input from the girls I've been working with.

Daniel: That's interesting. So are you going to stage these scenes with the subjects that you were previously more passively photographing?

Caitlin: The photographs depicting mother/daughter relationships I will be staging, something that's very new for me but I'm going to keep a positive attitude about it.

Daniel: I'm excited to see it. I think my favorite picture from that series so far is 9/12 on your site, the "girls" section.

All the visual elements are working in this image. It's the perfect starting point I feel for a work about girls today. There's a sense of awkward sexuality, that's really disturbing, and in case we don't get what's happening, we have the child cartoons to remind us on the wall. Which just happens to be a coyote chasing the effeminate road runner. Along with everything else happening.

Did you make her grab that pool stick? It's fucking disturbing.

Caitlin: That photograph is like the one that makes people really uncomfortable. I told her to hold onto them but never directed her to doing it that specific way.

What I find most interesting about directing people, especially young girls, is how they interpret what I say. What do you think about that?

Daniel: About directing people? Well I don't pretend to hide behind any pretense of objectivity in photography. I mean I can understand people doing that maybe 80 years ago.

So I direct my subjects constantly. I'll tell them to look at something, or not to smile, or whatever. I try to find that perfect balance of working the environment/person into a cohesive picture while upholding the integrity and idiosyncrasies of the subject. It's a fine line, but i think that makes or breaks a good portrait.

Also, you mentioned context earlier... All my work is about context.
It's about a context-based narrative, that emphasis my points of view and a limited sense of perception. I feel that when photographers do this successfully people are critical of image looking immediately.

And that's what's important to me above all else.
And this all ties into portraiture on a very primitive level.
One that predates photography, and that's the search for a ground to stand on when looking/relating/empathizing with another human. When people look at portraits and they can't figure out where they should be standing, they get extremely uncomfortable.

I don't buy into the democratic power of pictures. I know there was a conceptual push for that sort of ideology-based thinking in the 70's, but i think we're well past that.

Daniel: So I told you my favorite picture of yours
What's your favorite of mine?

Caitlin: Oh man there are a ton
But 15/33 under portfolio.
i just love her as a character. and i think from the information you have given me via text on your blog and from conversations, makes her story more interesting to me.


Oh and then 18/33

mmmmmmmmm i love it.
And i finally remember why I love it so much.
It's so delicate.
and weird. like, why is there one sock and a wash cloth?
It raises a lot of questions for me and I think that photograph has the quality that I look for in photographs. The good ones make me ask questions and keep my interest.
Do you agree?

Daniel: Yes. ha

Caitlin: ha awesome.

Daniel: What is the most difficult part of taking pictures of other people?

Caitlin: There are a couple parts to this for me. First it's getting people to understand what I'm doing and why I want to take their photograph. I can tell them til my face turns blue that I'm interested in young girls in adolescence and the differences they all have but sometimes they still don't understand. Another hard part for me besides getting them to understand is for them to relax. Most of the time I'm in their homes, which you think would make them relax but sometimes it's worse. I try not to get frustrated.

Some people either can't sit still or try to delay me from photographing and that's when I almost don't know what to do. There have been times where I've set up a time to come over to someone's house and when I got there they told me to leave.
And it wasn't the parent, it was the girl.

Daniel: That's sort of intense.

Caitlin: Yeah it was like, I'm not prepared to be photographed today, please come back next week.

Daniel: That's interesting.

Caitlin: Yeah that's why I'm so interested in photographing these girls. They do and say the wildest things.

Well let me ask you something
For you, what makes a successful portrait?

Daniel: Well, I sort of touched on that a bit, but overall it definitely depends on what you're going for. For me, in order for one of my portraits to be successful, ideally I'd like them to have some self-containing elements that makes them strong as stand-alone images, as well as elements that make them absolutely necessary in the narrative.

And of course there is the whole audience bit...
Uneasiness, confusion, interest, sublimely attracted, political indecisiveness, these are all things I would deem "successful" reactions from an audience.

subjectify interview: daniel shea and caitlin arnold

i have really enjoyed checking out the photographs of both Daniel Shea (above, top) and Caitlin Arnold, so when i recently found out that Daniel and Caitlin have been friends since high school, i was intrigued. today, both are fine art photographers and bloggers, though they focus on different topics (Daniel has a show about mountaintop removal in Appalachia going up on 3/28 at MICA, and Caitlin is working on a series about girls in adolescence).

instead of just posting up some photos by them, i asked Daniel and Caitlin to interview each other for Subjectify (thanks, guys!). i asked them to discuss their connection, their interaction in photographic communities (online, art school, blogosphere, and otherwise). part one of their conversation is below...

Daniel: We've known each other since high school. Did we have a photographic relationship at that point? I don't think we did.

Caitlin: i don't think so either. i know there was a punk rock relationship

Daniel: Yes, that's how we met. The good old punk rock. Every serious artist over 20 was a punk at some point in their life.

I still am. Are you?

Caitlin: no i got soft... but seriously something i find interesting is how the group of us after high school went off into the same fine art world.

Daniel: Well I think suburban punk kids often find refuge in their art rooms in high school. That's where I made my best friends, people that I'm still friends with today, and have had a tremendous impact on me.

I feel like at some point in college we both became obsessed with photography, again.

Caitlin: yeah, oddly enough, the internet brought us back together.

Daniel: And 4 years later we're in the same network of people. I think this would be a good time to talk about blogging. For you, is that a mix of getting your stuff out there and also participating in a art/photography community?

Caitlin: i think i started a blog because i was bored. i really started to take it "seriously" within the past year, showing new work of mine and then talking about art/photography.

Daniel: Do you feel like it's helped your "career"?

Caitlin: i can't really say. i know that the internet has seriously helped me though because people look at my website. there have been occasions where if if i wasn't linked, i wouldn't have gotten a job or an email.

Daniel: I mean, it's been said before, but that's the primary way of viewing photography.

Caitlin: for this generation of artists, yes totally.

Daniel: We started off when this was all ready the case though, so we have nothing to compare it to. For us, using the internet as a networking/exposure tool may seem like the only way to do it. However, all the communication benefits of the internet, when applied to photography, make it very obvious why it's such a great thing in some ways. For me though, I still use my blog in a traditional diaristic way. Not in a, "today I woke up and did this," but more in a way to emphasize the importance of process in photography.

Ok, enough about blogs, let's talk about our work.

Caitlin: well tell me what it's like to be out of school and no one is pushing you to make work anymore

Daniel: I love being out of school. I've always been simultaneously very grateful for the opportunities and privilege that art school allowed me to access while remaining very critical, and often, very, very bored. For a brief moment I thought being out of school would somehow make my life a little less clogged, but I work harder today than I ever have in my life. Working a full time job that is both physically and mentally draining at times (teaching), as well as working on your art full time is exhausting. But I would never give it up. I'm still completely obsessed with photography, thinking about photography, and making photographs. I look at some of my peers who don't feel the same way, and I realize that art school for a lot of people will be the last time they make work.

But I digress. Art school hardly prepared me for the "real world," but I've always been pretty independent and ready to work an insane amount to get something I want. So doing the grind, it doesn't bother me.

That was long and slightly convoluted...but what I'm trying to say is, yeah I'm doing fine outside of school, I was also self-motivated to begin with, so making work now isn't really a struggle outside of the Western elements (you know, time, money, etc.)

Caitlin: let's talk about photographers that we're looking at right now. who are people that you've been looking to for inspiration?

Daniel: Well overall the work I respond to most strongly are people like Roni Horn, Sol LeWitt, John Baldessari, Victor Burgin, Lynne Cohen, Richard Prince, etc.

They were all very important for me in terms of forming a critical eye.

But simultaneously, I love work from that period like the new topographics. And also the more rigid approach of German typologies.

New work though, I'm into Collier Schorr, Roe Ethridge, Beate Gutschow, Lars Tunbjork, Mikhael Subotzky, and others who bring fresh contemporary perspectives to the document.

Caitlin: Beate Gutschow spoke at Columbia recently. She's such an interesting photographer.

Daniel: Yeah she pretty much embodies everything I love about rendering landscape as a historical/critical motif. I know you look at a lot of portrait photographers...

Caitlin: I spend a lot of my time looking at photographers who focus on portraiture. I know that I have been focusing my attention the last two years or so on making portraits, so people like Hellen van Meene and Rineke Dijkstra are some influences of mine. I also think that some of the faculty here has been an influence on my work. Last semester I took a portrait class with Dawoud Bey which was a very stressful time but I learned a lot about how to work with the subject. And recently Columbia hired Kelli Connell, whose work I really love.

Daniel: Yeah they're all great. Dawoud Bey is incredible. His ability to present a social document so frank, but with so much room to explore is really inspiring.

Caitlin: Yeah, he's a great person to have on your side...


coming up in part two, Daniel & Caitlin discuss portraiture, working with subjects, and critique each others photographs.