Crimp_photographic Activity of Pomo

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The Photographic Activity of PostmodernismAuthor(s): Douglas CrimpSource: October, Vol. 15 (Winter, 1980), pp. 91-101Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778455 .

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The PhotographicActivity fPostmodernism*

DOUGLAS CRIMPIt is a fetishistic, undamentally nti-technicalnotionofartwith whichtheo-rists of photographyhave tusseledforalmost a century,without, of course,achieving the slightestresult. For theysought nothing beyond acquiring cre-dentialsfor thephotographerfromthejudgment-seatwhich he had alreadyoverturned.-Walter Benjamin,"A ShortHistory fPhotography"

That photographyhad overturned he udgment-seat f art s a factwhichthediscourseofmodernismfound tnecessary orepress,nd so it seemsthatwemayaccuratelyayofpostmodernismhat tconstitutes recisely hereturn ftherepressed.Postmodernism can only be understood as a specificbreach withmodernism,with those institutionswhich are thepreconditionsforand whichshape thediscourseof modernism. hese institutions an be named at theoutset:first,hemuseum; then, rthistory;nd finally,n a morecomplexsense,becausemodernismdependsbothupon itspresence nd upon itsabsence,photography.Postmodernism s about art'sdispersal, tsplurality,bywhich I certainly o notmeanpluralism.Pluralism s,asweknow,thatfantasyhat rt s free, ree f otherdiscourses, nstitutions, ree, bove all, ofhistory.And thisfantasyffreedom anbe maintained because everywork of art is held to be absolutelyunique andoriginal. Against thispluralismoforiginals, want to speak of theplurality fcopies.Nearlytwoyears go in an essaycalled "Pictures," n whichI firstound tusefultoemploytheterm ostmodernism, attempted osketchn a backgroundto theworkofa group ofyounger rtistswho were ust beginningto exhibit n* This paperwas firstresented t thecolloquium "Performance nd Multidisciplinarity:ost-modernism" ponsored byParachute n Montreal,October9-11, 1980.


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New York.' I tracedthegenesisof their oncerns o what had pejoratively eenlabeled thetheatricalityf minimalsculpture nd the xtensions fthat heatricalpositioninto the art of the seventies. wrote t thattime thattheaestheticmodethatwas exemplaryduringthe seventieswas performance,ll those works thatwereconstitutedn a specificituation nd for specific uration;worksforwhichitcould be said literally hatyouhad tobe there;works, hat s,which assumedthepresenceof a spectator n frontof the work as the work took place, therebyprivileging hespectatornsteadof theartist.In myattempt o continue the ogic of thedevelopment was outlining,came eventually o a stumblingblock.WhatI wanted to explain was how togetfrom hisconditionofpresence-the beingthere ecessitated yperformance-tothatkind ofpresence hat s possibleonlythrough he bsencethatwe knowto bethe ondition frepresentation.orwhat waswriting boutwasworkwhich hadtakenon, afternearly centuryf tsrepression,hequestionofrepresentation.effectedhattransitionwitha kind of fudge, n epigraphquotation suspendedbetween wosections f the text.The quotation,takenfrom ne oftheghosttalesof Henry James,was a false tautology,which played on the double, indeedantithetical,meaning of theword presence: "The presencebeforehim was apresence."What I justsaidwas a fudgewas perhapsnotreallythat,butrather hehintofsomething eallycrucialabout the work was describing,which I would likenow to elaborate. n orderto do so, I want to add a thirddefinition o thewordpresence.To thatnotion ofpresencewhich is aboutbeingthere, eing n frontf,and that notion of presence thatHenry Jamesuses in his ghost stories,thepresencewhich is a ghostand thereforeeallyan absence,thepresencewhich isnot there, want to add thenotion ofpresenceas a kindof increment obeingthere, ghostly spectofpresence hat s itsexcess, tssupplement.This notionofpresence s whatwe mean when we say,for xample,thatLaurie Anderson s aperformer ithpresence.We mean by such a statement ot simplythat she isthere,n frontfus,but that he smorethanthere, hat naddition tobeingthere,shehaspresence.And fwe think fLaurieAndersonn thisway, tmayseem bitodd, because Laurie Anderson'sparticularpresence s effectedhrough heuse ofreproductive echnologieswhichreallymake herquite absent, ronlythere s thekind ofpresence hatHenryJamesmeantwhenhesaid, "The presence efore imwas a presence."This is precisely hekind ofpresence hat attributedo theperformancesfJack Goldstein, such as Two Fencers, and to which I would now add theperformancesf RobertLongo, such as Surrender. hese performances ere ittleelse thanpresences, erformedableaux thatweretheren the pectator's pacebutwhich appeared ethereal, bsent.They had thatodd qualityofholograms,very1. Douglas Crimp,"Pictures,"October,no. 8 (Spring 1979),75-88.

Robert ongo.Surrender.979-80.


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vivid and detailed nd present nd at the ametimeghostly,bsent.Goldstein ndLongo are artistswhose work, togetherwith that of a greatnumberof theircontemporaries,pproachesthequestionofrepresentationhrough hotographicmodes, particularlyall those aspects of photographythat have to do withreproduction,with copies, and copies of copies. The extraordinaryresenceoftheirwork s effectedhrough bsence,throughtsunbridgeable istancefrom heoriginal,from venthepossibility fan original.Suchpresence swhat attributeto thekind ofphotographic ctivity call postmodernist.This qualityofpresencewould seemtobe just theoppositeof what WalterBenjamin had in mind when he introduced nto thelanguage of criticism henotion ofthe aura. For the aura has todo withthepresence f theoriginal,withauthenticity, iththeunique existence f thework of art n theplace in whichithappens to be. It is that spectof theworkthat an beput tothetest f chemicalanalysisor ofconnoisseurship, hataspectwhich thedisciplineofarthistory,tleast in itsguise as Kunstwissenschaft,s able toproveor disprove, nd that s-pect,therefore,hich either dmitsthework of art nto,orbanishes tfrom, hemuseum. For themuseum has no truckwithfakes rcopiesorreproductions. hepresenceof the artist n the work must be detectable; hat s how the museumknows thas something uthentic.But it is thisvery uthenticity, enjamin tellsus, that s inevitably epre-ciatedthroughmechanicalreproduction, iminished hrough heproliferationfcopies. "That which withersn theage ofmechanicalreproductions the ura oftheworkof art," is theway Benjamin put it.2But, of course,the aura is not amechanistic onceptas employedbyBenjamin,but rather historicalone. It isnot somethinga handmade work has that a mechanically-madeworkdoes nothave. In Benjamin'sview, ertain hotographshad an aura,while even paintingbyRembrandtoses its ura in the ge of mechanicalreproduction. he witheringaway of theaura, the dissociationoftheworkfrom he fabric f tradition,s aninevitableoutcomeofmechanicalreproduction.This is somethingwe have allexperienced.We know,for xample,the mpossibility fexperiencing he ura ofsuch a picture s theMona Lisa as we stand beforet at the Louvre.Itsaura hasbeenutterly epletedbythethousands f timeswe'veseen tsreproduction,ndnodegreeofconcentrationwill restore tsuniquenessforus.It would seem,though,that fthewitheringwayofthe ura is an inevitablefactof our time,thenequally inevitable re all thoseprojectstorecuperatet,topretend hattheoriginaland theunique arestillpossibleand desirable.And thisis nowheremoreapparentthan n thefield fphotographytself, hevery ulpritofmechanicalreproduction.Benjamin granteda presenceor aura to only a very imitednumber ofphotographs.These werephotographs f the o-calledprimitive hase,theperiod2. WalterBenjamin, "The Work ofArt n theAge of Mechanical Reproduction," n Illumina-tions, rans.HarryZohn,New York,SchockenBooks, 1969,-p. 21.


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prior tophotography's ommercialization fter he 1850s.He said, for xample,thatthepeople in these arlyphotographs"had an aura about them, mediumwhich mingledwith theirmanner of looking and gave thema plenitude andsecurity."This aura seemed toBenjaminto be a productoftwothings: he ongexposuretimeduringwhich the ubjectsgrew, s itwere, nto the mages;and theunique, unmediatedrelationshipbetweenthephotographerwho was "a techni-cian of the latest chool," and his sitter,who was "a memberof a class on theascendant, epletewithan aurawhichpenetrated o thevery olds fhisbourgeoisovercoator bow-tie." The aura in thesephotographs, hen, s not tobe found nthepresenceofthephotographer n thephotograph n thewaythatthe ura ofapaintingis determined ythepresenceofthepainter'sunmistakablehand inhispicture.Rather t is thepresence fthe ubject, fwhat sphotographed, thetinysparkofchance,of thehereand now,withwhichreality as,as itwere, earedthecharacter f thepicture." ForBenjamin,then, heconnoisseurship fphotogra-phy is an activitydiametrically pposed to theconnoisseurship f painting: itmeans looking not for the hand of the artist but for the uncontrolled anduncontrollable intrusion of reality,the absolutelyunique and even magicalqualitynot of theartistbutof his subject.And that s perhaps why t seemed tohim so misguidedthatphotographersbegan,after hecommercialization f themedium,tosimulate the ost aura through he pplicationoftechniquesmitativeof those of painting. His example was the gum bichromateprocess used inpictorialphotography.Although tmay tfirsteemthatBenjamin amented he oss ofthe ura, thecontrarys in facttrue.Reproduction's "social significance, articularly n itsmostpositiveform,s inconceivable,"wroteBenjamin,"without tsdestructive,cathartic spect, ts iquidation of thetraditional alue of theculturalheritage."That was forhimthegreatness fAtget: He initiated he iberation ftheobjectfrom he ura,which is themost ncontestablechievement ftherecent choolofphotography." "The remarkable hing bout [Atget's] ictures .. is their mp-tiness."This emptying peration,thedepletionoftheaura, thecontestation ftheuniquenessoftheworkofart,has beenaccelerated nd intensifiedn the rtofthepast twodecades.Fromthemultiplication f ilkscreenedhotographicmages ntheworks ofRauschenberg nd Warhol to the ndustriallymanufactured,epeti-tively tructuredworksof theminimal sculptors, verythingn radical artisticpractice eemed toconspire n that iquidation oftraditional ulturalvalues that3. WalterBenjamin, "A ShortHistoryofPhotography," rans. tanleyMitchell;Screen,vol. 13,no. 1 (Spring1972),18.4. Ibid.,p. 19.5. Ibid., p. 7.6. Benjamin, "Work ofArt,"p. 221.7. Benjamin, "ShortHistory,"p. 20.8. Ibid., p. 21.


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Benjamin spoke of. And because the museum is that institutionwhich wasfoundedupon just thosevalues,whose ob it s to sustain thosevalues, thas faceda crisisof considerableproportions.One symptomof thatcrisis is theway inwhich our museums,one after nother, round 1970, bdicatedtheir esponsibil-itytoward ontemporaryrtistic ractice nd turnedwithnostalgiato the rtthathad previouslybeen relegatedto theirstorerooms.Revisionistarthistory oonbegan to be vindicatedby "revelations"of the achievements f academic artistsand minorfiguresf all kinds.By themid-1970s nother,more serioussymptomof themuseum's crisisappeared,the one I havealreadymentioned: hevarious ttempts orecuperate heauratic. These attemptsare manifest n two, contradictory henomena: theresurgence fexpressionist aintingand thetriumph fphotography-as-art.hemuseum has embracedboth of thesephenomenawithequal enthusiasm,not tosayvoraciousness.Little, think,needs to be said about thereturn o a paintingofpersonalexpression.We see it everywhere e turn.The marketplaces gluttedwith t. Itcomes in all guises-pattern painting,new-imagepainting,neoconstructivism,neoexpressionism; t is pluralist to be sure. But within its individualism,thispaintingis utterlyonformistn one point:itshatred fphotography.Writingmanifesto-like extfor thecatalogue ofherAmericanPainting: The Eighties-thatoracular exhibition taged n thefallof 1979to demonstrate hemiraculousresurrection fpainting-Barbara Rose told us:The serious paintersof the eightiesare an extremely eterogeneousgroup-some abstract,omerepresentational.ut they reunitedon asufficientumber f critical ssues that t s possibleto solate them s agroup. They are, in the first lace, dedicatedto thepreservation fpainting as a transcendental igh art, and an art of universal asopposed to local or topical significance. heir aesthetic,whichsynthe-sizes tactilewith optical qualities, defines tself n conscious opposi-tion tophotography nd all forms f mechanicalreproductionwhichseek to deprivethe artwork of its unique "aura." It is, in fact,theenhancement f thisaura, through variety fmeans, thatpaintingnow self-consciouslyntends-eitherby emphasizing heartist'shand,or by creatinghighly individual visionary mages that cannot beconfused itherwithreality tself rwith one another.9That thiskindofpaintingshould so clearly eemechanicalreproductionstheenemy s symptomaticftheprofound hreat o nheriteddeas (theonly deasknown to thispainting) posed by thephotographicactivity f postmodernism.Butin thiscase it s also symptomaticfa more imited nd internecinehreat: heone posed topaintingwhenphotographytself uddenly cquires an aura. Now

9. BarbaraRose, AmericanPainting: The Eighties,Buffalo, horen-SidneyPress, 1979,n.p.


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it's notonlya questionof deology;nowit's a realcompetition or he cquisitionbudgetand wall space of themuseum.But how is it thatphotographyhas suddenlyhad conferredpon it an aura?How has theplenitudeof copies been reduced to thescarcity foriginals?Andhow do we know theauthenticfrom tsreproduction?10Enter he onnoisseur.But notthe onnoisseur fphotography,f whomthetype s WalterBenjamin, or, closer to us, Roland Barthes.NeitherBenjamin's"sparkofchance" nor Barthes's thirdmeaning"wouldguarantee hotography'splace in themuseum.The connoisseurneededfor his ob is theold-fashioned rthistorianwithhis chemicalanalysesand,more mportantly,is stylistic nalyses.To authenticatephotographyrequires all the machineryof art historyandmuseology,witha few dditions, nd more thana few leights fhand. To begin,there s, of course, the incontestablerarity f age, the vintageprint. Certaintechniques, aper types,nd chemicalshavepassedout of useand thusthe ge ofaprintcan easily be established. But this kind of certifiable arity s not whatinterestsme,nor itsparallel in contemporaryhotographicpractice, he imitededition.What interestsme is the subjectivization f photography, heways inwhich the connoisseurshipof thephotograph's "sparkof chance" is convertedinto a connoisseurship fthephotograph's tyle.Fornow, itseems,wecan detectthephotographer'shand after ll, exceptof course that t is his eye,his uniquevision. (Although t can also be hishand; one needonly isten to thepartisansofphotographic ubjectivityescribe hemystical itualperformed ythephotogra-pherin his darkroom.)I realize ofcourse that n raisingthequestion ofsubjectivity am revivingthe entral ebate nphotography's esthetic istory,hatbetween he traightndthemanipulatedprint,or themanyvariations n thattheme.But I do so here norder opointout thattherecuperation fthe ura for hotographywould infactsubsumeunder thebannerof subjectivity ll ofphotography, hephotographywhose source s thehuman mindand thephotographywhosesource s theworldaroundus, themostthoroughlymanipulatedphotographicfictionsnd themostfaithful ranscriptionsfthereal,thedirectorial nd thedocumentary,hemirrorsand thewindows,Camera Work n itsinfancy, ife in itsheyday.But these reonlytheterms fstyle nd mode oftheagreed-upon pectrum fphotography-as-art.The restorationfthe ura,theconsequent ollecting nd exhibiting, oes notstop there. t is extended to thecarte-de-visite,he fashionplate, theadvertisingshot,the nonymoussnap orpolaroid.At theoriginofevery ne there s an Artistand thereforeachcan findtsplace on the pectrum fsubjectivity.or t has longbeen a commonplace of art historythatrealism and expressionism re onlymatters fdegree,matters, hat s, ofstyle.The photographic ctivity fpostmodernismperates, s we mightexpect,10. The urgency f thesequestions first ecame clear to me as I read the editorialprepared byAnnetteMichelson forOctober,no. 5,A Special Issue on Photography Summer1978),3-5.


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in complicitywiththesemodesofphotography-as-art,ut t doesso only norderto subvert nd exceedthem.And it does so preciselyn relationto theaura,not,however, o recuperate t,but to displace it, to show that t too is now onlyanaspect of the copy, not the original. A group of young artistsworkingwithphotographyhave addressedphotography's laims to originality,howingthoseclaimsfor hefictionhey re, howingphotographyo bealwaysa representation,always-already-seen. heir images are purloined, confiscated, ppropriated,stolen. n theirwork,theoriginalcannotbe located, s alwaysdeferred;ventheselfwhichmighthave generated n originalis shownto be itself copy.In a characteristicesture, herrie evine beginsa statementbout herworkwithan anecdote that s very amiliar:Since the doorwas onlyhalfclosed, gota jumbledview ofmymotherand father n thebed,one on topof theother.Mortified,urt,horror-struck, had thehateful ensationofhaving placedmyself lindly ndcompletelyin unworthyhands. Instinctively nd without effort,dividedmyself,o tospeak, ntotwopersons, fwhomone,thereal,thegenuine one, continued on her own account, while the other, asuccessful mitation f thefirst, as delegated o have relationswiththeworld. My first elf remains at a distance, mpassive,ironical, andwatching.11Not only do we recognizethis as a description f somethingwe alreadyknow-the primal scene-but our recognitionmightextend even further o theMoravia novel fromwhich it has been lifted.For Levine's autobiographicalstatementsonlya string fquotationspilfered rom thers; nd ifwemight hinkthis strangewayofwriting bout one's ownworkingmethods, henperhapsweshould turnto the work t describes.At a recentexhibition,Levine showed six photographsof a nude youth.They weresimply rephotographed rom hefamousseriesbyEdwardWestonofhis young son Neil, available to Levine as a posterpublished by theWitkinGallery. According o thecopyrightaw, the magesbelongtoWeston, rnow totheWestonestate. think, obe fair,however,wemight ust as well givethem oPraxiteles,for f it is the image that can be owned, thensurelythesebelong toclassical sculpture,whichwould put them n thepublic domain. Levinehas saidthat,when she showed herphotographsto a friend, e remarked hatthey nlymade himwant to see theoriginals."Of course,"shereplied,"and theoriginalsmakeyouwantto seethat ittle oy,but whenyouseetheboy,the rt sgone." Forthe desirethat s initiatedbythatrepresentationoesnotcome to closurearoundthat ittleboy, s not at all satisfiedyhim.The desire frepresentationxists nlyinsofar s itneverbe fulfilled,nsofar s theoriginalalwaysbe deferred.t is onlyin theabsence of theoriginalthatrepresentation aytakeplace. Andrepresenta-

11. SherrieLevine,unpublishedstatement, 980.


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tion takesplace because it is always already here n theworld as representation.twas, ofcourse,Westonhimselfwho said that"thephotographmustbe visualizedin fullbefore heexposure s made." Levinehas takenthemaster t his wordandin so doing has shownhim what he reallymeant.The a prioriWeston had inmindwas notreally nhis mind atall; itwas in theworld, nd Westononlycopiedit. This fact s perhapsevenmorecrucial in those seriesbyLevine where thata priori image is not so obviouslyconfiscated romhigh culture-by which IintendbothWeston nd Praxiteles-but from heworld tself, herenatureposesas the antithesis frepresentation.hus the mageswhichLevine has cut out ofbooks of photographsby AndreasFeiningerand Elliot Porter how scenes ofnaturethat reutterly amiliar.They suggest hatRoland Barthes's escription fthe tense fphotography s the"havingbeenthere"be interpretedn a newway.The presence hat uchphotographshave forus is thepresence fdeji vu,natureas alreadyhavingbeenseen,nature as representation.IfLevine'sphotographsoccupya place on that pectrum fphotography-as-art, twould be at thefarthesteachesofstraight hotography, otonlybecausethephotographs he appropriatesoperatewithinthatmode butbecause shedoesnot manipulate her photographsin any way; she merely, nd literally, akesphotographs.At theopposite end of that pectrums thephotographywhich isself-consciously omposed,manipulated, fictionalized,he so-called directorialmode, in which we find uch auteursofphotography s Duane Michaels and LesKrims. The strategyf thismode is touse theapparentveracity fphotographyagainstitself, reating ne's fictions hrough heappearanceof a seamlessrealityintowhichhas been wovena narrative imension.CindySherman'sphotographsfunctionwithinthismode,butonly norder oexposean unwanteddimensionofthat fiction,for the fictionSherman discloses is the fiction f the self. Herphotographs how that thesupposed autonomous and unitary elfout of whichthose other"directors"would create theirfictionss itselfnothingotherthanadiscontinuous eriesofrepresentations,opies,fakes.Sherman's photographs are all self-portraitsn which she appears indisguise enactinga drama whose particularsare withheld.This ambiguityofnarrative arallels the mbiguity fthe elfthat s bothactor n thenarrativendcreatorof it. For thoughSherman s literally elf-createdn theseworks, he iscreated n theimageofalready-knowneminine tereotypes;er self s thereforeunderstood s contingent pon thepossibilitiesprovidedbytheculture nwhichShermanparticipates,not by some inner impulse. As such, her photographsreverse heterms fart and autobiography.They use art not toreveal the rtist'strueself,but to show the self as an imaginary onstruct. here is no real CindyShermanin thesephotographs;there re only theguises she assumes. And shedoesnotcreate heseguises;shesimplychooses them n thewaythat nyof us do.The pose ofauthorship s dispensedwithnotonlythrough hemechanicalmeansofmaking the image, but throughthe effacement f any continuous,essentialpersonaor evenrecognizablevisagein thescenesdepicted.


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That aspectof our culturewhich is most thoroughlymanipulativeof theroles we play is, of course,mass advertising,whose photographicstrategys todisguisethedirectorialmode as a form fdocumentary. ichardPrincestealsthemost frank and banal of these images, which register, n the contextofphotography-as-art,s a kindofshock.Butultimatelyheir ather rutalfamiliar-itygiveswaytostrangeness,s an unintended nd unwanteddimensionof fictionreinvades them.By isolating,enlarging, nd juxtaposingfragmentsf commer-cial images,Princepoints to their nvasionby theseghostsoffiction. ocusingdirectlyn thecommodity etish, sing themaster oolofcommodity etishismfour time,Prince'srephotographed hotographstakeon a Hitchcockiandimen-sion: thecommodity ecomesa clue. Ithas,wemight ay,acquiredan aura,onlynow it s a function otofpresence ut ofabsence, evered romn origin,from noriginator, rom uthenticity.n our time, he aura has becomeonlya presence,whichis to say,a ghost.

AAxx.

glow

.........

...........ox? ........... .......

............M.7 .................FOROW-,CindySherman.Untitled olorphotograph.1980.


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RichardPrince. Untitled olorphotographstwofroma seriesoffour).1978.

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