Chandigarh Times-Times of India
08/24/2002 , By Vandana Shukla
LOOKING beyond the reality
THE-FOE-TO-GRAPHIC-ART: In 1827 when Nicephore Niepce, a French man took the first photograph, he did not know, that the image created by a few chemicals on a metal plate will change the world of visual for all the times to come. But, the reasons were obvious the word photography, derived from a Greek word meaning ‘light and writing’, and it was meant to re-write everthing in a different light, the light of realism. From being labeled as “the-foe-to-graphic-art” by the portrait artists of the 19th century, who were threatened by this new development, photography has come full circle. It has grown into a means of artistic express, passing through various phases.
PHOTO-JOURNALISM: In Europe and USA, where technology was used to its greatest advantage, photo-journalists were responsible for bringing about an awareness for racism, child labour and women’s right. Nothing could speak more truthfully than a camera, and photography was used as an important tool for shaping democratic rights.
But, the unprecedented success of photo-journalism, that adhered to documentation of the facts, also spelt limitation of this medium. It limited its scope of looking beyond the reality and thus exploring into the areas of artistic expression. But, few artists dared.
Robert Mapple Thorpe (whose works shocked the sensibility of American artist society), Cindy Sherman and Frank Eugene created through their imagination images that spoke more than what was present in the form of objects.
MANIPULATING MEDIUM FOR ARTISTIC CREATION
DIWAN MANNA: Trained as painter from Government College of Art, Chandigarh Diwan Manna, an art photographer who won accolades for his “fusion work” in photography way back in 1983, works at a kind of confluence of different genres of expression. He uses his space to create a hybrid art, crossing boundaries between various art disciplines such as painting, theatre, body arts for his manipulated photographs; he uses objects for making a statement. His creative photographic expressions are usually in a series, where he let an idea develop into a visual form, often lucid as poetry, expressive of his deper concerns.
Raghu Rai and Satyajit Ray:
“Without seeming to be artistic, the simplicity of photographs of Raghu Rai and each frame of Satyajeet Ray’s films taught me that photography is an art where you try to go inside the person within the constraints of the medium, you present something through the obvious which is beyond the obvious; the texture, colour; posture, some odd gesture, all add an extra dimension to turn photograph into a piece of art,” says Diwan.
Creating a new genre:
“Though art photography is loosely associated with creating glamourous, glitzy portfolios, art is not about showing beautiful pictures of people and objects. It is about exploreing the possibilities of a medium to voice thoughts and ideas in a novel way, Art photography should not be judged from the standards of photojournalism where closeness to reality is the whole criterion of judgement. It is a new genre, and a viewer should approach it with a generous mind, then only it will open new vistas of a visual journey into the artist’s mind.” Suggests Diwan.
A FEW GUIDELINES TO UNDERSTAND THE VISUAL ART
• Begin with the visual appeal of a picture, look at the aesthetic aspects and move beyond…
• Look at the colour, or absence of colour, relate to what colours do you prefer to wear and, on what occasions, relate to the colours of the weather and nature, the mood they evoke….
• Observe the size of the objects, even size evokes different feelings, a tank would evoke a feeling of fear a flower would evoke tenderness, try to relate to objects and their significance in our life and culture.
• Also look for different cultural aspect, a white shroud relates to Hindu belief, but it is also nailed in the photograph, this signifies confluence of cultures. The urn and a flower carry different connotations…
• Think of the contemporary concerns, and look for links where the artist is trying to relate these concerns through symbols, colours, texture and images.
