Visual Culture Blog

Samuel Aranda, World Press Photo of 2011

The World Press Photo of 2011 has been awarded to Samuel Aranda from Spain. His striking photograph produced for The New York Times shows a woman holding a wounded relative during protests against Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa on Oct. 15. Similar to past winners of the World Press Photo award, arguably the most important professional distinction for photojournalists, the image is highly charged, dramatic and evocative of a painful event. It is, at first sight, an image that is easily understood precisely because it alludes to feelings and emotions that are universal: the physical pain endured through injury, the emotional pain endured through a relatives injury, and, in extreme, the traumatic pain endured through death. Apart from this schema that can be attributed to a whole range of photojournalistic images, in this blog post I wish to dig deeper, and discover why particularly Aranda’s image was chosen.

The power of the photograph is partially based on its simplicity. The viewer is confronted with two figures embracing each other. The fact that the male figure is half naked and the female figure fully veiled further alludes to a binary construction: male and female, naked and veiled, dirty and clean, wounded and unwounded, and finally, vulnerable and protecting. Importantly, neither the man’s nor the woman’s face are visible which adds ambiguity to the image. Yet the subjects’ anonymity also allows the viewer to glance at a moment of intense pain and grief. If the man’s and woman’s face were visible, the photograph would have been too intrusive, too invasive, too exploitative. In other words, the very anonymity of the embracing figures distinguishes this photograph from others.

A number of intriguing details in the photograph add to a increasingly complex narrative. The background of the photograph appears to show a simple piece of wood suggesting the subjects are in a make shift shelter. The man, whose wounds are not actually in the frame of the photograph, has a code written on his forearm. The man is thus marked in more than one way: by the wounds he has inflicted and by the pen that presumably gives the doctors and nurses an indication of these wounds. I cannot help but wonder what the quickly scribbled code on the man’s arm might refer to? How severe is his condition? In part, I am asking myself these questions because his wounds are not visible in the photograph. Again, comparable to the subjects’ anonymity, the very invisibility of the source of pain heightens the dramatic effect of the image. The veiled woman meanwhile, we assume, is able to see and understand the severity of the man’s pain while she seeks to comfort him.

There is, of course, also a religious dimension to this image. The photograph was taken in Yemen in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring. Unlike comparably secular countries of Northern Africa, namely Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, the full veil signifies the extent of islamist rule in Yemen. In fact, only ten days after Samuel Aranda took above photograph, a number of women burnt their veils on the street of Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, in defiance of President Saleh. Yet, in spite of the strong islamist connotations of the full veil, I cannot help but be reminded of the Christian iconography of the Pieta in which the Virgin Mary holds the body of Jesus after his death. While the subject of the photograph is taken within the context of an islamic culture, it should be remembered that the photographer, who framed this context, is of Spanish descent and therefore, culturally speaking, informed by the iconography of the Catholic church.

Giovanni Bellini, Pieta (detail)

Close up of Michelangelo’s Pieta vs. close up of Samuel Aranda’s photograph

A close up of Michelangelo’s sculpture of the Pieta illustrates the many similarities to Aranda’s photograph: the downward gaze of the woman, the slightly tilted position of her head, the low vantage point of the viewer who is invited to emphasize with the subject’s pain, and of course the veil itself. Rather than crudely superimposing the iconography of one religion on top of a culturally complex event, I believe that Aranda’s photograph encapsulates deep felt human emotions that have no religious, cultural or geographic boundaries. It is an image that can easily be read as one person feeling pain, while another tries to give comfort. The photograph is a powerful symbol for the dramatic shift in the Arab world in which some elect to fight, in spite of death, so that others can be free.

Massimo Vitali, Sarikiniko, 2011

If there is a dominant colour in Massimo Vitali’s photographs recently on display at the Brancolini Grimaldi Gallery it would have to be turquoise – the colour of the Mediterranean Sea. Water is the common denominator in the ultra-large scale photographs floating in the space of the gallery. While many images depict people in their bathing suits, lying in the sun or swimming in the sea, the viewer too, seduced by the beauty of Vitali’s photographs, is metaphorically surrounded by water.

Massimo Vitali, Krka Waterfall Pink, 2009

Andreas Gursky, Ratingen Schwimbad, 1987

Vitali works with a large format camera which has the effect that even though the photographs are printed extremely large, they are also extremely detailed. Added to that, Vitali appears to prefer to photograph on bright sunny days and from a high vantage point. This carefully considered methodology, comparable to that of Andreas Gursky, has the effect that the viewer is given a god-like perspective on the various people exploring well-known beaches, natural rock formations, water falls or other sites of natural beauty.

Massimo Vitali at work

Vitali’s photographs are so detailed that even though the camera is several dozen of meters away from the people that are in the photograph, their clothing (or lack of clothing), their bodies, even their facial expressions can be analyzed while standing up close to the photograph. Amazingly, Vitali appears to go about his business unnoticed, as the various people in his photographs don’t look back at the camera. Only one image showed a young woman sunbathing on a boat in the distance, perhaps confusing Vitali with a Paparazzo, and looking towards the camera with suspicion. From that ‘perspective’, Vitali’s work greatly differs from Weegee’s iconic photograph of Coney Island taken in 1940. While Vitali magically appears to avoid the unwanted attention of his subjects, in Weegee’s image the very gaze towards the camera (with people squinting and shielding their eyes) actually becomes the subject of the photograph itself.

Massimo Vitali, Due Sorelle Motor Boats, 2011

Weegee, Coney Island, 1940

Much like the sun loving bathers depicted, in Vitali’s photographs almost everything is laid bare. His images are sharp, clear and in focus. As such, it would be difficult to define Vitali’s work as landscape photography since within each photograph there are smaller narratives unfolding: a young couple making out in the water, a proud father videotaping his family, a muscled man exhibiting his body. Vitali’s photographs are thus also deeply voyeuristic. In order to fully contemplate his photographs, the viewer is almost forced to go up close and deconstruct the image as a whole. This activity can be compared to dissecting the photograph into various smaller photographs. The viewer him or herself thus turns into a voyeur, perusing the seaside to uncover subjects that are already exhibiting their bodies. The dialectic between voyeurism and exhibitionism in Vitali’s photographs is thus deeply unequal: the photographer, and by extension the viewer, is free to visually explore the subjects beneath, while those beneath (the bathers, the swimmers, the sun lovers) are mostly unaware that they are being observed.

Massimo Vitali, Las Catedrales Arch Low Tide, 2011

Yet those beneath are not simply just people. They are mostly young, good-looking Europeans with the economic and social freedom to go on holidays to places such as Las Catedrales in Spain, Le Due Sorelle in Italy and Sarakiniko on the Greek Islands. The press release alerted me to the fact that Vitali himself seeks to situate his work into a political dimension as he began to photograph in 1994, the year that Berlusconi came to power, in order to “look into the faces of the people that voted for Berlusconi”. In this exhibition, simply titled ‘New Work’, Vitali has evidently ventured beyond his initial starting point, quite removed from any political agenda, to catalogue his fellow men frolicking in the sun in idyllic natural settings. In spite what it says in the press release, there are no industrial buildings, factories or warehouses visible in the photographs. In other words, there are no visual markers that allow the viewer to understand that the people depicted have a life beyond the brief moment of joviality depicted by Vitali’s camera – they appear stuck, forever enjoying themselves in the water, unaware that they are being watched like a goldfish in a bowl.

This post is part of a new series of exhibition reviews I write for the photomonitor.co.uk.

Boris Savelev, Speaking Lady, 1988

It is perhaps Boris Savelev’s first career as a scientist that makes his photographs look as if they don’t immediately fit into a history of representation. Born in Russia in 1947, Savelev chooses subjects which initially appear to be scattered, even accidental: the faint silhouette of a man riding on a street car, an elderly woman in a telephone box, the empty interior of a grubby looking garage. Drawn from a personal archive of negatives that spans a quarter of a century, Savelev’s photographs recently on display at the Michael Hoppen Gallery in London focus on observations he made in Chernowitz, his city of birth, and Moscow; while more recently he also photographed cities in Western Europe.

Boris Savelev, Pigeon, Chernowitz, 1988

Many of Savelev’s photographs include graffiti, scratched surfaces, crumbling walls, torn down posters and other markers of urban decay. Despite his apparently iconoclastic approach to image-making, the umbrella term ‘street photography’ might best describe the genre that Savelev is working in. Within the messiness and business of the street, Savelev’s photographs also allude to an overarching order. Most of the photographs on display are dark, subdued or even, in the true sense of the word, obscure.

Boris Savelev, Bus Driver, Chernowitz, 1987

It takes a while to actually discover that one of Savelev’s main subject matters are shadows. The long and straight shadows created by a burst of sunshine on an otherwise dark and moody day create a prominent pattern throughout the exhibition. The exhibition title, ‘Colour Constructions’, cleverly hints to constructivism as an aesthetic paradigm in Savelev’s work. Despite small bursts of colour, as a whole the photographs on display are surprisingly monochromatic. Using a rare and complex method of printing on to aluminum (multi-layered pigment prints on gesso coated aluminum), the large photographs turn quotidian objects into monuments.

Boris Savelev, Cakes, Moscow, 1987

Amongst the predominantly dark photographs, Savelev also displays a penchant for humour. As a reference to the scarcity of food during the Soviet era, Savelev photographed a rather pathetic looking display of cakes in the window of a bakery. The cakes are so small and few in the otherwise empty window that they are barely noticeable near the edge of the photograph. The title of the photograph ‘Cakes’, Moscow 1987 better describes the very absence of items one might expect to find at a bakery. As such, the photograph represents a particularly dry type of humour, perhaps enjoyed by Russians of an older generation who witnessed the slow and steady demise of their country towards the end of the Cold War.

Boris Savelev, Sun Basket, Chernowitz, 2011

Metaphors also seem to be a dominant trope in Savelev’s photographs. In ‘Sun Basket’, Chernowitz 2011, Savelev photographed a basketball hoop drenched in sunshine while the back- and foreground of the photograph characteristically remain in the shadow. The vibrant red of the basketball hoop, and the circular shape of the metal ring of the net are strongly reminiscent of the outline of the sickle on the flag of the former USSR. The height of the basketball hoop (an object usually associated with American culture) and the bright red colour clearly evoke the old flag as symbol for communism. The photograph, and perhaps Savelev’s body of work as a whole, is a comment on the schizophrenic political system in contemporary Russia: despite the wholehearted embrace of capitalism by the oligarchy, the country is still haunted by its troubled transition from two conflicting ideologies.

This post is part of a new series of exhibition reviews I write for the photomonitor.co.uk.