Day 2: Making It Up: Photographic Fictions

Whilst at the V&A today we had to visit Making It Up: Photographic Fictions display. The display was about photography being associated with trustfulness yet throughout its history photography has been used to depict a story rather than a true face. The display shows work from past and present photographers who use the camera to tell a story. Some use costumes and sets to create a narrative others use enigmatic frozen moments left for the viewer to depict.

Andy Wiener

No. 2: Childhood 

No. 4: As an Eligible Bachelor

No. 5: Meets his Match  

No. 6: The Marriage  

No. 8: Breakfast Scene

No. 9: Sometime After the Marriage

1959

I liked Andy Wieners collection of photographs as they  refer to William Hogarth's series of paintings, A Rake's Progress which are about the downfall of an extravagant, womanising 'rake'. I remember having to study William Hogarth and his A Rake's Progress in History of Art in AS in conjunction with our coursework, so by that I was instantly interested. 

William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress

All the figures in the Wiener's photographs wear a mask of the same face suggest the characters egotism. While Hogarth's rake end up in  a insane asylum, Wiener descends into madness in front of a tv which Wiener says 'corresponds to a modern Bedlam'

  

Wang Quingsong, Nigh Revels of Lao Li,2000

My attempt of a panorama photo!

Night Revel of Lao Li is a rework of The Night Revels of Han Xixai, a Chinese scroll painting from the 10th century. According to legend, the painting was made for the emperor by a court artist employed to spy on an official. In the photography the official is  portrayed by Li Xiantang, a Chinese art critic removed from his post in the 1980s for supporting experimental art. The photographer acts the part of the artist, observing each scene from the background. 

I was drawn to Qingsong's Night Revels of Lao Li as I liked how the photography was displayed on a long scroll with different scenes being narrated on. I also like how each display is just a continuous display from the one before. It reminds me of a scene that would be in a 80s action film where the camera would pan across the room from one opponent to the other dramatically. 

France Kearney,  Five People Thinking the Same Thing II, III and V, 1998

Five People Thinking the Same Thing II

Kearney's images seem to spontaneous snapshots, but they are meticulously staged. Clothes, expressions and posture are all contrived for the photograph, and the scenes are re-worked intil a sense of stillness is achieved. Kearney's figures convey a meditative quality, absorbed in what she has described as 'lost time'. They are caught at a moment of personal reflection, perhaps waiting for something to happen. 

I liked Kearney's photograph's especially Five People Thinking the Same Thing II (pictured above) purely for the stillness I really think Kearney has captured this. I also like the anonymous feel of part II as the elderly mans back is towards the viewer. It gets us to think why is he sitting in the bathroom playing with a piece of sting. I think the colours are also lovely in this photograph and I could see this being a hyper realistic painting.