Read and reflect upon the chapter on Diane Arbus in Singular Images: Essays on Remarkable Photographs by Sophie Howarth (2005, London: Tate Publishing).
This essay provided me with all the crucial elements I have learned in the Project 1 The language of photography.
At the very beginning Liz Jobey introduces intertextuality, saying that she thought that by looking at Arbus’s photographs she could find their counterparts in other art forms, for example in literature by Raymond Carver.
She then introduces what Barthes called a sign. Jobey raises the question about what she perceives in the family on the Arbus photograph and why she perceives it that way (signified). She provides us with a description of the visible elements (signifier), but continues with a subjective interpretation of the meaning behind the subjects’ posture (connotation).
Further on, we are presented with two different interpretations of the text (connotation) that accompanied the photograph for the magazine print. One made by the author (Diane Arbus) and the other by Peter Crookston, the magazine’s deputy editor, who modified Arbus’s comment about the couple without the photographer’s prior approval.
Later we are presented with the part from John Szarkowski written introduction of the show, where Arbus’s work was presented alongside Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand, saying ‘The portraits of Diane Arbus show that all of us – the most ordinary and the most exotic of us – are on closer scrutiny remarkable.’ (intertextuality, interpretation)
Furthermore, Jobey introduces Arbus’s famous portraits of the people ‘Freaks’. Analysing them (studium) Jobey raises the question of the nature of Arbus’s encounters, and the motivation behind them. Jobey states that in the case of Arbus, the distrust of the family facade was based in her personal experience (connotation).
Susan Sontag thought that Arbus ‘expresses a desire to violate her own innocence, to undermine her sense of being privileged, so [sic] vent her frustration at being safe.’ (connotation)
The essay ends with a comment that Arbus was part of a generation of liberal Americans that were casting doubt on post-war optimism, questioning ‘all-American’ values as an additional impact that influenced her work (interpretation).
I found this essay extremely useful because it made philosophical concepts clearer and more tangible. I see it as the basis for my next assignment.
Bibliography:
Jobey, Liz (s.d) PH4CAN Singular Images At: https://www.oca-student.com/resource-type/course-resource/ph4can-singular-images (Accessed on 20.11.16)
ivanradman 