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Ready Made Still Lifes / Iztok Hotko
The photographs from the series Ready Made Still Lifes were made in Brooklyn. The author took the motifs literally from the street or residential buildings of the New York (sub)urban area. The depicted buildings share a banal fact: they all have plastic flower arrangements functioning as a decorative element on their windowsills. The series is composed of many pairs of photographs, placed in contrasting juxtaposition. The smallest photograph of each pair, a drily descriptive photograph made in the simple snapshot technique, represents scenes from daily street life with residential buildings or various shops, while the other is a cut-out of that same motif, a close-up of the detail of artificial flowers on windowsills, still life that, despite being shot with a simple compact camera in the style of the amateur photography, functions as formally stylized, pictorial, decorative, studio-produced. From the photographs, not even from that half that represents the street with houses, it is not possible to tell clearly what kind of community lives in the photographed district of the otherwise extremely culturally heterogeneous Brooklyn. The common denominator – whether ethical, religious or economic – of the residents cannot be defined. However, it is evident that the author has not taken on the position of photographer-ethnographer, as it is symptomatic of contemporary documentary photography. Rather, he focused his attention elsewhere. In this project, Bojan Radovič deals with the phenomenon of photography at the level that appears to be one of the most neuralgic in today’s understanding of photography as artistic practice: he explores the status of a work of art and its value, while simultaneously questioning the traditions of minimalism, conceptualism and avantgardism in photography. High culture in the time of late capitalism is subject to a uniform semantic regime of formalism. Formalism is a neutralizing, universalistic system of reading, the only one able to bring all photographs of this world in one space, framing and selling them. In this context, photography becomes a mere commodified fetish, a privileged object of experts, reaching the ultimate semantic poverty (if this last has not been haunting it since ever). Ready Made Still Lifes are subject to ‘amateurization’ as Jeff Wall calls the explicit reductive methodology of photography. This last is most pronounced in the practice of Photo-conceptualism in which the photograph calls for its own withdrawal from the framework of art-photography through the agency, performance of the artist who is, as the so-called non-artist, nevertheless “compelled” to take photographs. However, these photographs lose the status of Image before the eyes of the audience – they seem wearisome and unimportant, yet only as such can they achieve the intellectual claims for the reductivism of Conceptual art. In terms of methodology, Radovič’s photographs meet the criteria of Photo-conceptualism, reevaluating and questioning it at the same time by way of estheticism and a pronounced sensuality of the motif. The strained relationship between art and consumable goods is, perhaps, manifested most clearly in the concept of the readymade which problematizes the esthetical value of a work of art. Readymade raises the question as of what is and what is not to be regarded art, alluding to the fact that in the context of capitalist society this value depends on the autonomy of the object, on its exclusion from the everyday world. Viewed retrospectively, this object has provoked two opposite readings of value. On the one hand, the work of art is defined as a commodity determined by the exchange value, and on the other, it can be understood as an object fit for use, therefore an object with a use value. This conflict of different forms of value is central to the critical ambiguity that readymade incites to think about with regard to the status of a work of art in the time of late capitalism. The capitalist exchange of goods is based on equality/equivalence. However, this exchange can be challenged, at least symbolically, in two ways. Firstly, by referring to a number of exchanges based on a different principle – on the ambivalence of the exchange of presents rather than on the equivalence of exchange of goods and, secondly, by provoking the economy of equivalence from the inside, through recoding of its commodity signs. One aspect of this strategy is the appropriation of signs of mass culture and is manifest in the practices of alternative culture that has played for a long time with signs pertaining to class, ethnicity, gender. Such a game is as well used in the art of appropriation which represents these signs differently, yet in the majority of cases mostly in contrast with the principles of high art. The second approach that can be detected in Radovič’s photographs of flower arrangements somehow alienates the commodification so as to evoke the ambivalence of surrealistic objects. The lost aura of a work of art is replaced by a false, artificial aura of a commodity (plastic flowers) – a paradoxical gesture, considering that it was precisely commodification that destroyed the artistic aura. The readymade has turned from a means of demystification of art to a mechanism of reinstatement of art. As a result, readymade is subverted, and commodity has taken the place of “allegorical mode of seeing”. The disavowal of traditional esthetics of a picture – in the name of amateurism, for example – must be seen as a claim to a new level of pictorial consciousness. Thus, artistically relevant photography is compelled to be both anti-esthetic and esthetically significant at one and the same time. Radovič’s depictions of plastic flowers point to the fact that it is the content of the avant-garde claims that is central in creating the demand for an estheticism which was, paradoxically, the object of critique by that same avant-garde. Recently, Radovič has been involved in the deconstruction of “art-photography”, digressing from the dominant formalistic paradigm of photography and unveiling its commodified, fe-tishistic inner nature. For this reason, Radovič’s photographs from the series Ready Made Stil Lifes can be defined as an implicit parodic critique of the concept of “artistic photography” as well as a critique of his own legitimacy. |
Ready Made Still Lifes / Iztok Hotko
Fotografije iz serije Ready Made Still Lifes so nastale v Brooklynu. Avtor je motive našel dobesedno na ulici oziroma na stanovanjskih hišah njujorškega (pred)mestnega okolja. Fotografirane zgradbe druži banalno dejstvo, da so na njihovih okenskih policah kot dekorativni element postavljeni plastični cvetlični aranžmaji. Cikel je sestavljen iz več parov fotografij, postavljenih v kontrastno jukstapozicijo, od katerih manjša v paru, suho deskriptivna fotografija, v preprosti snapshot tehniki, predstavlja vsakdanje ulične scene s stanovanjskimi hišami oziroma različnimi prodajalnami, druga pa prikazuje izrez istega motiva, povečavo detajla umetnih rož na okenskih policah, tihožitje, ki kljub dejstvu, da je tudi to posneto s preprosto kompaktno kamero v stilu ljubiteljske fotografije, deluje oblikovno stilizirano, piktorialno, dekorativno, studijsko sfabricirano. Iz fotografij, niti iz tiste polovice, ki prikazuje ulico s hišami, ni možno natančno razbrati, ka-tere vrste skupnost prebiva v upodobljeni mestni četrti, sicer kulturno izrazito heterogenega Brooklyna. Skupnega imenovalca prebivalcev teh hiš, najsibo etničnega, religioznega ali ekonomskega, ni mogoče določiti. Evidentno je, da avtor v tem projektu ni zavzel pozicije fotografa-etnografa, sicer običajne v sodobni dokumentarni fotografiji. Njegova pozornost je usmerjena v drugo smer. Bojan Radovič v tem projektu obravnava fenomen fotografije na ravni, ki se zdi v razumevanju fotografije kot umetniške prakse danes ena bolj nevralgičnih: sprašuje se o statusu umetniškega dela in o njegovi vrednosti, ob tem pa kritično preizprašuje tradicije minimalizma, konceptualizma in avantgardizma v fotografiji. Visoka kultura v času poznega kapitalizma je podvržena uniformnemu semantičnemu režimu formalizma. Formalizem je nevtralizirajoč, univerzalističen sistem branja. Samo formalizem ima sposobnost združiti vse fotografije tega sveta v enem prostoru, jih uokviriti in prodati. Fotografija v tem kontekstu postane zgolj komodificirani fetiš, privilegiran objekt poznavalcev in kot takšna doseže ultimativno semantično revščino (če je ta ne preganja že vse od njenih prvih začetkov). Ready Made Still Lifes so podvržene ‘amaterizaciji’, kot izrazito reduktivistično metodologijo fotografije poimenuje Jeff Wall. Ta se najradikalneje pokaže v praksi fotokonceptualizma, kjer fotografija zahteva lastni izstop iz okvira umetniške fotografije skozi umetnikovo delovanje, performans, ki je kot t.i. ne-umetnik, vseeno »prisiljen« fotografirati. Te fotografije pa izgubijo status Podobe pred očmi publike – zdijo se dolgočasne in nepomembne, toda le kot takšne lahko dosežejo intelektualne zahteve po reduktivizmu konceptualne umetnosti. Radovičeve fotografije metodološko zadostijo kriterijem fotokonceptualizma, obenem pa ga z esteticizmom in izrazito senzualnostjo motiva pervertirajo in postavljajo pod vprašaj. Napeti odnos med umetnostjo in potrošnim blagom se morda najbolj nazorno manifestira v konceptu readymada, ki problematizira estetsko vrednost umetniškega dela. Zastavlja namreč vprašanje o tem, kaj lahko vrednotimo kot umetnost in česa ne, ter namiguje na dejstvo, da je v kontekstu kapitalistične družbe ta vrednost odvisna od avtonomije objekta, od njegove izločitve iz vsakdanjega sveta. Gledano retrospektivno, je ta objekt spodbudil dve nasprotujoči si branji vrednosti. Po eni strani je umetniško delo definirano kot blago, opredeljeno z menjalno vrednostjo, po drugi strani pa je umetniško delo lahko razumljeno kot uporabni predmet, torej predmet z uporabno vrednostjo. Ta konflikt različnih oblik vrednosti je ključen v kritični dvoumnosti, ki jo readymade prinaša v premislek o statusu umetniškega dela v dobi poznega kapitalizma. Kapitalistična menjava dobrin temelji na enakovrednosti/ekvivalenci. Obstajata dva poglavitna načina, kako se ji, vsaj simbolno, lahko zoperstavimo. Prvi je, da se sklicujemo na vrsto menjave, ki temelji na drugačnem principu – na ambivalenci izmenjave daril namesto ekvivalenci menjave blaga. Druga strategija je, da izzovemo ekonomijo ekvivalence od znotraj, skozi rekodiranje njenih blagovnih znakov. En aspekt te strategije je prilaščanje znakov množične kulture in je viden v praksah alternativne kulture, ki se že dolgo igra z razrednimi, etničnimi, spolnimi znaki. Takšna igra se uporablja tudi v umetnosti apropriacije, ki te znake prestavlja na drugačen način, tudi ta pa večinoma v nasprotju z načeli visoke umetnosti. Drugi pristop, ki se kaže v Radovičevih fotografijah cvetličnih aranžmajev, pa na neki način odtujuje poblagovljenje na način, da evocira ambivalentnost nadrealističnih predmetov. Izgubljena avra umetniškega dela je nadomeščena z lažno, umetno avro potrošnega blaga (plastičnih rož) – paradoksalna poteza, upoštevajoč dejstvo, da je ravno poblagovljenje uničilo umetniško avro. Readymade je iz sredstva, ki demistificira umetnost postal mehanizem, ki umetniško delo zopet vzpostavlja. Readymade je s tem sprevrnjen in zdaj je blago tisto, ki zavzame mesto »alegoričnega načina videnja«. Zavrnitev tradicionalne estetike slike – v imenu ljubiteljskega amaterizma, na primer – je potrebno dojeti kot zahtevo po novi ravni slikovne zavesti. S tem je umetniško relevantna fotografija prisiljena postati anti-esteticistična in estetsko pomembna hkrati. Radovičeve upodobitve plastičnega cvetja kažejo na dejstvo, da je vsebina avantgardističnih zahtev samih bistvena pri zahtevi za estetskim, ki pa je bilo, paradoksalno, predmet kritike ta iste avantgarde. Avtorska drža Bojana Radoviča se v zadnjem obdobju giblje v polju dekonstrukcije »umetniške fotografije«. Izstopa iz dominantne formalistične paradigme fotografije in razgalja njeno komodificirano, fetišistično notranjo naravo. Radovičeve fotografije iz serije Ready Made Stil Lifes je zato moč označiti za implicitno parodično kritiko koncepta »umetniške fotografije« in kritiko lastne legitimnosti. |
