Reflecting upon this statement after a day of cultural absorption, I am left with the essential revelation that don't all plants move? Life by its nature is in a perpetual state of change. Growth and decay in equal measures. Understanding both of these elements of existence enables us to appreciate the beauty in everything.
Today, I attended Somerset House and the Photographers' Gallery with two companions who are not strangers to art. There are days when it is rewarding to absorb any and all influences. We talked of politics and of the nature of memory.
Memory is the key to growth and change. Why do we choose to accept one thing at the expense and loss of another thing? For me, the most powerful images of the day consist of children running through the water feature in the courtyard of Somerset House and the works of Alberto Garcia-Alix. His muscular arm and hand gripping a used condom in one photograph and his plastered arm holding a dead or injured bird in another photograph. Also the absurd moment when I tried to pay to get into the Photographers' Gallery, unaware that it is now free admission.
I see all expressions of creativity these days as moments of epiphany. The people with their mobiles capturing and fragmenting the ephemeral images in the Photographers' Gallery. Walter Benjamin would laugh if he saw how far his vision of diluted art had come (Actually, he spoke of how mechanical reproduction of art takes away the 'aura' of the original work but I like the idea of the equivalent of an art cordial, a watered down simulacrum of something pure, that is not necessarily poorer in quality, just different and reflective of the new creator). Reproductions of reproductions shared from person to person. The only true value left for the artistic artefact is truly in the eye of the beholder. How can such archaic notions of 'originality' still ring true when surely true art should celebrate movement over stasis? Should art be relegated to sterile galleries or venerated in the playgrounds and bedrooms of millions of eyes and perspectives?
I think that there is room for both, although the mediated distortion of a photograph taken through the lens of a mobile phone is recreating anew. Essentially depicting a creative reality far removed from the subject of the artist's original intent.
If I take your photograph, I am not attempting to capture you as you wish to be perceived but to reveal something of how I see you. Ultimately, all photography does is to dissect a moment. If it blurs, distorts or reveals how beautiful you are, it has succeeded in fulfilling the photographer's intent. How you interpret the image is of equal importance.
I took some photographs today but the images that remain most vivid are the ones in my mind with their emotional associations. The subtle, almost indefinable human movements that excite and stimulate, the curves of a smile and for some reason, the motif of clocks, which I encountered repeatedly throughout the day. Time reminding me of the goals I must still achieve and the finality I must for now continue to avoid. Transition requires forward momentum. If I haven't lost you then I haven't lost myself.
Barry Watt - Sunday 25th May 2014.
Afterword
The essay I am alluding to in this blog entry by Walter Benjamin is 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'. An edition of the essay is available from Penguin as part of their Penguin Great Ideas series (2008). I read it at university and the fact that it still resonates even though I don't have a copy to hand, means it must have influenced my thinking.
BW
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