© MESSAGE OF HOPE Alfredo Jaar’s “Muxima,” an elegy to Angola and its people.

By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO
Published: November 4, 2007

I have always had my doubts about the ultimate purpose of political art. My skepticism stems from a feeling that there are more effective forums for the expression of outrage at social, political and humanitarian injustices than the quiet rooms of a museum.

But there is also something noble about artists who choose to put their creativity at the service of a cause. They know that their artwork is unlikely to appeal to a wide public, and that it will probably never sell, or at least only to a museum — if they are lucky.

One such artist is Alfredo Jaar, the Chilean-born, New York-based photographer and video artist. Now 51, Mr. Jaar has spent two decades making artwork that draws attention to the plight of the poor, dispossessed and hungry in the third world. Latin America was his initial focus, but more recently he has been drawn to Africa.

Three Africa-themed installations make up his latest exhibition in the gallery at the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University. It is a small but affecting show, starting with a conceptual piece dealing with the 1994 Rwandan genocide. There has been much done on this subject, but the message of the work is less about the genocide than about the world’s reaction to it. “Untitled (Newsweek)” presents a dozen or so framed Newsweek covers from April to August 1994, beneath each of which the artist has inscribed events in Rwanda that year. The dates coincide with the start of violence in Rwanda in April through to the first Newsweek cover on the genocide four months later, by which time millions of people were already dead from tribal warfare or displaced from their homes.

In Mr. Jaar’s work, Newsweek becomes everyman (or at least every media), and the work’s lingering question is the same as the one raised by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a 2004 speech to the Commission on Human Rights while observing the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda: “We must never forget our collective failure to protect at least 800,000 defenseless men, women and children who perished in Rwanda 10 years ago.”

The ethics of reporting on African atrocities is also the subject of “The Sound of Silence” (2006), a recent work that at first seems like nothing more than a PowerPoint presentation on the life of the South African photographer Kevin Carter. In a darkened room with benches, text descriptions of his life and work flash across the screen.

But about halfway through the eight-minute presentation a flash goes off, and Mr. Carter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a sick, starving child being stalked by a vulture appears onscreen. It is a chilling image, shot in the Sudan in 1993 and published in several newspapers, including The New York Times, to a storm of condemnation — Mr. Carter was accused of indifference to human life in pursuit of his shocking image. He subsequently committed suicide.

This work and the story it tells offer much to mull over, not the least of which is the relationship between the public responsibility of journalists and private ethics. Should Mr. Carter have immediately rescued the child, or was he right not to intervene, to look on and then get the best shot so that he could dramatize the plight of the starving in the Sudan? It is a difficult, torturous issue.

The final artwork in the exhibition, “Muxima” (2005), strikes a different note. It is subtle and poetic, portraying the modern history of Angola through alternate interpretations of a single popular folk song, the camera meandering through cities and towns, showing people going about their lives. It is an elegy to Angola, its people and culture. But it is also a message of hope: art endures, aligning responses to the world and deepening a sense of identity and community.

“Alfredo Jaar,” Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, 283 Washington Terrace, Middletown, through Dec. 2. Information: (860) 685-3355 or www.wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Last updated at 23:39pm on 27th September 2007

Kenji Nagai of APF news agency tries to continue taking photographs as he lies fatally injured

Kenjit, 52, was shot by soldiers as they charged the anti-government protesters

The Japanese journalist collapses dying as the armed police continue to charge on the crowd

These are the shocking images from Burma of a Japanese journalists as he lay dying after soldiers opened fire on thousands of anti-government protesters.
Kenji Nagai held his camera above his head to continue taking photos even as a soldier pointed a gun at his chest.
He was one of at least nine people who were killed when troops opened fire after ordering the protesters to move on. Another 11 were reported injured. (...)

Full Article on © Daily Mail

By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
Published: November 4, 2007

In this country, no doubt like in others, news about demonstrating monks in Myanmar has been reduced to a trickle, though here and there word leaks out of additional protests against military rule, and these reports find their way into the back pages of the newspapers.

But even at a trickle, that news ought to stir deep feelings in the United States, whose experience of Buddhist uprisings in Southeast Asia is rich, bitter and instructive.

I’m talking, of course, about the memory of Buddhist uprisings in South Vietnam that the Buddhist uprising in Myanmar inspires, the uprisings of the 1960s that powerfully unsettled public opinion and profoundly altered the politics of Vietnam.

There’s a lesson in the comparison between these two Buddhist entries into politics, and it’s not just about the politics of democracy in a dictatorship. The lesson resides in the fact that the news from Myanmar, which used to be called Burma, has been reduced to the aforementioned trickle, while, 40 and more years ago, the news from Vietnam exploded day after day in the headlines, thereby stirring the conscience of the world.

Or, put more accurately, they stirred the conscience of that part of the world that had a conscience to stir, and therein lies the lesson of the struggle in Myanmar. It has to do with the comparative advantage enjoyed by dictatorships in being able to stifle the flow of information, even in these days of electronic globalization.

The paradox is that protests are most effective in those places where there is actually less to protest about, and less effective where repression is so powerful that protest, especially the peaceful variety, has little effect.

Anybody old enough to remember the Vietnam War will remember that day in 1963: it was June 11 when newspapers around the world carried the shocking image of a 73 year-old monk named Thich Quang Duc sitting in the middle of a Saigon street and maintaining his rigidly erect lotus position even while his body was engulfed in flames.

It was an image that changed the United States and Vietnam forever, a stunning, shocking and, in its way, sublime protest against the heavy-handedness and tyrannical capriciousness of the regime led by Ngo Dinh Diem being supported with the blood of young American men. Among its consequences was the American decision a few months later to engineer a coup leading to Diem’s assassination, though the Buddhists continued to protest against later regimes as well, contributing to those governments’ weakness and instability.

A self-immolation that nobody knew about would have no effect, of course, but in South Vietnam a young American reporter for The Associated Press, Malcolm Browne, was on the scene that day, snapping away with the camera he always carried with him, winning a Pulitzer Prize and changing the course of history.

We know from William Prochnau’s excellent book of 1995, “Once Upon a Distant War,” that Mr. Browne was present at that historic moment because he had been tipped off in advance by the Buddhists’ clever and skillful press relations representative.

There have been, as far as we know, no self-immolations in Myanmar during the recent round of protests there, but what if there had been? Maybe there would have been photos of it, as there were of some other events, notably the killing by the army of a Japanese photographer, Kenji Nagai, that was flashed around the world on the Internet.

But no latter-day Malcolm Browne was in Myanmar during the recent protests, and that’s because the ruling junta has long barred most reporters from entering the country, even when conditions are more or less normal. The shooting of Mr. Nagai, in this sense, had both a symbolic and practical importance.

Moreover, after a few days, during which amateur photographers were able to put images of the Buddhist protest on the Web, the junta simply turning off the Internet. Since then there have been no more photos, and very little news.

In other words, Myanmar’s dictators quickly learned the lesson of the hazards of openness, and it’s a lesson whose importance is demonstrated over and over again. In his essay on Gandhi, George Orwell argued strenuously against Gandhi’s contention that his method of nonviolent resistance would be effective everyplace, including in Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany.

Operating brilliantly and bravely in the British context, trailed by reporters wherever he went, photographed by Margaret Bourke-White, Gandhi was able to move the British public, so that every time the government put him in prison, he gained a million more sympathizers in London and Liverpool.

But as Orwell pointed out, had there been a Soviet Gandhi, he would have been shot in the basement of Moscow’s Lubyanka prison long before anybody in the outside world had heard of him.

“The important point here is not so much that the British treated him forbearingly as that he was always able to command publicity,” Orwell wrote. Gandhi “believed in ‘arousing the world,’ which is only possible if the world gets a chance to hear what you are doing.”

The first thing a dictatorship does therefore is try to prevent the world from having that chance, though it doesn’t always succeed. When China, for example, opened up economically, it had to allow journalists into the country, and it paid a price for that when thousands of reporters were on hand to witness the crackdown on the Tiananmen protest movement in 1989.

But China still systematically prevents journalists from doing first-hand reporting in Tibet, with the result that its own repression of Buddhists there took place and takes place largely hidden from outside view.

In a way this is an argument in favor of engagement with dictatorships, since shunning them in a way plays into their hands. It makes it so much easier for them to keep their dirty deeds secret.

And that’s the difference between the Buddhist protests of four decades ago in Vietnam and those in Myanmar today. For Diem, tyrannical as he was, the presence of American reporters on June 11, 1963, was the price he paid for the American protection he needed, and, try as he did, he wasn’t able to keep anything under wraps for very long.

The junta in Myanmar understands that all too well.

The Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago

Polapan, 1973, from Ken Josephson portfolio, 1973/1975

New York State, 1970, from Ken Josephson portfolio, 1973/1975

New York State, 1970, from the series Images within Images, is one of Kenneth Josephson’s most famous photographs and aptly displays the sort of visual statement that inspires critics to classify his work as conceptual. In the photograph, Josephson’s arm stretches over a body of water and in his hand he holds a picture of a ship over the horizon. The boat in the picture is positioned in perspective to occupy the same space a full-sized ship in the distance would appear to take up if seen in that same spot. It is a clever illusion, yet constructed precisely to draw attention to its artifice. As with the René Magritte painting captioned “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” we are reminded that a picture of a boat, no matter how real it looks, is still not itself a boat. It would seem an easy lesson, the picture looking so two-dimensional and foreign when held up against the world, until one remembers that the entire image is a single photograph, just as flat and counterfeit as the image pictured within it. In a sublime twist, it is a photograph that assures us that we should question the veracity of photography.
Polopan, 1973 likewise plays with assumptions of the medium, but its dry humor is edgier. The jolt and jar of Polopan, 1973 begins with its emotionally-charged subject matter: a short skirt and beneath them bare legs, reclining against a sheet yet shot so frontally the woman seems almost to be standing, and resting on her skirt a Polaroid of a woman’s naked thighs and abdomen. The Polaroid is clearly lying on top of a woman’s skirt, yet the effect of this addition is reductive, acting like a window or a cut-away. The woman is clothed, but nonetheless revealed. The message is mixed, but not altogether ambiguous. Ultimately, it seems it is the photographer (whose powers seem to include x-ray vision) who is master, able to capture and make permanent at will; the subject unable to hide from the camera’s gaze. To add one more level of complexity in reading what is real and what is representation, a version of this photograph was later fixed onto a cloth skirt in Josephson’s multimedia assemblage Sally’s Skirt, 1973.
Kenneth Josephson was born on July 1, 1932 in Detroit, Michigan. He began making pictures with the family’s snapshot camera in 1944, and bought his own 4×5 view camera two years later. He earned a BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology (1957) where he studied under Minor White. In 1953 the army sent him to Germany where he was trained in photolithography and made prints of aerial reconnaissance. With the thesis “An Exploration of the Multiple Image,” he earned an MS from the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institue of Technology, Chicago (1960) where he was strongly influenced by Harry Callahan. Josephson was a professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1960 to 1997, and a founding member of the Society for Photographic Education. He is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship (1972) and two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships (1975 and 1979). His work is in the collections of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Art Instiute and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Bibliotéque National, Paris; and Foograficka Maseet, Stockhom.
- Kendra Greene
Goldberg, Vicki. “An Art Form Contemplates Its Navel With Extended Amusement,” The New York Times. March 2, 2001 B37.
Josephson, Kenneth, Kenneth Josephson: a retrospective / Sylvia Wolf, with an essay by Andy Grundberg and a chronology and interview by Stephanie Lipscomb. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1999.
Krantz, Claire Wolf. “Stole, Captured: Robert Heinecken, Kenneth Josephson.” New Art Examiner v. 27 no. 5 (February 2000) p. 32-7
Travis, David and Elizabeth Siegel, editors. Taken by Design: Photographs from the Institute of Design, 1937 – 1971. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago in association with The University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Du 15 au 18 novembre se tient au Carrousel du Louvre la 11ème édition de Paris Photo, un rendez-vous incontournable pour les collectionneurs de clichés anciens, modernes et contemporains. Pour l’occasion, 83 galeries seront réunis pour présenter leur sélection. En parallèle des maisons de ventes parisiennes, telles Piasa, Artcurial et Ader, en profitent pour orchestrer quelques vacations thématiques. De l’autre côté de la Manche, à Londres, les 12 et 13 novembre Sotheby’s et Christie’s présentent aussi quelques centaines de clichés. A cette occasion, Artprice dresse un bilan de l’un des secteurs les plus en vogue du marché.

Le marché de la photographie poursuit son exceptionnelle croissance. Sur tout juste 9 mois ce secteur affiche un produit de ventes de 75 millions d’euros en 2007 contre 65 millions d’euros un an auparavant. Néanmoins, avec dix mille clichés présentés sur ce laps de temps, la photographie ne représente encore aujourd’hui que 4,5% des transactions de Fine Art. Le marché reste concentré aux Etats-Unis. A New York s’est négocié 65% du produit des ventes du secteur réalisé sur 10 ans, avec 40% des lots. Suivent ensuite Londres (19% du produit des ventes) et Paris (9%).
Si l’offre reste encore limitée, c’est par ses performances en terme de valorisation que ce secteur brille. Ainsi, la photographie est bien le plus porteur des médiums, même à long terme. Entre 1990 et octobre 2007, la photographie affiche une hausse de +70%, contre +43% pour la sculpture, ou +15% pour la peinture. Pour autant, ce marché offre encore de nombreuses opportunités : 86% des lots sont adjugés moins de 10 000 €.

© Andreas Gursky - 99 cent

A la suite des récentes hausses des prix, les records se sont accumulés. En février dernier, Andreas Gursky a encore planté une enchère à 1,5 millions £ (2,27 millions d’€) chez Sortheby’s London pour «99 cent II», (2001), un record absolu pour un cliché, ou plutôt deux car l’œuvre se présente sous la forme d’un dyptique. Il est suivi par Edward Steichen (1879-1973), dont «The Pond, Moonlight» est la photographie moderne la plus chère du marché, avec une enchère de 2,6 millions de dollars, décrochée un an plus tôt ! En mai dernier, lors des ventes d’art contemporain, d’autres enchères millionnaires sont venues se greffer. Parmi les plus notables soulignons les 2,5 millions de dollars pour un «Cowboy» de Richard prince de 2001, les 1,85 millions de dollars pour Cindy Sherman avec «Untitled No.92», (1981) et les 1,65 millions de dollars pour un triptyque de Hiroshi Sugimoto intitulé «Black Sea, Ozuluce/Yellow Sea, Cheju/Red Sea, Safaga», (1991-1992). Si la photographie primitive fut fort médiatique jusqu’en 2003 avec le record de 700 000 € décroché par Joseph Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804-1892), aucun cliché du 19ème siècle n’a encore flirté avec le million de dollars. Seul de rarissimes portfolios y sont parvenus.

©The Pond—Moonlight (1904) is a pictorialist photograph by Edward Steichen.

© Hiroshi Sugimoto. Black Sea, Ozuluce/Yellow Sea, Cheju/Red Sea, Safaga. 1991-1992

©Cindy Sherman. Untitled no. 92

©Richard Prince. untitled (Cowboy), 1989

©Joseph Philibert GIRAULT DE PRANGEY (1804-1892). 113. Athènes, T(emple) de J(upiter) Olympien pris de l'Est». 1842

ArtPrice

From November 15-18, the Carousel du Louvre will be hosting the 11th Paris Photo, an essential event for collectors of vintage, modern and contemporary photos. On this occasion, 83 galleries will be presenting their selection. At the same time, Parisian auction houses like Piasa, Artcurial and Ader are organising various thematic sales. On the other side of the Channel in London, Sotheby’s and Christie’s are presenting a few hundred photos. This is the opportunity for Artprice to examine one of the most fashionable sectors on the market.

The photography market is still enjoying extraordinary growth. In only 9 months, this sector has racked up sales of EUR 75m in 2007 compared to 65m the year before. Nevertheless, with ten thousand images presented over this period, photography still only accounts for 4.5% of Fine Art transactions today. The market is still concentrated in the United States. Over the last 10 years, 65% of proceeds (40% of lots) were generated in New York. London was second (19% of proceeds) and Paris third (9%).
Supply is still limited but the sector stands out for high valuations. Photography is easily the highest growth medium, even over the long term. For example, between 1990 and October 2007, prices for photography rose 70%, compared to +43% for sculpture and +15% for painting. Even so, the market still offers many opportunities: 86% of lots went for less than €10,000.

© Andreas Gursky - 99 cent

Recent price rises have resulted in an increasing number of records being set. Last February, Andreas Gursky was honoured with a £1.5m bid (€2.27m) at Sotheby’s London for 99 cent II, (2001) an absolute record for a photo, or rather two as the work is a diptych. Then comes Edward Steichen (1879-1973) whose The Pond, Moonlight is the most expensive modern photo on the market, with a $2.6m bid a year earlier. Last May, during the contemporary art sales, other million dollar bids arrived. The most remarkable were $2.5m for a Cowboy by Richard Prince (2001), $1.85m for Cindy Sherman with Untitled No.92, (1981) and $1.65m for a Hiroshi Sugimoto triptych entitled Black Sea, Ozuluce/Yellow Sea, Cheju/Red Sea, Safaga, (1991-1992). Primitive photography was a media favourite up till 2003 with a record €700,000 paid for a photo by Joseph Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804-1892), but no 19th century image has come near the million dollar mark. Only very rare portfolios have managed that.

©The Pond—Moonlight (1904) is a pictorialist photograph by Edward Steichen.

© Hiroshi Sugimoto. Black Sea, Ozuluce/Yellow Sea, Cheju/Red Sea, Safaga. 1991-1992

©Cindy Sherman. Untitled no. 92

©Richard Prince. untitled (Cowboy), 1989

©Joseph Philibert GIRAULT DE PRANGEY (1804-1892). 113. Athènes, T(emple) de J(upiter) Olympien pris de l'Est». 1842

ArtPrice