Objectivity - A Subjective Invention Of Man
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
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| Molly Parker & Lynne Stopkewich |
Sometime in the early 70s I atended a lecture in Mexico City by Spanish/Mexican anthropologist Santiago Genovés. He had been part of Thor Heyerdahl’s Ra I and Ra II expeditions across the Atlantic. The lecture was interesting but most of all I will never forget a statement that Genovés made about the futility of historical objectivity by historians during and after historical events. Genovés said, “We must not forget that objectivity is a subjective invention by man.”
I watch CNN and MSNBC and read my daily NY Times and
Vancouver Sun always with that Genovés dictum in my mind.
But if you take the statement to a limit you cannot even
agree with any one other person if you both agree that a shade of red is
exactly the same between the two different pair of eyes.
My mother often told me, “Alex, you will never understand
because you will never be a mother.” And yet she could not understand my deep demonstrative
love to a scary alcoholic father (he was always sweet to me). It was only after
my mother died in the early 70s that it occurred to me that I had never thought
to tell her, “Mother you will never understand because you will never be a
father.”
But Plato and other philosophers postulated of pure ideals,
essences that had numerous material shadows of those essences in our human world,
one that became a sphere after centuries of having been flat.
I believe that one of the few aspects of our material world
that depends on that Platonic idea of an essence is the idea of pure art. I don’t
buy statements that “anything can be art” or “it is art if I say its art.” I
believe that somewhere inside of us lives an idea of that essence that is art.
As an old fashioned and obsolete (redundant, too) human
from the past century I avoid art exhibitions that mention the word
installation.
I remember and cringe a show at Emily Carr Institute of
Art (as it was called then) that featured in its lobby a full-scale replica of
a doctor’s waiting room complete with a stack of boring magazines. Could I buy
such an installation and hang it in my living room?
I also don’t buy anything (and I mean anything by) that
nude sartorial artist pair Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude.
I keep most of the ideas above to myself and I don’t rant
about what is art and what isn’t.
It is far more fun and better to use up one’s time
attempting to figure out what is in other people’s heads.
As an only child I never had brothers or sisters (until I
discovered I had a half brother at a Buenos Aires police Station in 1966). I
only had one grandparent, my grandmother and I enjoyed having a father for a
scarce and sparse 10 years of which the first few disappeared in my baby
memory.
I have two daughters. One of them has two daughters. My
wife has a sister. I often wonder about the relationship these people, dear to
me have for each other. How do you talk to your sister be it my wife, my
daughters or my granddaughters? Is there
anything I could learn from that sort of relationship? What am I missing out
on?
Proof that my interest in these matters can have a fruitful
result happened some years ago after I photographed actress (I am old-fashioned
and like using that word as well as aviatrix and dominatrix) Molly Parker and a
director (Parker made two films with her) Lynne Stopkewich. I noticed that they
seemed to have a special relationship based on the friendship between the two
women they were (and of course my mother would have added, “Alex, you will
never understand because…”. I asked them to come to my studio and that I would
attempt to capture (and a pre-digital use of that digital term is appropriate
here) that relationship.
We tried everything and nothing worked. I gave them a
rest. During the break they did something. I told them not to move and shot a
Polaroid. It was perfect. We all agreed. I then proceeded to repeat that very
shot with b+w film and with transparency (slide) film.
I cannot explain nor begin to understand what these two
women were able to share by the fact that they were women and friends. But I
can ascertain that my photographs do reveal a bit of that. And I can say with
some certainty that I am being objective.
Boot camp instincts
The metamorphosis of death and Kissed
Boot camp instincts
The metamorphosis of death and Kissed
