Rosler’s “In, around and afterthoughts (on documentary photography)

The 1981 essay ‘In, Around, and Afterthoughts (on Documentary Photography)’ by Martha Rosler, is a typically self-indulgent and rather inaccessible academic essay with rambling sentences without a clear structure. However, it is suggested reading for part 1 of the context and narrative course.

The essay discusses the objectivity of seemingly altruistic documentary photography, in particular the projects that seem to have the underlay propose to great a better life for it subjects by drawing the reader’s attention to their plight.

The essay starts discussing work centred on “The Bowery”the famously impoverished neighbourhood in southern Manhattan which is, as Rosler so delicately describes it “is an archetypal skid row.” (1981). However, she then goes on a travelogue of the whole genre of documentary photography highlighting it position as a medium of representation of social conscience of liberal sensitivity.

Rosler suggests that the purpose of the early documentaries by social reformer Jacob Riis were merely an argument to preserve the existing class privileges.

“Charity is an argument for the preservation of wealth […] an argument within a class about the need to give a little [charity] in order to mollify the dangerous classes below, an argument embedded in a matrix of Christian ethics” (Rosler, 1981)

And photography played into the hands of such reformists, was the power of the photography.

[..] the force of documentary surely derives in part from the fact that the images might be more decisively unsettling than the arguments enveloping them.

Essentially, Rosler is suggesting that the reformist and by extension documentary photographers were victimising their subjects for their own gain, no matter how altruist their intention seems on the surface.

Rosler draws the reader back to “The Bowery” and illustrates that the photographer is taking advantage of these victims while they are docile from drink and drugs, highlighting that should the photographer intrude on their lives whilst they are sober there would not be necessarily welcomed with open arms.

Rosler goes on that while photography has moved away from the reformist movement, documentary photography still exists and is playing to liberal society by laying out works on such themes as exoticism, tourism, voyeurism, psychologism and metaphysics, trophy hunting. In Rosler’s eyes it as a way of managing realty for the liberal elite.

“[…] documentary assuages any stirrings of conscience in its viewers the way scratching relieves an itch and simultaneously reassures them about their relative wealth and social position; especially the latter, now that even the veneer of social concern has dropped away from the upwardly mobile and comfortable social sectors.”

Rosler also discusses the idea that a documentary photograph has two moments:

the capturing of the actual moment, with its purpose to shine a spotlight on a particular issue, whether that be disaster, poverty or a disappearing way of life.
the longer term “aesthetic rightness, or well-formedness…. of the image”.

Is it attractive enough to stand the test of time as a piece of visual art, regardless of the story it tells? As time goes on, the initial reason for taking the photograph might have disappeared, but if it is a good image, it may stand the test of time, Afgan Girl by Steve McCurry example.

Once the essay is penetrated to pull out these ideas I lay with unease in my mind – do I as a photographer set out to victimise the people I see here on the street of Hong Kong to instil a degree of sympathy from the viewer there for gain more likes on Instagram and Facebook.

It true that at the time of writing of the essay (1981) there was a bit of a star quality to photographers, Don McCullin, Dorothea Lange, Diane Arbus and earlier Robert Capa were as much the story as their images. Rosler’s in the essay illustrates the exploitation of the “mud men of New Guinea” to sell (unrelated?) Canadian Club whisky and I have always personally felt as unease with the work of Diane Arbus as feels a like the trophy hunting of people who are different. Although, Arbus along with Winogrand, and Friedlander are cited as some of the photographers who have changed how documentary is perceived.

Is documentary a grim as some of the uncomfortable ideas in Rosler’s essays and designed just to mark the left-leaning Guardian readership feel better about themselves. I doubt it, no doubt there will be exploitation in the context and narrative – think of the shots on the envelopes and adverts of charities such as Oxfam and Christian Aid. However, I think how thing have progressed now is best summed up by John Szarkowsi, Director of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, this new generation of documentarist photographers:

“has directed the documentary approach toward more personal ends. Their aim has not been to reform life, but to know it”.

Bibliography

En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Bowery. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowery [Accessed 18 Jan. 2018].

En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Martha Rosler. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Rosler [Accessed 18 Jan. 2018].

YouTube. (2010). Aperture Foundation at The New School: Documentary Photography. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6nTXZKoggQ [Accessed 18 Jan. 2018].

Rosler, M. (1981). Rosler_photo.pdf. [online] Web.pdx.edu. Available at: http://web.pdx.edu/~vcc/Seminar/Rosler_photo.pdf [Accessed 18 Jan. 2018].