Another cool kid white boy hanging in the slums yo.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
"The other aspect of this body of work is gender / racial dynamics represented by the imagery. Why is it un pc to take a beautiful European white girl dressed in beautiful European clothing into an area which is culturally unique, with its normally negatively presented landscape in a more beautiful and positive manner. I think I have taken an area which I saw beauty in and presented it in an visually appealing way. I am trying to show the beautiful side and that it is accessible to people besides from those that live there"
This 'work' is called Kayelitsha in Colour (really) and is by a Joburg based photographer called Chris Saunders. Read what he has to say about it here, though the above quotation pretty much sums up his lack of sensitivity, insight and intelligence. High five for using a "beautiful white girl" in "beautiful European clothes" to make Kayelitsha positive.
Speaking of vomiting in my mouth a bit, look what he has to say about female sexuality in South Africa's favourite 'youth' magazine. I was asked to show a woman having an orgasm, so I figured I'd put a mask on her so you can't see her face.
Awesome.
posted by Linda Stupart at 8:47 PM
26 Comments:
right on.
take no prisoners.
very glad to have your writing.
When Liberty Led The Masses not only was the order of things being overturned To Build a New World ...but The Old World was being ritually and viscerally Smashed, Spat-On, Disemboweled. Whole orders of domination, external and internal, were nullified (who thought forever?) in discharges of accumulated revenge.
This ARSEHOLE is, surely, living on (and IN) borrowed (stolen?) time.
for the record he also photographed a bunch of xander's exhibition
of course it is horrible linda you idiot, why are you even commenting on it??
its like commenting on a irma stern gallery or ava exhibition?? it is not proposing to be art? surely?
robert please stop having guest editors and just write your own material.
i am sorry
what's your gripe, anon of 4:58?
not enough sleep?
tetchy about what is art?
who is an artist?
please read Chris's websites and blogs. he seems to takes himself seriously. as did Irma Stern, I am sure. he collaborates with significant people. he is and has a voice. some of his work (of the little I have seen) annoys me, some of it doesn't.
thanks for the e.e. cummings reference. look ma no caps.
why is linda an "idiot". are you the vleis behind the face (or one of them) in her rogue's gallery work?
what were you up to at 4:58 am?
"Of course it is horrible linda you idiot, why are you even commenting on it??" Anon, 4:58
I think it is vital to keep talking about things that irk us. Silence, or even worse this kind of dismissive statement which implies that everybody "gets it already" gets nobody nothing.
What I'd like to show this photographer is that old Drum image of the woman posing with her pass book. Then we can talk about positivity.
Re. Anon, 4:58
Xander, as in Ferreira?
Hmmm... I think I may be starting to see a pattern here.
Though I can understand that maybe this Chris Saunders guy may not seem visible or influential enough to warrant a comment, I think he is part of a worrying trend (that includes Hugo and Ferriera and a few others) of young white, male South African artists playing with their coolkid aesthetics at the expense of Others.
And yes, surely, it is claiming to be art. In fact, Saunders uses great lines like "As an artist, I..."
While I'm mildly reassured that you find the horror in these images obvious, there are a lot of people, including actors in the South African artworld, who don't.
And they should.
And that, really, is the point.
P.S Thanks Mona.
Luckily, though, I find most of my vleis to be pleasantly un-bitter.
I am not so sure that I am convinced that his intentions and lack of insight are all you make it out to be. That said, I do think he is naive and inexperienced and, as a result, insulting. The guy needs guidence, not abuse. Calling him names and ridiculing him makes you part of the problem.
This guy is a chop...I bet he thought it was a super idea, cutting edge stuff...sort of like the way Ferreira thought he would jump on Vodacoms rickety bandwagon.
If its not bad enough that "Khayelitsha in Coulour" is all blue and Lightroomed to death, I dont even see or recognise it as Khayelitsh. He may as well have pushed off to Rio and done it there...
"A producer who lived in the township came with me on the shoot whom I paid,"
gosh, well done!
I this guy states he is an artist, he must expect a bit of kuk when he produces kuk...
Dear 2.12pm
Such a typical attitude of conservative white South Africans that they insist one should be GENTLE with people when confronting their racism and sexism. Lovely. "Look, dude, you and I are like buddies man and you're a real man, and I know a man has to like be a man's kind of man. So I really understand why you just had to rape that chick, she was really asking for it, but dude there are some okes who don't think it's so cool. So like buddy, you're totally right and everything and the world would fall apart if your fragile like ego was damaged in any way, but dude it is 2009 now and like...." Meanwhile, what about the people being abused?
Dear Charl,
I am not sure that I accept that there is or could ever be "a problem". On the other hand I don't have to passively digest the crap that is spewed out in front and around me. Simpler than that I cannot get.
That I find these images seriously bent is not my point. But to wonder"whose attention are these images hoping to secure, what is PILOTING this work, where is it coming from, where is it going and whose ideas (what ideas) inspire this labour?", these are things to think about while waiting for the next distraction to arrive.
I could say "shame", but all it got me last time around were big nails through the palms of my hands.
This guy, whether he knows it or not, is shooting fashion photography. You can't write about the joyous context-free world of fashion photography like you are a weighty documentary photographer, because you sound like a tit.
I think Linda might remember a bunch of problematic images which appeared in One Small Seed a little while back, shot by Richard Keppel-Smith? They were a fashion-shoot version of the narrative of a rape of a girl. This sort of issue (where someone from the fashion world inadvertently treads on some sort of taboo subject) will continue to repeat itself. But Keppel-Smith didn't write clumsily about the artistic merit of his photos. Or anything at all. Because he is a fashion photographer.
That I think is the problem; not so much the imagery (which obviously is problematic, but then so is loads of shite like this), but the way our friend Chris has decided (rather unfortunately) to write about it.
Chris, bro, if you want to attempt to insert yourself into the cannon of photography in South Africa, you could perhaps extend your reading list further than the nearest British Vogue.
Little death mask?
So you don't have to think about these issues if you're a fashion photographer? What kind of crap is that? The moment we step outside of fine art the problems disappear? They are ACTUAL PROBLEMS in the real world, not just things which fine artists think up to try and be deep. How shallow ARE you, mY God.
Jammer pop, ek moes die plaas verlaat, want ek missie disco ligte te veel...
As dit die plaas is wat mense dom hou en oulike probeer wees, verlaat die plaas.
Flaunting 'haute couture' with total disregard for what it must mean to the local community and way beyond is breathtaking.
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dear stefan.
watch what you saying. your stuff aint looking to good either.
Is fashion photography leading the way in South African art right now? Wouldn't surprise me. The situation is so difficult that probably the only ones who have anything to say are the ones who haven't thought about it that hard.
lINDA - YOU ARE RAD...
there seems to be agreement that this is bad work. what is perhaps more interesting and difficult would be to discuss in what way it is bad with relation to other local work which (superficially) shares some of its aspects( the appropriation of the terrain of the Dispossessed Other as 'Setting' in which to impose first world Glamour/Fashion/Style/Psycho Drama). In what way is such imposition different to the examination/incorporation of the local in the work of the better South African artists? Remember the controversy around J.M. Coetzee's "Disgrace", for instance, or Skotnes's "Miscast" ?
Good point. This is more obvious because it's white fashion (read flaunting white wealth in front of exoticised poor people). But I think there has been plenty of discussion on artheat in the past about Pippa Skotness (i.e that her work is patronising and presumptious and revolting). I think what is different about this discussion is this photography is eerily close to a current trend in fine art which is apparently very lucrative: high end documentary photography of the 'other'. So it's this 'current trend' which is of new interest I think, and the term somehow fails to evoke Pippa.
Photography is a robber, it steals and transforms reality. It's what you do with your robbery that is significant. Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is very Robin Hood. Stealing from the poor and giving it back to them is great, think the superb Iliso Labantu project. Stealing from the rich and giving to the rich is common practice. But stealing from the poor and giving to the rich just seems not on.
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"I don't care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right." P.T. Barnum
Thanks
Chris
Ja but 'kayelisha' is misspelt yo.
Yoh.
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