krauss - a note on photography and the simulacral

7/27/2019 Krauss - A Note on Photography and the Simulacral

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A Note on Photographyand theSimulacral*

ROSALIND KRAUSS

In 1983 French television aunched Uneminuteourune mage, programconceived and directedby AgnesVarda. True to its title heshow asted ust oneminute,duringwhichtime a singlephotographwas projectedonto the screenand a voice-overcommentarywas spoken.The sourcesofthesereactionstothegivenphotographvaried enormously fromphotographers hemselves owrit-ers like Eugene Ionesco and MargueriteDuras, or politicalfigures ikeDanielCohn-Bendit,or artcritics uch as PierreSchneider to a rangeofrespondentsthat one could call the man-on-the-street: akers, taxi drivers,workers n a

pizza parlor,businessmen.

This verygathering fresponsefrom wide spectrumofviewers, nclud-ing those who have no special expertisein eitherphotographyor the rest ofwhat could be called the cognate visual arts, in itsresemblanceto an opinionpoll and its insistenceon photography s a vehicle fortheexpressionofpublicreaction- thistechniquewas a continuation,whether ntentionalor not, ofacertain tradition n France ofunderstandingphotography hrough hemethodsofsociology,and insisting hatthis s theonlycoherentway ofconsidering t.This traditionfinds tsmost lucid presentation n the work of the sociologistPierreBourdieu, who twentyyearsago publishedhis studyUn Artmoyen.his

titleuses the notionofmoyen,rmiddle,toinvoketheaesthetic imension fbothmiddling r fair s a stagebetweengood and bad, and tomean midwaybetweenhigh art and popular culture; it also employs moyeno call up the sociologicaldimensionsofmiddle class as well as distributedmiddle or statistical verage.Butbefore ooking ntoBourdieu'sargument bout this rtfor heaverageman,itmightbe well to examine a few amplesofVarda's photographic howcase,towhichpublic responsewas vigorousenough to warrant a morning-afterubli-cation in Liberation, here each day following hetransmission hephotographwas reproduced,its commentaryforming n extendedcaption.

* A version f his ssaywasdelivereds thekeynoteddress or heNationalConference ftheSociety orPhotographicducation nPhiladelphia,March1983.

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Here, for xample, is a photographer's esponse,as Martine Frank com-

ments on a 1958 image by Marc Riboud:Are these workers from a camera factorywho have been sent toamuse themselves n the country; s this a photo contest;or is it a

photography lass? I can't tell. In fact, s a photographer, have al-

waysbeen intrigued ythis mage and struck ythe fact hat amidstall these men there s not a singlewomantaking picture.What'sin-

terestingn thisphotois that tputsthewhole idea ofphotographictalent ntoquestionbecause in the end all thesephotographers indthemselves n thesame place, at thesame moment,under the same

light,beforethe same subject,and one could say thattheyall wantto make the same photo. Yet, even so, among these hundreds of

photosperhaps there will be one or two good ones.








52 OCTOBER

uh... don'tgo anyfurther.., staythere,uh, therewhereyou are.

At first didn't understand. The man, in theend, I think hat,yes,it's a man at therightwho is in drag, with his littlefinger ifted s

thoughhe weredrinking cup of tea. It'sverydisturbing.By chanceI came across thepuddle ofwater that is one ofthemostluminousmomentsofthisphoto, brighter han all therestofthisview thathas

something o oppressiveand fearful bout it. It'sreallytheabyss,the

pits, it's ...

In theLiberationersionofCohn-Bendit'sresponse,his comments brokeoffwith this ast "it's," his ast attempt o say what it is thathe's lookingat, a

last, thoughobviouslynot a final term to a potentially ndless listofpossiblesubjects,for hisone-minute ommentary ontained sevencandidatesforwhat"it" s.

That, ofcourse,does notdistinguishhe natureofCohn-Bendit'sreactionsfrom hoseofMargueriteDuras, who forherpartenunciatedeightpossibilitiesforthe identity f her subject. Nor does itdiffer enericallyfrom heway the

photographerMartine Frank approached her image, again beginningwithan

attemptto specifythe subject beforebreakinginto a slightreflection n the

problemthatso many shutterbugsn the same place mightraise forthe aes-thetic tatusofphotography.Butwhatis strikingnherbriefmeditation s that

it remains in the transparent,behind-the-surfacepace of "it's an x or a y"-because her little ough ofphotocriticisms reallya speculationon thephoto-graphsthatone or anotherof theseeagermenmightmake rather hana picto-rial, aesthetic onsideration hat reflects n the success ofthevery mage she isnow lookingat, and reflectss well on itscapacityto account for tsown struc-tural conditions.This commentarybymeans of"it's"- in theveryprimitivismofits characteras aestheticdiscourse-is, not surprisingly,ven morepresentin theresponsefrom he men on the street.

Thus an industrialistommented n an imageof Marie-Paule N'egre akenin theLuxembourg Gardens in 1979, a photographthat,to say thevery east,

uses the conditionsof atmosphereand place to reconstitute he limitationsofsurfaceand framewithin hespace ofthephotographic ubject. The business-man's remarkshave a certainmonotonous relation to what one has alreadywitnessed:

It's the arrival of a train, it's the arrival of a train in a dream, awoman waitsfor omeone and obviouslymakes a mistake about the

person; theman she was waitingforobviously s . . . he isn't n theshot,he has aged, and shewas waitingfor omeone muchyounger,more brilliant han the ittlefellowwe see there . . She dreams andin herdream she is also muchyounger, t the time when herfeelingsdeveloped as shewould have likedto recoverthemthere,now. It's adream thatdoesn't work out.








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And finally, ere is a botanist ommenting n a recent magebyEdouard

Boubat, an homage to the Douanier Rousseau, whichspecificallyonstructsrelationshipbetweenphotography nd paintingbased on imitation:

In front fthistree,which is obviouslya quinqueliba, the Crotonsare ofthefamilyCrotonTiglium, and in the back you have Cecilialeaves whichwould ead one to the dea thatthe woman is called that;it'sa verybeautifulwomanfromwhat one can see. She is alone. Sheis cold because she is on a marble slab and she is filledwithanxietyby all thisvegetation hatrunsriotand could possiblythreatenher,submergeher,coverherover,such that she seemsto look forrefuge

in thiskind of vault that she glimpses nto and staresat.In fact,within ll thismonotony fapproachto,or udgmentof,thephoto-

graphicobjectbymeans of"it's," n a potentially ndlesstaxonomyofsubjects,the one notableexception s thecommentary ftheart criticPierre Schneider.

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Photographyndthe imulacral 55

Speaking ofa workby Francois Hers, he said:

The wallpaper mural, with its motifof repeated flowers hat onefinds,for xample, in hotelrooms, is an instantproducerofinsom-nia. When I look at the decorationsof this roomI say tomyself hatall this,covered overby fabricprintedwitha repetitive, ecorativemotif, ecomes surface;that s, ifyou take thepaintingsbyMatissefrom he 1920swhere he paints many interiorsn perspective,with

heavy pieces of furniture ompletelymodeled in threedimensions,well, theirvolumedisappears and thepicturebecomes a play ofcol-oredsurfaces hatbreathebecause Matisse knowshowtomake them

breathe.This notionthatthedepictedobject mightbe nothingbut a pretext or he

accomplishmentof a formal dea-here, the play of colored surfaces-is, ofcourse, second natureto the critic fmodernist rt,and so, as thoughby a re-

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56 OCTOBER

flexresponse, Pierre Schneider has recourse to this type of experience of a

visual field n terms f tsformal rder wheninterrogatinghephotograph.Butwhether hismakeshis interrogation nymorelegitimate han theother,more

possiblyprimitive esponses the udgments accordingto "it's"- is a questionto which we will have to return.

It is the thesis of Pierre Bourdieu thatphotographicdiscoursecan neverbe properly esthetic, hat s, can have no aesthetic riteriaproperto itself, nd

that, n fact,themostcommonphotographic udgment is not about value butabout identity,being a judgment that reads things generically;that figuresreality n termsof what sortofthingan x or a y is thus therepetitious udg-ments in termsof "it's a so-and-so" thatemergefromtheVarda experiment.When the udgment backs up farenough to encompass the photographas awhole and not ust itsseparate components, hen theassignment r udgmentis

commonly by genre. "It's a landscape," "it'sa nude," "it's a portrait."But, ofcourse, a judgmentofgenre s completely ransparent o thephotograph'srep-resentedobjects. Ifa photographbelongsto thetype andscaperportrait,hat sbecause the reading of its contents allows it to be recognizedand classed bytype.And it s thenatureof thesetypes accordingtoBourdieu's assessmentof

photographicpractice to be ruled by the rigidconstraints fthe stereotype.The experience fphotographynterms f thestereotypical-which swhat

the "it's" udgment involves is maintained almost withoutexceptionamongthe lower and less well-educatedclasses, whetherurban or rural. Bourdieu'sanalysis,whichbegins by askingthequestion, "Why s photographywithin urcultureso fantasticallywidespread a practice?"proceeds to theunderstandingthatphotography s an artmoyen, practicecarriedout by the average man,mustbe definednterms f ts socialfunctions. hese functions e sees as whollyconnectedto the structure f the family n a modernworld,withthe familyphotograph n indexorproof ffamily nity, nd, at thesame time,an instru-mentor tool to effect hatunity.

Simplyput, familieswith childrenhave cameras; single people, typically,do not. The camera is hauled out to documentfamily eunionsand vacations

ortrips. tsplace is within heritualized cultofdomesticity,nd it s trainedonthosemomentsthat are sacredwithinthatcult: weddings,christenings,nni-versaries,and so forth.The camera is a tool that s treatedas though t were

merely herepassivelyto document,to recordtheobjectivefactoffamily nte-

gration.But itis, ofcourse,moreactivethan that. The photographic ecord s

partof thepointof thesefamilygatherings; t is an agent in the collectivefan-

tasyoffamily ohesion, and in that ense the camera is a projective ool,partofthe theaterthatthe family onstructs o convince itself hat t is together ndwhole. "Photographytself,"Bourdieu writes, is most frequently othingbutthereproductionf the image that a group produces of its own integration."'I

1. Pierre Bourdieu, Un Artmoyen,aris, Editions de Minuit, 1965, p. 48.








Photographynd the imulacral 57

From this conclusion Bourdieu naturallygoes on to discredit ny notion

ofphotographicobjectivity. f thephotographic mage is consideredto be ob-jective, thatdesignationoccurs withinan entirely autologicalor circularcon-dition: the societal need to definesomething s fact eads to the insistenceontheutterly bjectivefactuality fthe recordthat s made. But, says Bourdieu,"In stamping photographywith thepatentofrealism,societydoes nothingbutconfirm tselfn thetautological certainty hat n imageofreality hatconformsto its own representation fobjectivity s trulyobjective."2

Given the narrow social functions hatbothpromoteand radically imitthephotographicpracticeofthe commonman, theresult s an insistent tereo-typing fbothphotographic ubjectsand theway they re rendered.The pho-tographic subject, the thingdeemed worthyof being recorded, is extremelylimited and repetitive. ts disposition s equally so. Frontality nd centering,withtheirbanishingofall signsoftemporality r contingency, re theformalnorms. Bourdieu continues:

The purpose of a trip like the honeymoon) lends solemnity o theplaces passed throughand the most solemn among themlends so-lemnity othepurposeofthetrip.The truly uccessfulhoneymoon sthecouple photographed nfront fthe Eiffel ower because Paris isthe Eiffel ower and because thereal honeymoon s thehoneymoon

in Paris. One ofthese[honeymoon]pictures n the collectionofJ.B.is splitright ownthemiddlebythe Eiffel ower; at thefoot sJ. B.'swife.Whatmight trike s as barbarous or cruel s in fact heperfectcarrying ut of an intention.3

And Bourdieu muses, "Conscious or unconscious?Of all thephotos, this andanotherrepresenting hecouple in front ftheArch ofTriumph are their u-thor'sfavorites."

Stereotypyends to thispracticea quality of allegoryor ideogram. Theenvironment s purely symbolic,withall individualor circumstantial eaturesrelegatedtothebackground."InJ. B.'s collection," emarksBourdieu,

"nothingis left fParis exceptatemporalsigns; itis a Paris withouthistory,withoutPa-risians,unless accidentally, n short,withoutevents."5

To all ofthose who are interestedn seriousor artphotography reven inthehistoryof photographywithits cast of "greatphotographers,"Bourdieu'sanalysisofthephotographic ctivity fthecommonman mustseem extremelyremote. What canJ.B.'s inepthoneymoonsnapshots,no matterhow amusingtheir nadvertent layofsexual symbolism, ave todo with eriousphotographic

2. Ibid.,p. 113.

3. Ibid.,p. 60.4. Ibid.,p. 60, n. 34.5. Ibid.,p. 61.








58 OCTOBER

practice?6 But this spreciselywhereBourdieu'ssociologicalapproachbecomes

somewhat morepainful,because it starts o cut closer to home. Sociologicallyspeaking,Bourdieu claims, photography ills notherfunction,namelythat ofa social index. The ubiquitouspracticeofthese hickswiththeir nstamaticsbe-comes an indicatorofclassorcasteagainstwhichmembersofother lasses reactin order to mark themselves as different. ne of theways ofexpressingthisdifferences toabstain from akingpictures;another s to identifyneselfwithspecial kind ofphotographicpracticewhichis thoughtofas different. ut thenotion that there s reallyan artphotography s opposed to a primitive hotog-raphyofcommonusage is,forBourdieu,merely heextensionoftheexpressionof social distinctions.His feeling hat rtphotography's ifferences a sociologi-cal effectather hanan aestheticreality temsfromhis conviction hatphotog-raphyhas no aestheticnormsproperto itself; hat tborrows ts cache from heart movementswithwhichvarious seriousphotographers ssociate themselves;that tborrowscertain estheticnotionsfrom heother rts as

well--notions ike

expressiveness,originality, ingularity, nd so forth- but that these notionsare utterlyncoherentwithinwhatpurports o be the criticaldiscourse ofpho-tography;and that,finally,mostphotographicdiscourseis not inherently if-ferentfromthe udgment of the common man with his Instamatic. They re-duce, on the one hand, to a set oftechnical rules about framing,focus,tonalvalues, and so on, that are in the end purely arbitrary, nd, on the otherhand,to a discussionofgenre,whichis to say the udgment"it'san x or a y." AgnesVarda's experimentdoes nothing,ofcourse, to disproveall of this.

Bourdieu's insistence hatphotographicdiscourseborrowstheconceptsofthehigharts in vain-because thatborrowingonlyleads to conceptualconfu-sion- is confirmedby the intellectual discomfort hat is provoked by PierreSchneider'scomparisonof theFrangoisHers phototoMatisse's painting.AndBourdieu analyzes the various aestheticunitiesofthe other artstodemonstratethat the mechanical nature of photographymakes them inapplicable. The

specterraised by Martine Frank thatthosehundreds ofJapanese men will infactmake hundreds of dentical

mages,insofar s it s a theoretical

ossibility,explodes thegroundson whichtheremightbe constructed conceptofphoto-graphic originality nd, forBourdieu, reduces all critical discussionsof suchoriginalityn thephotographymagazines to mere cant.

Photography's echnical existence as a multiplethus oins the theoretical

possibility hatall imagestaken of the same objectcould end up beingthe same

6. Roland Barthes expresses irritationwith Bourdieu's approach, denying ts egitimacy s ameans of discussing the nature of photography,but simultaneously denying the alternativeofaestheticcategories: "What did I care about the rules ofcompositionof thephotographic and-scape, or, at the otherend, about thePhotographas family ite? . . another, ouder voice urged

me to dismiss such sociological commentary; ooking at certain photographs, wanted to be aprimitive,without ulture" Roland Barthes, Camera ucida, trans. Richard Howard, New York,Hill and Wang, 1981).









image and thuspartakeof sheerrepetition.Togethertheseforms fmultiplicity

cutdeeply againstthenotion oforiginality s an aesthetic ondition vailable tophotographicpractice.Within theaestheticuniverseofdifferentiation whichis to say: "this s good, this s bad, this, in its absolute originality,s differentfrom hat"- within hisuniversephotography aises thespecterofnondifferen-tiation t the evel ofqualitativedifferencend introduces nstead theconditionofa merelyquantitative arrayofdifferences,s in a series. The possibility faestheticdifferences collapsed fromwithin, nd theoriginality hat s depen-dent on thisidea ofdifferenceollapses with t.

Now, thisvery xperience fthecollapseof differenceas had an enormousimpacton a segmentof theveryartisticpracticethat s supposed to occupy an

aestheticposition separatefrom hatofphotography: he world ofpaintingandsculpture.For contemporary aintingand sculpturehas experiencedphotogra-phy's travesty f the deas oforiginality, r subjectiveexpressiveness,orformal

singularity,not as a failedversionofthesevalues, but as a denial oftheverysystemofdifference y which these values can be thought t all. By exposingthemultiplicity,hefacticity,herepetition nd stereotype t theheart ofeveryaestheticgesture,photography econstructs hepossibility fdifferentiatinge-tween the original and the copy, the first dea and its slavish imitators.Thepracticeofthemultiple,whetherone speaks ofthehundreds ofprintspulledfrom the same negative or the hundreds of fundamentally ndistinguishablephotographs hatcould be made by theJapanese men thispracticehas beenunderstoodbycertain artists s not ust a degradedorbad form f theaestheticoriginal. It has been takento undermine theverydistinction etweenoriginaland copy.

From contemporarypractice an obvious example would be the work ofCindy Sherman. A concatenation ofstereotypes, he mages reproducewhat isalreadya reproduction- that s, the various stockpersonae thatare generatedby Hollywood scenarios,TV soap operas, Harlequin Romances, and slickad-vertising.And ifthesubjectofherimages is thisflattened, ardboard imitationofcharacter,herexecution s no less preordainedand controlledbythecultur-ally already-given.One is constantly onfronted y formal onditions thataretheresultsof nstitutional ecipes: themovie stillwith tsanecdotal suggestive-ness, or the advertising mage with tshopped-up lighting nd itsformatdic-tatedby therequirementsofpage layout.

That Sherman is both subject and object ofthese images is important otheirconceptual coherence. For theplay ofstereotypen herwork s a revela-tion ofthe artistherself s stereotypical. t functions s a refusaltounderstandtheartist s a source oforiginality, fountofsubjectiveresponse,a conditionofcriticaldistancefrom worldwhich tconfronts ut ofwhich tis nota part.The inwardnessofthe artist s a reserveofconsciousness that s fundamentallydifferentrom he worldofappearances is a basic premiseofWesternart. It isthefundamentaldifferencenwhich all otherdifferencesre based. IfSherman








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62 OCTOBER

were photographing model who was not herself, hen herwork would be a

continuationofthis notionof the artist s a consciousnesswhich s both ante-rior to the worldand distinct rom t, a consciousness thatknows the worldbyjudging it. In that case we would simply ay thatSherman was constructingcriticalparodyof the forms f mass culture.

With thistotalcollapse ofdifference,hisradical implosion,one finds ne-selfentering he world of the simulacrum a worldwhere, as in Plato's cave,thepossibility fdistinguishing etweenreality nd phantasm,between the ac-tual and the simulated, is denied. Discussing Plato's dread ofthe simulacral,Gilles Deleuze argues that theverywork ofdistinction nd thequestionof howit s tobe carried out characterizes he entireprojectofPlato'sphilosophy.7For

Plato, differences not a matter fclassification, fproperly eparatingout thevarious objects of the real world into genus and species, forexample, but ofknowingwhich oftheseobjectsare truecopiesofthe deal Formsand which areso infinitely egraded as to be false. Everything, fcourse, is a copy; but thetruecopy the valid imitation is that which s truly esemblant,copyingtheinner dea of the form nd not ust itsempty hell. The Christianmetaphorre-hearses this distinction:God made man in his own image and therefore t the

originman was a truecopy; afterman's fall nto sin this nnerresemblancetoGod was broken,and man became a false copy, a simulacrum.

But, Deleuze remindsus, no sooner does Plato think hesimulacrum, n

theSophist or xample, than he realizesthatthevery dea ofthe falsecopy putsinto question the whole projectofdifferentiation,f the separationofmodelfrom mitation.For the falsecopy is a paradox thatopens a terrible iftwithinthevery possibility fbeing able to tell truefromnot-true.The whole idea ofthecopy is that t be resemblant, hat t ncarnatethe dea of dentity thatthe

just man resembleJustice byvirtueofbeing ust- and in termsof this dentitythat tseparate itself rom hecondition of njustice.Within thissystem, epa-rationsare tobe made betweenterms n thebasis oftheparticular onditionofinner resemblanceto a form.But the notion of thefalsecopy turns this whole

process nsideout. The falsecopytakes the dea ofdifferencernonresemblanceand internalizes t, setting tup within hegiven object as itsveryconditionofbeing. Ifthe simulacrumresemblesanything, t s the dea ofnonresemblance.Thus a labyrinths erected, hall ofmirrors,withinwhich no independentper-spective an be establishedfromwhichto makedistinctions- because all ofreal-

ityhas now internalized hose distinctions.The labyrinth, he hall ofmirrors,is, in short,a cave.

Much of thewriting fpoststructuralism,n itsunderstanding f the Realas merelythe effect f simulated resemblance, follows Nietzsche's attack on

7. See Gilles Deleuze, Logiquedusens, aris, Editions de Minuit, 1969, pp. 292-307. This sec-tionon Plato appears in English as "Plato and theSimulacrum," trans.Rosalind Krauss, October,no. 27 (Winter 1983), pp. 45-56.








Photographynd the imulacral 63

Platonismin whichhe insisted that there s no exitfrom hiscave, exceptinto

an even deeper, more labyrinthine ne. We are surrounded, t is argued, notby realitybut by the realityeffect,he productof simulation and signs.

As I have said, at a certainpointphotography,n itsprecarious positionasthefalsecopy theimage that s resemblantonlybymechanical circumstanceand notby internal,essential connection to themodel- this falsecopy servedtodeconstruct he whole system f model and copy,originaland fake,first- nd

second-degreereplication.For certainartistsand criticsphotographyopenedthe closed unitiesof the older aesthetic discourse to theseverestpossible scru-

tiny, urning hem nside out. Given itspowerto do this-to put intoquestionthewhole conceptof theuniqueness oftheartobject, theoriginality fitsau-

thor,thecoherence ofthe oeuvre withinwhich t smade, and the ndividualityofso-called self-expression- giventhispower, it is clear that,with all due re-

spectto Bourdieu, there s a discoursepropertophotography;only,we wouldhave to add, it is not an aestheticdiscourse. It is a projectofdeconstructionnwhich art is distanced and separated from tself.

IfSherman'sworkgivesus an idea of what it ooks liketo engage thepho-tographic imulacrum norder toexplode theunitiesofart,wemight hoose anexample from erious"art"photography olook at the reverse ituation theat-temptto burythequestionof thesimulacrum n order to produce the effect fart,a move that almostinevitablybringsabout the return f therepressed.Asone ofmany possibleexamples, one might ook at a recent eriesofstill ifesbyIrvingPenn throughwhich thedomain ofhighart s self-consciouslyvokedbycallingon the variousemblemata of thevanitas ictureor thememento ori-thesculls, the desiccatedfruit, hebrokenobjectsthat all function s reminders fthe swift light ftimetowardsdeath.

But beyond this iconographic systemthat is copied from the world ofRenaissance and baroque painting-and one has theright oask ifthis s a trueora falsecopy there s anotheraspectoftheaesthetic ystem hatPenn wishesto annex forphotography, r at least for hisphotography.This is thecombinedaspect ofrarity nd

uniquenessthat a

pictorialoriginalsthought

opossess

inthefirst egree and a printmade after hepaintingwould possess only n a de-graded second degree.Again one is confrontedwiththequestionofwhether rnot Penn's strategy or cquiring thesequalities only produces a simulation ofthem. His strategynvolves heproduction fopulent platinum mages,contact-printedfromhuge negatives.The platinum,with tsinfinite ineness fdetail,providesthe sense ofrarity; nd theprocessofcontact-printing, ith tsunme-diated connection betweenplate and paper, gives the worka sense ofunique-ness not unlikethatpossessedbythephotogram,whichthen mpliesthefurthersystemofuniqueness ofthe arts ofpaintingand drawing.

In orderto obtainthe sizenegative

needed toproduce

theseprints

withoutthe use of an enlarger,Penn turned to a particularkindof camera- an anti-quated instrument alled a banquet camera- whichwith tsbellows and enor-








----------

Irving enn. Still Life withShoe. 1980.








mous plates would allow him to enlarge the photographedobject during theveryprocessofmakingthenegative.This camera, inventedfor herecording f

groups ofpeople whetherfootballteams or Elks Club dinners was also thegenerator f theformatwe see in Penn's images: a horizontally playedrectan-gle whose height/widthatio is verydifferent rom hat ofmost cameras.

But what the format fthesepictures s notdifferent rom s thepeculiarshape of thedouble-page spread of the slickmagazine: themostopulentofthetypographic heaters fmass advertising, he most uxuriousprint creenofthePlatonic cave of a modern consumersociety.Now, thedouble-page spread, insumptuous,seductive colorphotography,s something fwhich Penn is a mas-ter,and forthe last severalyearshe has produced a series ofstill ifes forthiscommercialcontext, series that n format,dispositionofobjects,frontalityf

composition,and shallownessof space is identical to the mementomorimagesof his own aesthetically agged platinumprints.The workPenn has done forClinique cosmetics,which monthaftermonth has filledfacing pages in Vogue,Harper's azaar, and TownandCountry ithelegant,shallow,luminous still ifesofbottles nd jars - creating kind ofcenterfold fcosmeticpromise is the vi-sual twin of its conceptual counterpart, heplatinumworkthatspeaks not ofperpetual youth,but ofdeath.

Penn's Clinique ads are photographsthat are thoroughlyopen to theanalysisbyBourdieu thatwe entertained arlier.They are posingas picturesofreality,markedby a straightforwardnesshatproclaimsthesupposed objectiv-

ityof theimage. But they re, instead,thereality hat s being projectedby anadvertising ompany,by a given product's mperativeto instill ertaindesires,certainnotions ofneed, in thepotentialconsumer.The verydetermination ofillboth facing pages witha single image and to close thevisual space ofthemagazine against any intrusionfromoutside this image/screen s part ofthisstrategy o create the realityeffect, o open up theworld ofthe simulacrum,whichhere means to presentadvertising'sfalse copy as thoughit were inno-centlytransparent o an originary eality:the effect fthereal substituting orthereal itself.

And ifone pursuesthisanalysisone stepfurther,ne sees how Penn's im-

age of art in his memento ori till ifes is itselfdependentupon thespace ofthatphotographicprojectthatprecededthisseries for omeyears: theCliniquead and its stagingofvisual reality.There is here no direct elationto a specificsubject whether ne thinks fthatas theeroticism fdeath,or thepresenceofart,orwhatever lse one determines s Penn'smeaningin theplatinumprints.There is, instead,an elaborate systemoffeedbackthrough network nwhichreality s constitutedby thephotographic mage and in our societythat in-creasinglymeans the image ofadvertising nd consumption- so that the art-effect s whollya function fthephotographically roduced reality-effect.

Penn has turnedto artundoubtedlyas a means ofescaping theworldof

commercialphotography.This has happened at thesame momentthat theartpp. 66-67: Irvingenn. hotographorClinique.(Originalncolor.)








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worldhas turned o commercialphotographys thedescription f thevery imits

ofvision.Like manyotherphotographers, enn presumably elievesthathe cantranscendthose imits.But thatbelief s, clearly,tantamountto repressing heexistenceofthelimits.And theburgeoningofClinique's claimswithinPenn's"art" s the return f therepressed,one compromising he otherwithin hesys-tem ofthe simulacrum.

Penn wishestoaffirmhotography s theproperobjectofcriticism,whichis to say, thephotograph s a workof art. But, symptomatically e might ay,Penn's "artphotographs" re like screen-memories ehindwhich urk theformsand images of the primal scene: that

moment--viewedwith a shudder by

Baudelaire in the 1850s of art debauched by commerce.8

As distinct romPenn's, Sherman'swork standsin an inverserelationshiptocriticaldiscourse,havingherself nderstoodphotography s theOtherofart,thedesireof art nourtime.Thus her use ofphotography oes notconstruct n

object for rt criticism ut constitutes n act ofsuch criticism. t constructs f

photography tself metalanguage withwhichto operate on themythogram-matical fieldofart,exploring t one and the same time themyths fcreativityand artistic ision,and the nnocence,primacy, nd autonomyofthe"support"forthe aesthetic mage.

These two examples, we could say, operate at the two opposite poles of

photography's elationto aestheticdiscourse. But transecting he ine thatcon-

nectsthese two practicesis the socio-discourseof the Varda experimentwithwhichI began. Uneminuteourune mage,with tssystemofpresenting heiso-lated photograph s an invitation or he viewerto projecta fantasynarrative,and its abandonmentofthenotion ofcriticalcompetence in favorof a kindof

surveyofpopular opinion,occupies a positionas far s possiblefrom herigorsof serious criticism.But in takingthatposition it raises the possibilityof theutter rrelevanceof such criticism o the fieldofphotography.

The specterofthispossibilityhangs over everywriterwho now wishestoconsider the fieldof photographicproduction,photographichistory,photo-

graphicmeaning.And it casts itsshadow mostdeeplyover thecriticalproject

thathas been engagedbya growingnumberof writers n photography s theytry ofind languagewithwhichtoanalyzethephotographnisolation,whetheron thewall of a museum, a gallery,or a lecturehall. For, theymust ask them-

selves, n whatsensecan thisdiscoursebe properly ustained, n whatsensecan

it,as criticalreflection, e prolongedbeyondthesimple nanity f"a minuteforan image"?

8. Baudelaire xpresses ishorrornterms hat oundvery amiliarocontemporaryriticalthought; e invokes he upplement:Ifphotographysallowed osupplementrt nsomeof ts

functions,t will oonhavesupplanted rcorruptedtaltogether,hanks o the tupidityfthemultitude hichs itsnatural lly" The alon f 859,Section I, "TheModernPublic nd Pho-tography,"nBaudelaire,rtnParis, rans.JonathanMayne,London,Phaidon, 1965,p. 154).

krauss - a note on photography and the simulacral

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