Second Exposing the Mead -- Photographs of the Abstract

Backyard
Aaron Siskind
1940
AC 1985.79.8

On Tuesday, March 1st, we hosted our second Exposing the Mead discussion. Like the first event, it brought together a diverse crowd of students, faculty, and Amherst residents for a night of stimulating discussion and artistic stimulation. For everyone who was able to make it, thank you for showing your support and your interest in photography. For those who couldn't, hopefully this summary will show you how much you missed out on so that you'll make it to the next one! The topic for this week’s discussion was the role of the abstract in photography, as demonstrated in two works by Aaron Siskind and B.A. King. The discussion was led by Thea Goldring, a photography and modern art enthusiast, who began her talk with some contextualization of the Abstract Expressionist movement and then began the discussion.

We began by talking about whether a photograph can really be abstract. Since photography is usually marked by its ability to capture the world exactly as it is, to represent what is in front of the lens, it seems strange to think that the camera would have the ability to make an image that was not representational and had no context.

Thea then revealed that the name of B.A. King's photograph was "Abstract Thought" while Siskind's is titled "Backyard." We agreed that Siskind's appeared less abstract and more representational: we could tell what it was showing and even the title tipped the hand a little bit. But we were hard-pressed to determine what the physical subject of the B.A. King photograph was, so perhaps photography did have some ability to create something outside of context, outside of rational understanding?

B.A. King transformed his photograph into an abstract image in several ways. The perspective of the photographer was disembodying and impossible to imagine, transferring the objects from the physical world to an imagined one. The background was monochromatic and undescriptive, it was also almost impossible to tell it was water (if not for the tiny ripples that could be seen on its surface when the photograph was examined closely). And the work had a distinct, black frame around it, which further separated it from the world and made it truly seem like an abstract thought, floating in King's head, that did not actually exist in the world.

Despite initial appearances, we eventually uncovered all sorts of ways that Siskind's photograph was also abstract on its own right. Siskind's background approached King's in its flatness, particularly with the almost infinite background of bricks. Both works used lines to order their composition: "Backyard" has strong symmetrical diagonals that frame the photograph. Although we can tell that these lines are created by real objects, we begin to forget that as Siskind employs them more and more geometrically. Finally, the dramatic angle that Siskind shot his photograph from also contributed greatly to the objects in the frame losing their meaning as regular objects.

The talk concluded with a new definition of photography: in Siskind's words "a set of relationships between shapes and tones." Siskind's work, despite its literal trappings, was very much headed in the direction that B.A. King's image embodied: an abstract thought, captured in a photograph.

All in all, the discussion was a successful one and a great continuation of our series Exposing the Mead. Please attend our next discussion on the first Tuesday after spring break, March 22, in which we will be discussing the role of text in photography.

-Alex