Examples of relay in contemporary photographic practice include Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself and Sophy Rickett’s Objects in the Field (see interview in the Appendix to this course guide) where clashes of understanding or interpretation work together to create a perhaps incomplete but nonetheless enriching dialogue between artist and viewer.
Look these pieces up online. Investigate the rationale behind the pieces and see if you can find any critical responses to them. Write down your own responses in your learning log.
● How do these two pieces of work reflect postmodern approaches to narrative?
Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself
Fig. 1 (Calle, 2007) Take Care of Yourself
Trying to get into this work was very frustrating and I’m still not sure if I have got to the bottom of what the “installation” fully consists of. Sophie Calle is described by the Tate as;
“a French writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist” (Tate, n.d.)
Her installation Take Care of Yourself (2007) was inspired by an email sent to her from a boyfriend in which he broke up with her. She asked 107 women to read and analyse it in respect of their various professions and recorded their reactions.
“It was set to music, re-ordered by a crossword-setter, performed by an actress, and probed by a forensic psychiatrist, amongst others” (Tate,n.d.)
Calle herself says that;
“There is a lot of text, and I try to find another kind of way to interpret the language like a dancer, singer, or actress, to at least make it more accessible” Calle, S (2007)
If I have understood correctly she initially chose women by their profession and in particular those who were used to interpreting text such as writers, to look at style, language and syntax. She then looked at a more subtle way to interpret the text. This included women who created a crossword grid of the words in the letter.
“I chose women by the profession. I decide to give the letter to woman used to interpreting text so they were very obvious ones at the beginning. The writer for the style, to study the language, or the syntax. Then I started to find more subtle way of interpretation like the crossword woman that makes a grid with the words of the letter. Poems with them etc.etc” Calle, S (2007)
Realising that there was a lot of text and the problem of language, she looked at other ways to interpret it, including actors, dancers and singers.
“I realised the problem of the language in such a work which a lot of text, and I tried to find another kind of interpret protagonists like singer, actresses at least to make it more accessible” Calle, S. (2007)
It was interesting to see that her work evolved from the initial choice of women used to interpret text to poets and crossword makers on to singers, dancers and actors. I had made the assumption that the work was completed then exhibited without any change. Her response to the email is so unique and inspiring and the project itself helped her to deal with and get past the break up.
Looking at it in simplistic way I can see the value of interpreting text though other mediums such as music, image, and many more. However I’m not sure that having a parrot repeat some of the email and then tear it up isn’t a bit over the top. It would however certainly be something worth seeing! I was a bit dubious about Calle’s work at the beginning of this task but now that I understand it a bit better, have a respect for some of the ways in which she thinks and works.
Sophy Rickett’s Objects in the Field
Fig. 2 Sophy Rickett (2013)
For a long time, for me, art has been something you look at and it should, in some way, be aesthetically pleasing. I do understand that there is often far more to it than that and as I process through the course, this is something I am beginning to understand and appreciate.
I found the majority of Rickett’s images to be very pleasing to the eye and it took me quite a while to get away from the images themselves and start looking at the narrative. I don’t actually believe these images need a narrative as such, they are just wonderful to look at and I made a mental note to see if my view of them changed in any way after reading the narrative and if this was positive or negative or perhaps just different. I also love anything to do with the solar system, planets, space, stars, so this too may have made the series something that attracted my attention visually.
“The project consists of several series of photographs, a monitor based video and a text, each of which reflects in some way upon her encounter with Dr Roderick Willstrop, a retired astronomer based at the IoA” (Boothroyd, 2013)
I found her narrative difficult to read and initially didn’t understand the relevance of her references to an eye test at an early age and her journey home where she recalls seeing a couple of children playing. They didn’t make sense to me in respect of the project. I assumed I must be missing something. I gave myself some time to try and get my head round it all and kept coming back to it and reading it in sections, along with other information I was finding in books and online. The mist did start to clear somewhat but I’m still not sure I fully understand what she was trying to convay.
“Other parallels began to emerge over time, to do with photographic processes, but also to do with using lenses to extend the limits of our vision, which in turn took me back to memories having my eyes tested in a hospital corridor when I was young, and all the language around that” (Rickett, 2013)
“It recalls something I saw years ago, when I was sitting on a train as it pulled out of a small seaside station in Devon. A young boy was standing on the sea wall smiling and waving at the train, but the waving stopped abruptly when he was drenched in water by his companion who threw a boulder in to the water that made a big splash. In an allusion to the incompleteness of my interpretation, the partiality of my account, I write that I see ‘just the beginning of what is to pass between them, a fragment of story as it begins to unfold’ before the trains speed up, ‘and then I have gone’.” (Rickett, 2013)
Looking at the question at the beginning of this exercise, How do these two pieces of work reflect postmodern approaches to narrative? I first had to gain a better understanding of the phrase/word “Postmodernism”. It was clear that I didn’t have a good enough understanding of it to answer the question. I found a paragraph from MoMA which I think gives a good explanation and helped the most.
“In art, postmodernism refers to a reaction against modernism. It is less a cohesive movement than an approach and attitude toward art, culture, and society. Its main characteristics include anti-authoritarianism, or refusal to recognize the authority of any single style or definition of what art should be; and the collapsing of the distinction between high culture and mass or popular culture, and between art and everyday life. Postmodern art can be also characterized by a deliberate use of earlier styles and conventions, and an eclectic mixing of different artistic and popular styles and mediums” (Postmodernism | MoMA, n.d.)
There were several ways in which Calles work reflects a post-modern approach to narrative. She is definitely refusing to adhere to a single style and no distinction between art and everyday life. The publication of something so private and her use of varying media to allow people to take from it what they will. As Calle herself says,
“I don’t want anything from visitors interests they are free to do what they want I cannot give the rule of the game of the project then give the rule of the game for the visitors of how to take it it’s not anymore my problem I mean is their territory after not mine” Calle, S. (2007)
Rickett’s work also reflects postmodernism in art in the way the narrative brings up seemingly unrelated memories and events. Her need to find connections between her work and that of the collaborator and her willingness to admit failure in bridging the the two practices.
“…..so the failure would be to do with a kind of misalignment between the way we think about our work. Insisting that the project had bridged our two practices, or brought them together in any real way would feel like a platitude” (Rickett, 2013)
I found both these pieces of work difficult to understand and work through. I believe I have only scratched the surface in fully understanding them but I feel I gained in my understanding of the use of narrative and the varying ways it can be interpreted.
Bibliography
Tate. n.d. Sophie Calle Born 1953 | Tate. [online]
Available at: <https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sophie-calle-2692>
[Accessed 23 November 2020].
Figure 1
Calle, S., 2007. NYAB Event – Sophie Calle “Take Care Of Yourself”. [online] Nyartbeat.com.
Available at: <http://www.nyartbeat.com/event/2009/4C2E>
[Accessed 23 November 2020].
The Museum of Modern Art. n.d. Postmodernism | Moma. [online]
Available at: <https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/84>
[Accessed 28 November 2020].
Boothroyd, S., 2013. Sophy Rickett. [online] photoparley.
Available at: <https://photoparley.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/sophy-rickett/>
[Accessed 15 November 2020].
Figure 2
Rickett, S., 2013. Sophy Rickett. [online] photoparley.
Available at: <https://photoparley.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/sophy-rickett/>
[Accessed 28 November 2020].
OCAPhotography 