the obscure critic

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Surrealist Critic

Photograph by Man Ray

It’s a great culture to be alive in. We’ve got access to all the art we could ever ask for from all the ages of the world.

A drawback to this largesse — if it can even be thought of as a negative — is that you don’t often discover the work of someone who’s been producing for some time — or who might even be already dead and no longer producing at all — in the proper order, or rarely in anything but bits and pieces. Which is why I like to take time on occasion to research back over the life of an artist who particularly strikes me, to place their production in context with their times.

Recently I’ve been studying up on Salvador Dali, David Lynch, Lee Miller and Man Ray, and my all-time favourite, William Burroughs. I found excellent books on Dali, Lynch, Miller and Ray, and new editions of some of Burroughs’s works offering competent commentary on his methods and life. A good retrospective on an artist of the calibre of these individuals opens up a whole new appreciation for what I already know I like. In the case of Dali and especially Lynch, I’ve come to truly appreciate the deep psychological component of their surrealist work, adding so much more simple emotional expression to my enjoyment of their craft.

A good, objective critical writer can lead you to see an artist more comprehensively than you might be able to on your own, and is worth studying.

However …

The downside of this approach is reading along happily then suddenly being brought up short against bozos trying to write about greater minds than their own in this sort of style:

“Man Ray, in essence, accomplished the revolutionary act of always photographing the photograph, which is entirely different from photographing objects that are completely outside the photograph. This is a unique attitude, and nothing in traditional or non-traditional practice can be compared to it. Man Ray is photographer and subject. His shadow is always behind the camera, which is always a little beyond the image. The camera itself is constantly reflecting as if there were an infinite distance between the artist using it and the reality depicted, but it is always aware of its ultimate destruction. There is no model in the middle, there is only what Man Ray wants to see and sees, what he wants to imagine and imagines. In reality the imaginary model is hidden and only the ideal model remains: the photograph looking at the photograph, the photograph that reproduces, the photograph that takes the photograph, and the photograph renewed in its destruction and its eternity.”

Man Ray: Photographs, Paintings, Objects

Schirmer’s Visual Library, 1997

From “In Man Ray’s Century”, an essay by Janus

Lord preserve us …

Let’s analyze Janus’s statements a little more closely, bit by bit.

“Man Ray, in essence, accomplished the revolutionary act of always photographing the photograph, which is entirely different from photographing objects that are completely outside the photograph.”

So if Man Ray was revolutionary, are we then to assume it is the conservative, conventional thing to do to photograph something other than the photograph? What, for example?

The second part of the sentence answers that. Janus tells us Man Ray wasn’t photographing objects that are completely outside the photograph. Which let’s face it, must be pretty tricky to do. Even though apparently that’s all the rest of us ever manage, although I’d like to see us do it. But Man Ray doesn’t, preferring to photograph the photograph. Which we assume includes whatever is inside the photograph, as he doesn’t bother with what’s outside.

So, to paraphrase then: Man Ray took pictures. Of things that end up in the pictures. 

What a rebel.

Moving on: “This is a unique attitude, and nothing in traditional or non-traditional practice can be compared to it.” That would be unique, all right. He wasn’t doing what everyone else was doing, and he wasn’t doing what everyone else wasn’t doing either. It’s a damn good thing we established in the first sentence that Man Ray took pictures, otherwise we might end up wondering if he was doing anything at all?

Jumping ahead a little: “His shadow is always behind the camera, which is always a little beyond the image. The camera itself is constantly reflecting as if there were an infinite distance between the artist using it and the reality depicted, but it is always aware of its ultimate destruction.”

Let’s map this out. You have Man Ray here, at Point A, we assume behind the camera. We assume this because we’re told his shadow is behind the camera, so therefore his body probably is too. Then we have the camera at point B, “a little beyond the image”, which we’ll say is at Point C. Sounds like a sensible approach so far. Except wouldn’t it make more sense for the camera to be in front of the image instead of beyond it? Maybe Man’s got a tricky rearview lens. But then his shadow would get in the way, because his shadow is always behind the camera, and don’t pictures usually turn out better if you keep your shadow out of them?

But this shadow thing may not be an issue as Man apparently uses a very Zen camera, an object constantly reflecting "as if there were an infinite distance between the artist using it and the reality depicted”. So, if Man at Point A is an “infinite distance” from what we will now call Point D, “the reality depicted”, Point D is too far away and he’d never get the shot anyway.

No wonder the camera is also “always aware of its ultimate destruction.” With this kind of a set up, Man Ray would never be able to take a decent picture, so he’ll probably just trash the useless thing.

Jumping to the end: “In reality the imaginary model is hidden and only the ideal model remains: the photograph looking at the photograph, the photograph that reproduces, the photograph that takes the photograph, and the photograph renewed in its destruction and its eternity.”

From my other intensive reading, I believe there’s only one interpretation to be derived from a statement like this.

To quote William Burroughs, from The Ticket That Exploded: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was bullshit.”

Sometimes it’s better just to go back to the source.

Photograph by Man Ray

UNSCHEDULED APPEARANCE

In honour of St. Patrick’s Day yesterday, my wife Renee and I, Ron Romanowski and his wife Liliana, and Ken Kowal had a festive lunch at Shannon’s Irish Pub in Winnipeg. After a drink or two I was prompted into a public reading of Paul Muldoon’s “The Hedgehog” for the unsuspecting crowd. Naturally the event did not go unrecorded.

Photograph by Liliana Rom O’nowski

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Tolstoy must have written about everything at one point or another. Curious that he missed this. The Electric Detective Chapter 6 goes up Monday, and Part One of Episode Seven, Tolstoy-Ish, on Friday, March 20th. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

War and Peace as a multimedia event? Or just more Love and Death?

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

All with illustrations by the author. Working through the Contestants in order of their appearance. But there’s been some problems with the scanner, so appearances may be deceiving.