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© Pavel Maria Smejkal. From the 'Stars' series
For some, my deliberations about Bruce Gilden/Haitians might seem tepid compared to Pavel Maria Smejkal‘s use of people-as-props for his photographic art.
Smejkal’s Stars series is potentially about the reversal of fates, wasted potential, chance events and turns of fortune. It is also potentially insulting.
The question for me is whether digital composites of Auschwitz inmates and the faces of silver-screen stars is a good way to communicate an actually important philosophical position. Mrs. Deane (Beierle or Keijser) can’t say that Smejkal’s work is a success or not because they stumble at its first requirement to recognise the faces of inserted celebrities! Which is a nice side-step.
I too intend to hang up my judgement on this and simply pass on notice of the project for you to decide. My editor said a few months ago that Western culture – and photography in particular – had no sacred cows left to slaughter. In the manner in which sentiment and controversy whirl past without touching the sides these days, right now, I am inclined to agree.
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Just as a footnote, Smejkal’s Stars series reminds me of Agan Harahap’s work Super Hero.
Samuel F. B. Morse's Daguerreotype Equipment, by Thomas Smillie, 1888, Smithsonian Institution Archives
Little Electric Chair (Detail). Andy Warhol, 1965
Merry A. Foresta, Director Smithsonian Photography Initiative, informs,
When I saw the deathly familiar blue of Smillie’s cyanotype, I was thrown back to the electric hues of one of Warhol’s many electric chair prints.
From the rarest, unique image to the mass produced commodity. Both images of apparatus; both apparatus a steal on time and both definitively (institutionally) American.
The Smithsonian has operated Click! Photography Initiative for a couple of years now. They publish sporadically on The Bigger Picture Blog with a variety of essays about every imaginable application and interpretation of photographic culture in society. Contributors include high school kids to photography greats such as Robert Adams and a wealth of respected curators and educators including Wendy Ewald and Sandra Phillips. There’s even space for you if you wish to try you hand.
The project also nudged me back into the mind space and work of Bay Area heroine Carla Williams. Read her blog and your life will be better.
Prison Photography 