Therefore, with no further ado, I bring you the photograph 'Iolanda' (20110 by Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, which I saw today at the David Zwirner gallery.
This photograph is part of DiCorcia's show East of Eden which is basically a comment on the collapse of society (i personally think mainly the collapse of co-operation, individual and collective ambition, and positivity) that uses concepts and structures from Eden and The Fall to express that. DiCorcia particularly criticises the American political situation at the end of the Bush administration. The press release for the show is deffo right in saying the photos 'convey disillusionment'.
In this photo, Iolanda, the woman seems to be passive but aware of her surroundings and environment. I think she knows humankind has dug itself into a hole and has passed the point of no-return, but she doesn't know what to do about it. I think this exemplifies a general feeling amongst the citizens and governments of the U.S and the U.K - they are dissatisfied but don't know how to change their situation; authorities and communities are grating against each other and jarring within each other as nobody quite knows where they stand so nobody knows where (or has the drive) to begin making a change.
Her location, a high-rise apartment with large windows, both traps her in society and also releases her from it; it traps her above the workings of the Capitalist city in her cage of old-age redundancy, unable to offer much more, but it also releases her from the fruitless efforts of trying to participate or intervene.
Her calm physical poise, between a televised natural disaster and a vessel of consumer capitalism cruising through the city, reflects her feelings of intertia and powerlessness in the midst of this modern downfall.
She knows everything beyond the panes and screens is trouble, bue she keeps them there, behind those barriers, because she's too far deep into passivity. These screens are a motif of such passivity that has become a norm in modern culture; keep it at a distance and you won't even have to care about it.
The age of this woman plays quite an important part in the photo; her advancing years suggest wisdom and experience, making her helplessness to intervene all the more powerful. This may be because her age is casting her into the shadows (as literally depicted by the lighting in the photograph) of society; she's not useful to the economy anymore therefore she knows she has less impact. This concept makes it a bit of an anti-Fascist scene.
In fact it is ironic that it's her age which alludes to helplessness, because she is in fact the aspect of the image whose situation can most easily be changed despite her having the least time left to do so. Everything else seems in too deep; the leisure cruise ship with its revellers and all they partake in and represent, the solid modern buildings of industry whose inner-workings chug carelessly on, and the twister (a motif for environmental destruction) are wrongs that will take so long (if ever) to right. It is their dignity which is far more fragile than this woman's. She has witnessed the modern western economy and society cave further in, yet she can still keep her decorum.
Above all what struck me was her neat appearance, which suggests that all she can do now (and I expect this is symbolism for why Consumerism continues to accelerate) is maintain personal appearance and superficial dignity; that's really all she has energy left for; silence and instant gratification.
*
All this dramatisation of the destructiveness of modern economy and also of passivity, are likely only to make viewers all the more passive; it's too big a fish to fry. So don't believe it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment