It’s a striking image
— large, glossy, vibrantly colored. A young girl
stands in the lush greenery of a tropical forest; her
black skin contrasted against the extreme whiteness of her dress. Punctuating
the green is a purple-y pink phallic flower just to the right of the girl’s
shoulder, and in her right hand she holds a stem of pale orchids.
Attached to a tree on
the right are several more phallically reminiscent
plants. A spider crawls on the underside of one of the leaves, while on another
a dragonfly arches. And just a tad to the left of the girl’s leg is a turtle
perched on a protruding stick.
It’s beautiful,
although disquieting, and not only can you seen it in Picturing Eden, an exhibition at the GEH, but also outside on
banners waving atop lightpoles in the street,
enticing us to come and see the exhibition, to re-imagine our prelapsarian state.
The title of said
image is World #1, and it’s the work
of Dutch artist Ruud Van Empel.
And although everything in the image looks photographically real (“picture
perfect,” even), it isn’t. The image is an intentionally almost-flawless
construction by computer manipulation.
Van Empel has seven images in an exhibition with more than 130
pieces by 37 artists from six countries. The collection offers the viewer some
extraordinary images by both established artists like Michael Kenna, John Pfahl, Mike and Doug Starn, and Sally Mann, as well as relative newcomers like
Greta Anderson, Maggie Taylor, and New Zealander Michael Parekowhai.
The emphasis of Picturing Eden is on how artists working
in the photographic medium represent the concept of paradise — or, how we
culturally relate to stories of the mythic garden. Not all the artists address
the issue of a Garden of Eden in a direct way, but all of them seem to focus on
plants and how they are framed by our culture as well as how they are framed by
art. Although there is an undeniable connection to landscape photography, this
exhibition and the artists within are more interested in a circumscribed
version of the landscape — one that is modified and one that exists on a more
intimate level.
For example, Michael Parekowhai’s work consists of three 59-by-47-inch color
photographs of large funeral-like flower arrangements presented in white vases
against white backgrounds and within white frames. Somehow, these photographs
of flowers are more like portraits than still-lifes.
The arrangements, which in Western culture may be seen as decorative and
feminine, are for the artist, who is Maori, an authentic badge of masculinity.
His family name means “Garland of Yellow.”
But Parekowhai’s flowers are much more than just pretty
pictures. They also commemorate a Maori battalion that made a contribution in
WWI: the title of each print is the name of a place in Europe where a battle
was fought. They are beautiful works that also consider history, sadness, and
cultural pride.
While not of
flowers, Masao Yamamoto’s photographs seem to be arranged like plants in a
garden. His photographs are small images reminiscent of old postcards found in
antique stores and then arranged poetically in a space of a white board
contained by a black frame. The empty space resonates with mysterious meaning
as much as the images themselves do.
The images,
however, were actually taken by Yamamoto himself, which he then toned, stained,
tore, marked, and creased. This manipulated aging process used in conjunction
with the Zen concept of “emptiness” surprises you with subtle humor. At the
same time, the photographs have a sense of spirituality and refer to Western
surrealism and modernist sensibilities.
It is also
interesting that in our post-photographic digital world several artists have
opted to return to older processes. (Maybe a kind of
photographic paradise?) Mark Kessell makes
daguerreotypes that he then re-photographs and enlarges. Jayne Hinds Bidaut brings back the tintype and photogram in her darkly
beautiful and ethereal world of shadowy plants and animals. Adam Fuss, JiriSigut, and Susan Derges also make camera-less images (or photograms)
that recall some of the earliest experimentation with light-sensitive
materials.
Still, there is plenty
of “traditional” photography, including a series of black and white photographs
by J. John Priola depicting backlit “window gardens”
framed by the dark richness of gelatin-silver black. And there are 21st-century
manipulations, such as the scanned collages of Maggie Taylor, which have the
look and feel of 19th-century scenarios, and the eerie, almost sinister
constructions of Van Empel. Which brings us back to
the image of the little black girl constructed by the Dutch white man: just
what is the reality presented?
In her essay for the
catalogue, curator Deborah Klochko points out that we
can reverse the story of the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were not expelled
from the Garden but escaped. The Garden wasn’t paradise, it was a prison. And,
in a truly humanistic and ultimately heroic act, Eve became self-aware. She allowed
us to taste knowledge and escape the drudgery of the same and the secure.
But then again,
maybe there is value in the myth of the Garden as a cautionary tale. In the
name of knowledge and exploration, the West has colonized, exploited, and
enslaved. In that image by van Empel hides not only
the uneasiness of paradise lost but all the stereotypes of race, place, and
primitive sexuality as were and are seen through the eyes, and fixed by the
lens, of the white master who is in the position of writing, re-writing, and
naming the text.
You
should go if you want to consider what your own Garden of
Eden would look like.
Picturing Eden through
June 18 | George Eastman House, 900 East Avenue| Gallery hours are Tuesday
through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday until 8 p. m., Sunday 1 p.m. to 5
p.m., closed Mondays. Special hours in May are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 7 days a week.
| $3 to $8 | 271-3361, www.eastmanhouse.org
This article appears in Mar 8-14, 2006.
