Different. . - Media - book review

Afterimage, March, 2002 by Stephen Dybas

Stuart Hall, Mark Sealy

New York: Phaidon, 2001

It is somewhat confounding that photography by persons from ethnic backgrounds other than "white" has followed many of the same changes that Western photography went through during the defining periods that have dominated recent art history--modern and postmodern. Different is primarily an introductory look at the works produced by photographers of African descent from across the world during the 1980s and 1990s, a timeframe corresponding roughly with the influx and establishment of postmodern identity politics. As the authors state, "The term 'black photography' is used in its broadest, most inclusive sense. Black is considered to be a political and cultural, not a genetic or biological, category. It is a contested idea, whose ultimate destination remains unsettled." [paragraph]

With this "definition" in mind, the book offers two main sections, and throughout each chapter, thumbnail images are intermixed with a significant amount of text to introduce and discuss the larger photographs that follow. In the first section of the book, "A Historical Context," the reader is given a short history of black photography. Through the examination of photographers like Gordon Parks and Mama Casset, we come to understand the documentary style of photography that permeated this field throughout its early years. The second section of the book, "Contemporary Photographers and Black Identity," highlights photographers who have transitioned away from this earlier style. These photographers focused on the constructed image as a means of redefining and expanding the category "black," paying close attention to both the historical and political connotations of this categorization and emerging thoughts on sexuality and gender. [paragraph]

Does this book, then, break new ground, or is it yet another historical account of artistic movements within photography? In the black photographic arena, constructed imagery gained momentum in the mid-1980s when a significant number of photographers lost faith in the idea that photography with a documentary prefix and aesthetic captured the quintessential truths of the subjects it appropriated. This enabled artists to photograph personal, subjective experiences instead of objective circumstances. By shifting focus, artists like Ajamu Ikwe Tyekimba and Sunil Gupta sought to redefine and contest a black male stereotype by producing images of the gay black male, with or without a feminine streak. This movement prepared the ground for identity to be brought back into the hands of marginalized groups, and has granted a wider range of practitioners the ability to redefine stereotypes from the inside out. [paragraph]

The authors tackle this subject from an interesting perspective, highlighting connections with earlier black photographers, but seem to get weighed down in repetitiveness throughout the book's second section. However, the wide array of work by photographers from around the world keeps the reader interested, especially the pieces by Poulomi Desai and Rotimi Fani-Kayode. These accomplished artists enable the viewer/reader to gain insight into the construction of "different" communities with its accompanying stereotypes, but the lack of fresh thoughts on the role of postmodern "identity," as it has been construed on theoretical and aesthetic terms over the last decades, makes Different no different from many of the volumes we have already seen.

EXHIBITION CATALOGS

ExtraOrdinary: American Place in Recent Photography. Madison Art Center/31 pp/price unavailable (sb).

Sean Henry: Sculpture and Drawings. Forum Gallery and Berkeley Square Gallery/48 pp./price unavailable (sb).

Intermedium 2: X-O Identities in the 21st Century. ZKM Karlsruthe/136 pp./price unavailable (sb).