Exercise: Nigel Shafran – ‘Washing Up’ (2000)

We are asked to look at Nigel Shafran’s series of images entitled Washing Up (2000) and then to respond to some questions.Washing Up is a series of images taken by Shafran in 2000 of completed washing up, usually in his own kitchen but sometimes elsewhere.  The photographs are accompanied by text detailing what he ate and sometimes other interesting snippets of information, for example who else was present at the meal.The first thing that struck me about Washing Up is how organised and structured Shafran’s images are.  The kitchen items are stacked neatly into sculptural forms with no untidy clutter lying about, which gives us an insight into the dish-washer’s personality (we are not told whether it is Shafran or his partner Ruth who has done the washing up).  This neatness and use of form reminds me of Thomas Demand’s image Sink (Spüle) (1997); although different in composition and construction (Demand’s ‘sink’ was a paper model) I immediately felt a similarity with Shafran’s images.

I wondered why Shafran chose washing up as a subject and I found the answer in an interview he gave to Paul Elliman in 2000:

‘I wanted to start the New Year with something  optimistic.  And personal.  Something with lots of shapes, where shapes would change, keep changing.  Also something in which the light was important, the kitchen window or the overhead kitchen light, I mean.  I really wanted to have one that was lit by lightning, haven’t got that yet. There are signs of ageing in it, like signs of time, of course’.

(Elliman, 2000)

What I like about this series is its simple style and how Shafran makes ordinary, everyday items into an interesting composition which gives rise to many questions.   For once I agree with Charlotte Cotton who writes:

‘With an understated photographic style, use of ambient light and relatively long exposures, he transforms these scenes into poetic observations about the ways we conduct our lives through our unconscious acts of ordering, stacking and displaying objects. There is something highly intuitive in Shafran’s way of working.  He resists the urge to construct a scene to be photographed ; rather, his is a process of staying attuned to the possibilities of everyday subjects as a means of exploring our characters and ways of life’

(Cotton, 2014, p.121)

Question: did it surprise you that this was taken by a man?  Why?

No, not at all.  In fact the question did not even cross my mind.  I think this is due to my recent research into photographers such as Thomas Demand and Jeff Wall where I’ve learned that such stereotypes do not seem to exist now in contemporary photography.

Question: in your opinion does gender contribute to the creation of an image?

In general I think the creation of an image is more due to the interests and personality of the photographer than their gender.  However I do believe that men and women have different ways of looking at things and this can come across in their interpretation of a subject or theme.

Question: what does this series achieve by not including people?

It makes me very happy!  Seriously, I think that the lack of people gives far more depth to the image than if they were present.  We know that a person was there (the washing up is done) so Shafran’s images convey a presence of absence, adding a sense of the passing of time. The viewer is encouraged to explore and to trace the human activity from the evidence left behind – who was there?  What did they look like?  I also think that the inclusion of people would also change the tone of the series completely from still life (fine art even?) towards social documentary.

Question: do you regard them as interesting ‘still life’ compositions?

On an aesthetic level I find the shapes, lighting and splashes of colour give interest to what could be seen initially as quite banal images.  Shafran has made the ordinary into something artistic and I really like his use of natural light.  Looking deeper, I like the way the images provide a visual punctuation mark, a comma, in the daily routine – cooking, eating, washing up, the putting away of dry dishes so we are invited to think about what has happened before and what will happen after.  We are told a little – the composition of the meal that had just been eaten and sometimes who was present – which whets our appetite to know more.

My main take-away from Shafran’s work in relation to my own practice is that everyday subjects, ones that might be considered banal even, have their worth photographically on a number of levels.  I find it is very easy to overlook, maybe dismiss even, what is immediately around me in search of the ‘great and the good’ so Shafran’s images are a timely reminder of what I have been missing and of a need to really look, rather than just see.

References:

Cotton, C. (2014) The Photograph as Contemporary Art.  3^rd ed.  London: Thames & Hudson

Demand, T. (1997) Spüle. [photograph] [online image]. Bundesverband deutscher Kunstversteigerer e.V.   Available from http://service.kunstversteigerer.de/de/i/5201304/p/1/ [accessed 16 January 2015]

Elliman P. (2000)   Interview with Paul Elliman, Fig-1. [online].  Nigel Shafran.  Available from http://www.nigelshafran.com/pages/texts_pages/002texts.html  [accessed 16 January 2015]

Shafran, N. (2000) Washing Up [online images].  Nigel Shafran.  Available from http://www.nigelshafran.com/pages/washing_up_pages/001washing_up_pages.html [accessed 16 January 2015]

Self-absented portraiture – Maria Kapajeva and Sophie Calle

The third project of this part of the course looks at self-absented portraiture.  The course notes begin by discussing two photographers who, rather than photographing themselves, use other methods of telling the viewer something of who they are.  Here is a brief summary of each.Maria Kapajeva – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman

Kapajeva uses people in a metaphorical sense to depict herself in photographs.  In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman, an ongoing project, she has photographed young women with whom she identifies and sees as her peers in a contemporary society, therefore putting a picture of ‘herself’ forward to the viewer without actually being personally in the frame.  She writes about the aim for the project on her website  –  ‘With this ongoing project I am interested to open debates on imagery of women in contemporary society in the context of the historical, cultural bias and the global changes we are each going through’ (Kapajeva).  In effect she is presenting through others how she feels it is like to be a woman in today’s world and she discusses this in further depth, along with other aspects of her career, in an interview with Sharon Boothroyd (Boothroyd, 2014) which can be read here

Sophie Calle – Take Care of Yourself

Take Care of Yourself is a response by Calle to an email she received from her then-boyfriend breaking off their relationship.  Tellingly, the email is signed off ‘Take care of yourself’, which is exactly what Calle did, firstly as a catharsis to her pain then later as an art project.  She sent a copy of the email to 107 women, all professionals in their respective fields, took pictures of them reading it and asked them to analyse the text according to their job.  The contributions provided by the women were in a wide range of media and included scientific analysis, a crossword puzzle, origami, forensic analysis, song and dance and a shooting target (Neri, 2009).   The resulting artwork formed from the responses Calle received was then exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2007 (Chrisafis, 2007) and comprised photographs, text, graphics and video (Coulter-Smith, 2007).

Calle has used other people (the writers of the emails) to stand in for herself.  I see this piece of work as autobiographical – it’s about Calle and her reaction to the break-up of her relationship – however by deliberately passing the responsibility for her project on to others she allowed it to develop outside of her direction and away from herself, addressing wider issues such as feminism, control and power.  I’ve written in more depth about this piece of work earlier in my Context and Narrative studies (see my post here).

These pieces of work by Kapajeva and Calle are very different in their approach to self-absented portraiture.  Kapajeva’s images use other women as the way to explore and express  her ‘self’ and are calm and measured, giving the feeling of a collaborative journey whilst Calle’s work is much more immediate and confrontational, aggressive even.  Yet it is to Calle’s work that I am drawn the most; its liveliness and sassiness attract and intrigue me and I like the feistiness of her approach to formulate a response to her situation.  I also have the forthcoming assignment in my mind and have decided at this stage not to include images of people so I take more inspiration from Take Care of Yourself in this regard.

References:

Boothroyd, S. (2014)  Maria Kapajeva [online].  Photoparley.  Available from https://photoparley.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/maria-kapajeva/  [accessed 16 January 2015]

Calle, S. (2007) Take Care of Yourself [online images].  Paula Cooper Gallery.  Available from http://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/56  [accessed 19 January 2015]

Chrisafis, A (2007) He loves me not [online].  The Guardian.  Available from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/16/artnews.art [first accessed 09 September 2014]

Coulter-Smith, G. (2007)  Sophie Calle, Take Care of Yourself, 2007 Venice Biennale [online]. Artintelligence.  Available from http://artintelligence.net/review/?p=147 [first accessed 10 October 2014]    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Kapajeva, M. (2012 – )  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman [online text and images].  Maria Kapajeva.  Available from http://www.mariakapajeva.com/a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-woman/  [accessed 16 January 2015]

Neri, L. (2009) Sophie Calle [online].  Interview Magazine.  Available from http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/sophie-calle/ [first accessed 10 October 2014]