In this essay I would like to discuss how the context of the piece of work, the artist and the viewer all shape the way a piece of art is not only created, but also judged by the viewer. As time passes, all of these viewpoints warp and change based on the context of that time period. When an artist is creating a piece of work, it is essential for them to consider these points. In photography, in particular, I believe that it is imperative for the artist to be ethical when it comes to researching in art and design. By understanding the viewpoint of others, the artist is able to create a work that is inoffensive, respectful and has a greater reach to society on a whole. In turn this produces outcomes which can be viewed by all.
Most people learn ethical norms at home, school, in church or in other social settings. Although most people acquire their sense of right and wrong during childhood, moral development occurs throughout life and different stages of maturity. This will lead to an artist producing an ever varying collection of work as they develop and learn of new things and perspectives. As many artists begin their career, no matter how big or small, their work is very raw and unfiltered. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it shows ignorance to the greater world around them. As time passes by, and they see some of these oversights within their work, an artist can develop a way of producing pieces, which is more inclusive and less potentially offensive within their society. By conducting themselves in an ethical manner, an artist will be enhancing their research, by encouraging careful consideration of art, and creative solutions to any ethical questions or challenges that arise.
Cultural Materialists derive their ideas from Marxism, the theory of an equal working class society achieving self-emancipation. One such prominent cultural materialist is Raymond Williams who said [“Most works of art are effectively treated as commodities and most artists, even when they justly claim quite other intentions, are effectively treated as a category of independent craftsmen or skilled workers producing a certain kind of marginal commodity.”][1]. Another, Terry Eagleton [‘’What Wittgenstein calls a ‘grammar’ is a set of rules by which we are able to make sense of things; and such grammars are not correlated with reality. It is not as though some of them provide us with a more accurate representation’’][2] would see context both of production and consumption as integral to the meaning of any work of art; and that the work cannot be isolated from its context because the context is part of the meaning of the work of art itself [‘’Whether economic, philosophical, social or cultural, the context in which an artwork is created and the complicity of the artist within that context is intrinsic to its meaning’’][3].
Moreover, they would only classify a work as art if it has the capacity to transform society for the better – which in their view is a more equal society [‘’Groups like the Situationist International played a major role in the revolutionary Paris events of 1968 by exposing the divisions between artists, consumers, and the means of production’’][4]. It is for this reason, amongst others, that Theodor Adorno [‘’Fascinated by how consumerism and capitalism had changed how we spend our free time and how, according to him, the culture industry is keeping us unhappy, unmotivated and with a lack of desire and motivation to see that things can always change for the better’’][5] described Walt Disney as “The most dangerous man in America”[5], since his output has had the effect of creating a sanitised ideal which places unnecessary pressure on its consumers, who feel that their own lives can never match this ideal. An example within photography would be Robert Capa, whose depiction of the Normandy beach landings were effective in transforming public attitudes by showing the brutal reality of war.
I believe that the context of a piece of photographic work is very important. It is something that cannot be ignored by the viewer, especially as they learn more about a piece. The more they look at a picture the more meaning it seems to develop. These meanings could contradict the original intentions of the artist, but I believe that an image can’t be held to just one ‘meaning’. It transcends the artist point of view and becomes unique to every individual who may view it based on their own context. In that sense the viewer is ignorant to the original context, and gives it its own.
Feminists likewise focus on the contexts both of production and consumption, not only to show how society’s changing attitudes towards femininity lead audiences to reinterpret images, but also to highlight the assumptions of the society within which the work was created. A pertinent example is Laura Mulvey’s conception of the male gaze: “the gender power asymmetry is a controlling force in cinema and constructed for the pleasure of the male viewer, which is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideologies and discourses.”[6] She has shown, for example, by exploring the presentation of Lara Croft, how the way in which women are photographed has been filtered through the perspectives of, first, the almost exclusively male photography profession, and, secondly, the intended predominantly male audience. Such feminist criticism has itself become part of the context within which new works are produced: by drawing attention to, for example, the inherent sexism of certain images. Critics such as Mulvey have helped to shape modern attitudes towards the artistic presentation of women; this leads to new consumer expectations, and so, by altering the audience to which images are sold, affects the images of women which will be commercially successful.
This has led to an evolution of the presentation of women in all media, a pertinent example being the James Bond film series. No longer are women presented exclusively as the hapless, bikini-clad Britt Ekland, Ursula Andress, or Barbara Bach - capable of accidentally triggering warheads with her buttock as she attractively bends to display her cleavage to the camera; Judi Dench’s M or Samantha Bond’s Moneypenny are women capable of engaging Bond in banter or developing a professional relationship with him. The 2018 remake of Tomb Raider is a further example of the way in which changing context alters production, offering a more realistic image of womanhood, with practical vulnerability sitting alongside her power. It is precisely because critics such as Mulvey have engaged in the study of cultural context when analysing the original Tomb Raider that the context of modern society has altered in order to demand images which satisfy not only the male but also the female gaze. Thus the study of cultural context and theory is essential to the understanding of a piece of artwork both as a crucial element of its interpretation, but even as part of its production as it shapes the “gaze”, to use Mulvey’s term, through which the artwork is created.
Taking a post-structuralist approach it is possible to see that a work cannot exist independently of its context. While the earlier structuralism, such as Roland Barthes’ analysis of the fashion industry [‘’the French philosopher and semiologist – was one of the first academics to write about fashion, developing the theory that if fashion is a language, it must, therefore, possess a grammatical structure.’’][7], saw meaning as fixed, post-structuralists such as Jacques Derrida [‘’French philosopher whose critique of Western philosophy and analyses of the nature of language, writing, and meaning were highly controversial yet immensely influential in much of the intellectual world in the late 20th century.][8] and the later Roland Barthes [‘’French essayist and social and literary critic whose writings on semiotics, the formal study of symbols and signs pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure, helped establish structuralism and the New Criticism as leading intellectual movements.’’][9] has embraced the concept of the slipping and sliding of the signifier over the signified, so that once a work of art is regarded in a different context, its entire meaning and significance is altered. Within photography, Barthes has shown that contextualising the photograph with a caption, a headline and a journalistic text fixes and limits the meaning of which the image is capable [‘’Almost all images, in all contexts, are accompanied by some sort of linguistic message. This seems to have two possible functions: Anchorage – images are prone to multiple meanings and interpretations. Anchorage occurs when text is used to focus on one of these meanings, or at least to direct the viewer through the maze of possible meanings in some way. Relay – the text adds meaning and both text and image work together to convey intended meaning e.g. a comic strip’’][10]. Place the same image in a gallery, or alongside different images, and its meaning alters. Photographs are not an innocent reflection of reality, but always both produced and interpreted within a framework of societal references and perspectives.
A further example of the way in which the meaning of a work of art can alter as a result of society’s changing attitudes is the presentation of smoking. [‘’Throughout a 1942 film, Henreid uses the familiarity of sharing a cigarette, with a famous two-cigarette scene, being used as his introduction to a lonely woman. As this classic 1940’s film indicates, the only tools needed to convey a character’s sexuality was a pack of cigarettes. Hollywood has always used tobacco to transmit a certain type of on-screen persona. This precedent, from which today’s films can’t entirely extract themselves, was set early on in films. A wholesome leading lady with high morals never totes her own pack of smokes – and never does she light her own cigarette. Many actors use cigarettes, cigars and pipes to enhance their movie characters as well as their own off screen persona. Clint Eastwood used a cigarette to breathe life into his western portrayals. Wrapped in a battered sombrero, a scrubby beard and a black cheroot gripped between his teeth, Eastwood was the unforgettable man with no name in a series of popular spaghetti westerns such as: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. In the movies, a cigar was used to convey the importance of a man. It was the bankers, business tycoons and politicians who smoked big cigars.’’][11] In todays society, with the large development of scientific knowledge, smoking has garnered a worse and worse connotation. It is thought that too many people smoke nowadays, especially young people. Maybe the romanticism from films, like those described above have enticed a larger volume of people to start. I still believe that the smoker is a definitive role that is attached to certain stereotypes, which have changed since the 40’s/50’s. Now they are seen as unhealthy and unattractive – the opposite.
At one time the meaning of artistic works was considered to be transparent: a work had a single meaning which was available to all. For example William Empson [‘’English critic and poet known for his immense influence on 20th-century literary criticism and for his rational, metaphysical poetry.’’][12] or F.R. Leavis [‘’English literary critic who championed seriousness and moral depth in literature and criticized what he considered the amateur belletrism of his time.’’][13] promoted the “Practical Criticism” approach to literature, which depended on upon the premise that a given text had a single meaning which was the readers job to uncover. The development of critical theory was essential in the twentieth century to evolving a new concept of art, whereby each work is in fact the product of the physical object itself and the individual interpreter; so that a photograph is not the work – but instead there are as many works as there are viewers regarding the photograph. Thus, the cultural background of not only the artist but each viewer becomes part of the work. For example, within feminism, Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze suggests that a woman looking at a photograph of a woman of a woman is entitled to apply the female view to an image originally taken by a male photographer intended for male consumers.
Therefore, without the application of theory, the work of art becomes reduced to the meaning it would have from a single, privileged, perspective, white, middle-class male. For a work of art to achieve all of its potential meaning and expression, it must incorporate the multiple perspectives of different genders, classes and cultures. This is where the contribution of theories such as Marxism, feminism or post-structuralism are essential not only to interpret the work, but for it to achieve the full spectre of meanings of which it is capable.
Bibliography:
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