EWAN FOSTER JONES Student Number 13023423 Critical Perspectives (UA1APQ-15-1) 2013-14

A detailed critical analysis of the subversion of the traditional photographic portrait.

For much of the history of photography practitioners have sought to reproduce likenesses of the human face, as mementos for paying customers or artistic studies reflecting the character of the sitter. The new reality of genetic engineering, advances in transplant and plastic surgery and the rapid development of digital technology have caused some artists to question, challenge and subvert the traditional concept of the human portrait. This essay will consider and appraise this subversion and examine the truth of a photographic portrait. To facilitate this analysis, I have selected two texts highlighting extremes in the approach to portrait photography.

The first is an iconic picture of Winston Churchill by Yousuf Karsh taken in 1941:

(Karsh, 1941) The black and white image was captured following a speech to the Canadian House of Commons where Churchill had been rallying support for the War Effort. He stares directly at the camera, unsmiling, with a look that suggests he has more important business to attend to. Along with Kordas image of Che Guevara, it is one of the worlds most reproduced portraits (BiegerThielemann, 2001) and will, to the consternation of some feminists, replace Elizabeth Fry on the 5 note in 2016 (Peachey, 2013). Karsh entitled the picture The Roaring Lion and explained that to capture the belligerent essence of the sitter he had snatched Churchills ubiquitous cigar away from him seconds before the image was taken. (Karsh, 1972) Karsh believed that all his subjects contained a hidden secret or internal strength and that it was his job as their photographer to try to capture this in his portraits (Karsh,1967). This traditional view, that portraits can and do reflect the personality of the subject, has been challenged by many modern photographers. An extreme example of the rejection of tradition can be seen in my second text, Chris, by Aziz and Cucher:

(Aziz+Cucher, 1994) Anthony Aziz and Sammy Cucher live and work in the U.S.A and this portrait is part of their Dystopia exhibition of 1994. All the portraits in the Dystopia series are human heads with the facial features obscured; the orifices, through and by which we sense the world, are sealed off. This also removes from the viewer the means by which we determine the personality, character and mood of the subject. In effect, it is the opposite of the Karsh portrait. Given this obscurity one can question whether Chris is a portrait at all. However, despite the photoshopped illusion, it is unmistakably an image of a human head. Closer examination forces us to project personality on to it to fill in the blanks. The bone structure, hairline and faint stubble suggest maleness. It is possible to imagine, from the contours of the face and the jut of the jaw, that Chris may have had an expression not dissimilar to Churchills in Karshs image, before Aziz and Cuchers post-production tricks obscured it. We as viewers become writers of the text as opposed to readers, to use Barthes codification of textual significance (Barthes, 1973). If the portrait is a text then its signifiers are the facial features. When these have been smoothed over or erased (as with Chris) the iconic signs are

missing and we are forced to consider what is signified by the remainder. By playing with traditional aesthetics, Aziz and Cucher make our brains use a different language of interpretation the language of reference to complete the picture. They were interested in transformation, creating visual metaphors for the increasing role that new technologies play in our lives and how they affect us politically, socially and psychologically (Aziz & Cucher, 1994). The illusion they present, within the convention of photographic realism, forces us to confront the traditional view that portraits can and do represent what is true. However, this is not a paradigm shift. Photographic images have been manipulated since the camera was invented: double and multiple exposures, soft focus, Vaseline on the lens. The launch of Adobe Photoshop in 1990 and the tsunami of digital technology since have merely equipped the photographer with a wider range of more subtle tools with which to play with the truth of a photograph. Playing with the truth of a portrait by obscuring its iconic signs has long been a trope of the artist: Rene Magritte famously hid the face with an apple in his Son of Man portrait,

(Magritte 1964) Francis Bacon dissolved the faces in many of his pictures,

(Bacon, 1965) and Picasso abstracted his portraits.

(Picasso, 1941)

All disturb by forcing us to write rather than read the text.

Karshs Churchill portrait could be said to be hyperreal (Beaudrillard, 1994). For many people this image has come to embody and represent the man. It is a simulation of Churchill, encapsulating what we imagine to be Churchillian qualities of doggedness and determination, replacing the reality of the man himself. All we now have is simulation approaching hyperreality, a condition which will accelerate with his reappearance on our currency! Given that all portraits, even self-portraits and un-posed snapshots, are mediated (by the agency of the photographer) then they are all simulacra. It could be argued that a photographic portrait is hyperrreal because it gives us a vision of the human face that does not exist in the real world. A living face is never as completely still as it appears, fixed, in a photograph. Eyes blink, pulses beat, breath is inhaled and exhaled. There is always movement. We the viewers never have the same luxury of looking with unrestrained, brazen curiosity at a real face as we do with the frozen image in a photograph. We dont have the time to pore over every feature in voyeuristic detail; to read in meaning, character, personality; or mentally to write in our own version of the truth.

Aziz and Cuchers manipulated image startlingly reminds us that the photographic portrait is a simulation. Other serious photographers have engaged in this discourse with cynical, ironic and humorous work : the captioned faces of Barbara Kruger; the pastiche of Hollywood glamour in Cindy Shermans self-portraits; the large, expressionless, passport style photographs of Thomas Ruff; Alison Jacksons Royal doppelgangers; Kathy Groves manipulation of iconic photographs taken by others. All are subversions of the traditional portrait.

However, the idea that the portrait reveals something real about its subject remains resilient. Although the pseudo-science of physiognomy is now largely discredited, many of us will still make subliminal assumptions about a persons character based on their features. Pervasive celebrity culture fuels demand for images, to show us the reality of those lifestyles. Since Karsh snatched Winstons cigar to help capture his personality the world has changed dramatically. The technological and scientific revolutions of the late twentieth century are paradigm shifts comparable in their impact on society to that of the Industrial Revolution. The Human Genome Project has succeeded in sequencing most of our gene variations and bio-engineering of humans is becoming a reality. Transplant surgery is commonplace and the human face itself has been transplanted. We can all read about it on the Internet, instantly. Idealization of the face and body in media and advertising has given us the desire and, with the availability of cosmetic surgery, the ability to change how we look to make simulacra of ourselves. Aziz and Cucher are children of these revolutions and their work reminds us that new technologies are allowing us to recreate ourselves, to introduce aesthetics into biology and evolution. In his Churchill portrait, Karsh believed he could capture and preserve the essence of his sitter. Fifty years later, Aziz & Cucher and their contemporaries reacted to and subverted this traditional approach believing the face to be transformative and the photograph incapable of capturing and defining personality. In the end both exponents create portraits, either unwittingly or by design, that are hyperreal; where truth has been replaced with simulation.

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