The village that disappeared (Two visions of Arcadia)

Thank you for this great blog. It's amazing to see such a tremendous and diverse body of work that can be discussed openly. Fantastic.

Comment posted by Keith King on October 25, 2008

"Returning 5000 years later to the same region of Greece was quite a different experience". You mean to say that you were there 5.000 years ago, of course.

Comment posted by peter on October 25, 2008

With the mix of environmental concerns and reference to painting, I'm reminded of John Pfahl's book: Arcadia Revisited. Joel Sternfeld's Campagna Romana and recent Oxbow Archive also come to mind.

What ties all of these projects together is that the modern view is so oddly beautiful. I mean, this church is stunning because of the destruction surrounding it.

Comment posted by Alec Soth on October 25, 2008

I'm reminded, too, of Simon Norfolk's photographs of Afghanistan. I was seduced immediately by the beauty and oddness of the photograph before the irony sunk in. By itself it makes a complex and important statement about man's dominion over nature... is it a part of a series?

Some questions come to mind, Stuart... How do you see the role of aesthetics or beauty in documentary photography? Is it a good idea to beautify ugly subjects... to open the door, so to speak, before delivering the message? Could you elaborate on how painting has influenced your work?

Comment posted by mike on October 25, 2008

STUART:

et in arcadia ego

when i first saw this image 2 days ago, i was immediately stunned....and though, ironically, it also reminded me of a painting (Poussin: Here)

I was stunned when i saw the picture....at first trying to understand temporally the image. It is indeed at first an extraordinarily rich and haunting image, and thus the star-burst of people and then later when one understands that's this "beauty" (and it is in fact a magnificently astonishing scene/place, all the more for the destruction, like the Arc born above by a clay-wave) is the result of our human destructive "ugliness" and needs, one is dealt a difficult and ambivalent feeling....

I began as a painter, making silly sophmoric abstract paintings paired with my equally sophmoric emotional ideas and then i realized that, at least for me, painting had failed to harness or struggle with or come to terms with that which seemed to be the defying mechanism of living: TIME....

if painting rodeo's itself with the ring of color and line and idea than photography's 4-chambered heart is divided between light and time and it is still for me that which makes photography so critical as both instruction and apparatus for reflection: how does time rest itself upon us, the earth, the living and the dead as well as how it wrests itself away....

What i love about the best Landscape photography (again, my hero Giacomelli, or local boy made good Burtynsky), is that the image is contending with the voracious nature of time as well as our own voracious feeding. One looks at this photograph struggling to reconcile those twined conflicts:

Time's inexorable destruction of all things, the destruction of which often augments the "beauty" of the things that have been carved upon, swallowed, destroyed, eroded, (in life there is death and in death there is re-birth), but at the same time when we understand that this destruction too is part of Our Human folly (as in the case with your magnificent photograph), our reaction feels (or at least my own) sullied....

how does one reconcile that?....

I am not sure that we ever "beautify" ugly things but that what we often see as "ugly" (death, destruction, foul-rearrangement, liquidation, vanishing, corrosion) actually contains something fundamental, elemental to our falling-apart selves:

our own inevitable falling away.....

in that, there is a piquant point of light and it sits upon our souls like the weight of a sparrow in the palm....

it's that complexity, for me, that you bring to this photograph....I love it as an image and it breaks the heart to know how this miraculous crown of a church sits upon the base of our human greed and environmental ignominy .....

terrific image...

and I too, would love to hear you talk about the influence of painting...

thanks so much for sharing

cheers
bob

Comment posted by Bob Black on October 25, 2008

Summoned to comment on the influence of painting on the work I'm doing, and on the whole strange problem of beauty vs abhorrence dilemma, here goes . . . I think most photographers working today are influenced by painting: maybe subliminally, maybe not. I am consciously influenced by painting in several ways. But I'll just mention two. One, I am moved by the aloofness of painting - its measured stillness that has a poignancy I try to bring to photography. I think here of Vermeer, Corot, Ingres etc. where painting sets out to be hyper-real, to go beyond mere subjective reality towards a transcendental reality - from the particular to the universal. This gesture, this reality, plays wonderful and curious tricks with the whole discourse on verisimilitude and truth so often discussed in photography and in particular in the age of photoshop. Two, I am moved by the different qualities of colour in painting. I think when painters paint they often bring homogeneity to the internal structure of the painting by mixing the paints so that the orange has a little blue in it and the blue a little orange. I try to find this harmony in the way places are lit or in the subjects I choose. For example, in the most recent project, Footprint, I worked in Spain in the winter in cool subdued light. I was influenced by the way de Chirico used colour. On the issue of beauty, well I see this as a kind of eloquence, similar to the way a writer constructs a telling sentence. The beauty I am looking for is not one integral to the subject (which is often abhorrent) but to a way of telling about it. Sometimes the two become confused.

Comment posted by Stuart Franklin on October 25, 2008

it's a remarkable photograph - the natural blue sky reflected in the destroyed beauty of a scared landscape.. and a church..
the metaphors could run deep for all.. those of faith might see the power of the church.. a testament to survival and endurance during difficult times.... while others may see the contrast of respect for a religion based upon fear ensuring it's own survival, while all around nature is obliterated for selfish gain - deadly sins abound with only the house of god left.. like the get-out clause.. a small insurance down-payment.
i guess i see this;
mother earth.. who will ultimately punish us with eradication - the real mother to be fear who will kill us all regardless of personal sin - here being raped whilst the church, mans invention - with intention to control and mold with a fabled fear, stands strong..

a real fear is neglected while a fear begot of faith wins survival, unscathed.. surreal..
faith and fact colliding.. with real paradox..
brilliant..

Comment posted by david bowen on October 25, 2008

Stuart, thank you for your response... We live in such interesting times. I see the influence of painting (or art history, or maybe cultural history) everywhere I look... the distinctions between painting and photography as separate cultural enterprises are basically meaningless, as are those between various photographic modes... what this means to me as a consumer of photography, critically looking at photographs is more complex than it once was. I have to bring more to it, but the experience is that much more enriching... and this photograph rewards the effort.

For me this is an introduction to your work, thank you... I'll bet your Footprint photographs look stunning in person and big... will you be showing them any time soon (in New York?)

Comment posted by mike on October 25, 2008

Many people don't know or maybe don't notice that strongest point of best paintings is in unperfects and your photographs are so perfect. Full of beauty, concept and precision. What you think about this side of influence of paintings to the photography? There is any way to show the same "Unperfect Hand" of the genius artist in documentary photography? or maybe it could be too far, and photography should not "copy" paitings so much?

Comment posted by marcin luczkowski on October 26, 2008

oh,human being leaves God alone by a high admiration, and then intelligently limite God's territory by a lower landscape of human being.

sigh.

Comment posted by vivien on October 26, 2008

The work is up at Hoopers Gallery, London until 28th November. Will be in Cannes next year. Maybe New York someday.

Comment posted by Stuart Franklin on October 26, 2008

New York someday??? Hey, Magnum, make some phone calls. Get this gent a show stateside!

Comment posted by mike on October 26, 2008

haunting images of before and after - actually slept on this comment as i wanted to see if it stuck with me which is something i like to do about things to see if a work of art haunts me and has a sustaining life afterwards and as a documentary filmmaker/photographer who is thinking about the future of media film/photos and what i call sound/photo portraits - and how we are going to experience traditional and non-traditional media in the future -

so i thought it would be interesting to have the pictures side by side as well as slide show where they move and morp into each other with sound track of each- also when you mouse of the images hear the sounds of before and after on each image - also from my perspective looking at photography and film in this online metaphor or more like an epidemic of attention deficit disorder A.D.D - i think that audio will play a very strong role in photography of the future as well as moving images and sound/photo portraits - its not that photography is not enough but there is more options online that sometimes add and other times are a distraction - its something to think about -

but also what these two images say to us is that - we are in trouble - in my documentaries i often ask people what they think people of the future will say about us - and i can imagine what people would say after seeing your pictures - i would suggest you don't stop here with these two pics - i would put them side by side on their own web page and not get lost in the blog archives but as a statement and question in the minds of the beholder - what does these photos say about us? - under the picture maybe with a place for people to comment too - food for thought - good work - keep dreaming - geo geller - ViZualPoetry.com

Comment posted by geo geller on October 26, 2008

STUART :))

thanks for your interesting and thoughtful replies. I love that Magnum members now are participating more in this blog (Alec' doing?;)) ), as it gives a richer range to the discussion and debate...and it HUMANIZES the work...particularly since so many approach Magnum and Magnum photographers with such a rich, high and (dare i say) apotheosized dealing. It's lovely to see that we're all just photographers having a cool chat.

Incidentally, I agree completely with my friend Marcin. It's always interesting to me why photographers (or when people speak about photography) see photography's relationship to painting as one dimension. In other words, photographers who have "clean" pictures or pictures that are abundantly picturesque or emphasize a certain compositional or color scheme always end up being licked up as "painterly." I dont get this. I mean photography has also had an extraordinary influence on painters/conceptual artists, though it is usually of a pretty narrow, almost superficial sense; in other words: realism, or the qualities of "actual life" that photography contends with. What sometimes bugs me (as both a photographer and as an ex-painter, which sounds a bit like being a reformed alcoholic at an AA meeting ;) ), is that photographers and schools of photography seem to bear only the same painterly influence. Look at the Dusseldorf school's influence, or hell, look at the most influential German photographers, German schools of thought with regard to photography over the last 30 years, and they seem to still all contend with only the specific "perfection" of what some attribute to painting: the controlled scale of light and color, the controlled and thought-out composition, the programmatic balance of color.

Why hasn't photography embraced the same range of work: where are the pollacks and rothkos, the pure abstractionists (which at least now are coming into being, mercifully), the photographers content with the service of Making over content (again, coming, but still not completely embraced). Fortunately, the relationship between all media more and more symbiotic, less and less ghettozied by distinction....

i love vermeer, goya, chardin, poussin and caravaggio....but i also cant imagine my own creative life without diebenkorn, beuys, kline, pollack, duchamp, dubuffet, wilmarth, botanski, etc etc etc...

funny enough i've always seen D'agata's work the light of caravaggio...and goya...and that damn caspar by the sea....

it's all good, all glorious, hunger-filled life :)))

cheers
bob

Comment posted by Bob Black on October 26, 2008

Comparing Cole's painting with your image, Stuart, I'm shocked at what people will inflict on their environment for modern purposes (energy requirements in this instance). In hindsight the trade-off just doesn't seem worth it.

The deforestation of Easter Island comes to mind; the natives used up every tree on the island for ropes and fires, building their resource-intensive Moai (statues) and Ahu (platforms). Jared Diamond, in his book "Collapse," questions: What were they thinking when they cut down the last tree?

For me, your image of the church standing alone in Arcadia invoked in me the same fear I imagine those islanders might have felt several hundred years ago when they confronted the last tree on Easter. The church, to me at least, is the last tree.

Comment posted by Page Level on October 26, 2008

STUART

This image reminds me of two visual and socio-economic analogs from recent memory: the lone homeowner in Chongqing, Sichuan who refused to sell out to developers and move while an enormous urban redevelopment project created a deep crater-like excavation all around the house, cutting off all services and making the house virtually inaccessible. It became a popular cause celebre in China for a while, but I believe in the end the owner was forced to move. And while I was living in Kyoto in the early 90s there was a similar hill (in Iwakura, in the northern part of the city) where suburban development had leveled the surroundings but a solitary 'island' with trees and bamboo, whose stubborn owner refused to cave in to progress, loomed as a conspicuous "eyesore" in the midst of a housing development.

For a long time I have admired the range and depth of your photo work and felt a strong resonance with it. Now I feel a strong resonance with your words as well, as you have explained some of the ways in which painting has influenced your work: "One, I am moved by the aloofness of painting - its measured stillness that has a poignancy I try to bring to photography..." and "...On the issue of beauty, well I see this as a kind of eloquence, similar to the way a writer constructs a telling sentence. The beauty I am looking for is not one integral to the subject (which is often abhorrent) but to a way of telling about it." You have vividly described an approach and an aesthetic which I have thought about and tried to express but never was able to put into words quite so well. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on your book "Footprint".

Comment posted by Sidney Atkins on October 27, 2008

This post reminded me of my native Appalachia. Years and years ago, twenty at least, an individual paid to have three large crosses, two white and one gold, erected all over the mountains of West Virgina. They're a part of the landscape now and everyone has their own version of the story behind the man who put them up. My mother tells me that he was a wealthy lawyer who spent his fortune on the crosses and he died from cancer alone and without a penny to his name. Who knows the truth of the situation.

Appalachia too has a strong mining tradition. More than once I've seen mining and construction crews work around the crosses, waiting as long as possible to take them down. I only have one photo to show for it, and it's not the best example of what they do.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/raabia/315419095/in/set-72157594473198754/

Comment posted by rumble on October 27, 2008

it's a remarkable photograph - the natural blue sky reflected in the destroyed beauty of a scared landscape.. and a church..

Comment posted by Nike Kobe IV on June 10, 2009