If not now when: beyond indexical transparency

On Boaz Tal Still lifes

Dr. Shlomo Lee Abrahmov 2009
Tel: 09/952 4332 artman2002@gmail.com

This article would focus on what makes still lifes a particularly poignant subject in the
context of contemporary photographic discourse. It would elaborate on the connection
of Boaz Tal’s still lifes photographs to still life paintings and photographs of the past. It
would re-introduce the concept of spacing and argue that instead of thinking about
photographic transparency we need to adopt a new stance, which is the ability of
photographs to transparize, suggesting that we could use the term photographic
transparization.

Still lifes were one of the first subjects that photography dealt with. From the earliest
photographs of Daguerre, to the stunning still lifes of Roger Fenton or the exact
arrangements by Le Secq (1), these images showed us how photographs can 'speak' in
a fashion that goes beyond their so called banal and mechanical origins. If we observe
Fenton's 'Still Life with Statue, 1860' or 'Tankard and Fruit, 1860', we can

Fig. 1 Roger Fenton Tankard and Fruit 1860 Fig .2 Roger Fenton Still Life w ith Statue 1860

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perceive that these photographs are not only about successful compositional
arrangements or exquisite visual details. Their significance lies in their ability to be a
mirror and act as signifiers for the society and culture in which they were created.

It could be argued that the aim of still lifes in art is to penetrate and subvert the surfaces
or physical appearances of the objects which they portray. By this act, still lifes could
create a philosophical and even a metaphysical discourse with reality. Fitting examples
are Cezanne's still lifes or Zurbaran's Still-life with Lemons, Oranges and Rose, 1633.
A revealing duality that could be observed in Fenton's still lifes is the interaction of
organic and non-organic objects. Objects that are created by nature (i.e. exotic fruits)
and those that are man made. The conflation made here actually turns the organic
subjects into artifacts, or as the distilled artifacts of the photographic action (Fried,
2005). In its more abstract level, this interaction alludes to the interaction between
nature and culture and it is still a theme that has much relevance in contemporary
society.

Fig. 3 Zurbaran Still-life with Lemons, Oranges and Rose1633

In his fascinating book ‘Looking at the Overlooked,’ Norman Bryson (1990) has made
an important observation as to the rhopographical nature of still lifes. Rhopography (2)
relates to the portrayal of objects which lack immediate significance - the basic
mundane objects that surround us in our daily environments. In contrast to

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Megalography, which relates to the depiction of ‘importance’ and themes in the world
which represent greatness, the humbleness of rhopography, has in fact a profound
depth as it explores the base human existential dilemma at its core by stripping it of all
garnishes of grandeur or self importance. In this fashion a sharp contrast or
transformation occurs as objects which are usually taken for granted, in this context, are
linked to much more refined and exalted existential issues – namely, the limited scope
the individual human endeavor. We can argue that rhopography is the ontological raison
d'être of still lifes both in painting and photography.

Fig. 4 Boaz Tal Vase and Flowers, 1993

We can observe some of these issues in Boaz Tal Vase and Flowers, 1993.
Photographed in Venice, the initial motivation for its creation was the mysterious quality
of light (3). In this sense the light in this photograph references what can be termed as
‘Venetian light’ in renaissance painting. According to Boaz Tal, this Venetian Light, also
shares or simulates some of the qualities of light that could be observed in churches of

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cathedrals. Its subtle warmth and narratavistic capabilities can be observed on the
horizon of Giorgione Sleeping Venus 1508. Furthermore, the light in Vase and Flowers
acts as a metaphor for vision or ‘seeing’. This attribute to high-contrast lighting, in a
dark space, were first observed by Bryson (1990), in his analysis of Zurbaran Still-life
with Lemons, Oranges and Rose 1633.

Fig.5 Giorgione Sleeping Venus 1508

Moving to the vase, we notice that its luminousness enhances its hollowness and
emptiness. But its non-functioning nature (it is empty), has further implications, as it sits
on top of flatly painted flowers. We can connote these flowers to Baudrillard’s (1988)
simulacra and be reminded of one of its main attributes:

The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that
there is none. (pp.166-184).

We can sense that the simulacras of our age leave us with a profound sense of
emptiness, with a feeling of loneliness as we do not know if what we touch (perceive) is
real (i.e alive like us) or simulated (lifeless). The top-down perspective of Vase and
Flowers reminds us that there is a viewer or witness involved in the creation of the
photograph. In this manner a human presence is brought into play with the rest of
signifying objects in this seemingly silent photograph. It is then that we can arrive at the
conceptual level (Abrahmov, 2008) of the photograph, its deep meaning. It is a
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reflection on the sense of emptiness we face in contemporary society contrasted with a
life affirming light, one which can give us hope. In this fashion the photograph portrays
an entangled dilemma, but also demonstrates that in a way it is temporal and as the
vase is empty, it could always be full again. The light here also acts as a reminder of
our past, of our history which is full of upheavals and at times their successful
resolutions or coming to terms with them. Finally the aspect of still lifes acting as a
reflection of our culture and society is represented by the vase’s reflection in the
shadowed mirror seen in the background. It is an attribute that Vase and Flowers
shares with Fenton’s Still Life with Statue 1860, an attribute that also poses the question
of what is in the front and what is behind, literally and figuratively.

An overriding concern in Boaz Tal oeuvre is the notion of photographic transparency.

Briefly stated, this idea was developed by Walton (1984) who argued that there is no
difference between the way we see a photograph and the way see its referent. This
issue is directly related to the indexical/ factual relationship between the photograph and
its referent or their adhesiveness (Barthes, 1981). It is a cultural approach which only
equates photography with a truthful conveyer of factual information. Bourdieu (1990)
related to the issue of the reliability of photographs and argued that culturally
photographs are rejected when no function is attached to them, when in fact we should
expect photographs to convey allegorical and transcendental meanings.

The effort to counter photographic transparency has to do with the concept of spacing.
This term coined by R. Krause (1986) in her discussion of surrealist photography. This
gap between what is seen and what is understood is one of the attributes of spacing.
Krauss (1986:115) defined spacing as an ‘indication of a break in the simultaneous
experience of the real’ and argued that spacing creates a world that is full of
interpretation or signification. Linguistically defining this particular photographic
situation as spacing does not allude to its attributes, which are concerned with the
breaking up of the linear connection between photograph and its referent and in many
cases the reduced particulars of a photograph are actually contributing to its greater
constructed signification or what Friday (2000) termed as imaginative transfiguration.
Addressing this problematic titling, this writer has termed spacing in Hebrew as Mirchov,
which comes from conflating the words of to distance and to enlarge. The mechanics of
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visual spacing in photographs are that an observed lacuna is generating an ambiguity
which forces the viewer to respond independently. In this manner an individual highly
polysemous engagement with the photograph is created.

Fig. 6 Boaz Tal Allegory of spring, homage to Botticelli, Detail 1987

The presence of spacing is easily observed in Allegory of spring homage to Botticelli,

1987, but there is another effort in Tal’s work which is directly tied to the effort of
countering photographic transparency. Much like visual spacing this effort has to do
with the disengagement from the particulars, but a different strategy is employed here.
The first part of this endeavor consists of the referencing of the photographs to painting
of the past, by employing the efficacy of the Title category (Abrahmov, 2008). In this
manner this implied Intertextuality forces us to reflect on meaning that is outside the
immediate sphere of the observed phenomena. The second part is directly linked to still
lifes. Boaz Tal has tried to re-contextualize the objects in his photographs by hinting at

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their reduced functionality thus the vase in Vase and Flowers is empty or the pears in
Vanitas 2005 are almost rotten, inedible. (4)

Fig. 7 Boaz Tal Vanitas 2005

The title of the photograph Vanitas 2005 references a genre of still life paintings which
historically exemplify the connection between the visual and the moral. According to
Korsmeyer (1999), in these painting the chosen objects amplify the notion of the
insignificance of the human endeavor, its futility.(5) Regarding food stuffs, we can
construe that the paintings relate not to the glorification of hunger or the culinary vitality
of the objects, but rather its sublimation. It is the transcendence of hunger, a base
human need or sensation, into something else not physical, mundane but sublime – a
longing. Thinking about Vanitas 2005 from this perspective, we can think of the pears
as alluding to this transcendence. Their decent is not a downfall, but rather a metaphor
for a longing for something that is beyond us, beyond our temporality - eternal. In a

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way, this reflection on hunger or ‘food’ and its relationship to ‘Life’ can be observed in
Fenton’s Spoils of Wood and Stream 1859.

Fig. 8 Roger Fenton Spoils Of Wood and Stream 1859

I believe that what Tal’s Vanitas 2005 also share with Fenton’s Spoils of Wood and
Stream is this silent moment when something which was observed and captured, later
turns into a visual catalyst for insightful reflections. Reflections/meditations that compel
us to face our fragility and temporality head on. These photographs are gently forcing
us for these deliberations, as here, unlike our ordinary environment, our gaze is fixed.
In both cases the factuality of the photographs acts to enhance the fact of the
immediate human observer or presence – an emphasis that is much stronger in these
photographs than in similar paintings.

According to Barthes (1981), the title Camera Lucida refers to a significant ontological
attribute of photographs. It is their ability to elucidate. The dictionary defines lucid as:
suffused with light, luminous. In this sense lucidness combines the removal of
opaqueness with greater understanding or clarification. Or we could easily use the

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word transparency here. In this regard I would like to suggest that it is a new kind of
transparency that we should associate with photographs. Not the literal, indexical,
factual transparency a la Walton, but one which can profoundly infiltrate appearances.
If we accept this stance, photographs could pierce, subvert and convulse the reality of
their origin. A photographic reality that for a long time seemed like a straitjacket that
cannot be removed now could be liberated, expanded, and transcended. (6) In the
case of still life photographs their evidential power buttresses their luminosity; it does
not impede their ability to elucidate or penetrate reality.

Michael Fried (2008), Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before contains this
profound statement:

Here let me go just a step further and suggest that photography so

understood may be thought of as an ontological medium, which is also to
say that the particular bodies of work I have been discussing not only are
illuminated by ontological thought but themselves make a positive
contribution to such thought, or at any rate to the further understanding -
the elaboration, even the deepening - of the philosophical texts in question.
(p. 347)

It could be suggested that this statement may be the first to demarcate a paradigm shift
in our broad cultural attitude towards photographs. We have to notice that Fried argues
here that photography not only parallels philosophy in its ability to explore deeper
meanings, but in a modest way could also improve on it. This is a startling revelation. I
believe that photography’s great advantage here lies in its ability to tie up
ontological/philosophical reflections with our everyday environments or with the most
common daily experiences. In place of just looking at the overlooked (Bryson, 1990),
we could realize that photography gives us the ability for greater perception,
contemplation and elucidation of issues that otherwise would escape our attention. So
instead of thinking about photographic transparency as we know it, we should embrace
photography’s ability to transparize. As exemplified in Boaz Tal many still lifes or his
effort in general, we should contemplate the issue of photographic transparization - or
ponder whether this is photography’s most profound attribute.
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Notes:

(1) See Henry Le Secq:

http://www.geh.org/fm/amico99/htmlsrc1/m198114810006_ful.html#topofimage

(2) The terms Rhopography and Megalography are originally termed by Charles Sterling in his
Still Life Painting.

(3) All personal references are from a talk with Boaz Tal, Tel Aviv 16 July 2009

(4) In Israel, focused effort by visual practitioners in art photography began only around 1977.
All involved in this endeavor, had to face an opposition to the acceptance of photography as a
legitimate art medium. Boaz Tal strategies mentioned here are also connected to this context.

(5) See Adriaen van Utrecht- Vanitas - Still Life with Bouquet and Skull 1642,
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Adriaen_van_Utrecht-_Vanitas_-
_Still_Life_with_Bouquet_and_Skull.JPG

(6) This is in contrast to Barthes’s assertion that the photograph cannot be penetrated. See
Camera Lucida p.106

References:

Abrahmov, S. L. (2008) Media Literacy: Reading and Writing Images in a Digital Age in
Educating Artists for the Future: Learning at the Intersections of Art, Science, Technology, and
Culture Mel Alexenberg (ed.) Intellect Books UK.

Barthes, R. (1981) Camera Lucida New York: Hill and Wang

Baudrillard, J. (1988) Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster Stanford: Stanford University Press,
pp.166-184. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html

Bourdieu, P. (1990) The Social Definition of Photography, Photography: a Middlebrow Art,

London: Polity Press pp. 73-98

Bryson, N (1990) Looking at the Overlooked: Four Essays on Still Life Painting (Essays in Art
and Culture) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Friday, J. (2000) Demonic Curiosity and the Aesthetics of Documentary photography The British
Journal of Aesthetics vol. 40 (3) pp. 356-375

Fried, M. (2005) Barthes's Punctum Critical Inquiry, Vol. 31 Issue 3, pp. 539-574

Fried, M. (2008) Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before

New Haven CT: Yale University Press

Korsmeyer, C. (1999) Making Sense of Taste: Food and Philosophy

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press

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Krauss, R. (1986) The Photographic Condition of Surrealism in The Originality of the Avant-
Garde and Other Modernist Myths Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Walton, K. (1984) Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographs Critical Inquiry vol. 11
pp. 246–276

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