graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
original source: 'The Times' 2 12/11/08
The newspaper source of the image from which this drawing was processed referred to a number of similar elements in the recent developments of The Project: the ‘Polaroid’, snapshot nature of the component photographs; their degraded, high-contrast appearance; their existence as historical documents of a particular age; their multiplicity, & the photographs themselves photographed to form a composite arrangement (grid-like, of course), with the further level of representation-reproduction consequently mined, all of which factors have occurred in the choice of image & subsequent drawings of late.
Added to this is the knowledge that, in terms of human subjects, these particular photographs feature certain criminal persons – as was the recently-drawn ‘man of 1,000 faces', master of disguise Jacques Mesrine - & that, most specifically, said individuals, members of the popularly-known Baader-Meinhof group, the self-styled Red Army Faction, who waged a terrorist campaign against the West German state from within in the 1970s, featured in the work of Gerhard Richter (himself oft-referenced within the course of this photographically-derived project) in his sequence of paintings entitled ‘18th October, 1977’, the significance of this date being that of the death in captivity of three of their number, although the paintings as a series (of 15) actually cover a wider period of time of the group's existence.
The particular reason for the Baader-Meinhofs’ current ubiquitous presence in the media is the release of a film detailing their exploits, which reason also applied to Mesrine: both films necessarily court controversy & accusations of glamourizing violent crime, as such ‘aestheticizations’ are wont to do, however unintentionally in a stated context of dispassionate, factual balance.
The poster advertising the film is notable for the grid format arrangement of its individual photo-portraits & overall particularly ‘Warholesque’ appearance, down to its saturated monochrome ground (cf. again Warhol's series of images of 'America's Most Wanted'), being closely modelled on published posters of the group in their day, a formal device also habitually used by Richter for his ‘Atlas’ collections of visual source material.
Richter's paintings of the '18th October, 1977' cycle are subject to his technique of 'unpainting' the resolved underlying image, either wholly or in part, dragging his brush across the still-wet oil paint, blurring the ostensible 'subject matter', thus creating through this surface quality an aesthetic distance, where painting might exist in & for itself, independently of the source material & its photographic origins, more immediate & sensational as they are: although a purely formal device, this might be regarded by critics as conferring a type of (literally) misty romanticism to the subject matter, similar to the charges levelled against the cinematic equivalent. In addition to portraits such as those illustrated, the series also includes scenes of the arrest & deaths of members of the Baader-Meinhof group, the latter officially by suicide in their prison cells although all the available photographic evidence could not prove this particular circumstance or 'reality' conclusively, illustrating the inherent ambiguity present in the story any photograph might tell.
Gerhard Richter 'Youth Portrait'
oil on canvas/1988
Gerhard Richter 'Confrontation 1'
oil on canvas/1988
Gerhard Richter 'Confrontation 2'
oil on canvas/1988
The concept of Richter's 'unpainting', the musing upon, then inspired in me the related one that both the painting & drawing from photographs, transforming them from the latter realm into another, different aesthetic space (& slower, more contemplative pace, of both making & viewing), could be said, perhaps, to be a process of 'de-photography', 'de-photographization' or 'dis-photography', of gradually dismantling the reality of the photographic image to that point where it becomes & exists as a completely different entity: a subject to be pursued theoretically..(there being a wealth of visual evidence to study, of course, including now this current body of personal creative practice & related contextualizing)?
Interesting to note by way of another coincidence that an early-ish example of the music of Cabaret Voltaire - who seem to be haunting this blog on a regular basis recently - is entitled 'Baader-Meinhof'.
Soundtrack:
Lambchop 'OH(Ohio)'
Moon Wiring Club 'Shoes Off and Chairs Away'
Boards of Canada 'Hi Scores', 'In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country' & 'Geogaddi'
Belle & Sebastian 'Push Barman to Open Old Wounds'
Ah, a new Lambchop album, its sound familiar & comforting, perfect for the onset of the dark, damp autumn-winter months, an extra cultural layer to wrap oneself in to combat the melancholy chill, its subtleties destined to reveal themselves gradually over time, at their own relaxed pace. For the moment, one can take additional delight in the paintings of Michael Peed gracing the CD’s packaging, wittily depicting a loving couple seemingly blissfully oblivious of the scenes of escalating urban unrest taking place almost immediately beyond their windows. Also to be enjoyed is the prevailing cool, white, minimalist aesthetic of the packaging in general, including the discs themselves, presented here in the unfolding formal narrative of the design:
A similar appreciation also seems worthy of being accorded the visual aesthetic accompanying Boards of Canada’s ‘In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country’, the sequence of image-shapes of the design being repeated, continued across the disc, in perfect harmony, with the child-like nature of a selection of the images complementing the sound clips of children’s voices often embedded within the music as an element of its form & texture.
