| What conclusions can be made about placing the exhibition “Americans, Masterpieces of American Photography from 1940 until now” at the Kunsthalle Museum in the traditional heart of the Austrian capital? The staunchly raw view of America would instinctively seem ill displayed amongst the works of Schiele, Klimt and Die Blaue Reiter in the neighboring museums of The MuseumsQuartier. Interestingly though, it still works. |  |
In A Western Tongue: The Kunsthalle Speaks Out – Tomás Ruflür
What conclusions can be made about placing the exhibition “Americans, Masterpieces of American Photography from 1940 until now” at the Kunsthalle Museum in the traditional heart of the Austrian capital? The staunchly raw view of America would instinctively seem ill displayed amongst the works of Schiele, Klimt and Die Blaue Reiter in the neighboring museums of The MuseumsQuartier. Interestingly though, it still works.
“Americans,” named after the legendary publication by Robert Frank, was exhibited at the Kunsthalle in Vienna’s MuseumQuartier at the turn of this year. It shows, in 13 series of photographic images, the crises and changes in US society since the 40s.
Photographers here range from Helen Levitt’s street images of New York to the strongly autobiographical works of Ryan McGinley and Ed Templeton. They convey, as the Kunsthalle tells us, “a distanced picture of today’s hedonistic cult of youth that is influenced by erotic promiscuity and fun ideology.”
The exhibition itself is displayed in a very open, whitened gallery with meandering inlets leading to the different epochs of notable American photographers. Ushering us into the exhibition are Levitt’s photographs, whose themes Bruce Davidson would pick up on ten years later.
The myriad of famous names and faces greet us all the way through. The photographs of Robert Frank’s “On the Road” remind us of what gave the Beat Generation of the 60s their image. In the same decade, Diane Arbus captures our imagination, taking photographs of those outside of conformist, middle-class American society. Circling back to New York City is the early work of Lee Friedlander, thematically describing the loneliness of life in the maniacal mega-city that is The Big Apple.
The work of Richard Avedon also contributed in an exhibition not only concerned with urbanism, but also with the characteristics of each American state in the era of Reaganomics. Avedon portrays in interesting successions and contrasts the people often ignored or dismissed in the state of Texas, the working classes and blue-collar workers.
Roaslind Solomon, a contemporary photographer, deals with the New Orleans carnival of the 90s. Gordon Parks, a black citizen himself, portrays the racial issues of segregation and the activities of the Mafia in the United States.
The oeuvre of work displayed in this exhibition is striking for one major reason: the huge portraits hanging along the walls in the labyrinthine expanse document a diary of the ages. Looking at them is like peaking into a private underworld of secrets and hidden thoughts that fall in between the lines found in history books. A world of reality that is applicable to any generation in some way, a quiet human story.
The projected images of Larry Clark bring awareness of the early sexuality of minors and to the lives of drug addicts. With the same often-brutal openness, Peter Hujar engages with the world of transvestites and transsexuals. The work of the infamous Burk Uzzle is also displayed here. His photographs document in images events such as the Woodstock Festival.
The curator of this exhibition, Peter Weiermair, explains of the more contemporary images displayed: “These pictures do not judge but provoke viewers into making their own judgment. In contrast with the ‘concerned photography’ of the 20th century in which pictures sought understanding but also demanded the acceptance of non-conformist behavior, the most recent contributions are concerned with making statements without moral undertones.”
This point can be most easily understood when one compares the works of Burk Uzzle from the 60s to that of Lee Friedlander or the later works of Ed Templeton.
In Woodstock, Uzzle distills an image that makes a statement of how unbound and true the expression of sexual and hedonistic freedom can be. An image so confident in being free, in fact, that full frontal exposure is not needed to make the point. The texture of the frame is soft and the mood of the image relaxed. There is no tension in the scene depicted, and the sense of natural harmony comes across. In these ways, the frame does not prompt an opinion, but displays one.
This is also a strong element of the epic in Friedlander’s piece New Jersey; displaying the solitary, darkened room with a caricatured smile on the face of the television. In this piece, a somber, heavy tone permeates the canvas and asks the viewer to almost sit steeped in its deepened silence. Staring at the image you feel the smile staring at the television watcher must not be able one he is able to return. The role of media in its takeover of our lighter emotions is part of the statement being made. Again, the photograph does not ask the viewer to have an opinion; it is not a difficult image to grasp, as the mood it conveys also elucidates the thoughts of the “concerned” photographer.
In contrast, the more modern photographs of Templeton, like Dildo on Desk, come across as more neutral images. There is no real mood to it and no real sense of a context. Unlike Friedlander and Uzzle’s immediately grabbing and enlightening photographs that make a statement, Templeton’s err on the side of question-making. His image asks after your perspective to give it a meaning. It is almost as if this is intentional in its two dimensionality; he knows his image is not a sight that evokes an immediate context, and therefore grasp—so, we, the viewer, can give it depth with our own projected understanding. In this way, Templeton asks for your opinion in making an individual statement of his piece, in a way that his predecessors displayed in the exhibit do not.
With such a strong American contingent displayed in the MuseumQuartier, it is worthwhile noting that Austrian art may also be defined for its eye in recognizing worthwhile international art.
