Nadejda Dimitrova
Professor Calirman
September 23, 2013
The Arts in New York City
This photograph is powerful. It is an untitled gelatin silver print from the Kitchen Table Series, taken in 1990 by American photographer Carrie Mae Weems. Guessing from the title of the series, the two people photographed are at a kitchen table. They are playing cards and having drinks. The man is smoking, his hand captured in the photograph being to his mouth. Interestingly, the woman’s hand is also up to her mouth. I think this might be to show some kind of secrecy in their relationship, or at least in the game they’re playing. You see the woman glaring at the man from the side of her eyes. You also see the smoke from the man’s cigarette in the air, under the bright light. The light creates a lot of hard lighting in the photo, giving it a lot of contrast with deep shadows. Still, your eyes travel up the picture to the softer lighting. This is also due to the vertical lines in the door, leading your eyes upward. You see some pictures on the wall above where the woman is sitting too. These things in the photograph all make up the studium. However, the punctum, which pierces you, is the iconic poster of Malcolm X, among the pictures above the woman. It catches your eye because of its familiarity, and it keeps your eye because of its strength, even behind the smoke. Plus, it not only works in, but is accentuated by the composition of the photo. For one, it seems that Malcolm X is pointing up towards the light in the room. This makes his presence more real, along with the fact that the size of the photograph makes him just about in proportion to the woman. Thus, the photograph seems to be sending a message of black power. I really like this picture in general and I think that it’s the photo in the photo that makes it special.
I also believe that the Malcolm X poster was significant to the subject/photographer, or operator as Roland Barthes would say. This is because Carrie Mae Weems, born in 1953, is an African-American artist who has focused a lot of her work on serious issues that face black people in the United States. So, the Malcolm X poster in the object/photograph tie into that theme, since Malcolm X was a famous black civil rights activist. And with all the elements in the photo put together, Weems made it clear to the spectator that this was an important part of the picture. Christina and I saw this, so we decided that the Malcolm X poster in the photograph was the punctum.
