Macaulay Seminar One at Brooklyn College

Like countless other photos in the ICP, the photo I chose was startlingly intense and disturbing; taken in black-and-white, almost as if to highlight the tension between the black majority and the white minority under apartheid, the photo depicts a corpse covered by a fragment of newspaper that ironically reads, “This I believe by a South African–What Would You Die For?” The black man’s face is concealed which might indicate how his identity has been lost to a cause that thousands of others have died for. On a smiliar note, the man’s body is limp and lifeless–this implies that the man is a martyr, sacrificed at the altar of racism. At the center of the newspaper lies an image of a rather sinister-looking white man. Perhaps this image represents the human, or inhuman, face of the eugenicist, white-supremacist male who desired the black man’s destruction. The ad on the right side of the newspaper further emphasizes this idea because it is advertising a medicine that supposedly catalyzes the “end of nervous tension.” I inferred that on metaphorical grounds, the “end of nervous tension,” or the end of apartheid, may be brought about by spilling the blood of innocents, white and black alike.

Here is a description of a photograph that I noticed at ICP. This photo particularly stuck out amongst the many because of the prominence of the man in the photo. Many of the photos had numerous people in it. This one is of  one man- full of emotion and very powerful. The description I detailed here is a my try at jotting down everything that I saw (not felt) in the photograph (the way I understood Prof Ugoretz’s explanation of the assignment).Try picturing the photograph before you view the picture I found of it online (and let me know if my description was adequate/detailed enough and enabled you to “picture the photograph” or not).

Photo by Margaret Bourke White, American (1904-1971)

Photo of  Native Carpenter Philip Mbhele wearing “We Don’t Want Passes” tag (1950)

The photograph is black and white. The background is a sky. A man takes up most of the foreground of the photograph. The sky is full of clouds- dark gray clouds- ominous/ rain cumulus clouds. Lighter gray clouds are seen above the man’s left shoulder.The man is black. He has a furrowed brow and is looking skyward. His mouth is wide open: yelling something or crying out. He is missing one of his from teeth. A tear is at the outer corner of his right eye. He has a bald head. He has large ears that protrude outwards. He has a small mustache. A shadow is cast on the lower part of his chin (where his chin meets his neck). He takes up the whole front of the photograph and appears to be close to the camera lens (or zoomed in on); he overbears the picture.
His eyes are serious and full of emotion. His eyes meet above his nose in a two wrinkles. He is leaning slightly backwards into the background. The inner right side of his mouth is bright and the left side is shadowed.
He is positioned as coming in from the left side of the photograph and comes until just about an inch of the bottom right of the photo. He has thick eyebrows, large eyes, and his flared nostrils and open mouth face the camera. He has a cleft in the center of his chin. His lips are cracked, especially in the lower lip’s center. There is a shadow over the right side of his head an he is leaning down toward his right shoulder.
He is wearing a light colored button down with the top button open and the edges if the collar aren’t ironed/curl upward. Over that is a cable knit sweater of a dark color, covering the shirt (except for a tiny bit below the top button) and the collar is above the sweater. Over that he is wearing a heavy, wool jacket: plaid pattern, medium color with darker grid lines. The light is on the right side of the jacket. The jacket has a folded lapel. One button hole is seen, opened. The photograph goes until his high waist. It seems like the jacket is buttoned below that.
On the left side of his lapel, there is a tag. It is dog eared at its corners. It reads “we don’t want passes.” The background is pure white, with light gray letters. The letters are capitalized, serif font. The first line reads, “WE DON’T WANT.” Then, on a second line, in a bolder, heavier and darker font- strong serif, very heavy bold/thick- it says “PASSES.” The tag is pinned to his jacket. Two pieces of the metal peek through to the front side of the tag: in center of two lines, once below the D and once below the T (of don’t, smaller piece). The left bottom corner is the most turned up.
The entire right arm and shoulder is seen, straight jacket, stiff padded shoulder. On his left side , only his shoulder and through his upper arm is seen. There is no background on the left side of the photograph; the man enters the photo from this side. The photograph has a slight tear on its side, opposite his right ear, and a second tear, by his left lower shoulder.

Photo found on art.com (original image from LIFE archives)

There were two pictures that caught my eye during our visit to the ICP last week.Unfortunately, I was unable to find them when I looked for them online. The first picture is that of schoolchildren kneeling with their arms outstretched to the sky. At first glance I thought the children were praying, but after reading the caption on the picture, I learned that they were doing gymnastics. This realization bothered me because whoever took the picture had ill intentions, I felt. He or she took a picture of white children in Johannesburg in a prayerful position, trying to make it appear that they are religious and faithful, when in reality they were simply doing gymnastics. It made me wonder if I had been fooled in the past by the media putting a picture that is not exactly what it seems, and leaving people to make their own interpretation of what is put in front of them.
The next picture that interested me is titled “Whites Only Bus Stop”. It depicts three white women at a bus stop in Johannesburg in 1983 looking around them fearfully, as if they are expecting trouble from others around them, maybe blacks. They are clutching their bags, showing that they don’t trust the people around them. I found this picture very powerful.
Luz was a beautiful play. I truly felt for all the women in the play, and I thought the producer did an excellent job of making the audience feel mistreated, although it is unlikely anyone in the audience had gone through anything like these women had. The scene in which Luz screams at the attorney who won’t look at her is honestly the most powerful scene I’ve ever witnessed in any play, television show, or movie. In fact if I had to sum up the entire production in one word, it would be just that: powerful.

“What are you looking at?”

At the ICP, there were many photos that were interesting, but this photo by Gideon Mendel stood out to me the most. Perhaps it’s because the man in the middle is staring directly at me and makes me directly involved in the photo. The label next to the photo said: “Trade unionist Moses Mayekiso is violently arrested while leading a protest march during wage negotiations in Johannesburg.” The officer’s cold stare at the camera is just priceless. To me, his look conveys the message that what is happening is none of my business; he does not want me to get involved. When I look at him, I imagine this officer saying, “I dare you to do something. See what happens.” The marks, perhaps scars, on his face add on to his serious stare. When someone has scars, you tend to think the person has been through a lot and is tough. In his right hand, he seems to be holding a club that he is using to detain Moses Mayekiso. Near his rear pocket is a gun. Normally, you wouldn’t want to mess with someone wearing a police uniform. However, this looks like a man that you wouldn’t want to mess with, regardless of what he is wearing. The addition of the police uniform just makes him scarier.

Moses Mayekiso’s facial expression also conveys a lot. Although he is being violently detained, he does not look like he is suffering too much. Instead, Mayekiso looks resilient; he is fighting against this police officer’s authority. In a way, I feel like Mayekiso’s expression is encouraging viewers to retaliate. On his shirt is a sticker that has a fist and says “Worker Power,” which adds on to Mayekiso’s expression of encouragement because it shows how together, the workers may win this fight.

Therefore, an interesting contrast exists between the two subjects of this photo. On the one hand, the police officer’s cold expression is telling us to go away; on the other hand, Mayekiso is inviting us to join the fight and retaliate against the police. It is as if they are trying to win over the viewer and make him accept their message. The police officer is trying to win through intimidation and strength, while Mayekiso is trying to win through resiliency. These two are not only fighting physically, but also through their messages.

My favorite photo of the moment is “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper.” This photo is of a group of construction workers sitting nonchalantly on a beam thousands of feet up in the air, eating lunch in 1932. I first saw this photograph at the wax museum. What struck me about the photo is the big beam slashing across the frame while the tiny buildings run in a vertical direction. The men in the photo seem unconcerned for their safety, and that is fascinating to me because I grew up in a generation where every product that reaches the masses has been tested for safety and everyone worries about safety.

This photo was really emotionally stirring because it vividly illutrates the tragedy of the Sudanese famine in 1994. I saw it at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and I was utterly overwhelmed because of the form and helplessness of the child. The vulture in the back of the photo is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat it. Kevin Carter, the man who photographed this photo, committed suicide three months later due to depression. I think that that is very telling.

Grab a Snickers!

Hello,

The subject of the picture I will detail momentarily is not a chicken shack. Rather it is a women shot to death, which I thought is too gruesome to put as a title. The picture was captioned, “Nurse shot on her way to work by members of AWB who were randomly shooting at black people in Bophuthatswana,” and was taken by Fanie Jason.

The woman lay dead on her stomach with her face and toes facing away from the viewer, her head on the left side of the picture and her feet on the right. Her left hand was on the floor palm up and fingers bent halfway between flat and into a fist. Her right hand was not visible. She had dark-brown skin color. She wore a white knee-length skirt and a black shirt with sleeves that reached the elbow. A glimpse of a gold or silver necklace was visible on the back of her neck between her shirt and small afro. She wore black midsize heals. Now the gruesome part… A bit to the left of her head was an oval shaped puddle of blood around a foot wide with four streams stemming from it toward and out of the bottom left of the picture. One stream was larger than the rest since it was flowing along a split in the cement sidewalk. In the background were two shops. To the left, “Our Shop,” and to the right, “Chicken Shack,” as displayed on the upper few feet of each store. between them were two feet of dark emptiness with just a circular drainpipe on the bottom coming forward and stopping by the sidewalk with its opening facing us. Each had red bricks until around two feet up. Above the brickwork each had glass windows displaying of goods of each store. Our Shop had stacks of cookies on the first shelf and around two feet above on the second shelf were small clear bottles with red labels. Chicken Shack had only piles of sacks that each read 12.5 kg. The Chicken Shack glass had two bullet holes a few inches apart with spiderweb cracks surrounding them. On the floor to the left of the woman lay shards of glass: one larger triangle in the middle surrounded by smaller pieces. Faintly, a reflection of a car is visible through the glass window of Our Shop.

Crazy stuff…

Thanks Patrick for setting the trend of writing the review for “Luz” in the same post. Overall, the message of the play is understood. Problems of rape exist everywhere and victims are treated insensitively as shown by Luz screaming at the judge. The characters playing multiple parts confused me as it did others, I’m sure. Puppeteering could have been better. I would’ve suggested a darker stage with a white vulture but with the black vulture being the same color as puppeteers, they were too visible. The businessman character was entertaining as well and he gave over the message of the fact that large industries are ran by humans although some consider them to be monsters, like the man’s son.

Lookout Beach Plettenberg Bay 1986 by Gisele Wulfsohn

This photo was taken in a sandy area, most likely a beach, with water and tides in the background. There is a fat white lady probably in her mid 50s to the right of the picture. She has curly black hair and is wearing a small pearl necklace and a checked dress. The dress stops about a hand width above her knees. She has a grimace expression and she seems happy. Her arms are folded in her back. Her right leg is lifted up as if she was walking. She is bare foot.

Behind the white lady is a black lady. She is most likely a domestic worker. She looks sad and is wearing an all white maids outfit. She is holding jewelry, most likely for the white women in front, and tissue in her left hand. Her left hand is raised to her chest area. She has a white necklace and silver bracelets on both her arms. Her left heel is up as if she was walking. She has a plain white bandanna. She is probably in her mid 50s also. She is bare foot.

A black dog is next to the black lady. The dog has his/her tongue out. He/she seems thirsty. There are shadows tot he left of the people and the dog. It must be really sunny when this photo was taken. There are clouds on top of the photograph to the horizon.

Luz

I agree with Sauly that the message of rape and the victims affected and clearly shown in the play. Luz is a dramatic play especially the part when Luz screams at the lawyer. I jumped from my seat. There are a lot of boxes in the background with added to the serious tone of the play. It also creates a professional environment even if the boxes were placed in a chaotic fashion. I forgot that in the beginning of the play the announcers said that the subtitles would be above the stage, so when they were speaking Spanish I said to Maheen, “You know Spanish?” I liked the twist at the end, I did not expect the high class lawyer to be a victim of rape. Some parts of the play were confusing due to the same actors playing different characters. Also I could not figure out if it was a dream/flashback or real life.