Macaulay Seminar One at Brooklyn College

I was extremely excited to go to the International Center of Photography. I was expecting to see extraordinary photos, photos that are unusual and unique. I wasn’t sure how I would choose just one photo that was intriguing!

However, I actually struggled to find that one photo that I’d be blogging about. On the first floor of the museum, I found disturbing photos and was forced to quickly turn the other way. I noticed a photo of a nude man, an uncovered woman, a face filled with frightening bruises, a hand with missing fingers, etc. I was caught by surprise. Who would’ve thought the museum would display such photographs? What was the message the artist was trying to convey through her photos? What exactly was I supposed to infer from each and every photograph? I wasn’t sure how any of these photographs would interest me.

As I continued to glance through each section, I found one particular photo that caught my eye. It was a photograph of a beautiful chandelier, looking as if it was hanging from the sky. The sky was the lightest blue, with thin clouds, and the chandelier looked as if it was balanced in the air. The chandelier was in between the clouds and the blend of the blue and white colors made the photograph seem soothing and the chandelier in the middle of the sky, made the photo striking and spectacular.

Overall, this trip was not one of the best. I can honestly say that if it weren’t for this photo that caught my eye, I would have had trouble coming up with a particular and interesting photograph to discuss. However, it was an experience!

Here is the photo…

This post, being written only an hour after leaving the International Center of Photography, is my most vivid recanting of the messages I took from the more memorable moments in time so poetically hung on the walls.

On the first floor, I had a difficult time deciding which of the photos captured my attention the most. The first of two images that captured my mind’s eye is “Man Nude on Bed”. At first glance, one might flinch at open exposure of the gentlemen’s groin. I must admit, though, that after the initial shock and secondary curiosity, I was reminded of the well known paintings of nude women from 19th and 20th century artists. In a sense, the pose of the main subject is what draws crowds and warrants acclaim from critics. However, instead of jewels, fine silk bedding, or some divine statue ejecting water from a jug in its grasp, the man lay surrounded by unwashed clothes and had taken refuge not in a garden, but a room in disrepair. So what, then , draws crowds to see the particular work by the photographer Zoe Strauss?

As they are captured on film  and immortalized on canvas, the man and woman mentioned before strike similar poses. In context, one might think these two works a world apart. Nay, I say! The human self is static, no matter the time or place. But do not let physique fool you. No matter if the artist depicts the curves of an 18th century mistress or that of a 21st century man of basic means, the Strauss photo intrigues us, seduces us; the attraction of the photo, I believe, lies not in the sexual expose that is all too evident, but in the awakening of one’s memory. In taking careful time to observe the photograph, I was reminded of these 19th and 20th century artworks. No matter if one sees intrinsic value in the photograph I have just described, the artistic value rests in an artwork’s ability to inspire intrigue and engage its onlookers in an exploration of everything that were are reminded of when we arrive in front of this man’s image “Nude on Bed”.

To see the photo, click here: Man Nude on Bed, Las Vegas – Philadelphia Museum of Art

There were many pictures which struck my eye. In many of them, I kept thinking about what the photographers were thinking while taking some photos as well as trying to put myself in the place of the people in the photos on the lower level. My grandparents came through Ellis Island, so it was cool seeing how people looked back then, and at the same time seeing those photos made me sad because many of the people looked troubled and looked like they had been through and gave up a lot to get to where they were. What really took my by surprise were the pictures and fliers about child labor. I was able to look up one of the pictures that got to me.

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In this picture, the photographer exposes the grim tragedy of child labor. The image depicts a young girl standing in a factory. I believe that the photographer effectively conveys the strong message that child labor is a dangerous reality, although beyond the obvious concepts of hazard and risk, has consequences that are emotionally nasty. By looking at a child who appears visually helpless and overwhelmed, one is compelled to think about the psychological effects of facing grueling, manual tasks at an immature age. The two overarching, endless walls of heavy machinery seem to overpower the girl’s innocence, perhaps a reflection on the photographer’s part of her state of mind. Certainly, it is alarming to think of the dreadful cognitive and behavioral, not least physical, impediments the girl might endure as a result of her position. Naturally, the question poses itself: what kind of world brought a girl of such youth to her knees, forcing her into the unforgiving milieu of neglect and abuse? What dream of one day becoming a doctor or teacher can she aspire to whilst trapped in an inferno of iron, steel and coal, or an abyss of spinning reels and sewing machines? Taking this a step further, one begins to think about the clothes on one’s body and wonder whether this girl, or others in her position, once sweated over its creation in exchange for food, lodging, or low pay.

The Zoe Strauss exhibition is where I spent most of my time at ICP. I wasn’t crazy about all of her pictures but a few of them really did strike me. There was one of a man who had just been shot in the leg and was on a stretcher smoking a cigarette. There was one of a yellow door with KKK written in black and white on it. I loved the juxtapositions of colors and ideas in her work.

The photograph that struck me the most was the one of the naked man lying on the bed in some trashy room. When I first rounded the corner and looked to my right I had a good chuckle at this comical specimen but after a while the photo really got me thinking. Yeah we were all making fun of him and joking that we’d all write about the naked man but there was something to that photo that made us stop and look and chat and laugh. He was so nonchalant in his nudity and in his surroundings, which were pretty deplorable. He was posed like a model of the Renaissance, like some Venus of Urbino. But he definitely did not have the ideal Greco-Roman figure.

Maybe it’s that juxtaposition that had me lingering there. Maybe it was wondering how Zoe Strauss could have possibly ended up in a situation in which she took this photo. Maybe it was the questions of where is he, what did he do last night, who is he, why is he there, what is he doing now? It was comical at first but I slowly realized all the layers behind this one photograph.

It’s not like I’d go home and order a print of it online, hang it up in my room. I really don’t have a desire to look at that picture, I didn’t at the time I was either.. but something kept me there. This man was interesting, and Zoe Strauss captured that.