drape – Acetylene Eyes

Emmanuel Sougez

ph. (French, 1889-1972)

There’s not a great deal of information on Sougez floating about in the digital aether.

From what I’ve gleaned he was part of the New Objectivity which was among other things a rejection of Expressionism.

The term New Objectivity originates from the German, specifically: Neue Sachlichkeit.

Sachlichkeit should be understood by its root, Sach, meaning “thing”, “fact”, “subject”, or “object.” Sachlich could be best understood as “factual”, “matter-of-fact”, “impartial”, “practical”, or “precise”; Sachlichkeit is the noun form of the adjective/adverb and usually implies “matter-of-factness”

I’m not about to say such a definition is useless; however to me it is practically useless–I have no idea what purpose it serves much less how I am intended to apply the information henceforth.

The question this image begs–at least for me–is: what constitutes the primary focus of the image: the woman or the draped fabric?

As to an anwer: I’m inclined to say both; therefore neither.

Well, a clever interlocutor might inquire: how is it both and neither?

Here I can do little more than point. But I suspect the question of whether it’s the woman or the drape is functionally identical to the reason Uta Barth isn’t a minimalist.

It’s something to do with the interpenetration of human perception of space and human intervention in space that is perceived–in this case the area over which the camera hoveringly waits.

Ariel Rosenbloom – Untitled (2011)

I can’t endorse Rosenbloom’s work across the board. Her use of color is slap dodge–running a gamut from dull to loud-mouthed gimmickry. Her B&W work is better–but still telegraphs a blueprint-rather-the-building awareness.

However, short falls aside, there is at least three consistently challenging aspects to her work.

She thinks a lot about how framing transacts with her images,
She favors portrait orientation (and I will extend her a free and clear pass as far as #skinnyframebullshitery goes since even though some of her stuff definitely is, she demonstrates a hyper self-consciousness in how she deploys it and situates her subject in the frame quite a bit like Ryan Muirhead),
Although she’s struggling to bring it fully to bear on her work, she has a similar based-upon-how-I-show-you-this-thing-what-can-I-get-you-to-imply-about-what-you-aren’t-seeing impetus to Yung Cheng Lin.

The framing in this image doesn’t exactly fail but it’s clunky. What works is the meditative expression and drape of the skirt over the edge of the cellar door.