Imogen Cunningham – the unmade bed (1957)
Absence as a Presence (Photographs as Haunted House/Ghost Stories)
Tag: sheets
Source unknown – Title unknown (20XX)
Images like this give me a feeling like maybe I’m not irrevocably broken.
I’m not sure I can explain why and I’m even less certain such feelings are a good thing…
Touch is such a goddamn minefield for me. Generally, if I don’t know someone and they touch me–something as little as their coat brushing against me as they walk by me on a subway platform can be downright unnerving. Extroverted people who throw their hands about when they laugh to collide and rest briefly on my shoulder, arm or thigh make me shudder and have brought on full blown panic attacks.
I’m split as far as how to respond to such incidents–half the time I snarl get the fuck off me, the other half I bite down hard and try to swallow the discomfort.
When it comes to acquaintances and friends, I try–and admittedly fail more than I succeed–to follow the other persons lead. Any contact will make me uncomfortable but it feels like that’s just the price of admission.
The weird thing I’ve found is that closeness isn’t prescriptive when it comes to touch. I know people who’ve insisted on hugging me upon our first introduction and I’ve been fine. Whereas, it makes me feel all squirmy inside when one of my oldest friends wraps her arms around me by way of greeting.
And here’s the rub of it: those people who can touch me with a seeming impunity to negative reaction–to a one, I would sleep with them without so much as a second thought if there was a mutual desire and clearly articulated consent.
The decision to do so would be based less on desperation (even though I have been sexually inactive for 5.5 years at this point) and more motivated by curiosity.
I don’t for a second believe I am entitled to sexual gratification from anyone simply because a random, proverbial dice throw by the universe reconciled my instinctive response their body. But I do feel–and much more often than I am willing to openly admit–that there is a disconnect between the frequency with which I experience attraction and the infrequency with which I express to those for whom I feel it.
People just don’t respond well to such admissions (from me). I just wish things in my life could be more like two of my close friends in college–both female and straight–who after a wild night woke up in bed together and although hungover one admitted to being extremely horny and the other admitted to always wanting to go down on her.
After neither was embarrassed or ashamed and they are still dear friends to this day.
To me this image not only conveys an intoxicating post-coital afterglow, it also resonates with the calmness of knowing how to ask a question so that it is not only heard but in no way presupposes any sort of response. (And I believe the entirety of my sexuality is encapsulated within that sentiment.)
Lastly, it must be noted that no matter how much this image resonates with me, it is textbook #skinnyframebullshit.
Mathilda Eberhard – Untitled (2012)
This is the fourth time I’ve featured Eberhard’s images.
I can’t lie: I am really rather fond of her work. Not all of it is good but there’s never any question as its veracity.
Mathilda Eberhard is always going to show a raw slice of her truth.
I feel as if this manifests in her work in a atypical and anti-photographic way. I am not at all sure how to say it without resorting to nebulous abstractions, so I’ll draw a metaphor: it’s as if image making is not unlike sewing. The thread pierces the fabric passes under it before piercing the fabric again to reappear. The tradition of image making emphasizes the importance of tracing the thread along the surface; and as an image maker you want to offer as vivid a glimpse of the thread as possible. It’s like Eberhard flips over the seam and then focuses on the absence of the thread–an inverted experience of negative time, a focus on the indecisive moment instead of the decisive one.
Personally, I am all about the leaning in brought by narrative tension–I want to know the story. There is no way to extrapolate any sort of story beyond something archetypally human–and therefore seemingly quotidian, mundane.
The thing is: I find myself investing far more into her work than I do with the majority of ‘narrative’ imagery. Perhaps, I have–in my own work–been looking for something in decisive moments that belongs only to the indecisive ones.
Gaaaaaaah!
Despite the recognition of William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld and Jeff Wall–photographers work work either predominantly or exclusively in color–there is nothing approaching consensus on the purpose and/or role color plays in image making.
Admittedly, I am only familiar with the proceedings in a manner similar to the way the geek table in a high school cafeteria is privy to the latest scuttlebutt at the popular kids table. Best as I can tell, it centers on whether or not color is intrinsic to the raison d’etre of the image; or, is it instead, merely a decorative addition.
As someone who prefers B&W to color and whose use of color is usually governed by whim rather than reason, I don’t feel effectively equipped to interrogate questions over the use of color in a work.
However, I do suspect this work might well be considered in such conversation.
Moving away from considerations of color–difficult to do as the work hinges on color–the conceptual underpinning of this work is fucking stellar. With so much of the bigotry LGBTQQAI folk facing being unduly fixated on what happens in beds, behind closed doors; Carland counters this fetishization by remind us that just like us lesbian couples also share beds for the purpose of sleeping–a thoroughly normal, human activity.
There’s are touches of personal identity, yet everything still remains anonymous. The work stands on its own, presenting its perspective in a straight-forward, face value manner that leaves only one question: why these beds? A question answered in turn by the title.
Astute, exciting work.
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This image was reblogged from knitphilia. I don’t want to embarass her or gush in too sploosh-y a fashion but I adore her blog. A-goddamn-fucking-DORE. Her curation is over-the-moon superb. Please follow her if you aren’t already and for the love of all that is good: check out her pretty masculinity and handsome femininity tags.
Acetylene Eyes 