In Okwui Enwezor’s essay we explore the art of Glenn Ligon and what it expresses to the world. Glenn Ligon is a fantastic artist that uses paintings and sculptures to explain the cultural and social identity through different mediums. Through his work you feel the emotion of American society, especially the history of civil rights, and slavery. What I’m trying to present in my response is the blackness of a photo and how it can have a deeper meaning. For example, In the essay Darby English pointed out, “Could a black artist describe a black painting in the following way without being taken for a fool?” “A pure, abstract, non-objective, timeless, spaceless, changeless, relationless, disinterested painting — an object that is self-conscious (no consciousness), ideal, transcendent, aware of no thing but art.” Personally, blackness is something that makes photography fantastic, or a painting speak. I think blackness is a good thing, not something that is negative. There is no boundaries with art, and by shooting this picture and showing the darkness of the lighting it’s representing the mystery behind the frame of the window, and to break through that barrier.
I was out shooting for a blog post with my sister, when we stumbled upon what seemed to be a black window. As I shot this window the window would come to life, being lighter, and not as dark as it seemed in person. As I looked into this window, it reacted more as a mirror. As I looked into the reflection all I saw was a blurred body figure. Not able to tell if i’m white, black, male or female. This window or mirror I’d rather call it, showed only the person looking into this timeless mirror knows who they are, when others look at your figure they see another figure of clueless identity. This is why I choose this material to represent the timeless, and unidentifiable figure in the background. To show how the fragmented figure isn’t in focus, and shows changeless being everyone is just blurred figure, and only you know who you truly are.
A limitation that could be a problem is the access to the equipment that I used to collect my response. I used a Canon EOS 5d, and edit this photo with a simple program called VSCO. This may be a small limitation, but majority of people can access a digital camera. Having a digital camera can change the world, giving anyone the ability to shoot anything, anytime. In the interview we watched in class last week the interviewer explained the availability to digital cinematography. This goes with photography as well, being digital is available everywhere and the cost is low. While if I were to use film, it could be a battle with equipment and cost. Even trying to develop your film you can run into issues with race, or gender.
A choice I had to make for my response was how to change the lighting in my photo. At first, I had a higher contrast on the picture. Which made the frame of the window pop more, the more I played around with the contrast I noticed it’s better to keep the whole photo even in contrast. By doing this you didn’t only focus on the frame but the figure of my body behind the frame. I also, changed to a black and white filter to relate to a lot of Ligon’s work. As I looked at some of his photography he uses these techniques to show real emotion in his work.
Through this response I learned you can express your emotions, or thoughts through anything. Glenn Ligon used text in a lot of his artwork, creating an abstract feel to the words. Showing theres more meaning behind the words, with there being layers of words piled on top of one another. I tried to show this through my shot, showing behind the crossed frame there was a faceless body. Behind that frame there is timelessness, and mystery about this photographer.
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