The American Scene; Abstract Photos

Good morning, this is Howard Vincent doing the art for the American scene sponsored by Illinois Institute of Technology. I want to backtrack just a minute before we take up the subject for the day and remind you that in our first program several weeks ago we discussed a book called James Joyce and we had the author of that book, Chicago, and there's an Evanson Richard Elvin on the show and he discussed that book very entertainingly, very informing informatively and we had a number of very favorable reactions to that and at the time I said went out on a limb but I don't think it was a very creaky limb saying that this book was a masterpiece. It was very pleasing to see in the paper the other day that the book has won the National Book Award as the best biography of the year. I hope we'll have some other prize winners picked out ahead of time for you in the weeks to come. We have an interesting

show today. It's dealing with a subject which most people don't think much about. They think of it's photography and it's abstract photography. Most people think of photography as a realistic sort of thing. You pick up your little box and take a picture of that many standing in front of the automobile and you want that many to come out just as that many is in front of the automobile just as that automobile is. Very well that's the way most of us require photography but photography is more than just you and your little box snapping although it is very much that. It has become an art and there are a lot of misconceptions about photography as an art. There is right now in New York City at the Museum of Modern Art a show called the Sense of Abstraction which is has 300 photographs on display by 77 photographers from all around the world, Japan not Russia, Japan and the other countries of Europe and many

Americans. Chicago is well represented in that show. We have a number of distinguished photographers in this city and I'm happy to report that most of those photographers are connected one way or other or have been connected with Illinois Institute of Technology. For instance there are shown in the Museum of Modern Art right now before the grass of Aaron's syskinned of Ray Metzger and of Callahan and of Howard Deirstein and besides the work of former Chicagoans or Chicagoans who have been at Illinois tech such as Frederick Summers and Keppish. Now these men have opened up a new world or helped to open up a new world of photography. Of course their work always a great deal to the former masters who are also on display. Such men as Stiglitz or Stichen or Weston, the Holy Noggy who founded the Institute of Design for example and Mann Ray living in Paris but in American. These men have done a great deal

in establishing the sort of approach which our men today are and they too some of them in old age are carrying on. Today we're lucky in having one of these men right here to discuss with me this problem of abstract photography. Howard Deirstein is a professor of photography out at the Illinois Institute of Technology, the Institute of Design and he has five pictures in the show. He's exhibited pictures frequently in other shows at seven on seven different occasions at the Museum of Modern Art. He's had one man shows, Virginia and elsewhere and he has written a book, Shadows of Silver, dealing with some discoveries in photography. Mr. Deirstein is certainly well -qualified on the subject and he will talk about with me this question of what constitutes abstraction in photography. How this most concrete of instruments is one of the most artistic instruments. Howard I think the first thing we ought to do is tackle this thorny question

of abstraction. What do you mean by abstraction and photography? Well Howard there are as many different definitions of abstraction as there are people who define it and some people think of abstraction as taking an object and simplifying it in some way. I think of abstraction as the situation you get when in the picture the objects are not recognizable. Then you have only a composition of line color light shade form and so forth. In other words you're dependent for your effect not upon associate to values but rather upon the effect of the means of painting or photography. Purely formal values. Formal values which may carry however expressive impact. What about looking at this picture we started out with. We

didn't discuss this properly when it was opened up the show but here is one now this is apparently an abstraction nobody nobody looking at this I imagine can guess what this is about in terms of a subject. What is it about? It isn't about anything it's a puddle of water on pavement in New York City in which there are reflected the images of certain skyscrapers but it was to me a pleasing form and I photographed it. It has a kind of suggestion about it however. You were talking about these Rajak tests I believe how it in which. Which people observe well the Rajak inkblock test you mean. They show a page usually it's a patient but it can be done with any normal person. They show on a page which are inkblots in different different

forms and the person looks at those inkblots and tells what he sees. One person will see an automobile going down the highway another will see Marilyn Monroe and third will see skyscrapers. Well you see a person reveals himself what he sees in nature and what he sees here. Now this is this with its three spots of black. These claws coming out is an abstract pattern and yet this is what everybody sees. Every day of his life this sort of thing but he doesn't know he sees it as an artist. I make a kind of distinction there. I say it's a kind of organic abstraction that is to say it has some sense of being an organism of some sort of living organism and and suggest some kind of visionary animal us and so on. Animal, animal, animal. That's a form, form, some living form, some living form how it does. I have an idea which is observed

for a long time that people go around looking in the first place in the forms of nature looking for their own image, the image of man. Now you know in case of Shakespeare's hamlet. Yes. Over the colonial's hamlet scene. Oh well what were they looking for something? Yes. Hamlet would say something to the effect it's a bear and colonial said yes it's a bear. No says hamlet it's something of but the Greeks have done this from time immemorial. They people all of the nature with with human shapes. Yes. And we look for these. The way we do these skies even today and there are lots of people who see the forms of them. Sure. Well abstraction is is a is a manner of speaking I think there is no such thing as absolute abstraction because you can you can always read something into any picture even if it's composed of squares and triangles or something. But it's a relative matter. But it's fairly recent of course as a conscious as a conscious

artistic form. I have to have a theory about this too which may be correct. That is painting for a long time dealt. One of its functions was to portray the world about it. Then in 1839 Da Gehr invented photography. It soon became apparent that that the camera could portray objects with much greater precision than than the painter. Consequently this function of painting gradually lost its its reason for being and and the painters then turned to other other objectives which were seeking something from within or abstraction away from away from the realistic world. It forced them then to find since the camera was such a rigorous competition in what so many people mistakenly thought was. Yeah there's taking it quite right. That it forced

them to examine the the essence of their work the essence is the that the is the formal pattern what they're concerned with. But you have here an amusing situation seems to me. Since you're an abstract photographer you have camera forcing the painters into a line of development or lines of development whether it be Cubism, Surrealism, Folism or what you wish which is our forms of abstraction are beginning to abstract in greater greater degrees and yet the now the photography forced them to do this photography itself is becoming abstract. This is no tour de force the photographer can create abstractions by by exerting from the surrounding area a certain pattern of forms which when these things are are are lifted out of context cease to have

the usual associative meaning they lose their their their normal value that is to say the value they have in human affairs and and and take on a new character in the picture now these forms may have lost their connection with life altogether they become however important they take on a new life in the picture yeah and serve a new function in the picture the function that is to say the picture is a a an organism complete in itself a world in microcosm you might say complete in itself with rules which are different from the physical world about us now when you you take something out of the physical world it may function in this way you know well you have a picture here which I think may illustrate this point the was on abstraction on concrete now there that is a that

is an abstract pattern certainly yeah I would look out and say oh yes it's a part of the Alps it would be silly of me to do that but people we are all inclined to do that something what is it now if we let's let's violate the purity of this picture and try to see what you started from what you had when you put your camera at something you put your camera at what and this scene well it was the the darker areas in the picture are are the shadow of a snowbank cast upon a concrete pavement the lower left -hand corner shows the it's water from the melting snow the other portion of concrete pavement has dried now as until you know this once you know this how the picture was made I say it ceases to be an abstraction because you're always thinking of what it is but if you don't know this it's an abstraction all right that presents a problem you see yeah it ceases to be the pure abstraction

but can it can it still be a satisfactory thing on your wall it's been complicated it's been impureified by association and but it still keeps its form whether the farmers know the is known the origination of the farmers known or not it still keeps its farm and has its beauty it'd be better to see the thing in a kind of purity yeah well I think so what what the does this annoy you to have people put you back to the originating of farms and label people are always asking when I show my pictures well what is this what is I know they're asking but I mean doesn't actually think it might annoy you oh I've gotten used to it I don't ask what it is you know when I see a picture I don't care what it is if it is satisfying in itself yes of course it's of some interest how it was made but of little interest relatively speaking you know I think but it's a problem here the estheticians take up all the time and I'm curious about the fact that people do

once they know whether the picture has been harmed by my I don't think it is it didn't for me anyhow but there might be for a time they are aware and then they forget the concrete walk and the final thing which lasts is the delight of the farm well it's like the pearl which is created as you know from the the disease of the oyster is our appreciation of the beauty of the pearl defected by knowing how it was created for me no a pearl is beautiful or not beautiful well then then this approach is a problem of is photography and art and I'm I'm asking a question but he answered pretty obvious that's a story let's develop it well thank you thank you it's a thorny problem this question but you say yes without any doubt naturally I do I have to to support my ego but there are a lot of people who come back the idea that photography can be an art and they do it on the basis of the fact that the picture is made in a mechanical way well the artistry doesn't

has the photograph of course is is is a picture made by by the effect of light upon a ascensitized surface you press the button and you record the picture the artistry doesn't come in and pressing the button the artistry comes in beforehand in the selection of the subject and the either selection or arrangement you can have a photograph can be arranged as my colleague the distinguished photographer Walter Paterhance does he he takes a bunch of stuff arranges it into a composition which places him and then records it by means of photography don't tell you say that's cheating I don't say anything is cheating it depends upon the result having people said the sort of thing is cheating well it's a put up job you might say yeah well I tried this once you know I I was telling I guess Howard about this case

I had this this one man show in in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts a few years ago and I had 50 slides in it and a friend of mine saw this show and said oh oh very nice show but wasn't one of these pictures arranged I said yes indeed it was arranged but which one he said the one with the magnolia leaves well you know how I made this Howard I was fearful of this idea that the picture might look arranged so I took a batch of magnolia leaves and dropped them I didn't touch them after I dropped them and yet they looked arranged you can't touch nature at any point and without producing something which somehow seems seems artificial and this is why I don't touch nature in general I go about selecting pictures and I don't move I don't touch I don't add I don't take away anything in general that is

all right but not Howard Howard Deerstein picture is not arranged but isn't the very fact that your eye is a touching thing if it it arranges if it moves and instead of taking your hands and dropping leaves your eye is arranging leaves or arranging water on a water on a side I go around Howard until I find something that really speaks to me yeah it says something to me and when I figure this is happening that's the time to snap the picture you know well you go strange places sometimes this next picture that you you brought along this what it's called spatter pattern I think that that people will say what now I hope that all of you looking at this are looking at it on a color set because it is a a beautiful thing in color and it loses a great deal without that but maybe what about this what is this now well it's the it is taken in the back of an automobile the black automobile it's a combination of reflections of the sky

and and see the black automobile the wonderful reflector and and then mud spatters which created this pattern those those white bits that that spattered mud yeah well it's a strange place to see a thing of beauty but there is well you can find beauty all over I say there are no higher arcies of value in in subject matter that is to say at one time painters particularly thought our photographers also in order to create a fine picture you had to take a picture of a beautiful woman or a picture of a beautiful woman or a rose I say you can take a picture of an old shoe or something in the gutter I go around gutters dumps and all sorts of places look here's my joke but you're you're more right than I am of course a beautiful sunset or a beautiful woman get in the way of a beautiful conversation another kind of beauty Howard yes that's nothing to do with I'm talking about prettiness and something else another kind of beauty oh I don't deny this kind of beauty yeah but no I was aware of this when I first came to Chicago

a poet friend of mine was looking out the window of our office out there and I tech towards a railroad tracks and you couldn't see Komisky Park very well at that moment and it was an ugly looking sight and he said isn't that beautiful well it jolted me into finally saying yes but you had to see it right and you some of the things you're you're so well -versed in painting Howard through your your you've written this book on on domier the great French painter you're you're well acquainted with the fact that these French painters painted all kinds of things you know domier yourself I go here is one of those who taught people to do it because he's cartoons of all kinds of crazy situation people began to be aware of those crazy situations had not very comedy but beauty sure dig us for instance learn from in my name you said to me the other day was a student really innocent yes he was and and of course Seisanne painted everything he painted the wax apples now who under the sun would paint wax apples if he thought the subject in itself were of intrinsic work now everybody's painting or had lots of people painted

wax apples because he's on did it yeah well I don't like all wax apple paintings frankly well what's the difference so between painting and photography this is an interesting thing I I think they're the same in many respects that is to say they they are both two dimensional arts that is to say our both our art forms created with two dimensional means there is no actual depth in either a photograph photograph or a painting but you get a sense of the third dimension in painting as you know you to have a fine painting you have to have good composition good distribution of light shade color and so forth and and this same thing holds for a photograph you have inevitably to achieve good composition the differences I see it lies in the fact that a painting is created by a manual technique that brush and the and the pigment

whereas a photograph the actual creation of it takes is is a photochemical process but when it is all said and done the two things have to be judged by the same by the same criteria how much how much is done after the to the photograph by the after the actual snapping of the scene in terms of the laboratory how much is done a great deal in the case of black and white photography this could make a break a potentially good photograph how it is handled what what the photographer does in the dark room in the case of color photography very little is done it's these prints to be I like to have I don't make these I like to have prints made which which are exactly like the original or as closely like the original as possible but you're at the mercy there aren't you of the of the film the quality of film you might get a film which is no good or very

exaggerates color you might get why which is very faithful or you know I heard a man the other day complaining about certain films like better not named brand name sure and there is one he always used because he just generally got better results and you must have to confront this all the time oh sure you in in getting well the film is one thing and there are several good commercial films and and then getting from the slide the transparency yeah which can be projected of course getting a good print from these is is is is very difficult it is more difficult than well yeah because it is a complex problem of printing well now what can be learned from from photography is it some generalizations we could pick up here well how would I think that perhaps the first one the the one that strikes us immediately is the fact that that you were saying a while back micro photography has

revealed a world which the eye could never see why because this world was too small for the eye to distinguish its features and also then in another realm high -speed photography such as Edgerton of Yale has done of Harvard has done has also revealed things we have never seen before that is to say things which happen so fast that the eye couldn't so fast are so small so fast also small now that that is one one realm in which the the photograph has enlarged our vision of the world and then as far as photography as an art is concerned the fact that that the camera can record every last minute detail of the object this is something that certain painters have attempted to do but never succeeded very well this is the kind of thing that is natural to the camera this exactly according this is the kind of thing which which the camera

ought to do we should not have these diffuse pictures and so may I make a suggestion that this exactness you talk about is not a thing which is it is a mechanical achievement let's admit that but we we ourselves as observers do not have this exact and if we are forced to see more exactly than we do we gain a new insight into the world around it exactly how are they this is what I have learned a great deal for taking photographs for 20 or 30 years going around it it concentrates your vision you see things more more clearly than you would if you were not if you're just walking along casually looking at the at the scene around you you see them in their strangeness to I mean yeah we're so accustomed to suddenly become strange don't they see well when we isolate a portion of something very out of its context take it out of its context very frequently this thing becomes a very very strange indeed you know and this is

one of the things that the photographer can do he can create by selection in this way by selecting the proper things he can get good composition good color he can get expression he that is to say the picture can have a meaning a content over this one for instance the content of that I mean it's a thing of beauty if it comes through in the color but that what's out of stream bed isn't it it's a stream bed in North Carolina that has been gouged out by rocks being world around by the swirling waters and it did almost remind I've always said this is a this is like one of these penetrated modern sculptures well the the next picture the last one that you brought to this is the this last one is a little bit more like a little bit more like a realistic photograph because you can identify the objects right away

to the dandelion weeds and the lower left and the lower right but if anybody's seeing this in this in color you'll get this sense of this wonderful delicacy the fragility the loveliness of this is a neoromatic paint well how would you know I I like I take a lot of abstractions what what I do I take what comes along yeah and sometimes it's abstract and sometimes isn't and it doesn't have to be abstract for my purposes but this was interesting from the but I insist it's seen this way it is abstract I mean yeah well it was an interesting problem in composition you have one form yes lower left another form in the upper right how far can you stretch these forms apart and still have the photograph hang together because there was a tension between these two groups of things which activates the blank space in the middle but if you pull them too far apart it's broken very good problem and bitterly worked out your photograph you could do it

experimentally I suppose to you know with objects yeah well the well this is I think extremely enlightening we ought to go on and on but the clock is a beast of a master here and but how are dear Stein I hope that your show will mean the show of photographs 300 photographs will come to Chicago and there is a possibility isn't there there is a possibility it will travel yeah well I hope it is and we all get a chance to see it this is the American scene doing the art with Howard Vincent thank you