[-empyre-] Virginia's Questions: Bathers: Colonialism ...

[virginia solomon]

Robert, thank you for pointing out the way in which Barthes offers a model
that not only makes space for, but demands different kinds of reading.

to reference further the Mercer essay Reggie mentioned, what we see is
Kobena Mercer clearly and brilliantly re-reading his initial rejection of
Mapplethorpe as only considering his images formally, and not operationally.
The images, Mercer argues, function differently for different audiences. But
also, they function ambivalently, and this ambivalence is also a vital
political strategy in a moment when art, identity, etc are all supposed to
be about essences and absolutes. Jose Munoz applies this reading to Looking
for Langston in his Disidentifications book, and I think this all supports
your point about how Barthes' method of reading might manifest as
colonialist because of his position and his erotics, but he does not present
his as the only position.

Ambivalence and contradiction are imporant positions within General Idea's
work, and I wonder if these are operations that can usefully be linked to
undoing?

On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 2:22 AM, Reggie Woolery <reginald.woolery at ucr.edu>wrote:

>
> Thank you Robert for foregrounding the work of Issac and Essex.
>
> I wanted to share a review I wrote of a few years back on Lyle Ashton
> Harris
> that looks at power relations between desiring lookers. The piece attempts
> a
> reading of his latest photographic work, calling into question certain
> notions of black/gay/male identity politics (the innocent subject) by
> seeking to interrogate the artists' ambivalences, SM desires, aspiration to
> art world fame -- which are left exposed as Harris implicates himself
> within
> his work (a strategy of the new documentary -- and pop reality show).
>
> I reference a collaborative essay by Kobena Mercer and Issac "Skin Head Sex
> Thing: Racial Difference and the Homoerotic Imaginary" from the same "How
> Do
> I Look" anthology as Virginia mentioned.
>
> http://radiofreehamptons.net/publications/WateringHole.pdf
>
> Reggie
>
> On 7/12/09 10:20 PM, "Robert Summers" <robtsum at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Virginia,
> >
> > I want to answer your question (you posed re: my previous post) by way
> > of a brief discussion of "Looking for Langston" (1989) by Isaac Julian
> > -- a film that explores (the author-function) "Langston Hughes," the
> > Harlem Renaissance,  and same-sex and inter-racial desire, and given
> > film, touches the viewer: touched the eye/I.
>
> >  I think the Julian films show that a "queer tactic" can
> > be (or rather is) deployed in refusing normative (read: white male --
> > gay or straight) society's desire (and it is a desire, to be sure) for
> > the placement of bodies and desires into "proper" categories.
>
> > Here, I also want to turn to Kobena Mercer's "ambivalence" toward
> > Mapplethorpe's photographs of black men: he both them finds them
> > problematic -- and rightly so, let there be no doubt -- yet, he finds
> > them extremely erotic -- he desires _these_ black, male bodies.
> > Indeed, there is nothing _in_ the photographs to make them outright
> > "bad" or "colonialist," but rather it is the engagement by a
> > particular subject in engaging with the photograph/s that bring about
> > the "meaning" -- what they "mean" and to whom, and how these
> > "meanings" (which are always in the plural and in-progress) change.
> > By stating this I think that there is a relationality in viewing art
> > (however construed; and art of any kind).
>
> > Now, what I am trying to say is that instead of finding the "truth" --
> > reveling the so-called "real meaning" -- of the photograph, we should
> > investigate our investments in certain readings, and I think we can
> > begin to articulate a "queer reading" -- which is a reading that
> > refused to look straight and finds worth in the most unlikely of
> > artworks: I think this is an invaluable queer strategy, or tactic.
> > That stated, I think Mercer did this very well when he re-approaching
> > of Mapplethorpe's photographs of black, male bodies from _another_
> > angle. I think looking at things "queerly" can reveal, if you will,
> > what cannot be seen or what has been elided and/or erased.  So, in a
> > sense, I am arguing for not only a certain anamorphic looking but also
> > a strategic and personal one as well.  This lead me to Barthes.
> >
> > Robert Summers, PhD/ABD
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>



-- 
Virginia Solomon
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://mail.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/attachments/20090714/57ba3951/attachment.html