Miah Johnson MFA works: October 2013

Miah Nate Johnson

October 1, 2013

AIB/MFA

Sunanda Sunyal

The Protest Archive

In Critical Theory II on The Big Archive and The Archive, one of the sentences that struck me was, “Transferring the world to image, photography as a representational structure produces a certain archival effect” (Merewether 160). A photographer’s life is complied of archives, from the moment an image is develop and put into negative sleeves or a hard drive. The documentation record defines a narrative by exposing a record of a people, place and time. I will look into the collections of Chauncy Hare 1970s Protest Photographs and Ben Shahn’s political paintings and photos of the 1930-1940s which are an archive of economical and political injustice.

Chauncey Hare worked as an engineer at the Chevron oil refinery in Richmond California in the 1970s. To find a way to break the monotony of work and his anger against the ominous cloud of the corporate machine he turned to photography. Influenced by the photographs of the Farm Security Administration he followed the tradition of documentary photographers Walker Evans and Russell Lee. Hare focused his work on protest and forewarning of the growing authority corporations and their owners over the employee.

Hare started to document the interior lives and situations of workers in the United States. The resulting body of work called Interior America was published by APERTURE press in 1978 and This Was Corporate America 1984. Hare’s straightforward approach offers a poignant view of American society, in which the irrepressible corporate system suffocates the common person. The objective of the photographs is to expose the trapped feelings and demoralization of the workers due to the crushing routine of work. With this in mind Chauncey produces an archive that clarifies what Charles Merewether states in his book The Archive, “Photography is critical to the practice and authority of the archive, in so far as it folds together history as a representation and representation as history”. (160) Chauncey received three Guggenheim Fellowships to do this work but was angered by an art world, that did not respect him as a photographer. Chancey Hare had two very strong beliefs, one to never make a profit from those he photographed and the other to expose the socioeconomic consequences caused by corporations. Threatening to destroy the entire archive of images, recordings and notes Chauncey instead donated it to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.

Chauncey Hare’s voice for the voiceless is an extensive archive which defines the struggle of the human condition. In 2009 Steidl books published a full volume of work called Protest Photographs, which is a collection of both books. As Sven Spieker states “Only where reality returns to us as an archive of more or less incoherent signifiers from which we are excluded by definition can we begin to evaluate and creatively change our situation” . (145)

Protest imagery can further be seen in the works of Lithuania American Artist Ben Shahn who worked in a style designed to highlight social political injustice. Shahn focused his art on the anti- immigration, pro- union, unemployment and social reform sentiment at the time. Known mainly as a graphic artist and painter, Shahn was also photographer who worked for the FSA from 1935-1938

Merewether sums it up best for any archive of social reform in his quote “Their artistic expression represents an intervention in the archives of a nation” (162) Shahn’s photo documentation of the social plight of share croppers, workers conditions of the time influenced many of his paintings and graphic works throughout his life. As Shahn stated of his FSA photographs in a TV interview for NBC 1956 “We just took pictures that cried out to be taken”. Shahn never used his photographs in a literal way but utilized several subjects as a sort of collage of images for his paintings. Shahn states “I am only interested in photography as a means of documentation and to make notes for my future paintings” Charles Merewether remarked “Both the archive and photography reproduce the world as witness to itself”(160). Shahn produced numerous paintings that struck a chord with the social news events of the time. Shahn’s political paintings focused on the human emotion regarding social injustice in the world much like the current works of artist Walid Raad who use cut- out photos of cars that have been involved in explosions in Beruit’s civil war. The collections of images by Shahn and Hare document of a time and period in history that subtly explores inhumanity in culture.

Shahn’s belief in the Roosevelt administration led him to paint murals for the Federal Art Project that defined a country pulling itself out of a depression under the New Deal which was rebuilding a modern America. The art work comprised of the common man building, the infrastructure of America, bridges, skyscrapers, ships and agriculture equipment. After the FAP he was employed at the Office of War Information

(OWI) which used graphic art work for propaganda posters. During this time Shahn produced powerful statements again about political and social events. Most of his works were never published because the government felt they gave a depressing powerful message and that people needed more upbeat imagery. While at the OWI Shanhn drew upon archive photos of World War II to depict and capture in his later paintings the senses of loss, hope and liberation of Europe after World War II.

Shahn returned to the Office of War information, where produced a large amount of lithographic work for the government about working people, poverty, pro- union and pro -Roosevelt propaganda. His work depicts the world at struggle but with the hope and a compassionate look into the lives of the farmer, worker, mother and politics. His use of signifiers defined the state of affairs of the times, such as immigration and fascism. The graphic works and paintings are a strong statement of the political human condition. He stated, “We only had one purpose - a moral one I suppose” (Shahn 9) Shahn was successful in the art world but was never was truly recognized for the mastery of craft, although he was the youngest American at the time to have a major show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (September 30, 1947-January 4, 1948). His work was overlooked do to a bad review from Clement Greenberg and the rise of Jackson Pollock. Shahn never stopped to voice his political beliefs but was eventual blacklisted during the McCarthy cold war era. Shahn’s protest works give an artistic voice to the innocent, in which he exposes the deception that hide behind the lies of political rhetoric. He never stopped to fight for the underdog or political injustice. He died in 1969.

The idea of the archive or collection of documents and records is imperative to the life of a photographer. I have compiled years of images all dated and sleeved I have formed a massive archive of my vision. This collection of my work and art books is a compelling way to value the word “archive” something I never thought of. My work tends to lean to the left, and vouches for the overlooked in society. In a sense I have a collection of images that are protest images of the situations that I see before me with a camera. The current body of work “Perceptions” which has been showing in Boston area at the Griffin Museum and at Garner Gallery for the last six months offers a political and social look into American society. By playing with the relationships of visual elements, my aim is to bring an intrinsic meaning of visual context of the social reality of the street so as to form a narrative for the viewer to respond. Whether in the subtle documentary sense or in the abstract lines of color form and design the images pull on one another. My newest portfolios of work, Disconnected, Fashion and the Abstract Street works all touch on the idea of protest.

For me the fight to express never stop; my only hope is that after I have died of old age someone finds my archive and publishes it.

Work Citied

Kasher, Stephen. Protest Photographs. Gottingen GR: Steidl 2009 Print

Merewether, Charles, The Archive. London BR, Cambridge, MA: White Chapel and MIT press 2006 Print

Pratt, Davis, The Photographic Eye of Ben Shahn. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1975 Print

Pohl, Frances. Ben Shahn. San Francisco, CA: Pomegrante Artbooks, 1993 Print

Spieker, Sven, The Big Archive. Cambridge, MA : MIT press, 2008 Print