Idyll and "Dreams" Grete Stern. REBECCA
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
My Throat Feels Blocked
My discovery this year was the work "Dreams" Grete Stern. Between 1948 and 1951, the photographer of German origin and settled in Argentina since 1935, developed the series Dreams, photo montages that illustrated the "Psychoanalysis will help" Idyll journal produced by the Editorial Abril. José María
Casasbuenas O.
For
María José Casasbuenas O. Teaching
Arts Department of Photography Emphasis
This journal, Like most publications of the editorial was aimed at middle and lower classes. Originally published booklets and illustrated stories of low cost for a young audience and later productions for youth and women groups. Idyll, a weekly magazine was very popular among Argentine women for his graphic novels (which later appear in the monthly publication compiled Night), and the section of the psychoanalytic clinic of Dr. Rest-pseudonym of sociologist Gino Germani and Enrique Butelman-psychologist who from descriptions of dreams submitted by readers, carrying out a performance, which was illustrated with pictures Stern. In addition, the journal published articles related to household chores, household tips, crossword puzzles about actors and actresses of the era as well as advertising of cosmetics and beauty products for women (Sanchez, 2010). Romance quickly became the second best-selling magazine in Argentina in the decade of the 50 with 350,000 copies per week. (Scarzanella, p.7).
believe that the twentieth century photographic production is a privileged to observe the relationship between the categories of popular, mass culture and how they are combined in cultural production. The specifics of this technique, emerged in the early decades of the nineteenth century, not only generated significant changes in the forms of representation and communication, his invention at the time of the consolidation of the European bourgeoisie allowed itself as a method of representation consistent with the ideals, demands and desires of the emerging merchant class and middle class of the day, including the ideals of freedom and equality that founded modern democracy and the mass of both output and individuals access to goods and services, including its own image (Gubern: 1987).
From early times the photograph has been linked with the media mass communication, particularly photojournalism and documentary photography in the written press as well as having a central role in advertising, which according to Martin-Barbero favored consumption is constituted as a cultural element that contributed to the consolidation of what has been called "mass culture" (2003:193). This invention would lead to the transformation of the sensibilities and experience of modern subjects as early recognize Benjamin in his famous essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" and also produce a substantial change in the artistic field (1973:27), since the means of technical reproduction produce a shift in the use value (the cultural value) to exchange value (display value), leading the loss of "aura" of the work of art. Benjamin recognized that the reproducibility of the artwork and the displacement is generated, "makes it possible existence of other things and other means to access them" (Martin-Barbero, 2003:64), showing in technologies, the political power of the abolition of the separations and privileges, which is manifested in the reception-processing devices which would be in the dispersion, multiple image and assembly, and the social emancipation of art (p 65-67).
We can also see how one of the characteristics of photographic production and particularly in Latin America, has been steady interest in the representation of identity issues, their staging, which represent continuous references of local culture, folklore, with popular items to be considered distinctive national cultures. This can be seen in works like Flor Garduno and Graciela Iturbide for example in case of Mexico. However
'm interested to see how popular and mass are present in the series " Dreams Stern Greta where is the popular understanding from the perspective of Martin-Barbero who poses following interpretation A. Cirese Gramscian conception proposes that "The value of popular culture lies not in its authenticity or its beauty, but in its cultural representation in its ability to realize and express the way we live and think the lower classes, the ways survive and stratagems through which filtered, rearranged the living of the hegemonic culture, and integrate and merge with what comes from their historical memory "(2003:101).
To start I would like to highlight the decision of the photographer to illustrate Dream with photomontages, as he considered this would be the most appropriate to represent the dream through its narrative possibilities. Although the photomontage as a technique for assembly of multiple images is almost as old as photography, it was with the avant-garde of the twentieth century and particularly in the Berlin Dada photomontage that established itself as expressive revolutionary technique to be closely linked to political intervention, reporting and propaganda. Furthermore, "Their use was part of the reaction of the Dadaists against oil painting, considered essentially unique, private and exclusive. Photomontage, however, belonged to the technological world, the world of mass communication and photomechanical reproduction "(Ades, 2002:13), hence the determination of these artists to recycle and re-signifying industrial considered poor images from newspapers and magazines illustrated (raw material of their products) as well as the choice of putting them into circulation in ephemeral media such as posters, flyers and newspapers among others. This can be seen in proposals such as Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Ernest and John Hearfield Marx who discussed a wide range of topics in his photomontages and made an important critique of the transformations gave in European societies, as were the growing industrialization and capitalist boom, the status of women, fascism and the rise of the Nazi regime.
mounting
The idea is retrieved from the movie suggests an amplification of the vision through relationships between objects and phenomena and, thanks to the juxtaposition between times / different spaces, allows changes at the prospect of the scale , textures and rhythms of storytelling, which allow other forms of reality construction as well as new forms of perception and production of meanings.
addition, the origin of photography technology and their rapid uptake and distribution in classes produced by the lowering and simplification of procedures, would make the artists of this period recognized in the photograph persistent tool for the production of a "new art" according to the needs of new companies, as suggested and developed Rodchenko Russian artists and especially in the context of constructivism (Simó, 2010:3). In this sense, the acceptance of photomontage was so extensive that in Russia were issued special instructions "Rodchenko method" in the years 20 (Simó, 2010:6)
The gender concept developed by Martin-Barbero in connection with the serial in the field of western literature or in film production and that he placed "in anthropology and sociology of culture, and designating social functioning of the stories, a differential concept and differentiating, discriminatory cultural and social conditions through both the production and consumption "(2003:181) is relevant to understanding the photomontage, a procedure that not only subverts the mimetic representation-value was assigned to the photography from its origins - but also demand, a different interpretative skills on the part of observers.
images Grete Stern proposed as mediators between the dreams that the readers of Idyll described in his letters and psychoanalytic interpretations of Dr. Rest (although these arose from discussions between the sociologist and photographer, she had creative freedom in their productions) and he uses common elements of women's experience of the time. In its proposals are seen everyday objects (making particular reference to home), elements relating to the new consumption and cultural industries such as fashion, magazines, movies, new communication technologies (eg telephone) and subjective experiences of Argentine women of the time related to love and marriage, motherhood, fears, lack of autonomy, etc. These representations rather than referring to the particular experience of a woman, used a series of symbols that could be considered as collective references that refer to issues of class and gender (Bertoua, 2008:13).
representations Stern dreams are nurtured as well as the imaginary circulate via mass media, such as melodramas and soap operas, that mold and shape the desires and feminine ideals (of beauty, social promotion medium consumption, public recognition) of the time, as recalled Luis Priam
"Women's dreams Grete is an anguished and depressed. Its pleasures are pathetic as well as their frustrations, and when seen active and dominant, is as cruel as the world that overwhelms. Utopias reflect ambitions melodramas and soap operas, social success, wealth, long gloves and lame "(quoted by Fortuny: 2007:6)
turn in Stern's photomontages can be seen as the photographer not only represents the interpretations of these dreams, but the comic through a critique of the dominant values \u200b\u200b(patriarchal) Argentina society and put in clear terms the habitus, in Bourdieu's "not aware of the readers: positions of class and sex, concealed in subordinate place politeness and good manners. (Fortuny, 2007:5).
In this sense, Martin-Barbero recognized in setting the popular, comic and grotesque as expressive of the culture lines from the notion of "grotesque realism" developed by Bakhtin (2003:87). Recognizes the carnival with two devices: the laughter and the mask-like their own space. Although Stern's images, the comic is manifested in a subtle and beautiful as well with the dramatic, his proposals represent situations that seem laughable, juxtaposing scenes and common attitudes of women in a way that could lead to ironic laughter, laughter as Bakhtin puts it, is "a victory over fear" challenging the sacred-power, moral-( Quoted by Martin-Barbero, 2003:89) and in this case makes a critique of social organization established on the basis of sex-gender system.
However, we believe that both of Grete Stern's photomontages as graphic novels that circulated and made Idli a milestone in Argentine publications for women in the last century, made this magazine have a place for mediation important in several respects.
The April editorial was created by Italian immigrants of Jewish origin who came to Argentina to escape the "racial laws" promoted by Mussolini. These migrants brought with them the comic genre that emerged in Italy and was widespread in Europe in the 30's. This genus has graphic and structural features related both to the film as the comic and sentimental themes arguments usually develop. The use of photographs and brief texts that accompany the scenes allows the appropriation of different audiences, for example, migrants who had not mastered the new language or new urban dwellers who came from the provinces and had little access to education. In this way, "Migration and new sources and ways of working bring the hybridization of the popular classes, a new way to be present in the city" produced a reorganization of social groups "a new mode of existence of the popular" Latin American urban context, which in turn would result in a new reconfiguration of power from the compromise between the mass and the state with the rise of populism (Martin-Barbero, 2003:214-219).
In this regard it is noteworthy that Idyll appears at the time of establishment of Peronism in Argentina, where Eva Peron will have a significant place in the claims of the rights of workers and women. Evita, provincial origin, was an actress in plays and films and find success in the serials (a genre that was widely welcomed in the Argentine context as shown by Martin-Barbero (p.230-234) given the connection between receiving massive radio and expressions of popular culture: the oral and the theater) before becoming First Lady, embodying the possibility of upward mobility of women in society and then have a central role in the recognition of political rights and civil rights of argenitinas.
relevant in this respect are the remarks made by Paula Bertoua (2010) in the analysis developed in the comic published in Star of the Circus Idyll and can be extrapolated to Stern's photomontages. According to the author, in the representations of women present in this novela can recognize the concepts proposed by Raymond Williams of "residual" and "pop", incorporating images on the one hand appeal to reason "emerging" women who want a degree of autonomy and social place question on "producing new meanings, feelings and values, new practices and new relationships," and other "residual" or "which by definition has actually been made in the past but are still active in the cultural process not only [...] as a thing of the past but as an effective movement of the present" (Williams Bertoua quoted, p. 33). Similarly, we recognize as Stern's photomontages are a popular cultural mediation "melodrama, sentimental novels and serials, gender adapting to technological change and cultural transformations caused by the process of modernization, which it would privilege then other media like film and television and new cultural consumption. Also, see how Stern's images take us back to the realities of women in this age, a subjective changes experienced (eg become part of a salaried class and the displacement of maternal desire involved) and the structural changes beginning to suffer some institutions, such as family-from the modernization process that Argentina was suffering society.
Finally I would point out that, although the production of Stern is one of the first series of photomontages in Latin America and one of the major criticisms that have come out against the oppressive conditions and discrimination against women in our societies, also done by a woman, this work nearly half a century passed unnoticed. Because they have been published in a journal of mass distribution as it was Idyll, would only be recognized and appreciated its originality and artistic production until 1982 when the sample was performed in FOTOFEST Houston and was later the subject of several exhibitions around the world and compiled in books and catalogs.
In this regard, and as stated in Bertoua (2008) Stern's photomontages "call into question a particular way and interesting intersection between artistic practice and mass culture" (p.28) crosslinking during the 50 will be widely exploited by pop art and depletion evidence a modern tale about art, calling into question the very core of that tradition as the concept of work, author, museum, marking a break in the ways to design, produce and interact with art. This cross also would be one of the elements that would facilitate the transition to what has been called contemporary art where the hybridization of elements, techniques, media has a central place (Danto, 1997).
For photographs of Grete Stern, could also place them as a form of mediation between art that is part of the modern tradition and contemporary art, as we see how in some way disrupt relations with women: subject-object of the work and consuming them from being put into circulation in a mass medium, it will also be the scenario that enables their creation (Bertoua, 2008:28). At this point are relevant above theses of Walter Benjamin: the recognition of the political possibilities of technical reproducibility and power of the media as a space for the democratization of culture and the emancipation of art, it reminds us that Jesus Martin Barbero "The technique is less a matter of equipment operators perceptive and discursive skills. Confusing communication techniques, the media is so warped as to think that they are exterior accessories to the (truth of) communication "(2003: XIX). BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADES, D. (2002). Photomontage. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili Ed.
BENJAMIN, W. (1973). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In Speech Interrupted (pp. 17 -57). Madrid: Taurus Ediciones.
Bertoua, P (2010) Towards a rhetoric of excess in the popular press. Figurations of ecstasy and aggression in the comic Argentina's mid-twentieth century. (Pp. 20-35) In Outlook communication. Vol 3. # 1. ISSN0718-48-67. Universidad de la Frontera, Temuco. Chile. Http://www.perspectivasdelacomunicacion.cl/revista_1_2010/02texto.pdf recovered from the September 16, 2010
_________ (2008) Dream Idyll. Surrealist photomontages Grete Stern. In Journal of Aesthetics. Year III. August 2008. ISSN 1668-7132. Publication of curriculum philosophy of art. Philosophical Research Centre. Http://www.boletindeestetica.com.ar/boletines/Boletin.Estetica.6.pdf recovered from the September 16, 2010.
Bourdieu, P (2003): The social definition of photography (P. 135 to 168). In an art medium. Essay on the social uses of photography. Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili SA
DANTE, A (1997) Introduction: modern, postmodern and contemporary (p.25 -41). In "the end of art. Contemporary Art and the Pale of History. Barcelona: Ed Paidós.
FORTUNY, N (2007). Representations of the comic in two cases of XX century Argentina photo: Grete Stern and Mark Lopez. Retrieved http://www.iigg.fsoc.uba.ar/jovenes_investigadores/4jornadasjovenes/EJES/Eje% 204% 20Objetos% 20culturales% 20Arte% 20Estetica/Ponencias% 20eje% 204/FORTUNY% 20NATALIA.pdf September 16 2010
GOVERNMENTAL
, R. (1987): The photo revolution in La Mirada opulent. Exploring contemporary iconosphere (pp.145 -179) Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili SA
MARTIN BARBER, J (2003): From media to mediations. (5 ª. Ed.) Bogotá, Colombia. Convenio Andres Bello.
SANCHEZ, M (2010) Dreams of women. Romance magazine and the transformation of the family in the years 40-50. Http://www.elseminario.com.ar/Estudiantes/Sanchez_Suenios_mujeres.htm recovered from the September 18, 2010
SCARZANELLA, E (2010) Women and production / consumption of culture in Peronist Argentina. The magazine publisher Abril. Recovered September 16, 2010 from http://www.raco.cat/index.php/HojasWarmi/article/view/179369/231864
SIMÓ, T (2010). Rodchenko: photomontage and photography. Retrieved http://digitum.um.es/xmlui/bitstream/10201/10261/1/Rodchenko% 20fotomontaje% 20and% 20fotograf% C3% ADa.pdf the September 16, 2010
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