ART ESSAY 1

“When reality isn’t real – are artist’s commentaries still legitimate and/or valuable?” Discuss

In the current world, an audience is faced with a diverse range of artworks. Artworks that are
created with different media, take various forms & shapes and explore different concepts.

A key matter that is raised by this question is whether or not reality is ever portrayed in an artwork.
Reality – meaning what is real, whether or not observable or comprehensible. Artworks are real
objects, events or recordings of events of the world. The artworks exist. Yet what they depict can
never truly be the reality of this world. They may represent or reflect what is real, and they certainly
do explore real issues, yet "reality" itself is never presented in an artwork.

If this is the case, that each artwork is not completely true to reality, can artists' commentaries be
legitimate and/or valuable?

The distorted reality depicted in an artwork can be incredibly subtle, unnoticed by an audience, or
blatant and bold. Even naturalism - a movement where artists attempt to accurately portray the
world- serves “to create an illusion of reality”. (http://pablo-picasso.paintings.name/) The artwork is
not the real thing itself.

In many circumstances an elevated "false-reality" is used by an artist to articulate their intended

message. The elevated false-reality can be subtle (as in photographs that appear very natural, but
have been manipulated) or bold (as in paintings, abstract or of things that do not exist or did not
happen, unnatural photographs, contemporary sculptures). Both subtle and bold heightened
unreality in artworks can be very effective in strengthening an artist's commentary.

Photography is a media that has for many years provided the pathway closest to an accurate
representation of reality. However, the subjects of photographs can be strictly arranged by the
artist and with further advancements in technology, it has become possible for artists to digitally
manipulate photos and films. Some argue that the ability to manipulate photography undermines
the integrity of the work. As can be seen in the following examples, manipulations of scenery
photographed serve the purpose of enriching the artist’s commentary. Rather than undermining the
integrity, a fresh and insightful point of view is offered.

In Polar Bear Sugimoto has subtly employed a heightened unreality. The photograph appears to be
an accurate representation of the visible world. However in Polar Bear Sugimoto has intentionally
created a naturalistic looking scene, which in fact it is not.

Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japanese, b. 1948)

Polar Bear, 1976
Gelatin silver print
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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In this photo Sugimoto subverts the expectation of viewers that what they see is a photo of natural
scenery. Instead, Sugimoto has photographed an artificial environment consisting of a stuffed polar
bear in front of a painted backdrop. In a sense this is still a “real environment” – the environment
which exists within the museum. But the viewer is deceived because the photo appears to be in a
natural setting. Sugimoto’s deception is intended, he says “However fake the subject, once
photographed, it's as good as real." The fact that the photographed museum can reflect a natural
environment is an intricate statement in itself. How is it that we as humans can artificially create
these environments so close to that of the natural world? The location of the shoot- the American
Museum of Natural History- perhaps suggests that it is not much longer that we will be able to take
photos of such creatures alive and within their natural habitats. Sugimoto’s clever use of this
deceptive subject provides commentary on current environmental issues, amid rising concerns that
polar bears are soon to become extinct due to the rapidly increasing rate of global warming.

Levinthal is another artist who makes a valid social commentary on war through his illusory
photograph, Untitled, 1975.

As a student at Yale School of Art in 1972, Levinthal bought a package of toy Nazi soldiers and began
photographing them. This particular photograph is a product of Levinthal’s experimentation with
the toy soldiers. By using a very narrow depth of field and printing on high contrast paper Levinthal
achieves the “gritty, out-of-focus quality of a photojournalist's images sent back from the front.”

A photograph from series Hitler Moves East (1975-7)

David Levinthal (American, b. 1949) David Levinthal
Untitled, 1975
Gelatin silver print
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Levinthal further developed his work with the toy soldiers, creating a series titled “Hitler Moves
East”. In this series, the figures are more identifiable as toys rather than real men. By elucidating
the true nature of the figures within the photographs, Levinthal challenges the audience to consider
the blurred boundary between the horrors of war and the innocence of child’s play. In this sense,

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the heightened unreality of Levinthal’s photographs plays a crucial role in making a valuable social
comment.

A final example of a seemingly real yet intensely contrived photograph is Jeff Wall’s A Sudden Gust of
Wind (after Hokusai) 1993. While this work appears to encapsulate a moment in time it is in fact a
montage - to create this work Wall took over one hundred photographs, over the course of more
than a year. Wall specifically choreographed where actors would stand in the photos so that the
composition of the final image would refer directly to the woodblock print The Great Wave by
Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.

Katsushika Hokusai
The Great Wave
Woodblock print from series Thirty-six Views
of Fuji

Jeff Wall
A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) 1993
Sliver dye bleach transparency (Cibachrome); aluminium light box (229 x 377cm)
Tate, London

The chance situation portrayed in Wall’s work, where people are unable to control things above the
natural order, perhaps suggests the powerlessness of humans. Yet the lack of control conveyed is
fiercely juxtaposed with the scrupulous engineering behind the scenes of his elaborate artwork.

Wall’s work, like Devinthal’s Untitled and Sugimoto’s Polar Bear, appears to be shot of a real life
scene. However each of these works has been meticulously constructed to accentuate each artist’s
commentary.

In purposefully distorting reality, certain things that we look at but often fail to see can be subtly yet
eloquently highlighted. In this sense the artists’ commentary through an “unrealistic” or distorted
reality work can be extremely important and powerful, whereby the direct representation of a real
or naturalistic scene would simply not get across the intended message.

http://char.txa.cornell.edu/art/introart.htm

http://pablo-picasso.paintings.name/