Should stereotypes be transformed into images to be dispersed among visual culture? David Hammon’s work Spade “enacts the artist’s occupation of a stereotype through the binding, limitation of his imprinted body by a readymade contour (Kocur).” The flatness of his images is ironic. It is obvious that there is a real live human being made of flesh and bones beneath bands of constricting fabric, yet the print is flat. The struggle of constraint is tremendous, yet the viewer cannot help free the disabled body. The image has a very structural quality. The way in which the clothing and bands of fabric are imprinted on the page give the body a realistic effect. However, this form is combatted by the “readymade contour (Kocur)”. The constant opposition between, form and flatness plays a key role in the stereotype David Hammon was approaching. David Joselit said “Here optical flatness does not simply dramatize the co-extensivity of body and unconscious, but rather performs a coercive process through which selves are flattened into types (Kocur).”
Hammons images displays how society flattens groups into metaphorical frames. If you are X then you most certainly fit wihtin this given category. Stereotypes do not allow for individuals to be accounted for. In Hammons Injustice Case the image shows his struggle with the constraints society places on the African American race. The lifelike quality the imprinted body represents the individual and the cut out contour shows how society views the stereotype. Each can be placed within the contour and fit perfectly. Stereotypes do not involve investigating people, they simply place them into a designated metaphorical contour line. David Hammons uses the flat image to address stereotypes.
"Injustice Case." Sacred and Secular in the African Americans. Web. 9 Mar 2010.
Kocur, Zoya, and Simon Leung. Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Malden: BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, 2005. 301-303. Print.
Barnes claiming the work depicted is ‘Spade’ and it isn’t. The picture by David Hammons’ depicted is ‘ Injustice Case’ based on a factual court room scenario. The African American was bound in the exact same manner, as Hammonds (he purposely bound himself for this work). During a court case in the late 1960's instead of the defendant being removed from the court room, he was bound. The defendant was bound and gagged infront of the jury. Hammonds' work beggs the question of how does one get a fair trial when treated in an unfair manner. Barns is implying this is a depiction of a steryotype. Hammonds passion for this work is evident in the fact he chose to be the individual bound to take this photograph (Kocur and Leung 302).
ReplyDeleteBarns focuses on the physical ‘flat’ of the work as opposed to the theoretical. Who does Barns refer to when she says “the struggle of constraint is tremendous”? Is she implying the struggle of the individual depicted in the print or is she referring to the emotional and how it is difficult for minorities to constantly restrain them selves in the 1970’s environment? Then Barns continues to remark on how “the viewer cannot help free the disabled body”. The body is not disabled it is UNabled. The individual in the chair is physically unable to assert control over their physical form. Hammonds is not emphasizing stereotypes. Hammonds desperately wants the 1970’s society to see what is being done to a certain race, right in front of them. He wants to prove it is, at the least, wrong. I disagree. I believe David Hammonds uses the flat image to address real and factual circumstances African American’s have had to endure ever since they were chained to the slave ships headed for the America’s.