Graduate student reading assignment and discussion #2

Discussion: Wednesday, October 14th

Please read and prepare for written responses/discussion. Note, I've changed up the readings a bit, based on current relevance.

• Chapter 2 (The Photography Reader) Marjorie Perloff: What has Occurred only Once
• Chapter 34 (The Photography Reader) Bailey and Hall: The Vertigo of Displacement
• Chapter 35 (The Photography Reader) bell hooks: In Our Glory: Photography and Black Life
• Chapter 36 (The Photography Reader): Martin and Spence: Photo Therapy

Focus questions:

1. Where Barthes is concerned with finding pearls of personal meaning from a specific photo (of his mom), Boltanski seems more concerned with a sea of anonymous faces, each of whom might be anyone, or no-one at all. Based on Perloff's article, discuss how Christian Bolstanski's various art projects widen (and somewhat challenge) the conversation started by Barthes, about photography's ability to authenticate some kind of specific and knowable truth. Suggestion: focus on one of Boltanski's works to illustrate your points. It can also be helpful to look at his work online. Take your time with this article; it can be a slow go, but it has some useful ideas. 
2. Summarize bell hooks' position that the black liberation movement has been a "struggle over images," and how the camera and vernacular image-making in black life is a form a resistance to the misrepresentative "norms" of white, visual culture. How does the "keeper of walls" (a great phrase) perform the work of a cultural / political activist? How might this relate to art production that likewise engages personal/family histories?
3. According to the Martin and Spence article, how might any family photo album be as much (or more) about coded societal norms and expectations for photographic representation than it is about the individual lives depicted? Please also weigh-in with your own opinions about this (perhaps relating it to your own art practice).
4. How might some of the strategies suggested by Martin and Spence for using photography in therapy be used for art practices that likewise engage themes of identity and personal/family histories?