Photographs and Contexts
1985; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 19; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3332643
ISSN1543-7809
Autores Tópico(s)Photography and Visual Culture
ResumoThe meaning of any photograph is highly dependent on the context in which it appears. Gisele Freund discusses photograph by Robert Doisneau that pictures man and woman drinking wine at bar in Paris cafe (fig. 1). Doisneau was fond of cafes and seeing the two together was charmed and asked if they would allow themselves to be photographed. They consented, and his photograph of them was published as part of photo essay on Paris cafes in mass circulation magazine, Le Point. Sometime later, without Doisneau's consent, the same photograph appeared in brochure on the evils of alcohol abuse published by temperance league. Still later, and still without Doisneau's consent, the photograph again appeared, this time in French scandal sheet with the caption Prostitution in the Champs-Elysees. All three presentations were convincing; the third convincing enough that the gentleman in the photograph sued the scandal sheet and was awarded recompense.1 Fourth and fifth contexts for the same photograph which Freund does not mention are the photography galleries of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and book, Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art,2 by the museum's photography curator, John Szarkowski. In the galleries the photograph hangs matted, framed, and under glass with the usual wall label of artist and date. In his brief essay accompanying the reproduced photograph in his book, Szarkowski offers an interpretation of secret venial sins of ordinary individuals, reading the picture as a potential seduction.3
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