The Victoria and Albert Museum will be hosting Signs of Struggle: Photography in the Wake of Postmodernism until the 27th of November. A display that complements the major exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–1990.
In a quiet gallery space hidden from the massive flow of visitors, curator Marta Weiss developed an engaging discourse over Postmodernism in photography, putting together traditional masters as Cindy Sherman, and Richard Prince with a younger generation of artists as Clare Strand, Anne Hardy, and Sarah Pickering.
Postmodern photography emerged in the late 1970s and 1980s from a critique of the modernist mentality of objectivity. Postmodernism, in fact, holds realities to be plural and relative, and is characterised by the problem of objective truth and inherent suspicion towards global cultural narrative and social constructs. Postmodernism studies the nature of photography and representation using strategies of staging, imitation and self-reference to investigate authorship and originality of the medium.
The exhibition, as cleverly conceived by the curator, identifies key strands of the movement instead of homogeneously unifying works from different decades. Resulting in an ensemble of ironically and humourously charged images that open a passage into the multifaceted and complex world of Postmodernism. Although main approaches can be highlighted: the employment of quotation, parody or appropriation to reveal the conventions and limitations of representation; the combination of nature and artifice; and the staging of scenes to be photographed.
A prominent place is given to Clare Strand’s Signs of Struggle (2003). An entire room is reserved to the display of this emblematic series of mysterious photographs seemingly documenting crime scenes or evidence of paranormal activity. Strand questions the medium of photography, its uses and limitations revealing the ambiguity of its language and identity. Thus affirming the persistence of Postmodernism in contemporary production.
Ann Jones’ Hair-Clip and Tweezers and Sarah Pickering’s Egyptian Princess are both sophisticated and ironic parodies of museum displays and explorations of the concepts of authorship and authenticity.
Hair-Clip and Tweezers from the series Daily Life: Women (1994) are photographs of common objects that are presented by the artist as if they were artefacts from a remote past. The labels that accompany the works are strategically used to make fun of institutional conventions. At the same time though, these blown-up objects taken out of context become unfamiliar curiosities that require explanations.
Egyptian Princess, Museum Collection from the series Art & Antiquities (2010) was inspired by the exhibition The Metropolitan Police Service’s Investigation of Fakes and Forgeries at the Victoria and Albert Museum that same year. This is probably the quintessence of Postmodernism where humour and ambiguity subtly take center stage. The sculpture photographed by Pickering was bought by a museum as original ancient artwork but it was actually a contemporary forgery. The same way, the photograph is described as a “Salted Paper Print 1852-60” by an unknown photographer but it is a new print made using a 19th century technique.
Among the newcomers stands out the work of Cindy Sherman from the portfolio The Indomitable Spirit (1979). Sherman adopts various identities and uses self-portraiture to critise and unveil the stereotypical visions of femininity and the role of women in contemporary society.
Signs of Struggle offers an overview on the multiple ways Postmodernism affected photography and keeps the promise and hope of curator Marta Weiss to “…invite the visitors to think hard about what they are looking at, but also take pleasure in the looking. There is also quite a bit of humour in the display, so I hope they will laugh (or at least smile) a bit too.”
Elisa Badii
Signs of Struggle: Photographie dans le sillage du Postmodernisme
Until 27 November 2011
Victoria and Albert Museum
Cromwell Road
London SW7 2RL
