Paroxysm - Punctum - Studium - ça-a-été - denotation - connotation and Roland Barthes and Nobuyoshi Araki.
What
distinguishes an erotic photograph of a pornographic?
The
pornography usually shows the genus, it turns it into a
motionless object, a fetish. The erotic photo on the other
hand does not make the genitals the main object; she cannot
show this either. What is not seen, is equally important.
The
spectator is carried out under the photo and faces his
own fantasies, dreams, passions, ...
On
the night of September 24, 2006, vandals daubed the giant
photo of Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki mounted on the
facade of the Museum of Photography in Charleroi. The picture
with the paint spots now hangs as a trophy in the garden of
the Carmelite monastery where the museum is housed.
What
is there to see in the picture "From Tokyo Comedy"? What is
its denotation? A young woman, knees apart, is looking
at us. She wears a collar with a key attached to it with a
pearl. She is not completely naked: black high gloves and long
black stockings adorn her body. Her head leans a little to the
right. She is made up with lipstick and eyeliner. A bright
light illuminates her fine body and causing a harsh shadow on
the black background. Dark plumes cover her vagina. You cannot
actually consider the denotation as shocking. However,
there will be a public which, from its background, the
attitude and decoration, will make connotations with
trafficking in women, obscenity, "the woman as a sex object"
and more.
The
look of the girl sucks me in the picture. The key around her
neck again and again attracts me. This detail that I will not
let go calls Barthes punctum. The punctum is
something very personal. It provides a picture of a place
where the imagination can take its course. This also
distinguishes the erotic photo from the pornographic one.
Photos that people have a certain interest in (studium)
without a detail that really attracts or hurts (punctum)
Barthes calls unary photos. Photography is unary if she
explicitly transforms reality without doubling or allowing
it to falter. That picture of Araki is no unary
photograph. This photo dates from last century. The moment, punctum
temporalis, of the creation of the image has long since
passed, but the photograph bears witness to the fact that this
girl was there, that she did indeed exist and that we see her
there in the absolute instant of the shutter click: ça-
a-été.
Araki
is directing and provides the staging. The face of his model
resembles the solidified faces of the Japanese Noh theater.
According to Barthes, photography is an art form more
associated with theater than with painting. Even if one wants
make a picture vivid, the photo continues to look like a
primitive theater, a Tableau Vivant, the portrayal of
the motionless and made-up facies granted to the dead. Araki
is fascinated by bondage, specifically the Japanese version of
this, Kinbaku. His oeuvre includes thousands of
bondage photos. This will affect the interpretation of "From
Tokyo Comedy". The key refers to an (absent) lock, to be
locked up. Yet Araki claims that he does not want to dominate
the woman. He wants to express that you can try to bind her
body, but her mind and her inner strength not let them pack.
The
eroticism to which the photo refers, the BDSM, is a rather
exceptional experience. The rule is the exception for Barthes.
In "le plaisir du texte" he argues that the new - which also
includes art - equals pleasure. The photograph of Araki
reflects exceptional hedonistic aesthetics, goes
against the doxa of entrenched views of missionary
attitudes and vanilla candles. Araki goes against the
stereotype of the romantic and erotic experience. Does he then
cross the line between pornography and eroticism? No, because
paroxysmal (paroxysm is just not cross the line)
transition between eroticism and pornography depends on the
viewer (place, time and culture-bound) and not the content of
the work.
Araki
puts down a photo that lasts and holds the gaze. The connotative
processors (lighting, the pose, the point of view and
the attributes), used consciously or unconsciously by the
photographer, contribute to the rhetoric of the image. The
contrasting black-and-white print abstracts what, in
phenomenological terms would be called fleshiness and
convinces me of Araki's artistic intentions.
Hilde
Braet, Master of visual culture.