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Mill Work An Allegory of Ambivalence Roland
Barthes once remarked about a condemned man in an 1865 portrait, that he is
both about to die and has been dead for a long time, Òevery photograph is this
catastrophe.Ó IÕm intrigued when two mutually conflicting
things can exist at the same time and place. Contradiction and conflict donÕt
state the case for either pole, but allude to something else entirely. Perhaps
this something else cannot be expressed in words, but I feel that art can
provide a glimpse. I grew up in
the shadow of the derricks that are used to lift limestone from the ground near
here. As a teenager and young adult, I swam in the perfect, spring-fed holes
left by the quarrymenÕs labor. The quarries, either abandoned or active, provide
a surreal setting—steel wire cutting through slabs of living rock, cables
strung overhead, and the ubiquitous stacks of refuse stone. When I returned to Bloomington for
graduate school, I was eventually drawn back to the ancient rock for a source
of subject matter. The limestone
in this part of the world is made up of shells of tiny sea creatures deposited
330 million years ago. I like the fact that remnants of death from the
Mississippian period can be a source of excellent building material today. In a
similar fashion, I am particularly attracted to a dilapidated mill southwest of
town. Once a place of creation, the mill now lies in utter ruin, though this
death has taken much less time. A layer of dust has settled on everything in
the huge structure, not unlike the action that formed the sedimentary rock so
long ago. While visually compressing the tonal scale, this dust also acts as a
subtle but pervasive reminder of mortality. In my search for metaphor, I enjoy
visiting both this defunct mill and an active quarry near where I swam as a
youth. When I first
began to seriously take photographs, I looked to the modernists for
inspiration, and much of my work retains that look today. Similar to Weston,
Strand, and Adams, I tend to utilize a straightforward approach in my image
making. My work has also been influenced by my experience in commercial
photography where I learned to manipulate light for the purpose of advertising.
Currently, I use an extremely sharp lens combined with a raking kind of light
to emphasize the textural or tactile quality of objects. It is a revealing
light where the age and mortality of things can be emphasized, forming a memento mori. But my work
has outgrown the single, fine print. I tend to think in terms of repetition,
sequence, and grids, which provide an element of time and suggest an obsessive
fixation in my work. Video is used
as well in this regard, both as Òscreen grabsÓ converted back to silver imagery
and tape loops to be viewed on monitor or projected. I also utilize objects,
such as limestone itself, in conjunction with the imagery to connect it to place.
In the end, I strive to have these disparate elements come together through the
use of installation to provide an allegory. Black and
white photography matches the way in which I see the world, however, and will
not be updated from my modernist roots. It is a Conradian landscape that I
inhabit, where things always fall on a scale from good to bad. But unlike
AdamsÕ zone scale, things in this world tend to wrap around and one soon cannot
tell the poles from one another. I hope to make work that carries this tension,
this ambivalence—like a man with a melancholic gaze. Sometimes this gaze
is of a limited or unsure focus. I shoot landscapes in this manner during
twilight at the quarry. It is a time of slight, but steady transformation—like
aging itself. In other cases,
the work may simply be a suggestion of a thing that is no longer there, a
vestige of something missing. In one photograph, Impression, a grid is doubled by the subject matter itself: a series of repeating, but not
identical, shelves that once held tools in the mill. The tools are gone and
only their impression remains in the thick dust. In another, a slit appears in
a large industrial canvas, also covered in dust. Bright light is seen behind
the curtain through this slit. The
viewer is left to supply their own subject that sits behind the veil, whatever
they find desirable. Beyond the literal and symbolic, it is this thing, something
Barthes called Òthe obtuse meaning,Ó which is the true subject of my work. I work in a
personal vein, driven by introspection, as opposed to a political or social
documentary approach. My own roots are explored in Narrative, a large complex group of photographs that have been
assembled in a large window fixture I bought from the mill owner. In this piece,
I sit in the mill, with my father situated ahead of me. The separate panes
point to how I might be different than, and yet related to he. This idea is further
explored by a new series of photographs, Matrices,
where limestone-cutting templates are used in conjunction with an accumulation
of dust. I want this piece to suggest how I might be programmed and influenced
by my past, or how I might truly be in control. I feel that
in this brief moment carries a positive note: that of transcendence. During that
time, that instant I can foresee my own mortality, I also experience life in
the most intense way. It is this contradictory feeling that I hope to evoke
with my allegory. In Portrait, a
three-dimensional piece designed for the gallery floor, a series of limestone blocks
have been arranged along a long trough. The last form is actually made up of
dust instead of the original stone. Like this dust that has been reconstituted into
a single form, I hope my work opens up the possibility of redemption. Richard
Koenig May 1998 |