Photography and the dictators

[lushd]

I just had an entirely unoriginal thought as I was watching the athletics from Goteborg on the telly and being reminded of the influence of dear old Leni Riefenstahl on TV coverage of sport and politics. It's to do with the artistic sterility of the regimes of the European dictators, with the exception of photography. Hitler and Stalin (not sure about Franco or Mussolini) created artistic deserts (well, OK Stravinsky et al) but made extensive, creative and intelligent use of photography. Can't figure this out really - do you have ideas?

 

[boarini2003]

Since it was used as nothing more than a propaganda tool in defense of totalitarian regimes, they had a large interest in keeping it "good." Of course, it wasn't free expression. Interesting to see today.

 

[rover]

I saw a profile of Castro's official photographer. Very interesting as he was allowed access to Castro at any time to document his life and leadership. A Leica shooter by the way. I wish I recalled his name, I will have to look it up.

 

[VinceC]

Photographs exist in two worlds.

They have an internal aesthetic ... composition, subject matter, technical choices made by the photographer ... that can in themselves make pleasing, compelling images.

Beyond that, photographs gain much of their power through CONTEXT. If a photograph is worth the stereotypical thousand words, then a photograph with a caption can be worth a million words, because we understand the background of why, when, where it was taken and how it affected people.

I can show you a black-and-white picture of a school child with dark hair and a pretty dress. Or I can show you a picture of Anne Frank. One image has no context. The other does.

Dictators think they can control context. In the case of Hitler and Stalin, they eventually lost control of the context, and we now view the images of their eras differently because of it.

 

[kbg32]

Artisitic creativity was allowed to "flourish" under the dictatorships of Hitler and Stalin, as long as it followed their rules and vision.

 

[Nick R.]

The years leading up to the totalitarian regimes of Hitler, Stalin, et al were a golden age of photographic and cinematic expression and experimentation. The dictatators that came to power had a rich pool of talent to exploit for their own purposes. They were really mining the arts that had florished in the relative freedom between the wars (or in Russia, that golden time immediately following the revolution). I doubt that such art would have flourished if they had been in power all along.

 

[VinceC]

Good point, Nick.

 

[boarini2003]

Speaking of art and politics (which tend to en up mixed up), what is the root cause for the fact that the art world is inherently left-wing? There are some exceptions of course, but it tends constantly that way...

 

[Todd.Hanz]

Speaking of art and politics (which tend to en up mixed up), what is the root cause for the fact that the art world is inherently left-wing? There are some exceptions of course, but it tends constantly that way...

Cause lefty's are right brained 🙂

link: http://www.angelfire.com/wi/2brains/right.html

Todd

 

[Pherdinand]

I don't think it's a matter of left vs right.
A dictatorship will always come in restrictions in many fields. Art is just one of them.
Art is easy to interpret in may ways, and therefore good for being used as propaganda or exactly as anti-propaganda. Even art created long ago can be used today with some forced interpretation as propaganda or anti-propaganda. Much more difficult to do it with science, which is (supposed to be) more exact and clear in interpretation of results.

 

[fitzihardwurshd]

Actually the Nazis were the first who detected the power of ALL modern media and learned how to let them work for their dirty business. It wasn't photography only

Goebbels pushed TV after he had managed to put a "Volksempfäger" Radio in each living room, it makes me shiver to think what they had achieved with TV.
Book market , Newspapers, Radio , Film (!!) TV, all worked "gleichgeschaltet" for one purpose only: To build the image of what the Nazi system allegedly was and to spread their lies and their hate all over the world.

Without the media all the mass events, invented and executed by Goebbels ingenious "event management", would have been nothing. Without film and Radio as multipliers they would have had a fraction of the impact only.

Fitzi

 

[VinceC]

The Nazi party rallies were modeled after American collegiate pre-game sports rallies ("pep" rallies) that had impressed some young Germans visiting the U.S. in the 1920s.

 

[steve garza]

Speaking of art and politics (which tend to en up mixed up), what is the root cause for the fact that the art world is inherently left-wing? There are some exceptions of course, but it tends constantly that way...

Freedom and individuality are highly valued by the artist. These ideals are cetnral to liberal thought.

 

[fitzihardwurshd]

The years leading up to the totalitarian regimes of Hitler, Stalin, et al were a golden age of photographic and cinematic expression and experimentation. The dictatators that came to power had a rich pool of talent to exploit for their own purposes. They were really mining the arts that had florished in the relative freedom between the wars (or in Russia, that golden time immediately following the revolution). I doubt that such art would have flourished if they had been in power all along.

That's perfectly right, Nick, but one should add that in general the Golden Age of Photography lasted from 1930 to the mid 60s, everywhere in the western world.

ALL visual information came solely by photos or by film until the 50s, TV did not exist yet , and so there was a huge photo market and a huge amount of photogs, all making good money. We know their names well.
In the 30s there were magazines in France like "Vu" with a number of copies of about 300.000, weekly! And there were a LOT of those magazines published in those days, leaving aside an enormous amount of newspapers, compared to our today press market. They all needed photos, photos, photos !!

Fitzi

 

[dexdog]

Artisitic creativity was allowed to "flourish" under the dictatorships of Hitler and Stalin, as long as it followed their rules and vision.

I agree, and offer a couple of examples. Stalin made effective use of cinema, commissioning Sergei Eisenstein to make a number of impressive political films, such as "Potemkin" and "Alexander Nevsky", one or both of which were scored by I. Stravinsky. Similarly, Hitler encouraged and supported Leni Reifenstahl and the musical works of German composers, particularly Richard Strauss. Also agree with Nick's view that both Hitler and Stalin tapped into a wealth of creative energy that predated their respective regimes.

It also worked the other way around. One example that comes to mind is the abstract expressionist style of propaganda posters used by the Soviets in the years following 1917. The bold, slashing style, vibrant colors (particularly red) and use of distorted and exagerated perspective made these posters very powerful images. Later, Stalin deemed this style of art to be a legacy of the decadent capitalist west, and had the artists exiled to Siberia, deported or imprisoned.

 

[thanatos]

I saw a profile of Castro's official photographer. Very interesting as he was allowed access to Castro at any time to document his life and leadership. A Leica shooter by the way. I wish I recalled his name, I will have to look it up.

Alberto Korda? Did the famous Che Guevara one, as well.

 

[akptc]

From my childhood years spent largely in eastern Poland, I remember looking at pictures in the soviet magazine Ogoniok. They were gorgeous. The large-format magazine was printed on slick, shiny, full color paper and the CCCP certainly did not skimp on color content. Of course, there was nothing worth reading in it that I recall.

This page on the current Ogoniok website shows a tiny sample, in thumbnail format unfortunately, of the kind of pics the old Ogoniok used to publish.

 

[Jocko]

Freedom and individuality are highly valued by the artist. These ideals are cetnral to liberal thought.

That's a very, very doubtful assertion, and at best only applies to the conception of the artist propagated by western Romanticism since c.1800.

Certainly, in the vast majority of cultures and historical periods, artists viewed creative individuality and freedom as entirely irrelevant. The artists of ancient Egypt, China, India or medieval Europe sought to master their craft and follow accepted archetypes, not to express personal vision.

It is precisely the Romantic conception of the artist as rebel and outsider (which in itself is no "truer" than a conception of the artist as a scuba-diving Rabbi) that leads to expectation of a leftist bias in art.

Ian

 

[tetrisattack]

what is the root cause for the fact that the art world is inherently left-wing?

Went to an art festival last week in Podunk (well, anacortes, WA, actually where lenswork publishes from) and I saw some different photography.

A noble bald eagle, captured dramatically in flight, wings stretched, perfect blue sky...

...gripping a huge, rippling American flag, dubiously photoshopped in...

and an engraving at the bottom of the frame:

"THESE COLORS DON'T RUN."

I mean. I'm a patriot too, in my own private way, but I couldn't help but groan and think, "ah ha! Right-wing photography!" if you'll pardon the pun. Again, groan.

 

[RdEoSg]

From my childhood years spent largely in eastern Poland, I remember looking at pictures in the soviet magazine Ogoniok. They were gorgeous. The large-format magazine was printed on slick, shiny, full color paper and the CCCP certainly did not skimp on color content. Of course, there was nothing worth reading in it that I recall.

This page on the current Ogoniok website shows a tiny sample, in thumbnail format unfortunately, of the kind of pics the old Ogoniok used to publish.

I picked up an old book when I was in Poland this past winter about the 5 year rebuilding of Warsaw. It was an official government book with lots of propaganda in it.. All in Polish of course, so my girlfriend and her family had to translate it.. But it was full of photos in a very er... intersting style meant to glamourize the worker. I got a kick out of the photos comparing the capitalist home to the communist home. One was all nice and orderly and modern, and one was a shack.. You can imagine which they said the capitalist one was 😛 It was all black and white, but they sure did use a lot of Red for lettering and titles and so forth! And naturally a biiiiig picture of Stalin on the first few pages.