Assignment 4: Photography of Duane Michals

 Assignment 4: Photography of

Duane Michals

After briefly researching the artists suggested for this assignment, I have chosen to look at the artwork of Duane Michal, specifically his works that incorporate text with photography. Being previously unfamiliar with this artist, the photographs I discovered stood out to me because of their poetic nature, it ignited my curiosity when I studied just a few of the mysterious images. In this discussion, I will outline my opinions on the effects of these mediums, the artist’s communication, the necessity of photography within the process of producing the art and the significance of the works in relation to themes of time and place. 

When Duane Michals produces one of his many works that combine photography and text, it resembles more of a personal journal rather than a word based image such as the artworks of Nathan Coley or even Tracy Emin. Handwritten inscriptions are added to the actual photographs themselves, creating a signature style, literally using distinctive handwriting recognisable to the artist across his work. Some of the inscriptions are not much more than basic titles or captions, such as that of ‘The Illuminated Man’, 1986. But others have more comprehensive detail ranging from general journalistic context to the artist's actual poetry. The words are reflective of the artist’s complete honesty in his work, adding further to its identity and its creative source. 

‘He defies the constraints of visual language and structure by incorporating handwritten textual commentary or narrative directly onto the borders of photographs. While the use of definitional titles for artwork is ubiquitous, the interconnectivity of sequential images and the conjunction of text and image are distinctly Michals.’ Dansky

Alongside collage and photomontage, it's fair to say Duane Michals has a way of communicating directly with his audience. The very personal nature of his art speaks to our curious nature with each other as humans. I believe that when Michals adds his own writing to his photographs, he's speaking to us directly as viewers. We pay more attention to the photograph because the artist is telling us about it, in his own words. The art of photography relies on the skills and talent of the photographer and their relationship with a machine and paper but by adding his own words within the images, Michals is cutting through the distance between viewer and photographer. It's a bridge between the mind behind the camera, all the way to the other end of the resulting image.

Perhaps this is why the photos that Michals produces are so relatable, besides being intimate they are unpretentious and genuine. In a discussion about his career he explains a process of writing down secrets and hiding them in the back of a drawer. An analogy that best describes how the majority of us deal with difficult emotions. But in his work, Michals exhibits these thoughts and feelings with brutal honesty, explaining that ‘that's what artists should do, they should give the secret’. (Michals, Denver Art Museum, 2013)

Michals uses photography as his choice of medium simply because he can. When asked why photography, he replies, ‘why not?’. He discovered a natural talent for photography when picking up a camera while travelling through Russia. Since then, he has maintained a minimalistic approach using only 2 cameras, neither of them digital. I believe that Michals uses photography to illustrate the concepts that he encounters throughout his life. Often with us of humour, wit and whimsy, Michals tells stories with in his collections that reflect issues of homosexuality, religion, spirituality and the human condition. The sequences of photos accompanied by text are much like a crude cartoon strip but with deeper context and artistic developments. 

When it comes to themes of time and place, Michals has interesting views on how we perceive time. An enthusiast for physics and philosophy, he explains that there really is no such thing as ‘now’. In the series ‘Things Are Queer’, a succession of frames expand the scene of a bathroom, by expanding around it. The scene of the bathroom shrinks when a human foot disrupts the scale of the objects by being larger than the bath itself, and that scene then progresses on to being a photo in a book and so on. In explaining this work, Michals touches on his desire to question how we see ‘time as horizontal’. Because we see things in terms of ‘now’, he states that ‘we have stretched time into befores and afters’. (Michals, Denver Art Museum, 2013)

Places also hold significance for Michals particularly when he used photography in his series ‘I Remember Pittsburgh’, returning to the ruins of the house, at the age of 70, where he was born in 1932 and describing relationships between himself and his parents. He locates the very room he was born in and explains the photo with a touching poem about his own birth. When Michals also studied the influences of Japan on other famous artists, he was prompted to create a collection of photos that were edited by computer to form the shape of a fan. Within this series he captured four photos of his own garden through the four seasons, beautifully tying place and time together. 

Duane Michals is an artist that has documented a wealth of life experiences with a characteristic voice of honesty and modesty. His works have captivated audiences by voicing perceptions many of us are familiar with even if we haven't been able to explain them ourselves. Michals is an artist who can truly be seen to take pleasure in his work, who has a presence in his images from behind the camera. His confident approach to writing directly onto his photographic prints exposes a vulnerability, not only is he contending the perfectionist attitudes towards art and photography but is sharing intimate ideas and personal dialogue. Unlike many visual communications in terms of graphic design, Michals art is simplistic and humble in the way it combines the art of prose with photography.

Word Count: 990

References

Websites:

Collection.cmoa.org. 2021. CMOA Collection. [online] Available at: <https://collection.cmoa.org/objects/dbe0f160-8212-43ac-beaf-ce6aafef2d5c> [Accessed 3 March 2021].

DANSKY, S. and DANSKY, S., 2021. How to Read Duane Michals’ Photos. [online] The Gay & Lesbian Review. Available at: <https://glreview.org/article/how-to-read-duane-michals-photos/> [Accessed 4 March 2021].

Dcmooregallery.com. 2021. Duane Michals - Artists - DC Moore Gallery. [online] Available at: <https://www.dcmooregallery.com/artists/duane-michals/series/talking-pictures> [Accessed 5 March 2021].

Encyclopedia Britannica. 2021. Duane Michals | American photographer. [online] Available at: <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Duane-Michals> [Accessed 3 March 2021].

Famousphotographers.net. 2021. Duane Michals | Photography and Biography. [online] Available at: <https://www.famousphotographers.net/duane-michals> [Accessed 5 March 2021].

LensCulture, 2021. Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals - Photographs by Duane Michals | LensCulture. [online] LensCulture. Available at: <https://www.lensculture.com/articles/duane-michals-storyteller-the-photographs-of-duane-michals-2> [Accessed 4 March 2021].

LensCulture, D., 2021. The Illusions of the Photographer - Photographs by Duane Michals | Exhibition review by Magali Duzant | LensCulture. [online] LensCulture. Available at: <https://www.lensculture.com/articles/duane-michals-the-illusions-of-the-photographer> [Accessed 4 March 2021].

Walsh, P., 2021. Visual Arts Review: Duane Michals - Photography as Amazement - The Arts Fuse. [online] The Arts Fuse. Available at: <https://artsfuse.org/125804/fuse-visual-arts-review-duane-michals-photography-as-amazement/> [Accessed 4 March 2021].

Videos:

Denver Art Museum, 2013. Photographer Duane Michals Talks About His Career. [video] Available at: <https://youtu.be/pZa_oOzXVkY> [Accessed 1 March 2021].