Bonnie (with a photograph of an Angel), Port Gibson Mississippi 2002 Sage Cichock St. Olaf College 04/13/13 Minneapolis Institute of Arts Graduate and Undergraduate Student Art History Symposium Bonnie (with a photograph of an Angel), Port Gibson, Mississippi 2002, 'Sleeping by the Mississippi' series, Alec Soth
Sage Cichock Bonnie (with a photograph of an Angel) Rest provides tired bodies with the opportunity to escape from the grind of daily life and into the anti-materialistic world of dreams. Despite the luxuries possessed by so many Americans, the dissatisfaction with life as it exists in a secular and purely physical reality can be observed across socio-economic divides. Alec Soth's series, Sleeping by the Mississippi catalogues the private lives and spaces of blue collar individuals, as I will discuss with special attention to one photograph in the series, Bonnie (with a photograph of an Angel). Although many of these photographs contain overtly religious material, the deeper theme of spirituality as escape or longing runs strong among individual images and the series. Soth's documentary approach, so evident in these technically stunning images, becomes unsettling when the spirituality in so many contradicts the factual surety of documentary photographs. This paper originates in my investigation of what makes such spirituality powerful and dream-like within a sector of the population experiencing the antithesis of the American Dream. I will argue that Alec Soth produces this other-worldly quality of the images in conjunction with an underlying correlation his approach shares with Surrealist ideals about spirituality. He achieves this quality through the way he frames certain elements in the compositions, reveals his subjects' poignant chance arrangements of the objects, and explores popular standards for religious imagery relative to class perceptions.
At the core of Andre Breton's philosophy of Surrealism is his desired reconciliation between the conscious and unconscious states of mind. This philosophy relates to Bonnie in two ways: the evocation of rest and waking states, and the synthesis of oppositions. While Breton's secularist conception of Surrealism did not include the Christian transcendence present in Soth's images, he also had an intense interest in various manifestations of religion among cultures. Soth's photographs force the viewer to consider the transcendent quality of dreams as they relate to mortality. His presentation of the role of dream includes it functioning as mental escape from realities of physical life and a symbolic reminder of dream or rest as analogous to one's ultimate sleep. Bonnie presents a moment of waking life, but the way he captures a trace of transcendence and photographs Bonnie on the couch are both significant. Soth presents rest in this photograph, and the series as a whole with its beds, mattresses, and couches tied to some life beyond. Just as Breton was interested in the relationship between opposing states and mentalities, so too do Soth's photographs reflect this tension as it relates to a larger conception of rest and unrest. The realm of spirituality is not to be confused with dream, but it still represents the presence of an alternative to physical reality, and therefore a reconciliation of the traditional conscious life and those other inexplicable facets of the human experience. In Bonnie, the viewer sees her at a moment of rest, contemplating the life beyond. The viewer can also see her couch
and the ornamented picture frame, as tangible markers of status. In this way, the couch or resting place's representation of transcendence, entrapment, ownership, and intangibility, channel Breton's theory of the capacity of an object as symbolic contradiction, as well as the interwoven nature of the dream and waking states. While Breton was a purported secularist, his conception of the significance of the object and the meaning found in coincidence pushed his thinking into realms akin to spirituality. Furthermore, the transcendence found in the Surrealist banal reflects at first a search for significance in the physical, but on a deeper level, it becomes an aspiration to find other-worldly reward not offered by everyday reality. Surrealist scholar Clifford Browder noted, Breton observes that the dead not only appear in the dreams of the living, but even at times so strive to live again as to manifest themselves on earth in broad daylight (Browder 146). Bonnie's firm belief in the evidence she has of the angel achieves Breton's conviction in the transcendence of physical objects. This phenomenon is the consequence of Alec Soth's presentation of her manifestations of desire for an other-world. Furthermore, this image represents the complexity of the Surrealist contradiction as Bonnie's beliefs are simultaneously identical and opposite to philosophical Surrealism. Her belief in the power of her object aligns with the movement's faith in the metaphysical potential of objects, yet her belief is Christian while the Surrealists' were secular. Bonnie's pride in her spiritual artifact further reflects
the Surrealist argument that beauty is found in the marvelous. This image closely correlates with the movement's conception of marvel found in everyday objects and naïve constructions of the beautiful. Breton himself remarked that he wanted culture to become less self-conscious about aestheticism so it would be more naturally aesthetic (Livingston 120). Bonnie's angel photograph shows both her personal pride in this divine encounter and her interest in displaying this treasure in the highest form of personal glory. Although her frame is gaudy and the photo itself is of recreational quality, these characteristics increase connections between her angel image and the wonder of the Surrealist everyday. The larger image is both categorically marvelous and exemplary of Surrealism because for the viewer, the significance of Bonnie's photograph does not need to be scientifically or aesthetically evaluated. The value and authenticity of the image lies in her personal relationship with the object and Soth's intense photographic emphasis on this message. The dynamic of Bonnie's relationship to this angel photograph is further enhanced by cultural and socio-economic perceptions of religious or spiritual imagery. Mass culture's lag behind theoretical cultural progression holds significant implications for consumption in general because goods are employed as representations of the self. The prevalence of kitsch and campy goods becomes problematic in the context of Soth's imagery. Objects play a meaningful role to both Soth's subjects and to his photographic compositions. Those who view
his photographs and participate in the foremost wave of cultural theory read artifacts such as Bonnie's angel artifact as symptomatic of a cyclical culture of production. Sophisticated viewers read the potential satire of pastiche into Bonnie's image for her prized personal possession is contemporarily cliché. This makes the object for these viewers more deeply conflicted as she offers this trite iconography as evidence of meaning beyond human constructs. The socio-economic and cultural positioning of persons such as Bonnie are emphasized here as a result of the widening gap caused by a faster cycle of aesthetic trends in post-modern society. While to her, the angel represents the ultimate confirmation of the presence of a spiritual realm, the elite cultural reading of icons as cliché or kitsch complexify Soth's photograph through his introduction of such contradictions. Soth's merging of cultural icons with expressions of pride and faith produce a dream-like quality. The way he frames Bonnie and her spiritual artifact in a straight-perspective, deadpan approach amplify the contradictions present in the image. It forces the viewer to contemplate a sobering reality seen through the eyes of individuals with striking spiritual faith. While the image of Bonnie is grounded first in the reality of her physical human condition at rest on the couch, Alec Soth's presentation of her private photographic window to a world beyond produces a synthesis between reality and one's dreams with worlds informing each other. His use of the photographic frame-within-a-frame, forces a reconciliation of the physical and dream worlds, using
the medium similarly to the way Jane Livingston notes it was historically employed to capture surreality on earth (Livingston 133). These frames in tandem show the subjectivity of the frame, its physicality, and how it can isolate individual perception of reality within the human experience. The implications of Bonnie's portrait lie in the capacity of an image so located in time and place to yield such surreality. Bonnie (with a photograph of an angel) allows those at the pinnacle of cultural theory to see her world through the image's correlation to the philosophy of current and past eras. What is startling, however, is how effectively Soth has rendered a cultural reality as it morphs into something reminiscent of dreams. Soth makes sure that Bonnie's intense faith permeates the image and forces the viewer to become self-reflective. This overpowers viewer's normative cultural judgements. Belief in forces outside of tangible reality do not prevent the sobering actuality of the human experience, but for the unsatisfiable dimension of mortality, belief in escape and transcendence may be the only consolation.
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Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1985. Print. 14. L'Ecotais, Emmanuelle De., Alain Sayag, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, and Herbert R. Lottman. Man Ray: Photography and Its Double. London: Laurence King, 1998. Print. 15. Morgan, David, and Sally M. Promey. The Visual Culture of American Religions. Berkeley: University of California, 2001. Print. 16. Morgan, David. Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman. New Haven [Conn.: Yale UP, 1996. Print. 17. Raymond, Jonathan. Alec Soth. Artforum International. 2004: 249. Proquest Research Library. Web. 7 Jan. 2013. 18. Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977. Print. 19. Soth, Alec, Patricia Hampl, and Anne Tucker. Sleeping by the Mississippi. Göttingen, Ger.: Steidl, 2004. Print. 20. Soth, Alec, Philip Brookman, and Richard Ford. Niagara. Göttingen: Steidl, 2006. Print. 21. Soth, Alec, Siri Engberg, and Geoff Dyer. From Here to There: Alec Soth's America, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 2010. Print.