Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History The Cold War In American Photography 20240713

Tv, Wake Forest University Professor John curley teaches a class on how the cold war infliei influenced and was influenced by photography. This is about an hour ten minutes. So last time we were talking about world war ii photography and the ways that photographers interacted with the cwar. We ended looking at this image last year. The Mushroom Cloud that emerged after the dropping of the atomic bomb on nagasaki. This image, of course, marks the end of world war ii. In many ways it marks the beginning of the cold war. Of course, nuclear dread and Nuclear Anxiety hovered over the conflict during the 1950s and 1960s and up through the 1980s to the end of the conflict. Its a fitting image to begin our class today. We will think a lot about photography during the cold war. Specifically, american photography during the cold war. This is a massive topic. One could imagine a course on the subject. General themes as well as case studies and in the meantime, along the way, talk about some advances in Media Technology and now newspapers were printing photographs during these years. Before we get into photography, we should make sure we understand what the cold war is. As we get further removed from it, it becomes more fuzzy. Of course, the cold war was the battle between the United States and the soviet union, which began after world war ii around 1945 and goes all the way until 1989. Of course, the allies were involved as well. American allies and soviet allies were involved in this conflict. It turned upon a central question. Whose ideology, whose world view should be the primary sort of factor in postworld war Ii Development development . Should it be capitalism or communism with this fascination and desire for an economic and social equality . This conflict between the two world views did dominate the global scene during the cold war. We call it a cold war. There was no direct military conflict between the soviets and americans. To call it cold isnt accurate. There are many proxy wars whether in korea, where American Forces were battling north Korean Forces and Chinese Forces with soviet support or in vietnam where american soldiers were fighting the north vietnamese with soviet support. There was a lot of casualties, lots of brutal regimes that emerged. It wasnt technically cold. It was cold for america versus the soviets but not cold overall. It ended in 1989, in november, when the berlin wall suddenly came down. A couple of years later the soviet union itself dissolved in 1991. Putting the nails in the coffin of the cold war. Now were talking about a new cold war. Thats a different class and a different topic. This is a good image to start a discussion today. I think we see an aerial photograph. If you recognize where im going with this, keep those ideas on the side and look at the image. Lets see what we actually can recognize concretely. What are some features of this landscape that we can see . Anyone . Craters in the righthand part of the picture. We see a landscape. Maybe some topography right here. Anything else . Trees. We see trees right here. We see roads and such right here. We see basic things. Trees, roads, topography. We see some ambiguous looking objects here and there. We might even say this picture this photograph is boring or doesnt have any excitement or not very consequential. Think about what this photograph how it functioned, what it depicts, it becomes one of the most consequential photographs perhaps in the history of photography or at least in the 20th century. This photograph was taken by the american spy plane high above communistcontrolled cuba in october 1962. The accurate interpretation of this photograph in many ways led to bringing the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. The world could have ended because of the correct interpretation of the photograph. What you see here is that when analysts took the film from the spy camera there was miles of film. Photographs much of the cuban landscape. The analysts would go through with lens and other visual aides to try to identify the signatures of soviet missile systems. They found the signatures of medium range ballistic missiles. You see launch equipment and tent equipment. This photograph proved, at least to american analysts, that the soviets were introduces Nuclear Weapons to cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of florida, which gave them a sort of advantageous first strike capability. When president kennedy was looking at these images in the oval office, they did not have captions on them. Imagine this without all these text guides right here. Kennedy was bewildered. He didnt see recognize missiles. He didnt recognize offensive weapons there. Secondly, he was concerned one of the photographs would be presented to the American People and the photographs wouldnt justify bringing american to the brink of destruction, the threat of world war iii. He was sort of bewildered and worried about these photographs. What happened was that people put these captions inside and all of a sudden you can begin to recognize these identifying the offending objects here. These do look like erector launcher equipment. It looks like missiles now that we have the text assigned to them. This is how they were released to the public whether on newspaper or television. This is the images the American People saw. For me its a fitting introduction to understanding photography during the cold war. Its an extreme example, of course. But i think we can see how there is a desire or a necessity for clarity and for ideas of quote, unquote, truth during the conflict. At the same time, were fighting against ideas of photographys ambiguity, which we have been discussing all semester. Photographs can mislead. They can misdirect. Here those two ideas of truth and photographic ambiguity are battling against each other. We can see how a photograph like this how ones ideology, ones belief system can make certain images seem true or seem like facts. Kind of perhaps a strange comparison but fitting i think for this idea is to consider rorschach ink tests. You see these in movies or therapy sessions to show the workings of ones personal mind. Whether you see an animal or some kind of rug here. Its up to the individual viewer. In some ways, a photograph like this, you see right here, your ideology, your world view would determine how you would see it. If you are a soviet viewer, you might be skeptical because you are like, this could easily be doctored or be forged. There were missiles in cuba. Thats a fact. The photograph doesnt necessarily communicate the idea to the untrained eye is my larger point here. This idea sort of slippery images, images meaning one thing and another at the same time was captured by the cold war historian John Lewis Gattis and thinking about the conflict as a whole. Not just photography but the cold war as a whole. He saw it as a slippery, ambitious thing. You want to read this quote out loud for me . [ inaudible ] suggesting that this distinction between illusion and reality is not obvious. Fact and fiction. Think about nuclear deterrents. In some ways whats more important and whats as important as the actual number of warheads has is projecting the illusion of having many. As long as the soviets believed we had lots of missiles, that created the deterrent. Strange ideas about illusion versus fact is crucial during the cold war. Also, too, i mentioned it was largely a cold war between the americans and soviets. There are hot wars elsewhere. The idea of a cold war facilitates a battle of images, of information, not so much military forces. In a battle of information images, of course, photography is a crucial battlefield during the cold war. This is what we will be talking about today. We see this battle even in Something Like senator Joseph Mccarthys actions in the early 1950s in america. You might know senator mccarthy from wisconsin. He charged there were thousands of communists who had infiltrated the highest levels of american government. To do so as you see in this photograph, taken the u. S. Congress. Using photographs to prove some kind of relationship between someone and a communist. He is using photographs for evidence in one of these hearings. I want to turn our attention to this photograph right here. I put the identifying sort of identified the figures at the bottom of the image. Mccarthys aides, his assistants distributed a copy of this photograph in 1950 in maryland. It showed a maryland senator right here talking really closely clos closely and in depth with the leader of the american communist party. He distributed this to suggest he had communist ties and sympathy. Many argue this photograph cost him his senate seat. They said, he must be asympathi. This photograph is an sheer fake. A composite photograph. You see here this feature from life in 1951 that exposes the ruse behind the photograph. You have miller listening to the radio right here. You have earl talking to someone and they put the photographs, someone listening and someone talking and get rid of the radio and you have an image that creates this fictional illusion that these two figures were in some kind of deep conversation. We can see how under the guise of quote, unquote, fact, a photograph identifies truth and fact, sort of crafty editors and crafty politicians can weave a new reality through these techniques of photo montage. The issues are more sort of prevalent today with photoshop and other technology. We see composite photographs in the early 1950s. Even see how certain photographs can be used as propaganda by both sides. The same photograph could be used by the communists as well as the capitalists. The federal im going to show you is graphic. I want to prove this point. Its an interesting case study. I apologize for the graphic nature of the photograph. Here we see a corpse hanging from a tree in 1956 and the aftermath of the uprising, prodemocracy protesters were fighting against the communist government and communist forces in 1956. That protest is brutally put down with many, many deaths. Basically, we dont know who is hanging. Is this a communist or a prodemocracy protester . We dont know who committed the atrocity. Both sides use this photograph as evidence of the brutality of the other side. The same photograph can serve two masters. It be communist propaganda or soviet as well as for america. The same factual image can be used to prove two things and this contentious battle of information of images that is the cold war. Questions at this point . We will a reflection of the photo. It reminds me of the sharpshooter during the civil war. Its a great point. The photograph we looked at, the same body was dragged from one location to another location and it was a confederate in one picture and a Union Soldier in the other. These issues are not old, but they take on new relevance during the cold war. Other questions or comment . We will touch on the big points of this essay. You read roland bart this semester and the discussion of federal if federal if photography and memory. He was one of the first thinkers to really try to examine press photography from precisely this angle. Using bart, we can understand the ways that newspapers used photography and the ways that newspapers could mislead or try to influence its readers through subtle twisting of photographic meaning. This is the very first line, first two sentences of the essay. Its important to get us in the mood of what roland bart is up to. Can i get a volunteer to read this for us . The press photograph is a message considered overall. This is formed by a source of admission, a transmission and a perception. What he is saying is a diagram or designed or thought up by a mathematician and the father of information theory. What you see in this diagram is you have an information source and you have a destination. In between, you have a transmitter and receiver. This is the crucial part, the noise source. Any message, any transmitted message, theres some distortion that corrupts that message. Even just a little bit on their side. Think about that game you maybe played in kindergarten. I did. The telephone game. You whisper something in the ear of the first child. Then it goes all the way down the line into the last child. Say you say, billy takes a bath. The first one. In the end its like, billy fakes a laugh. In that transmission from the first child to the last child, we have this noise source, the way the message becomes deteriorates and changes through the act of transmission. Roland bart in the opening quote shows his interest in the ideas about information and how its corrupted between the source and the destination. This gets to a larger more general point is that the press photograph is not straightforward. Its a complex sort of object. We can think about the complicated ways it produces meaning for the reader. This is another important quote from the essay. I want to talk about this idea. Can i get a volunteer to read this short quote . The photographic paradox can be seen as the coexistence of two messages. One without a code and the other with a code. I think its confusing. I want to harp on this fact that the idea of without a code. Press photography is an image without a code. What he means as i suggest on the screen is that bart is saying the image itself in some ways is without inherent meaning. In some ways the photograph needs to be coded through captions, through the articles next to it, through many other ideas like the readers own political persuasion. The image becomes largely meaningless until it becomes coded by the surrounding areas. The image without a code needs a code, the context for understanding its meaning. The paradox of photography and particularly of press photography. The way constructed intentional meaning, things that have opinions or political leanings, can seem natural and pregiven, thanks to the index of photography. Reminding what it means. Thinking back to our photograph right here. We know that there was a corpse hanging from a tree. That idea of truth value, that factual quality of photographty. Makes the constructed meaning seem natural and pregiven. Y. Makes the constructed meaning seem natural and pregiven. So here is the cuba photograph we rengs ferenced. Here is another a different shot taken by a spy plane. Same idea. Cuban landscape with identifying missiles. What might roland bart say about the publication of this image in a newspaper . It has the captions on it. It gives more meaning to the photograph and makes it seem scarier than it would be if you just saw it without the captions. The captions here tell us what to look for here. The caption here identifies whats in here as well as the internal captions tells us what we are looking at. Anyone else . Kind of adding to that, it gives context of like you said what were supposed to look for and the photo on the left kind of sort of tells what is going on. In the context of a whole newspaper article, you get more indepth of what we are supposed to look for and why this is a big deal and more background why people should be afraid of this photograph. Good. Going off of that, more so what they want you to look for. The text lends this cultural and political ideas on the photograph that isnt there when you see it. That propaganda and corruption, what they want you to get out of the photograph. Great. Thats right. Great points. It says nothing or says little. It communicates little specifics to the reader. The kopcaptions, the article ov here, the political persuasion of the reader as well as the scientific looking quality of the photograph. It looks like a document. It looks like evidence. All these aspects lead us to think about the photograph and its meaning. We read it as truth and as fact. Of course, it is a very ambiguous image. Im not arguing that there were missiles in cuba. To the untrained eye, this photograph tells you very little. If you are trained in interpreting aerial photographs, you could maybe see something. The vast majority of americans could not communicate these ideas of missiles and so on. I want to talk about how beyond roland bart, beyond his analysis of press photographs, images as are published in newspapers, the material print production of these photographs also leads them to be even more ambiguous. For two reasons. One we talked about. The half tone. Remember the half tone process we discussed . Many weeks ago, around the turn of the 20th century, how photographs can be converted to a screen of dots that could be mass printed by newspapers. Allowed for the mass publication of photographs in the press. Major watershed mome you see it says missile in cuba. This is made public by the u. S. Embassy in london and radioed to the u. S. They first got access to this image, its a long story i wont go why this is in london, but thats the first time this photograph emerged. They had to wire the photograph from london to new york to print it quickly and in the next days paper. They had a new process for this. Reminder, before the wire photo was introduced, we will talk about its history, that photographs had to be literally transported from the site of their production to the newspaper. Represent the photograph the earthquake in San Francisco in 1906 . It took four to five days to get the film from San Francisco to new york. Theres a significant delay in showing these images from San Francisco on the east coast. The film had to be put on a train to go across the country. The wire photo changes all of this. It was invented in 1907. You see in the cover of the magazine. Not really made practical for widespread use until the 1930s. Didnt come into common use until the 1940s. Really becomes entrenched in our national and International Press during the cold war in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. I will read you the kopcaption. A photograph of the german crown prince. You see it here. Electronically transmitted to a distance of nearly 1,100 miles. The small picture from which the enlargement was made is the actual result obtained with the new method. The cover demonstrates this wire photo process. You see the results right here. Were going to watch a short video. Its a short excerpt from a longer clip from a news reel available on youtube. Its from 1937. It gives the sense of how the wire photo works. Have a look. Although it took years to perfect, the technique of sending pictures by wire is comparatively simple. Its not a matter of sending the whole picture at once. But of separating the picture into fine lines, sending those lines over a wire and assembling them at the other end. Lets suppose we have a picture or a pattern which we want to send to another location. The only way to send it is through a small tube. For our purpose, we will make this picture on closely wound string. Now if we start at one end of the picture, taking it line by line, or string by string, in proper order, we can run the string through the tube and assemble it at the other end, line by line, until we again have the original pattern. That is exactly what we do in wired photo transmission. We now take the picture apart electronically and translate it into units that we can send over a wire. The units are lines all of the same width but of different tones of grade. The video is longer online. I can send you the link. We see how wire photos work. The machine uses a lens, a light to break the photo down into lines of varying tonal levels. Then those lines are transmitted over a phone line via electronic pulse. The idea of lines are the tonal value are converted to a pulse. Then that pulse can be reconverted back to ideas of tonal values on the other side in the newsroom and you have a photograph transferred over long distances and be able to be printed in the newspaper quickly. Another way to think about this is you go from an image into a code, that pulses on the telephone line, and back into image. To bring back our diagram to remind us the image source and the actual wire photo process right here, of course, but it becomes more blurry than a crisp print that we saw. We have this ambiguity at the heart of the wire photo process. It becomes standard after world war ii and in use until the 1980s. No longer in use today with digital technology. It was so important to how americans as well as International Audiences understood the cold war through photographs. Any questions of the wire photo process . Generally speaking. To sum up this idea, we have a very blurry wire photo, a blurry half tone equals very blurry press imagery. Its a simple thing to say. But its important to remind ourselves that these images that were taken as fact, as conveying truth in history, were some of the most ambiguous images printed in the newspaper. Those really time sensitive, crucial news photographs were often the most ambiguous. Leads this idea about cold war photography, the need for truth and fact is undercut by this ambiguity of photography. The press context. We think about newspapers as conveying truth and fact keeps that down this ambiguity of the press photograph. Take a detour here and look at one painting. It seems strange but the work of an andy warhol because he made this painting, its large, eight or nine feet tall, copying the front page of the new york mirror of this plane crash. Whats interesting is that he is copying a wire photo. In some ways he marks his knowledge that he knows he is painting a wire photo. Look at the kopcaption. He cares about this part. He deleted most of the caption but gives us this. Upi radio telephoto. He is marking the fact this is a wire photo. Radio telephoto was upis branding of the wire photod on what is one way to interpret what warhol is suggesting about the press photograph here . Why paint it . Its constructed purposely. A photograph is structured purposely. It has a more intentional quality than a photograph. Perhaps revealing that aspect of press photography. Going off of that, takes away some of the factual inherent denotation that we associate with photography. Good. By painting it, it takes away the factual denotation we associate with a press photograph. Thats exactly spot on right. The way warhol is calling attention to the ambiguity in the press photograph by painting it by hand. We can see whats going on here. Still, he renders it more ambiguous using a sponge to create the background. Very blocklike figures. He reveals the ambiguity. We saw this image right here, you might say its a plane wing. Kind of return to roland barts ideas, the headlines, 129 die in jet, tells us what we should be looking at here. It encodes that photograph to tell us what it is were supposed to be seeing. In barts terms that headline encodes the image. We can talk more about warhol. I want to suggest, he is interested in ambiguity of press photography. This is one of the reasons he perhaps makes this painting here. Switch gears and talk about the ways that even in art museums and perhaps the most important and most famous exhibition of photographs ever arguably sort of has the same mechanisms of trying to control and fix me meanings in photograph. This opened at the museum of modern art in new york city in 1955. You see an installation shot here of the entrance to the exhibition. Whats interesting for our purposes is it was curated by edward stykan. Here is his flat iron feder photograph. He becomes curator of photography at moma in 1947. He left his roots behind and now is interested in a more democratic mass ideal of photography. Some interesting stats that help us get a sense of what its all about. As you see here, it started at moma in 1955 and toured to 69 countries. Its an exhibition of photography. You could have multiple copies of the exhibition. You can have two or three open simultaneously because its they are photographs. Make more copies. It toured to 69 countries. It included 503 photographs, snapped by 273 different photographers from 68 different countries. An attempt to provide some kind of global understanding of the world through the medium of photography. Over all of its iterations around the world, it had over 9 million visitors saw this exhibition. The book itself, which i will pass around a version of it in the class, you can see the catalog right here, it sold 4 million copies. Its still in print today. Go to amazon. You can buy a copy of the family man. Its very much it sells. Today i had you read some press releases that moma put out about this exhibition. I want to get your sense of what you thought about the press releases, whats important about the exhibition. How did those press releases describe the show . The press release talks about it emphasizes how internationally this exhibition would be. I think they invited photographers from all around the world to submit their photos to be exhibited in the show. He focused on how the photos are from all around the world. Its like an International Exhibition rather than regional focus. Good. International exhibition, trying to get photographs from all over the world. Can i get someone to read this for us . The family of man is planned as an exhibition of photography portraying the universal elements and emotions and the oneness of human beings throughout the world. Its probably the most ambitious project photography has reached and one for the art of photography is uniquely qualified. Thank you. To build on what will said, we have photographs from around the world used to create an image of global unity. Its photography that can do this. The second quote can i get a volunteer to read that for us . We are concerned with photographs which express the universal through individual and the particular. That demonstrate the importance of the art of photography in explaining man to man across the world, dreams and aspirations mirroring the forces of love and truth and the coercive evil inherent in the world. There we have a sense that were talking about expressing the universal particular. He wants to find images that can suggest something about humans all together in one single image. Bring the images together to create a global portrait what it means to be a human. The family of humans, called the family man in the 1950s. Also the way photography itself is a universal medium. Anyone can understand a photograph. If you are someone who lives in australia, france, germany, china, you can understand a photograph. It communicates the same to everyone. This isnt true. But he had this utopian idea that photography could do this. This is hard to see. This is sort of the layout of the exhibition. I want to call attention to some of the themes that he creates installations about. We have eating is one of the themes. All humans eat. All humans play. All humans drink. All humans have not all, but many humans have hard times and famine. A lot of people are religious. Themes that can apply to wide swaths of the global population and photographs from around the world to prove that were all human. We all have dinner together. Thats one of the points of the exhibition. Also one scholar compared the exhibition to an oversized life magazine without the advertisements. Photo essays you see here. Photographs of families hanging together right here. Its an oversized photo essay. Interesting enough, maythey wer from life archives. Found many photographs there. So we have this connection between the exhibition and life. Do you flow why know why he . Back then, people talked about human kind as mankind. He saw this idea of the world as being one family. This is the family a global family. Were all the same. We all eat. We all drink. We all have families, according to this exhibition. Of course, we do all eat and drink and have families of some kind. Try to find the unity that links us as human beings. I want to say that we have no captions. We have some captions here and there. Each photograph is not captioned to tell us precisely what were looking at. He creates them blows these up large, sometimes crop images to cut out an essential element. He is controlling this project. He is the photo editor of the family of man. Whats interesting about having no captions is that the photographs go back to barts terms, encoded by the images around them. We will show you an example of this in a moment. I want to say that he had experience making these large these massive photographic exhibitions, in 1942, at moma he did the road to victory, a propaganda show talking about the american war effort. Pearl harbor bombed in december 1941. This is an exhibition designed to encourage photographs being hung in interesting environment as a way to create some kind of propaganda. So stikend had experience doing this. And because the exhibition, the insulation shots are hard to read the individual photographs i here have a spread in a catalog thats being passed around here. Towards the end of the show, end of the catalog we have seven portraits that were featured. What are we looking at here . What links these photographs . Yeah, will. The theme of which appears to be portraits of couples. Yes. Portraits of couples and ill give you a little capping here to tell you where they are from. This one is from holland, china remember canada, american india, usa, germany, sicily, italy. Largely western european america. China here. China suggests that around the world there are heterosexual couples. We too from a multitude from roman poet suggests these two couples can become some kind of multitude and they have significance and they are important. So good. Thats what were looking at. The more important question is how . Why would he do this . Whats the broader significance of this . What are the implications of this . What are some ways to think about what hes suggests about humanity here . About difference . About different global regions. What are some ways to look at this . Sort of humanizes different cultures for people. Theres a Common Thread . Good. Humanizes these different cultures. Anyone else . Kind of equates them. Equates them. We have no idea who these people are. We dont know if these people were married or couples. They could be brother and sister. They could be work mates. They could be colleagues. We dont know who they are. But by putting these photographs all together, he is generalizing vast differences in identity, nationality and suggesting all these people are the same. They are all couples. Again, we dont know who these people are, what they are doing, if they are even heterosexual partnership. Whats interesting about the family man overall is the way each photograph in the show is controlled by those around it. So, again, think back to roland barts idea the photograph is an image about a code. Family man other images around the photograph encode image to make us see it in a certain way. It really is trying to control photographic meaning here and not allowing for the ambiguity of images. Question at this point about family man . And so again the culmination of images, of giant large photo essay is how stikend creates it. Begin to understand, too, of course it originates in moma by stikend, has a particular view of the world. Yes, it suggests all the globe is linked through commonalities but still from an american perspective. The New York Times art critic hilton kraemer kind of suggests a little bit about its politics. Lets read this out loud and lets think about what kraemer is projecting here. So what is kraemer suggesting here about the Nuclear Arms Race of the period, what does kraemer read from this exhibition . Almost just covers up all the issues you see around the world and with all these different areas because around this time it was at the end of the Second World War and beginning of korean war and vietnam war and whatnot so a lot of International Hatred youll see in this and it brings us as one big happy family. Americans idea of global unity but the world is in many ways fractured, deeply fractured by the cold war at the same moment. No real coincidence that towards the end of the exhibition theres some pictures here of people voting in different countries. Not a picture of americans voting but from some other countries and suggesting that voting, democracy is the natural human universal way of government. Of course democracy is much better than dictatorship. Im not arguing that. Presents this idea of americans has democracy as only universal form of government that maybe suggests its subtle ideological or political agenda of this exhibition. The larger point here is to suggest the family man does present an american centric view of the world. Its goal is, again, utopian to show us how were all the same, but it is from an american perspective, and it shows the American Point of view is universal as is the meaning of photography. Again, i really cant overestimate the importance of this exhibition. Artists and photographers from around the world saw this exhibition in various locales. These locales are contentious sites. It was shown in west berlin before the berlin wall came up. Many east germans came over and saw the exhibition, had political overtones. Guatemala city had a major coup in the 1950s where the cia intervened and over threw somebody they saw leaning towards communism. The show was there. So its no accident these shows went to contentious political sites, even in moscow a little bit later. Maybe emphasizes or shows us the politics of the family of man. Any more questions of family man before we move on . The catalog is circulating so have a look when it gets to you. One artist that is in the family man, at least from my estimation doesnt quite fit in to the show and heres his photograph from a page of people eating. Have a japan woman eating, drinking tea or having some sort of rice bowl something right here. Something about in the congo drinking out of the coconut. American photograph of someone, a group of patrons at a hamburger joint. Right here the caption, new york is taken by robert frank. For me this photograph is different. It suggests something through his composition. Ill go over that and we can maybe look at some other photographs and have you do some of the work yourselves. For me i look at this photograph in the context of the family man and it seems a bit different as i said. Number one, the number one point of difference is frank is alluding outside of the frame. We have it cut in half showing the photograph should go on here and here. Theres a building next to the burger stand. So suggesting its just a selection of reality. Hes alluding to reality outside of the frame. Not suggesting its true. Just one version or one small slice of truth. Then we have robert frank is giving us this almost a photo within a photo, we discussed this numerous times this semester photographers have ideas of, through ideas of framing, looking at doors and windows to refer to the processes of photography itself. So hes self consciously giving us this photograph, the image within the image. So we begin we look at these two aspects begin to show us how frank, somebody is allowing us to see a photograph as an intentional utterance. Show a certain view of reality, photograph it, then that very it touches that act and we see again his selection of this but also how the world continues around it. So frank alludes the photograph is one of many he chooses from others. And from this we go back to a, ask you we saw the exhibition upstairs of walker evans and the way walker evans used some of these ideas. A flat image with small images of a head shot. A window of a photo studio. We see how its constructed. So robert frank was really influenced by walker evans and we see franks interest in flatness as well as selfconscious, selfreflective ideas about photography. Trying to argue here that both evans and frank are interested in showing us this selfconsciousness about photography. See how the photograph is composed. See it as an intentional utterance, not as a factual truth. Is that clear so far . This way robert frank works between the ideas of walker evans on one hand, sort of modernism but also a little bit of family man. Hes in the family man but also interested in ideas of photo journalism. So robert frank sort of described his practice the advertise very simply trying to make art photographs that look like press photographs or photographs inspired by popular photo journalism and you can see that, i think in this slide here. Some background on robert frank his biography is important to his world view and his photography. He was born and raised in switzerland and lived out world war ii there as a young man. And as someone who grew up jewish in switzerland, he was petrified of the nazis attacking switzerland. Had this sort of dread from his young adult life and moved to the u. S. In 1947. He was a freelance photographer. He kept trying to get his pictures into life magazine. They kept rejecting him, so he grew frustrated with that lifes model of photojournalism. As frank himself has said, he said, quote, i wanted to see my pictures in life magazine and they never did buy them, so i developed a tremendous contempt for them which helped me. Again he wanted to have that language of photo journalism that was published widely but more skeptical style didnt fit in with life magazines model of photo journalism. Hes such an important figure in american photography. Any photographer after robert frank, sort of thinking about photojournalism or street photography and these sorts of things. Robert frank is vitally important. In some ways that photograph counters the optimism of the family man. Interesting undercutting that optimism and the universality of the family man. I should say, frank used a lika. This is not a lika, this is a cannon, but very similar. Its very easy to photograph, you put it up to your eye. Its connected to your body. Shoot off like this. Shoot over here. It allows for a versatile understanding of photography and allows me to catch images on the fly. Imagine frank on the street capturing images, allows his versatility. This shows how he sort of thinks about capturing images. And in the mid50s he won a guggenheim fellowship, a prestigious fellowship that allowed you to take on major projects. The project was to drive around america, and so between 55 and 56, he took several short trips from new york and also took one long nine month Cross Country road trip. So driving. And brought his cameras and took many photographs around the country. And he shot over 20,000 pictures. So a massive amount of film he took. Produced contact sheets. Sent what he shot. Then he printed 1,000 of them to rather scale. Then he chose 83 of those in his book called the americans in 1958. You see it right here. 83 photographs. Kind of like american photographs you have an image on one side and very short caption to tell you where it was taken on the other side. And this is the books very first image. Sort of the opening salvo, the shot of the americans. It is a very rich image. And robert frank selected it for a precise reason. To be the very first image of the book. So what kind of divider into two parts. The formal qualities of it, how he con constructs the image and then think about the social message, the politics of this message. So the ideas of the formal qualities. Who wants to get us started. What is interesting about this photograph . Its pretty symmetric. There is the divide where it leads into two separate windows where it is a picture in and of itself. There is the bottom of the window and the lines go with that vertically as well. It is very symmetrical and one window here and one here and one divided down the window. It is quite a symmetrical image. Yeah, lynn . I think the way it is divided into three segments it has that idea of a film strip. A film strip and we have two images but considered more broadly almost having two photographs in the photograph. Anyone else. I think it is interesting how you cant see their faces but the person on the right looks like hes been covered by the flag and on the left is more covered by the white i dont know what that is. This is a window shade i think. It is a persons face in shadows and covered by the flag. So i think the formal qualities is windows like separate photo frames. So we saw the hamburger picture, we have two portraits in the photograph. So again frank suggesting that his photograph is just a selection of these windows that could go on and on and on. And also as you sort of alluded to, we have ambiguity in the image. This womans face is obscured by the dark shadows of the room. Obscured of the window shade coming down against her. This flag is blocking this woman. And look at the title of the picture, it is called parade, hoboken, new jersey. So there is a patriotic parade going on outside of the window and these people are looking down at the parade and frank is looking at those watching the parade. And if a parade is a public exhibition, this public presentation of patriotism, of sort of ideas of whatever the holiday is. But it is very public and outward facing. Frank isnt interested in that sort of ideas about america. He wanted to find what is behind the facade. What is lurking in the shadows of america. But also doing so in a modernist selfconscious way. We saw walker evans photographing a brick wall, the two apatures, the two windows. And we know were looking at a photograph and again the sort of photograph within a photograph allude to sort of many other photographs that he could have taken but he sort of alludes to that in this picture. But the point again is the americans is trying to show us something that is sort of darker than the family man. Something that sort of shows us a darker underbelly to American Life in the 1950s. And as we talked about with walker evans, franks photographs are full of social intelligence, they tell so much about america in the mid 1950s flipping through the book but also his formal intelligence. Hes a photographers photographer. Artists love robert frank and his work. So the duality between the social and formal intelligence makes it such a important photographer for this class. And i want to mention, too, he experienced his own sort of dark side of america on his road trip. He was in arkansas the account goes in 1955 and had his camera out and taking photographs in arkansas. He was of swiss origin so his english was heavily accented. And so the police saw a man who seemed quote unquote foreign taking photographs in their town and they sort of detained him and put him in jail for a little bit and questioned him. To be a photographer, foreigner taking photographs in an American City in the mid50s, you could be a suspected communist, taking in to survey cities and trying to gain information or sort of plot some kind of infiltration. So robert frank himself was sort of detained by Arkansas Police for being a foreignborn photographer. So i think that is also sort of fuels part of his project. Were spending time on this image. I think if youre in the round table we had on tuesday, this photograph was mentioned but i want to look at it some more. This is the cover photograph of the americans called trolley new orleans from 55, 56. And the same type of thing. Talk about the formal quality and the social qualities. But before we do, i want to allude to the idea this is a really amazing photograph. And you look at franks film and it is a one shot. So hes photographing other things, other things, other things and then all of a sudden you turn around and captured the one image and it was this. Only one try for this image. And it is such an incredible image. So were reminded of henry bersans decisive moment, capturing this one perfectly balanced and composed image on the fly. So lets look at the social and narrative approach to image. What do we see here that suggests something about American Life in the 1950s . Anything we havent heard yet. The prevalence of segregation. And how do you see that in the image. It is quite split down the middle with the white people in the front and the black people sent to the back. There is a trolley in the american south, and the white customers, white passengers in the front and the africanamerican ones in the back. And how do you describe their expressions . What are some ways we can interpret body language and that sort of thing in this in these figures in the picture . I think im most struck by the woman in the second frame. Shes got a sour look on her face. Kind of like speaks to the image of a whole how they push africanamericans to the back which is distasteful. Hes looking out the window at frank registering his existence behind the camera and looking disdainfully at the camera. Other sort of views of body language, of sort of how the arms are going. Sort of ideas of the characters in this sort of drama . I think it is interesting the way the young boy is sort of wearing the posture in the frame and its odd because there is a suggestion that hes better than him but theyre even. Its odd. It is a great detail. The arms are mirrored right here and so in some ways there is comparative body language between the two. But of course the similarities end there in terms of social treatment. I think it is interesting that the children are in the center in the image because they are the ones that are not really playing a role in segregation. They are very innocent and whole. So the children here, so really young girl, young boy right here. And the idea that this is the future. They are children of the future. But the idea they are the future but are they on this side here, supporting fighting for the rights of those in the back. So the children are sort of the fulcrum of this image. Was your hand up . I thought it was interesting that the black man, the way hes positioned, where it was spaced, you wouldnt think he was on a moving vehicle. He was sitting for the picture and sitting straightforward, not sitting on a bus. So it is kind of great. It all kind of especially the folks right here looking directly out at the photographer, not forward in the trolley and we have the window. So it seems like their individual photographs. And i think the fact that theyre all looking at the photographer shows they were aware the picture was being taken but probably so quick that they didnt have time to react, the fact theyre not smiling, not posing, makes it seem much more natural and truly capturing a moment in time. So it doesnt seem posed, but looking at robert frank we have this natural quality to it. And i think the stern view of the woman here and the children here and this man almost looks desperate in a way that he is sort of thinking about his perhaps his plight in life to be a marginalized prejudice against africanamerican in new orleans. His face doesnt i think he looks oddly relaxed and that is sort of it is like hes just accepted his position. Another good read. Again shows the way that photography is very ambiguous, relaxed and the way his arm is draped out here, sort of resting outside of the window. But the gist of it here is that we see segregation. Literally. We see a picture of segregation with africanamericans in the back of this trolley. Frank documents that. And think about the family of man. This would not be involved in that exhibition. So any ideas of mistreatment or institutional racism will not be didnt have a part in edward stiekens exhibition. And lets reiterate some of the things weve said and go further. So what are the ways that frank composed this photo formally. It looks and references the flat picture plain that were looking at. So again flat. A lot of photographs get a sense of threedimensionality, and here is this flatness here. Jason. We talk about a picture within a picture. Each window it is like a small picture. Good. So each window, like we saw with the individual window picture, its like an individual photo frame so we have this obscured portrait with the window closed and we have four pictures in this picture and it looks like a film strip. When frank developed his films, this is how 35 millimeter film used to look. Most of us these days are using digital, but back then you had sort of these you were using film, it almost looks like a filmstrip. What about the reflections up here . What are some ways that we could think about those, or the reflections down here. Lynn, is your hand up . I think it is a distorted reality which is interesting because the photograph is supposed to show the truth of something but it creates that ambiguity of what youre really seeing. Good. So another film strip up here and we have utter ambiguity. Almost abstract photographs. Suggesting a photograph doesnt have to be realistic or naturalistic, it creates some sense of abstraction as well. What about the idea of the reflection, too. What does that suggest about photography from robert frank. We see reflections that show us what is behind him. And i even had a student argue this i think right here you might see robert frank or maybe himself shooting the photograph. But the idea i think too is that we see that behind reflecting what is behind the camera. So robert frank is interested in the idea of not only what is in front of the camera but also what the camera is not shooting. So again the photograph is just one slice of a reality and robert frank alludes to through his photograph. So we see both the segregation of the 1950s in the south as well as the complete the constructed and incomplete nature of the medium of photography. So frank is showing us social reality but also a reminder this is not sort of the truth. Not the fact. But one fact out of many. So it is not really, again, about certainty, but hes suggesting meaning. Saying there is more than one meaning out there that one could select the photograph you want to take. So again to reiterate this one last time, that frank is working against that optimism of the family man. We see segregation and also see the photograph as a construction that is open to interpretation and open to manipulation. Does anyone have a question about robert frank before we move on to one last photograph. Yeah, lilly. If you were so against the family man, did he submit his photographs to be included in the exhibit or was he selected to be in the exhibit . Im pretty sure he submits his photographs. He provided permission to participate. But he wanted to be part of the mainstream discourse and doesnt want to compromise his values or integrity. So it is the classic wanting to be part of it but also dont want to be part of it sort of mentality. So i find itching about his work, hes definitely engaged with the family man and he knows it but the american certainly is rejecting it through its very language. Other questions . And so i mentioned earlier that frank was sort of inspired by or influenced by a photo journalism and i want to end by thinking about franks ideas of photography to cycle back into photo journalism and begin to have an effect on how the cold war was covered in the american press. And i quickly think about the vietnam war which is again something of an entire class. We could do a whole class on just the visual culture of the vietnam war. But i want to say briefly and generally that it did call questions of american certainty and exceptionalism into question. And ideas about who we are as a nation and what we value as a nation called into question by our involvement in vietnam. And of course globally people raise question about american morality and ethics in our treatment and sort of behavior in that war. And in the coverage of the vietnam war, especially in magazines like life magazine in the 60s youll see doubt and uncertainty in those very photographs that are being used in the coverage of the vietnam war. And here is a wounded medic working on a soldier from 1966. This is a different sort of frame of it is right here on the cover of life. So how do we see these ideas here. How can it question idealism and certainty, what are ways to think about this wounded medic who works on a soldier . Margaret. I think it provides a stark contrast to the photos where you werent allowed to show any kind of american corpse or gore. Hes covering his eye and working on this dude we dont know if theyre still alive or not and just kind of laying there. So we have a body in trauma here, and this medic injured himself working on this body. We see american soldiers in bodily trauma. I think without that caption or any kind of supplemental material you dont necessarily know what is going on in the photo. You just see this guy holding up maybe one of his comrades or a friend that got injured in battle. He wouldnt know hes trying to help him. Without the captions, it is hard to understand what is going on here. Yeah, will. And to add to his comments because well, if we are looking at picture without a comments it would see soldiers helping another soldier but the comments captioned saying a wounded medic so were assuming that the guy was helping the other soldier is a medic and it is ironic that a medic is wounded as opposed to helping a wounded soldier. So the medic himself is wounded so it adds an ironic layer to the image and the idea of a blind medic. Imagine if you have an ambulance coming to your house and the medic is literally blindfolded. So something about the blind leading the blind. Here is an old peter broil picture from the blind leading the blind, a classic metaphor for irrationality, perhaps of the vietnam war. And as will mentioned, the irony is of a wounded medic. He was healthy and takes care of you and here we have a wounded medic. So my point is that even a photograph like this which is a press photograph, it begins to communicate some of the skepticism, some of the doubt. The national doubt creeping into sort of American Life in the 1960s. Through a photograph on the cover of life magazine. To sum up for today, i want to review the bigger points we talked about, to discuss how cold war photography, and the ambiguity in a photograph is respressed by the ideas and the need for political certainty and then they acknowledge the uncertainty and skepticism in the photographs with robert frank and ended by saying how the attitude becomes central to its turning tide in the war against vietnam, and photographs like this show americans, sort of gaining consciousness of whats going on and protests and sort of things that happen in the late 1960s. That is it for today. Well pick up on tuesday after this and talk about civil rights photography and have a great weekend and see you soon. Youre watching a special edition of American History tv airing weekdays. Tonight programs on dwight d. Eisenhower. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of world war ii, and Dwight Eisenhower is being remembered as supreme allied commander. The editor of the papers of Dwight David Eisenhower talks about the evolution of ikes leadership style from west point cadet to president of the United States. American history tv now and over the weekend on cspan3. Every saturday night American History tv takes you to College Classrooms around the country for lectures in history. Why do you all know who lizzy borden is . Raise your hand if you heard of this murder trial before this class. The deepest cause where well find the true meaning of the revolution was in this transformation that took place in the minds of the American People. Well talk about both sides of the story. The tools, the techniques of slave owner power and talk about the tools and techniques of power that were practiced by enslaved people. Watch history professors lead discussions with their students on topics from the American Revolution to september 11th. Cspan3 every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Lectures in history is available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Author of the book, brilliant diaster, Jim Rasenberger discusses his book and the history of the