Getation Can Be Seen

Robin van der Heijden Whenever The Eye Falls On embodiment, eroticism, the uncanny, abjection, transgression and the perverse in the performative documentation and production of art. I. The cruel practice of art “Torture takes place for a variety of reasons. In principle its purpose differs little from that of a scarecrow: unlike art, it is offered to sight in order to repel us from the horror it puts on display. The painted torture, conversely, does not attempt to reform us. Art never takes on itself the work of the judge. It does not interest us in some horror for its own sake: that is not even imaginable. […] When horror is subject to the transfiguration of an authentic art, it becomes a pleasure, an intense pleasure, but a pleasure all the same.”1 II. Dennis Rader, Danny Devos, Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven and AA Bronson Dennis Rader, Untitled #1, #2, #3, 1991. In the series of three untitled Polaroids by Dennis his hands in front of his body, while possibly holding the Rader, we see an act photographed in different stages. rope. His ankles are bound in all pictures and his legs The photos are taken during the day. We have a partial are bound with black rope in pictures 2 & 3. In the third view of the tree from which Rader is suspended. A high picture, we see his feet are spread and bound to a stick. level of vegetation can be seen. This specific location He is wearing something white on his head, a plastic bag seems well protected from the view of possible onlookers, perhaps, which also seems to be the case in the second suggesting privacy and intimacy, but also creates a ten- picture. He is wearing a mask. The mouth is taped. It sion; he might get noticed. We don’t know if he shot the looks like there is a lock of hair or other material draped series on his own or with assistance. Given the circum- across the forehead. These depictions are unpolished stances help would be useful, but the photos in the series even though we know they are staged. They are crude, are listed as self-portraits. Among the sparse writing visceral, raw, and in some aspects, akin to Art Brut. found on these Polaroids, a review by J. Douglas who is close to Rader’s work, confirms this by noting that Rader Due to the fact that there is no given date for these pho- “had snapped most of them himself”2 which implies some tos, the use of colour film can give us an estimation. Tak- contribution,but assistants remain unidentified. en with a Polaroid camera, the first colour films appeared in ’63. We know Rader was active from ’74. Besides The order in which the series should be laid out is un- the green, most elements in the photographs are flat in specified, for this reason they are numbered in this text. colour, the clothing is black and white and the mask and We see there is a sheet of plastic on the ground. In all skin are in the same tone. three photos, Rader can be seen suspended by a white rope from a tree. There is white rope around his neck In On Photography, Susan Sontag writes the following: in the first picture, but it is unclear in the other two. His hands are visibly bound by white rope in the sec- “…many photographers continue to prefer black-and- ond picture. The first picture suggests the same, but he white images, which are felt to be more tactful, more seems to be holding on to the white rope to keep himself decorous than color —nor less voyeuristic and less elevated. By estimation, it seems he is no further than a sentimental or crudely lifelike.”3 meter above ground. In the third picture, he is holding Tact and decency are generally lacking in Rader’s work. go outside and practice these acts of suspended bond- Elements of voyeurism are especially prominent in these age with the possibility to be seen might excite Rader; photographs; the content is heavily indecorous and is this might even be documentation or a representation of captured crudely. Its aesthetic reminds us of Camp, a autoerotic asphyxiation. By photographing these actions, sensibility that, as Sontag explains; “sees everything he can relive the act and the experience. in quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a “lamp”; not a woman but a “woman.” To perceive camp in objects The mask however, suggests a need or wish to hide or and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a- transform, and thus embody a persona. We don’t see Role.” “It incarnates a victory of “style” over “content,” Rader; we know it is Rader. So, who is this incapacitated “aesthetics” over “morality” of irony over tragedy.” It is woman dangling bound and gagged from a tree some- in these terms that Rader’s body of work, which ranges where? Does this deprivation of strength and speech, this from considerably degenerate text, image, drawing, representation of powerlessness connect with his idea of photography and installation, embeds itself in aesthetic womanhood? It is perhaps, in regard to psychoanalytic over morality. “Camp taste turns its back on the good-bad theory, a metaphor of castration. A form of pre-abject, axis of ordinary aesthetic judgement.”4 It also refers to where, at a loss of identity, Rader’s portrayed image Baroque, which was, in the seventeenth century, a term embodies neither subject or object, under the risk of referring to deviant, impure and irrational art, not unlike becoming just that; not nothing, but a “something that Camp. In its etymology, Baroque is related to a ‘deformed is not recognised as a thing.”8 In his action lies the risk pearl’, and ‘a wart’. The style is known for its dynamic of disembodiment. By covering or masking parts of the composition, diagonals and sense of ascension. body, they disappear from our sight, which makes us assess what is still there. These parts are no longer his The choice of photography points to the importance of own, a fine line between becoming something else and stillness, “Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality, losing (a part) of himself: something unbecoming or understood as recalcitrant, inaccessible; of making it stand uncanny. Additionally, Rader runs the actual risk of losing still.”5 The suspension is continuously interrupted, as if his body, in death by hanging. An interesting dualism; in there is little time, importance or patience. Suspension embodiment, there is a sense of desire, whereas in dis- in itself deals with transcendence. It is a type of body embodiment, dissolution, disguise or destruction seems play known to be practised by (modern−) primitives and its motive. Both transcend the body. BDSM culture. Long sessions can lead to phenomena like an out of body experience, ecstasy, visions, and orgasms. In suspension, –or ascension– there is an element of control. The object or subject in suspension is hanging To continuously interrupt this action, to capture it, does down, lowered down, or kept suspended: unable to move imply the importance of still image: of documentation either way. In ascension there is a sense of elevation: the over duration. The series may have been taken in a small unnatural, a higher power, a reference to the religious or timeframe. The lighting seems to indicate passing of time sublime. Like Odin sacrificing himself upon the tree Ygg- between the first and last photo, assuming the colour drasil, or the Hanged Man in Tarot. balance is reliable. But if this were a representation of something as process of movement –or impairment−, it In The Hanged Man, AA Bronson is hanged by the feet. would have done so more effectively as a video work. The studio photo is balanced and clean, the title refers to the Tarot card that carries the same name. Derived “Photographs may be more memorable than moving im- from a form of punishment in the middle ages, a figure ages, because they are a neat slice of time, not a flow. […] is suspended from a tree, bound by one foot. He is to be Each still photograph is a privileged moment, turned into given food and water until death. In Tarot however, inter- a slim object that one can keep and look at again.”6 pretations vary between a symbol of martyrdom or life in suspension. Reference to liminality seems more appropri- Not only is the photograph a mobile object, it has the ate to the work of Bronson, who describes this “moment potential to become an icon. For the viewer, enclosing of stasis”9, where the Hanged Man represents stagnation a persona or embodiment into an object of worship can and the unknown in his practise. transcend into obsession: in other words, a fetish. This fixation might give away Rader’s intent. “At one end of the spectrum, photographs are objective data; at the other end, they are items of psychological science fiction. [...] even the most banal photograph- document can mutate into an emblem of desire.” 7 Rader is wearing women’s clothes: a sheer black long- sleeved-shirt and a white bra, a white skirt or dress of some sort, and white stockings. He seems to be wearing white gloves. His clothing arrangement refers to cross-dressing, transgenderism and/or transsexuality. There is a clear element of (sexual) deviance. The urge to AA Bronson, The Hanged Man, 2002 As Odin stares fixated down into the abyss for wisdom to reveal itself, Bronson too seems to be looking for an answer, whereas Rader is twisting and turning, moving his body, seemingly trying to escape.

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