The Traffic in Photographs Author(S): Allan Sekula Reviewed Work(S): Source: Art Journal, Vol

The Traffic in Photographs Author(s): Allan Sekula Reviewed work(s): Source: Art Journal, Vol. 41, No. 1, Photography and the Scholar/Critic (Spring, 1981), pp. 15-25 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/776511 . Accessed: 27/08/2012 13:19

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http://www.jstor.org Allan Sekula The Traffc in Photographs

Photographer/author Allan Sekula presently teaches at Ohio State University. I. Introduction: Between Aestheti- discourseexerts a forcethat is simulta- tweenfaith in theobjective powers of the cism and Scientism neouslymaterial and symbolic, inextrica- machineand a belief in the subjective, How can we work towards an active, bly linkinglanguage and power.Above imaginativecapabilities of the artist.In critical understandingof the prevailing all, in momentarilyisolating this histori- persistentlyarguing for the harmonious conventions of representation,particu- cally specific ideologyand practiceof coexistenceof opticaltruths and visual larly those surroundingphotography? The representationwe shouldn'tforget that it pleasures,in yokinga positivistscientism discourse that surrounds photography givesconcrete form to-thus lendingboth witha romanticmetaphysics, photograph- speaks paradoxically of discipline and truthand pleasure to-other discursively ic discoursehas attemptedto bridgethe freedom,of rigoroustruths and unleashed borneideologies: of "thefamily," of "sex- philosophicaland institutional separation pleasures.Here then,at least byvirtue of a uality,"of "consumption"and "produc- of scientificand artistic practices that has need to containthe tensionsinherent in this tion,"of "government,"of "technology," characterized bourgeois society since the paradox,is the site of a certainshell game, of "nature,"of "communications,"of lateeighteenth century. The defenders of a certaindance, even a certainpolitics. In "history,"and so on. Hereinlies a major photographyhave both confirmedand effect, we are invited to dance between aspectof theaffiliation of photographywith rebelledagainst the Kantiancleavage of photographic truths and photographic power.And as in all culture that grows from epistemologyand aesthetics; some argue pleasures with verylittle awarenessof the a systemof oppressions,the discourses fortruth, some for pleasure, and most for floorboards and muscles that make this thatcarry the greater force in everydaylife both,usually out of oppositesides of the seeminglyeffortless movement possible. are thosethat emanate from power, that mouth.(And a thirdvoice, usually affili- By discourse, then, I mean the forceful givevoice to aninstitutional authority. For ated withliberalism, sporadically argues play of tacit beliefs and formal conven- us, today,these affirmative and supervisory for an ethicaldimension to photographic tions that situates us, as social beings, in voices speak primarilyfor capital,and meaning.This argument attempts to fuse various responsive and responsible atti- subordinatelyfor the state. This essay is a the separatedspheres of factand value, tudes to the semioticworkings of photog- practicalsearch for internal inconsisten- to grafta usuallyreformist morality onto raphy. In itself constrained, determined cies, andthus for some of theweaknesses empiricism.) by, and contributingto "larger"cultural, in thislinkage of languageand power. Thisphilosophical shell gameis evi- political, and economic forces, this dis- Photographyis hauntedby two chat- dence of a sustainedcrisis at the very course both legitimates and directs the teringghosts: that of bourgeoisscience centerof bourgeoisculture, a crisisrooted multipleflows of the trafficin photographs. and thatof bourgeoisart. The first goes in theemergence of scienceand technol- It quietly manages and constrains our on aboutthe truth of appearances,about ogyas seeminglyautonomous productive abilities to produce and consume photo- theworld reduced to a positiveensemble forces.Bourgeois culture has had to con- graphicimagery, while oftenencouraging, of facts, to a constellationof knowable tendwith the threatand the promiseof especiallyin its most publicizedand glam- andpossessable obects. The second spec- the machine,which it continuesboth to orous contemporaryvariants, an appar- terhas the historical mission of apologiz- resistand embrace.2 The fragmentary and ently limitless semiotic freedom, a time- ingfor and redeeming the atrocities com- mechanicallyderived photographic image less dimension of aestheticappreciation. mittedby the subservient-and more than is centralto this attitudeof crisis and Encodedin academicand "popular"texts, spectral-hand of science.This second ambivalence;the embracingissue is the in books, newspapers,magazines, in insti- specteroffers us a reconstructedsubject natureof workand creativity under capi- tutional and commercial displays,in the in theluminous person of theartist. Thus, talism. Aboveall else, the ideological design of photographic equipment, in from1839 onward,affirmative commen- forceof photographicart in modernsoci- schooling, in everydaysocial rituals,and tarieson photographyhave engaged in a etymay lie in theapparent reconciliation -through the workingsof these contexts comic, shufflingdance between techno- of humancreative energies with a scien- -within photographs themselves, this logicaldeterminism and auteurism,be- tificallyguided process of mechanization, Spring1981 15 suggestingthat despite the modern indus- active,the outcomeof a desireto seizea suresexerted from the aggressive centers trial divisionof labor, and specifically smallarea of creativeautonomy from a of financeand trade. These forces cause despitethe industrializationof cultural tainted,instrumentalized medium, a me- localeconomies and cultures to losemuch work,despite the historical obsolescence, dium thathad demonstratedrepeatedly of theirself-sufficiency, their manner of marginalization,and degradation of arti- its complicitywith the forces of industri- beingtied by necessityand tradition to a sanaland manualmodes of representa- alism.Thus the free play of metaphorical specific local ecology.This processof tion,the categoryof the artistlives on in associationswas implicitlycontrasted to global colonization,initially demanding theexercise of apurelymental, imagina- theslavish metonymy of bothinstrumental the outrightconquest and extermination tivecommand over the camera.3 realismand the sentimentalrealism of or pacificationof nativepeoples, began Butduring the second half of thenine- late nineteenth-centuryfamily photogra- in earnest in the sixteenthcentury, a teenth century,a fundamentaltension phy.With symbolism, the ultimate goal of periodof expandingmercantile capital- developedbetween uses of photographyabstraction also looms, but in metaphysi- ism. In the late twentiethcentury this thatfulfill a bourgeoisconception of the cal and spiritualistrather than positivist processcontinues in a fashionmore in- self and uses thatseek to establishand guise.But both moder scienceand mod- tensivethan extensive, as moderncapital- delimitthe terrainof the other. Thus ernistart tendto end up worshipingin ism encountersnational political insur- everywork of photographicart has its floatingcathedrals of formal,abstract, rectionsthroughout the colonizedworld lurking,objectifying inverse in the ar- mathematicalrelations and "laws." Per- andattempts to fortifyits position against chivesof the police. To the extentthat hapsthe fundamental question to be asked a crisis thatis simultaneouslypolitical, bourgeoissociety depends on thesystem- is this:can traditionalphotographic rep- economic,and ecological, a crisisthat is atic defenseof propertyrelations, to the resentation,whether symbolist or realist internalas wellas external.Despite these extentthat the legal basis of theself lies in in its dominantformal rhetoric, transcend changes,a commonlogic of capitalaccu- propertyrights, every proper portrait of a thepervasive logic of thecommodity form, mulationlinks, for example, the European "man of genius"made by a "manof the exchangeabstraction that haunts the slavetrade in west Africa in the seventeenth genius" has its counterpartin a mug cultureof capitalism.Despite its origins andeighteenth centuries to thelate twen- shot. Bothattempts are motivatedby an in a radicalrefusal of instrumentalmean- tiethcentury electronics sweatshops oper- uneasybelief in the categoryof the indi- ing,symbolism appears to havebeen ab- atedby American multinationals in Singa- vidual.Thus also, everyromantic land- sorbedby mass culture,enlisted in the poreand Malaysia. And today, established scape findsits deadlyecho in the aerial spectaclethat gives imaginary flesh to the as well as recentlyinsurgent socialist view of a targetedterrain. And to the abstractregime of commodityexchange.4 economiesare increasingly forced to ad- extentthat modernsexuality has been No theoryof photographycan fail to justto thepressures of a globalsystem of inventedand channeledby organized deal with the hiddenunity of these ex- currencydominated by these large multi- medicine,every eroticized view of the tremesof photographicpractice without nationalenterprises of theWest.5 bodybears a covertrelation to theclinical lapsing into mere culturalpromotion, Whatare we to make,then, of theoft- depictionof anatomy. into the intellectualbackground music repeatedclaim that photography consti- Withthe rise of the modernsocial thatwelcomes photography into the shop- tutesa "universallanguage?" Almost from sciences,a regularizedflow of symbolic pingmall of a bureaucraticallyadminis- 1839 to the present,this honorifichas andmaterial power is engineeredbetween tered high culturethat has, in the late been expansivelyand repetitivelyvoiced fully-humansubject and less-than-fully-capitalist period, become increasingly in- by photographers,intellectuals, journal- humanobject along vectors of race,sex, distinguishablefrom mass culture in its ists,cultural impressarios, and advertising andclass. The social-scientistic appropri- structuraldependence on formsof pub- copywriters. Need I evencite examples? ation of photographyled to a genre I licityand stardom. The goals of a critical Thevery ubiquity of thiscliche has lent it wouldcall instrumental realism, repre- theoryof photographyought, ultimately, a commonsensicalarmor that deflects sentationalprojects devoted to newtech- to involvethe practical, to helppoint the seriouscritical questions. The "universal niquesof socialdiagnosis and control, to wayto a radical,reinvented cultural prac- language"myth seems so central,so full thesystematic naming, categorization, and tice. Othermore powerful challenges to of social implications,that I'd like to isolationof an othernessthought to be theorder of monopolycapitalism need to traceit as it surfacedand resurfacedat determinedby biologyand manifested be discoveredand invented,resistances threedifferent historical conjunctures. throughthe "language" of thebody itself. thatunite culture and politics. Neo-sym- Aninitial qualification seems important Earlyanthropological, criminological, and bolist revoltsare not enough,nor is a here.The claim for semantic universality psychiatricphotography, as well as motion purelyinstrumental conception of politics. dependson a morefundamental conceit: studyphotography used somewhatlater Thisessay is anattempt to posequestions the beliefthat photography constitutes a in thescientific analysis and management that I take to be only preliminary,but languagein its own right.Photography, of thelabor process, constitutes an ambi- necessary,steps in thatdirection. however,is not anindependent or auton- tious attemptto link opticalempiricism omouslanguage system, but depends on with abstract,statistical truth, to move II. Universal Language larger discursiveconditions, invariably fromthe specificity of thebody to abstract, Itgoes almost without saying that photog- includingthose established by the system mathematicallaws of humannature. Thus raphyemerged and proliferated as a mode of verbal-writtenlanguage. Photographic photographywas hitchedto thelocomo- of communicationwithin the larger con- meaningis alwaysa hybridconstruction, tiveof positivism. textof a developingcapitalist world order. the outcomeof an interplayof iconic, Considerfor a momentthe symbolist Noprevious economy constituted a world graphic,and narrativeconventions. De- cultof metaphor,so centralto therhetoric orderin the samesense. Inherentlyex- spitea certainfugitive moment of semantic of emergentavant-garde art photography pansionist, capitalism seeks ultimately to andformal autonomy-the Holy Grail of in the UnitedStates in thefirst quarter of unifythe globein a singleeconomic sys- most modernistanalytic criticism-the thiscentury. In its attempt to establishthe tem of commodityproduction and ex- photographis invariablyaccompanied by, free-floatingmetaphorical play, or equiv- change.Even tribal and feudal economies and situatedwithin, an overtor covert alence,of signifiers,this symbolist-influ- at the peripheryof the capitalistsystem text. Evenat the level of the artificially encedphotography was fundamentally re- are drasticallytransformed by the pres- "isolated"image, photographic significa- 16 ArtJounal tion is exercisedin termsof pictorial derivedegalitarianism lurks a visionof this immensework successfully.... These conventionsthat are never "purely" pho- the relentlessimposition of a newpeda- designswill excelthe worksof the most tographic.After all, the dominantspatial gogicalpower. accomplishedpainters, in fidelityof detail code in theWestern pictorial tradition is Consideralso a relatedpassage from andtrue reproduction of atmosphere. Since stillthat of linearperspective, institution- one of the centralideological documents the inventionfollows the laws of geometry, alizedin the fifteenthand sixteenth cen- of the earlyhistory of photography,the it willbe possible to re-establishwith the aid turies. Havingmade this point,only in reporton thedaguerreotype given by the of a smallnumber of givenfactors the exact passingand only too briefly,suppose we physicistand left-republican representa- sizeof the highest points of the most inacces- examinewhat is necessarilythe dependent tive FrancoisArago to his colleaguesin siblestructures. 10 clause,a clauseanchored in thedubious the FrenchChamber of Deputies.This conceptionof a "photographiclanguage." reportwas published along with the texts In thisrather marked example of what Myfirst example consists of twotexts of relatedspeeches by the chemistGay- EdwardSaid has termed"Orientalist" thatconstituted part of theinitial euphoric Lussacand the interior minister Dfchatel discourse,a "learned"Occident colonizes chorusthat welcomed and promoted the in the numerouseditions in manylan- an Eastthat has eitheralways lacked or inventionof photographyin 1839. In read- guagesof Daguerre'sinstruction manual. haslost all memoryof learning.' Aseem- ing these, we'll move backwards,as it As is well known,Arago argued for the ingly neutral,mathematical objectivism were,from the frontiers of photography's awardof a statepension to Daguerrefor retrieves,measures, and preservesthe earlyproliferation to the ceremonialsite his "workof genius";this purchase would artifactsof an Orientthat has "greedily" of invention,tracing a kind of reverse thenbe offered"generously to theentire squanderedits ownheritage. In a sense, geographicalmovement within the same world."Not without a certainamount of Arago'sargument here is overdetermined: periodof emergence. maneuvering(involving the covert shunt- France,a mostcivilized nation, a nation Earlyin 1840, a glowingnewspaper ing aside of photographicresearch by awareof its historicalmission, must not accountof the daguerreotype(mistrans- HippolyteBayard and the more overt down- failto preserveand nurture its own inven- latedunderstandably enough as the "da- playingof NicephoreNiepce's contribu- tions.In effect,Arago's speech conflates guerreolite")was published in Cincinnati, tion to the Niepce-Daguerrecollabora- photography-as-an-endandphotography- Ohio.Cincinnati, a busy center for river- tion),Arago established the originality of as-a-means.This shouldn't be at all surpris- borne shippingin what was then the Daguerre'sinvention.8 Arago also empha- ing,given the powerful tendency of bour- westernUnited States, would soon support sized the extraordinaryefficiency of the geoisthought to collapseall teleology into one of the more ornateand culturally invention-its capacityto acceleratethe thesheer, ponderous immanence of tech- pretentiousof Americanphotographic processof representation-andthe de- nologicaldevelopment. Rational progress portraitestablishments, Ball's Daguerrian monstrableutility of thenew medium for becomesa matterof theincreasingly quan- Galleryof theWest.6 Here is a fragmentof both art and science.Thus the report's titativerefinement of technicalmeans; the whatwas undoubtedlythe firstlocal an- principalideological service was to fuse onlypositive transformations arethose that nouncementof thenovel invention which the authorityof the statewith that of the stemfrom orderly technical innovations wassoon to blossominto the very embod- individualauthor-the individuatedsub- -hence Arago'semphasis on the con- imentof Culture:"Its perfection is unap- ject of invention. questof vandalism,greed, and ignorance proachableby humanhand and its truth Whilegenius and the parliamentary-through speed and the laws of geometry. raisesit aboveall language,painting or monarchicstate bureaucracyof Louis- In a verydifferent historical context poetry.It is the firstuniversal language Philippeare broughttogether within the -that of the last crisis-riddenyears of addressingitself to allwho possess vision, larger ideologicalcontext of a unified WeimarGermany-a text appeared that andin charactersalike understood in the technicaland cultural progressivism, the is reminiscentof both Arago'srefined courtsof civilizationand the hut of the reportalso toucheson France'scolonial promotionand the hyperbolic newspaper savage.The pictorial language of Mexico, enterprisesand specifically upon the ar- prophecyfrom Ohio. August Sander, that thehieroglyphics of Egyptare now super- chivalchores of the"zealous and famous rigorouslyand comprehensively sociolog- sededby reality.7 scholarsand artists attached to the army istic portraitistof the Germanpeople, I findit strikingthat this account glides of theOrient."9 Here is theearliest written delivereda radio talk in 1931 entitled fromthe initialtrumpeting of a triumph fantasyof a collisionbetween photography "Photography as a UniversalLanguage." over"all language," presumably including and hieroglyphics,a fantasythat resur- The talk,the fifthin a seriesby Sander, all previousEuropean cultural achieve- facedsix monthslater in Ohio: stressesthat a liberal,enlightened, and ments,to the celebrationof a victorious even sociallycritical pedagogy might be encounterwith "primitive" and archeo- Whilethese pictures are exhibited to you, achievedby the properuse of photo- logicallyremote pictographic conventions, everyone will imagine the extraordinary ad- graphicmeans. Thus Sander's emphasis renderingthese already extinct languages vantageswhich could have been derived is less on thepictorial archive anticipated ratherredundantly "obsolete." This opti- fromso exactand rapid a meansof repro- by Aragoin 1839than on a globalmode mistichymn to progressconceals a fear ductionduring the expeditionto Egypt; of communicationthat would hurdle bar- of the past. For the unconsciousthat everybodywill realize that had we had pho- riersof illiteracyand language difference. resideswithin this text,dead languages tographyin 1798we wouldpossess today Butat the sametime, Sander echoes the and culturesmay well be pregnantwith faithfulpictorial records of thatwhich the scientisticnotions of photographictruth the threatof rebirth.Like zombies, they learnedworld is foreverdeprived by the that made theirinitial authoritative ap- mustbe killedagain and embalmed by a greedof the Arabsand the vandalismof pearancein Arago'sreport: "moreperfect union" of signand referent, certaintravelers. a unionthat delivers "reality" itself with- To copythe millionsof hieroglyphicsToday with photography we cancommuni- outthe mediation of handor tongue.This whichcover even the exteriorof the great cateour thoughts, conceptions, and realities, newmechanical language, by its very close- monumentsof Thebes,Memphis, Karnak, to all thepeople on theearth; if weadd the ness to nature,will speak in civilizing and otherswould require decades of time dateof theyear we have the power to fixthe tonesto previouslyunteachable "savages." and legions of draughtsmen.Bydaguerreo- history of theworld .... Behind the rhetoricof technologicallytype one person would suffice to accomplish Eventhe mostisolated Bushman could Spring1981 17 understanda photograph of theheavens- Doblin,in his prefaceto Sander'sAntlitz violatingthe aestheticcoherence and whetherit showedthe sun or the moon or the der Zeit, describedas a projectmethod- semanticambiguity of thetraditional por- constellations.Inbiology, in theanimal and ologicallyanalogous to medicalscience, traitform. Despite his scientisticrhetoric, plantworld, the photograph aspicture lan- therebycollapsing history and sociology his portraitsnever achieve the "precision" guagecan communicate without the help of intosocial-anatomy: and"exactitude" so desiredby physiogno- sound.But the field in which photography has mistsof all stripes.Sander's commitment so greata powerof expression that language Youhave in frontof youa kindof cultural was,in effect,to a sociologicallyextended cannever approach it,is physiognomy... 12 history,better, sociology of the last 30 years. variantof formalportraiture. His scientism Howto writesociology without writing, but is revealedin theensemble, in theattempt Perhapsit is understandablethat in his presentingphotographs instead, photographs to delineatea socialanatomy. More than enthusiasmfor photographicenlighten- of facesand not national costumes, this is anythingelse, physiognomyserved as a mentSander led his unseen radio audience whatthe photographer accomplished with his tellingmetaphor for this project. to believethat a Copericancosmology eyes,his mind,his observations, his knowl- Thehistorical trajectories of physiog- and a mechanicallyrendered Albertian edgeand last but not least his considerable nomy, and of the relatedpractices of perspectivemight constitute transhistori- photographic ability. Only through studying phrenologyand anthropometrics, are ex- cal andtranscultural discourses: photog- comparativeanatomy can we come to an un- tremelycomplicated and are consistently raphycould deliver the heliocentricand derstandingof nature and the history of the interwovenwith the historyof photo- perspectivaltruths of the Renaissanceto internalorgans. In the same way this photog- graphicportraiture. And as wasthe case anyhuman viewer. rapherhas practiced comparative anatomy withphotography, these disciplines gave Further,Sander describes photography and therefore found a scientificpoint of view rise to the same contradictorybut con- as the truthvehicle for an eclecticarray beyondthe conventional photographer.15 nected rationales. These techniques for of disciplines,not only astronomybut readingthe body's signs seemed to prom- history,biology, zoology, botany, and Theechoes of nineteenth-centurypositiv- ise bothegalitarian and authoritarian re- physiognomy(and clearly the list is not ismand its Enlightenment antecedents are sults.At the one extreme,the more liberal meantto be exhaustive).Two paragraphs deafening here, as theyare in Sander'sown apologeticpromoted the cultivationof a later,his textseeks to namethe source of implicithierarchy of knowledge.The grim common humanunderstanding of the theencyclopedic power to conveyvirtually master-voice is that of AugustComte's sys- languageof thebody: all of humanitywas all theworld's knowledges: "No language tematicand profoundly influential effort to to be bothsubject and object of thisnew on earthspeaks as comprehensivelyas inventsociology (or "social physics," as he egalitariandiscourse. At the other extreme photography,always providing that we initiallylabeled the new discipline) on the -and this was certainlythe dominant followthe chemical and optic and physical modelof the physical sciences, in his Cours tendencyin actual social practice-a pathto demonstrabletruth, and under- dephilosophiepositive of 1830-42.16 specializedway of knowledgewas openly standphysiognomy. Of courseyou have Physiognomypredates and partially harnessedto the newstrategies of social to havedecided whether you will serve anticipatespositivism. A numberof social channelingand control that characterized cultureor themarketplace."13 Inoppos- scientificdisciplines absorbed physiog- the mentalasylum, the penitentiary,and ing photographictruth to commercial nomicmethod as a meansof implementingeventually the factory employment office. values,and in regardingphotography as positivisttheory during the nineteenth Unlikethe egalitarianmode, these latter "a special disciplinewith speciallaws century.This practice continued into the projectsdrew an unmistakableline be- and its own speciallanguage,"'4 Sander twentiethcentury and, despitea certain tween the professionalreader of the is assumingan uncompromisinglymod- declinein scientificlegitimacy, took on body'ssigns-the psychiatrist,physiolo- erniststance. This position is notwithout an especiallycharged aspect in thesocial gist,criminologist, or industrialpsychol- its contradictions.Thus, on theone hand environmentof WeimarGermany. Sander ogist-and the "diseased,""deviant," Sanderclaims that photography constitutes shared the then still commonbelief- or "biologicallyinferior" object of cure, a "language"that is both autonomouswhich dated back at least as farasJohann reform,or discipline. anduniversal; on theother, photography Caspar Lavater's Physiognomische Frag- AugustSander stood to theliberal side is subsumedwithin the logicalorder of menteof 1775-78-that thebody, espe- of positivismin his faithin a universal the naturalsciences. The "laws" that are ciallythe face and head, bore the outward pedagogy.Yet like positivistsin general, "special"to photographyturn out to be signs of innercharacter. Lavater himself he wasinsensitive to theepistemological thoseof chemistryand optics. From this had first suggestedthat this "original differencesbetween peoples and cultures. subordinateposition photography func- languageof Nature,written on theface of Differencewould seem to existonly on tionsas thevehicle for a scientificpeda- Man"could be decipheredby a rigorous the surface;all peoplesshare the same gogy.For Arago, photography is a means physiognomicscience. 7 The "science" modes of perceptionand cognition,as of aggressivelyacquiring the world's truth; proceededby means of ananalytic isolation well as the samenatural bodily codes of forSander, photography benignly dissem- of the anatomicfeatures of thehead and expression.For nineteenth-century posi- inatesthese truths to a globalaudience. face-forehead,eyes, ears, nose, chin, and tivism,anthropological difference became Althoughthe emphasis in thefirst instance so on-and the assignmentof a signifi- quantitativerather than qualitative. This is on acquisition,and in the secondon cance to each. "Character"was judged reductionopened the doorto one of the distribution,both projects are fundamen- through a concatenationofthese readings. principaljustifications of social Darwinism. tally rooted in a sharedepistemology. Of courseSander never proffered so Inferioritycould presumably be measured Thisepistemology combines a faithin the vigorousa modeof physiognomicalinter- and locatedon a continuouscalibrated universalityof the naturalsciences and a pretationfor his photographs.He never scale. Armedwith calipers, scalpel, and beliefin the transparency ofrepresentation. suggested that each fragmentof facial camera,scientists sought to provethe ForSander, physiognomy was perhaps anatomybe isolatedthrough the kindof absenceof a governingintellect in crimi- thehighest of thehuman sciences, which pictorialsurgery sketched by Lavater and nals, the insane,women, workers, and are in turnmerely extensions of natural practicedby his myriad disciples. I suspect nonwhitepeople.'8 Here again, one lin- scientificmethod. Physiognomic empiri- Sanderwanted to envelophis projectin eage stretchesback beyondpositivism cism servesas the basisfor whatAlfred the legitimatingaura of sciencewithout andsocial Darwinism to thebenign figure 18 ArtJournal of Lavater,who proclaimed both the "uni- individualtypes to the farthestLeft, we ages.The invention of photographygave versalityof physiognomicdiscernments" wouldalready have a partialphysiognomic visual communicationits most simple, anddefined a "humannature" fundamen- imageof the nation."22Just as a picture direct, universal language."24Steichen tallyconstituted by a variablemixture of standsfor its referent, so parliamentstands wenton to toutthe success of hisMuseum "animal,moral, and intellectual life."'9 for a nation.In effect,Sander regards of ModernArt exhibition, The Family of But Sander,in contrastto his nine- parliamentas a picturein itself,a synec- Man, whichby 1960 had been seen by teenth-centurypredecessors, refused to dochicsample of thenational whole. This "someseven million people in thetwenty- linkhis beliefin physiognomicscience to conflationof the mythologiesof pictorial eightcountries." He continued, introduc- biologicaldeterminism. He organized his and politicalrepresentation may well be ing a crude tautologicalpsychologism portraiturein termsof a social, rather fundamentalto the publicdiscourse of into his viewof photographicdiscourse: than a racial,typology. As AnneHalley liberalism.Sander, unlike Bertolt Brecht "Theaudiences not only understand this has noted in a perceptiveessay on the or the left-wingphotomontagist John visualpresentation, they also participate photographer,herein lay the most imme- Heartfield,believed that political relations in it, and identifythemselves with the diatedifference between Sander's physi- were evidenton the surfaceof things.23 images,as if in corroborationof the words ognomicproject and that of Nazirace Politicalrevelation was a matterof careful of aJapanesepoet, 'When you look into a "theorists"like HansF.K. Ginther who samplingfor Sander,his projectshares mirror,you do not see yourreflection, deployedphysiognomic readings of pho- the logic of the opinionpoll. In this, yourreflection sees you.'"25 Steichen, in tographicportraits to establishboth the Sanderstands in themainstream of liberal thismoment of fondnessfor Zen wisdom, biologicalsuperiority of theNordic "race" thinkingon the natureof journalismand understandablyneglected to mentionthat andthe categorical otherness of theJews.20 socialdocumentation; he sharesboth the theJapanese recipients of the exhibition Thevery universalism of Sander'sargu- epistemologyand the politics that accom- insistedon theinclusion of a largephoto- mentfor photographicand physiognomic pany bourgeois realism. The deceptively graphicmural depicting the victims of the truthmay well have been an indirectand clearwaters of thismainstream flow from atomicbombings of Hiroshimaand Naga- somewhatnaive attemptto respondto the confluenceof two deep ideological saki,thus resisting the ahistoricityof the theracial particularism of the Nazis, which currents.One current defends science as photoessay's argument. "scientifically"legitimated genocide and theprivileged representation of thereal, TheFamily of Man,first exhibited in imperialism. as theultimate source of socialtruth. The 1955,may well be theepitome of Ameri- Theconflict between Sander and Nazi othercurrent defends parliamentary pol- can cold war liberalism,with Steichen Rassentheorie,which culminated in the iticsas therepresentation of a pluralistic playingcultural attache to Adlai Stevenson, gestapo'sdestruction of the plates for populardesire, as the ultimatesource of the would-begood cop of U.S.foreign Antlitzder Zeit in 1934,is wellremem- socialgood. policy, promotinga benignview of an beredand celebrated by liberal historians DespiteSander's tendency to collapse Americanworld order stabilized by the of photography.One is temptedto empha- politicsinto a physiognomictypology, he rule of internationallaw. The Family of size a contrastbetween Sander's "good" neverloses sightof thepolitical arena as Manuniversalizes the bourgeoisnuclear physiognomicscience and the "bad" one of conflictand struggle.And yet, family,suggesting a globalized,utopian physiognomicscience of Giintherand his viewedas a whole,Sander's compendium familyalbum, a familyromance imposed ilk, withoutchallenging the positivistun- of portraitsfrom the Weimar period and on everycorner of the earth.The family derpinningsof both projects.That is, earlierpossess a haunting-andideologi- servesas a metaphoralso for a systemof whatis less apparentis thatSander, in his callylimiting-synchronicity for the con- internationaldiscipline and harmony. In "scientific"liberalism, shared aspects of temporaryviewer. One witnesses a kind the foreignshowings of the exhibition, the same generalpositivist outlook that of falsestasis, the appearanceof a tense arrangedby the United States Information was incorporatedinto the fascistproject structuralequilibrium of social forces. Agencyand cosponsoringcorporations of domination.But in this, Sanderwas Today,Sander's project suggests a neatly like Coca-Cola,the discourse was explic- littledifferent from other social democrats arrangedchessboard that was aboutto itlythat of Americanmultinational capital of his time. The largerquestions that be dashedto the floorby brown-shirtedand government-the newglobal man- loom here concernthe continuitiesbe- thugs.But despite Sander's and Doblin's agementteam-cloaked in the familiar tween fascist, liberal capitalist,social claimsto the contrary,this projectwas and mustygarb of patriarchy.Nelson democratic,and bureaucraticsocialist not then and is not now an adequate Rockefeller,who had served as president governmentsas modesof administrationreading of Germansocial history. of the MoMAboard of trusteesbetween thatsubject social life to the authorityof Whatof aneven more ambitious photo- 1946 and 1953, delivereda previewad- an institutionalizedscientific expertise.21 graphicproject, one that managednot dressthat is revealingin termsof its own The politicsof social democracy,to onlyto freezesocial life but also to render fatherfixation. which Sandersubscribed, demand that it invisible?I'm thinkinghere of that Rockefellerbegan his remarksin an governmentbe legitimatedon thebasis of celebratedevent in Americanpostwar cul- appropriatelyinternationalist vein, sug- formalrepresentation. Despite the sense ture,the exhibitionThe Family of Man. gesting that the exhibitioncreated "a of impendingcollapse, of crisis-levelun- Almostthirty years after Sander's radio sense of kinshipwith all mankind."He employment,and imminentworld war talk,the photographerEdward Steichen, went on to say that "thereis a second conveyedby Sanderin his radiospeech whowas directorof thephotography de- messageto be readfrom this profession of 1931,he sustainsa curiouslyinflected partmentat the Museumof ModernArt, of EdwardSteichen's faith. It demonstrates faithin the representativenessof bour- voicedsimilarly catholic sentiments in an thatthe essentialunity of humanexperi- geois parliamentarygovernment: "The articlepublished in 1960 in Daedalus, ence, attitudeand emotion are perfectly historicalimage will become even clearer the journalof the AmericanAcademy of communicablethrough the mediumof if we jointogether pictures typical of the Arts and Sciences.Despite the erudite pictures.The solicitous eye of the Bantu manydifferent groups that make up human forum,the argumentis simplistic,much father,resting upon the son who is learn- society.For instance, we mightconsider moreso thananything Sander ever claimed. ingto throwhis primitivespear in search a nation'sparliament. If we beganwith "Longbefore the birth of a wordlanguage of food,is theeye of everyfather, whether the RightWing and movedacross the thecaveman communicated by visual im- in Montreal,Paris, or in Tokyo."26For Spring 1981 19 Rockefeller,social life begins with fathers servedto legitimatea family-basedcon- the neocolonialperipheries with the im- teachingsons to survivein a Hobbesian sumerism.If nothingelse, TheFamily of perialcenter. American culture of both world;all authoritycan be metaphoricallyMan was a massivepromotion for family elite and massvarieties was beingpro- equatedwith this primary relationship. photography,as well as a celebrationof motedas moreuniversal than that of the A close textualreading of TheFamily thepower of themass media to represent SovietUnion. ofManwould indicate that it movesfrom thewhole world in familiarand intimate A briefnote on the culturalpolitics of the celebrationof patriarchalauthority- forms.28 the cold war mightbe valuablehere. whichfinds its highest embodiment in the TheFamily ofMan, originating at the NelsonRockefeller, who welcomedThe UnitedNations-to thefinal construction Museum of ModernArt but utilizinga Family of Man with the characteristic of an imaginaryutopia that resembles modeof architecturallymonumentalized exuberance noted above, was the princi- nothingso muchas a protractedstate of photo-essayisticshowmanship, occupies pal architectof MoMA'sInternational infantile,preoedipal bliss. The best-selling a problematicbut ideologicallyconve- CirculatingExhibitions Program, which bookversion of the exhibitionends with nientmiddle position between the con- receiveda five-yeargrant from the Rock- the followingsequence. First, there ap- ventionsof highmodernism and those of efellerBrothers' Fund beginning in 1952. pears an arrayof portraitsof elderly massculture. The modernist category of Underthe directorshipof PorterMcCray, couples,mostly peasants or farmersfrom the solitaryauthor was preserved, but at thisprogram exhibited American vanguard Sicily,Canada, China, Holland, and the the level of editorship.The exhibition art abroad,and, in the wordsof Russell UnitedStates. The glaringexception in simultaneouslysuggested a familyalbum, Lynes"let it be knownespecially in Eu- regardto class is a Sanderportrait of a a juriedshow for photo hobbyists,an rope thatAmerica was not the cultural wealthyGerman landowner and his wife. apotheosisof Lifemagazine, and the mag- backwaterthat the Russiansduring that Each pictureis captionedwith the re- numopus in Steichen'sillustrious career. tense periodcalled 'the cold war'were peatedline fromOvid, "We two forma A lot more could be said aboutThe tryingto demonstratethat it was."30Eva multitude."From these presumablyar- Family of Man, particularlyabout its Cockcrofthas convincinglyshown that chetypalparent figures we turnthe page relationto thedomestic sexual politics of this nongovernmentalsponsorship was to finda largephotograph of the United the cold war and aboutits exemplary closelyallied with CIA efforts to promote NationsGeneral Assembly, accompanied relation to the changingconventions of Americanhigh culture abroad while cir- bythe opening phrases of theU.N. Charter. advertising and mass-circulationpicture cumventingthe McCarthyistprobings of The next page offersa woman'slower magazinesin the sameperiod. This will right-wingcongressmen who, for exam- body,bedecked in flowersand standing haveto wait.My main point here is that ple, saw AbstractExpressionism as a in water.The following five pages contain TheFamily ofMan, more than any other manifestationof the internationalcom- smallerphotographs of childrenat play singlephotographic project, was a mas- munistconspiracy.31 But since the formal throughoutthe world, endingwith W. siveand ostentatious bureaucratic attempt rhetoricof TheFamily ofMan was that of EugeneSmith's famous photograph of his to universalizephotographic discourse. photo-journalisticrealism, no antagonism son anddaughter walking from darkness Fivehundred and three pictures taken of this sort developed;and althougha into lightin a garden.The final photo- by 273 photographersin 68 countries numberof the photographerswho con- graph in the book is quite literallya werechosen from 2 millionsolicited sub- tributedpictures to the exhibitionwere depictionof the oceanicstate, a picture missionsand organized by a single,illus- or hadbeen affiliated with left parties or byCedric Wright of churningsurf. triouseditorial authority into a showthat causes,Steichen himself, the grand author A case couldalso be madefor viewing was seen by 9 millioncitizens in 69 of this massivephoto essay, was above The Family of Man as a more-or-less countriesin 85 separateexhibitions, and suspicion.Thus The Family of Manwas unintentionalpopularization of thethen- into a book thatsold at least 4 million directlysponsored by the USIA, and openly dominantschool of Americansociology, copies by 1978-or so go the statistics embracedby the cosponsoringcorpora- TalcottParsons's structural functional- thatpervade all accounts of theexhibition. tionsas a valuablemarketing and public ism.Parsons's writings on thefamily cel- The exhibitionclaims to fuse universal relationstool. The exhibition was intended ebratethe modernnuclear family as the subjectand universalobject in a single to havean immensepopularappeal, and most advancedand efficientof familiar momentof visualtruth and visual pleasure, was moreextensively circulated than any forms, principallybecause the nuclear a singlemoment of blissfulidentity. But otherMoMA production. Even medium- familyestablishes a clear-cutdivision of thisdream rings hollow, especially when sizedcities in the UnitedStates, Canada, maleand female roles. The male function, we comeacross the following oxymoronic Europe,Australia, Japan, and the Third in thisview, is primarily"instrumental" construction in CarlSandburg's prologue Worldreceived the show. For example, in andoriented towards achievement in the to the book versionof the exhibition: Indiait turnedup in Bombay,Agra, New public sphere. The femalefunction is Sandburgdescribes The Family of Man Delhi,Ahmedabad, Calcutta, Madras, and primarily"expressive" and restricted to as a "multiplicationtable of livingbreath- Trivandrum.In SouthAfrica The Family thedomestic sphere. Although The Family inghuman faces."29 Suddenly, arithmetic of Man traveledto Johannesburg,Cape- of Manexhibits a greatdeal of nostalgia and humanismcollide, forced by poetic town,Durban, Pretoria, Windhoek (South- for the extendedfamily engaged in self- license into an absurdharmony. Here, west Africa),Port Elizabeth,and Uiten- sufficientagrarian production, the overall yet again,are the twinghosts that haunt boge.In domesticshowings in NewYork flowof the exhibition'sloosely knit nar- the practiceof photography:the voice of Statealone, the original MoMA exhibition rativetraces a generalizedfamily biogra- a reifyingtechnocratic objectivism and was followedby appearancesin Utica, phythat adheres to thenuclear model.27 the redemptivevoice of a liberalsubjec- Corning,Rochester, and Binghamton. Thefamilialism of TheFamily ofMan tivism.The statistics that seek to legitimate Shadesof Americantelevision, but with functionsboth metaphoricallyand in a the exhibition,to demonstrateits value, higherpretensions. quitespecific, literal fashion as well.For beginto carrya deepersense: the truth Frommy readingof the recordsof audiencesin theadvanced capitalist coun- beingpromoted here is one of enumera- foreignshowings, it seemsclear that The tries,particularly in theUnited States, the tion.This is an aestheticizedjob of global FamilyofMan tended to appearin politi- celebrationof the familialsphere as the accounting,a carefulcold wareffort to cal "hot spots" throughoutthe Third exclusivearena of alldesire and pleasure bringabout the ideologicalalignment of World.I quotefrom a UnitedStates Infor- 20 ArtJournal mationAgency memo concerning the ex- coldwar extravaganza: a corporate com- to the minutestdetails of timeand place hibitionin Djakartain 1962:"The exhibi- mentaryon theshowing of TheFamily of deliversthese detailsthrough an unac- tion proved to have wide appeal ... in Manin Johannesburgin 1958attempted knowledged,naturalized, epistemological spiteof the factthat... theperiod coin- to linkthe universalismof theexhibition grid. As the mythof a universalphoto- cided with a circus sponsoredby the to theglobal authority of thecommodity: graphic language would have it, photog- SovietUnion, complete with a performing "At the entranceof the hall the large raphyis more naturalthan natural lan- bear.The exhibit was openedwith a re- globeof theworld encircled by bottles of guage,touching on a common,underlying ceptionto whichmembers of the most Coca-Colacreated a mostattractive eye systemof desireand understanding close- importanttarget groups in Djakartawere catchingdisplay and identified our prod- ly tied to the senses.Photography would invited."32 uct withFamily of Mansponsorship."35 seem to be a wayof knowingthe world Ina morelyrical vein, Steichen recalled Andthus an orbitingsoft drink answered directly-this is the scientisticaspect of theGuatemala City showing in his autobi- the technologicalchallenge of sputnik. ourfaith in thepowers of thephotograph- ography,A Lifein Photography: TheFamily of Man workedto makea ic image. But photographywould also bottledmixture of sugar,water, caramel seem to be a way of feeling the world Anotable experience was reported in Guate- color,and caffeine "humanly interesting" directly, with a kindof prelinguistic,af- mala.On the final day of theexhibition, a -to recallSteichen's expressed ambition fectiveopenness of thevisual sense-this Sunday,several thousand Indians from the for his advertisingwork of thelate 1920s is the aestheticistaspect of our faithin hillsof Guatemala came on foot or muleback and 1930s. In the politicallandscape of themedium. As a symbolicpractice, then, to seeit. AnAmerican visitor said it waslike apartheid,characterized by a brutalracial photographyconstitutes not a universal a religiousexperience to seethese barefoot hierarchyof caloric intakeand forced languagebut a paradoxicalyoking of a countrypeople who could not read or write separationof blackAfrican families, sugar primitivist,Rousseauian dream, the dream walksilently through the exhibition gravely andfamilial sentiment were made to com- of romanticnaturalism, with an unbound- studyingeach picture with rapt attention. minglein theimagination. ed faith in a technologicalimperative. Regardlessof theplace, the response was Clearly,both the sexualand interna- The worldlinessof photographyis the always the same ... the people in the tionalpolitics of TheFamily of Manare outcome,not of anyimmanent universality audiencelooked at the picturesand the especiallyinteresting today, in lightof the of meaning,but of a projectof global peoplein thepictures looked back at them. headlongreturn of Americanpolitics to domination.The language of theimperial Theyrecognized each other.33 the familialismand interventionismof a centersis imposed,both forcefully and new cold war,both domestic and inter- seductively,upon the peripheries. At the risk of boringsome readerswith nationalin scope.The Family ofMan is a morestatistics, allow me to recallthat in virtualguidebook to the collapseof the III. Universal Equivalent 1954, only fourteenmonths earlier, the politicalinto the familialthat so charac- Photographywas dreamedof andslowly UnitedStates directly supported a coupin terizesthe dominant ideological discourse inventedunder the shadowof a fading Guatemala,overthrowing the democrati- of the contemporaryUnited States. In a Europeanaristocracy; it became practical callyelected government ofJacobo Arbenz, sense, The Family of Man providesa and profitablein the periodof the con- whohad received 72 percentof thepopu- blueprintof sortsfor more recent political tinentalEuropean revolutions of 1848, lar vote in the 1950 elections.American theater;I'm thinking here of theorches- the periodin whichclass strugglefirst pilotsflew bombing missions during the trationsof theVietnam POW "homecom- tookthe clear form of anexplosive politi- coup. WhenArbenz took office,98 per- ing"and the return of theAmerican hos- cal confrontationbetween bourgeoisie centof theland in Guatemalawas owned tagesfrom Iran. It wouldbe a mistake, and urbanproletariat waged against the by 142people, with corporations counted however,not to realizethat The Family conflict-riddenbackdrop of everydayin- as individuals.Arbenz nationalized 200,000 ofMan eschewedthe bellicosity and rac- dustrialproduction. Photography prolif- acres of unusedUnited Fruit Company ismthat accompanies these latter dramas; erated,becoming reproducible and ac- land, agreeingto pay for the landwith in this, it representedthe limit of an cessiblein themodern sense, during the twenty-five-yearbonds, rather than engag- officialliberal discourse in the coldwar late nineteenth-centuryperiod of transi- ingin outrightexpropriation. Inestablish- era.36The peaceful world envisioned by tion from competitivecapitalism to the ingthe terms of payment,the Guatemalan TheFamily of Manis merelya smoothly financiallyand industriallyconsolidated governmentaccepted the United Fruit val- functioninginternational market econo- monopolyform of capitalistorganization. uationof the land at $600,000,which my,in whicheconomic bonds have been Bythe turnof the century,then, photog- hadbeen claimedfor taxpurposes. Sud- translatedinto spurious sentimental ties, raphystood ready to playa centralrole in denlyUnited Fruit claimed that the dis- andin whichthe overt racism appropriate the development of a culturecentered on putedland was worth$16 million,and to earlier forms of colonialenterprise the mass marketingof mass-produced approachedthe U.S. State Department for hasbeen supplanted by the "humanization commodities. assistance.Secretary of StateJohn Foster of the other"so centralto thediscourse Perhapsmore than any other single Dulles,who was both a UnitedFruit stock- of neocolonialism.37 technicalinvention of themid nineteenth holderand a formerlegal counsel to the Again,what are we to make of the century,photography came to focusthe firm,touted the successfulinvasion and argumentthat photography constitutes a confidenceand fears of an ascendant coup as a "newand glorious chapter in universallanguage? Implicit in thisclaim industrialbourgeoisie. This essay is an thealready great tradition of theAmerican is thesuggestion that photography acts as attemptto understandthe contradictory States."34Following the coup the U.S.- a miraculousuniversal solvent upon the role playedby photographywithin the sponsoreddictatorship of ColonelCastillo linguisticbarriers between peoples. Visual culturedominated by thatclass. As we Armasdismantled agrarian reform and culture,having been pushed to anunprec- haveseen brieflyand will see again,this disenfranchisedthe 70 percentof thepop- edented level of technicalrefinement, rolecombined a coldlyrational scientism ulationthat could, in Steichen'swords, losesspecificity, cultural difference is can- witha sentimentaland often antirational "neitherread nor write." In thiscontext, celled, and a "commonlanguage" pre- pursuitof thebeautiful. "visualliteracy" takes on a grimmeaning. vails on a globalscale. Paradoxically,a Butmy argumenthere seeksto avoid Finally,my last exhibit concerning this mediumthat is seen as subtlyreponsive simpledeterministic conclusions: to sug- Spring1981 21 gest thatthe practiceof photographyis effluviathat are continuously "shed from its referent. For Holmes, quite explicitly, entirelyand inseparably bound by capital- the surfaceof solids."38Arguing, as was the photograph is akin to money. The ist social relationswould be reductive commonat the time, thatphotographs parallel with political economy becomes and undialecticalin the extreme.As a areproducts of thesun's artistry, he coins even more apparentas Holmescontinues: socialpractice photography is no morea the phrase"mirror with a memory,"39 "Matterin large masses must alwaysbe "reflection"of capitalistsociety than a therebyimplying that the camerais a fixed and dear; form is cheap and trans- particularphotograph is a "reflection" whollypassive, reflective, technical ap- portable. We have got hold of the fruitof of its referentialobject. Conversely, pho- paratus.In this viewnature reproduces creation now, and need not trouble our- tographyis not a neutralsemiotic tech- itself.Thus, while Holmes casually pre- selves with the core. Everyconceivable nique,transparently open to both"reac- faceshis discussionof photographywith object of Natureand Artwill soon scale tionary"and "progressive"uses. The a mentionof the railroad,the telegraph, off its surface for us."4' issue is much more complicatedthan andchloroform, it wouldseem that pho- But we are not simply talkingabout a either extremewould have us believe. tographyconstitutes a uniquelyprivileged global political economy of signs, we are AlthoughI wantto arguehere that pho- technicalinvention in its refusalor inabil- also invitedto imaginean epistemological tographyis fundamentallyrelated in its ityto dominateor transformthe realm of treasuretrove, an encyclopediaorganized normativeway of depictingthe worldto nature.Photography would seem to offer accordingto a global hierarchyof knowl- an epistemologyand an aestheticsthat an inherentlypreservationist approach to edge and power.Diderot's ghost animates are intrinsicto a systemof commodity nature.So far, there is nothingin Holmes's Holmes's Yankeeenthusiasm: "The time exchange,as I'vesuggested before, pho- argumentthat is notrelatively common to will come when a man who wishes to see tographyalso needsto be understoodas whatis bynow the thoroughly institutional- any object, naturalor artificial,will go to a simultaneousthreat andpromise in its izeddiscourse of photographicnaturalism. the Imperial, National, or City Stereo- relationto the prevailingcultural ambi- Butthe essay takes a ratherbizarre turn graphic Libraryand call for its skin or tions of a triumphantbut warywestern as Holmesventures to speculateabout form, as he would for a book at any bourgeoisieof themid nineteenth century. thefuture of photographyin a conclusion common library."42How prophetic and The historicalcontext was one of crisis thatseems rather prototypical of science typical that an American,writing in an and paradox;to forgetthis is to risk fiction, even if entirelydeadpan in its aggressivelyexpanding republic, should achievingan overlyharmonized under- apocalyptichumor: "Form is henceforth invoke the fictitious authorityof empire standingof the contradictorymaterial divorcedfrommatter. In fact,matter as in his vision of the future.Finally, Holmes andsymbolic forces at work in thedevel- a visible objectis of no great.use any gets down to brass tacks: "Alreadya opmentof bourgeoisculture. longer, except as the mouldon which workman has been travelingabout the Withthis warning in mind,I'd like to formis shaped.Give us a fewnegatives of countrywith stereographicviews of furni- turnto an extraordinarytext written by a thingworth seeing, taken from different ture, showing his employer'spatterns in theAmerican physician, essayist, and poet, pointsof view,and that is allwe want of it. this way, and takingorders for them.This OliverWendell Holmes, published in 1859 Pullit downor bur it up,if you please."40 is a mere hint of what is coming before in the AtlanticMonthly. Holmes is in [Holmes'sitalics] Perhaps it is important long."43(In fact,by 1850, travelingclock manysenses an exemplary, even if unique, to interjectthat Holmes is discussingthe salesmenare knownto havecarried boxes figurein nineteenth-centuryNew England stereographapparatus, the mosteffective of daguerreotypesillustrating their line culture.Furthermore, he embodiesthe of nineteenth-centuryillusionistic machin- of products.) Holmes's vision of an ex- oscillatingmovement between scientism eriesin its abilityto reconstructbinocular panded system of photographicadvertis- and aestheticismthat so pervadesthe visionand thus offer a potentsensation of ing leads to a direct appeal for an ex- discourseof photography.Holmes was three-dimensionaldepth. (Holmesin- panded economy of images: "And as a botha practicalman of science-an ad- ventedthe hand-heldstereo viewer and means of facilitating the formation of vocateof positivism-anda genteelman wasan avidcollector of stereoviews.) public and privatestereographic collec- of letters-the archetypalBoston Brah- Also,like the diorama and the lantern- tions, there must be arrangeda compre- min,Autocrat, Poet, and Professor of the slide show,the stereoscopedelivered a hensivesystem of exchanges,so thatthere BreakfastTable. He was a foundingmem- totalvisual experience: immersed within mightgrow up somethinglike a universal ber of the AmericanMedical Association the field of the illusion,eyes virtually currencyof these banknotes,on promises and, in companywith Emerson, Lowell, rivetedto thesockets of themachine, the to pay in solid substance,which the sun andLongfellow, a founder of theAtlantic viewerlost all senseof thepasteboard or has engraved for the great Bank of Na- Monthly. Characteristically,Holmes's glass materialsubstrate of the image. ture."44 Note that Holmes, true to the writingveers between surgical metaphors Despitethe slightdiscomfort caused by logic of commodity fetishism, finds the and allusionsto the classics. Perhaps theweight of themachine, the experience origin of this moneylike aspect of the therewas no Americanwriter who was was one of disembodiedvision, vision photograph,not in humanlabor, but in a better prepared,both rhetoricallyand lackingthe illusionshattering boundary direct "miraculous" agency of Nature. ideologically,to envelopphotography in of a frame.Thus the stereoprocess was Recall Marx's crucial definition of the theweb of Culture. particularlyliable to giverise to a belief commodityfetish, first published in 1867, Holmes'sessay "The Stereoscope and in dematerializedform. in the firstvolume of Capital: the Stereograph"was one of manyopti- Wouldit be absurdfor me to suggest misticearly attempts to bothphilosophize thatHolmes is describingsomething analo- The definite social relationbetween men and prognosticateabout photography. gous to the capitalistexchange process, themselves... assumeshere, for them, the Significantly,English and American physi- wherebyexchange values are detached fantasticform of a relationbetween things. cians seem to havebeen prominentin from,and exist independently of, theuse In order,therefore, to findan analogywe voicing unqualifiedenthusiasm for the values of commodities?The dominant musttake flight into the misty realm of reli- powersof thecamera. Holmes, however, metaphorin Holmes'sdiscussion is that gion.There the products ofthe human brain goes to hyperbolicextremes. Citing Dem- of bourgeoispolitical economy; just as appearas autonomousfigures endowed with ocritus,he suggeststhat photography es- use valueis eclipsedby exchangevalue, a lifeof theirown, which enter into relations tablishesa meansof capturingthe visual so thephotographic sign comes to eclipse bothwith each other and with the human 22 ArtJournal race.So it is inthe world of commodities with It is themetaphysician who respiritualizes duced to a "language"that is primitive, theproducts of men'shands. I callthis the the rationalizedproject of photographicinfantile, aggressive-the imaginary dis- fetishismwhich attaches itself to the products representation. Thus Holmes in a later courseof themachine. The crucial ques- of labouras soonas theyare produced as essay on photography,speaks of carte- tion remainsto be asked:can photogra- commodities,and is thereforeinseparable de-visite portraits as "the sentimental phybe anythingelse? End fromthe production of commodities.45 'greenbacks'of civilization."48All of this is evidenceof a societyin which economic ForHolmes, photographs stand as the relations appear,as Marxput it, "as "universalequivalent," capable of denot- materialrelations between persons and ing the quantitativeexchangeability of all socialrelations between things."49 Holmes sights.Just as moneyis the universal endshis earlieressay with an appropriate- gaugeof exchangevalue, uniting all the ly idealistinversion of the Promethean worldgoods in a singlesystem of transac- myth:"a new epoch in the historyof tions, so photographsare imaginedto humanprogress dates from the time when reduce all sightsto relationsof formal He... tooka pencilof firefrom the hand equivalence.Here, I think,lies onemajor of the 'angel standingin the sun' and aspect of the origins of the pervasive placedit in the handsof a mortal."50So formalismthat haunts the visualarts of muchfor bourgeoishumanism: Prome- the bourgeoisepoch. Formalism collects theusis no longeran arrogant rebel but a all theworld's images in a singleaesthetic gratefulrecipient of divinefavors. And so emporium,tearing them from all contin- technical progress is reconciledwith gencies of origin, meaning,and use. theology.Photography, as it wasthus con- Holmesis dreamingof thistranscendental ceived in midninteenth-century America, aestheticclosure, while also entertaining wasthe vocation of piousaccountants. a pragmaticfaith in the photographas a Notes transparentgauge of thereal. Like money, IV. Conclusion 1 Anearlier, shorter version of thisessay thephotograph is botha fetishizedend in A finalanecdote to end thisessay, much waspublished in theAustralian Photog- itselfand a calibratedsignifier of a value too long already.Crossing the cavernous raphyConference Papers, Melbourne, thatresides elsewhere, both autonomous mainfloor of NewYork's Grand Central 1980.I'm gratefulto the editorsof the andbound to its referentialfunction: Stationrecently, I lookedup to see the WorkingPapers on Photography,Euan latest installmentin a thirty-oddyear McGillvrayand Matthew Nickson, for the Torender comparison of similarobjects, or series of monumental,back-illuminated opportunityto presentthe preliminary of anythat we may wish to seeside by side, dye-transfertransparencies; a picture, versionthere. easy,there should be a stereographicmetre takenlow to thewet earth of ruralIreland, 2 In 1790,Kant separated knowledge and or fixedstandard of focallength for the a lush vegetableapparition of landscape pleasurein a waythat fully anticipated cameralens.... In this waythe eye can and cottagewas suspendedabove this thebastard status of photography: "Ifart makethe most rapid and exact comparisons. gloomy urban terminal for human traffic. whichis adequateto thecognition of a If the "greatelm" and Cowthorpe Oak, the Withthis image-seeminglybigger and possibleobject performs the actions requi- State-Houseand Saint Peter's were taken on more illusionistic,even in its stillness, sitetherefor merely in orderto makeit thesame scale, and looked at with the same thanCinerama-everything that is absent actual,it is mechanicalart; but if it has magnifyingpower, we should compare them is madepresent. Above: stillness, home, as its immediatedesign the feelingof withoutthe possibilityof beingmisled by hearth,the soil, the remoteold country pleasure,it is calledaesthetical art." thosepartialities which might make us tend for manytravelers, an affordableor un- ImmanuelKant, Critique ofJudgement, to overratethe indigenous vegetable and the affordablevacation spot for others, a trans.J.H.Bernard, New York, 1951, 148. domeof ournative Michel Angelo.46 seductivesight for eyes thatmust strain Anumber of texts seem relevant to the hurriedlyin thegloom to readtimetables. questionof the photographeras mere In whatmay be a typicallyAmerican fash- Below:the city,a site for the purposeful "appendagetothe machine." Of specific ion, Holmesseems to be confusingquan- flow of bodies.Accompanying this giant importanceis Bernard Edelman's Owner- titywith quality, even in modestlysuggest- photograph,a caption read, as nearlyas I shipof the Image: Elementsfor a Marxist ing the inferioritiesof the American can remember:"PHOTOGRAPHY: THE Theoryof Law, London, 1979. Less direct- naturaland architectural landscape. More UNIVERSALLANGUAGE / EASTMAN KODAK ly related,but valuable are Harry Braver- generally,Holmes shares the pervasive 1880-1980." man'sLabor and MonopolyCapital, faith in the mathematicaltruth of the And what of the universalityof this New York,1974, Alfred Sohn-Rethel's camera. name,Kodak, unknown to anylanguage Intellectualand Manual Labor, London, OliverWendell Holmes, like most other untilcoined in 1888by George Eastman, 1978,and an essay by Raymond Williams, promotersof photography,manages to inventorof rollfilm, pioneer in horizontal "TheRomantic Artist," in Cultureand establisha falsediscursive unity, shifting andvertical corporate integration, in the Society,New York, 1958, 30 - 48. schizophrenicallyfrom instrumentalismglobal mass-marketing of consumer goods? 3 I'mgrateful to Sally Stein for discussions to aestheticism,from Yankee pragmatism Eastmanoffered this etymologicalexpla- aboutthe relation between scientific man- andempiricism to a rathersloppy roman- nationin 1924inAmerican Photography: agementand the development ofa mech- ticism,thus recallingthat other related "Philologically,therefore, the word 'kodak' anizedvisual culture in theearly twenti- incongruity,Ralph Waldo Emerson's link- is as meaninglessas a child'sfirst 'goo.' eth century,and especially for showing age of the "naturalfact" and the "spiri- Terse,abrupt to the pointof rudeness, mean unpublishedessay written in 1980 tual fact."47The ideologicalcustodians literallybitten off by firm unyielding con- on thisissue, "The Graphic Ordering of of photographyare forced periodically to sonants at both ends, it snaps like a Desire:Modernization of TheLadies' switchhats, to move from positivistto camerashutter in yourface. What more HomeJournal,1914- 1939."Her criti- metaphysicianwith the turnof a phrase. could one ask?"51And so we are intro- cismsand support were very important. Spring1981 23 Anotherfriend, Bruce Kaiper, deserves schenkenntnissundMenschenliebe, Leip- surementscience over the body,with a thanksfor a lucidessay, "The Human zig andWinterthur, 1775 - 78. feministinflection that is absentin the Objectand Its CapitalistImage," Left 18I'm preparingan essaythat deals with workof Foucault. Curve,no. 5, 1976,40-60, andfor a the relationbetween physiognomy and 19Lavater, Essays on Physiognomy,13. numberof conversationson thissubject. instrumentalrealism in muchgreater 20Anne Halley, "August Sander," Massa- 4 Foran earlierdiscussion of therelation detail.Much of this work revolves around chusettsReview, xix, no. 4, 1978,663- betweensymbolist and realist photogra- a studyof the twoprincipal schools of 73. Seealso Robert Kramer, "Historical physee my "On the Invention of Photo- latenineteenth-century European crimi- Commentary,"inAugust Sander. Photo- graphicMeaning," Artforum, xiii, no. 5, nology,the Positivist School of the Italian graphsof an Epoch,Philadelphia, 1980, 1975,36-45. forensicpsychiatrist Cesare Lombroso and 11-38, for a discussionof Sander's 5A usefulintroduction to some of the theStatistical School of the French police relationto physiognomictraditions. culturalimplications ofan international officialAlphonse Bertillon. Lombroso 21 Fascistideology is overtlymetaphysical capitalisteconomy can be found in Samir advancedthe profoundly racist and long- in character,depending in largemeasure Amin's"In Praise of Socialism,"in Im- livednotion of an atavisticcriminal type, on cultsof racialand national superiority perialismand UnequalDevelopment, whileBertillon, applying the social sta- andon theostentatious display of charis- NewYork, 1977, 73 - 85. Inthis connec- tisticsdeveloped bythe Belgian statistician maticauthority. Nevertheless, the actual tion, a recentand perhapssardonic AdolpheQuetelet in the1820s and 1830s, functioningof thefascist corporate state remarkby HaroldRosenberg comes to soughtto identifyabsolutely the criminal demandsthe subrosa exercise of a bu- mind:"Today, all modesof visualexci- "individuality."Bertillon's method of reaucraticrationalism that is profoundly tation,from Benin idols to EastIndian policeidentification, which linked a series rootedin positivistnotions of the com- chintz,are bothcontemporaneous and of anthropometricmeasurements to a mandingrole of scienceand of technical American."(Harold Rosenberg, "The photographicportrait-parle, or "speak- elites.Nazi ideologues felt the need,in Problemof Reality,"in American Civi- ing likeness,"was the first"scientific" fact,to legitimatethe fiihrer cult scien- lization:A Portraitfrom theTwentieth systemof police intelligence. Perhaps the tifically.One text in particularis relevant Century,ed. DanielJ. Boorstin, London, moststriking example of thequantifica- to ourdiscussion of Sanderand physiog- 1972,305). tion inherentin thesesearches for the nomy.Alfred Richter in hisUnsere Fiihrer 6 SeeRichard Rudisill, Mirror Image: The absolute,objective truth of theincarcer- im Lichteder Rassenfrage und Charak- Influenceof the Daguerreotype onAmeri- atedbody is found,not in criminological terologie,Leipzig, 1933, sought to demon- canSociety, Albuquerque, 1971, 201. literature,but in the relatedfield of stratethe racial ideality and innate polit- 7 "TheDaguerreolite," TheDaily Chroni- medicalpsychiatry. icalgenius of Adolf Hitler and the host of cle (Cincinnati),17 January1840, 2, I wouldlike to cite one exampleto top partyofficials by meansof hand- quotedin Rudisill,Mirror Image, 54. emphasizethe natureof this thinking. somelylit formalportraits that were ac- 8 SeeHelmut and Alison Gernsheim, LJ.M. HughWelch Diamond, a minorEnglish companiedby flattering physiognomical Daguerre:The History of theDiorama psychiatristand founding member of the analyses.This research-project-cum- and theDaguerreotype, New York, 1968, genteelPhotographic Society, attempted souvenir-albumprovides unintended evi- 88, 99. to usephotographic portraits of patients dencethat the seeminglycharismatic 9 FranCoisArago, "Report," inJosef Maria in the SurreyCounty Women's Asylum authorityof the fascistleader has the Eder,History of Photography, trans. Ed- forempirical research, therapy, and sur- qualityof an apparition, an Oz-likeaspect wardEpstean, New York, 1945, 235. The veillanceof theinmate population. Dia- thatrequires amplification through the earliestEnglish translation ofthis address mondread a paperon his workto the mediaand legitimation through an ap- appearsin LJ.M.Daguerre, AHistorical RoyalSociety in 1856."The photogra- pealto the larger,abstract authority of and DescriptiveAccount of the Daguerr pher,on theother hand, needs in many Science.In this light, Hitler shines as the eotypeandtheDiorama,London, 1839. casesno aid fromany language of his embodimentof a racialprinciple. In its 10Arago, "Report," 234-35. own,but prefers rather to listen,with the assaulton parliamentarypluralism, fas- 11Edward Said, Orientalism, New York, picturesbefore him, to the silentbut cist governmentportrays itself not only 1978. tellinglanguage of nature... thepicture as a meansof nationalsalvation but as 12August Sander, "Photography as a Uni- speaksfor itselfwith the mostmarked theorganic expression of a nonrational, versalLanguage," trans. Anne Halley, pressionand indicatesthe exactpoint biologicallydriven will to domination. MassachusettsReview, xix, no. 4, 1978, whichhas beenreached in thescale of 22 Sander,"Photography as a Universal 674- 75. unhappinessbetween the first sensation Language,"678. 13Ibid, 675. and its utmostheight. [Italicsmine. 23 WalterBenjamin in "AShort History of 14Ibid., 679. HughW. Diamond, "On the Application Photography,"[1931], trans. Stanley 15Alfred Doblin, "About Faces, Portraits, of Photographytothe Physiognomic and Mitchell,Screen, xiII, Spring 1972, 24, andTheir Reality: Introduction toAugust MentalPhenomena of Insanity"in The quotesa veryexplicit and often-cited Sander,Antlitz der Zeit" (1929), in Ger- Face of Madness:Hugh W Diamond statementby Brecht in thisregard: "For, many:The New Photography, 1927- and theOrigin of Psychiatric Photogra- saysBrecht, the situation is 'complicated 33, ed.David Mellor, London, 1978, 58. phy, ed. SanderL. Gilman,Secaucus, bythe fact that less than at any time does 16August Comte, Cours dephilosophieposi- N.J.,1977, 19.] a simplereproduction of realitytell us tive (1830-42) in AugustComte and I have foundthe workof Michel anythingabout reality. A photograph of Positivism:The Essential Writings, ed. Foucaultparticularly valuable in consid- the Kruppworks or GECyields almost GertrudLenzer, New York, 1975. Lenzer's eringthese issues, especially his Disci- nothingabout these institutions. Reality introductionis especially valuable. pline and Punish:The Birth of thePris- properhas slippedinto the functional. 17JohannCaspar Lavater, Essays on Phys- on, NewYork, 1977. My interest in this Thereification of humanrelationships, iognomy,trans. Henry Hunter, London, areabegan in conversationswith Martha the factory,let's say, no longerreveals 1792,i, preface,n. pag.This is thefirst Rosier;her video "opera" Vital Statistics theserelationships. Therefore something Englishtranslation of Physiognomische ofA Citizen,Simply Obtained (1976) is hasactually to be constructed, something Fragmente,zur Beforderungder Men- an exemplarystudy of the power of mea- artificial,something set up.'" 24 ArtJournal Onecould argue that even the assem- ProgramOffice of MoMA. blage of portraitspursued by Sander 33 EdwardSteichen, ALife in Photography, merelyreproduces the logicof assigned NewYork, 1962, n. pag. individualplaces, and thus of reification. 34 Departmentof State White Paper, Inter- 24 EdwardSteichen, "On Photography," re- ventionof InternationalCommunism printedin NathanLyons, ed., Photogra- in Guatemala,1954, 33, quoted in David pherson Photography,Englewood Cliffs, HorowitzFree World Colossus, New York, NJ., 1966,107. 1965, 160. Mysummary of eventsin 25Ibid Guatemalais takenlargely from Felix 26 NelsonRockefeller, "Preview Address: Greene,The Enemy, New York, 1971, 'The Familyof Man,'"U.S. Camera 196- 98, withsome references to Horo- 1956, ed.Tom Maloney, New York, 1955, witz,160 - 81. 18. I'm gratefulto AlexSweetman for 35 Coca-ColaOverseas, December 1958, 15. callingmy attention to thisarticle. 36 Writingin Commentaryin 1955,while 27 SeeTalcott Parsons et al.,Family, Social- thatmagazine was being covertly funded ization,and InteractionProgress, New by the CIA,Hilton Kramer attacked The York,1955, and the critique provided in Family of Man for displayingliberal MarkPoster, Critical Theory of the Fam- naivetein an eraof harshpolitical reali- ily, NewYork, 1978, 78-84. Barbara ties,claiming that the exhibition was "a Ehrenreichand Deirdre English, For Her reassertionin visualterms of all thathas OwnGood: 150 Yearsof Experts'Advice beendiscredited in progressive ideology." to Women,New York, 1978, are excellent HiltonKramer, "Exhibiting the Family on the issueof familialideology in the of Man,"Commentary, xx, no. 5, Octo- postwarperiod. ber1955. 28 RussellLynes presents evidence that 37 Forfurther criticism of TheFamily of Steichen'sappointment tothe position of Man fromthe politicalleft see Roland directorof theMoMA department ofpho- Barthes,"The Great Family of Man,"in tographyin 1947involved an unsuccess- Mythologies,trans. Annette Lavers, New ful plan to bringdirect funding from York,1972, 100-02. I also foundan photographiccorporations into the mu- unpublishedEnglish translation of an seum.Although unsurprising today, in essayby Edmundo Desnoes, "The Photo- an eraof directcorporate funding, this graphicImage of Underdevelopment" was a novelmove in the late 1940s. (translatorunknown) extremely valu- RussellLynes, Good Old Modern, New able.This essay appeared in Spanishin York,1973, 259-60. Puntode Vista,Havana, 1967. 29 CarlSandburg, "Prologue," The Family 38 OliverWendell Holmes, "The Stereoscope ofMan, New York, 1955. andthe Stereograph," Atlantic Monthly, 30 Lynes,Good Old Modern, 233. iii, no. 20, June 1859,738. Myattention 31 EvaCockcroft, "Abstract Expressionism, wasdirected to this essay by an insightful Weaponof theCold War," Artforum, xil, articleby HarveyGreen, "'Pasteboard no. 10, 1974,39-41. See also Max Masks,'the Stereograph inAmerican Cul- Kozloff,"American Painting During the ture, 1865-1910," in Pointsof Vieu: ColdWar," Artforum, xi, no. 9, 1973, TheStereograph in America-A Cultur- 43- 54;William Hauptman, "The Sup- al History,Rochester, N.Y., 1979, 109. pressionof Art in theMcCarthy Decade," 39 Holmes,"Stereoscope," 739. Artforum,xii, no. 2, 1973,48-52. Of 40 Ibid, 747. generalinterest is ChristopherLasch's 41Ibid, 748. "TheCultural Cold War: A Short History 42Ibid of the Congressfor Cultural Freedom," 43 Ibid. in Towardsa NewPast. Dissenting Es- 44Ibid. says in AmericanHistory, ed. Barton 45 KarlMarx, Capital, trans. Ben Fowkes, Bernstein,New York, 1969, 322-59. It NewYork, 1977, i, 165. is interesting,if not terriblyrelevant to 46 Holmes,"Stereoscope," 748. mypresent argument, to notethat Harry 47 RalphWaldo Emerson, "Nature," The Lunn,currently regarded as the biggest CollectedWorks of RalphWaldo Emer- photographicdealer in the U.S.,was a son, i, Cambridge,1971, 18. principalagent in the CIA'sinfiltration 48 OliverWendell Holmes, "Doings of the of the NationalStudent Association in Sunbeam,"Atlantic Monthly, xiii, no. the 1950sand 1960s,according to Sol 49,July 1863, 8. Stein,"NSA and the CIA, A Short Account 49 Marx,Capital, i, 166. of InternationalStudent Politics and the 50 Holmes,"Stereoscope," 748. ColdWar," Ramparts, v, no. 9, March 51 GeorgeEastman, quoted in J.M.Eder, 1967,33. Historyof Photography, trans. E. Epstean, 32 UnitedStates Information Agency memo, NewYork, 1945, 489. subject"Djakarta showing of Family of Man,"5 February1962. A copyof this memois in thefiles of theInternational

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