Seminar Task
Tillmans vs Brassai
I choosed to compare for the Documentary and the city, two images from different time, witch at first are not really related each other and especially to the general idea of street photography (peoples in different situations, within a descriptive place moment).
The style of booth looks more to an abstract more maybe arthistique approach, we can not recognise an specific time or person, and especially an city. This is more of an aspect of the street life, negative or positive.
The first image, made by Wolfgang Tillmans, represent an snapshot of an women arm, made in a public space, surrounded by peoples, after researching i found that it is actually made in london tube, but in therms of location or time we can not relate to a specific genre, only the fact that it is contemporary. The approach shows us an intimate, nearly an voyeur look to this specific body part. It is really detailed about the looks and you can say that there is a person exhausted, probably in an pick hours time, definitely is not paying attention to the artist actions as we can see that the gesture posture is as natural as we can have.
All the image he made it nearly to construct an sculpture, the look of his beauty is nearly an reinterpretation of classic beauty images, for moment i was thinking of Venus from Milo, who for instance has no arms, and in here we can see that kind of crop but with accent to that intimate part, more over the classicism boundaries.
I find an text related to this work from the author:
I have always associated the Underground with incredible intimacy among people, without them wanting to be intimate with each other. It’s a weird phenomenon, whereby men and women standing incredibly close to each other and looking into each other’s shirts and ears and hair is acceptable, and we’ve all decided not to think of it as a sensual experience, because taboo is at work. I find it fascinating how shifting that one little parameter makes everything else shift. The Tube pictures are also ultimately about how negotiable social behaviour is; but initially, of course, I was fascinated by what I saw.
The second image, by Brassai reflects on streets graffiti, an art movement at that time in his early stages. We know that his work relates primarily to Paris, but the framing can not allow us to have an time or city details.
This ideea of 2 wholes, relates to the idea of unknown, maybe an path or way witch is not often taken by public, an more abstract imagery than the Tillmans