The exhibition entitled Face of our Time - Research Paper Example

Face of our Time Our world is never constant. Like us, changes can be seen over time. The exhibition entitled “Face of our Time” captured the images of how our world looks like now. The five photographers namely Jim Goldberg, Daniel Schwartz, Zanele Muholi, Jacob Aue Sobol and Richard Misrach shared the same interest on civil and political changes in our world today (www.sfmoma.org, Face of our Time). The exhibition showed how the five artists put interest to transformations of the world that were and are yet to be given much importance of the powerful governments we have. Their subjects involved experiences of refugees, effects of globalization, the identity of the queer black population, rural hunting culture and effects of the hurricane catastrophe (www.sfmoma.org, Face of our Time). Jim Goldberg’s collection of photographs about refugees was very heart throbbing. His spot-on method used that of centering or focusing the subject at the center created an odd power between the center and auxiliary. One of them was Making Fire taken at the Democratic Republic of Congo. The photo captured the image of an African woman who had unrecognizable state and only showed her pursed lips. Her facial expression looked like she is upset but not very identifiable because of the shadow in her eyes. What really caught the attention of the audience is the autograph made by the subject herself. She wrote “I am a whore” on the photo and the photo did really speak of how our world looks like today. Refugees such as the subject of the photo have been ignored in our time today. They who badly need our help had been uncared for and mistreated. The picture did not really capture the true emotion of the subject but it really showed that the woman was not happy. Looking at the pictures exhibited by Goldberg, the photographs were able to hold the true meaning and goal of the exhibit. Like Making the Fire, the woman looked like she was not even given care and protection. Her autograph may imply that she was not ashamed of what she is or she is tired of being one and she wanted to tell the people that she existed and needed help. There may be a lot of interpretation of her photograph and what she wrote on the picture, but definitely, it is not happiness. The Swiss photographer, Daniel Schwartz, focused his subjects to the effects of globalization. The photographs were able to portray less exposed subjects such as Bazaar Day. The photographs were a collection of his travel. Though the images offer the audience less feeling of vulnerability, the photographs remain persistent. These pictures spoke that globalization is widespread and a lot of places were very much affected. Poverty and inequality can be seen in the pictures. If some countries have very clean and organized places such as market, a lot of places in central Asia do not have these opportunities and facilities. Thus globalization has its own series of pitfalls. Looking at Schwartz’s collection, he really wanted to convey a message about globalization to the world. Someone’s perfect place can mean to give another one’s place inadequacy. If there are countries that were blessed because of globalization, there are also those suffering because of it. Zanele Muholi’s collection and work gave voice to the visual identity of the marginalized queer black people in South Africa. Her elegant photographs of queer and transgendered women showed a strong message regarding marginalization of this kind of population. The collection spoke of identity and being of the queers. Discrimination especially based on gender has long been an issue not only in South Africa but in the world. The elegant portraits by Muholi showed pride, strength, and identity of the queer blacks. South African queers, with reference to the pictures, are very proud of who they are and what they are. They posed strongly and proudly to the artist. Thus, there wasn’t any sign of them being ashamed. The works of Muholi showed how the queers stood for their right of being despite being marginalized. A Danish artist, Jacob Aue Sobol, observed the rural hunting culture as well as the family of his girlfriend from Arctic Greenland. The collection showed the rural life of the people far away. Arctic Greenland can be said to be far from the globalized world. Because of this, their culture can be very strange if not shocking to us. In Arctic Greenland, hunting is still being practiced. The collection showed how the rural hunting culture in the cold place of Greenland has been preserved. In our world today, despite the changes and globalization, it is our pride to be able to maintain and preserve a certain culture or way of life despite the pressure of globalization and changes. The last of the five artists, Richard Misrach, focused and took pictures of how human added destruction to what has been left after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. His collection concentrated on graffiti of human devastation after a catastrophe in New Orleans. The photographs showed spray-painted messages of being blocked and abandoned after the disaster. The photos were very powerful. The words used were strong. The collection of Misrach showed how people in our world today use different means of telling the world about their feelings and opinions. Sadly, some people do not know how to express their feelings the right way. Some may have used ways that can be said to be unfavorable. While looking and observing on the pictures taken by Misrach, feeling of aversion or hatred felt by those who wrote the graffiti were really captured and shown in the images. It is understandable why these people had so much anger or rage in their hearts because of the calamity, but nevertheless, they forgot that the way they expressed their feelings added to what has been destructed by the hurricane. These five artists are all spiritual colleagues of Sebastiao Salgado (Curiel, 2011). According to Curiel (2011), Salgado makes it a requirement to spend time with his subjects before taking pictures of them. Thus, the above-mentioned artists lived and spent time with their subjects and in the places where they took their photographs. Sobol lived in the old village in Greenland for months (Curiel, 2011). As what Curiel (2011) stated in his article in SFWeekly, Misrach traveled to Gulf Coast to cover the destructed houses with graffiti and Schwartz went to different countries to look for a fit subject. The artists, therefore, wanted to really create and gather the perfect photographs for the exhibit entitled Face of our Time. References: Curiel, Jonathan. "Face of Our Time": Photos of Africa Show Life as It Is, with No Exoticism, (2011). Web. 29 October 2011. “Face of our Time.” www.sfmoma.og. SFMOMA. 2011. Web. 29 October 2011. Read More