Monday, October 05, 2009
Ruin Porn, Art vs. Journalism, and Braddock
I really like the term ruin porn that Jim Russel uses in the Burgh Diaspora post on Rustbelt Landscape and Memory. Cropping of images attached to entire cities create a "mythical landscape devoid of context."
Ruin porn also seems to include sounds bites, or repetitive-becoming-stereotypical concepts, associated with towns. But I’m at odds with the overarching concept that there is an innate conflict between art and journalism or that art can better inform people about places than journalism. I’m a fan of both when they are strong, and I’d argue that both are needed and can even work together.
It seems like the post covers media more than art, although it decries media as the problem. What art is making people think differently about these towns? A provided link out to an article about an artist in Buffalo is certainly interesting. It’s worth noting that it’s a news article we’re reading about art, we’re not seeing the actual art. The work sounds like an interpretive documentary of space, I’d love to see it and hear the oral history of one of the former workers. But where is the difference in cropping of place between this artist who came to live in Buffalo with her mother and daughter while she worked on the project and heavily integrated her ideas of motherhood and mortality into the work based on her experience? Is that really so different from a journalist’s portrayal of a community based on limited and personal experience? Russel argues that journalists don’t accurately portray communities and it’s not possible for photojournalists to fully capture a community. The difference may be that the artist in Buffalo was commissioned for a three week residency to work on her project. Could more long-term, investigative journalism compete? (That begs a whole slew of new questions about not only the future of journalism but reader interest, attention spans, agenda setting ...)
And then the clip from a journalist that Russel even describes as creating a very powerful image is likened to art rather than allowing it to be (perhaps for a change) good journalism. I have no qualms about criticizing journalism, but I also think art -like journalism- depends on the creator. There are good and bad in both. I’m also not sure how a journalist going to the location a popular photograph was taken, noticing the surroundings, and reporting on it is "unintentional art" rather than reporting. This journalist uncovered ruin porn at its finest, pointing out how others overlooked the environment around them to concentrate on shooting the expected view and leaving it at that.
Russel’s concluding paragraph really sets my mind spinning: "Art can challenge these assumptions and allow us to see the world in a new way. As for journalists, all the positive or fair stories in the world won’t do much to change our perspective. The onus is on the reader. Passive consumption of media is the problem, not the cropping of pictures."
Maybe it’s my background in media, maybe it’s my belief that people are not all as helpless and ignorant as stereotypes supporting censorship and labeling want us to believe ... but I don’t think I’m the only one who questions media portrayals. In fact, I think a lot more about the background and implications of media that I read/see/hear than I do about (most) art if only because it is so overwhelmingly present in daily life.
I know the purpose of artists in many cases is to challenge assumptions—but the art alone does not always do that. In a museum you have information cards explaining things, headsets with additional information, and a curator who set up a display of pieces that work together to feed into a concept. Is that the art Russel is talking about? We need museum exhibits about small, struggling towns to provide broad interpretations of community so that we can better understand the wholeness of the towns? Or are these insightful artists more like the ones Mayor Fetterman, also critiqued in the post, is supporting throughout Braddock while they work on public and private art projects? Does every artist have the ability to communicate their opinions to those viewing the art? Is that even the point of art, or is it more about the variety of interpretations possible? And then what about the Obscurae show ... in a way it was intentional concentration on ruin porn, abstracted pieces of Braddock highlighting the overlooked details without attempting to explore or explain the entire community. Does the intention of showing a different side of a stereotyped community through the eyes of many artists put that in the category of art or journalistic ruin porn?
As for the question of whether Fetterman, as a white Harvard grad, is a legitimate spokesperson for Braddock ... at least he lives here. He’s been here since 2001, that’s a lot longer than a three week art project. Fetterman may have his flaws and he may not be the stereotypical poster boy of the Braddock community, but shouldn’t building community be about involving everyone in a community rather than creating divisions by age, race, socioeconomic status, length of residence, or education? Speaking out for Braddock is certainly not one of Fetterman’s flaws. He insists he didn’t go looking for the press coverage that has come swarming down upon him, and he’s doing what he can from within the town rather than from an outside perspective. He’s sharing his reality and trying to include the interests and perspectives of multiple facets of community. I think that’s fair.
