Known Unknowns
by Chris Clarke
Issue 72 Autumn 2012
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View photographs from: Still ▸
There are some things I know about Patrick Hogan; that he is from and later lived for a period in Tipperary; that his images vary across genre and scale; that he often allows the negatives of his images to sit for some time before printing in order to accumulate dust and marks; that these prints are displayed in a non-linear, ‘loose’ arrangement that doesn’t prioritise any set, standard reading; that he keeps re-arranging, even repeating these images.
That still leaves much unexplained, and, in
Hogan’s new series entitled Still, this may be
precisely the point. If, as Susan Sontag once
pointed out, "the identification of the subject
of a photograph always dominates our
perception of it – as it does not, necessarily, in
a painting […] what a photograph is of is
always of primary importance", then, in these
works, the ambiguity and arrangement of
images resists this desire for identification.
From the perspective of the photographer too,
uncertainty appears to play a role. Hogan
states: "I found it difficult to justify
combining these random and visually
incoherent images, but as I looked deeper, I
could find underlying relationships and
patterns. This process of editing and
arranging pictures has become an important
part of my practice." The protracted reevaluation
of his images is realised in various
technical and formal strategies: the delay in
developing negatives and the eclectic shifts in
size, subject and surface qualities in his works
suggest a process of refinement and
deliberation, a critical reflection of the initial
impulse that led him to take one picture as
opposed to another. A grainy, close-up shot of
an open hand, palm turned against the lens of
the camera, appears to be cradling a beam of
light, while, in another image, an amorphous,
glistening bubble hovers against a thicket of
tree branches, revealing and reflecting – in
translucent pink, blue, green – the dappled
light that penetrates the forest backdrop.
Elsewhere, one sees the doubled-over figure of
a butcher at work, leaning across an animal
carcass while another hangs stiffly to the side.
The scene is out-of-focus and shrouded in
shadow. As for any
"underlying relationships
and patterns"
the selection appears up for
grabs. One might reach for an emphasis on
the ephemeral, the transitory: the ripples of
the bubble infer an impending collapse while
the apparent solidity of the shaft of light will,
in turn, move on and fade. The abattoir as a
site of termination, and, read in accordance
with these other images, reminding one of
photography’s inherent status as a record of
the past, a reminder of death. As Barthes puts
it: "Life / Death: the paradigm is reduced to a
simple click, the one separating the initial
pose from the final print."
In revisiting and returning to the images,
Hogan complicates Barthes’ dichotomy to
emphasise the tension between the initial
moment of taking the photograph and the
deliberation over how they affect and impact
upon one another. One can easily imagine the
moment of the 'simple click' in his print of a
white automobile, parked alongside a country
road. In the odd juxtaposition of a flashy car
with a serenely verdant setting and the formal
affinities of clear sky and pristine paint job,
orange-rimmed tires and crimson flowers,
Hogan’s composition immediately evokes the
instinctive response of the photographer,
serendipitously happening upon this unusual
alignment of formal complements and
contrasts. Yet the scenario also implies a
number of potential, unverifiable narratives:
the sinister implications of an abandoned
automobile, the intrusion of extravagant
consumerism on rural Ireland, even the
romantic excursion of a young couple
(perhaps the passengers aren’t visible for
other reasons?). While Sontag’s ‘subject’ is all-too-clear, the absence of an underlying
context propels any reading back into terrain
more familiar to painting: the formal issues
that are primary to painting but "of secondary importance in photography" are, in
this case, prioritized in lieu of any additional
information. What is visible here is the
compositional, formal sensitivity of the
photographer, at a loss to explain (as far as
we know) the narrative behind this unusual
instance any more than the viewer can.
The ‘still’ – a term that captures the essential nature of photography as well as its pervading legacy – is exemplified in two particular images, both portrayals of Hogan’s girlfriend (although I only know this because he told me). In one, she sits impassively, fingers interlocked, eyes fixed on the camera. Her hair is swept to one side, directing the viewer to a table behind her, an assortment of bowls of fruit, a vase, a plant, and the armrest of the adjacent couch. The rigidity of her bearing and the seeming deliberation in the placement of objects recalls earlier examples of photography, of sitters forced to hold their position and the attempt to emulate the conventions of portraiture and still life painting. By contrast, the other image is almost unreadable. She sits unclothed, relaxed, her hand held to the side of her face as if mildly embarrassed or amused. It is an intimate shot, expressed not only in her nakedness but through the spontaneity of the pose, the artlessness of the composition, the blurred surface and miniscule scale of the print. And, paradoxically, it appears more ‘real’, in its abandonment of all the former photograph’s deliberate artifice and construction. Or is it a ploy, an acknowledgment that, set against all these other disparate pictures, the still image can be arranged to suggest precisely those features opposed to stillness: movement, frivolity, lightness? Standing back and separated from that moment, one might simply find an obscure, alienated instant, buried under a patina of incidental marks and unfocused memories, becoming increasingly distant and ever more unreadable. If Hogan knows more, he isn’t saying.
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