Clear Liquid Thought: The Photographs of Jim Dine Essay -- Photography

make pass Liquid estimation The Photographs of Jim DineThe camera sees even beyond the visual consciousness.--Ralph Eugene MeatyardArgument The photographic UnconsciousIn his article Photographie avant analyse1 picture taking novice Franois Soulages discussesthe reciprocal influence between photography (as an emerging technology in the nineteenthcentury) and the study of the unconscious (prior to the invention of psychoanalysis). To whatextent, he asks, did a impertinently technology such as photography enlighten, modify, or enrich the reason of the unconscious? And, conversely, how did what he calls the hypothesis of theunconscious allow for a bankrupt understanding of a new technology? These questions, inherent inthe beginnings of photography and essentially linked to its role in the comprehension of thevisible and the occult body, have gained considerable importance today.The photographic works I will discuss here participate in our understanding of theunconscious in a para doxical way, since they do not imply disclosing images of the artistsunconscious specifically encoded into symbolic meaning. On the contrary, my concern is withthese works potential to generate visual equivalents of interior life perceptions in a variety ofpuzzling formal patterns whose divine revelation of meaning is cunningly deferred. The photographiccompositions of Jim Dine are not narratives of informal life, but forms of visual experience thatinform our ways of thinking the unconscious.------------------------------------1 Franois Soulages, Photographie avant analyse, Photographie et inconscient (31-35). In this study,Soulage primarily deals with the beginnings of photography and with its paradoxical uses in psychiatry... ...rundberg, Andy. Now, the Cameras Eye Turns Inward, in The New York Times, May 28.1989.Hamon, Philippe. Imageries.Littrature et image au XIXe sicle. Paris Jos Corti, 2001.------------------------------------19 The phrase used in the name of this articl e is coined after the title of one of Dines black-and-whitephotogravure prints, Clear Liquid Talking, 1996.Krauss, Rosalind.The Optical Unconscious. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press, 1993.Meatyard, Ralph Eugene. Caught Moments -- New Viewpoints. Exhibition catalogue. LondonOlympus Gallery, 1983.Powers, Richard. iii Framers on Their Way to a Dance. New York W. Morrow, 1985.Sibony, Daniel. Une technique de linstant ou la motorcar clicher, La Recherchephotographique 7 (1990)Soulages, Franois. Photographie avant analyse, Photographie et inconscient, Soulages ed.Paris Osiris, 1986.