
From the catalogue of the exhibition
by Museum of Modern Art Louisiana:
"Faith, hope and love" by Jacob Holdt
SANDRA RUFFIN
from advocacy to art
I AM. I am Woman. I am
African-American. I am Mother/ Daughter/ Sister/ Friend. Although
that is not the totality of ME; in this moment, I am looking through
that lens and speaking from that heart. In this piece I reflect upon
and comment on Jacob’s presentation and use of Blackness, especially
the Black Nude, in American Pictures. His body of work is broader
and more expansive but, just as Jacob’s life-walk was revealed to
him through American Pictures, so is the whole of its purpose
revealed in the soulful reflections of the “Least of Us” (and
therefore the least within us) captured and re-presented in his
images of Blackness in America.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE? This question is about power — the power TO BE.
Right here and right now. It is not about be-coming, be-having,
be-stowing. It is about Be-ing who and what you are, where you are,
in every moment. America has never been very ALLOWING when it comes
to the BEINGNESS of Black People — any Colored People for that
matter, except White People. Mainstream whiteness was defined out of
the cultural-color scheme; it was neutralized and presented as the
standard to which all other color-cultures had to aspire. Make no
mistake, in 1970’s America, Blackness was its opposite.
The America of American Pictures was born out of the power movements
of the 1960s. These movements were about seizing/ claiming power;
they were about seeing and being seen, speaking up and being heard,
loving and being loved. The Black Power Movement in particular was
an integral part of, if not the impetus for, other and/or larger
liberation movements within and without America.
Traditional/historical power structures were disintegrating and
re-forming.
The timing of the shooting of American Pictures was fortuitous.
Jacob came to Black and White America at a time when
people-of-color, women and men, rich and poor began to abandon the
ego-centered, individual-mind-identity, to rally around their common
causes and to relish in the relative security of group-identity. The
Group became a source of power and the power-of-the-group became an
undeniable force in American social and political life. Solidarity
was the buzzword and it was a force to be reckoned with. The various
power movements built upon the successes and learned harsh lessons
from the failures of any singular effort to expose exploitation,
demand and command voice and/or to re-define identity. Mainstream
whiteness as objective, neutral standard was privileged by
invisibility. Whites who through their own multidimensional
experience un-covered the reality of privilege and discovered its
illusory character abandoned the entitlement and joined various
grass-roots movements for change. There, in this new place, they
re-covered the multidimensional Self.
I met Jacob in 1983 when he came to Harvard Law School to show/do
American Pictures. I was a student and President of the Black Law
Students Association. Just being me, I embodied in some peculiar way
an intangible something that was interpreted as symbolic of the
black/ female/ revolutionary. I did not intend this but was aware of
it. As symbol, my choices had significance for the community of
progressive students at the law school; therefore, in meeting Jacob
and being introduced to American Pictures as workshop and slide
show, I faced the interesting question of whether or not to support
the show. Despite ruminations in academia of the unlocated,
multidimensional Self that is the touchstone of the postmodern
interpretation of self and the world; when I met Jacob, modernity
reigned. People were firmly located and identified in and by groups.
The dual/binary mind categorized and excluded. You were either part
of the problem or part of the solution. What was American Pictures?
On the one hand, it graphically and effectively presented class
issues in America. It showed the poverty, the hopelessness, the
disempowerment, the intentional neglect, and the despair of
America’s underclass. It exposed the duplicity and complicity of
American institutions in the continued exploitation and perpetuation
of that underclass. It offered the opportunity to display and
dismantle the false god that America had become. VOTE YES.
On the other hand, because of a history of race-based slavery and
the dominance of race-ism in American thought, the coincidence of
Blackness and Femaleness with Poverty and Sexual Exploitation was so
pervasive that these diminished states of existence were encouraged
to become identified with Black Womanhood. The co-incidence of
Blackness and Maleness with Drug Addiction, Drunkenness and
Incarceration was so pervasive that these diminished states of
existence were encouraged to become identified with Black Manhood.
Image is perception. Moreover, Jacob, a Slavic (white) Jesus-looking
male was/is exploiting images of women generally and poor black
women in particular for fame and fortune. Even if such exploitation
was/is not the primary purpose of the work, it’s hardly incidental.
Subjugation of women, exotification of black women, perpetuation of
anti-black stereotypes–classic Blaxploitation. VOTE NO.
Blaxploitation as theory and practice in its modern iteration
emerged in the film industry in the early 1970’s, the very time
during which Jacob shot his 15,000 photos from which American
Pictures was made. The word itself is a portmanteau of the words
“black” and “exploitation.” (Wikipedia 2009).
Some of the power
wrenched from the system by
the power movements of the 60s found expression in the film industry
where Blacks re-presented themselves as self-actualized agents in
their own lives and the life of their communities. For the most
part, Blacks were not the owners of the film or the final industry
decision makers, but the genre sought to appeal to the black urban
audience and as a result employed numerous black writers, composers,
musicians, actors and directors. The dominant thematic formulas for
successful American filmmaking in the 1970s were not very different
from the current formulas — violence, action, sex and love. As a
result, Blaxploitation films repeated the formulas — cops and
robbers, pimps and whores, fast cars and fast lives. Stereotypes
abounded — sexual prowess, female subjugation, and street life. To
be sure, that was not the entire picture presented by the genre, but
it was dominant enough to spark protest from empowered organizations
within the Black community. In retrospect, what we learned from the
debate over Blaxploitation is to ask: (1) What are we (Blacks)
getting out of it? And (2) what is it costing us? These are the
questions that had to be answered in determining whether or not to
support American Pictures.
What is it costing us?
The concern and response of African-American women to the Black
Nudes and the relational depictions included in the show do not
arise out of some abstract notion of puritan decency but out of the
particularized experience of African-American women in America. The
legacy of slavery, the commodification of Blackness and its over-sexualization,
are at the core of the African- American response to the use of
Black Nudes in the show. The sex-on-demand status of slaves, poor
women, and women generally is necessarily present in and part of the
experience of the Black Nudes as protest and advocacy. Recall that
American Pictures was originally presented and experienced as a
workshop. American Pictures was process — participants were invited
and expected to “un-cover,” “re-cover” and “work through” their
perceptions. As workshop, the role of the facilitator/narrator was
functionally important if not absolutely necessary, and Jacob, as
facilitator/narrator, raised additional concerns.
There were cultural and language differences which hindered
effective verbal and non-verbal communication between Jacob and
workshop participants. Given the sensitive issues associated with
the Black Nudes in particular, effective, culturally-proficient
communication was critical when presenting and commenting on these
particular photographs. Jacob’s compromised-ability to “pick-up” on
the feedback from the participants and to strategically guide their
gaze based on that feedback was a serious issue. The ability, both,
to present and perceive the beauty and naturalness of the Black
Nudes would invariably be compromised if the gaze was not
effectively guided. Potential result—exotification, resentment,
anger. Of course, exotification of the Black Woman is troubling for
several reasons; definitional issues aside, the sexual exploitation
and violation of Black Women was/is a global problem. The question
of power, its potential mis-use and ab-use was unavoidably and
conspicuously presented by the show despite the fact that we, as
observers/participants, somehow knew that neither photographer nor
subject was, in the specific relational moment, a conscious agent or
victim of such abuse. Nonetheless, Jacob’s status as white man and
subject’s status as black woman/man immediately bring this power
relationship into play. African-American observers/participants are
especially sensitive to this dynamic. Oftentimes, it is the apparent
victimization of the subject that is the source of power in the
image. Paradoxically, lack of power becomes source of power in this
context.
Even in today’s world, today’s America, we must ask as we did in the
era of blaxploitation, whether there is any transformative potential
in the image and, if so, whether that potential outweighs the risk
of reinforcing overt or ambivalent sexism, racism and/or classism.
Of significant, if not equal importance and concern, is the response
of the non-African-American community to the Black Nudes and the
relational depictions included in the show. Regarding the white
observer/participant, the transformative impact of the show may be
enhanced by the potential racial/ gender identification with Jacob,
and the possible presumption of objectivity conferred by his status
as “foreigner.” However, as beneficiaries of the power and privilege
flowing from the status quo ante, whites are likely to shift only
incrementally if at all.
So, what do we get out of it?
Despite the fact that it has taken 35 years for Jacob’s photographs
to grace the walls of Louisiana, from the moment I first saw the
photographs, it was the Art that silenced the criticism. There is
nothing more beautiful, more artful than Life itself, and few are
present enough to capture and preserve it in any medium. Any
authentic slice of life is a hologram of the whole of life, and
Jacob gives us many holographic images. While journeying through
America, Jacob practiced the art of present-momentawareness. Just
recently, we laughed as he credited Attention Deficit Disorder for
this unwitting capacity. During significant periods of his visits,
there was no interpretation-of-the-moment based on past experiences
or future predictions. What was, was. Perhaps he could not have
achieved this state without traveling great distances from his home,
being unmoored from mundane responsibilities, and landing in strange
environments. While in America, his willingness to live without
bonds or boundaries moved him from Mind to Moment. Mind uses time to
judge/compare what is; without time (past or future) judgment of
what is disappears, and one simply responds creatively to the moment
in the moment. It was through this practice that Jacob was able to
BE with his subjects without noticeably impacting their BEING. (T)here
but not (t)here. And in those photographs where the subjects are
also practicing present-moment-awareness, the most profound Art is
produced:
In the SCREEN DOOR, the young boy does not simply look out onto the
world; he looks in upon himself; he looks out and into the observer.
His Beingness and Beauty are undeniable. We SEE him; we LOVE him; we
ARE him.
THE RETURN HOME, one of the most beautiful and profound nudes in the
show, pushes the observer outside herself by pulling the observer
in. The longer the gaze the more YOU are drawn out and in. So close
until the image is YOU. This kind of intimacy is not the intimacy
between photographer and subject or even between the subjects of the
photography. It reveals the intimacy between the Self that you
authentically ARE and the self that you ALLOW in that moment.
THE KISS. Through it we glimpse Divine Longing – the spark of
Creation. It occurs between bars, as if the Creator is reaching out
across the VOID declaring that there BE light and there IS light,
embedded, yet embraced, even in the most impoverished social
conditions. THE KISS is the container of all our reality and
potentiality.
In May of 2007, I journeyed to Copenhagen to join family, friends,
and compatriots in the celebration of Jacob Holdt’s sixtieth
birthday. It was a spiritual re-union. I saw, felt, touched some who
I had experienced only through Jacob’s photographs, reconnected with
others who I had met only once or twice over the last 25 years and
joined in celebration some who I had never experienced in any way
before. Yet, we were united in the joy of celebration and in our
common experience of Jacob. As part of the celebration, Jacob
mounted an ambitious exhibit entitled, “The Ghetto in our Hearts.”
The exhibit re-presented the spiritual, human, and social costs of
subjugation, domination and alienation. At the time I wondered about
the title of the exhibit thought that it might have been a bit weak,
soft even, given the magnitude of the problem generally and the
particular issues facing Denmark. In retrospect, I think the title
expressed as succinctly as possible the very depth and magnitude
that was the source of my original concern. After all, there can be
no ghetto in the world unless there is a ghetto in the collective
heart of the world. As co-creators, collectively, we are the source
of ALL that we see around us. The outer reflects the inner, has its
source and its beginning in the inner; it reflects that which exists
invisibly in our vibration, our collective thought. So, I am gently
reminded of why, over 25 years ago, I said YES to American Pictures
and YES to the charism of Jacob Holdt.
Jacob, just being Jacob, personifies the archetype of the empty
vessel. The empty vessel simply allows. It goes with the flow; it
does not resist. In its nonresistance is its Power. The empty vessel
needs no narration; its BEINGNESS tells its own story. None of us is
empty all the time, but so few of us are empty any of the time. The
story of American Pictures is also the story of the Empty Vessel.
As protest and advocacy, American Pictures functions in the world
and one might debate its effectiveness. As Art, American Pictures
moves in the Spirit and ain’t no debatin’ that.
Sandra
Ruffin Sandra Ruffin is an Associate Professor of Law at Lincoln
Memorial University, Duncan School of Law in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Professor Ruffin has a B.A. from the University of Maryland and a
J.D. from Harvard. She was born and raised in the Washington, D.C.
metropolitan area and is a seasoned community organizer and
activist. Professor Ruffin views documentary photography as central
to the global struggle for social justice and greatly admires Jacob
Holdt’s contribution to this effort.