Black and White and Read All Over
I’ve been reading, and writing, about characters set against backdrops of texts, and here is a wonderful visual example of that juxtaposition. Photographer Carl Van Vechten often took portraits against geometric backgrounds, which creates a complex formal composition. It seems to set human variety within a grid of some kind.
Here the grid is especially interesting because it too is man made, or written. Yet Van Vechten disrupts our expectations that culture will be predictable and regular by making the words all aslant and senseless. Against that background of torn posters and mangled phrases stands another photographer, surrealist Man Ray, also at an angle. The effect is disorienting in the best way — Ray’s tie appears to hang sideways, disturbing gravity; the words appear to climb and fall. Van Vechten, best known for his portraits of Harlem Renaissance figures, was both an artist and author himself. This photograph seems his attempt to be both at once: both writer of image and photographer of text. It particularly suits Man Ray’s own art of surprising juxtapositions. The artist here, conventional in shirt and tie and profile, also borders on the absurd–as if that black and white frame can’t quite contain him.
To see more photographs by Van Vechten check out the Library of Congress’ collection.
In: photography, portraiture, surrealism, text · Tagged with: Carl Van Vechten, Man Ray