| Publisher: Phaidon Press, London Published: 2005 Photographs Copyright © Mary Ellen Mark
MARY ELLEN MARK started a self‑assigned project in 2003 of reviewing tens of thousands of her photographs to identify the ones that meant the most to her. This process resulted in a first rough cut of one thousand images created over forty years. From these she gradually edited down the selection, pruning until she could go no further, ultimately choosing 134 iconic pictures and arranging them in a sequence that, when examined closely, establishes an introspective and confessional story line. What unfolds in the sequence of pictures reproduced in this book cannot be read like a piece of expository journalism. Instead, each page is a benchmarkin the emotional life of this artist, as well as a mirror of what she faced when the lens was focused and the shutter released. The selecting process is one utterly devoid of objectivity, and one wherein feeling takes priority over logic. The result is an amazing sequence of pictures that collectively establish the art in a documentary photograph to be the perfect reconciliation of form, emotion, and truth. The sequence is not chronological, nor does it represent all the years and important projects equally. Almost half of the photographs were produced in the decade between 1987 and 1997, and almost as many were made in foreign places as were made in the United States, Mark's home. Viewed from the perspective of real‑time chronology, as most autobiographies are, this book is like a patchwork quilt built from personal memory and is the visual history of an exceptional artist. It follows that the established sequence is driven by intuitive energy tempered by real experience-the facts of time and place. Not surprisingly, these photographs have a backstory as well as the one told on the surface, which together bring insight into Mark's emotional architecture. From her own firsthand accounts (see pages 271-286), we are given details about the unlikely circumstances in which Mark repeatedly places herself and what she was thinking at the time. Inner personal necessity, rather than logic, governs the sequence that follows as Mark leads the viewer, image by image, through the maze of emotions that she experienced as life unfolded before her eyes. For Mark, photography is an art of the series, which is why the picture sequence of this book must be considered. Almost all images were extracted by the photographer from different series devoted to unique subjects and are newly revealed here as emblems of the artist's approach and career. The context for each of the photgraphs could number from a dozen or so related pictures on a focused subject to thousands on a months-long commercial assignment. All of what you see is here because each of the photographs occupies an important place in her mind's eye. This deliberate choice leaves no doubt that each of these pictures is meaningful to the artist in a special way. Mark chose to begin the book with an image of Federico Fellini observed from behind (pages 6-7). She portrays him dramatically lit with a megaphone to his mouth, standing on a huge sound stage near Rome, while he was filming Satyr/con in 1969. Two workmen are barely visible in the background as Fellini seems to move and sway. The picture is grounded in pose and gesture, light and dark, and is no less than a resounding declaration of optimism about the creative process by an aspiring 29-year-old photographer. It was made during a three-month stay in Rome, where Mark was sent by Look magazine, and where she shot more than four thousand frames on the Satyr/con set alone, with the goal of expressing in one picture the greatness of Fellini, an artist she idolized. The picture is a prime choice from her first important assignment as a professional photographer and deservedly occupies position one in this book. Following it we see two young performers (pages 8-9)-one a preteenager and the other possibly in her late teens-who were traveling with a circus in Ahmedabad, India, in 1990. This image has nothing to do with the preceding one as far as time and place are concerned. However, the two pictures do share a lot formally. Like the dancing Fellini, the two Indian girls arrest our attention because of their poses and gestures, but here costume-a recurring theme in Mark's subjects of the 1970S and 198s-is also important. After photographing Fellini, Mark traveled from Italy to England, and then to India for the first time, where she became enchanted with the land and its people. She has returned there many times since 1969, making thousands of photographs over the years. By placing the two young performers in position number two, Mark signals that India is a place of great importance to her, and by choosing a picture made in 1990, she suggests how many repetitions of a place or subject it takes to achieve a masterwork. In this tight sequence, Mark also establishes several visual themes to which she returns frequently in her choice of images. While the two girls bear a physical resemblance to each other, we don't know for sure whether they are related by birth, but they at least belong to the same family of the circus. The nature and variety of family is of great interest to Mark. In placing a circus picture in position number two followed by three more (pages io-ii, 12-13, 14), she emphasizes the high place circus life occupies among her many creative priorities. Through this sequence, Mark also intimates her reliance on the role of a series of pictures as a method of communicating deeper content. Furthermore, the lead‑in circus pictures tell us about her understanding that make-believe versus reality and the power of chance play big roles in photography and in life. Picture number three shows two dwarfs in lion costumes (pages io-ii), one with the mask off, while his masked partner cradles a sleeping puppy. The subject here is less about the life of human beings than it is about the role of animals in human lives. (The picture is deliberately framed with the people to the left of center in order to incorporate two more dogs in the background.) Animals return frequently in Mark's photographs over the years, sometimes as stand-ins for people. Another theme that appears repeatedly in Mark's work is her ongoing meditation on what it is like to grow up in America. She was born in the suburbs of Philadelphia, attended Cheltenham High School, studied fine arts and photography and communications at the University of Pennsylvania, and moved to New York City in 1966 with the intent of becoming a professional photographer. There is not a single picture of Mark's own home or family here; other people's families have replaced her own. With her thick dark hair and slightly exotic looks, it is not surprising that strangers sometimes ask Mark about her ethnicity. It is also not surprising that she chooses people of color as the first subjects of this book and that the first Caucasian person to appear after Fellini is one with apparent issues about race and color (pages 16-17). In an image she made in her home of New York City in 1969 (pages 18-19), we see an African American girl vaulting over a stone wall bordering Central Park on Fifth Avenue. Three of the girl's male companions gaze at the camera as she is captured on film in a mid-air blur with her skirt billowing above her thighs. More important than the color of these children's skin is the fact that they are at play. The subject of how kids play interests Mark greatly. In her photographs, children appear as gatekeepers of the truth. Mark, who has no children of her own, sees them as figures closest to the life force, whose consciences have not yet been censored by society, and thus awards this subject a prominent place at the beginning and throughout her photographic work. Mark records their inhibitions and tells us how their young lives count for all. She communicates their trust and allows their vulnerability to be compelling. She guards their tentative lives like a mother with her camera as witness. It is not surprising that teenagers would prove to be some of Mark's strongest subjects, and the nature of womanhood, and how young women (and occasionally young men) make the transition from preteen to teenager, is one of her recurring themes. One image in particular, a portrait of a scrawny Seattle street kid nicknamed Tiny (page 35), would become one of her most famous pictures. Tiny was 14 years old when the picture was made in the fall of 1983. For Tiny, who occasionally earned money selling herself on the street, reality was played out by dressing up like a full-grown woman. Mark could not possibly have anticipated that in releasing the shutter on this fall day, she was committing herself to a relationship with Tiny that would continue to this day. The images that immediately follow show a middle-aged Tiny, no longer the skinny adolescent we saw first. We see Tiny with her own aging mother (pages 36-37) and, in the following pages (pages 38-39, 40-41), three of the nine children to whom she gave birth, fathered by six different men. Presently, three of Tiny's children are now older than she was when Mark first photographed her. Tiny's life is vastly different from the more or less average American teenager's, including Mark's own. Mark was head cheerleader, dated and had boyfriends, and attended the high school prom hoping to be queen. Mark tells us in picture language that a teenager's existence is delicate and anticipates an often-treacherous transition into adulthood. We see how demanding, as well as how awkward, the rites of passage are. We see as well how teenagers are pulled between the mental world they experience through education and the carnal world that life itself brings. In the first dozen pictures of this book, Mark clearly signals her motivations and values. We understand that individual character comes first, followed by family. A staple of her work is motion pictures in production, like Satyr/con, populated by famous people and the not so famous who get paid to perform. In celebrity and in anonymity she seeks out good people shunning evil ones. We understand she sees fantasy and play as essential leavening to the often-grim reality of daily existence. She believes fervently in a world without prejudice, where individuals are measured by their character, integrity, and potential. To find these qualities, Mark has focused on families that range from animals to all-American archetypes. She looks with equanimity on broken families, on families with long lineages, and on found families with limited histories. We see the families of prostitutes with unknowable secrets yet strength of character, and the families of circus acrobats who are united by their talent and the physical dependence on the timing and balance of a partner. Good art always moves forward, and in this regard Mark has advanced the potential of the social documentary tradition in photography. She elevates the idea of social conscience-as originally posited in Edward Steichen's 1955 exhibition "The Family of Man"-to a higher and more consistently challenging level of expression. Art in a documentary photograph is the power to make the eye like and comprehend the unfamiliar; it is the magical power to bridge the gap between form and emotion by telling a true story earned from experience. -WESTON NAEF |
||