HER is an exhibition that investigates the aspects of intimacy and identity via photography. Clint Scerri Harkins talks to Joseph Agius about his latest exhibition.
The title of the exhibition is enigmatic and generic, referring to the feminine third person singular. However, these works are all about your partner, thus grounding the theme of the exhibition. Is this collection of works a study in femininity or an introspective labour of personal love towards one person? Or both?
Clint Scerri HarkinsIt is a bit of both. Even though there is absolutely nothing in the theme/thoughts about the pandemic in this exhibition, however the photos were created during a lockdown period, where the only person available for me to model was in fact my partner. So one can say this is an experiment which indirectly was born as a consequence of the pandemic. My usual oeuvre is always the nude and most of the time, it is the female body.
The nature of the works themselves points towards an anonymity through dissolution. Facial characteristics, at times diffuse and ephemeral, ground the identity of a person and the individual’s characteristics are contained within the framework of a compartmentalised narrative. However, normal resolution through visual recognition steadily seems to make way to dissolution into body parts. Do body parts actually define a person? Does a generic ‘her’ come into play, as the identity of your partner gets blurred and eventually vanishes, and we only have your word for it that these works document just one person?
There were many other works from this experiment which did not make the cut for the exhibition when the works were chosen by my curator. She knows both me and my partner, and she felt that the chosen works, even though they portray my partner Rebecca in the nude, there is a certain shrouding created by the photo manipulation which create an aura of see/no see, that still provides a level of indirect nudity – perhaps it is also a level of how much I wanted to expose of my personal life. The lack of any props also increases this anonymity of the person, of the space, of the context, which again emphasises the concept that it is all about her. Rebecca’s comment to this project is: “This is HER more than I could tell”.
In a 21st century society governed by imagery glamorising sex and pleasure, has eroticism become passé even as thematic material for making art? Is your work a reaction to the explicitly sexualised photographic work of artists such as Nobuyoshi Araki and Jan Saudek, and a more poetic interpretation of the nude, maybe even harking back to Eadweard Muybridge?
So far, I never did any work on the lines of Araki or Saudek. Their vision and approach to nudity have the clear aim to investigate the materiality, the presence of the body as a universe to show, to explore and to “disturb” the viewer. My previous works were full on sensuality and materiality, more close to a classical view of nudity but again, they were rarely showing explicit sexual content.
My objective and duty as a companion of the ‘model’, was to give a tangible shape to something that I can hardly turn into words
My first solo exhibition which took place last year, was called SATYA (truth), where the models were shown in intimate moments, no details spared. The respect for the models in their complexity and inner feelings is part of my work itself. I always try to use my camera as the media that connects my thoughts to the subject. I do not like editing and I always try to avoid it as much as possible in order to preserve the maximum of coherence with what I experience while shooting.
American photographer Edward Weston was quoted as saying: “The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh.” In fact, he explored the possibilities of the female human body to act as a landscape, especially that of his muse and companion Charis Wilson. Am I off target in affirming that yours is less of an investigation of the contours and topography of the female body and goes more than skin- deep to explore the soul of a person intimately close to you?
You are definitely not. You actually perceived the focus of my work very precisely. The way we see someone, the way we know someone, especially someone we care about, it is different from their view. My objective and duty as a companion of the ‘model’, was to give a tangible shape to something that I can hardly turn into words. I wanted to interpretate her in her volubility and complex soul. She flees labels and schemes as she flees any sort of contours and definitions.
There are famous examples of the partner of the artist developing into the main muse. One can mention Weston himself and his partner Charis Wilson who became his wife, Pierre Bonnard and his wife Marthe. The former zoomed in on the female form and abstracting it. The latter focussed on daily unselfconscious daily life of the artist’s partner and the space it occupied in the house they shared. Do you see your work as a further exploration of this special artist/partner relationship?
The history of art is full of instances where the artist at some point or other, had the partner as his/her muse, and main model as well – just a couple of cases that come to mind are Rene Magritte and his wife Georgette, immortalised in Attempting the Impossible and also in full nudity in a photomontage for the Paris Surrealist Group in the La Revolution Surrealiste, among others. And Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala, who is captured also in the nude in various works. I see this artist/partner relationship as a deeper level of exploration. Mental attunement, empathy and understanding are the basis of the artistic process.
On a day-to-day basis, I still take many photos of Rebecca wherever we are, which form part of a daily chronicle on our online life. Taking photos of her with an artistic aim it is something that comes in a different manner. I can get inspired anytime and anywhere but still, I find myself creative when both of us are completely calm and loose.
Maltese society has accepted the nude female body as a mode of artistic expression, but I feel that it is still perturbed by depictions of male nudity. Do you think such an exhibition like HER be spurned if the roles are reversed, with a female photographer exploring the artistic possibilities of her male partner’s body in a similar manner?
Rebecca is a photographer herself – we got to know each other thanks to our common passion for art and photography. She already has captured me in the nude and I am sure she would love to reverse the roles.
I feel that in today’s Maltese society, this idea of having such exhibition with reversed roles would be quite embraced. I think the artistic level in Malta is reaching very high levels and so has the mentality of art connoisseurs, art collectors and art lovers.
HER, curated by Melanie Erixon, will run until July 13 at Il-Kamra ta’ Fuq, Mqabba. Visit the event’s Facebook page for visiting hours and COVID instructions.