KVT – The Drama and the Portrait

(Vietnamese version available)

KVT drama and questions and second looks

I stood in the middle of Dang Xuan Truong’s ‘Look 2’ photography exhibition at the Art Museum and did a double take. The double gallery was soooo quiet…. muffled and almost eerie.

Two old fashioned, long wooden trestle seats were symmetrically placed in each viewing space.

Lighting was moodily theatrical and cast long shadows.

The black and white prints on canvas, mostly posed portraits of Hmong children and adolescents, were evenly spaced so that great gulps of air could flow between them.

It’s amazing the drama that a good curator can create with a few lights, a role of carpet, and bolts of black cloth. A drama that sings.

The song I heard was one of vulnerability.

The song heard by a young man exiting as I arrived was one of beauty. His partner heard solitude mixed with sadness.

The song I heard as I wandered the shadows or sat and gazed had an under melody of unease. It’s the unease I always feel when I see photographic portraits of vulnerable people – in this case children. I wonder if permission for the portraits to be taken and then publicly displayed was obtained…and from whom.

It’s the unease of not knowing if money made from sale of said portraits is shared between sitter and taker….and even if, ethically, it should be.

It’s the unease I feel when I view many newspaper and magazine articles that display the work of photo journalists who click away when people are at their most vulnerable.

It’s the unease of maybe being a voyeur of exploitation.

It’s the unease of perhaps being a dupe of colonialism…in this case the Hmong lands were only relatively recently colonized by the Kinh.

It’s the unease…………..

I guess all photographers who exhibit photographs of children and other vulnerable individuals are frequently asked to defend their work on ethical grounds. I don’t doubt that Dang Xuan Truong would ease my unease beautifully and although the song I hear would still be one of vulnerability, I would allow myself time to sit in the drama in the gallery and linger longer with what are works that invite you into their other dark and questioning depths.

Tonight (30 May 2012), photographer Jamie Maxtone-Graham is discussing ethical issues surrounding the photographic portrait, the photographer, the subject and the viewer. It will be interesting to hear his views applied to his own work.

The exhibition “Look 2′ is on until May 31 and it’s a really good one to see and listen to which song comes to you….mine was trilled by mountain flutes that echoed across a deep valley.