Source: http://petapixel.com/2013/07/20/memories-photographs-and-the-human-brain/

To say that what we see in photographs is gone is to state the obvious. At the very least that particular moment is gone, never to come back, just like any other moment (whether we photograph or not). The person in the photo might be gone, in all kinds of ways. Gone from our life maybe, either by our choice or their choice or maybe by nobody’s choice (in the case of death). The fact that something is gone makes photographs so poignant, and it is what makes photographs memories. This, again, is obvious, because memories concern the past. Photography is the past (maybe more accurately a past). To look at a photograph is to look at the past.

In the case of photographs, we have more power over the process of retaining and forgetting. The process here involves the decision to take a photo or not, and then later whatever is later involved in the editing. Seen in this light, photographs are more perfect memories, because we are given more power to control our past (if we had that power with our actual memories, most therapists would be out of work). Conveniently, we tend to ignore the fact that photographs are manufactured memories. Photographs are also expressions of our desire to hold on to something. As such expressions, they can take on their own life, essentially becoming something completely different.

Source: ​http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/photography_and_memory/

What role does memory play in art?

Tate, Khan Academy - Archives, Memory, and Conservation

“The photograph isn’t what was photographed. It’s something else. It’s a new fact.”

-Gary Winnogrand

Some artists try to document things exactly as they are in order to create a record for future generations. But others deliberately frame the past in different or unexpected ways to change the way we think about history. So how does art shape our collective memory of the past? And how might it inform our experience of major events in our own time?

There will inevitably be tension between an object invented by a subjective mind and the objective fact or event it is meant to depict. Many artists use art to tell stories about personal and cultural memory that are open to interpretation, that reframe the past not as a fixed narrative but as a multiplicity of voices from diverse points of view. This allows us to think twice about our history and how it has been shaped, and how we might best document things to come.

Source: https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/tate/archives-memory/art-and-memory/a/what-role-does-memory-play-in-art

Sally Mann

“All perception is selection, and all photographs – no matter how objectively journalistic the photographer’s intent – exclude aspects of the moment’s complexity. Photographs economize the truth; they are always moments more or less illusorily abducted from time’s continuum”

This image belongs to Virginia photographer Sally Mann’s Last Measure series, titled after a line in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and based on her visits to Civil War battlefields. Untitled #9 shows a cornfield beside “Bloody Lane,” the sunken road where thousands of men lost their lives on this most deadly day in American history. Although clear at the left edge, the field dissolves across the surface into an abstract cloud of photographic emulsion that conveys something of the strife and anguish described in eyewitness accounts. Mann’s bold experiments with the nineteenth-century collodian wet-plate process—in which she pours photosensitive emulsion onto a glass plate shortly before exposure—help her transcend photography’s realist conventions to achieve a heightened level of expression.

Source: https://www.vmfa.museum/connect/antietam-and-the-civil-war-another-artists-perspective/#DjYqFKcIEL8R4dA2.99

Art Criticsm

Description: Begin by describing what you see occurring in the photograph. What details stand out to you? What are the subjects being photographed?

Analysis: How is the photograph composed? How is the use of light, shadow, perspective, or framing used? What elements or principles of design stand out the most?

Interpretation: What role does the title/caption hold? Why do you think the photographer chose this subject to photograph? What is the significance of the historical event being photographed? What story do you think is being told? What details support your interpretation? How does this image inform our understanding of the aftermath of war or conflict?

Historical Context

On September 17, 1862 and 160 miles north of Richmond, a horrific battle near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek marked the turning point in the Civil War. It was the first major confrontation in the conflict to take place on Union soil and remains the single deadliest day in American history with over 23,000 casualties on both sides (comparable to 230,000 in contemporary numbers). While not a decisive victory for either North or South, it gave President Lincoln the political incentive to issue just five days later the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation—freeing enslaved people in the rebellious states.

Source: https://vmfa.museum/connect/anniversary-of-antietam/#4upvt4PitYsG86HC.99

Artists that Link Art and Memory

Lamia Joreige, Views of Museum Square. This is a picture of a Museum Square that might have been taken at night. The buildings lights, there are very few cars in the parking lot, and it seems very silent and peaceful. This artwork is part of Records for Uncertain Times. (Lamia Joreige‘s first solo exhibition in the United States.)