Art Relish

We drove over to Athens on Tuesday afternoon to hear artist Joel-Peter Witkin’s talk as part of UGA’s Lamar Dodd School of Art’s Visiting Artist and Scholar Lectures. Mr. Witkin was gracious enough to give us just a couple of minutes before he left to prepare for his lecture.

In his lecture, Witkin spoke about his work and attempts to show the “wounds of time and life” in it. Art is able to redeem life “as Christ redeemed us” and a “visual admission that we are all banished by being in this life.” There are two kinds of reality, the finite and the infinite, and Witkin’s work is about the poetry between life and death. He spoke more like a poet and painter than a photographer. I only recall him mentioning one other during his lecture, but he made many references to painters – Poirot, Gericault, Poussin, Balthus – and discussed his attempts to recreate the history of art through photography.

I was also interested in his idea that photography, like these mortal vessels we inhabit, is not sacrosanct. His pictures are scratched, bleached, torn and cut. They are reminders of sensation, passion and sacrifice and his attempt to dispel the “paralysis of deadly cynicism.” Ultimately, Witkin says that these pictures of his internal reality are his contribution to life, good works by which his finite existence will be measured. I wish I’d had more time to talk with him. I have a lot more questions.

Also posted on YouTube and the Art Relish video podcast.

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