ARTchivist's Notebook: The White Gaze
The White Gaze
Is photography inherently racist?
The Getty's exhibition "Photo Flux: Unshuttering LA" (which closed on Oct. 10) explores the ways photographers of color attempt to unsettle photography's traditional "white gaze," or the assumption that "the photographer is white and their subject is the passive receptor of the white gaze as a subject of fascination, beauty, or shock."
www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/photo_flux/
This idea reminds me of Ariella Aisha Azoulay's book, Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism, in which she argues that photography, from its inception, has been a means of colonization and imperial control. She identifies the click of the shutter as the moment when the presence of an object or person is "fixed" and made to circulate outside its original context. As such, it becomes property or evidence that can be owned and copyrighted. She writes, "The photographic shutter contributes to the reproduction of imperial divisions and imperial rights and is used as lasting proof that what was plundered is a fait accompli." It's the moment when an event becomes an artifact, something that could end up on display in a museum, gallery, or publication.
Azoulay suggests a photographer's strike: "Imagine going on strike for the redistribution of photographic wealth as part of world repair, led by those communities without which such images could not exist." This might mean returning control and copyright to the subjects of the photographs, or refusing to allow them to be used as justification for further exploitation, dehumanization, and expropriation of resources. Or it could mean refusing to take photographs altogether.
Yet photography and video are our prime means of bearing witness, which is especially important when the event being recorded is something the powers-that-be would rather just go away, like the murder of George Floyd. Although there are potentially exploitative aspects to recording Floyd's death (as there would be in recording anyone's demise), it was an act of bravery by Darnella Frazier. It seems it does matter who is behind the camera and more importantly, the reasons behind that gaze.
Are the artists in the Getty's exhibition doing what Audre Lorde deemed impossible, using "the master's tools" to dismantle the master's house? Or do their photographs represent a step towards undoing the imperial origins of photography itself? Probably not, but the exhibition serves as a reminder that artists, documentarians, and the curators and archivists who preserve and disseminate their work can and must continue to call attention to the frames, photographic or otherwise, that delimit who and what we see and why.
Thanks for reading! If you have any comments or questions about this issue, please feel free to get in touch. Or follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter @SharonMizota.
ARTchivist's Notebook is an occasional newsletter musing on the intersection of archives, art, and social justice by me, Sharon Mizota, DEI metadata consultant and art writer.
I help museums, archives, libraries, and websites transform and share their metadata to achieve greater diversity, equity, and inclusion. Contact me to discuss your metadata project today.