“Youth culture refers to the societal norms of children, adolescents, and young adults… distinct from those of adults in the community.” (Wikipedia: 2022)
Actions and attitudes, styles and behaviours, music, and beliefs, are all factors which make up ‘Youth Culture’. Similar to animals, youth tend to be reckless and stick together in pacts where they feel most comfortable, accepted, and familiar. Young adults, differ from adults in the sense where they don’t take things so seriously, they’re brains are still mouldable, they tend to be quite ‘careless’, they are free. I have chosen this area of research because as a teen in Jersey, I am aware of the struggles and hardships we face living on a small island where we often feel trapped and suffocated, with little places to go and a lack of new things to see. The pressure we are faced with living in such a small community, where everyone knows everyone and everyone’s business. Justine Kurland and Ryan McGinley both capture youth culture in ways of rebelling against their countries, Kurland focussing on escaping this idea of ‘The American Dream’ and McGinley on rebelling the governing law. The two photographers capture youth culture in vastly diverse ways, Kurland’s, being soft and fairy tale-like while McGinley’s displays a much grittier, and rougher lifestyle. In this essay, I intend to create an understanding of Justine Kurland’s work from her book ‘Girl Pictures’, I also intend to compare and discuss the work of Ryan McGinley’s ‘The Kids Were Alright’
Abigail Solomon Godeau, a famous writer and postmodern critic, discussed what she refers to as the inside/outside positions which photographers can take when photographing their subjects. The binary opposing views of inside/out is at the heart of Godeau discussion. An outside perspective may come across as: voyeuristic, objectifying, distant, alienated/alienating, touristic, unsympathetic. On the other hand; an inside perspective: privileged, intimate, trusting, sympathetic/empathic, engaged, participatory. Godeau refers to a criticism by Susan Sontag in relation to the work of Diane Arbus, within the criticism, Sontag states that because Arbus has an outside perspective the involvement becomes unsympathetic, objectifying, and voyeuristic. Susan Sontag argued that certain forms of photographic depiction were especially complicit with processes of objectification that precluded either empathy or identification “Arbus was indicted as a voyeuristic and deeply morbid connoisseur of the horrible.”- (Solomon-Godeau year: pg no). Seemingly, it means that an outside position when photographing a subject is wrong on moral terms and an inside position is good “engagement, participation and privileged knowledge.”. Ultimately, Godeau’s aim was to find or create a sense of truth towards photography.
Justine Kurland, a runaway, was born in Warsaw, New York 1969, Kurland is known for capturing utopian landscapes and communities which often have a sense of going against the American dream. I was heavily drawn in by her book ‘Girls Pictures’, in which we are introduced to utopic feminist alternative to the American existence. Within the book we are introduced to a group of girls travelling through the different seasons and terrains of America, ‘runaways’. ‘I don’t know any of the girls in Justine Kurland’s Girl Pictures, but it really feels like I do. Or at least, I must have seen them. Maybe they were there on the side of the highway, or in some public restroom, or just standing on a sidewalk as I passed by. The girls in their baggy jeans and bare feet. The girls in their leather boots and used sweaters. There’s something about them that feels like so many teenage girls. The images in this book weigh me down with a sense of nostalgia, and it’s not just the late nineties fashion. It’s the fact that the girls seem to be disappearing. Like catching a wild animal in a trap, it feels like by the time you look at each image of these girls you’ve already missed them. They’ve run off to someplace better or just some place that isn’t here.’ (reference using Harvard) I was intrigued by Kurland work, I found a huge sense of personal familiarity within her pictures which I feel relate to the youth of Jersey so perfectly, the need to escape, to discover the unknown, fleeing the nest in which we often feel trapped, suffocated.
‘Girls pictures’ is a source of fantasy escapism which captures a sentiment and desire in which a lot of youth desire. The images tell the story of teenage girls who are runaways while living in the periphery of American life, wild yet still in ways dystopically connected to humanity through roadways, drainpipes, overpasses, buildings, and cars. It does become clear to see that the images are constructed however the images hold an energy which seems candid. The images creating an overwhelming alluring sense of freedom as well as a sense of ‘sisterhood’, brought on by the continuous theme of pacts, it is rare to see an image of a girl alone. Kurland, as a young girl, was too a runaway. Her past life experiences give Kurland an inside perspective on the nature of the subjects making the images authentic although constructed. However, Kurland was an adult at the time she had taken these images she also does have an outside perspective. How did she know the youth then was the same as when she was a young runaway? Was it genuine?
The construction of Kurland’s images is fascinating, not only do the images feel nostalgic, from the early 2000’s wardrobe and the sense of carefree silliness. Kurland’s images reference the style of the spirited tableaus reminiscent of rococo art which originated in France in the early 18th century which depicted middle class youth embracing nature through play, often captured in pastel colours. Rococo art also captures art in a constructed yet candid way as if they were trying to capture a lively moment. The freedom within this art translates directly to Kurland’s work, through her use of capturing images in a soft light on overcast days or early morning rather than the beaming midday American sun. Kurland has also referred to Arthur Rackham, an English illustrator known for his depictions on fairy tales as a source of inspiration for the project, giving the photo collection a huge sense of a story book. Rackham’s illustrations feature characters embracing and connected with nature in a playful sense. Kurland’s image ‘The Bathers’ allude to a history of paintings under the same title such as Cezanne’s ‘The Large Bathers’.
Kurland’s images are almost cinematic and create a narrative from a single image, a popular theme in 90s photography, also seen with photographers such as Jeff Wall and Gregory Crewdson, two photographers in which Kurland studied during her time at Yale. Kurland’s images favour wide, horizontal frames which almost seem as if they are stills from a film, they allow the imagination to imagine a story, when being compared to images from someone like Gregory Crewdson, seem a lot more real from her skill in disguising the construction and from that we are pulled so deeply into the story of her characters and their lives creating less of an establishment and more of an emotional feeling.
This image is called ‘Puppy Love, fire for sale’, the first thing I notice when I see this image, similar to many others by Kurland, is the abolishment of gender stereotypes. The image features girls in clothes which differ from skirts and dresses, they are seen in dirty denim and relaxed hair. The fire pit pouring with flames could be a metaphor for the fire and drive which is keeping these runaways going. The makeshift tents show that the girls, although young, can take care of themselves. The pink and blue tents seemed to be split apart, this could perhaps represent the social split between boys and girls in a metaphorical meaning or perhaps in a literary sense as this is a girls only adventure. The girl wrapped in a blanket in the background of the image makes me want to know where she has been: collecting wood for the fire? Sourcing berries?… The focal image of the image is the fire pit, which leads our eyes to the tired looking girls surrounding it perhaps suggesting they have had a day of adventure. The lighting is soft and seems to be early evening, the vibrant orange laying onto the girls skin highlight their energy and optimism. It could be said that in this photo Kurland has an outside perspective as she is older, she may not feel the possible fear or unease that the girls are feeling, while the girls are sleeping in their makeshift tents, will she be sleeping in her van? However, following back up with Kurland’s past of being a runaway, she probably knows exactly how it feels to be sleeping in an open place with minimal shelter.
Ryan McGinley, an American photographer, began his journey in New York City in 1998. McGinley’s work on ‘The kids were alright’ features photographs and polaroid’s of youth in New York City in the late 90s with a documentary approach. McGinley creates a powerful portrait of his generation, from representation of their debauched lifestyles in a gritty, rebellious, and daring way often focussing on moments of both pleasure and pain, fun, and boredom. The kids were alright exploring McGinley and his friends in states of varying nudity, ecstasy, and Reckless abandon. McGinley has a vast inside perspective on this project, some of his images being taken as a way of him remembering what he had done that evening when he woke up the next day, we are seeing an almost authentic and real intake of 90s New York youth.
McGinley uses a post-modern approach to his work, Postmodernism was the collective name given to the shattering of modernism. In photography this was the direct challenge to the ideal of fine art photography whose values were established on an anti-commercial stance. McGinley really approached the insider perspective with depth, allowing us in on events such as moments shared with his first boyfriend, giving us a much more intimate and possessive view of his life through his work. McGinley’s work holds a huge sense of freedom and living in the moment, Dash Snow, a multimedia artist who covers the drug fuelled anarchy of New York life commented ‘People fall in love with McGinley’s work because it tells a story about liberation and hedonism’ (reference using Harvard). ‘The Kids were Alright’ beautifully captures the raw fun and emotion of youth, it embodies the prevalence of an unspoken sex culture as well as diving into the gay and queer culture In New York, something seemingly lost and hidden due to the HIV hysteria. McGinley captured the weird and unwashed, the bloody and the truth.
This image by Ryan McGinley, show the subject holding two bags of seemingly narcotics over his eyes, his could suggest that the influence of drugs is all around him, being shoved in his face through television, music, the media and from general surroundings. This could also suggest, drug culture, which links with sub cultures such as youth and sex culture, two cultures which McGinley covers. These young people are chasing a high, states of ecstasy perhaps to escape the depression and calamity surrounding them with the AIDS virus. The boys T-Shirt displays some sort of mockery towards the police, perhaps suggesting the ACAB movement. This picture seems exciting, the boy is wearing his bag suggesting that they are about to go somewhere or just arriving somewhere. Where are they going
In conclusion, Ryan McGinley and Justine Kurland represented youth culture from an inside perspective, focussing on familiarity and personal experiences. Justine Kurland fairy-tale like photos ultimately being a representation of her past as a young runaway while also expressing her views and hatred of the American Dream. Ryan McGinley used his current place in life in a documentary way to capture the rebellious fun as well as a portal to express his emotions as a young gay may in the midst of the AIDS virus while just wanting to be young and free. Within my own work, i attempted to capture moments of careless fun e.g. hanging out with my friends, I also included images which I had taken at festivals and raves. In response to Kurland, I wanted top emulate the style of her very soft and light images in which I focussed on capturing inside to make it more authentic to my group. In relation to McGinley, I captured more grungy black and white images which tend to be at night time.
Write a bibliography using Harvard system
Bibliography
https://www.photopedagogy.com/uploads/5/0/0/9/50097419/week_5_abigail_solomon-godeau_inside_out.pdf
https://www.miandn.com/artists/justine-kurland
Complete essay by making final adjustments as per my remarks in italic