Lux Control
by Colin Pantall
Pale children stare out of empty landscapes, their young bodies clothed in strangely patterned tweed and wool. Half adult, half child, they are the invention of Loretta Lux, a photographer whose digital sorcery has created a magical world that sits somewhere between fantasy and reality.
Born in Dresden in 1969 and now based in Monaco, Lux’s work is partly inspired by her early childhood in East Germany.
“My life as a child in the DDR was very dull, but at the weekends my grandparents would take me to museums. The pictures I could most connect with were those with children in them.”
Inspired by Old Masters and German romantic artists of the 19th century, Lux initially studied painting but, she says, “...it was too messy - all those paints and the turpentine. So one reason I took up photography is because it isn’t messy.
“Another reason is painting has a long history and there are painters like Velasquez and Caspar David Friedrich and you can’t compete with them. Instead I thought I would approach painting through photography.”
So in 1999, Lux ( she chose her name a year later on the eve of her first group show). started taking photographs “Children are a fascinating subject for me, so I started taking pictures of children. At first, I only wanted to make good pictures. I didn’t theorise about the pictures. That came later.”
“I started with my nephew because he was available. I’m not the kind of person who is happy approaching people on the street,” says Lux, who has no children of her own. She continued to photograph the children of friends and relatives, rejecting commissions to focus on children that she found visually fascinating.
And that is Lux’s real gift. She recognises the power of children and chooses her models accordingly. Maria, perhaps her favourite model, radiates a wisdom beyond her years, the girl with a fish has an all-knowing self-awareness and the red-haired girl in the Rose Garden possesses a distant gaze that takes us into a world we can only imagine.
“In my work, I combine photography, painting and digital technology. I spend a great deal of time arranging the photograph in a way that is very similar to what a painter does on the canvas.”
“I start with a mental image, with a particular idea, which I then try to portray. I carefully select the clothes, the models and the backdrop (which is often painted by Lux), I have a few photo-sessions with the children and pick the best pictures. I then spend a great deal of time manipulating the image into what I want. It takes me 3 months to come up with a final image that I can get printed, but most of the time I don’t get that far.”
“I started with a digital camera right away because for me conventional photography was never a viable option. I want more control than simply depending on what’s in front of the camera.”
“I don’t like to say what equipment I use. I don’t get paid to advertise cameras, so why should I drop names,” she says before letting slip that she uses a Leica - a Digilux in other words. The cheque, one suspects, is not in the post. Not that Lux needs it. She’s sold almost US $5 million worth of prints in the last year.
What makes Lux’s work so fascinating is the otherworldliness of the images she creates. Partly this is due to the intensity of the children and the mystical emptiness of her backgrounds, but also because of the clothes she selects - clothes with colours, patterns and materials that, though very recognisable, have an almost alien quality.
“I have them wearing these clothes because they suit the image,” explains Lux. “I couldn’t do a picture of a child wearing Adidas clothes for example. I was born in Dresden in the DDR and they are the kind of clothes I would wear when I was a child in the 1970s. And because in the DDR we were always 10 years behind everywhere else, they look like clothes from the 1960s.”
So the Study of a Girl features a short sleeveless dress in a diagonal check of white, orange and sludgy green, a two-buttoned pocket on the chest. The Boy wears a flesh coloured shirt and a pair of shorts that make you itch just looking at them. Best of all is Megumi, who wears a short-sleeved knitted top in baby blue under a matching sleeveless pocketed dress.
Despite the subject matter Lux says, “The work is not about children. The images are a metaphor for childhood, innocence and the lost paradise of childhood.”
“There are also things to do with my own childhood. Like all Germans I grew up with stories by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. I think they had a strong impact on my imagination. Also, things like the teddy bear (in Girl with a Teddy Bear) is mine, so the pictures do have a lot to do with memory - with visual memory. The work is not autobiographical but I get inspiration from my memories of my own childhood.”
Lux’s children seem embedded half in childhood and half in the adult world. They don’t live in a Victorian-style state of innocence, but as mini-adults in their own right. “In a child you can already see hints of the person he is to become and in the grown up you will find traces of the child he used to be,” explains Lux.
This view is something Lux accentuates with her careful arrangements of props and hands. One girl holds a loaf of bread, another ( digitally manipulated into gripping the slippery creature) a fish. The Bride clasps her hands together, a girl in a tango-hued top has her arms crossed, while the red-haired girl in the green buckled dress hides them behind her back as she stands in her magical walled Rose Garden.
Sometimes, Lux changes the hand or head size, transforming posture and pose into something very strange. Particularly striking is The Walk. This features 2 girls in buckled shoes, their heads a shade too big for their shrunken bodies, their shoulders too sloping as they stand, one foot in front of the other on a barren path. The children gaze, all-knowing and all-seeing at the camera, against a backdrop that is both harsh and unforgiving - perhaps like childhood itself.
“I wouldn’t like to be a child again and have to depend on other people,” says Lux. “There are no perfect parents and it’s better to be in control of yourself I think. Children are beautiful, but childhood isn’t,”
END
Monday, 13 October 2008
Monday, 6 October 2008
Agent Orange: Philip Jones Griffiths
Agent Provocateur (From the Far Eastern Economic Review: 2004, Vol 167(5))
Welsh photographer Philip Jones Griffiths first heard about the dangers of Agent Orange (the highly toxic herbicide used as a defoliant during the Vietnam War) in Saigon in 1967. "During the war there were these rumours that babies were being born without eyes and it became a quest to find them," says Griffiths. "I visited as many catholic orphanages as I could, but I was barred entry from most of them and I became convinced that the Americans had put the word out - don't let any press in."
Griffiths, now aged 67, worked as a freelance during the Vietnam War, but though an associate member of Magnum, he had little financial success. It was only with the publication of Vietnam Inc. (Griffiths' book on the failings of the American war machine) in 1971, that his photography reached a wider audience. But the critical tone of Vietnam Inc. meant Griffiths was banned from re-entering Vietnam. He didn't return until 1980, when he met victims of Agent Orange for the first time. Over the next 20 years, he would photograph some of Vietnam's estimated 1 million victims, building a body of work now published as Agent Orange, a harsh and uncompromising examination of the legacy left by US chemical spraying of the Vietnamese landscape.
Griffiths first encounter with Agent Orange victims happened almost by chance. "We were travelling by road from Hanoi to Saigon and we started talking about Agent Orange. The driver said, well there's this family with two blind daughters - we'll probably see them tomorrow." "It was very emotional. The husband had been a truck driver on the Ho Chi Minh Trail (transporting supplies to the Vietcong in the South) and he was very proud of what he did - and there was a strange ambivalence between the pride of the family and this disaster that had struck them. Those two blind girls were the first ones I ever saw."
Agent Orange was one of a series of colour-coded agents known as the Rainbow herbicides. They were first sprayed on crops as part of a "Food Denial Program" designed to force reluctant villagers into 'strategic hamlets'. When this proved ineffective, defoliation was used in Operation Ranch Hand to deny enemy forces jungle and forest cover.
Spraying increased in intensity throughout the 1960s, to become what Yale University botany Professor, Arthur Galston called "the largest chemical warfare operation in history." But even though Vietnam's forests and hilltops were laid bare, spraying was widely recognised as both militarily and psychologically ineffective.
As the Americans continued spraying, indications of the toxicity of Agent Orange and its deadly contaminant of dioxin became evident. "I think the earliest indications that Agent Orange was harmful were when people came down with chloracne at some of the companies who were making it," says Griffiths. By 1969, "...tests revealed that as little as two parts of dioxin per trillion in the bloodstream was sufficient to cause deaths and abnormal births in laboratory animals."
A by-product of chlorine production, dioxin works as an "environmental hormone." It causes disastrous changes at a hormonal and genetic level - causing diseases and deformities ranging from Hodgkins disease and diabetes to spina bifida and leukaemia. Because these diseases also occur naturally, and because there is reluctance on the part of chemical companies and the US government to admit liability, there is no universally recognised causative link between dioxin and many of its associated diseases.
“The connection between Agent Orange exposure and associated diseases is accepted by the majority of scientists who work in the field,” says Dr Arnold Schechter, a professor at the University of Texas who is researching the health effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam, “but there is resistance to connecting Agent Orange to some diseases when litigation is involved. Industry groups will try to minimise the health damage.”
It’s a view confirmed by Dr Steven Stellman of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. “Unquestionably there has been a tremendous amount of resistance to recognising diseases caused by Agent Orange. The US federal governement has resisted for years, and it has been very difficult to get studies going and very little research has been funded.”
Another problem is put forward by Dr Wayne Dwernychuk of Hatfield Consultants. “Western epidemiologists do not feel that the scientific rigour of the Vietnamese studies meet western criteria in terms of experimental design and analysis. Dr. Phuong, Director of the Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City has witnessed first hand the birth defects issue as it pertains to highly exposed populations. She has followed this for over 30 years and is absolutely convinced the relationship is there. The US government's position has been that no unequivocal evidence exists which proves a firm link between exposure and expression of birth defects and health issues in Vietnam. However, the US Dept. of Veteran's Affairs provides financial compensation to US Vietnam veterans for certain diseases if they can show they were exposed to Agent Orange during their tours of duty. Spina Bifida, a birth defect in children of US Vietnam veterans, is covered by Veteran's Affairs ... but not for victims in Vietnam.”
Griffiths began documenting the full horrors of the genetic effects of Agent Orange at Tu Du Hospital in Saigon. "I went in and it was this dark room filled with all these deformed foetuses." Griffiths photographed conjoined twins, collapsed skulls and twisted spines, yet somehow he photographed these dead babies with a gentle tenderness. "I tried to give them some humanity," he explains. "Some are hugging or embracing. I didn't want to turn it into a freak show.”
As Griffiths continued to photograph, the full scale of Vietnam's tragedy became apparent to him. In 1998 he visited Cam Nghia, a village where 10% of children were born with serious deformities. "Cam Nghia had the highest number of abnormalities in Vietnam, but what you're not told is that in the majority of cases the foetus doesn't even develop. And then there are miscarriages and live births dying within 48 hours."
In 1971, the use of Agent Orange officially ceased in Vietnam, but its contaminant of dioxin is still claiming fresh victims today. "The toxicity is so great that once it is in your body, you can't get rid of it. The exception of course is lactating mothers who can pass it out through their milk to their children. Now they're finding concentrations of dioxin in the sediment of this fishpond where the levels are the highest they have recorded in the world, and yet the people are still eating the fish from there. Anywhere else in the world people would be moved out and the earth would be put into plastic bags taken away and buried".
Griffiths believes Vietnam presents a unique, and missed, opportunity to study what happens to victims of dioxin. "You've got people who are culturally and ethnically identical living around Vietnam. Only the south was sprayed - the north wasn't sprayed, so you've got your control group there and it gives a wonderful opportunity. But almost the only company that are doing major research are Hatfield Consultants of Canada who are doing a lot of good work." Research undertaken by Hatfield includes an assessment of dioxin residues on parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the correlation between continuing birth defects in villages and their proximity to former US Special Forces bases with high levels of dioxin contamination.
American veterans are still suffering from Agent Orange exposure, and are seeking compensation above and beyond the 1984 settlement of US $180 million (though no admission of liability) won from chemical companies that produced Agent Orange.
The Vietnamese have never received any compensation for the chemical warfare visited upon them. Instead they have an inheritance of death and deformity. Philip Jones Griffiths' Agent Orange is a devastating record of these victims of chemical warfare.
Welsh photographer Philip Jones Griffiths first heard about the dangers of Agent Orange (the highly toxic herbicide used as a defoliant during the Vietnam War) in Saigon in 1967. "During the war there were these rumours that babies were being born without eyes and it became a quest to find them," says Griffiths. "I visited as many catholic orphanages as I could, but I was barred entry from most of them and I became convinced that the Americans had put the word out - don't let any press in."
Griffiths, now aged 67, worked as a freelance during the Vietnam War, but though an associate member of Magnum, he had little financial success. It was only with the publication of Vietnam Inc. (Griffiths' book on the failings of the American war machine) in 1971, that his photography reached a wider audience. But the critical tone of Vietnam Inc. meant Griffiths was banned from re-entering Vietnam. He didn't return until 1980, when he met victims of Agent Orange for the first time. Over the next 20 years, he would photograph some of Vietnam's estimated 1 million victims, building a body of work now published as Agent Orange, a harsh and uncompromising examination of the legacy left by US chemical spraying of the Vietnamese landscape.
Griffiths first encounter with Agent Orange victims happened almost by chance. "We were travelling by road from Hanoi to Saigon and we started talking about Agent Orange. The driver said, well there's this family with two blind daughters - we'll probably see them tomorrow." "It was very emotional. The husband had been a truck driver on the Ho Chi Minh Trail (transporting supplies to the Vietcong in the South) and he was very proud of what he did - and there was a strange ambivalence between the pride of the family and this disaster that had struck them. Those two blind girls were the first ones I ever saw."
Agent Orange was one of a series of colour-coded agents known as the Rainbow herbicides. They were first sprayed on crops as part of a "Food Denial Program" designed to force reluctant villagers into 'strategic hamlets'. When this proved ineffective, defoliation was used in Operation Ranch Hand to deny enemy forces jungle and forest cover.
Spraying increased in intensity throughout the 1960s, to become what Yale University botany Professor, Arthur Galston called "the largest chemical warfare operation in history." But even though Vietnam's forests and hilltops were laid bare, spraying was widely recognised as both militarily and psychologically ineffective.
As the Americans continued spraying, indications of the toxicity of Agent Orange and its deadly contaminant of dioxin became evident. "I think the earliest indications that Agent Orange was harmful were when people came down with chloracne at some of the companies who were making it," says Griffiths. By 1969, "...tests revealed that as little as two parts of dioxin per trillion in the bloodstream was sufficient to cause deaths and abnormal births in laboratory animals."
A by-product of chlorine production, dioxin works as an "environmental hormone." It causes disastrous changes at a hormonal and genetic level - causing diseases and deformities ranging from Hodgkins disease and diabetes to spina bifida and leukaemia. Because these diseases also occur naturally, and because there is reluctance on the part of chemical companies and the US government to admit liability, there is no universally recognised causative link between dioxin and many of its associated diseases.
“The connection between Agent Orange exposure and associated diseases is accepted by the majority of scientists who work in the field,” says Dr Arnold Schechter, a professor at the University of Texas who is researching the health effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam, “but there is resistance to connecting Agent Orange to some diseases when litigation is involved. Industry groups will try to minimise the health damage.”
It’s a view confirmed by Dr Steven Stellman of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. “Unquestionably there has been a tremendous amount of resistance to recognising diseases caused by Agent Orange. The US federal governement has resisted for years, and it has been very difficult to get studies going and very little research has been funded.”
Another problem is put forward by Dr Wayne Dwernychuk of Hatfield Consultants. “Western epidemiologists do not feel that the scientific rigour of the Vietnamese studies meet western criteria in terms of experimental design and analysis. Dr. Phuong, Director of the Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City has witnessed first hand the birth defects issue as it pertains to highly exposed populations. She has followed this for over 30 years and is absolutely convinced the relationship is there. The US government's position has been that no unequivocal evidence exists which proves a firm link between exposure and expression of birth defects and health issues in Vietnam. However, the US Dept. of Veteran's Affairs provides financial compensation to US Vietnam veterans for certain diseases if they can show they were exposed to Agent Orange during their tours of duty. Spina Bifida, a birth defect in children of US Vietnam veterans, is covered by Veteran's Affairs ... but not for victims in Vietnam.”
Griffiths began documenting the full horrors of the genetic effects of Agent Orange at Tu Du Hospital in Saigon. "I went in and it was this dark room filled with all these deformed foetuses." Griffiths photographed conjoined twins, collapsed skulls and twisted spines, yet somehow he photographed these dead babies with a gentle tenderness. "I tried to give them some humanity," he explains. "Some are hugging or embracing. I didn't want to turn it into a freak show.”
As Griffiths continued to photograph, the full scale of Vietnam's tragedy became apparent to him. In 1998 he visited Cam Nghia, a village where 10% of children were born with serious deformities. "Cam Nghia had the highest number of abnormalities in Vietnam, but what you're not told is that in the majority of cases the foetus doesn't even develop. And then there are miscarriages and live births dying within 48 hours."
In 1971, the use of Agent Orange officially ceased in Vietnam, but its contaminant of dioxin is still claiming fresh victims today. "The toxicity is so great that once it is in your body, you can't get rid of it. The exception of course is lactating mothers who can pass it out through their milk to their children. Now they're finding concentrations of dioxin in the sediment of this fishpond where the levels are the highest they have recorded in the world, and yet the people are still eating the fish from there. Anywhere else in the world people would be moved out and the earth would be put into plastic bags taken away and buried".
Griffiths believes Vietnam presents a unique, and missed, opportunity to study what happens to victims of dioxin. "You've got people who are culturally and ethnically identical living around Vietnam. Only the south was sprayed - the north wasn't sprayed, so you've got your control group there and it gives a wonderful opportunity. But almost the only company that are doing major research are Hatfield Consultants of Canada who are doing a lot of good work." Research undertaken by Hatfield includes an assessment of dioxin residues on parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the correlation between continuing birth defects in villages and their proximity to former US Special Forces bases with high levels of dioxin contamination.
American veterans are still suffering from Agent Orange exposure, and are seeking compensation above and beyond the 1984 settlement of US $180 million (though no admission of liability) won from chemical companies that produced Agent Orange.
The Vietnamese have never received any compensation for the chemical warfare visited upon them. Instead they have an inheritance of death and deformity. Philip Jones Griffiths' Agent Orange is a devastating record of these victims of chemical warfare.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
