Page 46 - Studio-International-January-1974

Because of the vague definition of
Censorship 'indecency' there is no way of West Coast reality and at least formal surreality.
Imogen Cunningham has been
knowing if an offence is being known for soft-focus fin-de-siècle
Cinematograph and Indecent committed until after prosecution. 'picturial' photography, for sharply
Displays Bill There is a great lack of proper photography rendered plants. and for informal
Presented as a measure to remove evidence about community standards. portraits. Less typical, either of the
pornographic magazines from sight in As 'indecency' is defined only by Photography, unlike viticulture, is an tradition or of what one expects of
the family newsagent's, the Bill which these 'average' standards its meaning enterprise in which Europe does not Imogen, were such worked-over
is currently passing through will change with every jury. The have many centuries' head start over prints as Paula Solarized and Martha
Parliament is a much more dangerous effect of this on the sale and display California. The daguerreotype was Graham Solarized. The dreamlike
piece of legislation than it seems. The of serious literature could be very invented only a few years before the invades the quotidian in Another
uncontentious issue of unreasonable damaging. Book-sellers would California gold rush, and the state has Hand, for example, a living hand and
display masks a proposal for a major presumably play safe and either not a vigorous photographic tradition. forearm among a cluster of
change in the censorship law for film, stock such books or relegate them to During the early 1930s, Ansel mannequins' arms, and in two prints,
video-tape, records, books and other a back room, The Bill also envisages a Adams, Imogen Cunningham, each entitled Two Saints in Mission
publications. great extension of the right of Edward Weston, and other San Dolores Cemetery, in which a girl's
Criticism of the Bill is made seizure ; in contrast to the 'Obscene Francisco photographers formed the head appears next to a stone bust.
difficult because of its clumsy Publications Act' no search warrant f/64 Group, named for the smallest For Imogen Cunningham these
drafting, but there are two points will be necessary. This could be aperture of the diaphragm, which excursions into the combination of
which must be brought to public serious for book sellers or private art gives the sharpest focus and the negatives and the surreal found image
attention. The first is that the aims of galleries (public galleries are exempt), greatest depth of field. The f/64 remain excursions; for several other
the Bill are contradictory. It is in two as the Bill does nothing to limit Group sought to break with the photographers they are primary
parts, the first dealing with private prosecutions and there is no romanticism of soft focus and visual impulses. The Focus Gallery recently
'Cinematographic Exhibitions' and limit set on the period during which ambiguity, bequeathed to artistic showed three photographers of
the second with 'Indecent Displays' ; seized material may be impounded photography by turn-of-the-century surrealist tendency, Vilem Kriz, Adál
the expressed aim of Part Il is 'to before prosecution. Intended or painting. For the most part our Maldonado, and Arthur Tress.
safeguard the public against being otherwise, this Bill represents a tradition has been one of portraiture, Kriz, born in Prague in 1921,
unwillingly exposed to indecent subtle form of political censorship. landscape, and social documentation, currently living in Berkeley, manages
material'. Under this section it is The Bill will obviously not eliminate in which the camera was used for to be so European as to be almost
proposed to allow access through pornography. The necessity for clarity. Romantic as Weston's nudes proto-surrealist. In the forties he
choice to 'indecent' material, after hard-core pornographic bookshops might be in spirit, they were as photographed tiny corners of Paris,
paying for entry to the place where to set up paid-entrance 'back-rooms' sharply rendered as Courbet's fish. gargoyles and Gothic sculpture and
that material is displayed. (Payment in order to avoid proscecution will Another San Francisco tradition has low reliefs, in a way that brought
serving as an indication of choice to lead to an extension of the Soho been an interest in dream and myth them into the tradition of grotesque
confront 'indecent' material.) What situation to the suburbs. The and ritual, and in a reality behind the art. He still photographs sculpture and
goes unnoticed is that Part I seeks to measures will not serve to change the merely visible. A recent show of bric-à-brac, and his use of doorways
abolish this very system in relation to pattern of commercial pornography, photographs by our most eminent and windows recalls Atget's Paris,
film, as it has emerged through the and will curtail the activities of artist, lmogen Cunningham, even if he is now working in
commercial film- clubs. Under the serious organizations working for demonstrated the coexistence, in a California. His still-lifes also look
proposed legislation, organization of minority interests, political aims or art. single body of work, of everyday back, to the pittura metafisica of De
such a club for profit will automatically Clubs and societies which make use of Chirico and Carrà, and perhaps to the
bring the films shown within the film film or video will be in jeopardy. If experiments of Man Ray.
censorship system. Legislation which they charge admission or advertise, Most recently Kriz has been
destroys an existing freedom of the organizers could find themselves working on The Outskirts of Sirague,
choice in the region of film in favour of under arrest with the onus of proof a series depicting an imaginary city,
explicit censorship, and then applies of non-profit basis on them — under but with the same choice of fragments
that same system as a novel solution the present wording of the Bill this he had earlier used to depict Paris.
to book, magazine and presumably could be difficult. If the intention of Most of these are straight photographs
film sales, is nonsense. the Bill is to 'catch' the commercial in which texture and selection of
The second major inadequacy of film-clubs only, then it is so far detail do the job of evoking surreality,
the Bill is the use of 'indecency' as its inadequate. but sometimes Kriz uses quite
basis. There is no specific definition Part lof the Bill, which deals with theatrical devices, such as drawing an
of 'indecency' within the Bill, which film clubs, is unnecessary. The clubs eye on the lid of a half-opened tin.
implies that the current legal already conform to the main The effect goes beyond antique-shop
interpretation will persist. 'Indecency' intention of the Bill, that only those nostalgia, although I might sometimes
casts the net of offence extremely who choose should be confronted be hard put to say how far. In his
wide. Chief Justice Parker set the with 'indecent material' ; the side printmaking as well as his choice of
precedent for the current effects of legislation on genuine subject matter, Kriz brings back the
interpretation in 1965 as: societies and clubs are already very twenties and thirties in a way that
'«. something that offends the damaging. Both parts of the Bill are Imogen Cunningham Another Hand 1973 makes a welcome change here, where
ordinary modesty of the average ill-considered and the effects of it
man ... offending against the could be the opposite of those
recognized standards of propriety at intended. Commercial pornography
the lower end of the scale'. In its will flourish, serious art, literature and
application in Post Office and film will be under constant threat
Customs and Excise legislation this wherever they contest the most
definition leads to prosecution or conservative concepts of decency.
confiscation in a range which would With the present real crises faced by
not be possible under 'obscenity' this Parliament the Bill is no more
standards. Lord Parker in the OZ case, than a sop to the Longford lobby.
on the question of mailing to Opposition is being organized mainly
subscribers, said :'Indecent means by the National Council for Civil
"unbecoming" and "immodest", Liberties (information from Martin
and indecent is at the bottom end of Loney), 186 Kings Cross Road,
the scale. . .' This definition was London WC1, together with the
upheld by Lord Chief Justice Defence of Literature and the Arts
Widgery in the appeal. Even the Society, the Federation of Film
Society of Conservative Lawyers have Societies and the ACTT. Action is
recommended the repeal of this urgent.
definition in favour of : 'grossly Malcolm Le Grice
offensive to the public at large'. John Divola Untitled 1972

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