Joel-Peter Witkin

Following on from looking at Doll parts, I discovered this photographer. With their severed limbs, i suppose they look llike mannequins sat there still with life. With the one below, still wearing socks and holding his palm upright. But no head. It has a life about it but its not there.

They are very surreal, unnatural images. The subject matter take on the role of dolls. As if they are not real. What is he photographing and how is it possible. They look like illustrations. The one below looks very much like an illustration which confuses me as most of his works are photographs.

But even the photographs look like illustrations. Perhaps they are? or perhaps they are not. Perhaps we think they are because of what the image is? It is too surreal, how can you photograph this? Photographs take exact copies of the ting the camerea points at. How can you photograph something so surreal unless it is really there? This questions what is real and not real. What is alive, and what is dead? are they actors or are they real with make-up and a clever angle on the camera or are they severed body parts posing in a still life?

After reading more about Joel-Peter Witkin, I found that he does use some corpses in his work. He plays with them like dolls, but like real people. He props them up in certain positions and created this new story about them, like children play with their barbies and create a life for and story for them.

Reading on the website i found this out.
http://www.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/witkin/jpwdefault.html

He tells a story on the website about how he found this body in Mexico and how it changes. From this 'punk' to a man being judges. to a man with body parts. He is not known to Witkin. He talks about how his brain could have had evil thoughts but now, they are bing judges with a different prescence. and when he photographs the body, he describes it as a Saint. As elegant, Grace. Amazing how the body changes when the soul is no longer there. When the soul goes to another place, it reflect this on the body?

It sort of reminds me of Polly Morgans work with the animals. This whole life and death context to the works. This whole reality and fantasy. Waht is real? What does real mean? Goes back to belief. i believe we do have a soul and a body just holds it. the spirit continues when the body dies.

A doll is just a body. a casing without the soul. Yes - it is a handmade body. we cannot make the soul and this is why theare dolls and how they can never really be lifelike? or can they? When you put your own soul into making something, is it transferred into it? Some people say that that is what art is, allowing your soul to be free from this world. Expressing it. Can an object really have a soul?