Suffering under a pristine light:

The powers and problems of Sebastião Salgado’s aestheticized representation of human suffering

Dérand Lisa

Critical Contexts CFAR6019

Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours)

The University for the Creative Arts

January, 2018

2

Photojournalist Sebastiao Salgado’s work alters the documentary photography tradition of

straight truthful and objective representation as it negotiates the boundaries between the

aesthetics of art photography and the realism of serious documentary. Actually, in his

documentation of crisis and human suffering, the Brazilian photographer does not simply re-

transcript the reality he faces but consciously manipulates it by giving a particular attention to

the form, content, composition and to the aesthetic qualities of his work. Showing his

irrefutable masterly technique, his strongly recognizable black and white photographs with

great contrasts and a distinctive tonality depict its suffering subjects with a great beauty and

grace. This paradoxical representation of human suffering led to controversy as the

photographs were criticized for appearing as objects of contemplation valued for their aesthetic

qualities and uniqueness rather than visual proof of human suffering.

The essay focuses on Salgado’s photograph “Children’s ward in the Korem refugee Camp,

Ethiopia, 1984”, taken during Salgado’s fifteen months long project documenting the 1984-85

Sahel famine. It discusses Salgado’s documentary photographic practice and examines to

which extent Salgado recognizes the subversive nature of art and through his aestheticized

depiction of the famine provides an alternative to the victimization of the subjects and

maintains their dignity. Yet, it also discusses the issues around his aestheticizing of suffering,

which result in the passive spectatorship of the viewer and overshadow any attempt for

contextualization or understanding of the food crisis.

3

Fig. 1. “Children’s ward in the Korem refugee Camp, Ethiopia” (1984)

“Children’s ward in the Korem refugee Camp, Ethiopia, 1984” pictures a close-up of a mother

holding and breast-feeding her child. Even if Salgado affirms that there is no religious

connotations or symbols embodied in his photographs, his aestheticizing of human suffering

can be linked to the Christian iconography which, rooted on a religious thinking of suffering

as a redemption process and linking pain to sacrifice and sacrifice to exaltation (Sontag,

2003:88), depicts suffering as beautiful and dignifies its suffering subjects, notably in the

representation of the crucifixion of the Christ. The composition, structured with the mother

holding her child, is highly symbolic and makes allusion to religious Christian iconography as

it recalls the traditional art history and Renaissance paintings’ portrayal of the “Madonna and

4

Child”. The use of the “Madonna and Child” composition adds beauty and aura to Salgado’s

photograph and dignifies its subject as the suffering mother is associated to the sacred figure

of the Madonna. The “Madonna and Child” composition was similarly previously used in

Dorothea Lange’s photograph “Migrant Mother”, which dresses a dramatic portrait of poverty

and is an iconic image of the Great Depression.

Fig. 2. Migrant Mother (1936)

As in the traditional representation of Mary and her child Jesus, in Salgado’s photograph and

in “Migrant Mother”, the mother is holding her serene baby and her facial expressions convey

tiredness and longing as she is staring blankly. Moreover, in both photographs, the mother’s

head is leaning, her look is thoughtful, her lip corners are pulling down and the pose of the

5

child looking away from the viewer expresses a sense of defensiveness. Hence, the two

photographs ask to be read as ordered complexes of content-oriented signifiers, as the mother’s

facial expressions in focus thanks to the use of close portraiture signify her anxiety and her

extreme fatigue and create tension as she seems to be worrying about her uncertain future.

In Salgado’s photograph, the mother’s eyes contrasting with the darkness of the image and

reflecting the light of the background captivate the viewer’s attention. As the mother’s look is

averted, the viewer is not “urged into a relationship” (Olin, 1996:217) with a mutually shared

gaze and hence becomes a voyeuristic spectator whose gaze can be lingered. Salgado follows

the traditional representation of female as passive and submissive to the camera in art history

and concomitantly makes her an object of contemplation for the viewer’s gaze. Paradoxically,

even if she is pictured as passive, the mother appears strong in her prostration as there is a

resolve in her longing gaze, a certain perseverance to survive which confronts the viewer.

Thanks to this expression of determination or fortitude in the subject’s look, the photograph

does not arouse a sentiment of pity. It transcends the act of simply provoking the sympathy and

compassion of the viewer, who recognizes the extreme suffering of the subject and her

perseverance and develops a certain respect and admiration for the pensive subject. Hence, as

Salgado’s photograph depicts the mother as determined and borrows its composition to

Christian iconography, it successfully manages to maintain the dignity of the mother and

restores her humanity. Yet, we may argue that the photograph would further allow the viewer

to recognize the humanity of the mother if her look would directly confront the viewer. A

rejection of the subject’s averted look in favor of a mutually shared one would re-frame the

schema of patronizing representation of unprivileged subjects as it would break the given

superiority of the camera’s gaze and the viewer on the subject. Actually, the making of the

photograph would be a collaboration between the photographer and the subject, who would be

involved in his own representation. Also, through a mutual gaze, the mother would not be

6

objectified as the viewer’s gaze would be confronted and would not linger on her. Hence, the

photograph would more successfully empower and re-humanize its suffering subject. Through

the shared gaze, a dialog between the subject and the viewer would be created, which would

allow the viewer to further engage with the subject and recognize her humanity.

Fig.3. Madonna Litta (1490)

Campbell brings attention to the similarity between the compositions of Salgado’s photograph

and Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of the Madonna and child (1490) (see fig.3). As Vinci’s

composition, Salgado’s is well balanced and respects the rule of thirds (see fig.4), two vertical

and two horizontal lines dividing the photograph and on which the main elements and action

take place. Actually, in both Salgado’s photograph and Vinci’s painting, the mother’s eyes are

7

on the top third and are looking on the left of the photograph and the child’s face on the left

third turns towards the right (Campbell, 2003:83). Referring to Plato, Campbell argues that the

symmetry and balance achieved implement harmony and beauty and reinforce “a sense of

truth” (Campbell, 2003:83). Moreover, as Salgado creates a resolved composition, he provides

a meaningful pictorial representation of the abstract scene depicted and humanizes his subject.

Actually, the structured composition prevents the mother from being perceived as a soulless

and anonymous face in an abstract chaotic scene. Salgado’s rationalization of the crisis, notably

through his attention to composition is further examined latter in the essay.

Fig. 4. “Children’s ward in the Korem refugee Camp. Ethiopia” (1984) splitting according to

the rule of thirds

8

In order to achieve a sense of pictorial order, Salgado records “little” of the scene and pictures

a moment fragmented from its surroundings. His depiction of a dislocated moment does not

suggest the greater context of the Ethiopian famine, similarly to the way “Migrant Mother”

does not tell the viewer about the Great Depression context and the economic forces which

influence the lives of its subjects. Tagg argues that as a “situation reveals too much of the

moment” (Tagg, 1997:68) it does not take “the appearance of a timeless confrontation” and a

“translation of the concrete into to the universal” is not achieved. Hence, in Salgado’s

photograph, we can reciprocally argue that as the subjects are divorced from the famine

context, there is an antonomasia, rhetoric figure of style “in which the particular stands for the

general” (Burgin, 1997:83) and the individual mother represents the universal categories of the

suffering mother and the poor. This transcending of the specific and individual to the universal

is also further achieved thanks to Salgado’ s use of the archetypal figure of the Madonna, which

is part of our shared visual memory, and hence leads the viewer to read the photograph by

applying pre-constructed connotations: as the unprivileged subject is associated to the sacred

figure of the Madonna, it is immediately understood that the subject is, as the Madonna, a

displaced and destitute young mother. Moreover, the photograph appears as a timeless optical

confrontation and a sense of presentness is achieved. This sense of presentness, in which the

photograph exists and constitutes a perpetual present, echoes the sense of presentness and “kind

of instantaneousness” (Fried,1967) associated to modernist paintings. Actually, as with

modernist paintings, when looking at Salgado’s photograph, the viewer understands it fully

and is convinced by it in a brief instant. Moreover, as Salgado’s photograph follows

Greenberg’s view of art as self-sufficient and autonomous from its surroundings, it has a

universal resonance about human suffering and extreme poverty in general. In her critic of

Salgado’s work, Sontag argues that by making suffering universal and by globalizing it,

Salgado’s photographs might make the viewers feel that they should be more concerned.

9

However, because the scale of the subject and the suffering depicted by Salgado is too extreme,

irrevocable and epic, the compassion of the viewer becomes abstract and a sentiment of

powerlessness to take actions to create a change is developed, as local political scales

interventions seem useless (Sontag, 2003:70-71). Moreover, we may add that as Salgado’s

photograph discloses its wider famine context to achieve a sense of universality and autonomy,

it fails to achieve the requirement of a documentary photograph to witness and provide a visual

proof of the specific issue it depicts.

Along his attention to the form and his intent to re-frame the chaos of the scene, Salgado also

gives a particular attention to the aesthetics of the photograph and notably to the light and

contrasts. Salgado rejects color photography, which he finds too realistic and which he believes

limits aesthetic possibilities, in favor of the black and white image. This choice of the

monochromatic image recalls and sets the photograph within the old tradition of black and

white documentary photography and heightens the paradoxes of life and death and of suffering

and beauty. Also, Salgado does not use flashlights and shoots only with natural light. The

distinctive pristine light is characteristic of his photographs. Actually, thanks to the elegant

light and the strong operatic contrasts, a magical and dramatic, almost cinematic atmosphere is

created. Moreover, in Christianity light is symbolic of the divine presence and sacred figures

are represented surrounded by a halo, a circle of light. In Salgado’s photograph, the strong

backlighting which recalls a halo, reinforces the characterization of the mother as a holy and

sacred character and further dignifies her. Also, the use of backlighting, which is Salgado’s

signature style, makes the photograph appealing by creating a romantic atmosphere, and adds

sense of majesty and eternality to the photograph. We may claim that the backlighting draws a

line between the weakness of the human subject and the power of nature and natural forces,

10

arousing the idea that any human existence is fragile. Furthermore, the light illuminating the

face of the mother reveals her beauty and suffering as she appears in her absolute stillness as a

silent suffering martyr. Through, his use of light to create an impression of the “sacred” and

his paradoxical aestheticizing of extreme suffering, Salgado challenges the conventional

representation of famine and rejects the abject of the situation. Hence, his photograph can be

described as magical realism. Invented by German photographer Frank Roh to describe modern

realist paintings, magical realism is an art style which blends the real and the fictional. In

Salgado’s photograph, even if the scene depicted is entirely real as it is un-staged and not

falsified, the intensified light, the monochromy, the tonalities and the strong composition, result

in the same effect as photographic manipulation: it separates the photograph from the sphere

of the real and makes it appear as a divine occurrence.

Furthermore, thanks its exceptional aesthetic qualities and its composition borrowed to art

history and Christian iconography, Salgado’s photograph successfully achieves like traditional

art such as painting a sense of uniqueness, despite the fact that the photograph relies on

technology for both its making and its multiplication. Thanks to its timelessness and sense of

uniqueness, the image successfully differs from the plethora of images of crisis and leaves a

mark in the viewer’s mind without showing a shocking content or violence. In our context of

fast communication and interconnectivity which Levi-Strauss describes in “Can you hear me

reimaging audiences under the Pandaemonium” as an “all-consuming Pandaemonium of sound

and images” (Levi-Strauss, 1999:156), leaving a mark in the viewer’s mind and raising an

alternative representation and vision is becoming more and more challenging and hence can be

perceived as one of the strongest achievement of Salgado’s photograph. Yet, Salgado’s

photographs’ family of man recurrent rhetoric style and cinematic black and white

11

monochromy, which deny the specificity of the crisis depicted, in such a way that

representations of different crisis appear as mirror images, might fail to appeal to the viewer as

it provokes a sensibility fatigue. Actually, when exposed several times to Salgado’s work and

past the fascination for its aesthetics, the viewer might lose interest in the photographs whose

inauthenticity separates them from the sphere of the real. Unable to see the reality behind the

aesthetic facade, the viewer might be alienated by Salgado’s impenetrable photographs.

Cartier-Bresson associates the act of photographing people to a sort of violation and asserts

that it needs to involve a certain sensitivity from the photographer. Salgado’s sensitivity is

strongly expressed in his choice of subjects and composition as he depicts the sympathetically

appealing image of the mother and child and sentimentalizes his subjects, pointing out the

tiredness of the mother, the serenity of the child hold by the protective mother and their

fragility. Yet, the photograph because of its strong aestheticizing and highly formal and

resolved look avoids sentimentalism and fails to exploit the sentiment of compassion or pity of

the viewer, nor does it provokes his indignation. Instead, Salgado’s photograph generates a

certain iconolatry, as it provokes the fascination and enthrallment of the viewer for the beauty

of the photograph and the perfect control of the elements of the composition. The emotional

shock of the photograph, if there is one, is merely subtle as the image does not show an

intolerable but rather an appealing content. As Salgado’s photograph prefers the artistic

“seduction” opposed to documentary photography’s informative and objective style, it does

not raise the viewer’s consciousness and awareness on the crisis but rather raises his aesthetic

sensitivity and consciousness. The contemplation of Salgado’s photograph is similar to the

form of the spectatorship described by Debord in “The society of the spectacle”, when direct

experience is replaced by mediated representation in modern capitalist society. Actually, as

asserted by Debord who writes “the more he contemplates, the less he lives”, the state of

12

spectatorship of the viewer is a purely passive and not reactive as the viewer’ s gaze is invited

to linger and calmly examine Salgado’s photograph. Moreover, Debord argues that “the

spectacle reunites the separate, but reunites it as separate”. Actually, spectatorship alienates the

viewer as it is a one-sided reign of vision and hence there is no dialog created between the

subject and the viewer. Despite failing to create a dialog between its subject and the viewer,

Salgado’s photograph would elicit actions if its contemplation was accompanied by a sentiment

of guiltiness for viewing and a bad conscience for not taking actions to help the subjects.

However, as the spectacle offered in Salgado’s photograph exalts reality and is embodied by a

certain eternality and wisdom as it reflects on the general condition of the world and on

humanity, the viewer does not relate to the subjects represented and the situation of crisis seems

disconnected from his reality, which fails to create a sentiment of guiltiness. Hence, the

viewer’s perception of Salgado’s photograph can be described as an act of slightly hectoring

“sentimental voyeurism” (Chevrier, 2000), which is made acceptable thanks to the sensitivity

and beauty of the photograph.

Moreover, drawn from her argument that war photography seems inauthentic when it is too

cinematic and looks “like a still from a movie” (Sontag, 2003:69), Sontag claims that Salgado’s

photographs beauty and cinematic look and its sanctimonious family of man style rhetoric

result in its inauthenticity. To Sontag, photographs that depict suffering shouldn’t be beautiful

because “a beautiful photograph drains attention from the sobering subject and turns it toward

the medium itself, thereby compromising the picture’s status as a document” (Sontag,

2003:68). Moreover, she adds that an aestheticized photograph depicting suffering gives mixed

signals as it calls for action and simultaneously raises the sensibility of the viewer who is

invited to admire the beauty of the spectacle offered by the photograph. This idea is shared by

Ingrid Sischy, in “Good intentions” (1991). Sischy claims that “Salgado is too busy with the

13

compositional aspects of his pictures – and finding the “grace” and “beauty”, “in the twisted

forms of his anguished subjects” (quoted by Strauss, 2005:5) and that the aestheticizing of

human tragedy reinforces “our passivity towards the experience they reveal” (quoted by

Strauss, 2005:5). Hence, as mentioned earlier, in Salgado’s merging of the aesthetics and the

politics, the viewer is seduced by the aesthetics qualities of the photograph and caught a passive

contemplation. He recognizes Salgado’s high degree of knowledge and specialist skills

involved in the making of the photograph but he is prevented from ‘reading’ the political

meaning of the photograph and contextualizing it. In the 1930’s to the 1950’s, the idea that the

aestheticizing of suffering leads to the viewer’s passivity, was first expressed in the classic

debate within German Marxism, notably by Berthold Brecht in his development of Epic theatre

and Walker Benjamin in his essay “The Author As Producer”. In “The Author As Producer”,

Walker Benjamin describes how certain photographs make of “human misery an object of

consumption” and “comfortable confrontation” (quoted by Strauss, 2005:6). As Salgado’s

photographs are found in commercialized situations, we can argue that Salgado’s photograph

also make of human suffering an object of consumption. This implies that Salgado’s

photograph is unabashedly manipulative as it frames the suffering of its unprivileged subject

as a beautiful and fascinating spectacle to appeal to the viewer’s voyeuristic attraction for the

abject and appetite for sight of the pain of others, making profit over the suffering of its

unprivileged subjects.

However, the critic David Levi-Strauss in “The Documentary Debate: Aesthetic or

Anaesthetic” recalls that Walker Benjamin’s argument was constructed precisely as a response

to Renger-Patzsch’s picture book “The world is beautiful” and to the New Objectivity

movement, a movement which aimed to counter the Expressionist’s return to objectivity of

14

vision, and hence depicted poverty in a modish and technically perfect way. Hence, Levi-

Strauss counters Sischy’s argument and argues that Walker Benjamin’s critic is not applicable

to Salgado’s work as he separates Salgado’s practice from the New Objectivity movement,

claiming that Salgado’s aim is not to depict poverty in a technically perfect way but rather to

dignify his subjects. Salgado’s dignifying of his subjects is celebrated by Uruguayan writer

Eduardo Galeano. In “Salgado, 17 times”, Galeano describes how in the current capitalist

context, human poverty is a commodity of both visual pleasure and money and photojournalism

and reportage are often sensationalists and little concerned with its subjects. Galeano believes

that Salgado provides an alternative humanist representation as he writes “Salgado photographs

people. Casual photographers photograph phantoms” (Galeano, 1990:11). Actually, by

depicting the mother under an aesthetically pleasant angle, composition and light, Salgado

successfully manages to restore her dignity and humanity and allows the viewer to identify

with her. Salgado notes about his Sahel photographs: “I wanted to respect the people as much

as I could, to work to get the best composition and the most beautiful light… If you can show

a situation in this way—get the beauty and nobility along with the despair—then you can show

some- one in America or France that these people are not very different. I wanted Americans

to look at the pictures of the people and see themselves.” (Schonauer, 1990:45). This statement

reflects Salgado’s faith in humanity as he stands in solidarity with the mother, refusing to depict

her in a degrading way and wishing that the viewer will identify with her and recognize her

humanity. We might perceive Salgado’s engagement to represent his subject as best as he

possibly can and with his masterly technique and skills as an homage of the photographer to

his unprivileged subjects. Moreover, his will to restore the dignity of his suffering subjects

might come from his personal Latin American Marxist background. “Sometimes we from the

Southern hemisphere wonder why you in the North think you have the monopoly of beauty,

dignity, of riches. Ethiopia is a country in crisis, where the people are suffering so acutely, yet

15

Ethiopians are probably among the most beautiful, most noble people in the world. There is

really no point in going there to deny this reality” (Stallabrass, 1997:143-144), this statement

shows that Salgado identifies with the subjects he photographs, we may think that he rejects

documentary photography’s disinterested perspective and intends to break the indifference and

gap between the photographer and his subject. Moreover, it reinforces the idea that Salgado’s

practice is driven by a desire to restore a sense of equality in his representation of his

unprivileged subjects.

Actually, unlike anti-aesthetic photographers, Salgado disrupts the “hypocritical frontiers of

propriety and privilege” (Levi Strauss, 2005:8), which are the differences and inequalities in

the depiction of the developed and less developed worlds, as the populations of less developed

countries are represented from a patronizing western perspective and sometimes stereotyped.

Hence, we can argue that Salgado’s practice is political as it creates a certain a dissensus by

rejecting the mainstream media depiction of unprivileged subjects as anonymous faces.

Actually, Ranciere frames the relationship between politics and art, as art re-configures the

sensible, which is the social hierarchical order dividing the community into groups and

positions of ruling or being ruled and of being included or excluded. Linked to the concept of

the distribution of the sensible are the notions of “police” and “politics”. The police establishes

the distribution of the sensible as it is the organization of society as an entity in which each

individual is assigned a given place. “Politics” interrupts the police order and re-frames the

given distribution of the sensible by modifying the positions occupied by groups, leading to

emancipation or domination. The intrinsic link between art and politics lies as the re-

configuration of the distribution of the sensible involves a modifying of the aesthetico-political

field of possibility. As the police sets out what is excluded or included, it is expressed through

16

the aesthetic division between the visible and invisible which shapes the thinkable and

unthinkable and the possible and impossible. Referring to painting, Ranciere describes the two-

dimensional surface as “not simply a geometric composition of lines” but “a certain distribution

of the sensible” (Ranciere, 2006:15). Hence, the term “aesthetics” describes ways of doing and

making that disrupt the distribution of the sensible and their corresponding visibility. In his

representation of the mother, Salgado dismantles the relationship between the subject matter,

an unprivileged African subject and its given genre of representation. Actually, in

photojournalism, there is a tendency for the western media to depict unprivileged African

subjects from a patronizing western perspective which is sometimes degrading or sensationalist

when it relies on shocking content. Hence, Salgado creates a dissensus as he disrupts the

mainstream politics of representation of suffering African subjects. Actually, Salgado’s

photograph maintains the humanity and dignity of the mother. Moreover, its backlighting and

pristine light and its composition associating the unprivileged mother to the sacred figure of

the Madonna, dignifies and empowers her. Hence, Salgado re-frames the mode of visibility

and our perception of the subject, he makes the mother more visible as she is associated to the

Madonna and is not an anonymous face.

We may argue that the magical realism of Salgado’s photograph and its great aesthetic qualities

offer a new vision of the given scene, as it paradoxically presents suffering as beautiful,

pointing out possibilities for change. As he prefers the use of a strong composition respecting

the rule of thirds over an unconstructed stylistic representation, and paradoxically frames

despair and chaos with grace and beauty, Salgado rationalizes the crisis he represents. Actually,

crisis is perceived as a temporality encompassing the non-rational. As Salgado orders the chaos

of the scene, he explains the situation through his meaningful pictorial representation. In

17

contrast, depictions of crisis which do not respect rules of pictorial order and prefer ugliness as

it appears more authentic and truer, fail to make sense of the situation, accentuate the chaos

and suggest that the situation is beyond repair. Moreover, as he borrows composition to art

history, Salgado repositions the crisis for the viewer and places it within a visual imagery and

historical tradition and frame the viewer knows and understands. Through its rationalization,

the scene depicted suggests alternatives to the chaotic situation and gives hope as it perceives

a possible resolution of the chaos. In her essay, in Plato’s Cave, Sontag claims that the act of

photographing a situation is to be complicit of it, as it shows an interest in the situation and

encourages it to persist. Yet, we may argue that Salgado is not complicit as he rationalizes the

scene photographed, which expresses his refusal to accept the abject of the scene. Instead of

simply documenting and providing an historical proof of the crisis, Salgado offers a space for

a new history to be imagined. In the context of photojournalism, ethics is defined as a

responsibility of the photographer in response and towards the subject photographed.

Reflecting on the ethicality of Salgado’s photographs, curator, Jullian Stallabrass asks why

Salgado is making of human suffering a seductive image and what are the alternative

representations. As we established above, Salgado’s aestheticizing can be justified as a way to

restore the subjects’ dignity and reject the abject through the paradox of suffering and beauty

which makes the viewer consider possibilities for change. In contrary, in allegedly objective

photojournalism, the suffering and the abject are accepted and depicted as ineluctable aspects

of the world. As ethics is concerned with what is morally right and what is not, we could argue

that Salgado’s rejection of the abject through its magic realism style which alludes a hope for

a “better tomorrow” is more ethical than the acceptance of the abject in anti-aesthetic

photojournalism. But we can discern an opposition in the effects of Salgado’s photograph.

Through his concern with form and aesthetics, Salgado rationalizes the crisis and prevents the

viewer from claiming “distance or strangeness as a reason for not understanding” (Shawcross

18

and Hogson, 1987:3). However, similarly to the way that the viewer do not relate to straight

images of chaotic scenes, the viewer when confronted to Salgado’s photograph and its extreme

control of the elements of the scene and aesthetical perfection, will be distanced and feel

detached. Actually, through its aestheticizing, the image appears too static and timeless for the

viewer to feel connected to it and to understand the emergency of the situation. Its steadiness

fails to reflect the temporality of the present moment, making it appear as belonging to the

historical discourse.

In Brecht social Epic Theatre, the use of alienation effects breaks the illusion of reality of the

scene depicted so that the audience does not identify itself and is not emotionally involved with

the actions and the characters on stage. Actually, through the use of alienation effects, such as

the multi-roling of actors or a simplified and non-realistic scenic design, the audience is

reminded of the constructed nature of the scene, distanced from it and is hence able to surpass

the feeling of compassion and reflect critically on the issue depicted. Actually, according to

Ranciere, the estrangement effect allows to break the theatrical illusion of scene and the passive

optical spectatorship of the audience. Hence, contrary to the theatrical spectatorship which

separates the audience “from both the capacity to know and the power to act” (Ranciere,

2009:2), in epic theatre, the participation of the audience is heightened and a critical reflection

is made possible as a critical distance is created between the audience and the actions on stage.

Similarly to Epic theatre, the staged look of Salgado’s photograph, achieved as a result of the

strong control of the elements of the scene, notably the composition and light, alienates the

viewer from the scene depicted and counters the viewer’s emotional engagement with the

subject to allow him to reflect critically. Howbeit, even if a Brechtian reflective distance

countering the viewer’s emotional immersion and allowing him to recognizes the aesthetic

paradox is achieved, the viewer’s critical reflection is limited to a generic reflection on human

19

suffering, as the photograph does not suggest its greater context of the famine. Actually, the

scene depicted is contextualized only in the photograph’s title: “Children’s ward in the Korem

refugee Camp, Ethiopia, 1984”. The lack of simplicity and the long length of the title, prevent

us from abbreviating the photograph to a mere description and making sense of it immediately,

and force us to give attention to the specificity of the place. Yet, it fails to provide the identity

and names of the subjects, which participates in the objectification of the subject and is hence

in contradiction with Salgado’s leitmotiv to dignify and restore the humanity of his subjects.

In conclusion, we can say that the power of Salgado’s cinematic monochrome photograph

resides in its impressive beauty and grace, achieved through the perfect positioning of the

elements of the composition and the photograph’s pristine backlighting and elegant contrasts

and tonalities, which allows the photograph to successfully appeal to the viewer’s gaze.

Moreover, thanks to its aestheticizing and notably its respect of the compositional rule of thirds,

Salgado’s photograph despite not mentioning their names in its caption, successfully restore

the humanity and dignity of the mother and her child. The photograph also dignifies the

suffering mother as it follows religious art tradition of representing suffering as a spectacle and

borrows the composition of the Madonna and child. Moreover, the aestheticizing allows the

photograph to achieve a sense of uniqueness and to leave a mark in the viewer’s mind, and

provides an alternative humanist depiction of its unprivileged subjects. Actually, Salgado’s

photograph, through its aestheticizing, strongly rejects the tendency of western media to depict

unprivileged African subjects from a patronizing western perspective which is sometimes

degrading and deny their dignity and humanity. Hence, the power of Salgado’s photograph

also lies in its political character and in its ability to create a dissensus and reframe the modes

of visibility and the viewer’s perception of its suffering African subject, as it empowers the

mother and makes her more visible. Furthermore, Salgado’s photograph as it rejects the abject

20

and chaos and provides a meaningful pictorial representation of the famine, prevents the viewer

from claiming distance for not understanding.

However, as argued by Sischy and Sontag, the beauty of Salgado’s aestheticized photograph,

absorbs the viewer in a passive contemplation and raises his aesthetic sensibility but prevents

him from seeing the reality beneath the aesthetic façade, which fails to raise his consciousness

on the famine and to communicate the urgency of the situation. Moreover, even as it effectively

creates a Brechtian distance which counters the viewer’s emotional engagement with the

suffering subject and allows him to recognize the aesthetic paradox of the framing of suffering

as beauty, the photograph fails to provoke the viewer’s critical reflection as it does not suggest

its wider context of the famine. Also, as Salgado’s photograph records little of the scene to

achieved a strong composition, it fails to provide a visual proof of the specificity of the crisis

it depicts. This universal resonance and family of man rhetoric of Salgado’s photograph fails

to elicit an active response from the viewer as it makes the viewer’s compassion abstract and

creates his sentiment of powerlessness to take actions as the scale of the suffering is too

extreme. Furthermore, the strong aestheticizing which results in the photograph’s staged look,

alienates the viewer and makes him feel disconnected as the photograph is inauthentic, exalts

reality and fails to reflect the temporality of the present moment.

Hence, through his visual strategy of aestheticizing, Salgado creates an unpalatably beautiful

photograph of the mother and her child, which successfully restores a certain equality as it

humanizes its suffering subjects. Yet, the aestheticizing is unabashedly manipulative as the

beauty achieved, captivates the viewer’s sight and nourishes his interest for the abject, leading

to his passive voyeuristic spectatorship of the suffering of others.  

 

21

List of Illustrations

Figure 1. Salgado, S. Children’s ward in the Korem refugee, Ethiopia (1984) [photograph]

At: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/347903139944601393/ (Accessed on 10.01.2017)

Figure 2. Lange, D. Migrant Mother (1936) [photograph] At: https://www.moma.org/

collection/works/50989 (Accessed on 10.01.2017)

Figure 3. Madonna Litta (1490). [photograph] At:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_Litta#/media/File:Leonardo_da_Vinci_attributed_-

_Madonna_Litta.jpg (Accessed on 10.11.2017)

Figure 4. Children’s ward in the Korem refugee Camp. Ethiopia (1984) splitting according to

the rule of thirds [photograph] At: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/347903139944601393/

(Accessed on 10.01.2017)

Bibliography

Barthes, R. (2000) ‘Time as Punctum’. In Camera Lucida, London: Vintage. pp.94-97

Burgin, Victor. (1997) ‘Art, Common Sense and Photography’ In: Evans, J. and Hunt, B. The

Camerawork essays. Rivers Oram. pp. 74-85

22

Campbell, D. (2003). ‘Documentary photography and the imaging of famine’ In: Debrix, F.

and Weber, C. Rituals of Mediation : International Politics and Social Meaning. University of

Minnesota Press, 2003. ProQuest Ebook Central,

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucreative-ebooks/detail.action?docID=310631 pp. 69-

96

Campbell, D., Clark, D.J. and Manzo, K. (2005) ‘Imaging Famine”. London: the Newsroom,

the Guardian and the Observer archive and visitor center

Chevrier, J.F. (2000) 'Salgado, ou l’exploitation de la compassion’ [online] At:

https://ygiraud.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/texte-chevrier-salgado.pdf (Accessed on

12.01.18)

Debord, G. (1995) ‘The society of the spectacle’. New York : Zone Books.

Fried, M (1967) ‘Art and Objecthood’ At:

http://atc.berkeley.edu/201/readings/FriedObjcthd.pdf (Accessed on 10.01.2017)

Galeano, E. (1990) ‘Salgado, 17 Times’ In: Salgado, Sebastião. An Uncertain Grace. London

: Thames and Hudson. pp. 7-15

Harris, M.E. (1998) ‘Faces of the Twentieth Century’. New York: Abbeville Press

Kimmelman, M. (13.07.2001) ‘Can suffering be too beautiful’ In: The New York Times,

Photography Review

Levi Strauss, D. (1999) ‘Can You Hear Me?: Re-Imagining Audience Under the

Pandaemonium’ In:Levi-Strauss, D. Between the eyes : essays on photography and politics.

Aperture. pp. 156-64

23

Levi-Strauss, D. (1991) ‘Epiphany of the Other’ In: Artforum International. 29 (6) pp. 96-99

Levi-Strauss, D. (2005) ‘THE DOCUMENTARY DEBATE: AESTHETIC OR

ANAESTHETIC’ In: Strauss, D.L. Between the eyes : essays on photography and politics.

Aperture. pp. 3-11

Olin, M. (1996) ‘Gaze’ In: Nelson, R.S. and Shiff, R. Critical terms for art history. University

of Chicago Press. pp. 208-219

Parvati, N. (2011) ‘A different Light: The Photography of Sebastiao Salgado’. Durham and

London: Duke University Press.

Ranciere, J. (2009) ‘The emancipated spectator’. London : Verso.

Ranciere, J. (2009) “The Paradoxes of Political Art” from Ranciere, J., Dissensus: on politics

and aesthetics pp. 134-151, London: Continuum

Ranciere, J. (2006) ‘The politics of aesthetics’. London : Continuum.

Ritchin, F. (1990) 'The Lyric Documentarian' In: Salgado, S. An Uncertain Grace. London :

Thames and Hudson. pp. 141-153

Schonauer, D. (1990) ‘The Sight of Despair’ In: American Photographer 1(1) p. 45

Shawcross, W. and Hodgson, F. (1987) ‘Sebastião Salgado’ In: Man in Distress. Aperture,

108, pp. 2-31

Sischy, I. (1991) ‘Good Intentions’ In: The New Yorker, quoted In Levi Strauss, D.

(2003) "The Documentary Debate: Aesthetic or Anaesthetic?" In: Levi-Strauss, D. (2003).

Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics. New York: Aperture. p.5

24

Sontag, S. (2002) ‘In Plato’s Cave’ In: Sontag, S. On photography. London : Penguin. pp. 3-

24.

Sontag, S. (2003) ‘Regarding the Pain of Others’. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Sontag, S. (2002) ‘The Image-World’ In: Sontag, S. On photography. London : Penguin. pp.

153-180

Stallabrass, J. (1997) ‘Sebastião Salgado and Fine Art Journalism’ In: New Left Review

(223) pp. 143-44

Stallabrass, J. (2011) ‘Sebastião Salgado or Documentary Beauty’. The Sundaram Tagore

gallery

Tagg, John. (1997) ‘The World of Photograph or Photography of the World?’ In: Evans, J.

and Hunt, B. The Camerawork essays. Rivers Oram. pp. 64-73

The salt of the earth. (2015) Directed by Wenders Wim [DVD] U.K. : Artificial Eye.

Walker Benjamin (1970) ‘The author as producer’ In: Burgin, V. (1982) Thinking

Photography. London: Macmillan. p. 24.