How contemporary fine art photography and photography as a

study has kept theatrical Tableau Vivant’s threshold in its

institutional space

In this essay I want to discuss the notion of Tableau Vivant and define its

different meanings. I will define Tableau Vivant as a threshold and its

materialized form and In addition covering its initial origins from live theatre

performances in auditoriums. I will also cover Tableau’s Influence towards

traditional painting and contemporary fine art photography. “What if we were

to consider the tableau not as an object, but as a threshold?” (Newman 2008).

This quotation establishes a main discussion point, which outlines an

understanding towards the presence and meaning behind theatre and works

of art influenced by Tableau; that of its occupational space as a beholder

within an institution. To what I am proposing that theatrical Tableau as a

threshold is always present in the institution. Another key discussion towards

this is the effect of scale as an ideology.

It is important to establish what Tableau means in conjunction with theatre

and art. Its definition states, a group of people / actors arranged to represent

scenes that are silent and motionless (Oxford 2013). Derived from theatre, in

every form of Tableau “there is indeed an ideal meaning, but there is no end

meaning” (Barthes 1977: 72). This motionless, unified moment serves as a

purpose for critique to the beholder upon the performers.

To analyze the theatre auditorium it is important to understand the spatial

relationship between the stage and beholder. As we inherit the beholder’s

perspective, the space occupied by the stage is transformed as a flat frontal

plain, which inhabits clear borders in viewing and observation (Chevrier

2008). Denis Diderot (18th century art critic) states that this observation is

“faithfully rendered by the painter, which would please the canvas” (Diderot in

Fried 2008). This quote suggests a movement towards a physical recording of

the tableau; the physical “recording” places the tableau in the form of an

object.

This physical recording comes from the “decisive moment” (also known as

pregnant moment) (Burgin 1986: 115). This decision is felt in the live

encounter of the play and the beholder experiences an aura from within to

determine the decisive moment, which places the tableau as a threshold.

Burgin’s “decisive moment” is also present in the work of photographer James

Coleman. His work particularly looks at vantage points in which the

performer’s perspective or the

beholder’s perspective is

viewed. The photographic work

in discussion here is titled Living

Presumed Dead [Figure 1]. It

comprises of photographic stills,

which are incorporated within a

slide projection. These

photographic stills replicate the

ideology from theatre of the

ontology of the rectangular

frame. Critically the photograph corresponds with the beholder’s perspective

in the live institutional viewing experience of a theatrical Tableau. The multiple

slides slowly show different tableaus being performed with an audio narrative

tape being played in conjunction. Art historian Buchloh comments “Coleman’s

work deliberately situates itself in the discursive and institutional frameworks

of visual culture” (Buchloh 2003: 106). Coleman here has purposefully

incorporated many aspects we experience within the live viewing of a

performance into a contemporary exhibited installation piece.

This installation is built as a makeshift institutional space that projects the

slideshow in a darkened room that resembles a theatre auditorium. The

projection imitates a concept theorized by Diderot of the invisible “fourth wall”

derived from theatre; the fourth wall being where the audience is sitting

(Brecht in Fisher in Baker 2003: 19). Is it the case then that Coleman has

established a successful live rendition of a Tableau theatrically, or can it only

exist as a reproduction to that Tableau photographically? Both options seem

plausible. The important issue is that Coleman is transferring the beholder’s

[Figure 1] James Coleman, Living Presumed Dead. 1983-1985

perspective of theatre into a different occupational, institutional space; that of

the contemporary gallery space. As this invisible “fourth wall” has now been

placed on an actual wall, it has successfully rendered the threshold of the

theatrical tableau in a materialized photographic form.

In traditional paintings of the 19th century, Tableau took form in dramatizing

that singular “decisive moment” and materializing it onto a canvas. A visible

frame to that of the theatrical invisible frame is now present. This visible frame

derived from the “fourth wall” thus acts as the paintings canvass, therefore

framed and is compacted to inherit the theatrical Tableau.

This framing can be found in the series of photographic work created by

Thomas Struth entitled Museum

Photographs. [Figure 2] entitled

Louvre 4 is a photograph taken

inside the Louvre museum, which

depicts the act of viewing. The

painting in view is titled The Raft of

the Medusa painted by Theodore

Gericault. It is inspired by tableau

as it sets a scene that is motionless

and that does not interact with the

spectator.

Art critic Michael Fried talks about this work extensively and suggests there is

“a dialogue between two media – painting and photography” (Fried 2008:

127). The dialogue he refers to is the reappearance of the auditorium and the

Tableau’s threshold emerges. The observer’s of the photograph sit outside of

the conventions of the museum; in an Ivory Tower as it were. It is thus that the

awareness of the institutional space is depicted as the spectators are

occupying it, viewing the painting. As a result the painting in the picture is a

representation of the stage. Fried states, “Every gaze out of the picture is

directed toward a distant signal of rescue” (Fried 2008: 117). This form of

gaze directed away from the spectator is identical to the ethos held by stage

[Figure 2] Thomas Struth, Louvre 4. 1989

performers in Tableau. The frame then is a “kind of naïve dam protecting the

picture from the world’s impact” (Borowski 1966: 47). This impact implies a

meeting of the figurative gaze, which cannot form, as the tableau would not

exist.

Therefore the space outside the frame is a representation of the audience.

Struth’s photographs attempts to bring back a certain aura and threshold from

the tableau to the observer; outside of the theatre auditorium and into the

museum. However in Louvre 4 the observer’s are not part of this threshold,

they only see it happening. Struth’s series Museum Photographs essentially

acts as a photographic study towards an evidential realization of the tableau

as a threshold existing in the museum.

The paintings in Struth’s Museum photographs are large scaled and this is

made aware by the spectator’s presence. The scale thus is crucial to the

tableau as it is imitating the large “fourth wall” derived from theatre.

Contemporary photographs presented as a tableau appropriate this large

scale. Is therefore size “elevating the photographic image to the place and

rank of painting?” (Chevrier in Finch 2013: 4). In correlation is photography

then setting an ideology in scale to replicate theatrical Tableau? In its

contemporary use yes; the camera’s viewfinder, is the theatrical “fourth wall”

embodied. Photography is

said to also hold the tableau

as a materialized object, but

this as Jeff Wall states is

“comfortably rooted in the

pictorial tradition of modern

art” (Wall 1995: 32).

Jeff Wall’s photographic

work has his own theories

on the Tableau. Most of his

work originates from

literature, which could

compare to narratives or scripts found in theatre. [Figure 3] entitled Invisible

[Figure 3] Jeff Wall, After “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, the prologue. 1999 -

2001

Man (shortened) bases the photograph on a concept all around the notion of

absorption and that to the theatrical tableau. Michael Fried’s Absorption and

theatricality book mentions the “Primacy of considerations of absorption”

(Fried 1980: 15). In this quotation Fried refers to a painting, but also applies

profoundly to Wall’s Invisible man. The figure in shot corresponds to a

character from Ralph Ellison’s novel. The character presented reveals “the

invisible man’s quiet absorption in his simple tasks” (Fried 2008: 46). This

absorption withdraws the character to the beholder and does not attempt to

acknowledge the camera; much like the theatre performer. The passage of

text Wall’s photograph is based on, describes a high amount of detail within

the scene. Wall then takes it upon himself to construct a scene that mimics its

literary vision. Therefore this action of construction can be seen as cinematic,

which in cinema’s essence is theatrical.

Photographic work institutionalized forms theatrical Tableau’s threshold. Jean-

Francois Chevrier claims that photographic work made for the wall are termed

as tableau form. He states the work must summon “a confrontation

experience on the part of the spectator” (Chevrier [1989] in Fried 2008: 143).

Scale thus provides this, as the beholder must step back to view the whole

photograph. [Figure 4] shows this scale in its Gallery institution (archival

image). The Invisible man when

exhibited reaches measurements

of 174 x 250.5 cm framed in a

transparent light box. The choice of

large scaling the photograph

places Wall’s (“Tableau form”) work

into the gallery space in which it

adopts its place for its single

purpose as fine art inside the

institution. Fine art placed in museums and or galleries function as a place of

preservation (Buren 1978: 189) as an original copy. As [figure 4] shows this

contemporary gallery space still obtains the threshold of Tableau originated

from the theatre auditorium. Wall’s photograph gains the tableau as a

materialized form but because its sole purpose is that for the wall, as Wall

[Figure 4] Jeff Wall. Exhibition. 2011

puts it “Transforms the established photography as an institutionalized

modernist form” (Wall 1995: 32). Therefore the threshold of Tableau can

never escape outside the institution.

From the stage to museums to galleries, Tableau Vivant’s threshold on art

has always emerged, but only concealed in its institution. Tableau as a

material fine art form has left the constraints of institute, but only in showing

others through reproduction that tableau’s aura remains institutionalized.

© Simeon Meinema

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LEMAN-LIVINGANDPR-1983-3_1.jpg.

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http://www.art-magazin.de/blog/wp-

content/uploads/2011/05/20110526_L1300959-452x339.jpg