Composing Dwarfism: Reframing Short Stature in Contemporary Photography

Main Article Content

Amanda Cachia

Keywords

art history, Ricardo Gil, Laura Swanson

Abstract

This paper will explore the work of two contemporary dwarf photographers, Ricardo Gil and Laura Swanson, who use different conceptual and technical methods to re-frame the figure of the dwarf subject. The dwarf has often been a marginalized subject in the history of photography, so I am interested in exploring how the strategies that Gil and Swanson employ might resist reductive meanings, and offer alternative readings to the dwarf beyond the oppositional gaze. The articulation of these methods will be prefaced by a focused discussion of dwarf depictions in the history of photography based on the intentions of the photographer, so that the work of several photographers might be powerfully juxtaposed with the radical counter-strategies that Gil and Swanson utilize. 

Figure 1 and 2:

        

Figure 3 and 4:

        

 

Figure 5 and 6:

      

 

Figure 7 and 8:

     

 

Figure 9 and 10:

         

 

Figure 11 and 12:

              

 

Figure 13 and 14:

         

 

Figure 15 and 16:

                

 

Figure 17 and 18:

            

Image Credits

Figure 1: George Dureau, Short Sonny, ca. 1970, photograph courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery

Figure 2: George Dureau, Ricardo Gil, ca. 1970, photograph courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery

Figure 3: Ricardo Gil and George Dureau, 2012, photograph courtesy of Jason Kruppa

Figure 4: Arthur Fellig (Weegee), Drinking In Style, 1943: Shorty, the “Bowery Cherub”

celebrates New Year's Eve at Sammy's Bar, in the Bowery district of New York.

© Weegee (Arthur Fellig)/International Center of Photography /Getty Images

Figure 5: Mary Ellen Mark, Twin Brothers Tulsi and Basant (Great Famous Circus, Calcutta, India), 1989, photograph courtesy of the artist

Figure 6: Bruce Davidson, The Dwarf, 1958, photograph courtesy of Magnum Photos, New York

Figure 7: Ricardo Gil, Walking Man and Mannequins, c. 1996, photograph courtesy the artist

Figures 8 & 9: David’s Kitchen, 1997, and Ricardo Gil, Charles, Eric and Meg, 1999, photographs courtesy of the artist

Figures 10 & 11: Garry Winogrand, New York, ca. 1968 and American Legion Convention, Dallas, Texas, 1964

© The Estate of Garry Winogrand, photographs courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Figures 12 & 13: Kevin Michael Connolly, Girl; London, England, 2007, and Man; Reykjavik, Iceland, 2007, photographs courtesy of the artist

Figures 14 – 17: Laura Swanson, Anti-Self Portraits, 2005-2008, photographs courtesy the artist

Figure 18: Joel-Peter Witkin, Dwarf From Naples, Rome, 2006 © Joel-Peter Witkin / photograph courtesy Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago

 

 

 

Abstract 969 | Word Downloads 123 PDF Downloads 185 Text Downloads 145 Figure 1: Short Sonny Downloads 0 Figure 2: Ricardo Gil Downloads 0 Figure 3: Ricardo Gil and George Dureau Downloads 0 Figure 4: Drinking In Style Downloads 0 Figure 5: Twin Brothers Tulsi and Basant Downloads 0 Figure 6: The Dwarf Downloads 0 Figure 7: Walking Man and Mannequins Downloads 0 Figure 8: David’s Kitchen Downloads 0 Figure 9: Ricardo Gil, Charles, Eric and Meg Downloads 0 Figure 12: Girl; London, England Downloads 0 Figure 13: Man; Reykjavik, Iceland Downloads 0 Figure 18: Dwarf From Naples, Rome Downloads 0 Figure 11: American Legion Convention, Dallas, Texas Downloads 0 Figure 10: New York Downloads 0 Figure 14: Anti-Self Portraits Downloads 0 Figure 15: Anti-Self Portraits Downloads 0 Figure 16: Anti-Self Portraits Downloads 0 Figure 17: Anti-Self Portraits Downloads 0

References

Adelson, B. (2005). Art. The Lives of dwarfs: Their journey from public curiosity toward social liberation. New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press.

Arbus, D. (2012). Diane Arbus: An Aperture monograph. New York: Aperture Foundation Books.

Arbus, D. (1995). Diane Arbus: untitled. New York: Aperture Foundation.

Berger, J. and J. Mohr. (1982). Another way of telling. New York: Pantheon Books.

Bogdan, R. (1988). Freak show: Presenting human oddities for amusement and profit. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Bonner, T. (2013, September 10). Mellon Creative Resident Interview: Laura Swanson [Web log content]. Retrieved from http://blogs.haverford.edu/mellon/2013/09/10/lauraswanson/

Esteban Muñoz, J. (1999). Disidentifications: Queers of color and the performance of politics. Minnesota, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Garland-Thomson, R. (2002). The Politics of staring: Visual rhetorics of disability in popular photography. S.L. Snyder, B. J. Brueggemann, R. Garland-Thomson (Eds.). Disability studies: Enabling the humanities (56-75). New York: The Modern Language Association of America.

Garland-Thomson, R. (2009). Staring: How we look. New York: Oxford University Press.

Gil, R. (2013). Interview with the author, December 11.

Grosz, E. (1996). Intolerable ambiguity: Freaks as/at the limit. R. Garland- Thomson (Ed.). Freakery: Cultural spectacles of the extraordinary body (55-66). New York and London: New York University Press.

Hevey, D. (2010). The Enfreakment of Photography. L. J. Davis (Ed.). The Disability Studies Reader (507-521). New York and London: Routledge. Third Edition.

hooks, b. (1992). The Oppositional gaze: Black female spectators. Black looks: Race and representation. Boston: South End Press,

Inouye, K. (2013). Selfless at Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art, San Francisco, SFAQ International Arts and Culture, http://www.sfaqonline.com/2013/06/selfless-at-mark-wolfe-contemporary-art-san-francisco/. Accessed November 18.

La Grange, A. (2005). Basic critical theory for photographers. New York: Focal Press.

Millett-Gallant, A. (2010). The disabled body in contemporary art. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Millett-Gallant, A. (2008). Staring back and forth: The photographs of Kevin Connolly.Disability Studies Quarterly, 28 (3), http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/124/124.

Newbury, D. (1996). Reconstructing the self: Photography, education and disability. Disability & Society, 11 (3), 349-360.

Nochlin, L. (1989). The imaginary orient. The politics of vision: Essays on nineteenth-century art and society. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.

Solomon-Godeau, A. (1994). Inside/out. Public information: Desire, disaster, document. San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 88-101.

Swanson, L. (2013). Mellon creative resident interview: Laura Swanson. http://blogs.haverford.edu/mellon/2013/09/10/lauraswanson/
Accessed November 18.

Tagg, J. (1993). The burden of representation: Essays on photographies and histories. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.