Controversies

Until 20 June visitors can explore the history of photography and the stories surrounding it at an exhibition entitled “Controversies – The Law, Ethics and Photography” at Kunst Haus Wien.

Then and now

As the title suggests, the exhibition focuses on controversies: what kind of pictures gave rise to discussion, when and why. “Our research extended from the beginnings of photography to the present day,” says Daniel Girardin, curator together with Christian Pirker of the exhibition, which was developed by the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne. It was prompted by the observation that there have been an increasing number of court cases in recent years connected with photography, which in many instances evolved into or were preceded by public controversies.




Many of the controversies were also topical in some way a hundred years ago, say the curators. Others are no longer relevant because public awareness has changed. One picture that would be less likely to appear in the media today, for example, is a photograph of the dying Bismarck. Two reporters entered his house in 1898 to take it. The subsequent court case brought by Bismarck’s family provided the basis in Germany for legislation protecting privacy.

Child labour, death and pornography

According to Andreas Hirsch, co-curator of the exhibition at Kunst Haus Wien, photography can serve many purposes, ranging from manipulation and propaganda to artistic provocation and the visualisation of social injustices. An example of the latter are the pictures of Lewis Hine, whose photographs of children working in the cotton fields in the early twentieth century drew public attention to this scandalous state of affairs. On the other hand there is the question of the journalistic ethics of photographing suffering or dying people. This subject is something of a leitmotif within the exhibition. Perhaps the most tragic example of this quandary is the suicide of Pulitzer Prize winner Kevin Carter, who had photographed a starving child with a vulture lurking in the background.




A recurrent theme in the exhibition is the question of children in possibly obscene poses, ranging from a photograph of Alice Liddell by Lewis Carroll to one of Eva Ionesco, daughter of the photographer Irina Ionesco, and Garry Gross’s nude photograph of Brooke Shields. There are no pornographic photographs of women in the exhibition. This issue is touched on only in one photograph by Steven Dahl for Yves Saint Laurent, which addresses the question of porno-chic. An omission that is unfortunately encountered all too often. All in all, however, the exhibition is well worth visiting. Visitors under fourteen years of age are not admitted. The Kunst Haus also advises people who are very sensitive to stay away since “some of the photographs in this exhibition may be thought shocking,” as it says on the website.