From the Exhibition Catalogue

Now that I have since bought the exhibition catalogue for the Beat Memories exhibit, I have photos!  It is great to not have to go searching on the internet for compromised quality photos.  The photo accompanying the blog title is perhaps one of my favorites of Ginsberg’s.  Unfortunately I’m not sure how, or if, I’ll even be using it in my thesis, but it is a truly wonderful image.  The contrast between darks and lights, the composition, the moment of suspension, the gaze if all really beautiful.

I am including other photographs that I have a certain affinity for.  More to come, but just for you to have a sense of Ginsberg's work.

Title Change

I have finally found a more suitable title for this project!  Everything about this thesis has felt hap-hazard in its process, but now that the quarter is finally nearing its end, I will be able think seriously about my thesis and devote more time to it.  It also helps having to write a paper for my Perspective class as a spring-board.  Work between my Perspective class as well as my Professional Practices class has allowed for a sliver of contemplation. 

"Behind the Lens" was a suggestion from a professor as a title, when I presented my research thus far.  Though I like that it is immediate and effective, it does not account for Ginsberg's poetry, but seems to limit the reader's idea of the paper strictly to his photography. While working on the "spring board" paper I found the words, "Elusive Exposure," which I really like. My thesis is dealing with the sense of loneliness and alienation from these photographs and Ginsberg's process of coming to terms with his identity. The process appears "elusive" at times with his multiple portraits in which he uses reflection and double reflection. In the end, he is trying to "expose" himself by unveiling who he is, how he can understand himself. The duality of the word also lends to his nude self portraits.

So as of now, the working title for the thesis, as well as this blog, is "Elusive Exposure: The Photography and Poetry of Allen Ginsberg (an Undergraduate Thesis)" It is lengthy, but the parenthetical also further clarifies my intent for keeping up with the blog and make use of it in regards to my senior thesis. In the end, I hope this blog will act as, at the very least, a conglomeration of information in regards to Ginsberg, a well for people to delve into for information on him. Of course, there is so much information out there on Ginsberg, what with his extensive attempts to preserve his memory and the work of his biographer, Bill Morgan, but i hope that this will provide a condensed version and incorporates his photographs in a new way, in the way that Sarah Greenough (senior curator of photography at the National Gallery, D.C.) accomplished in her exhibit Beat Memories.

The title "Internal Hammers" was the initial title that just didn't go along with the thesis in any real way. It is a term as well as an idea I created in my poetry, and therefore I am switching it to my second blog, which will cater to my own creative work: my poetry, visual art as well others in my exploration and experimentation with the written word and visual art, how they respond to one another -- a conversation, so to speak, between the literary and the visual.

Coming Soon!  More Ginsberg photographs from the exhibition catalogue...

Looking at the Photos: Informal Formal Analysis

Finally my first real entry in regards to the thesis and its process, since I’ve actually begun. I am only three weeks deep into the fall term and I am already overwhelmed with a maximum amount of classes and this paper looming over me.

I have begun my research very basically: I have acquired the exhibition catalogue of Ginsberg’s photos from the National Gallery’s exhibit (which has quickly become my Bible) and have been leafing through photos and admiring them. I am trying to rack my brain for intelligent questions, for insights to the photos based from what I already know. I do believe this is what my professional practices class would call “formal analysis.” I will try to keep my thoughts organized, although they feel a little haphazard now, as well as provide some cleverer observations in this entry besides that a photo of a young sleeping Peter Orlovsky is “beautiful” even though that’s the note I put beside the picture.

*****

The first photo I came upon that I jotted some thoughts down about was a photo of the ever energetic character of Neal Cassady. Unlike many of the photos included in this exhibit, the photo is without an inscription. I suppose this leaves it open for further interpretation.

Neal Cassady (NC) is at the wheel, chatting with a female whose face we do not see (I don’t know who) – perhaps a soon-to-be lover, or a flame that has already been burning. The light shines down over him from the front of the car. Ginsberg snaps the shot from the back seat, so there is a certain idea of control that comes to mind from the perspective this shot is taken. The viewer is being taken for a ride (to use a cliché), playing a passive role. This seems fitting for the character of Cassady, because he was constantly on the move.

Jack Kerouac’s character Dean Moriarty from On the Road is based off of NC, and from Professor Kenneth Brandt’s class last winter, I learned how frenetic a man he was. The first entry of this blog, “Cold at Midnight” is a short story I wrote, the main character I based loosely off of NC, myself. He was a man whose aura or persona was enticing and captivating to his peers back at that time, and even carried through to today. I wrote:

Constantly pacing from coast to coast in some borrowed convertible and returning it dented on the door with a couple thousand miles added to the odometer and an engine beat down and sputtering and smoking. His feet seemed to take him before his quick-paced speech could keep up – they seemed to be keeping time with some jazz improvisation that no one else heard. He flitted all over bars and parties and cities and jails, speaking of philosophies of the moment, inspiring the men and impressing the women.

The bright light, shining into the car, washes out any visuals outside. As the viewer, we have little knowledge or context as to where we are or where we are going. This also lends itself to the idea of control in the photo. This almost “celestial” light exudes the notion that we could be anywhere, even floating. The same brilliant light silhouettes the contours of NC’s face, and nearly washes out his arm propped on the top of the steering wheel. This also contributes to an ethereal quality to the piece. But there is also a feeling of being closed off from the outside. The photo includes the back of the seat, the ceiling of the car in the composition and it encapsulates NC and his lady friend within its confines. For many of the people associated with the Beat writers, I often find myself contemplating the psychological underpinning that might be involved. For me this photo holds certain ideas about control, with a certain heavenly effect. This leads me to wondering about NC’s lifestyle and how much control he felt he had over his own life. Did he know where he was going? Did he know what was outside the car? Did he feel trapped inside the confines of the car, within the light?

Most of the photos Ginsberg took in his youth were said to be snapshots of his friends, something casual and not labored over, in terms of artistic ambition (for lack of a better word) or thought about or staged. I can’t help but wonder though, how conscious Ginsberg was of the photos, compositionally, in terms of lighting, and cropping. Was he aware of the aesthetic he was creating?

There is a spontaneous quality to the photo, something that is carried though many photos in the catalogue. This, too, is an aspect that appears in the writing of Ginsberg (a possible link between the two mediums to develop further) and the lifestyle or ideals these writers were pursuing or incorporating into their lives. This is certainly a trait of NC – he was the very essence of impulse and perhaps provided the notion, the inspiration to Ginsberg and Kerouac and others.

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Perhaps one of the more fascinating aspects of the photo collection is the pictures of William S. Burroughs. At a time (1953 that fall), while Ginsberg was still in New York (perhaps still studying at Columbia) the two were lovers. This image is the first when walking through the exhibit that we see WB as a vulnerable, intimate part of AG’s life. He is undressed (except for underwear), sprawled across the bed, creating this horizontal, gradually sloping up across the picture plane; it creates a quiet sense to the piece. Line appears to have a strong presence in a number of Ginsberg’s photos. It is a prominent part of this photo in particular. Everything from the bedding to the wallpaper encloses the subject matter within these lines traveling along the photo. We see the “softer” side of WB through Ginsberg’s use of softer values – contrast between lights and darks aren’t quite so intense (as say the photo of WB in the chair on pg. 41). Also the gaze of WB is out of focus, his facial features softened, even though the viewer can still see him peering from the corner of his eye into the camera. His face also travels back into the space of the composition, further away from the viewer setting the photo at a less confrontational feel. Vulnerability and intimacy are the qualities of this photo. The inscription underneath he photo describes Allen Ginsberg coming home from work and staying up in the wee hours of the morning talking with Burroughs: “…am still hung up in a great psychic marriage with [Burroughs] for the month…” he wrote to Neal Cassady. Though I think it may be hard to approach this paper from the more personal aspects of the photos, it is what strikes me about them most. How Ginsberg depicts his peers and friends and loved ones through photography and poetry is fascinating from the glimpses I’ve gotten.

WB spent a great deal of time at Ginsberg’s place in ’53 after traveling. I have not read or found how the relationship ended, how casual or serious it might have been, or what their general states of mind were at its end, but they parted ways. Ginsberg traveled in South America and wound up in San Francisco where not long after he meets Peter Orlovsky who becomes his life partner. While flipping through the Collected Poems of Ginsberg, I came across a poem in regards to Burroughs and the accidental killing of his wife: “Dream Record: June 8, 1955.” It opens: (perhaps should include entire poem) “A drunken night in my house with a boy, San Francisco: I lay asleep: darkness….I went back to Mexico City and saw Joan Burroughs (WB’s former wife)…We talked of the life since then. Well what’s Burroughs doing now? Bill on earth, he’s in North Africa…” For me this added new complexity to the relationship between AG and WB, as well as the individual Burroughs, and also the photos Ginsberg takes of Burroughs. Is it cliché and too predictable to consider a psychoanalytic approach to this paper? I could focus on the relationship between these two particular writers and even possibly delve into queer theory. Of course, these are things I know hardly anything on, and I’m basing it off of a single poem and a few photos. But I don’t want to exclude any possibility. The poem makes me wonder why Ginsberg dreamt about Burroughs, particularly in terms of Joan his wife? Was Joan really asking about William or was Ginsberg missing him? Thinking of him? Was it a glimmer of regret or Sehnsucht (because I can’t think of the word in English)? And that boy he found himself next – could that have been Peter Orlovsky? Ginsberg found himself in a new place, San Francisco, trying to place himself, about to have his famous reading of “Howl” and gain notoriety.

As I had mentioned previously other portraits of Burroughs have a darker intensity about them. Does this correlate to how their relationship was? “William S. Burroughs looking serious, sad lover’s eyes, afternoon light in window….” reads the inscription underneath the photo. Ginsberg also mentions the recently published “Junkie” by Burroughs is looming over Burroughs’s right shoulder in the shadows. This also adds a new level to the idea of spontaneity, maybe contradicting it. Was it planned to prop the book in the background? It seems too convenient to have happened so effortlessly.

The idea of junk was prevalent in Burroughs’s writings (Naked Lunch comes to mind). WB connected to the concept of something being injected into us, affecting, even altering us, be it from a drug in the literal sense, to the influence of political and societal pressures from the world, seeping under the skin. Also being addicted to morphine, the book with its appropriate title seems to loom over him like a storm cloud. Could it also stand for the writing itself looming around him? Ginsberg and Burroughs worked together on a number of manuscripts, AG helping to edit WB’s work. Was this the main link to their friendship/ relationship? Was there something else linking the two of them (besides the probable physical attraction)?

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The last photo I noted on was a portrait of Ginsberg, taken by Burroughs (perhaps another interesting aspect of the potential WB/AG angle). There is something sweet about this photo. It could be my hindsight bias (if that’s the right term). He’s young, happy in this moment, optimistic, idealistic. We can see him on the brink of his upcoming travels, fame and eventful future. Endearing we see this photo, the drastic light falling over the folds of his shirt and reflecting off his glasses, his posture leaning forward, his toothy grin – all these features lend to a certain energy, a building of certain potential energy, anticipation. There is excitement in this photo.