Clear Liquid Thought: The Photographs of Jim Dine Essay -- Photography

Clear Liquid Thought The Photographs of Jim DineThe camera sees even beyond the visual consciousness.--Ralph Eugene MeatyardArgument The photographic UnconsciousIn his expression Photographie avant analyse1 photography critic Franois Soulages discussesthe reciprocal influence between photography (as an emerging technology in the 19thcentury) and the study of the unconscious (prior to the invention of psychoanalysis). To whatextent, he asks, did a new technology such as photography enlighten, modify, or enrich theunderstanding of the unconscious? And, conversely, how did what he calls the hypothesis of theunconscious allow for a better understanding of a new technology? These questions, inherent inthe beginnings of photography and essentially linked to its share in the comprehension of thevisible and the invisible body, have gained considerable importance today.The photographic works I will discuss here participate in our understanding of theunconscious in a paradoxical way, since they do non imply disclosing images of the artistsunconscious specifically encoded into symbolic meaning. On the contrary, my concern is withthese works potential to stick visual equivalents of inner life perceptions in a variety ofpuzzling formal patterns whose disclosure of meaning is cunningly deferred. The photographiccompositions of Jim Dine are not narratives of inner life, but forms of visual experience thatinform our ways of thinking the unconscious.------------------------------------1 Franois Soulages, Photographie avant analyse, Photographie et inconscient (31-35). In this study,Soulage primarily deals with the beginnings of photography and with its paradoxical uses in psychopathology... ...rundberg, Andy. Now, the Cameras Eye Turns Inward, in The New York Times, May 28.1989.Hamon, Philippe. Imageries.Littrature et image au XIXe sicle. Paris Jos Corti, 2001.------------------------------------19 The phrase used in the title of this article is coined after the title of one of Dines black-and-whitephotogravure prints, Clear Liquid Talking, 1996.Krauss, Rosalind.The Optical Unconscious. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press, 1993.Meatyard, Ralph Eugene. Caught Moments -- New Viewpoints. Exhibition catalogue. LondonOlympus Gallery, 1983.Powers, Richard. Three Framers on Their bureau to a Dance. New York W. Morrow, 1985.Sibony, Daniel. Une technique de linstant ou la machine clicher, La Recherchephotographique 7 (1990)Soulages, Franois. Photographie avant analyse, Photographie et inconscient, Soulages ed.Paris Osiris, 1986.