Publication:Dan!Holdsworth!(Photoworks!Monographphotoworks_monograph)… · photographic* work* of* the* last* ten years.* In Holdsworth’s* photographs,* the* intertwining* of*

Publication:  Dan  Holdsworth  (Photoworks  Monograph)                                                                              Date:  2005  ____________________________________________________________________    David  Chandler,  'Dan  Holdsworth'  in  Dan  Holdsworth  (Photoworks  Monograph),  2005,  Steidl/Photoworks,  Göttingen      In  describing  the  freeways  of  Los  Angeles  as  its  “grandest  and  most  exciting  artefacts”  the  writer  Jan  Morris  has  suggested  that  the  roads,rather  than   invoking  an   image  of  urban  chaos,  are  the  key  to  the  architectural   logic  of  the  city.  Not  only  this,  the  generally  elevated   freeways  help   to   “locate”   the   city,  opening  up   its  position   for  drivers   in   relation   to   the   surrounding  mountains  and   the  ocean,  so  much  so  that  the  roads  allow  the  city  to  unfold  as  part  of  that  geography.  Morris  talks  of  mastering  the  freeway’s  “tribal  or   ritual   forms”   she   describes   them   in   organic,   animal   terms,   as   “snaky,   sinuous”   “like   so   many   concrete   tentacles,   winding  themselves   around   each   block”   “burrowing,   evading,   clambering,   clasping   every   corner   of   the   metropolis”.1   From   Morris’s  persuasive   analysis  we  are   left  with   the   strong   impression  of   LA  as   embedded   in   the  nature  of   its  west   coast   site,   the   freeways  expressing  a  kind  of  material  and  spatial  hybridity  in  its  sense  of  place.    This  accommodation  between  nature  and  culture,  and  the  production  of  new,  hybrid  forms  and  spaces  –  increasingly  prevalent  as  the  twentieth-­‐century  has  given  way  to  the  twenty-­‐first  –  has  been  an  abiding  preoccupation  of  British  artist  Dan  Holdsworth  in  his  photographic   work   of   the   last   ten   years.   In   Holdsworth’s   photographs,   the   intertwining   of   natural   conditions   with   cultural  imperatives  –  by  turns  beautiful,  startling  and  disturbing  –  is  often  made  more  dramatic,  and  more  strangely  unreal,  by  the  artist’s  consistent  approach  of  working  at  night  and  in  places  where  artificial  light  produces  new  spaces  and  new  sights  of  its  own,  attaining  materiality  on   the   shining   surface  of   the  photographic  print.   That  Holdsworth’s  photographs  do  not   contain  people  adds   to   that  sense   of   drama,   giving   his   work   the   look   of   film   stills   or   empty   stages   and   setting   them   apart   from   any   real   connection   with  everyday  experience.    Dan   Holdsworth   emerged   as   an   artist   in   the   mid-­‐1990s,   at   a   time   when   the   epic   and   the   spectacular   had   become   common  characteristics   in   that  genre  of  photography  ever  more   loosely  defined  as   “landscape”.  This  work,  by  artists  as  disparate   in   their  approaches   as   Richard  Misrach   in   the  US   and  Andreas  Gursky   in  Germany,   had   also   helped   create   a   new  dynamic   presence   for  photography  on  art  gallery  walls  throughout  the  world.  After  twenty  years   in  which  many  of  the  romantic  and  pictorial  traditions  associated  with  landscape  art  had  been  reshaped  by  new  aesthetic,  political  and  environmental  concerns,  the  new  predilection  for  broad  sweeping  vistas,  allied  to  a  truly  monumental  scale  of  presentation  in  the  gallery,  had  in  some  ways  revived  aspects  of  the  awe-­‐inspired  imagery  that  had  long  been  the  staple  of  magazines  such  as  National  Geographic.  However,  this  new  photography  was  cooler  and  more  measured.  Often  serial  in  nature  and  –  as  with  Misrach’s  Desert  Cantos  –  richly  programmatic,  the  work  was  either  strongly  allied  to  rigorous  schemes  of  observation  and  description,  or  adopted  a  deliberately  quizzical  view,  underpinned  by  layers  of  irony  and  ambiguity.  And  in  some  cases,  as  in  the  work  of  Gursky,  the  most  important  influence  for  many  young  photographers  at  the   time,   these   two   tendencies  were  combined   to  bravura  effect.  As  Holdsworth  has   said:   “Gursky  was  determined   to  make   the  fullest  use  of  the  lens  and  the  photographic  print  itself.  It  was  when  I  looked  at  my  first  Gursky  book  and  understood  the  scale  and  depth  of   the  photograph   that   I   felt   a   strong   kinship  of   sorts.   There  was   this   sense  of   a  particular   clarity  of   seeing,   of   somehow  looking  at  vision  itself.  In  a  Gursky  photograph  the  world  suddenly  reveals  itself  for  the  first  time.”2    By  1998,  Dan  Holdsworth  had  found  his  own  distinctive  voice  in  this  context,  sharing  an  affinity  with  work  that,  despite  its  emphasis  on  detached  observation,  nevertheless  embraced  a  new  kind  of  wonder  at  the  complexities  of  late  twentieth-­‐century  civilisation;  a  photography  enthralled,  it  seemed,  at  the  sheer  extent  of  what  might  be  surveyed  by  the  camera  and  at  what  drama  might  accrue  from  this  process  of  transcription.  As  well  as  fitting  seamlessly  into  this  emerging  international  style,  and  unlike  much  of  the  more  localised  British  landscape  photography  of  the  previous  decade,  Holdsworth’s  work  was  immediately  global  in  its  reach.  His  work  is  in  some  ways,  like  the  photographs  of  any  tourist,  a  product  of  his  travels,  but  by  constantly  moving  from  place  to  place,  and  by  not  linking  his  photographs  too  closely  to  any  particular  named  sites,  Holdsworth  has  been  able  to  build  a  body  of  work  that  conjures  a  deliberately  unspecific  but  powerfully  contemporary  condition.    To   suggest   just   what   that   contemporary   condition   is   in   Holdsworth’s   work,   we  might   look   no   further,   for   example,   than   at   the  photograph  on  the  cover  of  this  book.  One  of  his  most  well  known  works,  Megalith  (2000)  has  become  a  signature  image  for  the  artist,  one  that  stands  as  a  kind  of  emblem  not  only  of  his  essential  interests  but  also  of  a  certain  ambiguity  towards  our  changing  world  that  lies  at  the  very  heart  of  his  work.  The  structure  that  dominates  the  picture  is  at  once  familiar  and  alien.  It  might  be  an  airport  control  tower  (in  fact  it  is  the  back  of  an  electric  advertising  hoarding  at  the  side  of  a  motorway  in  Holland)  but  its  function,  as  Holdsworth  has  photographed  it,  is  unimportant.  Animated  and  energised  by  light,  the  structure  appears  almost  as  a  living  thing.  Straining  at  its  earth  bound  state  and  forging  a  kind  of  energy-­‐field  communion  with  the  heavens,  the  tower  seems  to  be  powering-­‐up  for  some  form  of  levitation.  Although,  had  we  been  standing  alongside  Holdsworth,  we  would  not  have  seen  things  in  this  way.  His  camera,  through  the  necessary  long  exposure,  has  transformed  this  scene  into  an  hallucination,  a  fantastical  vision  that  skews  the  spirit  of  William  Blake  into  the  space  age.    Megalith   draws   out   the   dramatic   possibilities   of   the   artificially   lit   roadside   at   night,   transforming   that   light   through   time   into  dynamic  matter,  an  electric  vapour  that  carves  out  space  and  creates  the  animate  tension  that  fires  the  image.  In  one  sense,  like  so  many  of  Holdsworth’s  photographs,   this   is  an  euphoric  picture,  a  dream  of  some  heavenly  technology  come   into  being,  one  that  reflects  the  boundless  drive  of  the  human  imagination  and  becomes  a  beacon  for  our  future.    And  yet  there  is  something  unsettling  here,  too.  The  flaring  central  position  of  the  structure  gives  the  photograph  its  iconic  strength,  

Publication:  Dan  Holdsworth  (Photoworks  Monograph)                                                                              Date:  2005  ____________________________________________________________________    but  also  emphasises   the   sense  of   this   tower  presiding  aggressively  over   its   surroundings,   and  hints  at  other   kinds  of  power  and  control   not   entirely   celestial   or   benign   in   their   historical   formations.   As   is   frequently   the   case   with   Holdsworth’s   work,   this  photograph  places  the  viewer  in  ambiguous  relation  to  its  subject,  especially  when  we  confront  the  work  at  its  full  size  in  a  gallery  setting.    

 Megalith  0I  

 The  drama  of  Megalith  draws  the  viewer  into  a  dialogue  within  which  it   is  difficult  not  to  imagine  or  speculate  on  the  very  act  of  photographing.As  Charlotte  Cotton  has  observed  of  another  Holdsworth  picture:   “Rather   than  asking  who   took   this  photograph,  one   might   reasonably   ask   what   took   it,   the   sense   being   that   the   unsettling   contamination   of   the   night   is   being   recorded  mechanically...”3  Holdsworth  has  referred  to  his  work  in  the  context  of  the  “industrialisation  of  vision”  –  citing  Paul  Virilio’s  writing  as  an  influence  –  and  his  own  role  as  a  recording  “machine”  a  product  of  the  culture  he  documents.  But  he  is  also  acutely  aware  of  the  performative  aspects  of  his  practice,  the  way  in  which  his  photographs  always  embody  an  event:  “In  one  of  Italo  Calvino’s  short  stories,Mr  Palomar,  a  man  is  on  a  beach  at  night   looking  at  the  stars.  At  first  he  thinks  he   is  alone  but  soon  becomes  aware  that  there  are  many  other  people  on  the  beach,  too.  He  wonders  what  they  are  looking  at  and  as  his  eyes  adjust  he  realises  that  they  are  all  staring  at  him.  Sometimes  photography  has  this  self-­‐consciousness.  Unlike  a  painter  who  has  the  privilege  of  retreating   into  a  

Publication:  Dan  Holdsworth  (Photoworks  Monograph)                                                                              Date:  2005  ____________________________________________________________________    studio   to   work,   “we   photographers   have   to   really   engage   with   our   subjects   in   a   way   that   sometimes   takes   on   the   air   of   a  performance.  Although  I  would  say  I  am  a  reluctant  performer.”4  

 It  is  significant  that  Holdsworth  has  never  been  an  urban  artist,  always  preferring  to  work  outside  the  city  –  and  ironically  away  from  the   site   that   has   prompted   so   many   twentieth-­‐century   visions   of   night-­‐time   transcendence.   For   Holdsworth,   even   those   new,  rapidly  expanding  and   fiercely   irradiated  cities  of  South  East  Asia  may  be  too  chaotic  and  too  heavily  sedimented.  For  under   the  city’s   layers   of   history   nature   lies   buried;   as   Robert   Smithson   once   said:   “cities   give   the   illusion   that   the   earth   does   not  exist”.5  Rather,  Holdsworth   is  drawn  to  more  peripheral  and  newly  minted  places  motorways,  out  of   town  shopping  centres,  car  parks  –  where   that   accommodation   between   nature   and   the   spreading   forms   of   culture   is   more   visible   but   is   also   apt   to   evolve.  Importantly,  gazing  at  his  work  and  into  such  provisional  places  –  places  in  the  process  of  being  invented  –  we  begin  to  imagine  our  own  changing  experience  and  identity  in  relation  to  the  newly  configured  spaces  we  inhabit.    As  a  counterpoint  to,  and  perhaps  a  respite  from,  those  sites  where  pristine  patterns  of  landscaped  concrete  and  sodium  light  imply  lives   remodelled   around   the   ease   of   mobility   and   endless   consumer   gratification,   Holdsworth   has,   since   2000,   also   explored      extraordinary,  other-­‐worldly  landscape  of  Iceland.At  first  sight,  Holdsworth’s  Icelandic  work  represents  a  journey  into  the  past,  and  into  a  landscape  cleansed  of  human  ingenuity  and  progress:  a  base  world  stripped  of  colour  –  colossal,  barren  and  ancient.  But  even  here,  Holdsworth’s  attention  gravitates  to  those  places  where  the  landscape  is  intruded  upon  by  human  development,  and  where  a  kind  of  frontier  spirit  is  played  out.  It  is  no  surprise,  in  this  respect,  that  Holdsworth’s  photographs  from  Iceland  often  recall  those  of  Timothy  O’Sullivan  and  others  who  accompanied  government  survey  expeditions  of  the  American  West  in  the  1860s.6  The  paradox  for   photographer   pioneers   such   as   O’Sullivan  was   that   as   they   gazed   across   an   unsullied   land  –   at   something   they  would   have  thought  of  as  wilderness  –  they  were  also  encountering  the  raw  topography  of  the  future;  a  future  to  an  extent  already  mapped  out  by  that  compelling  narrative  of  overcoming,  taming  and  possessing  space,  and  of  contemplating  new  frontiers,  that  has  become  so  ingrained   in   the   American   psyche   and   popular  mythology.   Part   of   the   strangeness   of   Holdsworth’s   Iceland   photographs   is   how,  especially   in   the  context  of  his  other  work,   they   seem  to   suggest   something  of   the   future  as  much  as   the  past,  even   something  eerily  postapocalyptic.   It   is  as  though  the  artist  were  using  the   Icelandic  wastes  to  ponder  the  “before”  and  “after”  gazing   into  a  landscape  against  which  the  human  experiment  is  but  a  brief  blip  in  its  long,  and  for  us,  barely  imaginable  history.    From   the   primordial   gloom   of   the   Black   Mountains   in   Iceland   to   the   modular,   techno-­‐spaces   of   the   anechoic   chambers   he  photographed  in  2003,  the  question  of  our  destiny  lingers  in  the  background  of  Dan  Holdsworth’s  photographic  work.  Despite  their  seductive  beauty,  he  thinks  of  his  pictures,  fundamentally,  as  questions;  “questions  about  the  human  psyche...”  The  places  and  the  forms  he  is  attracted  to  are  also  the  sites  of  our  imagination,  “the  physical  manifestation  of  thought  put  into  action...  the  imprint  of  the  mind  on  the  landscape”.7  But  the  transformative  mechanisms  of  the  camera  allow  Holdsworth  to  project  those  imprints  into  the  near  future,  to  the  edges  of  our  aspiration  and  into  our  unconscious  “inner  space”.  As  J  G  Ballard  once  called  it,  into  the  near  future  that  exists   in  “the  submerged  realm  of  our  hopes  and  dreams”8  Travelling  near  and  far,  creating  his  possible  fictions,  Holdsworth  finds  hopeful  signs;  a  world  full  of  potential  wonders.  But  with  those  hopes  and  dreams  come  anxieties  and  the  thought  that  at  the  core  of  a  possible  dystopian  future  –  as  our  grip  on  reality  slips  away  among  the  motorway  intersections,  supermarkets  and  retail  parks  –  there  might  be  just  a  dangerous  terminal  boredom.    1  Jan  Morris,  A  Writer’s  World:Travels  1950-­‐2000,  Faber  and  Faber,  London,  2003,  p.  230.  2  Dan  Holdsworth  in  conversation  with  the  author,  January  2005.  3  Charlotte  Cotton,  The  Photograph  as  Contemporary  Art,  Thames  and  Hudson,  London,  2004,  p.95.  4  Dan  Holdsworth   in   conversation  with   the   author,   January   2005.   5   Jack   Flan   (ed),   Robert   Smithson:   Collected  Writings,   University   of  California  Press,  1996,  p.110-­‐113.  6  For  a  contemporary  account  of  O’Sullivan’s  work  and  adventures   in   the  West,  see  Beaumont  Newhall   (ed),   Photography:   Essays   and   Images,  MaMA,   New   York,   1980,   p.121-­‐127,   “Photographs   from   the   High   Rockies   From  Harper’s  New  Monthly  Magazine,  1869”.7  Dan  Holdsworth  in  conversation  with  the  author,  January  2005.  8  See  J.G.  Ballard’s  1994  introduction  Myths  of  the  Near  Future,  Vintage,  London,  1999.