Welcome to Terry’s world, an image-world carved from the realm of mass culture, devoid of distinctions between public and private, where economy is based on the libidinal exchange between voyeurism and exhibitionism, and the capital of perversion reigns within an indeterminate commercial image world, where imaging technologies dominate and the pervasiveness of images congest their means of dissemination. Richardson’s photographs are characterised by their perversion, their sexually explicit content captured in a snapshot aesthetic for public dissemination. Richardson employs the snapshot aesthetic reminiscent of the subversive art culture of the 1990s, as characterised by the photographs of Nan Goldin, yet for a distinctly public and commercial aim. Richardson appropriates a snapshot aesthetic to create an atmosphere of intimacy within his images, naturalising the photographic transaction and legitimising his voyeurism. However, the intimacy of Richardson’s imagery unravels when one considers their commercial dissemination and their reliance on dominant visual codes. Richardson’s photography manifests in the stimulation of desire through the manipulation of the pleasurable structures of looking, dictated by a process of identification and separation between the viewer and the photograph. Richardson’s photography satisfies the erotic gaze, reflecting the codes of desire employed in advertising and pornographic imagery. He simultaneously appears subversive and affiliated with underground culture, while working in commercial photography. The de-contextualisation of Richardson’s photographs reflects the indeterminate nature of mass culture, and it’s levelling between art and commerce. His work embodies the contradictory collaboration between subversion and submission as a means of capitalist culture to keep consumerism ‘cool’, and maintain the status quo. This duplicity also allows Richardson to appear ‘edgy’, and ‘down-and-out’, while simultaneously revelling in commercial and economic success.[1]
I will argue that Richardson’s positioning between subversion and submission, is a manifestation of the power structures dictated by capitalism and enforced the modern notion of exposure as commodity. The democratisation of digital imaging technologies, and the increase of virtual platforms for their dissemination, has led to the viral spread of images, and an uncensored access to images of vice. This has led to a normalisation of invasive looking and aspects of culture structured around voyeuristic and exhibitionistic impulses, where voyeurism is a form of entertainment, and exhibitionism a desirable commodity. As Mark Andrejevic explains, the deployment of voyeurism and exhibitionism is socially productive of the ‘logic of late capitalism’ precisely because self-revelation is tied to economic ‘success’”.[2] Richardson’s photography reveals “the economic potential of the exploitation of voyeurism (and exhibitionism) in an era characterized by the increasingly important economic role of electronic surveillance.”[3] Being Seen in Terry’s world, and being captured in an explicitly exposing image, links with the notion of perversion as capital, where exhibitionism is seen as a form of individuation in a consumerist culture, where exchange value is determined by appearance and our position within an image world. The photography of Richardson exemplifies that perversion is no longer an act of subversion, but instead shows submission to mass culture by mimicking the codes of desire inherent in the consumerist culture that perpetuates late capitalism.
New York based photographer, Terry Richardson began his career as a fashion photographer in the 1990s. He travelled to London in the early nineties, to work on the Katherine Hamnett campaign (Fig. 1), and magazines, such as i-D and The Face. As Dian Hanson describes in the Terryworld catalogue, Richardson’s snapshot aesthetic was deemed too amateur and pornographic by New York magazines.[4] This new generation of London-based lifestyle magazines were at the forefront of ‘grunge’ culture, mimicking the DIY aesthetic of punk zines and becoming the platforms for the exposure of youth and street culture.[5] They celebrated a lifestyle, rather than obvious product placement, in opposition to the glossy high-fashion magazines of the 1980s, which defined the conspicuous capitalist consumer culture of the eighties.[6]
The fashion photography in these magazines adopted the grunge aesthetic: staged depravity set in domestic environments of peeling wallpaper and beer-stained carpets, filled with nonprofessional models[7], inspired by the personal divulgences that characterised the art of Nan Goldin and Larry Clark. Clark’s Tulsa and Teenage Lust, and Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency and The Other Side became important points of reference. The snapshot aesthetic of Goldin and Clark’s images became the basis of the ‘heroin chic’ look that prevailed in subversive fashion culture. A harsh realism was injected into fashion photography in reaction to the perfect body and clean look presented in fashion editorials of the 1980s.[8] The semi-adolescent waif replaced the power body, and the street, squat, or dirty interior replaced the studio. [9] The adoption of the snapshot aesthetic by fashion photographers, such as Richardson, Juergen Teller and Corinne Day, triggered an increased parallel between art and fashion, with both industries working from a style of intensified realism. [10]
The cross-fertilisation between art and fashion of the 1990s led to the blurring of the aesthetic line between the genres, resulting in a levelling between art and fashion photography, and obscuring the distinction between an image’s commercial and artistic function.[11] The indeterminate nature of Richardson’s work reflects the collapse of the distinctions between art and commercial culture, as Abigail Solomon-Godeau defines, within the intrinsic nature of the market and the interdependent nature of fashion, media, art, youth, or any other aspect of mass culture.[12] The de-contextualisation of Richardson’s images from a particular context, due to his adoption of various visual codes, reflects the indeterminable nature of the mass market, relying on the appropriation of culture and a levelling out between distinctions.[13] Richardson’s photography aestheticises the levelling between art and commerce via the utilisation of an aesthetic of a progressive subculture of the 1990s, within images disseminated throughout mainstream image-culture.[14] Therefore “grunge” photography of the 1990s, which began as an oppositional practice, critiquing and subverting mass culture, has been assimilated by the culture it determined to undermine.
As Abigail Solomon-Godeau states in “Modern Style”, the de-contextualisation of a fashion image from its original context isolates the photograph, obscuring the image’s instrumentality and complex mechanisms of desire, projection, and voyeurism, set in place to impact on the consumer of the image and their processes of self-imaging. Fig. 2 of the 2001 Sisley campaign has disseminated through a variety of contexts, far from its original context as a fashion spread. It featured in the Taschen publication, Terryworld that accompanied Richardson’s 2004 exhibition at Deitch Projects in New York. The catalogue has no page numbers or titles further de-contextualising the photographs. Fig. 2 can also be found through a Google image search: ‘Terry Richardson Sisley’, where the image is featured on www.obsessionphoto.com, “the first social media dedicated to the greatest photographers”, obscuring the image’s original role as a fashion image. The removal of a fashion photograph from a magazine to the Internet, an art gallery, or a book, restructures the way the image is read and understood. Without other conventions, such as professional studios, conventional model poses, extensive photographic and lighting equipment, or manifest advertising protocols, the photographer’s role in the production of an image is privileged over the role of context. This blurring of an image’s context manufactures the illusion that the image was produced individually, obscuring its intent as a commercial image created in accordance with the instrumental visual codes of advertising.[15]
Richardson employs a personal mode of representation, but contradictorily for a public mode of display. The uncertainty of Richardson’s photographs between commercial and the artistic contexts, and his employment of a snapshot aesthetic for publicly disseminated images, allows his images to maintain an atmosphere of intimacy, even when disseminated across public contexts. Richardson utilises the snapshot aesthetic to naturalise the photographic transaction. He legitimises his licence to look and capture, through his identification with the subject, and the presence of the camera.[16] Richardson’s blog, ‘Terry Richardson’s Diary’, contains a section, ‘Terry’, which consists of a series of photographs of him with various celebrities and models. The photographs resemble the contents of a personal social networking page. He holds the camera with outstretched arm, capturing himself and subject, arms around each other’s shoulders, squashed together, attempting to fit into the frame akin to a typical snapshot (Fig. 3). Richardson often poses the subject with thumbs-up, his signature stance, be they Barack Obama (Fig. 4), or Lady Gaga (Fig. 5). He often photographs his subjects wearing his characteristic over-sized tinted aviator glasses, captioning the photograph, for example “Me as Lily…Lily as me.” (Fig. 6). Richardson’s snapshot aesthetic creates a perception of friendship with whom he photographs, even when both parties are paid to be there. This implies an atmosphere of intimacy and naturalises the photographic transaction. This legitimises his licence to look, authorising his more voyeuristic photography that explicitly captures the ‘spontaneous sex acts’ that happen at his studio, between himself and models, or assistants. The presence of Richardson, wearing his characteristic glasses (Fig. 7), or the presence of a characteristic ‘low-tech’ digital camera within the image (Fig. 8), is enough to signify an intimate atmosphere, and thus sanction his voyeuristic images, full of pornographic codes, as intimate snapshots. Richardson’s claim to inside-ness becomes a means to legitimise a greater access to the photographed subject, and authorizes his voyeurism, as well as the viewer’s.[17]
Even though Richardson attempts to naturalise the photographic transaction, snapshot photography, like all photography, remains within the realm of surveillance and voyeurism. [18] As Liz Kotz explains in “The Aesthetics of Intimacy”, documentary photography has always been a legitimate means of satisfying the pleasure of looking, either up, or as is more frequently the case, down the social scale. This authorized social voyeurism, developed by mid-century documentary photography through the development of a perceived understanding and thus identification between subject and photographer, opened up the realm for intimate documentary photography.[19] The intimate identification developed between photographer and subject established in Richardson’s images re-legitimises the practice of social documentary. Richardson is then able to subvert the practice of documentary photography by photographing people of a similar social group, removing the political intent traditionally associated with documentary photography, and discarding photography’s identification with social surveillance.[20] However, as Martha Rosler suggests the removal of the “social scene”, leaves only the personal, “and a look at the personal is an invitation to voyeurism.”[21] As Kotz states, it is naïve to presume that the perceived intimacy of a snapshot aesthetic removes the voyeurism within the image.[22] This presumption represses photography’s enduring association with surveillance and the erotic investment of looking, and ignores the established history and language of photography as inherently structured by the power relations existing between photographer and subject.[23]
Richardson employs the visual language of snapshot photography to conceive a quality of intimacy, in an attempt to naturalise the photographic transaction. Yet the photographs are not intimate snapshots. They are of models or actors representing fashion companies, publishers, or magazines, and all of his work is disseminated throughout the public realm. His photographs are viewed extensively; he has 77,273 friends on Facebook[24], and 79,900 twitter followers[25]. The opening of the Terryworld exhibition attracted large crowds, forcing the street being closed off by the NYPD (Fig. 9).[26] His photographs have a much larger viewership than the average snapshot in a family photo album or an average Facebook page, where an average user has 130 friends[27], or a twitter page, where the average number of followers is 126[28].
Acknowledging the commercial context of Richardson’s images, his focus on posing, thumbs-up, arms around each other, although initially appearing to evoke the snapshot, in fact reveals his staging of a manufactured intimacy. Richardson’s approach to photography is more considered than his style suggests. He evokes David Hemmings in Michelangelo Antonio’s ‘Blow Up’, the photographer as the seducer, wielding the erotic eye of the camera, directing their subject’s actions, moulding the shot and holding power. This approach is in opposition to the ‘camera as diary’ method employed by Nan Goldin. The photograph, Greer and Robert on the bed (Fig. 10) is cropped, and close-up, placing Goldin within the same intimate space. Greer and Robert appear comfortable, unaware of the camera, with no bright flash disturbing the intimate moment. Goldin adopts the position of the photographer as the participating observer, representing a world with which she is directly and intimately linked. Goldin is photographing her friends, while Richardson is capturing Terry’s world. Goldin’s photographs are un-staged, while Richardson’s subjects pose, their positions and actions dictated by his personal aesthetic. Goldin’s intimacy is a product of the identification and relationship between herself and the people she is photographing, whereas Richardson works to promote an intimacy between a wider audience and his photographs.
Richardson’s use of an intimate aesthetic to create a sense of identification between his images and a wider audience is particularly apparent when comparing Richardson’s depictions of his personal sexual encounters with Goldin’s photographs of her sexual interactions. Goldin is documenting an intimacy between herself and subject, while Richardson exploits sexual explicitness, manipulating pornographic and erotic codes, to enhance the visual pleasure of his images, and satisfy the erotic gaze of the viewer. Goldin’s Self-portrait with Brian having sex, NYC, 1983 (Fig. 11), is a photograph of a natural sexual relationship. Goldin’s documentary sex pictures are marked by her involvement with her subjects, manifesting in the photograph’s representation of intimacy and sexual closeness. She is a participant observer, documenting the uncovering of her own sexuality, from within her own space and social group. As Juri Steiner states in relation to Goldin’s work, the photographic transaction is thus a bond, a sort of sexual coupling, or sharing of intimacies between two people intrinsically linked by their social and sexual situations.[29] Richardson’s depictions of his sexual encounters, always involve some-one looking out at the viewer, or a photograph being taken within the scene. The sex is real, like Goldin’s, but appears staged, imitating a porn film, created for Terry’s world, a place where everyone is aware that they are being photographed (Fig. 12). Goldin’s photographs also contain a performative element; yet the staging within her work is not as blatant as Richardson’s and fulfils a different aim. The sexual content of Goldin’s work reflects a bohemian attitude to sexuality, while Richardson’s photographs appropriate dominant codes of pornography, shocking and inciting desire within the viewer, resulting in the satisfaction of the erotic gaze.[30] As Juri Steiner explains, Goldin’s use of sex and nudity within her images was an act of subversion, depicting a raw and authentic sexuality, outside of sanctioned sexual depictions and idealised pornographic representations of everything, everywhere sex. [31] Richardson denies any sexual morality within his images, thus initially appearing as taking the same political stance as Goldin, representing a sexually liberated culture. However, Richardson’s depiction of sex removes any morality, in favour of a pornographic intent within his images, uncovering a seemingly subversive practice as a submission to dominant codes. Richardson utilises the aesthetics of intimacy as a means to incite feelings of identification between the viewer and the photograph, working in the codes of advertising and pornography that recognise the satisfying of the erotic gaze as a symbiotic connection between identification and desire. [32]
The sexual content of Richardson’s photographs satisfy the erotic gaze and scopophilic urges, while a feeling of familiarity between himself and the viewer, manufactures a point of identification. Richardson’s combination of the active subject as point of identification and the sexualisation of the passive object, I will argue satisfies the Lacanian logic of the gaze. As Laura Mulvey’s interpretation of Jacques Lacan’s theory on the gaze states, the pleasurable structures of looking are composed of two elements: the separation of the viewer’s erotic identity from the object depicted, and the identification of the viewer’s ego with the subject, satisfying a sexual fascination with a recognition of ego libido.[33] Lacan’s ‘mirror stage’, when a child first recognises itself in a mirror, constitutes the formation of the ego. This recognition occurs when a child’s physical ambitions are outweighed by their motor capacity, so the image they see in the mirror, is a more complete, more perfect version of themselves. The recognition of one’s self in a mirror, is thus followed by one’s misrecognition, projecting the reflected body outside of itself as ideal ego. Therefore an interaction with an image can be interpreted as a dialect between the ideal ego and the ego ideal, and through notions of self and other. [34]
In the case of Richardson’s photographs, his inclusion of himself within the image, places him as the point of identification with the viewer (Fig. 13). He embodies the viewer’s ideal ego, in that he has more control than the viewer, just as the imagined idealised self in the mirror had more control in terms of motor co-ordination. He plays the role of the male protagonist in a film, relieving the viewer of their impotence, through his own control within the scene. Richardson as the photographic surrogate is a point of identification for the spectator, satisfying ego libido, while the object fulfils the sexual function. Richardson is the protagonist, as he is the bearer of the camera, camera technology, camera movements, and editing elements that combine to create an illusion of natural space to enhance the articulation of the look of the active viewer. The scopophilic urge is thus fulfilled because the viewer’s gaze is activated through narcissistic identification, rendering the object of the photograph passive, allowing the erotic gaze to exist undisrupted.[35] Richardson’s manipulation of the pleasurable structures of image making, satisfies a scopophilic voyeurism, where pleasure is derived from sexual stimulation through sight, using another person as the object of the fantasy. In the same instance that a photograph incites active participation in the viewer, the subject of the image must be deemed as a passive object, fulfilling voyeuristic active/passive mechanisms.[36]
The fulfilment of the erotic gaze in Richardson’s photographs, through a combination of identification and separation, reflects the voyeuristic mechanisms of pornography, which characterise the female object as passive sexual object, and the man as active subject. Richardson’s adoption of a pornographic aesthetic adheres to an aesthetic sanctioned by a dominant ideology, in that in America, pornography generates more money than the revenues of the top technological companies, combined.[37] Thus re-structuring the notion that his images represent a subversive progress- through their use of vice to shock- instead revealing their compliancy with the visual codes of the dominant order.
The style of Richardson’s photographs, characterised by their overt sexual content, invasive compositions, and recurrent theme of exposure, combined with a handheld, accidental aesthetic resembles the aesthetic of amateur pornography. This porn aesthetic is dictated by a ‘low-key’, hidden camera approach, characteristic of surveillance technologies, directs the naturalistic staging and realistic look (Fig. 14). [38] This adoption of a surveillance aesthetic by Richardson reflects the increased popularity of ‘reality porn’ that has been propagated by the Internet and filtered into wider mainstream culture. The increased prevalence of the amateur porn aesthetic has resulted from the ‘realiti-isation’ of porn, perpetuated by the democratisation of image-making technologies and of the exchange of images on the Internet. As Ruth Barcan suggests the proliferation of the amateur porn aesthetic is a product of the increased availability of pornography on the Internet and the redefinition of privacy, due to the ambiguous distinction between the public and private within the cyber world.[39]
The increased access to pornography, and the adoption of its aesthetic and themes in a wider culture, is part of the sexualisation or pornification of the public sphere.[40] Richardson’s photography exemplifies the pornification of the public realm through the infiltration of a porn aesthetic across the body of his work, most of which is disseminated through commercial domains. In particular, Richardson’s saturation of the fantasy of fashion, with the gritty reality of an amateur pornographic aesthetic (Fig. 15), asserts the extent of the pornification of the mainstream. The reality porn aesthetic subverts fashion’s typical creation of fantasy scenes where viewers project their own desires. Richardson creates new processes to incite desire through encouraging identification between viewer and subject, developed by a realist aesthetic and his own inclusion within his images. Richardson subverts the fashion aesthetic, yet remains true to the logic of desire. His photography then becomes a more successful means to incite desire because the codes are now hidden. However, this practice has become more overt with the adoption of similar aesthetics by photographers, and its assimilation into mainstream culture.
Richardson’s work reflects the naturalisation of the scopophilic gaze, occurring through the proliferation of photographic images within our culture, accommodating us to surveillance, voyeurism and exhibitionism. As Marianne Karabelnik states in her essay, “The Voyeurism of Art”, voyeurism is now a public concern, with the mass dissemination and commercialisation of sexual images through modern media.[41] The voyeuristic encouragement and explicit exhibitionism encountered through Richardson’s casual representation and exposure of his private life for a public audience is now a constant impulse in contemporary life, with people uploading an abundance of intimate snapshots to circulate on the Internet, and social networking sites. [42] The increased circulation and consumption of still and moving images enabled by the development of new image-making technologies, and the proliferation of platforms for their dissemination, has led to our culture becoming accommodated to invasive looking, manifesting in a constant state of voyeurism and exhibitionism.[43] As Peter Weibel explains, the proliferation of digital cameras, CCTV, camera phones, webcams, reality TV, and the internet, has shifted the pleasure principle of the voyeur and the exhibitionist from ‘private drives to public norms’, leading to the naturalisation of voyeurism and exhibitionism.[44] The voyeurism and exhibitionism inherent within Richardson’s photography and their wide dissemination on Internet blogs and magazine websites, places his work as another means of modern surveillance technologies. The power exercised by surveillance invests the act of looking and photographing with an unequal power relation between the photographer and subject. Richardson’s photographs are symptomatic of this state of constant surveillance, which justifies voyeuristic practices, and authorises the power invested in looking and photographing.[45]
As Richard B. Woodward points out in his essay, “Dare to be Famous,” the phenomenon of reality TV represents the economic exploitation of surveillance as entertainment. The thrill of being watched is a symptom of contemporary society.[46] Surveillance has become internalised, becoming a comfort and a form of entertainment.[47] The normalisation of the inspecting gaze as a wider social and cultural norm, as well as legitimising voyeurism, also incites exhibitionism. Exposure satisfies a desire for comforting notoriety, in a society where fame is a desirable commodity. Our fears of invisibility have become greater than our desire for privacy.[48] The legitimisation of voyeurism and the normalisation of surveillance thus naturalises exhibitionism, as it becomes an everyday practice.
Richardson’s photographs are characterised by their satisfaction of making oneself seen. The exchange between the insider photographer and their intimate subject is taken in exchange for recognition, the gaze of others confirming the subject.[49] Richardson’s photographs are not family snapshots, they do not end up in private photo albums; instead they end up on gallery walls, in impeccably printed art books, or circulating around the web, where the person in the photograph will be continuously examined, exemplifying the modern impulse to exchange privacy or exhibitionism for fame or voyeurism.[50] As Sean O’Hagan indicates in his 2004 interview, Richardson has found that there are certain girls that turn up to his studio, with the intention of a ‘spontaneous sexcapade’. Due to the extent of Richardson’s prominence in the fashion and art world, being seen in Terry’s world really does make one seen. Therefore, simply the presence of a camera in Richardson’s hand inspires exhibitionist practices in a society where exhibitionism is associated with individuation.
A photograph from the Terryworld opening (Fig. 16) displays the sexual exposure that Richardson seems to inspire, publicly or privately. In a society where voyeuristic and exhibitionistic impulses are everyday, and even a form of political expression, there is no need for Richardson to pressurise his subjects. As Andrejevic theorises through a Lacanian framework, this self-perpetuating desire to satisfy both voyeuristic and exhibitionistic urges, can be explained through the connection between voyeurism and the drive to “make oneself seen”. Making oneself seen has become a means of individuation, in a society where one’s appearance is their means to expression. This impulse is driven by an economy where customised consumption is ever more important to producers. Therefore submission to forms of surveillance is seen as a form of freedom and expression within the state of flexible capitalism. Subjectivity is thus created through an active consumerism and an embracing of the monitoring gaze, in order to make ourselves seen.[51]
As David Bell, in his article, ‘Surveillance is Sexy’ argues, Richardson, as a surveillance-savvy photographer could be utilising themes of voyeurism and exhibitionism as a mode of resistance. Richardson could be seen to be subverting the practice of surveillance through the ‘hijacking’ of a surveillance aesthetic, to highlight the encumbering level of surveillance technologies.[52] Bell’s argument rests on the fact that the democratisation of voyeuristic practices, the fact anyone can easily be a voyeur, with an increased access to images and digital technologies, destabilises authorised modes of surveillance.[53] There is now an increased complication of the politics of concealment and revealment, and therefore people have become more aware, and savvier in their approach to the subject of surveillance and voyeurism. By applying Bell’s logic to Richardson’s photography, his employment of a ‘surveillance aesthetic’ disrupts the normalisation of surveillance.[54] Fig. 17 adopts a surveillance aesthetic in that Richardson looks out at the camera, as if he has been captured unaware. The photograph depicts a seemingly personal moment, due the sexual nature of the interaction and its situation within a private, domestic scene setting. This mimics the surveillance image, as captured by an amateur snapper with a digital camera, or camera phone. Richardson is taking a photograph within the picture parodying the notion of surveillance through adoption, by being simultaneously surveyed and the surveyor.
However, Richardson’s mimicking of the visual codes of pornography and surveillance imagery, the half-dressed man alongside a fully naked woman, and the unequal power structures pornography denotes, the woman lying passive, while Richardson is the active bearer of the camera, means his work is reappropriated by the dominant order. Therefore, the images no longer act as a form of resistance, exemplifying capitalism’s ‘commodification of resistance’. Voyeuristic and exhibitionistic impulses are widely exploited for economic and entertainment purposes within the popular culture of surveillance. So instead of voyeuristic imagery being a form of subversion, it is a form of compliancy with capitalist and consumerist culture which feeds off the association between desire and looking, particularly within pornographic photography and photography as an essential element of advertising.[55]
The normalisation of voyeurism is product of the proliferation of images used in advertising that exploit sexualisation as a means to incite desire and perpetual consumerism. Richardson’s work is a development from the earlier advertising photography, of Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton, which manipulated visual codes to enhance the libidinal economy of an image. Richardson’s images function as signs to mediate and structure desires within the context of capital.[56] As Guy Debord sets out in The Society of the Spectacle, the spectacle of the commodity reaches us through images that structure and mediate our desires.[57]
The notion that sex sells in advertising, links Richardson’s use of explicit sexuality in his images with the notion of perversion as capital. In the image world, perversity reigns. Perverse images dominate the commercial realm, exemplified by the proliferation of the porn chic aesthetic throughout the fashion industry. Perverse images appear subversive, while maintaining one’s position within the dominant order. The proliferation of perversion reflects the economic potential of voyeuristic and exhibitionist practices as forms of entertainment and means to fame.
Richardson’s photographs play on the assumption that perversion doubles as subversion. When in fact, acts of transgression have become a prevalent feature of the dominant order.[58] Zizek’s psychoanalytical approach to the nature of perversion explains that it is not the expression of an unconscious desire of the dominant order, but an expression of the order’s inherent transgression. As Zizek asserts, in the framework of theories developed by Lacan and Freud, “perversion is always a socially constructive attitude”, and not a socially subversive attitude.[59] In fact, perversion and transgression maintain order, through its perceived association with the subversion of the dominant ideology. If sexually explicit imagery, such as Richardson’s were censored, people would feel oppressed, so instead perverse imagery is absorbed into the dominant culture, maintaining a sense of freedom under covert oppression. As Zizek puts it, “The deepest identification which ‘holds a community together’ is not so much identification with the Law that regulates its ‘normal’ everyday circuit as identification with the specific form of transgression of the Law, of its suspension.”[60] Thus Richardson’s photographs do not push the limits of perversion, decency or the obscene, but instead are paradigmatic of the moral order that it claims to subvert.
Andrejevic’s notion of the perverse subject, the ironic, self-distancing individual, symptomatic of “late” capitalism, reflects Richardson’s apolitical position, where perversion is his only claim to subversion, but is also his means to maintain his existence within the commercial realm. The perverse subject takes claim in being part of the non-duped, individuals that take pleasure in having no illusions with society.[61] The ‘non-duped’ know most of the power lies in the hands of the few, and so see a futility in trying to alter the situation, instead they adopt a savvy stance, outlined by their complacent “knowing”. The ‘non-duped’ acknowledge their own impotence within the system, and become satisfied with acts of perversion and transgression, acts that the system ‘okays’, but can still be seen as progressive. Richardson’s use of the visual codes of the dominant order, while maintaining a position of subversion, recognises the position of the non-duped as surrendering to the system in order to regain control.[62] Submission as a form of control recognises the naturalising of the negative consequences of capital.[63] As Andrejevic explains, capitalism no longer needs to be optimistic and promise benefits. As the degradations of capitalism appear, they are quickly naturalised, and attain the status of a natural disaster: “tragic, but inevitable.”[64]
Richardson’s photographs are not a subversion, but a submission to the dominant visual codes in inciting desire and satisfying the erotic gaze. The proliferation of Richardson’s sexually explicit aesthetic throughout the mainstream image-world reflects his position of submission, images of him having sex dominate the Internet (Fig. 18), and his fashion photographs are characterised by their simulation of sexual acts (Fig. 19). Richardson’s photographs are centred on the erotic structures of viewing, fulfilling voyeuristic and exhibitionist impulses that parallel the desirous logic of consumerism and satisfy a surveillance economy.[65] Richardson’s practice appears to be progressive, while submitting to dominant ideologies, reflecting the inherent contradictions that sustain capitalism. The persistent dichotomy within Richardson’s work between subversion and submission reflects the cannibalistic nature of capitalism and its reliance on the cyclical nature of invention and absorption, desire and un-fulfilment, and censorship and control. Richardson’s stance embodies the contradiction of the term ‘free market’, seizing freedom from submission. Richardson embodies the savvy non-duped benefiter of neoliberalism, celebrating and being celebrated for his apolitical and amoral situation; benefiting from both subverting and complying with system, in order to gain economic success while living a ‘down-and-out’ lifestyle.[66] Through uncovering Terry’s world we expose the illusions of Richardson’s subversion and discover that the performance of perversion played out in Terry’s world resounds much longer than the click of a camera.
[1] Abigail Solomon-Godeau, “Modern style: dressing down,” Artforum 42, 9 (May, 2004): 194.
[2] Mark Andrejevic, “Reality TV and Voyeurism,” in Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched, Mark Andrejevic. (Lanham, Md; Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 192.
[3] Andrejevic, “Reality TV and Voyeurism,” 175.
[4] Dian Hanson, “Welcome to Terryworld,” in Terryworld: Photographs by Terry Richardson, ed. Dian Hanson. (Hong Kong: Taschen, 2008).
[5] Charlotte Cotton, “Intimate Life,” in The Photograph as Contemporary Art, Charlotte Cotton. (London: Thames and Hudson, 2009), 144-5.
[6] Solomon-Godeau, “Modern style,” 194.
[7] Cotton, “Intimate Life,” 144-5.
[8] Solomon-Godeau, “Modern style,” 194.
[9] Cotton, “Intimate Life,” 144-5.
[10] Solomon-Godeau, “Modern style,” 194.
[11] Solomon-Godeau, “Modern style,” 195.
[12] Solomon-Godeau, “Modern style,” 195.
[13] Solomon-Godeau, “Modern style,” 195.
[14] Solomon-Godeau, “Modern style,” 194.
[15] Solomon-Godeau, “Modern style,” 195.
[16] Liz Kotz, “Aesthetics of Intimacy,” in The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire, ed. Deborah Bright. (New York: Routledge, 1999), 210.
[17] Kotz, “Aesthetics of Intimacy,” 208.
[18] Kotz, “Aesthetics of Intimacy,” 208.
[19] Kotz, “Aesthetics of Intimacy,” 208.
[20] Kotz, “Aesthetics of Intimacy,” 207.
[21] Martha Rosler, “Post-Documentary, Post-Photography,” in Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975-2001, Martha Rosler. (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2004), 229.
[22] Kotz, “Aesthetics of Intimacy,” 207.
[23] Kotz, “Aesthetics of Intimacy,” 208.
[24] “Terry Richardson’s Facebook Page,” accessed May 18, 2011, http://www.facebook.com/terryworldfb.
[25] “Terry Richardson’s Twitter,” accessed May 18, 2011, http://twitter.com/#!/terry_world.
[26] Sean O’Hagan, “Good Clean Fun?,” The Observer, Culture Section, 17 October, 2004, accessed May 18, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2004/oct/17/photography.art.
[27] “Facebook Statistics,” accessed May 18, 2011, http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics.
[28] “Guardian Technology Blog,” accessed May 18, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jun/29/twitter-users-average-api-traffic.
[29] Juri Steiner, “And That is All We Want: Modern art and pornography,” in Stripped Bare: The Body Revealed in Contemporary Art, ed. by Marianne Karabelnik. (London; New York: Merrell Publishers, 2004), 208-9.
[30] Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema,” in Visual and Other Pleasures, Laura Mulvey. (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 15-17.
[31] Steiner, “And That is All We Want: Modern art and pornography,” 204.
[32] Kotz, “Aesthetics of Intimacy,” 207.
[33] Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure,” 19.
[34] Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure,” 17-18.
[35] Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure,” 20-21.
[36] Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure,” 25.
[37] “Internet Pornography Statistics,” accessed May 19, 2011, http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html.
[38] Ruth Barcan as cited in David Bell, “Surveillance is Sexy,” Surveillance and Society, Vol 6, no. 3 (2009): 205, accessed May 18, 2011, http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/ojs/index.php/journal/article/viewArticle/sexy.
[39] Ruth Barcan as cited in Bell, “Surveillance is Sexy,” 205.
[40] Bell, “Surveillance is Sexy,” 205.
[41] Karabelnik, “The Voyeurism of Art,”131.
[42] Kotz, “Aesthetics of Intimacy,” 208.
[43] Kotz, “Aesthetics of Intimacy,” 208.
[44] Peter Weibel as cited in Bell, ‘Surveillance is Sexy,” 204.
[45] Sandra S. Phillips, “Looking Out, Looking In: Voyeurism and its affinities from the beginning of photography,” in Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera, ed. Sandra S. Phillips (London: Tate Publishing, 2010), 14-15.
[46] Richard B. Woodward, “Dare to be Famous,” in Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera, ed. Sandra S. Phillips (London: Tate Publishing, 2010), 230.
[47] Richard B. Woodward, “Dare to be Famous,” 235.
[48] Richard B. Woodward, “Dare to be Famous,” 236-8.
[50] Kotz, “Aesthetics of Intimacy,” 208.
[51] Andrejevic, “Reality TV and Voyeurism,” 189.
[52] Bell, “Surveillance is Sexy,” 203.
[53] Bell, “Surveillance is Sexy,” 208.
[54] Bell, ‘Surveillance is Sexy,” 210.
[55] Bell, ‘Surveillance is Sexy,” 209.
[56] Sandra S. Phillips, “Voyeurism and Desire,” in Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera, ed. Sandra S. Phillips (London: Tate Publishing, 2010), 57-8.
[57] Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Black and Red, 1983).
[58] Andrejevic, “Reality TV and Voyeurism,” 176.
[59] Andrejevic, “Reality TV and Voyeurism,” 177.
[60] Andrejevic, “Reality TV and Voyeurism,” 176.
[61] Andrejevic, “Reality TV and Voyeurism,” 176.
[62] Andrejevic, “Reality TV and Voyeurism,” 178.
[63] Andrejevic, “Reality TV and Voyeurism,” 184.
[64] Andrejevic, “Reality TV and Voyeurism,” 185.
[65] Andrejevic, “Reality TV and Voyeurism,” 175.
[66] Andrejevic, “Reality TV and Voyeurism,” 185.
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