CLARENCE JOHN LAUGHLIN

"The physical object, to me, is merely a stepping stone to an inner
world where the object, with the help of the subconscious drives and
focuses perceptions, becomes transmuted into a symbol whose life is beyond
the life of the objects we know ..."

 

 

 

 

 

...In an imitation ruined abbey in a New Orleans cemetery - (even the cracks in the wall are faked!) - this image of hypocrisy appropriately appears. Batlike, hypocricy flits everywhere, for it appears everywhere - in church, state, big business - its head cunningly concealed (as with those who turn their heads, hypocritically, from all that gives the lie to their own untruths). And while they preach peace and humanity, the people of hypocrisy lead us, actually, into confusion, war and destruction.

 

 

THE BAT...........................L-10, 1940

 

These two images are from a group of photographs begun in 1939, entitled: Poems of the Inner World, and which Clarence believed "represented a new departure for American photography". The photographs "were not conceived in a coldly conscious way. They were arrived at mostly by means of subconscious intuitions and compulsions; and thus they have a number of different levels of meaning."

 

 

 

 

 

...We are told that the most ancient form of religion was phallic worship. Perhaps it is because we have lost this relationship with our bodies that today we are so disturbed and frustrated. The arched entrance of the church becomes the female symbol. And a figure emerges, as through darkness - the instinctual darkness within us - has taken a body, holding the ancient image which is rooted in the earthly cycles of birth and decay; the bearer of life, in a world of death.

 

 

THE ELDER WORSHIP...........................L-8, 1949

 

Clarence John Laughlin didn't like galleries very much, because he profoundly distrusted those who ran them; for the most part he believed they were idiots and lacked imagination. This is basically one of the main reasons he was never as well known as some of the more celebrated photographers. He refused to kiss their asses! He also steadfastly maintained that he was a surrealist and never departed from that belief; in fact, becaming militantly more so later in life.

Clarence was first a poet, and when he began photographing he attached a poetic "description" to each one of his photographs, which he felt was an inseparable part of the photograph... There has been much debate on the importance of these poetic descriptions, whether they should be included with the photographs (per his wishes) or not (per the wishes of those curators and directors Clarence didn't trust)... and almost always his work is exhibited sans the descriptions. The two photographs above have their poetic descriptions included.

Speaking about his work, Clarence wrote: "There is a 3rd basic way to use the camera - a way that I term "The Transcendance of the object" - a way that is not directly dependent on abstraction (which is only an intellectual game); whereas, this is not. Instead, this way is intricately involved with intuitive and subliminal perceptions, that go deeply into the subconscious mind - into the primal roots of humanity, into the world that forms the very matrix for all artistic creation. This way (or method) has two fundamental tributaries (sources): that which we call anthropomorphic vision, and the other, now denoted as surrealism..."

 

 

The Magic Stone

 

 First Principles of the Third World of Photography
THE WORLD BEYOND DOCUMENTATION AND PURISM

ONE

In Photography, as in all arts, the quality of the human imagination is the only thing that counts - technique, and technical proficiency, mean nothing in themselves.

TWO

There is no essential reason why the creative imagination cannot work with a ray of light acting on a sensitized surface as effectively as it can with a brush laden with pigment. The camera is merely a tool - and like all other tools, such as the painter's brush and the writer's pencil, it can be controlled by the creative imagination.

THREE

The camera is not a machine, except when it is used mechanically.

FOUR

We might ask ourselves a very fundamental question: What is a photograph? The usual answer would probably be: a psycho-chemical image suspended in an emulsion, and attached to a piece of paper. But is this definition enough? Perhaps a more complete answer would be: A photograph is a physico-chemical image suspended in an emulsion, attached to a piece of paper, implicated in creating a special kind of illusion of "reality," and involved in the mystery of time.

FIVE

Photography is a way of seeing more intensely and completely, and of "freezing" time in a special way.

SIX

From the kind of intensive seeing which every good photograph embodies, and from the methods and procedures which the creative photographer can use to push this seeing still further, emerges a surreality which definitely transcends the purely recording function of the camera. This surreality consists of the extension of the individual object into a larger and more significant reality - the submarine depths and fantastic jungles of psychological association and symbolic meaning.

SEVEN

There is nothing that is not proper to photography - despite the "experts."

EIGHT

The camera can use any object as a stepping-stone to a realm of meaning "beyond" the object: It can become a tool to explore the human mind - by exploring the inner world which we project into all objects by emotions and symbolic transference.

NINE

If the photographer looks intensely enough, he can find the secret images of our fears, joys and desires. Everything is speaking to us - every object.

TEN

All things are interconnected, whether we see the connections or not.

ELEVEN

Chance and coincidence are the names we use to denote the unseen relations between things - relations that we don't understand.

TWELVE

The limitations of photography are nothing more than the limitations of photographers themselves.

 

 

 

 

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