Image & Narrative (Aug 2011)

Belgian Photography: Towards a Minor Photography.

  • Jan Baetens,
  • Hilde Van Gelder,
  • Mieke Bleyen

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 3
pp. 71 – 80

Abstract

Read online

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 150%; font-family: " lang="EN-GB">Abstract</span></strong><span style="line-height: 150%; font-family: " lang="EN-GB">: This article investigates Belgian photography from within the national framework. Using the notion of "banal nationalism" (Billig), it explores how even in the case of a nation widely perceived as non-existing , a nation in which the “official” national culture has completely eroded, the relationship between<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>photography and national culture are worth wile addressing. Furthermore, this text shows that Belgian photography, repeatedly described as having no schools, no centre, no towering figures, nor strong institutions, in short as lacking any positive identity, can not be approached in any essentializing way. In order to study the photographic production made in Belgium, new questions are needed, questions reaching beyond the traditional aesthetic questions of styles, masters, evolutions; questions that address the medium in its multiplicity and its context sensitiveness. This article tries to develop such a new set of questions by proposing a transfer of the notion of “minor literature” as it was theorized by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to the study of the photographic medium. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="line-height: 150%; font-family: " lang="EN-GB"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 150%; font-family: " lang="FR">Résumé:</span></strong><span style="line-height: 150%; font-family: " lang="FR"> Le présent article examine la photographie belge du point de vue des liens entre culture et nation. En partant du concept de "nationalisme banal" (Billig), il s'interroge sur la manière dont un pays qui est globalement perçu comme "inexistent" et privé de toute culture "'nationale", le rapport entre photographie et culture nationale mérite d'être analysé. Rappelant le fait que la photographie belge est généralement décrite en termes négatifs (un art sans tendances majeures, privé de centre, sans grands artistes, sans institutions et surtout sans aucune identifé), l'article souligne l'impossibilité de décrire cet art en termes d'essence(s). Pour aborder la photographie faite en Belgique, de nouvelles questions doivent être posées qui dépassent les problèmes traditionnels de styles, modèles, chronologie, etc., et qui permettent de rendre compte de la diversité et de l'ancrage contextuel du média. Cet article propose quelques pistes en ce sens en transposant au domaine<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>de la photographie le concept de littérature mineure (Deleuze é Guattari).</span></p>

Keywords