Martha Rosler

In looking at photographs with text, Martha Rosler's The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems (1974-75) is a highly political piece of work. The set of 21 black and white photographs along with accompanying text include many store fronts and usual haunts of drunken people within the Bowery district of New York. The text that accompany the photographs include words that are associated with drunkenness or alcoholism that allows the viewer to create their own interpretation of the viewpoint that Rosler is displaying. But Rosler does not in fact photograph any drunken people at all within this project. The viewer visualises the point Rosler is making through the shop front photographs and the choice words to associate with drunken people and being drunk.

The text plays a powerful part within this project, as it does with most image-text photographs. Text can accompany the photographs well, either to emphazise a viewpoint literally, or by associating with the photographs to allow the viewer to come to their own conclusions about what the viewpoint actually is.

It would be interesting to see if I could create a similar image-text accompaniment as in this project by Rosler. But with the vast amount of images within my own project, there wouldn't be enough words to accompany the photographs. The project would need to be a lot smaller, maybe a photo a day for one month. And then use words associated with the scene or my mood of the day to showcase my viewpoint regarding the devices at that time. Either way, for the project as it is, it would not be plausible however I am keen to create a one-off image with inspiration from Rosler's project.

AlCallow piece inspired by Martha Rosler - 2017

Bibliography:
Afterall.Org, (2017), Afterall Exhibition 'Martha Rosler: The Bowery' [Online], Available at: https://www.afterall.org/events/afterall-exhibition_martha-rosler_the-bowery-in-two-inadequate-descriptive-systems_, [Accessed May 12th 2017]
Edwards, S., (2012) Martha Rosler: The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems [Online], Available at: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/martha-rosler, [Accessed May 12th 2017]
MarthaRosler.com, (2017), The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems [Online], Available at: http://www.martharosler.net/photo/bowery.html, [Accessed May 12th 2017]