Interpretations of the Politics of Fictive Landscapes in Context: A Comparison of Allan Sekula's Sketch on a Geography Lesson and Martha Rosler's In the Place of the Public Airport Series

Abstract

Interpretations of the Politics of Fictive Landscapes in Context: A Comparison of Allan Sekula's Sketch on a Geography Lesson and Martha Rosler's In the Place of the Public Airport Series Throughout this thesis project I examine the geopolitical context(s) of the photographs featured in Martha Rosler's 'In the Place of the Public Airport Series' (1983) and Allan Sekula's series, 'Sketch on a Geography Lesson' (1982). I investigate the manner in which they question the legitimacy of the genre of documentary photography within the post-modern age by emphasizing the documentation of an actual physical place, presenting an alternative to the post-modern notion of photograph merely as another component of simulacra, or the intentional creation of an image without meaning or origin. By looking at photographs that Rosler and Sekula made during the burgeoning stages of post-modern theory, presents a broader interpretation of the development of Marxist documentary photography from the early 1980's to today. One way in which I dialogue with the discourse surrounding documentary photography in the 1980's is to focus on Rosler's and Sekula's intentional choice of material that emphasizes the political dialogue rather than concepts that are abstract and maintain no reference to real life. Furthermore, the period of the 1980's is considered a point in contemporary art history when the political fervor of the 1960's and early 1970's diminished greatly. Departing from this trend, Rosler's and Sekula's work continues to address political ideas throughout the 1980's, creating a bridge to today's photographers, such as Edward Burtynsky and Andreas Gursky who consider aesthetics from a socio-political perspective.