elliot ross
animal
In the case of our relationship with animals, a sense of the difficulty with reality may involve‌ a sense of astonishment and incomprehension that there should be beings so like us, so unlike us, so astonishingly capable of being companions of ours and so unfathomably distant. How powerfully strange it is that they and we should share as much as we do, and also not share; that they should be capable of incomparable beauty and delicacy and terrible ferocity; that some among them should be so mind-bogglingly weird or repulsive in their forms or in their lives.
Cora Diamond, The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy
elliot ross
animal
An old staring cat... by Manfred Zollner
Elliot Ross’ beloved cat had just died and his wife decided to put up a framed portrait in its memory. And there was the old cat staring down at him from that photo on the wall. Something in the way the cat was looking captured Ross’ attention. Had this feline consciously been looking into the lens at the moment this picture was taken? What had she been thinking then? Had she been thinking at all? And what exactly is the difference between the human mind and the consciousness of this animal? From that day’s moment of sadness, Elliot Ross has reflected much on animals in general and his own feelings about them in particular. Being an artist, he has invested those thoughts and emotions into this Animal project, of which he simply says that it features “different forms of animal life.” So Ross started taking photographs of animals, which, in the manipulative realm of his computer, he later plunges into an artificial blackness, eclipsing all background noise, focusing our attention completely on the portrait. All indications of actual surroundings are deleted because they would be distracting and irrelevant. No habitat needed to keep anything grounded here. Our focus is on a gesture, not on a jungle. A pose, a look resulting in the immediacy of an apparent interaction with the creatures present. But something else is happening too, on a formal level. The sudden darkness causes that remaining light reflecting
off the animal to look supernatural, creating an utterly sculptural setting. It is important that we do not get the impression of a sterile studio surrounding here. The artist is aiming for something new and different. Britta Jaschinski’s dark Zoo photographs may come to mind, condemnatory images about wildlife in captivity. This is not at all about zoos, however. Andrew Zuckerman’s Creature and Jill Greenberg’s animal portraits have recently successfully applied lighting techniques more commonly used in contemporary studio portraiture. But this is different, more discomfiting. Ross’ uncanny black and white prints remove these images from that common typecasting often associated with animal portraits and images of nature’s beauty. “I try to see every animal in a new and fresh way, without any preconceived notions. At this very moment they are all individuals, they are not meant to represent the whole species,” Ross explains. This approach is founded on his huge empathy for all other beings. “I believe this individually constructed relationship with the creature can give us humans the strongest feeling for other beings on this planet.” One of the most intense portraits in this series confronts us with the furry back of a lowland gorilla. This corpulent primate has taken a pose that attentive zoo visitors might be familiar with. She is avoiding eye contact, turning away
from the photographer. What makes this shot so special is the position of her right hand resting on her left shoulder. A gesture that evokes associations with a longing for protection, an expression of a feeling of being at a loss. A clinging hand trying to maintain a decent pose in the isolation of a distant place. Of course we are tempted to attribute human features and feelings to animals, to humanize them. It’s a risk inherent in all interpretations of animal portraits. The San Francisco-based artist is dealing with these interpretations. “I think, especially with primates, it does make sense that we discover human-like features in their facial expressions,” Ross claims. “Charles Darwin has elaborated on that in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. New scientific evidence supports Darwin’s findings to a great extent. Always keep in mind, however, that complex thoughts can only be reflected in an animal’s expression to the point at which it is capable of having them.” It is primates like monkeys and gorillas in particular that have turned out to be especially suited to these portraits. And also birds, as this artist has found out to no small surprise. Lions, tigers, zebras, polar bears or giraffes – all these have been much tougher to portray. “Maybe because our culture is so saturated with images of these animals,” Elliot Ross speculates. He certainly feels closer to all of these creatures
since he has started portraying them. Of course he has always remained aware of the sometimes brutal differences. During one of his first visits to a zoo, a Siberian tiger ate the arm of one of its keepers. On another occasion, a chimpanzee, loaded with sudden aggression and screaming wildly, stormed towards the photographer. Only the thick shatter-proof glass of the cage window kept the animal from physically attacking the visitor. How does Animal relate to Elliot Ross’ previous artistic work? “It may be an old cliché, but it’s true in my case: art is always some kind of self-portrait,” Ross acknowledges. “In recent decades, I’ve devoted my time to various forms of emotional search – from self-portrait drawings to photographs dealing with the feeling of loss after the Holocaust.” His captivating animal portraits are laden with a completely different kind of emotional mood. Ross enlarges them as pigment prints, giving them a matt surface quality similar to charcoal drawings, yet willfully maintaining a sharp and concise photographic impression. There is a strong painterly quality in these images, however, in their composition, their artificial blackness just as well as in the haptic sensation of these prints. After all, these images are about us facing the archetypal animal. It may well be that, at times, we are confronted here with the very same gaze that Elliot first found in that thought-triggering image of his beloved cat.
Anyone who truly wants to escape human solipsism should not seek out empty places. Instead of fleeing to the desert, where they will be thrown back into their own thoughts, they will do better to seek the company of other animals.
John Gray, Straw Dogs: thoughts on humans and other animals