amsterdam focus 7 0 Hans Aarsman
thrown away. And so I ended up back in business, although I’m not really back in business because I’m not looking for a new project.” On show recently at the Photographers’ Gallery in London, the collection is formed of a seemingly random assortment of images lining two opposing walls. On one side the title reads ‘desired things photographed – not bought’, while on the other wall ‘precious things photographed – got rid of’.” Beside each image, many of which are contributed by passing visitors, are titles hurriedly scratched onto the wall in pencil; names of objects accompanied by dates and intentions. For example: ‘Pair of Shoes, Not Bought. 23.06.08.’ The photos are raw – screen grabs, tabletop shots of figurines, a picture taken in passing of a Mercedes 220L – the sort of images that crop up
hans aarsman photographer A new series of seemingly random images aims to create something
on eBay or corner stores, glued to cards with
of a transcendental gap between objects and the desire to own
‘ONO’ or ‘buyer collects’ inked in Biro below.
them. Stephen Whelan reviews a challenging, poignant collection
“For me this is the most authentic way of taking pictures, without the ambition to be a photographer. Not looking for subjects, projects,
It’s fitting for a photo series on disposability and desire that the whole thing
concepts,” suggests Aarsman. “You just live and record what you live and
could so nearly never have happened, and that it should be the result of
someday somebody may be interested in it.”
someone else’s need rather than the conscious aim of the artist’s labour.
Hurried though they may be, the images of objects become objects in their
Hans Aarsman’s latest work, Photography Against Consumerism, originally
own right, evidence of willed detachment from desire. For Aarsman,
existed as a formless personal collection of images that were never
divorcing desire from the process of consumption creates a gap in which
intended for public consumption. Triggered by a change of house and a
desire can be experienced as an end in itself, a gap in which the passing
determined desire to downscale the assorted detritus he’d collected over
need to direct that urge towards an object can be overcome. If the
the years, Aarsman took to photographing objects as a memory-forming act
experience seems therapeutic, at the same time a residue of fear and panic
prior to disposing of them. In the process of replacing objects with images
lies behind the images, the stillness of the objects at odds with the
he came to see a deeper theme at work – the compulsion to own, the
seemingly frenzied act of photographic flagellation.
craving to collect – and the possibility of release from the impermanence
Ultimately, however, the series leads towards a feeling of loneliness, not
of desire through photography.
release. Substituting rejection for projection, Aarsman’s invitation to use
“I’d never intended to create a coherent project, a definable entity, when I
photography against consumerism destroys desire without offering an
started taking these photographs,” Aarsman explains. “I was approached by
alternative. Yet, paradoxically, there’s a nascent optimism here, the
a magazine for a feature on photographers who’d changed the direction of
suggestion that rebuilding meaning beyond desire has to start in isolation.
their careers – I’d given up photography in the mid 1990s and taken up
“I’d like to think this way of thinking could become a worldwide movement,”
writing instead. They asked whether I’d been using a camera in any way
Aarsman considers, “but I don’t think I have much say in that. I’m happy
since my change of direction, and I mentioned these photos of things I’d
that, for me at least, the camera operates as a tool against materialism.”
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