BOOK N째2
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GENERATION(S)
All the artists cited in this text are on The Red List. We have included references to their work and contact information in line with The Red List’s commitment to provide visual inspiration without making a profit. Anyone who wants to extend these ideas commercially can do so through our references. Our aim is to open up different avenues of exploration to create new links with contemporary creativity.
BOOK N°2
“Come mothers and fathers, Throughout the land And don’t criticize What you can’t understand. Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command, Your old road is Rapidly agin’.” Bob Dylan, Times, They Are A-changin’, 1963
Andy Warhol and members of the Factory, Richard Avedon, 1969
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CONTENTS /4 /11 /44 /62 /90
about us Deciphering References Stories interview
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WHAT IS A GENERATION? A BRANCH OF A FAMILY TREE, BUT ALSO A GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT BLOOD TIES THAT HISTORY BRINGS TOGETHER AROUND A SHARED SET OF REFERENCES, EVENTS AND TASTES. THESE DIFFERENT SENSES ARE CONSISTENTLY CONFIRMED BY ETYMOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.
REPRESENTATIONS OF THEM REVEAL THEIR EXTENT. THE FAMILY HAS EVOLVED. THE EXTENDED NUCLEAR FAMILY HAS ADDED NEW MEMBERS TO ITS CORE OF DAD, MUM AND THE KIDS, AND BECOME A TRIBE. THE IDEA OF A GENERATION IS CONSTANTLY TURNING AROUND THE FAMILY, WHETHER TO STRUCTURE IT OR RIVAL IT BY EMBODYING A COMPETING
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GROUP. WHATEVER THE SENSE WE GIVE IT, THE WORD “GENERATION” IS AN INVITATION TO REFLECT ON OTHER WAYS OF SEEING THE GROUP, IDENTITY AND THE ACT OF PASSING DOWN. IN FACT, TODAY IT SEEMS TO BE MORE MEANINGFUL THAN EVER. SO WHY SUCH A CRITICAL SUCCESS? WHY AND HOW IS OUR
TIME USING THIS IDEA? AND WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? THE RED LIST LAB INVESTIGATED… /9
DECIPHER
RING
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Deciphering
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MULTIPLYING
Maybe Babies, Sandy Skoglund, 1983
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Deciphering
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1. Tina Törnqvist, Mikael Jansson for Vogue France 2. Schellinkhout De Dijk, Ellen Kooi, 2000
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A generation: firstly it’s about being born, about reproducing life. The Bible, as an origin myth, constantly makes reference to it. In Leviticus 26:9, God says to humankind, “For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you…” Genealogical lines are always being mentioned. In 2 Chronicles 9:30-31, we see a leitmotif: “And Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. And Solomon slept with his fathers, and he was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.” Men are situated between their father and their son, an order repeated to show that nothing is left to chance, that all men are held by their ties, that the motor of Biblical origin myths is precisely
the idea of generation, the transmission of life in stages. But the word generation also appears in another way. In the Gospels, Jesus announces, “Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.” (Mark 13:30, Luke 21:32) Jesus gives the word generation a prophetic sense, linking it to the future, giving it the dimension of a unit of measurement. A generation is a cut in human time.
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In the Bible, a generation guarantees humanity an order of position. The world was not created in chaos, but obeys rules. In other words, humanity has to be numerous but arranged.
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1. Incest, Michel Journiac, 1976 2. Garden of Earthly Delights (detail), Hieronymous Bosch, 1504
One phenomenon, however, deeply disturbs the generational order – incest, or the sexual relationship between two individuals whose position in the hereditary line should not see them together. By bringing together a father and a daughter, a mother and a son, a niece and an uncle, and so on, incest creates a subversive intergenerational tie that the Bible strongly condemns. For example, Leviticus 18:6 says, “None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness.” It’s the reason why anthropologists agree that it is universally recognized taboo. Another creation myth, however, has generations of gods created in and by incest. But these are gods: unlimited beings who can do whatever they want. Listen to Euripides’ Andromache bemoaning intergenerational intermixing: “Such is all the race of barbarians; father and daughter, mother and son, sister and brother mate together; the nearest and dearest stain their path with each other’s blood, and no law restrains such horrors.”
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Deciphering
IN ORIGIN MYTHS, THE GENERATION IS A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF ARRANGEMENT. IT SEEMS, HOWEVER, THAT MODERNITY HAS TAKEN IT OVER AND PUT IT ON SHOW, PUSHING IT TO EVOLVE INTO OTHER ROLES.
1. Jesus is my Homeboy, David LaChapelle for I-D, 2003
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2. Light and Space II, Robert Irwin, 2008
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Deciphering
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Fat House, Erwin Wurm at the Baltic exhibition, 2003
LONGER LIFE
With increasing life expectancy, it’s no longer three generations coexisting, but four: children, parents, grandparents, greatgrandparents. So many people that they not only no longer fit into family photographs, but are changing the topography of family. If parents and children were once clearly at loggerheads, the differences no longer exist in the same places. Now that the “young” takes in two generations, as does the “old,” the opposition between young and old no longer seems quite as relevant. We are no longer in a face-off, but rather a succession of nuances, a juxtaposition of different age groups getting increasingly closer to each other. The family landscape seems altered in its two main representations: the photograph and the home. The family photograph has to include more and more people – we mass before the lens – while the home is getting bigger, remodelling itself so it can grow. To this idea of number and multiplication, the response seems clear: to welcome.
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Deciphering
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1. Santo Domingo de Guzmán Temple, Oaxaca, 2006 2. The Kennedy family on holiday on the Côte d'Azur, 1938
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THE EVOLUTION OF THE GROUP
A group is reassuring thanks to its multiplicity, and the human warmth it appears to produce. Identity, that vague yet fundamental sense, seems easier to affirm as part of a group than alone. “I am” becomes “I belong to…” The family group, once organized uniquely around two parents, has now changed shape. In family photographs you have to search for the parents, lost in the crowd of descendants. This selfeffacement removes the vertical axis from the family group – and so its reference point of ordinates – and promotes the horizontal axis. So as more than one person takes on the same role, the family
is reconfigured (or blended) and finds itself with competitor members (say, two “mothers,” two “fathers,” four “grandmothers,” and so on). In this case it’s easier to talk about a tribe than a family. All the more so in that this growth suggests that a generosity of welcome will become natural to the group, that this quality can be extended, and that there is always a place for newcomers. If a dynasty rises, a tribe sprawls. If generations rise, a generation spreads out.
Deciphering
BORN IN THE 1960’S IN THE WAKE OF YOUTH MOVEMENTS AROUND THE WORLD, THE “LITTLE EMPEROR” SYNDROME MAKES CHILDREN IMPORTANT INDIVIDUALS WITHIN THE FAMILY.
THE DOMINANT LITTLE EMPEROR
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Psychoanalysts such as Donald Winnicott, Melanie Klein or Françoise Dolto gave the idea of a child’s individuality a therapeutic basis and justified the idea that children were finally looked after differently within the family. They were no longer seen but not heard, no longer sent to their room or excluded from adult conversations. They were listened to, commiserated with, cared for. But if the “child is a person” then he or she was placed on an equal footing with the parents and had a relationship with them, both of which destroy filial verticality. In others 1. Honfleur, Elliott Erwitt, 1967 2. Planet, Marc Quinn, 2008
words, the child’s reign blurs everything around him or her.
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BEING ALIKE
Sasha and Ruby III, Loretta Lux, 2008
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A FAMILY LIKENESS
A family resemblance is like a signature of identity. We are because we resemble each other; because the common denominator between different individuals – what we call a family likeness – creates an essential identity. What links us together is what we are most deeply. These family likenesses are staged in images, keeping alive the idea that a family always reproduces in almost exactly the same way despite the differences of generation. If a likeness is reproduced down the generations, it’s because the family seed is strong. Listen to Montaigne, whose chapter 37 of his Essays II is entirely about the phenomenon of resemblance: “We need not trouble ourselves to seek out foreign miracles and difficulties; methinks,
among the things that we ordinarily see, there are such incomprehensible wonders as surpass all difficulties of miracles. What a wonderful thing it is that the drop of seed from which we are produced should carry in itself the impression not only of the bodily form, but even of the thoughts and inclinations of our fathers!” Resemblance objectifies parenthood; the body is the display cabinet for family memory and inheritance. Bartholomaeus Anglicus, a 13th-century Franciscan friar, observed a little discussed, slightly taboo phenomenon: “He loves most the son that is most like him and often observes and watches over him.” Why? Because resemblance stimulates narcissism and so affection.
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1. Claude and Paloma Picasso, Richard Avedon, 1966 2. Jane Birkin, Kate Barry and Charlotte Gainsbourg, Giancarlo Botti, 1977 3. Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and their daughter, Suri, Annie Leibovitz, 2006 4. Complet Jagger gang in 2000, Vogue France, February 2002 5. Jeff Koons and Family, Patrick Demarchelier, for W Magazine, December 2010 6. Triplets in their bedroom, Diane Arbus, 1963 7. Demi Moore and her daughters, Peter Lindbergh for Harper's Bazaar, 2008
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RESEMBLANCE FASCINATES BECAUSE, BY INSERTING IDENTITY INTO DIFFERENCE, IT IS CONTRADICTORY. But what will happen to family likenesses as faces are increasingly resculpted by plastic surgery? If parents’ real faces disappear, what will the children look like?
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CONFUSION One advertising campaign has become a landmark. In 1997, French clothing brand Comptoir des Cotonniers created a new marketing concept: the mother-daughter duo. Its posters featured real mothers and daughters who posed wearing the brand’s clothes. The concept worked so well that casting sessions attracted thousands of women. But what did it say about us? It seems that mothers are fonder of the concept than their daughters because in it they weren’t forced to pass on the torch of femininity to the younger generation and could stay “on the market” for longer. Indeed, in the campaign images
1. Alice and Andrea Dellal, Mario Testino for Vogue France, November 2003
3. Madonna and Lourdes Andreas Laszlo Konrath for Vogue France, February 2002
2. Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac
4. Björk and her son Sindri (detail), Jürgen Teller, 1996
it’s often difficult to work out who is the mother and who the daughter; the resemblance is so strong that it’s almost confusing. Again, our era appears to want to erase the stages of time by showing mothers and daughters on an equal footing. Other brands have used this idea, particularly those appealing to women – more sensitive to the diktats of appearance that are always telling them to remain beautiful and young, whispering that they should be like sisters to their daughters. Men, on the other hand, have more leeway to be fathers, real fathers, the kind who age.
5. Kate Moss and daughter Lila Grace, Mario Testino for U.S. Vogue, 2011 6. My House, David LaChapelle, with Alek Wek, 1997
Deciphering
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DISSIMILARITY
While resemblance unites and reassures, a lack of it frightens, as Aristotle realized: “For even he who does not resemble his parents is already in a certain sense a monstrosity; for in these cases Nature has in a way departed from the type.” On a filial and biological level, it is true that all dissimilarity introduces suspicion, mistrust around the question of paternity. If the child does not resemble the father, it could mean he is not the father and the family unit could totter. On another level, dissimilarity embodies an otherness that contravenes the idea of a child as the flesh of one’s flesh. For a mother, just think of Roman Polanski’s film version of Rosemary’s Baby, which puts a diabolical creature into
1. A Jewish Giant at home with his parents, Diane Arbus, 1970 2. Braces, David LaChapelle for Alexander McQueen, 1998
its heroine’s womb that terrorizes and threatens her maternity. Or Diane Arbus’s photo “A Jewish Giant,” which shows two parents looking at their giant, out-of-proportion son, who seems like a visitor from another planet. The photographer said that with this image she wanted to stage the fear that all mothers feel as they are about to give birth.
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Deciphering 1. Lisa Cholodenko, Wendy Melvoin and son Andreas Laszlo Konrath for W Magazine, December 2010 2. Bruce Willis, Demi Moore and Ashton Kushter, at Tallulah, Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair, 2007 3. Brad and Angelina, Steven Klein for W Magazine, July 2005 4. Illustration by Julien Pacaud, for W Magazine, April 2011 5. Katherine Heigl with her daughter Naleigh, Patrick Demarchelier for W Magazine, December 2010 6. “The Hilfiger Family”, Tommy Hilfiger ad campaign, Fall-Winter 2010/2011 7. Lee Daniels and kids, Patrick Demarchelier for W Magazine, December 2010 8. Jade Jagger and family, for W Magazine, December 2010
AN IDEAL MODEL
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If the 1960’s were a celebration of the gap between generations, between old and young, parents and children, then the present moment appears to be about reducing that gap, which comes with its own set of problems. But our times also celebrate another, more nuanced model, one that allows the same and the other – the family identity and individual subjectivity – to be reconciled: namely, the blended family. It is now an accepted part of our society – and it’s also an interesting visual model for advertisers. Now, not all the children have to look like their parents; you can introduce different skin colours and create a tribe, one that’s mixed yet nevertheless united. This opening crowns the arrival of new combinations, while being situated at the limit of “anything goes.” Which means that certain fundamental taboos now find themselves weakened, such as when older female stars take up with men young enough to be their kids. Yet, once again, it’s something noticed only when women do it; it remains commonplace for men but nobody’s calling them “cougars.”
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SHARING
The City, Jenny Holzer, 2006
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Deciphering
WHOSOEVER SAYS GENERATION SAYS SHARING. SHARING THAT CAN AGAIN EITHER GO VERTICALLY – WHAT IS TRADITIONALLY CALLED A LEGACY OR AN INHERITANCE – OR HORIZONTALLY, AS SEEN IN OUR POSTMODERN WESTERN SOCIETIES. /38
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DISRUPTED INHERITANCE
Until the information revolution, parents passed down their knowledge to their children; now, however, children have things to teach their parents and grandparents. Passing down now also goes up. This change creates disturbances between generations. The legacy capital of families has been threatened by the current economic crisis, while the economic dependence of children on their elders, as well as more frequent divorces, have all altered the dynamics of inheritance. We inherit less, but we share more, beginning with clothes. We used to dress children identically; now brands promote tribes that, from one generation to another, take their inspiration from the same source.
1. The Forced March, from series China, Samuel Bollendorff, 2005-2008 2. Shibboleth, Doris Salcedo at Tate Modern, London, 2007-2008
In advertising for Ralph Lauren, Petit Bateau, Dolce & Gabbana and Sandro parents and children appear to share the same ideas. Where’s the intergenerational strife gone? Can you oppose while posing? Today’s shared wardrobes leave little room for countercultural movements such as those that blossomed until the late 1980s.
Deciphering
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1. I shop therefore I am, Barbara Kruger, 1990 2. Mona Lisa, J.-M. Basquiat, 1983 3. Jenny Salgado 4. Superman for Obama, February 2008 5. Matches, Sigalit Landau, 2000 6. Ballpoint, Billie Jean at the Pentagram exhibition, 2004 7. Liquidated logo (Nike), Zevs, Berlin, 2005 8. Pretty much every film and video work from about 1992 until now, Douglas Gordon, 2007 9. Portrait of Marlon Brando in The Wild One by Laszlo Benedek, 1953
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GENERATIONAL OBJECTS
Outside the family unit, a generation regroups friends, contemporaries who share a past, actors in an adventure. The 1968 Generation, Vietnam War Generation, Generation Apple, Generation Y: soubriquets abound and have long been used to name groups of individuals united around an event, a cause or an object that serves as a shared aim or long-lasting tie. If we return to the Bible, it should be noted that the idea of a generation is always accompanied by that of alliance. In the same way, isn’t the Last Supper the first representation of a horizontal group without blood relations, that of a historical generation? Finally, this way of competing with the family group – by taking a recognized place in the history of a society or a country – produces a genuine pride in belonging. We love being among our like; we love being part of it, which can translate visually into arrogant poses, all-conquering smiles, an air of triumph, the feeling of being part of the movement of the world.
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Deciphering
A GENERATIONAL GROUP IS UNITED NOT ONLY BY THE PAST, BUT ALSO THE HORIZON IT IS LOOKING AT. JOINING FORCES FOR THE CONFRONTATION
A family photograph tells the story of the ties that bind but also the future that will be faced together. With the weakening of the welfare state, families are increasingly having to rely on their own resources /42
and stick together to face life’s difficulties. There is a subliminal message in this loudly and proudly proclaimed generational representation of solidarity: “Together through thick and thin.” This idea gives current versions of the family a defensive dimension: the group, even if it is laughing and relaxed, becomes a sort of rampart, a walled city, a shield.
Pictures taken from The Godfather (1972), The Godfather: Part II (1974), and The Godfather: Part III (1990) by Francis Ford Coppola
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REFE ENCE
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THE ANCESTORS, THE FUTURE
THE SAME, THE OTHER
THE FAMILY, THE TRIBE
BELONGING, IDENTITY
TIES TO THE PAST OR THE CONNECTED HORIZON
SISTERS, BEING A FATHER
GETTING YOUR BEARINGS, GETTING LOST IN TIME
References
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Disappearence, Christian Boltanski, at the Arken Museum, Copenhagen, 1998-1999
Photographs, Wang Du, 2007
Untitled (AndrĂŠ), Robert Longo, 2007
Bambi, Oleg Dou, 2008
Las Meninas, VelĂĄsquez, 1656, Prado Museum, Madrid
David LaChapelle, for the 35th birthday of Interview, 2004
Who Am We?, Do-Hu Suh, 2000
Dunes, Portrait of Mr. Sohji Yamakowa, Shoji Ueda, 1984
This is not a time for dreaming, Pierre Huyghe, 2004
NY Space, Simone Decker, 2004
Madonna and Lourdes, Andreas Laszlo Konrath for W Magazine, December 2010
John Currin and son Francis, Richard Avedon, 2003
Monument, Jenny Holzer, 2008
3-meter girl, Takashi Murakami, 2011, Gagosian, London
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STORI
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Stories
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THE BEAT GENERATION The term “Beat Generation” was first used in 1948 by Jack Kerouac to describe his circle of friends to novelist John Clellon Holmes (who would later publish the Beat Generation’s first novel, Go). Holmes then defined the movement in an article – which read almost like a manifesto – called “This is the Beat Generation,” published in the New York Times in November 1952. The overt homosexuality of some of the group’s members shocked conservative 1950s America. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch were prosecuted for obscenity and became the standard bearers of a revolution in US publishing, before becoming reference points for the next generation’s movements of gay and sexual liberation. Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac were the Generation’s stars, and directly inspired the social movements of 1968 and opposition to the Vietnam War, as well as the hippies of Haight-Ashbury and Woodstock.
1. The Beat Generation: Hal Chase, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Bourroughs in front of Columbia University, 1946
2. Biker-jacket gang, 1960
BIKER JACKETS 2.
In the second half of the 1950s, teenagers began hanging out at the bottom of the stairwells of the new French social-housing developments. They wore jeans and biker jackets, often in leather. Solidarity, a group mentality, was born among these uprooted people who often came from the countryside or abroad, and who now lived together in the same space. They would fight the nextdoor neighbourhoods in gang battles, even if the violence never really got out of hand. One thing brought them together: a desire to escape their parents’ destinies. Existing for them was being a rebel without a cause.
BLOOD The multiple meanings of the word “generation” might be compared to the distinction between jus sanguinis and jus soli or the right to citizenship determined by your parents’ citizenship or depending on where you were born. The vertical generation shares the same blood, while the horizontal version shares the same land, which can be a date-event, an unifying object. Physical resemblance is the translation of this blood flowing in the veins of a family. What about in blended families, without blood ties, then? Is living together enough to create share body language, family likenesses, similar intonation, like between a dog and its master?
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Stories 1. Botox, Donna Trope for Harper's Bazaar, December 2011 2. James Dean in a screenshot of the movie Rebel without a cause, by Nicholas Ray, 1955 3. A child of the Sevestre family, Nadar 4. Princess Metschersky in eight poses, André Alphonse Eugène Disderi, 1860, Musée d’Orsay 5. Family Portrait, François Aubert, 1864 6. Barack Obama and Family, Annie Leibovitz, 2006
BOTOX 1. /66
Botox became a generic term for the new injection-based facelift techniques of the early 2000s – the new magic potion. Thanks to Botox women no longer had to suffer to be beautiful, or, to put it another way, it was suddenly easy to fight aging and stay young. Botox was like a beauty epidural, but it also brought a new type of face: smoothed off, puffy, instantly recognizable. Botoxed women all looked alike, a family likeness out of nowhere.
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE First published in the US in 1951, J.D. Salinger’s novel has marked generations of teenagers around the world. Holden Caulfield’s doubt, despair and desire not to join the “phony” adult world quickly become emblematic of the generation gap. A reference point for other artists, it has been quoted in films such as Rebel Without a Cause, Annie Hall and The Shining, as well as in songs by Billy Joel, Guns N’ Roses or 1980s French rock group Indochine. A symbol of the counter culture, the book was also found on Mark Chapman, John Lennon’s assassin, as well as John Hinckley, Jr., the would-be assassin of Ronald Reagan.
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CHEESE The family likes to pose, most often on holidays and with a smile. The family photograph was born with photography in 1839 as a solemn portrait. Photography’s arrival meant that ordinary people were now able to access portraiture, something that until then had only been available to gods, princes and aristocrats. “A Kodak moment” From the original 1888 version – a closed wooden box returned to the factory for development – to the Instamatic in 1963, US inventor George Eastman’s company Kodak accompanied, even ran ahead of, our insatiable desire to see ourselves. In 1900, Kodak’s Brownie Camera allowed, according a contemporary writer, “10-year-old children to show their touched families images superior to more skilful work.” German art historian Alfred Lichtwark touched on the heart of the problem in 1907 when he wrote that, “In our age there is no work of art that is looked at so closely as a photograph of oneself, one’s closest relatives and friends, one’s
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6. sweetheart.” While technical progress allowed professionals out of the studio the pose remained the same: rigid, frozen. The family photograph followed, changing but remaining true to its basic principle of being visible proof of happiness. It was easy to pose; you just had to smile. “Say cheese!” Then happiness was no longer shown standing to attention but captured in motion, a daily instant. The photographer had to get the action shot. A mini-revolution followed when the children started beginning their photographic careers in the womb: the subject of the pregnancyscan photo. The arrival of digital photography now means that family photographs are taken almost reflexively and compulsively; they have become banal. Photographs are sent as greetings, from phone to phone, uploaded onto social networks. They are anchored in the instant, a way to share a moment in the moment, no longer to be filed away in albums. Which might seem incompatible with the role of the family photograph until now as a guardian of memory, getting better over time. The family photograph has also lost of one its more romantic attributes: it no longer yellows with age.
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CONFLICTS For sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, generational conflicts are in fact conflicts over the inheritance of power. In this perspective intra-family relationships become a privileged area in which the cognitive dimension of the generational effect is revealed. The conscience of a generation is thus expressed in the opposite sense, or in a negative fashion, and takes the form of “generational amnesia.” When a child’s social situation is too different from the one his parents experienced at the same age, tensions within the family can be so strong that they produce ruptures in the parents’ cognitive processes, an amnesia of their generational confidence. This generational divide can also be encouraged by another phenomenon: the desire to distance the hurt suffered by a previous generation; for example, between a generation that has experienced a war and one that hasn’t.
1. Shibboleth (detail), Doris Salcedo at Tate Modern London, 2007-2008
2. Portrait of Oscar Wilde, Napoleon Sarony, 1882
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DANDYS The word “dandy” was first used in the late 18th century. According to French academic Daniel Salvatore Schiffer, it comes from a Scottish song about an effeminate boy named Andy who would go “dandeling.” In Britain between 1813 and 1819, it became another way of saying fashionable in Britain, a notion embodied by George “Beau” Brummell. The dandy marked his difference by setting fashions and showing a certain disdain for conventional manners. The term appeared in France when, during the Restoration period of 1814-1830, the country went through a period of Anglomania. It was particularly associated with French romantics and authors such as Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly. In the 21st century dandy is a lighthearted, often sarcastic adjective for handsome. As a noun it refers to a man who takes extreme care of his appearance: well dressed and narcissistic. Think Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire or Alfred de Musset.
FROM FATHER TO SON Whether it’s gastronomy, cabinet-making or lute-making, artisanal savoir-faire is passed down from generation to generation. Indeed, one of the peculiarities of certain trades is that they make the passing down of knowledge almost sacred, as well as making a career into a family story that tells of a search for excellence. It’s a sacred and secret inheritance that needs blood ties, and has problems with rebellion and rejection. Savoir-faire is a torch handed over to generation after generation, in the same way that recipes are handed down from mother to daughter, grandmother to granddaughter. Recipes are a type of blood that circulates in the veins of the family body, celebrating the chance to try the same dishes and tastes without worrying about the passing of time.
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GANGS /70
In Europe and the USA, the idea of gangs of young people was born in the late 1950s. A gang has two meanings: a marginal or delinquent group or a friendlier gang of friends. The generational effect is present in both cases, horizontally. Moving from the gang to the generation is to give historical importance to the group, according it a place in history and the collective memory. The attribution of a name enshrines this movement.
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GEEKS All the multiple definitions of the word “geek� have one thing in common: he is someone who uses his imagination as an escape (and it is generally a he). That is to say, he uses his imagination to entertain himself, has a passion for certain domains (sci-fi, horror, computers, etc.) in which he has an extensive knowledge, and is a member of active communities of fellow enthusiasts. Nota bene: the term is no longer restricted to computer enthusiasts who spend all day and night in front of their screens.
1. Picture by Josh Olins
3. 2. Tapehead, Billie Jean, 3. Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love with daughter Frances Bean, 1992
GRUNGE A SUBGENRE OF ALTERNATIVE ROCK THAT EMERGED IN THE MID-1980S IN WASHINGTON STATE, USA, OR, TO BE MORE EXACT, IN SEATTLE. INSPIRED BY HARDCORE PUNK, HEAVY METAL AND INDEPENDENT ROCK, GRUNGE WAS GENERALLY CHARACTERIZED BY A HEAVY, SATURATED GUITAR SOUND, VARIABLE TIME SIGNATURES, AND APATHETIC LYRICS THAT DEAL WITH MENTAL ANGUISH. KURT COBAIN, THE LEADER OF NIRVANA, WAS THE ICON OF GRUNGE.
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY In France, the anniversary of one’s birth has been celebrated since the 18th century, a century later than in Protestant countries. Until the fourth century Christianity, however, rejected birthday celebrations, considering them a pagan custom and so an indirect celebration of original sin. It is certainly a celebration marking “a recognition of me and the promotion of individuality.” People used to celebrate their namesake’s saint’s day; it was the British who began to distinguish between a birthday and a saint’s day, and who also introduced the birthday cake. It wasn’t until the 19th century that birthdays were celebrated across the West. German writer Sybil Gräfin Schönfeldt, in her 1987 book Das guten Tons, tells of a custom of lighting candles to form an indestructible circle of friendship around the person celebrating his or her birthday. This magic circle aimed to protect and
distance demons from the party, because it was once thought that humans were vulnerable to deliverance to demons in the space between two years. Or as French artist Sophie Calle puts it: “On my birthday I worried about being forgotten. So in 1980, in order to rid myself of this worry, I took the decision to invite every year, on October 9 if possible, a number of guests equivalent to my number of years. Among them, a person I didn’t know and chosen by one of the other guests. I never used the presents I was given at these events. I kept them so I had these proofs of affection to hand. In 1993, aged 40, I ended this ritual.”
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1. Homeworks, Miles Aldridges for Vogue Italia, 2008 2. Young hippies climbing a fence at the Woodstock Festival, 1969 3. "Yippies" lead anti-election protest outside City Hall, San Francisco, October 1968 4. Opole, Czestochowa, 1985
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HIPPIES The hippy movement was part of the counterculture that sprang up during the 1960s in the US, before spreading to the rest of the Western world. Hippies, members of the postwar baby-boom generation, rejected traditional values, the lifestyle of their parents’ generation and consumer culture. These they replaced with an openness to other cultures, a need for freedom and a search for new sensory perceptions, all of which led to psychedelia. In their communities, they tried to make their desire to live freely a reality by creating more authentic relationships between people by breaking with the norms of earlier generations. The movement had a profound cultural influence, particularly in music, and the assimilation of various hippie values changed things in mainstream society, even if the movement itself progressively shrank in size.
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INHERITANCE An inheritance is usually formed of property or belongings that people leave to their descendants. In other words, an inheritance belongs in the family. For a few years now, however, certain brands have marketed themselves as a new type of inheritance, an outside, exogamous legacy. A brand becomes a possession that doesn’t belong to the family, but which is nevertheless handed down from generation to generation. Just look at clothing companies such as Petit Bateau, Comptoir des Cotonniers, Ralph Lauren or Dolce & Gabbana. It’s an argument-free, ownershipfree inheritance: the brand belongs to nobody, everyone has their share, young and old can enjoy it at the same time, and wearing it guarantees a sense of belonging, bonding and togetherness. In a way, a sort of perfect legacy.
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THE LOST GENERATION Gertrude Stein named this group of American expats living in Paris between the wars. Among them were Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Waldo Pierce, Sylvia Beach, T.S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein herself. While Fitzgerald is perhaps considered the most emblematic member of the Lost Generation, all of them witnessed and told the story of a shaken America’s loss of transcendence and its social and moral upheavals. According to Hemingway, however, and contrary to received wisdom, the term did not originally have a particularly tragic sense.
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THE NAMING OF THINGS There is always someone who, at one time or another, labels a generation united around a fashion, attitude or event. came from Cab Calloway’s song “Zaz Zuh Zaz.” The word “hippie” has a number of possible sources: perhaps from “hip,” the Wolof term for “open your eyes”; a pun on the word “hype”; a derivative of the 1940s bebop term, hipster; while, according to academic Malcolm Miles, it comes from the neighbourhood of San Francisco, Haight-Ashbury and the two words Independent Property (HIP). The French term blousons noirs (literally, “black jackets”) was first applied to teenage delinquents in the press in 1959. “Grunge” comes from a word for dirty, like the music’s sound, and is said to have first appeared in Australia, not Seattle. (In France it is believed that the word refers specifically to the gunk that forms between the toes, even if a quick visit to an English dictionary would prove that incorrect.) The current cliché – following on from Generation X – is to just take the word “generation” and add something: say, Generation Y, although we’re probably at Generation Z by now.
3. 1. Seoul, Shindorim-dong, from series Monuments, Stéphane Couturier, 2002 2. Artists in exile, 1942 3. Howies Wardrobe, Marion Deuchars, 2005
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NO The word that normally links generations together. A refusal to hand things down, rebellion, the necessity to find other references, invent yourself as an individual and as part of a family. It’s the no that gives birth to counter-cultures and teenage culture.
1. Image by Wordboner 2. Berlin, StĂŠphane Duroy, 1989 3. Photograph by Christophe Kutner 4. IfIhadagun, Nico 189, 2011 5. Jesus Cervantes and Manuel Heredia, prisoners, Richard Avedon, 1980
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OBJECTS, ICONS AND SYMBOLS THE ZAZOUS’ UMBRELLAS, THE PUNKS’ SAFETY PINS, MOHICANS AND TATTOOS… All objects that adorn the body and leave their mark on it, as if part of an initiation ceremony to gain entry to a new club. They’re visible marks, often disturbing, and when the body is not enough, the city can be used. And there, what’s important, whether in tags or graffiti, is that they’re seen and slightly threaten other generations. Each tribe has its unifying symbols, dead icons and living legends: Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Kate Moss, Jared Leto, and on it goes.
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1. "Hope" (Obama Campaign Poster), Shepard Fairey (aka Obey), 2008
2. Malcolm Mclaren and Vivienne Westwood at Let It Rock, 1971 3. Alice Dellal, Alexandre Tabaste for Madame Figaro, November 2011 4. UK Punks, Stéphane Duroy, 1987
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POLITICAL SPEECH In politics using the idea of a generation – that is, to unite under one word a group of people pretty much the same age – is to presuppose that either a group of people of pretty much the same age naturally forms a “mobilized group” sharing the same image, behaviour and experiences, or that it constitutes a “mobilizable group,” united by at least a shared feeling of contemporaneity, mindset, memories and recollections. Or as President Obama put it in his inaugural address: “As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man – a charter expanded by the blood
of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience sake. […] America: In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.”
PUNKS Punk first appeared in the mid-1970s in the UK, a revolt against established values. It was all about raw expression, spontaneity, and an attitude best described as tabula rasa. The whole accompanied by a new sense of energy, synonymous with a genuine creative freedom (for example, independent labels, DIY art, fanzines, fashion and graphic design). The word “punk� came originally from a word for a prostitute, but in US English meant a criminal or thug. It also had a predecessor in US garage rock. Despite its soi-disant rejection of the past, the British punk movement was actually extremely interested in nihilism, Dada and the anarchist movement, which led to alternative movements like squats, antimilitarism, anticonformism, vegetarianism, feminism and autonomism. Punks were also inspired by Ancient Greek cynics, as, some critics said, best shown in the figure of Malcolm McLaren. Other punk leaders included Sid Vicious and his band the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Vivienne Westwood, the Ramones and the Saints.
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Stories 1. Mick Jagger on stage, New York, 1972 2.I Buy Big Car For Shopping, David LaChapelle, 2002
REVOLTING YOUTH THE WORD GENERATION, WHEN NOT PRECEDED BY THE WORD “OLDER,” ALMOST ALWAYS MEANS THE YOUNG: THE YOUNG POPULATION WITH ITS GENERATION AND HISTORICAL MARKER. LIKE THE 1968 /80
GENERATION: MADE UP OF PEOPLE WHO WERE 20 IN 1968; OR GENERATION Y: PART OF THE POPULATION THAT HAS GROWN UP WITH TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL NETWORKS. THE SPREAD OF THE IDEA OR THE TERM DIDN’T HAPPEN UNTIL THE APPEARANCE OF THE “YOUNG” AS A SEPARATE PART OF SOCIETY WITH ITS OWN IDENTITY, SOMETHING THAT ONLY DATES TO THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY. UNTIL THEN, THE YOUNG WERE ABOVE ALL A DANGER, A THREAT OF DISORDER FOR THE WHOLE OF SOCIETY.
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ROCK Wherever you are, whoever you are, rock is a sort of rite of passage, a barrier between childhood and adolescence. Each generation has its rock icons, even if sometimes they’re the same as your parents’ (the Beatles or the Stones). But above and beyond the bands, rock is a state of mind, a pogo between sections of your life, a moment of reaction in which you suddenly believe it’s possible to break ranks, to say no. Rock is breaking and entering, a slammed door, a self-image of daring and anticonformism with which we all need to play with, dress up and express ourselves.
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SAGA An Old Norse word, a saga is a medieval literary genre of story cycles made up of a number of parts. Being described as a saga implies a story that will talk of successive generations. Originally only used in the context of fiction, the word is now used willy-nilly, whether in cinema (the Godfather saga), advertising (the Coca-Cola saga) or in marketing.
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STAIRS Lots of family photographs feature a flight of stairs. Stairs, by definition, move up, are vertical but staggered, and so are perfect sets on which families could show their genealogical order. In films, Sergei Eisenstein in Battleship Potemkin used steps to create a scene that became legendary and has been since referenced by other directors including Brian De Palma, Francis Ford Coppola, Ettore Scola or Woody Allen: a mother lets go of her baby’s pram and it rolls down a long set of steps. A symbol of abandonment, one forced by time and circumstances, the pram is also the only way to save the child. Here’s the paradox: the ascendant (the mother) lets go of the descendant (the son) trying to save his life. These Potemkin steps, filmed in a high-angle shot, become the steps of time that separate the generations and organize the handover of power.
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The sporting team is an idealized representation of a generational group, the kind you dream of, a group of peers, led by a leader, a captain, all mobilized to win. They have to stick together or the group dynamic will seize up and victory will flee. More than a gang or a brotherhood, a team has to surmount its disagreements if it doesn’t want to disintegrate forever.
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THERAPY 1. Nurses at Roosevelt Hospital, Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1937 2. Still from the movie Any Given Sunday, by Oliver Stone, 1999 3. The Cheshire Family Tree, Chelsea Wong
A genogram is a way of representing a family tree that contains the main information about each family member and his or her shared relationships over at least three generations. You can quickly see – in visual form – complex family dynamics and be ready to draw your own conclusions about the causes of possible problems linked to the past or current family context. Primarily used in psychogenealogy, a genogram allows you to discover possible repeated actions that have been passed down the generations and so see how the same behaviours are reproduced from one generation to the next.
Stories 1. Facade / Billboard, Roxy Paine, 2010 2. Among the polygamists, Stephanie Sinclair, National Geographic, 2010 3. Theatrum Mundi, Mark Dion and Robert Williams, 2001
1. Miles Aldridge, Vogue Italy, mars 2008 www.milesaldridge.com Agent de Miles Aldridge : D & V Management Contact : nathalie@dandvmanagement.com www.dandvmanagement.com Contact : studio@milesaldridge.com 2. Miles Aldridge, Vogue Italy, mars 2008 www.milesaldridge.com Agent de Miles Aldridge : D & V Management Contact : nathalie@dandvmanagement.com
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3. Miles Aldridge, Vogue Italy, mars 2008 www.milesaldridge.com Agent de Miles Aldridge : D & V Management Contact : nathalie@dandvmanagement.com
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TREE Why does genealogy have a tree as its essential symbol? It began a long time ago. Take Isaiah 11:1, for example: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of its roots.” Jesse’s tree later becomes a figurative genealogical ascendant of Christ, further planting the family tree’s roots. Yet before becoming the predominant metaphor, the tree had its rivals, including the human body, buildings and chains. Ancient Roman authors did write of the roots and branches
of the family, but more often talked of a house. Man himself was compared to a tree – his blood the sap, his limbs the branches – a living, animated metaphor that suggests the growth and evolution of man or the family as organic and irregular. It wasn’t until the 15th century, however, that the image finally set its roots down for good.
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VALUES For a long time the idea of “values” has been a generational marker. Different age groups oppose each other around the word. So what does it cover? A way of considering human relationships like friendship, love and filiation; a way to position oneself in relation to changes in society or, on the contrary, to traditions such as religion and causes like gay rights or feminism. Values are the positions that accompany opinions and points of view about all that can divide a community, notably when it is made up of different age groups. But between the 1980s and now, these values have become more uniform – and appear later. It’s not until around 60 that eventual differences between generations now begin to show their head; it used to happen around 40.
VINTAGE The young dress like their elders and love it. Again, fashion plays with the idea of inheritance without altering its DNA: the vintage outfit is the spoils of a raid on the attic or a family wardrobe. It’s an ancestral treasure you’ve laid your hands on, one you wear with pride. 3.
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WAVE THERE IS SOMETHING OF THE WAVE IN A GENERATION. AN EXPLOSION OF ENERGY, A SUCCESSIVE VITALITY. WAVES FOLLOW EACH OTHER AND NEVER LOOK EXACTLY ALIKE. AND SO IT IS FOR GENERATIONS (EVEN IF THERE REMAIN SOME CONSTANTS FROM ONE GENERATION TO THE NEXT). SOMETIMES THE TWO WORDS ARE INTERCHANGEABLE – SUCH AS IN NEW WAVE CINEMA – BUT FROM TODAY’S PERSPECTIVE WAVE SOUNDS A LITTLE OLD HAT. LET’S STICK TO GENERATION.
1. Untitled, from series Water, Mike Piscitelli, 2011
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THE ZAZOUS A French movement that began in the 1940s, the Zazous were recognizable by their British or American clothing and their showy love of jazz. During World War II and the Nazi occupation of France, the Zazous showed their opposition by organizing dance contests, which annoyed the occupiers. When the Nazis and collaborationist leader Marshal Pétain passed racial laws meaning Jews had to wear yellow stars, a certain number of Zazous began wearing stars marked with either “Zazou,” “Swing” or “Goy.” There were arrested and sent to the Drancy detention camp, before being released. A similar bravado led them to wear oversized clothes in a period of rationing and keep their hair long even after a government decree that made hair collected from hairdressers a national raw material to be used in making slippers. Finally, they made it a point of honour to be always equipped an umbrella, even if they never, ever opened it. In Paris, they used to hang out at the Pam-Pam on the Champs-Élysées and the Boul’Mich in the Latin Quarter. Two Zazous who left their mark were singer Johnny Hess and gay campaigner Pierre Seel, while French legend Boris Vian was a good friend.
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THE EXPERT Research director at CNRS and political scientist at CEVIPOF, Science Po’s Centre for Political Research, Anne Muxel specializes in the attitude of younger generations towards politics, and has worked on the question of generations. How has the idea of generation evolved?
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The idea and reality have been muddied since pretty much the 1970s. The nature of organizational positions within the family, in the relationships between the sexes and parents and children, has been changed radically. It’s the same thing for the nature of ages. People are younger for much longer: we’re teenagers increasingly early and we stay young for longer and longer. The same thing for old age, thanks to the rise in life expectancy. This means that the phases that organize a lifetime have been recomposed; we no longer witness absolute, clean breaks; the thresholds between stages have become increasingly porous. This has been joined by the arrival of postmodern ideas around the “cult of youth,” which enjoins adults to remain young in everything they do. Within the family they have to be young parents close to their children or active trendy grandparents; at work, they must avoid getting stuck in a rut under pain of being pushed to one side; in their private life, they have to be sexual, look after their bodies, their image, and so on. This concerns the Third Age, even the Fourth. These demands can only change the succession of generations and undermine the vertical order of time. Today, it’s less succession that works and intrigues, but rather cohabitation, with all that that can have of the competitive. Why does advertising use so many generational ideas? Generally, advertising often turns to images of the family. Why? Because in a changing, permanently expanding world, the family is a sort of cell or refuge, a protection, a rampart. In a family, people are certain not to lose their bearings and a certain emotional security. But brands don’t just use the nuclear family. They are increasingly using intergenerational images that mix people of all ages. Why? Because even more than the family, different generations promote the idea of a group together; it’s an extremely powerful emotional vehicle.
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1. Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, by Robert Aldrich, 1962 2.Dolce & Gabbana Fall-Winter 2012 with Monica Bellucci, Bianca Balti and Bianca Brandolini, Giampolo Sgura
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For individuals, being surrounded by their parents, as well as their grandparents and other members of the family, is reassuring. It holds the promise of intergenerational solidarity and support, which is essential when facing a hostile and changing world. Generations offer a framework within which to reinterpret the idea of identity by making it more transversal, disassociating it from its traditional identity markers such as a country or age. In these multigeneration adverts, these boundaries are put aside, replaced by the promotion of an identity based in sharing and the collective. It’s heart-warming imagery. What do think about the constant use to names such as Generation X or Generation Y? It’s a sign of our need to label trends and behaviours, even if grouping together a whole segment of the population under a single banner is obviously taking the risk of creating hodgepodges and treating difference and subtlety with disdain. Indeed, if the media use these terms so much it’s because it’s flattering to feel you belong to a collective. Being part of this or that generation is to think that we are an actor in history, meeting these extremely powerful political projections through which we can identify ourselves with earlier, prestigious generations, people who shook things up. What are the side effects of such displays? The risk is that by using the idea of the generation we finish up with a society that’s not sufficiently differentiated in regard to age, gender and roles. In short, all the markers that deeply punctuate life. In fashion, for example, we can see that everyone is invited to dress in the same way: children, parents, mothers, daughters, and so on. It’s tempting because we all want to believe in absolute sharing, but beware. We could finish up – and I’m of course exaggerating – with Mao’s China! Perhaps brands would be smart to reinstate the threshold, barriers and distinctions. Anne Muxel wrote many books among which: Individu et mémoire familiale, 2007, Hachette, France. Toi, moi et la politique, 2008, Seuil, France. Avoir vingt ans en politique, 2010, Seuil, France.
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THE “CULT OF YOUTH” AND NEW FAMILY ARRANGEMENTS ARE MOVING GENERATIONAL LINES AND HAVING BENEFICIAL EFFECTS: LESS RIGIDITY, A GREATER EASE OF COMMUNICATION AND GENEROSITY OF WELCOME. BUT LET’S NOT FORGET THE DRAWBACKS. HOW CAN THE INDIVIDUAL SITUATE HIM-OR HERSELF WITHIN THE TIMELINE
OF THE FAMILY? WHAT POSITION DOES HE OR SHE TAKE IN THE FAMILY IF THE TEMPORAL BARRIERS ARE INCREASINGLY BLURRED? WILL HUMAN BEINGS ALWAYS NEED TO BE SITUATED IN THE VERTICALITY OF TIME? AS PROUST WROTE: “IF AT LEAST, TIME ENOUGH WERE ALLOTED TO ME TO ACCOMPLISH MY WORK, I WOULD NOT FAIL
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TO MAKE IT WITH THE SEAL OF TIME, THE IDEA OF WHICH IMPOSED ITSELF UPON ME WITH SUCH FORCE TO-DAY, AND I WOULD THERE IN DESCRIBE MEN, IF NEED BE, AS MONSTER OCCUPYING A PLACE IN TIME INFINITELY MORE IMPORTANT THAN RESTRICTED ONE RESERVED FRO THEM IN SPACE, A PLACE, ON THE CONTRARY,
PROLONGED IMMEASURABLY SINCE, SIMULTANEOUSLY TOUCHING WIDELY SEPARATED YEARS AND THE DISTANT PERIODS THAT HAVE LIVED THROUGH – BETWEEN WHICH SO MANY DAYS HAVE RANGED THEMSELVES – THEY STAND LIKE GIANT IMMERSED IN TIME.”
* Marcel Proust, Time Regained in Rememberance of Things Past.
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