Upon entering the exhibition, I noticed that Duggan-Cronin s works stand out among the vast number of masterpieces on display. His photos, despite bearing sepia tones and film-like lines, tell a lot of stories and meanings behind them. His subjects are mostly living things like humans and animals, but he also excels in taking photos of inanimate objects and bringing life to them, including the ever-wonderful nature.
Most of the photographs that he shot include people doing various activities, depicting their lives in Africa and how they deal with getting what they need in order to survive. There are a few shots with people who apparently posed for the camera, but their faces were not really camera-ready, which also says something about their thoughts and emotions.
Duggan-Cronin s way of taking photographs can be compared with the way other travellers take their own shots, especially those who roam around the world and take pictures of different cultures. However, looking closely at the grainy pictures displayed in large wooden frames gave me the idea that Duggan-Cronin wants to show the viewers something else besides the whole dramatic effect of the pictures and how people in South Africa appear to be. There is definitely something more about his works than what meets the eye.
This fact reeled me in for further research regarding the real meaning of Duggan-Cronin s pictures. Upon looking at different books and internet sources, I was able to find out that most of the pictures are meant to depict racism that African people has been experiencing, especially in terms of how people look at them and how they are being treated.
In this paper is a background about Alfred Duggan-Cronin including his style and his views, a look at the racism issue that has been connected to his pictures, and the exhibition as a whole, and the significance of the photographs and masterpieces to the society.
The Striking Photographer
Alfred Duggan-Cronin is of Irish descent, born on the 17th of May, year 1874 by a resident magistrate. He studied at Mount St. Mary s College in Derbyshire, England, and initially planned to become a Jesuit priest in the future. However, he changed his decision and instead went to South Africa (Hart 2009 34).
He initially became a night watchman for the diamond company De Beers located in Kimberely. After some time, he continued his job at a compound hospital until his retirement in 1932. In the year 1904, however, he was able to come back to his homeland, Ireland, where he gained interest in taking photographs with the use of his simple box camera. From then on, he took the camera to South Africa where he took shots of different sceneries and objects (Hart 2009 34).
During the course of his work in De Beers, Duggan-Cronin was able to witness the different faces of the people in South Africa in terms of their way of living and their way of working in order to survive. He was exposed to a lot of situations that helped him understand the reality of African s lives. Using his camera, Duggan-Cronin took shots of these people in both working and traditional clothes (Hart 200935).
Miss Maria Wilman, McGregor Museum s very first director, pushed Duggan-Cronin to continue his project, which was to capture and record the inevitable breakdown of the indigenous way of life in motion picture before everything else. It took a while before an exhibition officially came up in 1921 in Kimberely, and in 1925, the pictures were on display in his home at Kamfersdam (Hart 2009 36).
Later on, his studies and photographs were also exhibited in numerous places outside South Africa, including London, Paris, Durban, and Johannesburg. Moreover, the Cambridge University Press decided to have his photographs published in eleven volumes of books. More and more people became interested with his works, including King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. His success continued until a gallery was named after him in the early 1990s (Hart 2009 36). Up to this day, Duggan-Cronin s works are still regarded as one of the most significant contributions to the study of African racism.
Photographs Implications
Duggan-Cronin seems to have taken these photographs to show the African s way of living in the perspective of someone who is considered an outsider, since Duggan-Cronin is of Irish descent. However, his close contact with some of the people in Kimberely, as well as working with them, made him one different outsider to the extent that he was allowed to take pictures of them and even their rituals.
One distinct feature of the photos that he had taken would have to be its raw feel in comparison to the some of the artworks and photos in the exhibition. These are the ones that do not have a retouching in terms of implications. The photos with vivid colours are also likely to be considered pieces of art towards the discussion of racism, but theirs are manipulated and are created to imply sarcasm or irony.
Duggan-Cronin s pictures alone would actually elicit normal reactions from the viewers of the masterpieces. However, being paired with other satirical photos dragged these photos towards racism views
To conceive of racism as a natural and virtually inevitable human response to encounters with strangers or aliens is to take the subject outside of history and into the realm of psychology or sociobiology. But if we continue to think of it as a historical construction associated with the rise of modernity and with specific national or international contexts, we have to conclude that it came to a hideous fruition in the century that has just ended. (Frederickson 2002 99)
One implication of the pictures would have to be the fact that Africa, or the people living in Africa, have not been fully touched by the industrial and financial development happening elsewhere outside their continent. There are pictures showing the different rituals that some of them still do up to this day, as well as their ways of preparing their food and spending their afternoons in the fields (See Figure 3). Unlike the rest of the world where different activities have already flourished, Africa remains untouched.
Another thing that makes the photos exceptional would have to be innocence of the African s faces. They seem to be unaware of how people who do not belong to their society perceive them. Based on what the pictures say, the Africans have no pretensions they are the way they are, personally and photographically. Their way of living stays true to the line what you see is what you get. They are not ashamed of what they are, what they do, and how people see them.
Racism Issue behind the Exhibition
Without a doubt race is a complex issue. The issues of racism are similar to those of colonialism in many ways because colonial powers used doctrines of racial superiority to make their conquest more acceptable in the minds of their populaces racism is an infused dogma that is often hard for the dominant culture to identify Museum administrators need to watch for this dogma so they do not fall into the same trap as countless others. (Genoways and Ireland 2003 320)
Based on my observations, the artworks in the exhibition are split in half, with the first half giving the African people a better view in the society, and the other half showing a slightly contrasting side, although the latter does not blatantly indicate it. The other works in the exhibition also lean towards racism issues. Some are totally different from how Duggan-Cronin s works are shown. Most of these other pictures attempt to elicit humour and irony in them, particularly the pictures of African women each carrying a chicken with them while sporting a funny face, a white man with a face resembling a black person (known as the Renaissance Man), and even a photo of a black man that resembles Baphomet, the supposedly epitome of evil and Satan.
As I have mentioned earlier, Duggan-Cronin s works would not have alternate meanings if it were not for the other pictures that are displayed in the exhibition. However, these other pictures would still raise the eyebrows of many people with or without Duggan-Cronin s pictures. What makes these pictures controversial is their messages. For instance, the one Renaissance man (See Figure 4) can be interpreted in two ways (1) the white man sympathizes with the black people as he tends his land, which might be because he can see himself as a black person doing a difficult task or (2) the black people are imprisoned in the body of the white people, which means that their thoughts or ideas remain undisclosed and that their actions are controlled by the white people, which can be interpreted as slavery.
The slave of the common Western image is first and foremost a commodity, to be bought and sold and inherited. He is a chattel, totally in the possession of another person who uses him for private ends. He has no control over his destiny, no choice of occupation or employer, no rights to property or marriage, and no control over the fate of his children. He can be inherited, moved, or soled without regard to his feelings, and may be ill-treated, sometimes even killed, with impunity. Furthermore, his progeny inherit his status. (Miers and Kopytoff 1979 3)
In this series of pictures, it can be seen that a person is wearing a black fur-like costume. Clearly, there is one distinct message in here It is the people who give different meanings and interpretations to the races that they do not belong to. In the first picture, the people seem to be puzzled with what they saw. Of course, everyone will be surprised seeing someone dressed like that in reality. However, we have to keep in mind that some pictures say otherwise. The second and third pictures appears to tell the viewers that black people find their belongingness in animals and nature, and they wish that people will not mind them solely because of their race or their appearance, or even the way white people perceive them. Sadly, there are still some white people who perceive the black people differently and look down on them despite the fact that times have already changed.
Racism is not, like race, a subject the content of which can be scientifically investigated. It is, like a religion, a belief which can be studied only historically. Like any belief which goes beyond scientific knowledge, it can be judged only by its fruits and by its votaries and its ulterior purposes. Of course, when it makes use of facts, racist interpretation can be checked against those facts, and the interpretation can be shown to be justified or unjustified on the basis of history and of scientific knowledge...Any scientist can disprove all its facts and still leave the belief untouched. (Benedict 1983 97)
However, these views of the pictures may or may not represent the views of other people. They may have different interpretations for every picture, so the perceived level of racism in these pictures might vary. People who tend to look at the details of the pictures and artworks might not see the whole racism issue, whereas those who are more inquisitive might have their opinions with regard to racism.
Thus, location and context are important in the expression of racist thoughts and actions. The reaction to racial cures will also depend on what stereotypes are triggered. Many racist stereotypes are so deeply embedded in white consciousness (such as the dangerous-black-man image) that even whites with relatively low levels of racial stereotyping and prejudice may have difficulty in recognizing the role such stereotypes play in their everyday lives. (Feagin, 2001134)
The Bottom Line
The exhibition may be consciously or unconsciously implying racism in the masterpieces displayed. Regardless of this fact, there will still be different views about the pictures, especially if the ones who are taking a look belong to different races or groups. The variation of the works displayed makes it even harder for spectators to come up with a general conclusion on the exhibition.
The white people may either have a positive or a negative remark about the photos, but most of them will definitely steer clear of one thing being involved in the act of racism and other racism practices.
In spite of the painful reality of everyday racism which time spent in candid discussions with even a few black acquaintances should make clear most white Americans and many other nonblack Americans insist on denying the reality of antiblack attitudes and discriminatory practices in the contemporary United States. One reason for this is that most whites lives are racially segregated, and thus they have few substantial or enduring (especially equal-status) contacts with black Americans. Many, if not most, whites never become close enough to their few black acquaintances to have candid and consequential discussions about the racism these acquaintances face. (Feagin and McKinney 2005 7)
The black people, on the other hand, will most likely have a negative view about the pictures of them on the exhibit except that of Alfred Duggan-Cronin s set. Despite the belief that black people only wanted to be treated fairly when racism issues are brought up, the black people also have their own perspectives regarding the issue involving their race A black perspective is more than merely a response to race and racism. It provides a framework for developing an alternative to practice that is based on taken-for-granted assumptions about black people, their culture, needs, and identities (Davies 2008 34).
One thing that the organisers of the exhibition can do to straighten things out would be to explain their goal in showing such artworks and not just tell the viewers what each of the pictures mean. It is given that Alfred Duggan-Cronin s pictures are artistic the way they are, but with the appearance of the other intriguing pictures in the exhibition, the overall purpose became unclear, especially to those people who are very attentive to meanings and semantics. Otherwise, their goal might be mistaken for something else, such as attribution to entertainment purposes The incidence of racist displays at American exhibitions can also be attributed partly to the greater emphasis placed on entertainment (Maxwell 2000 6). Nevertheless, my trip to the exhibition was quite an experience. If not for it, my knowledge about certain racism issues and also the details behind some of the artworks can only go so far. If given the chance, I would like to know more about Duggan-Cronin s works personally from him, but he was already laid to rest almost 50 years ago. The overall feel of his photos make gives me a different view of the natives of Africa, as well as a different look at their lives. The other pictures are also actually interesting and, to be honest, entertaining since they are not obviously made out of boredom. It is a bit difficult to figure out the meaning of some of them, but they are definitely worth researching.
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