Daphne and Apollo

There is no doubt that Joel Peter-Witkin has had a share of life altering experiences from witnessing the decapitation of a child after an accident when he was a child, to photographing the Vietnam War. Most of the work that Peter-Witkin does is considered grotesque and morbid mainly because of his ideas, and even more with his use of human body parts and corpses. The silver print by Joel Peter-Witkin, Daphne and Apollo, c.1985 interprets a myth in which the nymph Daphne never wanted to be married but Apollo loved her and desired to have her. Later in the chase the nymph turned into a tree and while Apollo could not have her he could have the tree. The image depicts this is happening in a wooded area in front of a dark rock like figure. To the distant left atop a hill is a domelike building. The artist’s interpretation of the nymph is a nude dwarf with a tortured expression on her face and Apollo is depicted as a goat-like creature with wings. The photograph has a great deal of contrast which aids to the nightmarish feel. This is an interpretive photograph because the photographer portrays the myth of Daphne and Apollo through his imagination and etches it photographically onto something that we can all see.

Excusado

Most of the fountains that surround us are in place to add a sense of elegance to a setting. While toilets are seen and used on a daily basis by most of us, very few people stop to notice its aesthetic qualities. This is because most people think of toilets as dirty and smelly. It also has to deal with the excrement process, so it’s typically taboo for discussion and most would consider preposterous for art. This is why you never hear anybody say “that is one beautiful toilet.” Edward Weston however went against the grain and photographed a toilet against a tile wall and floor from the perspective of a bug on the floor. Although his photograph was by no means normal, he was not the first; in 1917 Marcel Decamp featured a urinal in a gallery which was photographed by Alfred Stieglitz and various other photographers. While it is easy to say that the silver print Edward Weston, Excusado, 1925 was created for aesthetically evaluative purposes, one could also argue that that it is ethically evaluative since it leaves people questioning what is defined as art.