tema stauffer

essays

Charles Baxter on the Photography of Tema Stauffer

Look closely at these photographs by Tema Stauffer, and you will see two seemingly incompatible qualities presented next to each other and holding each other in a kind of suspension—stillness and wildness. The first is a particular kind of stillness that seems American to the core, and which is surrounded by open spaces. The objects within the photographs are a net in which to catch a lyrical emptiness; they seem to attract it. The gas stations at dusk and at night, the empty bedroom, the brushfire: these pictures, with their careful geometrical arrangements that nevertheless always seem slightly askew, give off a mind-haunting effect of silence and solitude. The photographs insist on in-betweenness: we are between day and night, light and dark, somewhere between waking and sleeping, but always between categories. The objects in these pictures have been carefully positioned to have empty space around them, and the locales seem recently vacated: no one is there, but whoever was there has left some traces behind. In the other photographs filled with objects—the fairgoers, for example—the people and things seem to be radically separated somehow, lost in their private worlds, even when they’re in close proximity to each other.

And then there are the pictures in which something wild—a white horse, a snarling dog, a teenaged boy—is caught in mid-gesture. Tema Stauffer’s eye has captured an almost indescribable contradiction in these pictures: the boys and the dog are straining to get loose, but they’re not free, and neither is that horse. The boys in particular are marked by shyness and are still almost girlish, and like boys everywhere they are half in love with death and its symbols; their wildness makes them seem only half-domesticated, but it’s their eyes that you remember best. Their eyes are as alert as children’s, but children who have been frightened by something they’ve seen and who wish to disguise that fear out of self-protection. The resulting energy is kinetic: they seem almost ready to bolt, and at the same time they seem burdened by an affliction that they cannot name. So we have stillness and wildness, almost at war with each other, trying to occupy the same space.

The photographs are fascinated with the look of cast-offs and of working people who are not conventionally beautiful but whose expressions are full of an amazing intensity. You can almost glimpse their lives behind them, and before them.  But to say this is to suggest a mood of desolation, whereas these images are full of energy and a grim good humor. They do what photography must do, and what much good art does: they defamiliarize the very objects and scenes that we have taken for granted and now see almost without thinking. No one pays attention to gas stations or fairgoers until an artist shows us how to do so. The eye for color is astonishing. But it is the hauntedness of the photographs that stays in the mind: these pictures continually suggest a presence of what is not shown but still felt, something that is still, invisibly, there. Every viewer will have some idea of what is outside the frame, or unseen within it, because the hauntedness provokes reveries and conjectures. In a sense, these beautiful photographs are alive with what they evoke; it may seem odd to praise photographs for the way that they present the invisible by means of the visible, but that is what Tema Stauffer’s photographs do; it is their great achievement. 

Charles Baxter is the author of five novels and four books of stories including The Feast of Love, a National Book Award finalist.  He lives in Minneapolis and teaches at the University of Minnesota.   

Forbidden Banalities
Emily Carter on the Photography of Tema Stauffer

So much of this place is easy on the eyes. In the sense, of course, that your eyes have no work to do. Not much to look at. That, fellow citizens, is what makes our homeland convenient. From access roads, to parking lots, from tarped-up construction fences running through a stand of young, recently planted trees to the empty grass acres and smoked glass windows of a million business headquarters - there's a lot of things you're just not supposed to look at. No one notices or even mentions these spaces that aren't anywhere really, filled with things we are intended to ignore. You've never seen them represented, talked or sung about or discussed. Not meant to be looked at, they are meant to be overlooked. It's not polite to stare at the tool-sheds outside the moon-white gas and go, they can't sell you the tools after all, and besides, you're on your way to see Mount Rushmore, or Glacier Park, some spectacular view. Take a photograph of one of these places, however, and you've delved deep into the forbidden banalities. Tema Stauffer stands in the parking lot instead of traversing it - in itself an act of defiance.

These spaces and places, of course, are where our memories happen. Not at the spectacular view of the lake, but at the seventies' style, maple-wood paneled truck stop. The large windows cut in geodesic shapes, the plant hanging in front of the domed glass walls - it's a hothouse. Slight rain misting things up outside. Tema managed to take a photograph of humidity, no small feat, but also she managed to create the restaurant you and your parents always used to stop in on the way back. She photographed the long ride home, the Sunday sleepy boredom. You want the trip to be over and for your little brother to be kidnapped so you can rescue him and be a hero, you want to get home and into clean pajamas and watch the Sunday night shows, right up to and including, the Over Part, before you finally get into your bed. You have no idea of the wincing sting of nostalgia that will settle into the image of this place where you and your family have stopped for a pee-break and directions. The vacation's over, the parents old, the little brother big, and fat, and voting for people you think are the bullies.

And it's not just nostalgia going by at the side of your vision, it's something even harder to trap into existence. Like the sky over the gas station, blazing and gentle, apricot and orange; like happiness, if you care to stop long enough to give it a name. Like the snowy branches on that tree foaming over the fence into the winter night. Perhaps you got out on the way home to look at it, but more likely you just stayed in the car. It wasn't put there for you to look at, but neither, in fact, was the Grand Canyon.

Tema stands there, and just by that defiant act, of standing when she should be crossing, she defies any body else's notion of what's worth looking at. Then she infuses it with the strange light of her particular way of seeing things. That bird feeder is no less suspenseful than the sword of Damocles. It is almost painfully bright red and white against a stormy, slightly chemical, blue sky. It is hanging, tenuously, dramatically, by a slender, fragile looking meat-hook. That's us, all right. I want to put my hand over my heart and pledge my allegiance to the bird feeder, so crazy-bright and aggressive, so tiny, and screaming for birds.

Emily Carter's 2000 collection of short stories "Glory Goes and Gets Some" was chosen by Barnes & Noble to be part of the Discover Great New Writers series and was nominated for The Minnesota Book Award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker-winning a National Magazine Award-Story Magazine and POZ, for whom she was a regular columnist. She is also the recipient of a Whiting Foundation Award, a Bush Fellowship and a Loft/McKnight award for fiction. She currently does a monthly column for Speakeasy Magazine entitled "Carter's Little Liver Pills" and is at work on her second book, a novel. In addition, she is a contributing editor at The Rake and does biweekly book reviews for the Star Tribune.

Kris Douglas' essay on Tema Stauffer's American Stills exhibition at the Rochester Art Center.

To perceive and subsequently reveal an inherent beauty in what may be characterized as "commonplace" requires the observer (i.e. the photographer) to consider specifically the act of seeing what is "there" or simply what "is." Images that suggest recognition and acceptance of the banal differ from those, perhaps more pervasive images, that confer emotion and meaning with loaded subject matter or blatant content. These latter images may allow for an accelerated or undemanding "read" of the image, and as a result, may be more immediately accessible to the viewer. Considering the ubiquitous use of photographic images employed across a multitude of contexts (e.g., commercial, corporate, academic, artistic), less ease may be experienced by the individual when viewing what could be described as ambiguous or indirect images. When confronted with an image that does not at once suggest a narrative or an emotional state, for instance, one may be tempted to label the image as empty or lacking meaning. However, these same images may provide the rare opportunity for individual interpretation and interaction with the work, or for unadulterated acceptance of the image on its own terms. In discussing intrinsic value contained in what may be described as the "real" or the "actual", noted photographer and author Stephan Shore states, "Chinese poetry rarely trespasses beyond the bounds of actuality. Whereas Western poets will take actualities as points of departure for exaggeration or fantasy, or else as shadows of contrast against dreams or unreality, the great Chinese poets accept the world exactly as they find it in all its terms, and with profound simplicity find therein sufficient solace. Even in phraseology they seldom talk about one thing in terms of another, but are able enough and sure enough as artists to make the ultimately exact terms become the beautiful terms."

It is in this way that Tema Stauffer makes known the subject of her photographs without prejudice, and allows the viewer to observe situations, objects, or environments in a new context, and to reveal the subtleties present in these ostensibly ordinary images. In a series of photographs taken at what appears to be a vacant water park, the viewer is afforded the opportunity to consider the artist's motives. One might take into consideration narrative possibilities, emotional content, and socio-cultural commentary. Ultimately, the images act to invite our attention to a scene that we may have encountered but ignored, uninterested in considering it further. In making this selection, Stauffer begins to elevate the perceived "usual" into something unexpected, imbuing objects with an importance that heretofore went unnoticed. The scale of many of her works also acts to emphasize the significance of the image, imparting status via size. Allowing for recognition of details, this format (at times) permits the viewer to associate with the subject matter more closely, effectively challenging previous photographic conventions and commenting on the discrepancies between the real and the represented. To attempt to fully understand these images or determine absolutes concerning the artist's intentions or the viewer's responsibility can, at times, become problematic or wholly undesired. Referring again to the possibilities of interpretation, the artist can purposely and repeatedly (working in series) provide multiple means of conceptual or theoretical entry into the work, directing but not entirely dictating the analysis. In responding to an enquiry regarding the meaning of his work, Carl Philip Heuschrecke states, "By writing you an answer, Sir, I will undoubtedly deny you the pleasure of opening your Own eyesÉI will provide you with figures and with parallels, but I leave it to you to figure their relevance."

The work contained in this exhibition, American Stills, features large-scale photographic C-Prints (a specific method of color photographic printing) representing Stauffer's most current projects. As an example, Front Yard (2003) depicts a winter residential scene, seemingly not long after a new-fallen snow. It is dark, but a definite light source appearing to originate from the street distributes light to the ground, resulting in a reflective glow. Due to the character of this illumination, the image, although printed in color, takes on a distinctly monochromatic appearance. One could argue the conventional idealistic representation of a similar scene would consist of a frontal or more direct view of the house and it's surroundings, with a camera position or perspective originating at the street, looking in on, not out from a specific location. Presenting nearly a reversal of this view, Stauffer captures an unexpectedly idyllic scene, despite that a driveway inhabits the majority of the foreground. Also noteworthy is a political sign posted in the front yard, its lettering reversed as merely the back is visible. Although the subject matter is subdued, it's placement and inclusion in the photograph becomes exceedingly important. By presenting this scene in such a manner, Stauffer skillfully and subtly illustrates the significance of perspective or point of view, allowing the viewer to consider the role of observer versus observed.