Still Lives
Margaret Dawson's The Men From Uncle

by Christina Stachurski

The title, The Men From Uncle, signals the question posed by Margaret Dawson's series: does identity originate from a person - in this case Dawson's Uncle Hugh - and/or is it constructed, transient, playable like the characters and tape of a television programme? At the same time, Dawson's appropriations, her impersonations of other artists' photographs of actual people complicate notions of authorship, veracity and objectivity. Understandings of the subject and "self" are further unsettled by the photographer's familiarity with her model, their biological relationship and the dynamics of her caring for an elderly uncle after he lost his independence due to a fall.
Some of these complexities are discussed in detail in Louise Garrett's essay, 'Making Up The Men From Uncle.' Garrett situates Dawson with regard to humanism, describing her as challenging "the paradigm of the autonomous, singular (western, patriarchal) notion of identity which has its foundation in the Renaissance's self-conscious redefinition of the individual." This conception of identity informs the view of Nadar (French, 19th century) that the art of the portrait photographer lies in the ability to sense and communicate the essential character of the subject, as Garrett notes.

It is this history and conception of art which Dawson seeks to reproduce (and negate) in her picture gallery of "portraits". By appropriating the rhetoric of modern photography, she inscribes a problematic complicity with the thing she seeks to undermine. This condition is prescribed by the allegorical mode she adopts, and marks out her project as a deconstructive one.

Such use of allegory links Dawson's work to that of Julia Margaret Cameron (British, late 19th century). However, while Cameron's art historical allusions are a bid to elevate photography to the so-called status of art, Dawson's serve to "question the efficacy of art's - and photography's - claims to truth and value."
Overtly theatrical props and costumes challenge the concept of "truth" in much of Dawson's earlier work, pointing as they do to the cultural construction of stereotypes, myths and (apparently) documentary photography. The Men From Uncle, however, is more subtle. Garrett describes its "patchwork of quotations and references" as requiring speculation about the "work's motivation. Meaning is never, finally, fixed, as possible meanings are contingent on whatever (personal or collective) knowledge the viewer brings to the work."
Of course, the viewer is also guided to an extent by the artist's process of selection and omission, itself somewhat influenced by her uncle, his conversations, books and sister, Dawson's mother. In impersonating the writers, musicians and artists he admired, Uncle Hugh is less passive a subject than he might appear from his niece's various doctorings of his appearance in the photoworks. On the other hand, though, at the time the works were created Dawson was caring for her model. While his clothes needed to be chosen and "put out in the order they [we]re to go on," Dawson's choices were directed by her desire to respect his own strong sense of personal style. Such demise of individuality (to use an unfashionable term) through slight dementia is just one aspect of the tension conjured by hints of biological determinism in The Men From Uncle.
On a superficial level, the unavoidable physical effects of old age pervade this series. For Andrew Paul Wood, the "uncle photographs talk the elderly male body rather than talk about it." Wood goes on to argue that by "concealing his identity behind assumed disguises ... , Uncle Hugh is distanced by Dawson from his own body - or distances himself, giving it over to the possession of another identity." Perhaps, however, as a whole, The Men From Uncle effectively stakes out some consistency in identity. Hugh Simpson's re-appearance in every photowork reminds us of his own physicality within the different guises. This dynamic is reversed in Dawson's new series, All the King's Men (2003), undermining any conclusions we may have drawn. These later photoworks involve a plurality of models in recreating the same portrait of either David Livingstone or Bertrand Russell. By the title's reference to Humpty Dumpty, the series doubts the possibility re-construction, of restoration. It might appear that the artist is the central figure, the King, around whom the action of this project pivots, but it is the King's loss for what is gone which gives rise to a vain attempt to resurrect a loved one. In approaching strangers with a physiognomical likeness to her late uncle to appear in All the King's Men, Dawson asks hard questions about the power of photography to deal with the melancholy of loss and longing. She also examines the bounds of the artist's desire, of the auteur.

1. Louise Garrett, 'Making Up The Men From Uncle', The Men From Uncle: Photoworks by Margaret Dawson, Christchurch 1998, pp15-31.
2. ibid. p 21.
3. ibid. p24. Garrett cites Nadar cited in Nadar, p25, and Hambourg, 'A Portrait of Nadar', in Nadar, p25.
4. Garrett, op. cit., p24.
5. ibid. p19.
6. ibid. p19.
7. ibid. p21.
5. ibid. p12.
8. Garrett, op. cit., p24.
9. Andrew Paul Wood, 'Strike a Pose: Margaret Dawson's Men From Uncle,' Art New Zealand (97 Spring-Summer 2000-2001), pp 70-74, p 73-74.
10. ibid. p 74.

Dr Livingstone, I pretend

How did Margaret Dawson persuade 40 pensioners to pose in wigs as famous dead men? By talking to their wives of course.

By Adrienne Rewi
Sunday Star Times
November 9th, 2003
p 26

As "a mistress of photography", Margaret Dawson is happy to state she is always "up for a little subversion". She is no stranger to appropriating historical photographic imagery, blurring the distinctions between authentic and fake; and she is no stranger to soliciting complete strangers to take part in her photographic projects.

Well known for her major touring exhibitions Amusements, The Men from Uncle, and Out of Sight, Christchurch based Dawson has just completed another busy year - hunting for men and dogs and posing them to suit her conceptual needs for her two separate forthcoming Christchurch exhibitions: All the King's Men and Shot over Summer. It is willing members of the public, she says, who has made her inspirations reality.
Dawson, 53, appears quiet at first glance and is not the sort of woman you'd expect to find "advertising for a man" but, as her photographic works suggest, appearances can be deceiving. She's no vamp, she says, but when she has a project in mind, she's not above putting the word out in her hunt for suitable models "Would you answer an ad like this?" she asks, pushing it my way: "Wanted: Mature men to model for photographic artist. I need several 'actors' to pose individually in a provided costume in a studio on the 3rd floor (no lift) in the Christchurch Arts Centre. This is uinpaid but entertaining."

It seems models were not as immediately forthcoming, "I think people are quite shy", says Dawson.
But she did get a handful of replies, often from wives suggesting their husbands might be suitable. That was the tack she took in the end, after finding that "following certain men with the right look" didn't always go down well. She found wives much more persuasive, and ended up with 40 male models _ one in his late 40s, the rest in their 70's and 80's - for All the King's Men, which portrays them all as either explorer David Livingstone, or writer/philosopher Bertrand Russell.

Dawson has been working and exhibiting widely since 1978 (limited edition prints have sold for up to $3000) and has always had a keen interest in appropriating and altering images from the past. Rather than presenting perfect, original images, she goes the other way, presenting reconstructed images with intentional processing errors. It's not really pushing the boundaries, she says, but challenges what is acceptable in photography.

Her last major project, The Men from Uncle, featured her Uncle Hugh posed as 40 famous people from the past. Uncle Hugh has lived with me and had been the focus of that two - year project. When he died three years ago, I started seeing people who looked just like him, many who even dressed the same way. I thought it would be fun to do another project, selecting men who looked like my uncle. The irony was that when I made that decision I no longer saw anyone who looked like him. That's why I decided to advertise."

In addition to the ads, placed in city libraries, she also passed out more than 70 letters to people she met. After several months she had acquired two former photographers, several engineers, a former sailor, a bus driver and other assorted elderly gentlemen, many of whom displayed a keen interest in Livingstone and Russell, including a Jordanian, who had played Livingstone as a child in a Sunday School play.

Dawson dressed her models, splitting jackets down the back so they fitted all sizes and attaching false moustaches and wigs, and mimicked the poses of original portraits of Livingstone and Russell. Her collection of portraits are eerily similar, highlighting the concepts of identity, similarity and senitmentality.

The notion of sentimentality is also behind Shot Over Summer, a two - pronged exhibition that shows 250 portraits of well loved dogs (shot over the last three years), alongside more confrontational portraits of dogs that have been shot at the city pound. Dawson visited the dog pound every month for a year and visited dog owners in their own homes, photographing adored pets on comfortable beds, sofas and rugs.

"the sad thing about the lives of so many dogs is they start out lying on the bed as someone's cute puppy then get thrown out and end up at the pound. They often end up being shot. It's a tragic ending, an insidious form of cruelty and it's that aspect of sentimentality that is so distressing."

M J Dawson gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Creative NZ with both the Men from Uncle and All the King's Men.

The New Auckland City Art Gallery web site address:
http://www.aucklandartgallery.govt.nz/triennial/default.asp