Captive Beauty: Zoo Portraits

Rating:
Summary: Subtly Surprising
Review: I was surprised at how captivated I was once I opened the book. in the past, I've don't remember many photographs touching me except for those of Ansel Adams and Gordon Parks, whose images from a half century ago touch me in the new millenium. However Frank Noelker's portraits of zoo animals generated great sadness in me for these animals while at the same time instilling a greater appreciation for the freedoms we humans have, and at this time of desperation both here and abroad, seem too willing to sacrifice. I envy Frank Noelker for his courage. I imagine that to have spent ten years photographing animals at 300 zoos across the world must wear on his soul as well as his soles.

Rating:
Summary: The Eyes Have Lost Their Hold
Review: One can only concur with Jane Goodall when she says that this book is "both beautiful and profoundly disturbing"--partly, because it is, and partly because animals, in themselves, are "both beautiful and profoundly disturbing." Not only are we not altogether certain what it means to be human, but also we are not altogether certain what it means to be animal.

Frank Noelker is an associate professor of art at the University of Connecticut. His photographs of animals in zoos have been widely exhibited in both group and solo exhibitions. The design of the book is simple and straightforward. It says nothing about cameras, lenses, photographic techniques or f-stops. As well, it says almost nothing about Frank. The Forward by Jane Goodall and the Introduction by Nigel Rothfels provide its only text. Each of the fifty photographs bears a simple caption like this one: "Leopard, Tulsa, 2002."

What is most striking, from cover to cover, is the atmosphere of isolation. Nearly every photo shows a single animal in the very center of the picture. One gets the unmistakable feeling that the artist is relentlessly transgressing a fundamental rule of photography. Of course, there are a few exceptions; "Hippopotamus, Washington D.C., 1997" is one.

In this photograph, we see a hippopotamus on the left side of the picture, moving toward the center. In the center, we see a small, narrow and empty rectangle. Despite its great size, the Hippo does not compete with this diminutive symbol of emptiness; rather, he seems to be descending into the depths it represents.

The penguin photograph is another exception. In this photo, we see a penguin slightly off center. In the center, a vertical line, a stain, extends from top to bottom, from heaven to earth (or vice versa). The crucified penguin stands close to this mark, this stain, this hieratic symbol of mystery and sacrifice.

Even the photographs that include more than one animal exude a sense of unalleviated isolation. The two antelopes (the epitome of dignity and resignation) look as if they are quietly waiting for Godot. The baboon mother with its two babies might as well be sitting on the moon. The young baboon walking off to the left already knows everything there is to know about its world.

If, as Ortega y Gasset said, living consists in "having always to do something in order to bear oneself up" in the midst of circumstance, these photos show us something else. Can this be called `living'-when circumstance has been virtually nullified? Where is the "dynamic intricacy binding all things together...the system of relations in which all things are implanted...the "unity by co-implication?" ('Jose Ortega y Gasset's Metaphysical Innovation,' by Antonio Rodriquez Huescar) These animals have no projects and precious little circumstance. Their system of relations is vestigial at best.

Nigel Rothfels writes an excellent introductory essay on the subject of "Animals and Zoos and History." Even though this essay is valuable and well written, one should study the photos first. One should read the text only after an extensive contemplation of these beautiful but unsettling images.

In his essay, Rothfells quotes from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke: `The Panther: Jardin des Plantes, Paris': "The bars which pass and strike across his gaze/ have stunned his sight: the eyes have lost their hold./ To him it seems there are a thousand bars./ a thousand bars and nothing else. No world."

Well put, Mr. Rilke: "No world!"-and "no dynamic intricacy binding all things together."

The book is sub-titled, `Zoo Portraits.' Nevertheless, these photographs are more than that: they are also portraits of us; they are portraits of human values and human awareness--or the sad lack thereof. There is much to learn from these quiet and unassuming photographs; and much that will be missed-partly because our vision and perception are limited, and partly because life is forever inexhaustible.

And, this wonderful inexhaustibility is the very essence of art.