Output details

The case of Yevtushenko’s Shoulder : the photography of Richard Demarco

The paper, published in Studies in Photography (the yearbook of the Scottish Society for the History of Photography) was developed (at the request of the journal’s editor, Ray McKenzie) from a paper and Powerpoint presentation entitled, Richard Demarco and ‘Event Photography’: Catalyst, Participant and Observer, given at the Art Institutional Archive, Glasgow School of Art on 12 May 2010, as part of a seminar about artists’ archives (see ‘Invited Presentations & Associated Publications’, below).

Richard Demarco’s vast photographic archive of his life in art (in Scotland and internationally) spans more than 50 years. Although its uniqueness and value as an historical record are known, and underpinned the research for the Demarco Digital Archive project (see Outputs 2 and 3, above and ‘Impact’, below) the qualities that make it so have not previously been critically assessed or articulated. McArthur's argument, in both the presentation and the published paper, is that, firstly, its value does not rest merely (or even primarily) on the status of the events recorded, but on Demarco’s typically fluid ‘triple’ position as catalyst, participant and observer of the events he documented, which gave him unique and intimate access to those events. Secondly, McArthur argues that the value also rests on his attitude to the camera, as an instrument that forms connections between persons, not one that distances and objectifies, which gives his photography qualities of informality, sociability and inclusiveness. The argument concludes by contrasting Demarco’s ‘organic’ approach to building a personal archive with the recently constructed category of ‘event photography’ as a distinctive form of professional art/documentary photography, as represented by the Event Photography collection at the Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf (at the opening of which, in 2007, Demarco was a special guest).