ENTRY 19 BULLFIGTHING PICTURE

Language 4. Entry Nª 19

LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF CRAIGIE HORSEFIELD

I was interested on Art, so I looked at a magazine devoted to Art in America , May 2007, where some photographs by Craigie Horsefield called my attention. They appeared published in black and white. The critic of the magazine says that his photographs and videos are as visually absorbing as they are conceptually ambitious. He is not well known in his country, the USA but Horsefield’s achievement is that he printed very big photographs of 9 feet square from negatives dating back 30 year old. He believes that Art involves a “negotiation of language”, to say something through images.
Perhaps we have to interpret the artist’s purpose on painting or photographing but it happens very often that we cannot find the message, we cannot find the interpretation or intention of the artist. I also take photographs myself and some of them are to immortalize the beauty of a landscape, but most of the time they are of people who pose in an unnatural pose or gesture, at a party, for example. They are photographs to be valued in a future time.
At this moment I am looking at a picture from Horsefield called “Bull’s square. La Monumental”. It is in black and white. There is a black bull with its head bent menacing a bullfighter with its pointing horns. There are four bullfighters wearing the typical dress, opening their arms holding a piece of cloth that is usually red. The bull is surrounded and I think it is scared, it is angry, it does not understand that stupid sport, it is angry and ready to attack any of the bullfighters. If Art is the negotiation of language, perhaps it was what Horsefield wanted to say.
Personally, I do not like bullfighting at all because it is a rude and dangerous sport. Although bullfighters think they are so brave and a kind of hero to face the bull with just a piece of cloth and a spear. Bullfighting arena is like the Roman circus. Everything that happens in the arena is for the audience to have fun, no matter if someone dies. I do not like when the bullfighters wound the bull with spears. It is cruel, the poor animal dies from bleeding in the end. Sometimes a bullfighter gets wounded by the bull’s horns, and many have lost their lives in the arena, staining it with their blood.
I think that the photograph taken by Horsefiel is very effective. The image, although it shows the arena, the bull and the bullfighters, that is the principal characters, it transmits the feelings of the bull. He looks tired and scared, perhaps he does not want to wound or kill a bullfighter, but the men are so obsessive in making him angry that he probably will. The bull has been obliged to play a game he does not want to play. I think he would rather be eating grass with some cows very far from there. The bullfighters also look scared and very careful, looking at the bull and waiting for an unexpected attack. We can also imagine the crowd’s voice supporting the bullfighters.