COUNTERFACTUAL SOVIET PHOTOGRAPHY THROUGH THE LENS OF AMERICAN AND BRITISH ART CRITICS: EVALUATIVE DIMENSIONS OF ART DISCOURSE

Abstract

The paper studies the axiological interpretation of Soviet photographs in British and American art reviews by examining the basic concepts STATE, ARTIST, and WORK OF ART. The analysis draws on the methods of cognitive discourse analysis, narratology, pragmatics, and semantics. Accepting R. Barthes’ view of the photograph as “a message without a code”, we hold that the main goal of art discourse is to construct an intermediary code to facilitate communication between the Operator and the Spectator, especially in the presence of a time/culture gap between the two. Through aesthetic distancing, art reviewers shift the axiological focus from the ethical implications of Soviet photographs towards their aesthetic value, encouraging a transcultural and transtemporal dialogue between the reader/viewer and the photographer. The analysis has enabled us to expand the framework of photographic roles (Operator, Spectrum and Spectator) suggested by Barthes and later complemented with the role of the Demonstrator, which is central to this study. The role of the Emptor, added here to the Barthian set of core roles, emerges as the ultimate role of the Soviet state vis-à-vis photography.