Visionary or Voyeur: Lionel Wendt and the Contradictions of Late Colonial Modernity in Ceylon.
The voyeuristic qualities that permeate the vast oeuvre of Ceylonese photographer Lionel Wendt (1900-1944) are a point of contention within scholarship on his work. Scholars counter claims of voyeurism by underscoring his national belonging to Ceylon, his anti-colonial politics, or the global modern...
| Publicado en: | Art Journal Vol. 83; no. 2; pp. 20 - 38 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Summer2024
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=180301721&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 180301721 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00043249 ARJ jtl: Art Journal issn: 00043249 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Summer2024 vid: 83 iid: 2 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 180301721 10.1080/00043249.2024.2367908 ppf: 20 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.9MB tig: atl: Visionary or Voyeur: Lionel Wendt and the Contradictions of Late Colonial Modernity in Ceylon. aug: au: Emmanuel, Kaitlin su: Nude in art Wendt, Lionel Photography of the nude Photography of women Cities & towns in literature sug: subj: Nude in art Wendt, Lionel Photography of the nude Photography of women Cities & towns in literature ab: The voyeuristic qualities that permeate the vast oeuvre of Ceylonese photographer Lionel Wendt (1900-1944) are a point of contention within scholarship on his work. Scholars counter claims of voyeurism by underscoring his national belonging to Ceylon, his anti-colonial politics, or the global modernist influences on his aesthetic. Many of these analyses rely on Wendt's biography to contextualize the formal qualities of his photographs. While his biography is important for establishing his influences and motivations as a photographer, it can overshadow the insight offered by the images themselves. This paper draws on a selection of Wendt's photographs to chart a dialogue between their formal qualities and the political and cultural context of their production, such as a modernist visual arts movement in Ceylon, and a changing political economy as the island approached independence from colonial rule. I argue for a more robust definition of Ceylon modernism that accounts for its relationship to the social modernity during the late colonial era. I then recalibrate the question of voyeurism through an examination of the most common recipient of Wendt's gaze: the laborer. I pair a formal reading of Wendt's photo series Men at Work with a discussion of Ceylon's labor movement, including its contested and antagonistic relationship to the growing nationalist politics of the period. Through my analysis, I foreground the contradictions so characteristic of late colonial modernity in Ceylon, as well as the limitations of binary anti/post-colonial discursive frameworks in which Wendt has been understood. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Art Journal is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Art Journal holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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