Image in a image

It is believed that the power of a picture is enormous. They say that a picture is worth more than a thousand words. A person can be pretty as a picture, but a picture also breaks up its subject at the level of ideas, only to put the pieces back together into a whole that represents the expression sought by the artist.

When Tamino, the hero of the opera The Magic Flute by Mozart, is shown a picture of Pamina, the daughter of the Queen of the Night, he starts his passionate aria with the words: Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön, this picture is enchantingly beautiful. As a matter of fact, this sentence is the turning point of the whole opera. Tamino is transformed from a coward calling for help into a determined hero. Unlike his colleagues Siegfried and Tristan, Tamino does not have the courage to face the dragon in battle at the beginning of the opera. He developes the noble characteristics of a hero only after seeing Pamina"s picture.

The picture nudges the action of the opera into motion, and gives it direction. Because of the picture, Tamino launches himself on a complicated rescue mission, to ensure a shared future for himself and the subject of the picture. From the story"s point of view, Pamina"s picture is a more important motive than the magic flute itself, which is only used as a tool to achieve the goal. The picture sets that goal, and defines the mission.

This is a picture, too. It is a newspaper reproduction of a photograph taken of a painting by Richard Serra, The U.S. Government Deprives Artists of Their Moral Rights, which in turn comments on the demolition of Serra"s installation Tilted Art, and the five-year long legal process prior to that.

Serra has compressed in oil many years of action to a piece of paper sized 262 x 461 centimetres. The painting in turn has been photographed on a colour slide the size of a few square centimetres. This slide has been transformed into digital form and its colours separated, after which the printing films have been produced. A printing machine finishes the process by creating a colour surface on the paper.

The relationship between a picture and its subject is interesting. One can for example think about whether the subject is like its picture, or the picture like the subject. This question must have passed through Tamino"s mind, too. When the subject of a picture is another picture, the observation changes. Often, the attention is drawn towards the subject of the picture within the picture. Observing the picture itself becomes less significant. The series of lectures Image in a image in Kiasma examines in particular those methods used to convey pictures with the help of other pictures. More on this subject on page 4.

Tina Cavén, journalist