I think about Leanne Shapton’s 2012 memoir, Swimming Studies, often. I sometimes wonder if I ought to drop Leanne an email to tell her what a deep impression Swimming Studies left on me… in fact I will. *adds to to-do list*
Like Swimming Studies, In Cars: On Diana, is an interesting blend of art and prose. Described as a ‘visual essay’, Shapton focuses on Princess Diana getting out of cars. Stepping out of the car highlights a transitional space – moving from the privacy and safety of the vehicle to being on show, where her identity was fought over, flash bulbs popped, she was scrutinised and criticised, ‘on duty’.
Diana stepping out of a car,
cab and curb. Concealment and exposure.
Shapton’s 71 simple ink paintings are instantly recognisable – at a glance, I knew the (colour) photographs of Diana that she had based her paintings on. In a minimum of brush strokes, she somehow captures Diana’s gestures and angles accurately.
Diana saw Jackie O. and understood
motion was glamour.
Modern, Murdoch, the vulnerable, valuable, bank.
Their pictures were her self-portraits.
Photogenics, like wit, is a talent of timing,
of split-second calibration. It’s a gift.
Through repetition, Shapton examines image, identity and iconography.
The images of Diana stepping out of cars are Warburg’s pathosformel,
a continuum of historical images of passionate – usually female – gesture.
She steps from a car, arm extended for a handshake again and again.
In tulles, silks, sequins. Ruffs, cottons and woolens.
This is her job. Her absurd task.
As I turned the pages of this compact book, I knew I was drawing inevitably closer to Shapton’s impression of Diana’s final and tragic car ride (although in interviews at the time of publication, Shapton stated that this was not her intent). And when you get there, it’s dark, obscured but still absolutely recognisable.
I find Shapton’s work incredibly creative and thoughtful. I suspect I will be thinking about this book as much as I do about Swimming Studies.
4/5
I loved Swimming Studies too, and that was my introduction to her work as a reader. But I had previously bought, as a retirement gift, her book that is a sort of museum catalogue of possessions that re-constructs a life; if you don’t know that one, I think you’d enjoy it as much as I did! (You have a super futuristic typo for the date in your first para, jsyk.) This one definitely appeals to me too.
Thank you re: typo!
Swimming Studies was my intro to Shapton as well. I’ve also read Was She Pretty and Native Trees of Canada. I will look out for Artifacts.
Well, I was fascinated by this. I like books that interrogate celebrity, the trouble is, they are never read by the people who foster the damaging aspects of it.
I like the sound of the one that Marcie suggests. I’ve looked her up and I think it must be Important Artefacts an Personal Property from…
it’s a very long title!
Alas, neither of my closest libraries have it, though one has Women in Clothes to which she was a contributor. I’ll have a look at it next time I’m at that branch of the library.
My library doesn’t have Artifacts either. They’re the kind of books you need in hard copy as well (all her titles are available as e-books) because of the art work and photographs.
Yes, there’s a secondhand bookshop in Hampton that sometimes has art books, I’ll try there.
I found this very moving too, but read it during a bad blogging phase, so basically all I wrote at the time was,
“I am just a handful of years younger than Diana. My teenage years and twenties were filled with her image. She was everywhere. It’s rather weird to know someone’s gestures and profile so intimately, like your own mother or sister’s, that you recognise her by the merest glimpse. This is the price of celebrity. To have your image splashed everywhere, to be so known by the world, yet to be so misunderstood and alone. This tension is what Leanne captures so eloquently.”
And you’ve reminded me that I was keen to read more books by Shapton – thanks for the nudge.