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Captive Beauty: Zoo Portraits
The fifty color photographs in Frank Noelker's Captive Beauty are not simple, uncomplicated shots of animals in zoo settings; there is an ambivalence in them that only gradually envelops the viewer. Their sad, stark beauty confronts viewers, challenging them to consider the nature, purpose, and effects of zoos.
136 pages, Hardcover
First published May 6, 2004
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February 17, 2014
I bought Frank Noelker's startling and beautiful book when it first came out and it had remained on my shelves, unread, until I picked it up on a hunch that it might give me insights into a book I was writing called THE POLAR BEAR IN THE ZOO, about the work of Jo-Anne McArthur, another photographer of captive animals. I was immediately intellectually engaged and inspired by his work, which, like McArthur's, explores the animal in the human environment. In CAPTIVE BEAUTY, unlike other photographers of captive animals, Noelker names the species, locates it, and dates the picture: for instance, “Hippopotamus, Washington, D.C., 1997.” In this photograph, the first in the book, a hippopotamus is seen walking gingerly through an open gate in a metal fence, down a short concrete embankment, and into a pool of green water. On the other side of the pool a flight of steps leads to a metal fence and a gate that’s shut. Behind the pool, four burgundy-and-yellow-colored columns support a vibrantly decorated entablature. Between the columns a mural depicts two birds winging their way over an expansive wetland that stretches to a snow-capped mountain range on the horizon.
Throughout CAPTIVE BEAUTY, we come across zoos that have, with more or less skill, painted landscapes on the walls of the animals’ pens. What’s remarkable in this photo is the enclosure’s mise-en-scène. It’s as if the hippo has visited a Roman bath, and is simultaneously availing itself of the healing waters and strolling through a gallery. This image and a similar one of a giraffe in the same zoo take the aestheticization of the animal to another level. They form a tableau vivant that deliberately, even garishly,
celebrates a constructed world of balanced combinations of patterns, colors, and shapes.
In its formal arrangements, the picture exemplifies the history of the zoo that Nigel Rothfels charts in his
thoughtful introduction to CAPTIVE BEAUTY. I highly recommend the book for its revelation about how we look at animals in zoos.
Throughout CAPTIVE BEAUTY, we come across zoos that have, with more or less skill, painted landscapes on the walls of the animals’ pens. What’s remarkable in this photo is the enclosure’s mise-en-scène. It’s as if the hippo has visited a Roman bath, and is simultaneously availing itself of the healing waters and strolling through a gallery. This image and a similar one of a giraffe in the same zoo take the aestheticization of the animal to another level. They form a tableau vivant that deliberately, even garishly,
celebrates a constructed world of balanced combinations of patterns, colors, and shapes.
In its formal arrangements, the picture exemplifies the history of the zoo that Nigel Rothfels charts in his
thoughtful introduction to CAPTIVE BEAUTY. I highly recommend the book for its revelation about how we look at animals in zoos.
Displaying 1 of 1 review