“You can’t read Becker without dealing with your own darkness.”
I want to talk about two things in this post. They are related but different.
I just watched the documentary from twobirdsfilm.com about Ernest Becker called “All Illusions Must Be Broken.” A wonderful film. I applaud them. I can’t imagine the amount of work that took to make. I strongly encourage you to watch it.
The second item is the photograph posted here, Witkin’s image called “The Kiss.”
SAM KEEN’S INTERVIEW WITH ERNEST BECKER (1924–1974)
In December of 1973, Sam Keen recorded an interview with Ernest Becker. Becker was dying of colon cancer.
The recordings of Becker are the driving force of the film. Keen did a fantastic job with his interview. He asked relevant and deep questions. The article was published in Psychology Today in April of 1974. Becker died in March, just a month earlier. Becker said he felt wistful that he wouldn’t be around to read the article. It was sad to hear him talk about it. What a tremendous loss. To me, he is one of the greatest philosophers and thinkers of the 20th century.
“The fear of life and the fear of death are the mainsprings of human activity. Everything can be explained from those fears.”
I really enjoyed hearing Becker’s words. So precise, so thoughtful, and so honest. He was a popular professor everywhere he taught. He packed the auditoriums when he lectured—standing room only—people were waking up. He asked the big questions, the unanswerable questions, and gave plausible, insightful suggestions to why we fear death so much and what shields us from the terror of meaninglessness and insignificance. I agree with Becker when he says the fear of death is the mainspring of human activity. Everything reduces to that. Everything.
Sam Keen says something in the beginning of the film that is profound; I’ve experienced it many times. He’s talking about telling people about death anxiety and how the fear of death drives human behavior. He said, “You’re just going to object to that unless you’re willing to look at your own defenses against mortality. Now, do you want to sit for that or not? No, I think I’d rather go to the circus.“ That hit hard. And so very true.
Becker talks about the origins of evil. “All humanly caused evil is based on man’s attempt to deny his creatureliness. To overcome his insignificance.” This is so clear for me to see in the world today. It’s always been there. I’ve talked a lot about my interest in our animality (humans are animals, contrary to popoular belief and denial). Creatureliness is the same thing. It drives us to supremacy—we do everything we can to rise above it because animals, or creatures, die.
THE KISS BY JOEL PETER WITKIN
If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know I like Witkin and his work. He’s been an influence in my creative life for over 30 years. His work is a brilliant example of existentialism. He deals with death and the fear of it. He deals with the fragility of the human body, decay, and non-existentance.
The Kiss depicts the bisected head of a cadaver reassembled to create the illusion of two people kissing. This work reflects Witkin's fascination with dualities like life and death, love and decay, and the sacred and profane. He’s exceptional at bringing these ideas to the forefront of consciousness.
Witkin often used human remains as part of his compositions. For The Kiss, he likely sourced the bisected cadaver from a medical or scientific institution (no one really knows). It’s true that he had a controversial history of navigating legal and ethical boundaries to acquire such materials. He was often criticized for his approach to the material and images.
“I never photograph anything I don’t believe in. If I love working with death, it’s because even in death I find this power of reality that no sculptor or painter could recreate, not even a Michelangelo or a Da Vinci.”
He employed dramatic chiaroscuro lighting, influenced by Baroque painters like Caravaggio (one of my favorites), to create a haunting yet reverent atmosphere. He constructed a simple but evocative backdrop to focus attention on the subject. Witkin's prints are renowned for their handcrafted quality. In the darkroom, he used techniques such as scratching, bleaching, and toning to distress the surface of the print, adding layers of texture and enhancing the sense of decay. He often employed sepia or gold toning to give his images a timeless, antique feel, aligning them with his themes of mortality and transcendence. It makes you wonder why he never pursued the wet collodion process. The wet collodion era aligns with themes of death and remembrance that resonate in Witkin's oeuvre, as 19th-century photography often dealt with post-mortem imagery and memento mori.
Witkin’s characteristic lighting and framing amplified the emotional and symbolic resonance of the image. His use of chiaroscuro draws attention to the textures and details of the bisected head, reinforcing the tension between beauty and horror. By literally splitting the head, he transforms the human form into an artifact that interrogates identity, intimacy, and the fragility of life. The physical intervention underscores the artist’s willingness to challenge taboos to confront the viewer with existential questions.
A friend sent me a good article about the purpose of art. The question was, “Can art make the world a better place?” I’ve thought about this question a lot. I’m not sure it can. I tend to agree with the author—she’s right when she talks about making art dangerous again—that’s where the power in art resides for me—it always has. I think Witkin accomplished this and then some.
Today, I make art that first and foremost quells my existential concerns, and then I put it out into the world and never really consider it again. That’s the purpose of art for me. Does it make the world better? Is it dangerous? I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t care.