Photographer links politics, personal experiences

For Michael Kienitz, photography is a portal between the political and the personal. He is interested in the power of an image to create a connection between photographer and subject and then with the viewer, and the possibilities those connections might have to promote change.

As a student of political philosophy at UW–Madison in the early 1970s, reading textbook accounts of world revolutions, he watched the upheaval of civil discontent — bayonets, tear gas, National Guard, boarded-up windows — outside his classroom window. Witnessing the clashes on campus and then reading about them in the newspaper the next day, he found the media coverage to be full of inaccuracies and omissions.

He began to carry a camera with him to keep a more truthful record of what he saw. He took pictures for The Daily Cardinal and an underground paper, Take Over; he also worked as a copy boy at the Wisconsin State Journal and freelanced for Time and Newsweek, documenting the events around him and learning the photojournalist’s trade. After college he moved to New York City where he worked for Andy Warhol, covering fashion and parties for Interview magazine; he also became the house photographer at the Waldorf-Astoria. He tired of covering glamour and celebrities, however, and returned to Madison in hopes of pursuing more meaningful photographic opportunities.

Kienitz took politics seriously. He stayed informed about unfolding conflicts around the world, including the guerrilla fighting in Nicaragua between Anastasio Somoza’s government and the Sandinista rebels. After studying world revolutions in college, Kienitz wanted to witness one firsthand. In 1978 he bought a plane ticket to Managua and traveled to the northern city of Esteli by bus. In the center of town there were so many bodies the Red Cross burned them in the streets to prevent the spread of disease. Despite the poverty, violence and chaos in the city, people fed their families, worked, shopped.

Kienitz thought this was an important lesson of warfare: Daily life goes on, and those who live in conflict adapt to the destruction around them. As he took pictures, he thought that focusing on the domestic lives of women and children, rather than the battlegrounds where men fight, might be a more powerful way to communicate the realities of such a political situation. He says that by photographing children candidly, where they live and play, he “documents more than just the child’s face but what it is the child is facing.”

Pursuing photojournalism after his first trip to Nicaragua, he began to work on assignment for The Capital Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He returned to Central America and also went to Afghanistan, Lebanon and Northern Ireland to cover other conflicts.

As Kienitz took pictures and traveled around in groups of journalists he became frustrated by news editors’ focus on the drama and spectacle of war. He thought “war photography” should do more, could have a higher purpose. “Good photojournalism grabbed me and made me think about its content and the implications of my own experiences. Photography is an almost mystical experience, both for those who take the images and those who view them. Good photography sets off a bombardment of the senses and thought; it motivates us to move along the path in a more enlightened manner,” he says.

His interest in the daily lives of noncombatants persisted, and as a freelancer he was able to investigate on his own time. He visited villages by bus and taxi, stay in cheap lodging or as a guest in people’s homes, explored city side streets in search of quiet moments and hidden activity. He found the poorest people were often the most generous. He listened to people’s stories about coping and carrying on after the bombs explode and street fighting ends.

The photographs in the exhibition “Small Arms — Children of Conflict,” at the Chazen Museum of Art Sept. 8-Oct. 28, are taken from this period in the artist’s career. Each picture is accompanied by a brief story about the circumstances in which it was taken.

After 10 years of working in conflict-ridden places, Kienitz returned to Madison to care for his ailing mother and to build a more stable life. He joined the staff at University Communications and also taught photojournalism in the School of Journalism. He took a workshop in digital imaging before Photoshop was released, then opened his own business and helped newspapers nationwide and in Canada convert from film photography to digital imaging processes. He continues to teach digital photography and Photoshop in the Division of Professional Development at UW–Madison. Although the powerful tools and accessibility of digital photography offer many more opportunities for great images, we are also inundated. Kienitz says, “There is much more picture taking but much less picture making.”

In 2006, reading about turmoil in Lebanon, Kienitz was struck by how little had changed since he took his pictures in the 1980s. He went back through his photographs and paid particular attention to those of children, who were forced to grow up surrounded by violence and conflict. They may take to fighting, roam unsupervised or be put to work. Yet Kienitz was amazed by their determination, playfulness and mischief.

The photographs in “Small Arms — Children of Conflict” reveal the ways children adapt to a world dominated by political situations of which they have little or no understanding. Kienitz hopes that the exhibition “will cause people to reflect on how their lives differ from the children’s. How we live in America has an impact on how others merely survive. If audiences are moved by the photographs, they may help improve the lives of those less fortunate and work to ensure that our government finds means other than war to resolve economic and political conflict.”

Kienitz’s photographs from the ’80s have led to a new project. He has recently visited Northern Ireland to track down the children he photographed there and find out what has happened to them during the past 25 years. In Belfast, Kienitz has found nearly everyone and interviewed them (if they are still alive) and their families. The stories are a powerful narrative of the aftermath — and continuation — of deep-seated, unresolved conflicts. He has also re-photographed his subjects as adults, in the settings of the original images. He believes, as ever, that photography has a special power to convey another’s reality.

“Once I had witnessed and documented war, and its utter savagery and destruction, I came to realize that language was probably not a suitable vehicle for expressing the totality of their experiences.” The artist continues his work in the hope that visual art may have the power to make a difference.