Photography as Art -- sometimes it makes me a bit ill :-)

[bakubo]

Interesting discussion of the photography as art thing and how pompous and stifling it has become.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... ision.html

[Greg Beetham]

Henry I really don’t understand the ‘art’ scene or how it functions, I guess there is relevance to be had for those who are ‘in it’ like those in the article appear to be, I suspect with art one recipe for success would be to be to convey a sense of mysteriousness of purpose and that’s something the whole art scene usually accomplishes all by itself without any great difficulty, from an outsider perspective like myself that is.
Greg

[bakubo]

Henry I really don’t understand the ‘art’ scene or how it functions, I guess there is relevance to be had for those who are ‘in it’ like those in the article appear to be, I suspect with art one recipe for success would be to be to convey a sense of mysteriousness of purpose and that’s something the whole art scene usually accomplishes all by itself without any great difficulty, from an outsider perspective like myself that is.

Well, many in the "art world" are pompous, with a much too high opinion of themselves, obnoxious, and just plain silly, IMO. Even the term art world is rather pompous, I think.

[mvanrheenen]

I suspect with art one recipe for success would be to be to convey a sense of mysteriousness of purpose and that's something the whole art scene usually accomplishes all by itself without any great difficulty, from an outsider perspective like myself that is.
Greg

That's an interesting observation Greg.

I'm more knowledgeable about the "art" that is called music, specifically jazz. A lot of jazz music is labeled as art. As I'm schooled at light classical and pop music, I found a lot of jazz music that was being labeled as "art" hard to understand and enjoy. Take the jazz style bebop for example. A lot of what makes this style is the technical playing ability of the performer: playing fast, scale knowledge and improvisation techniques are key. Listening to this form of music/art and not understanding it was my sense of mystery of purpose as you put it. This musical form, as well as my experiences with artists in other forms of art gave the word "art" a negative edge for me. For years the word "art" stood for vague, abstract (and yes, mostly pompous) people who didn't make sense, lived a life I didn't relate too and made art I didn't understand.

As I got older and I became more interested in playing jazz and improvising, I learned more about the theoretical and technical side of jazz. Bebop made a whole lot more sense to me because that sense of "mystery of purpose" transformed in understanding it more. This actually creates a sense of what the word "art" means to me: as a way of the artist to share his or her knowledge, experiences and views with others through his or her craft. My previous experiences, and all the rubbish I see and read daily on the internet, still hasn't broken the negativity around art for me, but it did help me establish a sense of what I think is what art is all about.

My biggest problem with the way we share and educate ourselves in any form of art is the negatively influence of the internet. A lot of people in any form of art are lured into dozens of misinformation and social traps that the internet holds for them in search of ways to gather information about art. Best example are the countless forums on the internet saying they are dedicated to an art, but end up being a place where gear junkies have endless debates about brand X vs. Y. Having the gear you need to get the job done the way you want is important, yes, but in the end just has marginal impact on the art you produce with it's help. Although many don't agree, I really do think great artists can produce great art on lower/standard/consumer/student grade equipment. I have heard countless musicians who play the most beautiful, imaginative music on student graded instruments, much like a point and shoot camera of $100. Yes, they have to be creative with some limitations of the instrument, but they alway find a way because they have they know what they want to accomplish and how to do it. Same goes for photographers in my opinion, although I have to admit since digital photography has been adopted by the pro artists, technology has become more important as far as reliable results are concerned.

Mark

[Greg Beetham]

Good post Mark, I think the only way to overcome the negative influence of the internet is not take the whole thing seriously, there are it seems people who do take things rather seriously, even religiously, that’s one problem with art, artsy types can be a little emotional I think, (and photography is art with light) instead of only the bits that might be of some use. One thing I’ve noticed over the years is your appreciation of music can change, sometimes quite a bit, I think I started enjoying the classics (not all though, I’m thinking of the truly great earlier composers) a long time ago. When I was young they were of course old fuddy duddy stuff and painful to listen too.
Now the opposite is true, much of the contemporary young ‘music’ is too my ears discordant noise without any theme or tune. I have a friend whose son was learning to play the electric guitar and he was producing those horrible ‘crashing reverb’ sounds they all seem to be so fond of, and I couldn’t resist asking if he actually enjoyed making that noise, and predictably the response was ‘it’s not noise, it’s music.’ Well I said if that’s the case what is the tune, whistle it for me, any bona fide music would normally have a tune you can whistle or hum…right? Of course all that earned me was a look of disdain, as if too say ‘tune?’ whoever would have thought of such rubbish.
It’s probably only a question of time though for every generation, but jazz of any flavour I think is an acquired taste, although I have heard some lead sax that I can listen too and even enjoy.
Greg

[bakubo]

It is these 2 quotes from Bill Jay that resonate with me:

"Photography-as-art has led us into a morass of problems that denigrate the medium. I am thinking of the fact that galleries—and not the photographer's peers—are now the arbiters of taste and photographic merit; that 'success' is equated with fame and not with an individual's struggle to transcend self; that photographic journalism is riddled with pompous, unintelligible art-jargon and that clear, informative prose is hard to find; that photographers' egos have become so inflated that the individual's integrity has floated out of sight; that differentness, perversity, and slickly presented banality is touted as photography of the highest quality; that gallery and media hype has replaced a long-term committed paying-of-dues and that instant 'stars,' created by publicity and comprising nothing more substantial than hot gases, have diverted attention from the serious worker who has quietly struggled to maintain his or her vision and faith over many years; that something inexplicably yet intrinsically photographic has been killed in the fight for art acceptance."

"Since photography has been hijacked by the art market I am feeling more and more alienated from the medium of photography that I first fell in love with. Where I came from, the term Artist was something that was bestowed on a person after a lifetime of achievement. So for a student photographer to call himself an Artist was ludicrous. I'm not against the idea that photography can be singled out as Art but only after a body of work, over a long period of time, has entered the pantheon of high achievement, rather than a 20-year old MFA student touting wares around the New York gallery scene."

Personally, I find it very pretentious and pompous when someone refers to themselves as an artist. Maybe it is just me and Bill though that feel this way.

[Greg Beetham]

I think we are all ‘artists’ Henry, if we photograph something we are doing art in a sense, how good the art is is something else, and that’s difficult to define, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ is as good as anything I suppose when it comes right down to it.
When it comes to the art gallery scene though, like I was saying I think it’s more of a society or a vague cult and those who wish to break in probably have to put in the hard yards of self promotion including bestowing themselves with the qualification of ‘artist,’ justified or not.
And that could well fall under the heading of ‘pretentious’ rather than ‘pompous’ but in any case it probably won’t matter in the big scheme of things except to the ones in the art scene itself, it certainly doesn’t seem to register on my radar what the art world does or doesn’t do anyway.
Greg

[David Kilpatrick]

Hey, I'm an artist. I keep chickens and they poop on the garden steps. It's installation art, its even interactive as I sometimes manage to tread in it and walk it into the house. All I need to do is document this meticulously and print it big, and I have made chickenshit art equal to any of the chickenshit art you'll find in galleries!

David

[bakubo]

Hey, I'm an artist. I keep chickens and they poop on the garden steps. It's installation art, its even interactive as I sometimes manage to tread in it and walk it into the house. All I need to do is document this meticulously and print it big, and I have made chickenshit art equal to any of the chickenshit art you'll find in galleries!

I love that!

I was telling a friend a couple of months ago that we could claim pretty much anything we do is performance art. Doze off while riding the bus: performance art. Even things you do in private could be labeled performance art. Now I have to figure out how to get a government grant so I can live my life and minute-by-minute create new, original, unique works of performance art. They are new, original, unique works because even if others are doing the same thing they don't include me.

On another subject... I am busy working through my Nepal photos in LR. I made a first cut and now I am preparing those for my website. When that is done I will make another cut and then after that another one. Usually I have 3 cuts and then sometimes after that I remove a few more or add one or two. Anyway, I have the same dilemma I always have. I put them on my website to serve two purposes that sometimes overlap, but sometimes diverge. I want to put the photos I like the best while at the same time try to put photos that are fairly representative of most of the places I went and saw in the particular country.

I recall in 1993 when I got back from 10 weeks on a camping safari in Africa my manager at work asked me to put on a slide show for people in the department and give a talk. Sounded sort of fun. He and his wife had a small wedding photography business on the side so he knew something about photography. Several days later he stopped by my office and asked me how it was going. I had decided to limit it to one slide tray so maybe people wouldn't get too bored, but I was having a bit of a problem going through all the slides and deciding what to include. Without even thinking about it he told me that, of course, I should pick the "best" photos. The trip was 10 weeks going through South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, and Kenya. Saw many things, went many places, met many people, saw all kinds of animals. I asked him that if it turned out that I decided that out of all the photos I took the best 140 slides were all of one elephant taken over a period of 30 minutes in Botswana should I fill the slide tray with those photos and ignore every other place, thing, animal, and person I photographed. He turned on a dime and said no I shouldn't choose the best photos, but choose a good selection that represented all or most of the trip. Of course, I was exactly where I was before he tried to "help" me.

Anyway, for most of my galleries on my website I try to do my best to balance those 2 goals. Only my newest B&W galleries did I try to choose just photos I really liked without an attempt to have very good coverage. When I get the Nepal gallery up I guess it will be one of my regular galleries.

[Wildieswife]

Don't get me started............. both me and OH have a background in art and try to bring this aspect into our photographic work by thoughtful framing, unusual angles and conceptual ideas. As far as I'm concerned, unless it's purely for science and observation, photography only really works if it is 'Art' and it has always been thus. Good technical reproduction is lacking if it hasn't got the necessary 'soul'.

Now I see, once again, the problem of Art Marketing coming into play. Grrr. Art has become a financial commodity run by the like of Saatchi as a tax free form of monetary interest. It's propped up by other of the same ilk and so the mad carousel turns. Art is by people whose only skill is to think up a weird idea and get talented craftsmen to do the 'hard work'. Hurst and Gormley spring to mind. I quite like Gormley's work but it disappoints me he's not more hands on with the construction.

Don't know if you've heard of an Art Critic called Robert Hughes who died this year? He despised this 'new' aspect of the art world. Here's a couple of his quotes that I think explain this phenomenon better than I could -

“The new job of art is to sit on the wall and get more expensive”

"One gets tired of the role critics are supposed to have in this culture: It's like being the piano player in a whorehouse; you don't have any control over the action going on upstairs."

I was appalled to see some of the photographic work in the "Look11" International Photography Festival. There were shots from trains that were OOF, merely nasty smudgy blurs of two similar monochrome tones and a beach/sea , also OOF with slightly different tones. Don't ask me which was the beach or the train view - I had to read the blurb. There was a container you were locked inside with a creaking fan and on the 'walls' were two of the most dreadfully executed images that I've ever seen. It's a good job it were dark

If the brokers had decided that one of these 'photographers' was saleable and the 'money people' had bought in, a new star would be shining on the unseen walls of the rich and clocking up future funds.
I despair.

Pat

[bakubo]

Pat, thanks for the interesting comments.