Liberation - Photography as Contemporary Art [Archive]

John_4185

21-Nov-2005, 13:49

Rambling over coffee before the Day Job.

Diverging from the "NY Times Photography Article" thread where it was suggested that digital will be a liberation of photography as art... We have already established that photography can be Fine Art (decorative, literal, traditional craftsmanship), and has been for some time.

tim atherton, Mark Sawyer, paulr and others have pointed out that photography has been accepted by the Contemporary Art trend. Now to speculate upon what liberation means.

To date it seems the trend accepted as contemporary photographic art has been large format or at least exceedingly high resolution, high technical quality imaging (digital or not), for example Gursky's and others' works. It seems necessary at this time for the contemporary art paradigm to recognize the more difficult technical challenges in order to avoid blundering into accidental works that can arise from less intentional, less expert or considered images. That would be too nonacademic, embarrassing for Art.

I speculate this will high-def trend continue for a while, then there will be exceedingly "low quality" images printed large, then some mixed media middle-ground to speak to "quality", then oscillations back and forth to include lensless photography, etc. as photography attempts, once again, to find a vocabulary or its own semiotics. As usual, in most cases, the works accepted to the more prestigious galleries will be from persons who have been working to make a name in contemporary art, persons who will be actively participating in the discourse, paying attention to the critics, curators, historians, and probably persons who have already evinced classic expertise in formats from miniature to ULF so that the transcendence of the work is clear, academically certified to be intentional.

It will be an exciting time. Perhaps "Fine Art" photography will be cast in stone, or at least rocks and roots so that Ansel Adams' work is finally put properly into the realm of photodocumentary (evincing the finest technique for the subject-genre), and other photodocumentarians' work will find a comfortable home (imagine Capa's landing images - an extreme example of necessary technique to the image, event). And a lot of what is considered photographic art today will find its categories, some discarded very quickly, all for better or worse.

So eventually there will be the (possibly intimidating) critical culture in which photography of all kinds will be under consideration. No medium will enjoy exclusivity due to it's nature, as LF has to some extent for a long time. Digital and LF and everything inbetween will enjoy parity.

Bill_1856

21-Nov-2005, 14:19

Hear, hear.

John Kasaian

21-Nov-2005, 14:44

The word "Liberty" if taken as a synonym for "Freedom" would make me think that the art form would now be able to overcome some defect preventing it's ultimate goal or destiny. To apply this term to photography makes my head hurt.

What is the ultimate goal or destiny of photography? It couldn't have anything to do with the photographer/artist since the photographer/artist determins not only what the picture is of, but what the picture never will be. A built in defect. The human who wields the camera, canvas or chisel is out of the picture (so to speak) For a picture to be "liberated" it would be able to determin it's own....it's own....what? ...It's own "look?" It's own ultimate destiny as well. Imagine if "The David" traips into your garden one fine day because thats where the statue determined that that is where it belonged?

Hey, I can stutter in cyber space!

Pictures (or art) that makes it's self. Sounds like "The Night Gallery" reruns or something from Heinlein.

Does the NY Times pay it's writers by the word?

Cheers!

Ralph Barker

21-Nov-2005, 14:55

Parity? That's a nice thought, but somehow I doubt that it will come to pass. That would require the existing "Art Infrastructure" (composed of art teachers, critics and historians - let's call it AI, just to be sarcastic) to crumble. Those who control the art dictionary control what things are within "official" circles, and thus who steps inside that circle. Those folks have a vested interest in keeping things as they are, notwithstanding the occasional poke from a journalist outside their circle.

For example, common folk (those outside the AI circle) understand immediately what is meant by "fine art photography", while the AI folks consider the phrase to be a lie, or at best an oxymoron. Even if there is a revolution, and the AI demigods are overthrown, existing definitions will only be replaced by a new set devised by a new set of demigods. That's human nature, and the definitional "rules" have their equivalents in virtually every industry.

Struan Gray

21-Nov-2005, 15:08

The Jeff Wall / Gursky style is a natural response to the demand for Gallery Art: art which looks good in galleries and museums. Intimacy is hard to do well in 2000 sq.ft. of white-painted machine hall. Gwen John or Vermeer whould look just as out of place as 4x5 contact prints.

To me, the current popularity of photography in the hard core art world is a symptom of a repressed yearning for figurative and representational art. Photography has finally settled down into the niche the impressionists condescended to allow it. I am not sure this should be a cause for self-congratulation.

Digital offers new forms of distribution as well as expression. The $100 artbooks of yesteryear are the downloadable PDFs or $20 print-on-demand books of today. I think that is going to be more significant than the ability to fine tune colour balance or move pyramids. This is where intimacy has a chance, and an art that rewards contemplation may thrive.

Kirk Gittings

21-Nov-2005, 16:02

tim atherton

21-Nov-2005, 16:26

"To date it seems the trend accepted as contemporary photographic art has been large format or at least exceedingly high resolution, high technical quality imaging (digital or not), for example Gursky's and others' works."

If you mean what is hot at the moment, this may be true but in my lifetime this is completely wrong. Go thru any survey book of contemporary photography and it is overwhelmingly smaller formats.

precisely - I think this is a mistaken premise.

While there is lots that is large format (film as opposed to printing) such as the Struthskys or Wall or Sugimoto etc (and for those lugging a huge camera around perhaps a little heartening to see), the is much - probably more - which is smaller formats. And much that is still shown in smaller formats as well as photographed using smaller cameras.

I think fixing on size=art is a red herring. It's one strand (and a popular one right now) but it's by no means the only one at all

The second part - the "speculation" has either already happened (e.g. Paul Graham was printing 35mm and MF at his local high street lab very large grainy and in colour 20-25 years ago for the art galleries and is now - along with others, well established in the major collections etc) or is happening right now. It's not really speculation it's more like where things have been headed for a good while now.

And digital is probably seen much more of a contemporary photographic art medium than is LF anyway (or is that hat you were saying...?) :-)

John_4185

21-Nov-2005, 16:36

john kasaian The word "Liberty" if taken as a synonym for "Freedom" [...]

To clarify, I used the term Liberation which I take to meaning to achieve parity, equal consideration. Freedom is something else.

[...] What is the ultimate goal or destiny of photography? It couldn't have anything to do with the photographer/artist since the photographer/artist determins not only what the picture is of, but what the picture never will be. [...]

That's a beautiful statement. Is it facetious or profound? Both? It would seem that the photographer's choice of what not to include is perfectly coupled with what he does include, therefore as important.

John_4185

21-Nov-2005, 16:46

I am paying for the fact that I am not a good writer. Kirk Gittings and tim pointed to my use of the phrase "to date", when perhaps I should have written "Today" closely qualified with "contempoary photographic art" and qualified it further.

True, the past includes a great range of work of smaller size and it also predates digital. (Going back far enough it was all LF but for technical reasons.)

I was addressing critical Art, not a loosely defined and emerging Art that has flourished (or floundered) to today. I know, tomorrow today will be yesterday.

Crap. I can't write or make pictures. Not a good way to start the week.

paulr

21-Nov-2005, 17:31

The intereesting question is "what can digital technology can liberate us from?"

Photography itself liberated artists from the demands of realism. Photography was a big revolution in this sense and in a lot of others. I suspect digital technology is a smaller revolution.

Most of the changes it brings are ones of degree. It makes a lot things easier and more accessible, but they are things that people were already able to do. These changes parallel the invention of the dry plate, the brownie, the leica ... all things that brought the medium into more people's hands.

The one major change i see in digital technology is that the image now exists separately from any physical medium. It manifests itself on a computer screen, on a cell phone screen, on office paper, on mural paper, or all at once--but in essence it has an invisible form that can be infinitely duplicated and instantly transmited. This strikes me as fundamentally different from a traditional negative or chrome.

With this in mind, you could say that digital media has liberated photography from the physical world. Some artists are probably taking advantage of this already.

I'm not ... I work with some digital technology, but eveything I've been doing with it is quite traditional. I'm just using whatever tools seem best for the job at the moment. Some day I might wake up and really see the potential ... a convergence of something i've been wanting to say with a new possibility for how to say it. Until then I'll remain an ordinary artist with a scanner on his desk.

John Kasaian

21-Nov-2005, 17:45

Ahhh that explains my confusion. Liberation (liberty)=Equality.

Confucious would dispute that. How can one thing be truly equal to another? Even two dimes and a nickel aren't equal to one quarter in the number of coins they are (3 to 1), only in what they represent (25 cents)

No more than a tuba is equal to a flute or a percheron is to a thorobred, which isn't to say one is superior or better than the other, only that within a given context one is preferrable to the other and in the scheme of things both are harmonious when they work together without one trying to overpower the other.

Or at least thats the way I think Confucious would put it.

In terms of art, I think this holds true as well. A really great photo of the Matterhorn to you might be "only" a great photo of a mountain, while to me it may represent where my bride and I went for our honeymoon(Zermatt) A katchina doll might be a very, very interesting doll to a collector of dolls, but it may well be a religious object to a Zuni.

What I'm getting at (or what I think I'm getting at) is that equality dosen't always elevate something to the status quo, but nearly always diminishes something down to a rather pedestrian level, like expecting a flute to take the place of a tuba or vice-versa and proclaiming the concert to be of some great benefit to the music world.

Art in itself (and I don't claim to be an artist so take this for what you're paying for it) has IMHO two distinct functions that lend legitimacy to it's value. The first being the piece's 'statement' or what its value is in regards to how it is interpreted or enjoyed by the viewer or artist and the second being what happened for it to become a piece of art in the first place. A plaster copy of a statue can be satisfying, even inspirational---more so for the beholder on whose mantel it sits than the original statue which is in a museum on another continent that the beholder has never been to. The original in the museum however, carved out of a rare marble by expert hands and the proportions determined by a pair of artistic eyes several hundred years ago, would be/should be priceless in monetary terms.

Applying this to photography, consider a moving image like Adams' El Capitan shrouded in clouds (I know there are Anti-Adams-istas out there, so remember I'm only using this as an example!) What this photo says, it says quite well in the original print, but it also says it as a calender image, a poster image, as a so called 'reproduction print' ...etc. The question is, is a calender that was printed last month in Thailand on a high speed press worth the same as a print burned and dodged and souped by a master of photography, by hand, in 1957? Or as a really really good digital reproduction blown up to whatever size you wish so it will "fit" in with your design scheme? In what sense are any of these images truly "equal?" They aren't, even though they may appear identical to the eye and the mind. If "libertation"="equality" then the point of the NY Times article eludes me----it strikes me as more of a blunt weapon of oppression than a pointed one of liberty. Or nonsense;-)

Cheers!

paulr

21-Nov-2005, 18:21

"The intereesting question is "what can digital technology can liberate us from?""

that's the incomprehensible question. i meant to write "what can digital technology liberate us from?"

And John, I think you're really going way out on a tangent with the liberty=equality/confucious thing. I think the original post used "liberate" in the sense of "remove constraints" or "remove limitations."

Mark Sawyer

21-Nov-2005, 18:22

I wonder what photography (ergo photographers) really need to be liberated from. If it is only digital technology liberating us from the darkroom, that holds no more significance that acrylics liberating a painter from oils. A change in process, perhaps a shift in the final products appearance, but no new work is really born of a simple shift in the work process.

Photography, along with every other media, has been accepted as Art since DuChamp put a urinal and a toilet in a gallery as "works of art", confirmed as Art since Weston got the Guggenheim fellowship, and been an inherent part of the Art Establishment since MOMA began its dedicated photography department and collection.

I'd suggest that if a current photographer feels a need to be "liberated" in the "contemporary art" context, he needs most to be liberated from those who decide or interpret the trends in contemporary art. There are a thousand simultaneous movements going on today, and movement in all directions is movement in no single direction. While the clique that selected work for the Paris show seems to have concentrated on the manipulated digital, they could have as easily picked up on toy camera photography or any other trend.

It's that need to be accepted/approved as a "successful ontemporary artist" that drives much current work in the gallery scene, where work is validated by its inclusion by the elite, and valued for its selling price as much as for its aesthetic.

God, I'm in a cynical mood today...

John_4185

21-Nov-2005, 19:57

I wonder what photography (ergo photographers) really need to be liberated from.

My mortgage would be a good start! Viva Revolution, Comrades! One for all. All for one! Kill the bankers and critics! But wait! NO, you can't use my camera! Hey, that's my film! And my copyright!

Gosh, I guess it ain't gonna work that way. Anywho...

Ease of creation has a lot to do with 'liberation'. Just as the camera made it easier to do without realistic illustration, or movable type made it easier to publish the written word, now persons can make the final image without having to pass a kidney stone. Or something. Ease of use and creation can also help the gestault in focusing upon new ideas rather than laborious technique. Movable type created literature, liberated written expression from the lords of the pen, the copy houses, the Monks of the written word, and eventually from the printing house.

Now almost anyone can print a story. Now almost anyone can make a picture. It doesn't end the craft of either. In fact, the 'liberation' is from former constraints. Having a less daunting way of making photographic images gives credence to intent - still only those who have mastered technique can be credited with intent, even if they transcend it.

paulr

21-Nov-2005, 20:17

to put this in some perspective ...

i don't think painters perceived that they needed to be liberated from anything before photography came along. and when photography did finally liberate them from expectations of representation, many of them didn't think this was a good thing at all ... in fact, it felt more like being disenfranchised than being liberated. a lot of painters and illustrators who had no talent beyond depicting things were out of a job overnight.

but the medium itself, moving forward, was liberated, in that it was given an opportunity to evolve in ways that no one had imagined before.

I guess it's a good idea not to over-romanticize this idea of liberation. in the sense we're talking about, the only real constraints are in people's heads, and the new processes mainly serve to open up new perceived possibilities. And to make some old ones more practical.

Is traditional photography in shackles? No. Are there possibilities that we haven't considered yet? I assume so, based on a quick glance at the past. Anything that illuminates a once-hidden possibility is a kind of liberation.

tim atherton

21-Nov-2005, 20:31

On another list I came across three articles today that seem to tie into this in different ways (not endorsing either)

http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/07/go_visual.html

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/10/rosen.htm

http://www.orangecone.com/archives/000074.html

and three quotes as well:

rather than creating ever newer technologies for remembering, we should think about creating technologies that help us forget. (from three above)

and

Mechanical memory, to its unexpected advantage, degrades. But digital memory, ubiquitous, fathomless, and literally gratuitous, serves neither idea.
The past is always here and always perfect; everything can be represented, no moment need be lost.
Moreover, all of it is as good as new, and every copy identical to the original.
What's missing is a cadence, a play of values, or a respect for the way loss informs our experience of time.
Like the map that's as big as the world itself, it's useless precisely because it's too good.

and

All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this - as in other ways - they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers

adrian tyler

21-Nov-2005, 20:41

i think that it may be interesting to look at the situation from the perspective of painting itself, i was discussing this the other day with an established and very scholarly "contemporary" painter and he expressed envy of people working with photography, his problem being: what is left to discover and explore in the medium of paint?. i think too that you could make a similar parallel with contemporary music, it seems to me that there is very little left to discover or re-invent, which could be bourne out by listening to (or looking at) most "new" stuff.

photography on the other hand was likened by my painter friend to "africa at the time of the first european explorers" everything is still to be discovered... i certainly feel an excitement about the medium, and in the above context feel that art is democrotising itself, simple "documents" attaining artistic value, and of course the endless continent of digital...

John Berry ( Roadkill )

21-Nov-2005, 21:03

I'm glad I chose photography a passion rather than a profession. My living room is my gallery, I am my only customer. I am pleased when others like my stuff. ( I just now decided not to call it work) I don't even have to go out and shoot, except to feed the addiction. The rest of the planet can think and go the way it wants, I could care less. Now THATS liberation.

John Kasaian

21-Nov-2005, 21:11

tim,

WOW! That last thought is profound!

Paulr,

How so that I'm off on a tangent? Wouldn't parity=liberty be more of a 'stand-off' where we'd all be taking pictures of the same ol' thing----kind of like painters who adhere to one convention be it impressionism, modernism, etc..., then the next avant guard wave hits with something that blows the previous convention into the weeds and then becomes a convention its self? If I construe this as "liberty" it seems like it is merely liberty from some previously agreed on contrivance. Kind of like peace treaties whose purpose is merely to define when its okay to resume a conflict, or a contract being an instrument where the parties who sign are agreeing to when it will be okay to sue one another.

If OTOH by "liberation" it means that we'll all be able to download any image we want, to do with what ever we want (say blow it up to fit the wall, or manipulate it to suit our wishes through the miracle of digital) it still doesn't make sense to me other than it effectively writes the artist out of the script and the image becomes just that----an image or illustration devoid of the artist--sort of like a Mr. Potato Head where anyone with the kit can morph a spud into whatever strikes them. Or "clip art." Potato farmers don't seem to too concerned with what we do with their produce, but most artists I think, are.

WOW, now I'm really off on a tangent!

Cheers!

Kirk Gittings

21-Nov-2005, 21:19

"All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this - as in other ways - they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers"

This assumes that the intent of all photography is documentation. Your definition for paintings describes more my intent with photography.

Photography's power as a medium is based on the presumption that it is a document. Yet all expressive printers know how far we stray from that presumption.

John_4185

21-Nov-2005, 22:15

Wouldn't parity=liberty be more of a 'stand-off' where we'd all be taking pictures of the same ol' thing----kind of like painters who adhere to one convention be it impressionism, modernism, etc..., then the next avant guard wave hits with something that blows the previous convention into the weeds and then becomes a convention its self? If I construe this as "liberty" it seems like it is merely liberty from some previously agreed on contrivance.

Don't construe that as liberty, because it ain't. What you describe is the backwards glance of the critics, scholars, historians and curators... stamp collector mentalities.

Mike H.

21-Nov-2005, 22:44

adrian tyler -- "... i was discussing this the other day with an established and very scholarly "contemporary" painter and he expressed envy of people working with photography, his problem being: what is left to discover and explore in the medium of paint?. ...

That's so sad... whether painting, photography, music, poetry or any other expressive medium, to be limited by the "old" which has already been covered reeks of a stale creative life. One should open their eyes and mind and see the "new" out there. It's out there, and it's as wide as the universe and then more. It may be on your mantle, in your trash can, out in the front yard, in a NYC alley, or on a mountain top in Peru, but it's out there.

JJ, I'm like you claim to be -- can't write for crap. Worse yet, can't think for crap most the time. But, I REALLY enjoy trying to keep up with the mental thread you guys (Atherton, Gittings, Kasaian, PaulR, etc.) create. Stretches the outer limits of my artistic thinking. Thanks for the entertainment and mental exercise, guys.

John Kasaian

21-Nov-2005, 23:35

jj,

But stylistic conventions that apply to subject matter did indeed exist and the parameters in which artists worked were paradigms until the paradigms were broken. Take the Neo Classics (Please! As Henny Youngman would say)

IMHO, That great images would be available to all courtesy of digital technology isn't a bad thing as there are plenty of bad images that we can't seem to escape from seeing. If this is "Liberation" as in the 'Liberation of Paris' then I'm all for it. If OTOH its "Liberation" as in being "Liberation from having to actually achieve something artistic" the NY Times didn't clarify that.

John_4185

22-Nov-2005, 02:09

The responses have been enlightening; thank you all. It's lovely to be here.

At this moment, near the end of the day when the last dozen hours of work are caving in upon me while I navigate the horse lattitudes of depressive introspecion - VOILA! Molly brings in hot chinese chicken, a quarter pound of pistachio nuts, and cookie-dough ice cream so that I just become almost intellectually co-opted. Wait. She's got That Look on her face. Call that a complete coop. The hell with Art.

(arnold voice) I'll be bach.

Sometimes the Life of the Mind has to yield to the life of the body. :)

tired, so tired

Struan Gray

22-Nov-2005, 08:37

Imagine that someone did come up wth a wholly new style of visual expression. Suppose, for example, people start to use the limitations of cheap sensors and heavy jpeg compression to convey emotion to a generation raised on Nintendo graphics? Would you call it photography? Would you give it the same warm welcome you give to ULF wetplate revivers?

On the other hand, photography may be like writing, a mature art. Attempts to create an entirely novel means of expression will simply end up looking forced.

If you have faith in your own taste you shouldn't really care (unless you sit on a public museum's acquisitions comittee). I love drawings and illustration, another area mostly overlooked by the Fine and Contemporary art worlds. I can live with that, and I would be more than happy if my photographs would only show a hint of the creativity I see in the best children's books and fashion drawings.

John_4185

22-Nov-2005, 14:40

Struan On the other hand, photography may be like writing, a mature art. Attempts to create an entirely novel means of expression will simply end up looking forced.

Literature, Art and photograpy are not just about beauty. Collage can work to convey contrasts, for example in literature a dialog between a literate, elderly man and a 'nub' net maven and the same in a photograph mixing the two, for example a classic LF B&W rocks-n-roots picture with a tree made with cellphone camera blended into the centre. Sorry to ruin your appetite for the day, but someone will make a compelling image of that idea.

Struan Gray

22-Nov-2005, 15:04

Where did I mention beauty? What's new about collage?

I have seen compelling images from cellphones. Mostly news - Tsunami pics - but some art too. They usually get sneered at by photographers as 'not photography', hence my first para.

I have heard cello concertos beautifully played on a double bass. Nice, but more about virtuosity than musicality. I find a lot of attempts to be new are like that, hence my second para.

Would you like your stone back Sensei?

William Mortensen

22-Nov-2005, 15:18

"Imagine that someone did come up wth a wholly new style of visual expression. Suppose, for example, people start to use the limitations of cheap sensors and heavy jpeg compression to convey emotion to a generation raised on Nintendo graphics?"

Cell-phone-photography-as-Art is already soooooo last year...

"On the other hand, photography may be like writing, a mature art. Attempts to create an entirely novel means of expression will simply end up looking forced. "

Agreed. Photography, like writing, should seldom rely on a novel means of expression to carry the work. The best writing and photography (in my mind) use style and process as the vehicle to carry the work, and should be appropriate to the work. But when the work only says "look at my digital manipulation/large format virtuosity/etc.", it has crossed over from Art to Craft.

Then again, there is the occassional Allen Ginsberg or Joel Peter Witkin whose novel approach to their Craft is tightly intertwined with their Art.

tim atherton

22-Nov-2005, 16:11

Struan Gray

22-Nov-2005, 18:50

The point is not that it has been done, but rather to examine your own reaction to it. The web is full of photographers moaning that there is nothing new and simultaneously pouring scorn on anything that does not fit their tidy small view of what photography is. Anything truly new in terms of form or modes of expression is going to require an open mind.

Much of what I have seen done with cellphones is very similar to a lot work with video stills. The poor quality is a deliberate way of avoiding mere discussion of craft. It's meant to be ephemeral - and succeeds.

I think tomorrow's photographers - and curators - will have grown up with a different visual heritage. The teenagers I know have a vocabulary of gesture that is not derived from Lartigue's racing cars and a thousand Loony Tunes, but instead comes from games consoles and MTV eye bites. They accept poor resolution and jerky motion, not as limitations, but as a natural part of the visual language. Fine Art concerns of quality don't matter, in that they are not necessary for communication and empathy.

Mark, I would equate a lot of experimental presentation with oddball typography and punctuation. Emily Dickinson and e.e.cummings are safely in the Canon, but as every schoolchild knows, imitate them too often and you'll start getting D's. Sometimes it works, and works - literally - in a wonderful way. Other times it's just irritating.

paulr

22-Nov-2005, 19:31

"On the other hand, photography may be like writing, a mature art. Attempts to create an entirely novel means of expression will simply end up looking forced."

It's funny that you use that example, because for me writing is one place where formal experiments (postmodern ones in particular) seem to have a fighting chance at succeeding. I've always had an easier time getting sucked into heady experiments in novels and stories and poems than in photos. I'm not sure why this is but it's been my experience for a long time.

"Agreed. Photography, like writing, should seldom rely on a novel means of expression to carry the work. "

I'd distinguish between work that's being carried by a sense of novelty, and work whose substance requires a novel means of expression in order to come into being at all.

Works based on novelty are a dime a dozen. Works that say something so new that their making needed to invent a new language are the stuff of revolution. Most of what we look at had its origins in revolutions like this. But it's easy for us to forget how new they once were, because the languages have become so familiar to us.