Aperture Magazine just set me an e-mail [Archive] - Large Format Photography Forum

Richard Mahoney

22-Sep-2010, 23:16

I'm curious: Is a concept like this so valuable that it transcends the limitations of our technique-addled brains?

When I see the series, it just does not speak to me at all. Nothing about it challenges me think about anything more than who would spend ten grand for the complete series.

I'd really like to hear from someone (calling Paul Raphaelson! Struan Gray!) who is in touch with these art communities and has the ability to express what they might really be trying to achieve. Clearly, the artists themselves have difficulty expressing their ideas, either in words or pictures, such that I can grasp their intent.

Rick "a Philistine" Denney

Well Philistine as you may be Rick, I'm sure you wouldn't have any difficulty in understanding one of New Zealands most respected (large format) `artists'. A well known -- if not longish -- quote from an interview with Mark Adams:

``I attended the School of Fine Arts from 1967 to 1970. I Majored in graphic design so I could do photography. There was no separate photography major in those days. ... I was looking at English and American fashion and art photographers like Bill Brandt, Man Ray and Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, the London scene. I wasn't really interested in developments in any international art and didn't feel in touch with much of it except the international pop and rock and blues music scene ... I learned bugger all at art school. Tom Palaskas, a fellow student, taught me how to develop film and print. I taught myself how to use cameras. Then I discovered the art schools 4 x 5-inch Linhof plate camera and taught myself how to use that. That changed everything. That was the future. Large-format photography. Analogue.

I imagined I would be a photographer after I left art school. I am a photographer.

If I hadn't attended art school I would have missed out on my peer group and the opening out of the sixties cultures and their political ferment. The art school was no use in teaching me art but good at teaching me a world beyond the shut-down world of 1950s 1960s Christchurch.'' (http://www.artschool125.co.nz/Interviews/M_Adams/)

Not surprisingly, as a New Zealander, I find that Adams' work rings true. To me at least it is authentic -- not pretentious or contrived -- though I'm unsure how it would be seen by many of you in the States:

Adams @ Te Papa (Museum of NZ)
http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/Party.aspx?irn=33

Adams @ McNamara Gallery
http://www.mcnamara.co.nz/adams.htm

Adams @ Two Rooms Gallery
http://tworooms.co.nz/artists/mark-adams/

Kind regards,

Richard

Struan Gray

23-Sep-2010, 01:11

...calling Paul Raphaelson! Struan Gray!...

I'll settle for second place :-)

I haven't had time to look at the video, but the comments - and accusations - here touch on some things I have been reading and thinking about all summer.

Most of all I feel that there is a laziness at the heart of the traditional photographic project. In my own landscape work I have repeatedly found that the structures and patterns I have been photographing for aesthetic or journalistic reasons turn out to have been studied in depth by ecologists, archeologists, agrarian historians, geographers and geologists. It is a weak-willed cop-out not to seek out this knowledge, and to avoid the effort of interpreting and refining my photographic work based on the foundation that it provides.

I do not feel that I should limit myself to illustrating the conventional professional wisdom, or to just pointing out the regular dislocations between common and specialist knowledge. I certainly don't want to lose that sense of communicating my own individual response to the things I see. But neither do I think I can claim to have a reflective, contemplative approach to the landscape if my responses to it can be proven wrongheaded by a five minute browse of Google Scholar.

My reaction to a lot of art photography projects is that they lack a similar sense of responsibility to their own intellectual coherence. They want to benefit from the status and authority of academic inquiry, but they avoid the tedious business of actually doing in the legwork. Many are simply bad anthropology or the least convincing kind of anecdotal sociology - the sort of things that, despite their philosophical pretensions, would never get past a journal or grant review if they involved writing instead of photography. A concept should involve a thought, not just an impulse.

The widespread prevalence of these kinds of projects is more, I think, than a reflection of the idea that ninety percent of everything is crap. To me, it reflects a drawback of the professionalisation of art production, and is a sign of people who are (consciously or subconsciously) building a career as much as a body of work. I don't think it a bad thing that artists can feed themselves and raise their families within today's professional art world, but just as the medieval guilds became a byword for intransigence and the stifling of innovation, there are negative consequences to being one of the gang.

For those who can read long words without feeling the need to head straight out to chop wood or shoot a moose, there is an interesting article by Elif Batuman currently on the front page of the LRB website which expresses a similar dissatisfaction with careerist creative writers.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n18/elif-batuman/get-a-real-degree

Batuman has a phrase which pins down the characteristic I find most annoying: "oversophistication combined with an air of autodidacticism". Not knowing everything I can excuse, but willful ignorance and faux naive posturing brings out the old-school disciplinarian in me. Some people really do need a good slapping.

.

Richard Mahoney

23-Sep-2010, 02:23

... My reaction to a lot of art photography projects is that they lack a similar sense of responsibility to their own intellectual coherence. They want to benefit from the status and authority of academic inquiry, but they avoid the tedious business of actually doing in the legwork. Many are simply bad anthropology or the least convincing kind of anecdotal sociology - the sort of things that, despite their philosophical pretensions, would never get past a journal or grant review if they involved writing instead of photography. A concept should involve a thought, not just an impulse.

The widespread prevalence of these kinds of projects is more, I think, than a reflection of the idea that ninety percent of everything is crap. To me, it reflects a drawback of the professionalisation of art production, and is a sign of people who are (consciously or subconsciously) building a career as much as a body of work. I don't think it a bad thing that artists can feed themselves and raise their families within today's professional art world, but just as the medieval guilds became a byword for intransigence and the stifling of innovation, there are negative consequences to being one of the gang. ...
.

Thanks for your comments Struan, I've found them helpful, though also a little unsettling. I've recently begun to wonder about the fashion for projects and the motives behind them -- I'm sure project work isn't *just* about photographing things that one cares about and understands, there often seem to be other things at stake ... Actually just the other evening I was going over some of the `French' portfolio of Mona Kuhn and I had a strange feeling: beautiful as some of the images undoubtably were, was I looking at some self-conscious -- possibly intentionally watered down, careful, professional middle class, institutionalised -- conflation of say Sally Mann and Balthus? Surely not ... but then?

Best, Richard

rdenney

23-Sep-2010, 04:47

For those who can read long words without feeling the need to head straight out to chop wood or shoot a moose...

If all you had written was the above, I would have been rewarded for calling you out. The very serious patrons of this District-of-Columbia Starbucks are now looking me strangely. Joyful outbursts are not looked on kindly in these parts.

I like the idea that the artistic barrenness stems from intellectual barrenness; or that verbal sophistry leads to artistic sophistry. There are artistic approaches that honestly emerge from following impulses, but they seem to me best described in those terms. "I liked it, so I made a photograph."

The problem is that modern art buyers may need a pastiche of intellectualist monologue to stroke their own posture of hip relevance. If artists are just giving buyers what they eat, I wish they would at least be a little less smug about it. I was just wondering if I was missing something, which isentirely likely.

Rick "who needs to chop some wood" Denney

JamesFromSydney

23-Sep-2010, 05:56

Not surprisingly, as a New Zealander, I find that Adams' work rings true. To me at least it is authentic -- not pretentious or contrived -- though I'm unsure how it would be seen by many of you in the States:

I'm in Australia and hadn't seen his stuff -- thanks for posting about it.

Reminded me somewhat of Ricky Maynard's work, an Australian self-taught LF photographer.

http://www.stillsgallery.com.au/artists/maynard/

dsphotog

23-Sep-2010, 06:31

Ansel had "Pre-visualization"
This is an example of "Post-rationalization"

Struan Gray

23-Sep-2010, 06:54

Joyful outbursts are not looked on kindly in these parts.

I ought to get a cut from the makers of replacement keyboards :-)

I have found with all the arts that I have to keep experiencing them for myself. In fact, my personal definition of art is something that is better in the flesh than reading a description. This is especially true once I get outside my comfort or familiarity zones.

Mostly I get to shrug and enjoy the food in the museum cafe. Sometimes though I get surprised and delighted, and those times make it worth reading all the waffleguff and plodding through all those websites full of the photographers' friends looking bored on their beds.

Off the top of my head, Darren Almond and Susan Derges are two artists with strong conceptual bents and few ties to the canon of photographers' photographers, who nevertheless engage me intellectually, aesthetically and emotionally. It's not *all* bad.

I love this poem, especially when read in broad Northumbrian (click the sound applet):

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do;jsessionid=08081692B6106DA50C147C60C175BCDF?poemId=7501

Richard: I don't dislike projects, just vague ones, or me too ones, or plain ordinary dull ones. I am also suspicious of projects which are confirmatory rather than exploratory - which simply set out to reinforce a concept expressed at the start. The world should be given a chance to surprise the photographer.

It's not just photography: the professionalisation of the sciences, and funding though pre-approved project grants rather than generalist structural funds mean that very little truly original research gets done. The need to build a career in a series of short-term, well-packaged and easily assessed chunks doesn't encourage long term thinking or risky botanising among the purely empirical.

Mona Kuhn's work is unsettling at first, but for my taste the procession of perfect bodies and beautiful settings eventually settles down into adland escapism. Not quite as trite as Ryan McGinley, but a caberet-ish version of the same thing. At some point, you have to dare to add a little vinegar.

Marko Trebusak

23-Sep-2010, 07:58

I have found with all the arts that I have to keep experiencing them for myself. In fact, my personal definition of art is something that is better in the flesh than reading a description. This is especially true once I get outside my comfort or familiarity zones.

That's ingeneer in me speaking. I'm only starting to work through that artsy stuff. Up untill now, I went out with my camera and try to "execute" (what a word) everything needed to get something useful out of the camera. But now I try to chew my way through Susan Sontags "On photography" and it's a tough meal. But it gets me thinking what I'm doing and why. On the other hand my predominant reaction is: who are you to talk about photography?". If I add my skepticism towards big theories of modernism I guess I'm reading the wrong book, but as they say it's good to know one's enemies. On the other hand article you posted in your first reply, I'm again wondering: is reading photography critiques by some wrighter really the right way?

Richard: I don't dislike projects, just vague ones, or me too ones, or plain ordinary dull ones. I am also suspicious of projects which are confirmatory rather than exploratory - which simply set out to reinforce a concept expressed at the start. The world should be given a chance to surprise the photographer.

It's not just photography: the professionalisation of the sciences, and funding though pre-approved project grants rather than generalist structural funds mean that very little truly original research gets done. The need to build a career in a series of short-term, well-packaged and easily assessed chunks doesn't encourage long term thinking or risky botanising among the purely empirical.

If you read the book "Chaos", you are familiar with this concept. In there it's a theory, that after a revolutionar like Einstain set a new scinentific frame, every other researcher is just puting bricks in the openings until next revolution. But if one thinks that one needs bread and butter, it become logical thing (I know as I work in research department of pharmaceutical company).

Cheers,
Marko

GPS

23-Sep-2010, 08:41

...
For those who can read long words without feeling the need to head straight out to chop wood or shoot a moose, there is an interesting article by Elif Batuman currently on the front page of the LRB website which expresses a similar dissatisfaction with careerist creative writers.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n18/elif-batuman/get-a-real-degree

Batuman has a phrase which pins down the characteristic I find most annoying: "oversophistication combined with an air of autodidacticism".
...

.

Hmm... Makes me wonder, when one is so dissatisfied with the careerist creative photographer in question why use long words about it instead of heading straight out to chop wood or shoot a moose? Especially when one finds "oversophistication" most annoying "... :)

feppe

23-Sep-2010, 09:06

I'll settle for second place :-)
My reaction to a lot of art photography projects is that they lack a similar sense of responsibility to their own intellectual coherence. They want to benefit from the status and authority of academic inquiry, but they avoid the tedious business of actually doing in the legwork. Many are simply bad anthropology or the least convincing kind of anecdotal sociology - the sort of things that, despite their philosophical pretensions, would never get past a journal or grant review if they involved writing instead of photography. A concept should involve a thought, not just an impulse.

As an unsophisticated autodidact "serious" amateur this is excellent advice. I'm about to start two quite demanding projects, one classical glamour (LF), another documentary street photography (digital), and I've spent literally years just getting my skill set in order (hopefully).

But recently I've mostly spent my time dedicated to these projects just thinking about the approach I'm about to take, along the lines whether I should strive to be detached and neutral in the documentary project, and when does classical glamour turn from an inspired homage into lazy copying.

The impulse is there, I am willing and capable to do the leg work, but I want to get the concept in order before I start clicking the shutter. As part of that I've already done the first test run of the street photography project as proof of concept, and am perfecting it as we speak.

What also rings true is that you are spot on about some photographers doing the motions without questioning themselves, their work, and most importantly the status quo. I firmly believe that when it comes to art photography, if somebody isn't offended, you're doing it wrong. That's not to say one has to dunk a religious object in a vat of excrement - there are levels to the offense and one shouldn't always turn that knob to 11.

(un)Fortunately these days it's very easy to offend people :)

cyrus

23-Sep-2010, 09:19

No no, you guys don't understand. This is about the hegenomy of patriarchy imposing its interpretation of Hegelian dialectic onto negative imagined communal spaces.

Or something like that...

Brian C. Miller

23-Sep-2010, 09:47

For those who can read long words without feeling the need to head straight out to chop wood or shoot a moose

Wired: Up Your Intelligence by Choosing Your Exercise Wisely (http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/gs_11excercise)

Actually, chopping wood and hunting moose raises your intelligence! Chopping wood is some good aerobic activity there. And hunting moose, there's lots of hiking, and if you miss, there's lots of running!

Now, "multiplicitous," which is, of course, not found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
multi-plicit-y
1a : the quality or state of being multiple or various
1b : the number of components in a system (as a multiplet or a group of energy levels)
-ous
1: full of : abounding in : having : possessing the qualities of
<clamorous> <poisonous>

So "multiplicitous" means there's a lot of it, whatever it is. The statement I found to be honest was, "my approaches are multifaceted and a little bit schizophrenic."

Marko Trebusak

23-Sep-2010, 11:07

If you want to be really challenged, spend some time reading her artist statements on her website.

I was following the video reasonably well until their heads started bobbing and their hands started waving (3:08).

I need to start using bigger words in my artspeak. "Multiplicitous" is a good one (3:26).

Oh, the crisis of post-modernity...

Hi Michael!

Remember the debates we had with Mark Hobson? It was fun, and I learned quite a bit from there. But "deep artsy" talk is still a challenge for me, especially in English.

Cheers,
Marko

Policar

23-Sep-2010, 15:41

There's always been some weird opposition between art (concept) and craft (execution), in virtually every medium, and this example pretty obviously falls directly into "art."

The artists who really endure are those who push the boundaries of what's possible, usually primarily in terms of craftsmanship, but nonetheless to realize an idiosyncratic or personal vision: Caravaggio, Spielberg, the Beatles, etc. If those artists hadn't lived coincident with important technological developments (the camera obscura and oil painting, changes in film technology and industry in the 1970s, the birth of rock and roll and multitrack production) they might be very obscure. Likewise, great conceptual artists (who are usually fairly talented craftsmen as well), such as Picasso, Duchamp, and Warhol, are mostly famous because of the compatibility of their world view with the contemporaneous zeitgeist (of course this category gets the bigger words).

But most people are just "artists" or "craftsmen." To a conceptual artist, a perfectly exposed and composed photograph is meaningless if the concept behind it is "it looked pretty." To a craftsman, some sort of meta-commentary on photography as a medium and the post-modern death of the author is meaningless if the craft behind it is just changing how long the print is exposed.

Robert Budding

23-Sep-2010, 17:48

Ansel had "Pre-visualization"
This is an example of "Post-rationalization"

LOL! I just sprayed my drink onto my monitor!

dsphotog

23-Sep-2010, 19:28

Thanks Rob,
I usually washed & dried my final test strips & threw 'em in a box, I called "test strip hell".
Now I can make a work of art..... Guess I shoulda kept all the bad ones too!

Struan Gray

24-Sep-2010, 07:57

But now I try to chew my way through Susan Sontags "On photography" and it's a tough meal.

Sontag relies too much on using a pithy epigram as a starting point, and then erects a vast inverted pyramid on top, often issuing broad brush condemnations of large swathes of humanity, without ever discussing the validity or applicability of her original axiom. She relies on it's sheer quotability to be convincing. She drives me mad.

I'm again wondering: is reading photography critiques by some wrighter really the right way?

One problem I have with photography is that it is too insular. The idea that only photographers make valid criticism of photography is a bad one. John Updike's criticism is one example of a writer who is very perceptive about visual art. I personally prefer to read general arts critique and translate the themes and ideas into the photographic world for myself.

As an example, the LRB I referenced above doesn't have much photography criticism. However, its general art correspondents are excellent, and the diary-like contributions of Peter Campbell have taught me an awful lot about how visual art works and is received. When they do touch on photography, the conventions and house style of good general arts criticism ensure a quality result (mostly). For example, Liz Jobey's article on Bill Brandt (here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n13/liz-jobey/dreams-of-the-decades) is light years better than anything that has appeared in the photographic press - in fact, it was what prompted me to simply give up on photo magazines.

Of all the canonical photographic theory books, Szarkowski's 'Looking at Photographs' and John Berger's 'Ways of seeing' are the only ones that have really touched me. There are any number of books about writing, poetry, painting or just plain living which have been more helpful to my photography than, say, Barthes, who - if you look closely - seems to think all photographs are of people.

Struan Gray

24-Sep-2010, 08:03

But recently I've mostly spent my time dedicated to these projects just thinking about the approach I'm about to take, along the lines whether I should strive to be detached and neutral in the documentary project, and when does classical glamour turn from an inspired homage into lazy copying.

I think it's something to be aware of, but not to allow it to get into your head to the extent that it stops you photographing, or showing your work. One of the things that emerges if I allow negs to sit for a while before scanning and printing is just how much they are or are not influenced by other photographs and photographers. Straight after snapping the shutter I feel they are exclusively my own work, but later I see more clearly that I was having a Kenna or Friedlander phase. I don't reject the 'homage' pictures, but knowing that they are homages - even subconscious ones - changes how I feel about them at the editing stage, and how I behave the next time I am faced with a similar subject.

I'm not against projects, I just think that photography's greatest strength is as an empirical tool, and it makes sense at the outset of a project to keep the definitions broad and explore a little.

SamReeves

24-Sep-2010, 08:14

And it had this video link:

http://www.aperture.org/exposures/?p=7790

You can by prints from Aperture here:

http://www.aperture.org/prints/crosher?order=position&dir=asc

Comments on the work, on Aperture, or upon the state of photography?

--Darin

Wow, can I fart around with the levels in Photoshop for 10 prints and call it art too? LOL…next!

rdenney

24-Sep-2010, 11:51

For those who complain about how easy the example of this thread might be produced: Ease is no automatic condemnation. The reason I asked my question as I did, of those whose ability to eloquently expand my horizons I admire, was to separate the concept from the ease with which it might be produced, or the similarity is has to "test prints". Maybe there was something profound there that I was unable to see, and that all of us who have made what we call test prints have missed all this time. It could be that the sheer familiarity we have with the technique would keep us from appreciating what would be more conceptually powerful to non-photographers.

In other words, I never underestimate the ability of photographers, including myself, to be blinded by technical issues enough to miss the point of a particular concept. I know what I like, but if saying so out loud marks me as just another camera geek then I might decide to keep it to myself (or not). So, I asked.

We should avoid the trap of saying, "I could do that". The fact is, we didn't, because we didn't see the value in doing so. That alone provides no basis for judgment.

I'm sure there were zillions of artists who scoffed at Warhol's soup cans the first time they saw them. And they still might. Anyone might say, "I could do that--what's so special about soup cans?" But they didn't, and he did, and apparently somebody thought it was special (and still does). But the difference between a gimmick that ends up languashing in well-earned obscurity and a gimmick that strikes a chord and becomes an icon is a fine one indeed, and it may take an external viewpoint to see it.

Rick "a Philistine, perhaps, but an honest one" Denney

Darin Boville

24-Sep-2010, 12:57

I'll settle for second place :-)

I haven't had time to look at the video,
.

Oh, Straun. You simply *must* look at the video. Really. :)

--Darin

Brian C. Miller

24-Sep-2010, 14:00

For those who complain about how easy the example of this thread might be produced: Ease is no automatic condemnation.

I don't think that the concept of "ease" merits plaudit or pillory, but "schizophrenic" "deconstruction of the medium" does merit quality time at the whipping post.

The series presented to the viewing audience was made as a "deconstruction of the medium," not to present any novel or original concept. We've had better examples of this from the get-go. Come on, an image disappearing from a print is nothing new!

John NYC

24-Sep-2010, 14:42

Come on, an image disappearing from a print is nothing new!

Neither is a photo of a big rock in the foreground of of a beach or forest scene, shot with a wide angle lens on Velvia. Or a rural scene shot in b&w with an old projector lens. Doesn't stop many thousands of people doing it and calling it art.

Nicholas Whitman

25-Sep-2010, 05:18

For those who complain about how easy the example of this thread might be produced: Ease is no automatic condemnation. The reason I asked my question as I did, of those whose ability to eloquently expand my horizons I admire, was to separate the concept from the ease with which it might be produced, or the similarity is has to "test prints". Maybe there was something profound there that I was unable to see, and that all of us who have made what we call test prints have missed all this time. It could be that the sheer familiarity we have with the technique would keep us from appreciating what would be more conceptually powerful to non-photographers.

In other words, I never underestimate the ability of photographers, including myself, to be blinded by technical issues enough to miss the point of a particular concept. I know what I like, but if saying so out loud marks me as just another camera geek then I might decide to keep it to myself (or not). So, I asked.

We should avoid the trap of saying, "I could do that". The fact is, we didn't, because we didn't see the value in doing so. That alone provides no basis for judgment.

Rick "a Philistine, perhaps, but an honest one" Denney

You can cook up a concept about almost anything and sell it with words. To my jaded eye that is pretty common in modern art.

My standard for success in a piece of photography or other visual medium includes: Is the viewer touched by the piece? Is the medium used to advantage to convey the idea?
Can it communicate gut to gut in those golden moments before the brain jumps in to reason the case?

John Kasaian

25-Sep-2010, 08:29

Can photographers be sued for malpractice?

If a photograph is worth a thousand words, then having to use a thousand words to explain a photograph is laughable at best, especially if the photos still don't make any sense after your thousand word description.

If this isn't a comedy skit, those people ought to be embarrassed.

feppe

25-Sep-2010, 09:57

Neither is a photo of a big rock in the foreground of of a beach or forest scene, shot with a wide angle lens on Velvia. Or a rural scene shot in b&w with an old projector lens. Doesn't stop many thousands of people doing it and calling it art.

Your points make enough sense for me to re-consider my initial position on the fading portrait, which wasn't exactly flattering.

Brian Ellis

25-Sep-2010, 11:11

Neither is a photo of a big rock in the foreground of of a beach or forest scene, shot with a wide angle lens on Velvia. Or a rural scene shot in b&w with an old projector lens. Doesn't stop many thousands of people doing it and calling it art.

I disagree. Within the general category of "big rock in foreground of a beach or forest scene" the number of variations is virtually infinite. Literally thousands of photographs can be made within that category, all of which evoke different ideas, different emotions, different attitudes, different levels of appreciation, different degrees of aesthetic pleasure, different purposes, etc. or even if not different, nevertheless provide some form of intellectual or aesthetic pleasure. IOWs, seeing one photograph of one rock in the foreground of one beach or forest doesn't begin to exhaust the photographic possibilities of that general category of photographs.

OTOH, a series of photographs showing the same image gradually disappearing to illustrate an idea, once done has no reason to be repeated. We got the idea the first time around and there's nothing more to be gained by doing it again and again using a different subject since the images have no purpose or value except to illustrate the idea.

John NYC

25-Sep-2010, 11:28

I disagree. Within the general category of "big rock in foreground of a beach or forest scene" the number of variations is virtually infinite. Literally thousands of photographs can be made within that category, all of which evoke different ideas, different emotions, different attitudes, different levels of appreciation, different degrees of aesthetic pleasure, different purposes, etc. or even if not different, nevertheless provide some form of intellectual or aesthetic pleasure. IOWs, seeing one photograph of one rock in the foreground of one beach or forest doesn't begin to exhaust the photographic possibilities of that general category of photographs.

OTOH, a series of photographs showing the same image gradually disappearing to illustrate an idea, once done has no reason to be repeated. We got the idea the first time around and there's nothing more to be gained by doing it again and again using a different subject since the images have no purpose or value except to illustrate the idea.

I'm curious.. Can you list for me all the other techniques that you personally feel once done would then have no (or little) artistic merit if done subsequently?

Lenny Eiger

25-Sep-2010, 14:37

How do I even begin... I'll state the obvious. Post-modernism is pure garbage. Plain and simple. It isn't what photography is about for me - and most of the world. I think there's all the reason in the world to do "projects" and have an intellectual component of one's work. However - to have only a cerebral component and nothing else is boring, at best. What's worse is the folks who like only this kind of work are in charge - everywhere.

I think one has to ask one's self - what is the promise of photography? What does it offer, why would we do it, etc. Our culture over the years has learned that Photography is capable of more than a few things. It can shock, and create a call to action. It can inspire, it can stir one's emotions, it can bring back memories and it can seemingly transport one to somewhere else, at least fleetingly. It's sense of truth, which we all know is false, still works despite that knowledge. There is nothing like a piece of work that is at once authentic and genuine, more true that true, and speaks to things deeper than our everyday chatter.

This promise, far beyond simple recording of what things look like, can be a real contribution to our culture, and our world. To achieve the promise, we have to learn how to be present with what we are photographing. It's a lot of inner work - and it pays off very well.

Post-modernism is not interested in any of this. There is only the cerebral, there is no depth, no interaction (no participation of the viewer) and no emotion. Normal humans, artists and non-artists, indicate in large numbers that they want to be "moved" when viewing a piece of art. That's clearly an emotional word. Emotion is at least half of the emotion/intellect way of looking at things and to turn one's back on it is to simply be stupid, or more to the point, half a person.

Visits by the general populous to museums and art galleries is down. When queried what they want to see, 85% of them said landscape work that inspires and moves.

It's true what others have said, that the art is a reflection of our culture's inability to deal with itself (paraphrased heavily). People who are scared of their own being, or their own emotions, are going to be attracted to this cerebral vision. I've done a lot of reading lately on this trend and I don't think it will get us anywhere. The reading was difficult. I'm not scared of big words, but for crying out loud, someone should let these people know that writing is actually a communications medium, that the goal should be to communicate vs to obfuscate.

I think we need to start a movement to bring Photography back on track. (Maybe re-modernism). There's nothing wrong with having a healthy avant-garde, but having them run the show is having the lunatics run the asylum. For myself, I will continue to work and if I don't get in another gallery ever, I won't care. A long time ago some truly great photographers showed me what was possible and I won't be false to that vision. At the moment, my kid needs braces and I have to make another 5K...

That's my 2 cents,

Lenny

Lenny Eiger
Eigerstudios.com

Frank Petronio

26-Sep-2010, 00:07

I blame the French.

Stupid Philosophers.

Just like the World Wars, if you go back far enough, it is their fault.

Marko Trebusak

27-Sep-2010, 01:58

Sontag relies too much on using a pithy epigram as a starting point, and then erects a vast inverted pyramid on top, often issuing broad brush condemnations of large swathes of humanity, without ever discussing the validity or applicability of her original axiom. She relies on it's sheer quotability to be convincing. She drives me mad..

Thank God, I'm not the only one! Her desire to see just and only people in photographs is one point I can't digest. War photography as her main interest is another one. And her stand that photography is representing reality is another one. I mean there are things beside Railander's pictorial photographs that are not meant to represent "truth, whole truth and nothing but a truth"! Why can't we look at photograph like we look at painting? Why must photo be a "representation of a real thing"?

One problem I have with photography is that it is too insular. The idea that only photographers make valid criticism of photography is a bad one. John Updike's criticism is one example of a writer who is very perceptive about visual art. I personally prefer to read general arts critique and translate the themes and ideas into the photographic world for myself.

As an example, the LRB I referenced above doesn't have much photography criticism. However, its general art correspondents are excellent, and the diary-like contributions of Peter Campbell have taught me an awful lot about how visual art works and is received. When they do touch on photography, the conventions and house style of good general arts criticism ensure a quality result (mostly). For example, Liz Jobey's article on Bill Brandt (here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n13/liz-jobey/dreams-of-the-decades) is light years better than anything that has appeared in the photographic press - in fact, it was what prompted me to simply give up on photo magazines.

Of all the canonical photographic theory books, Szarkowski's 'Looking at Photographs' and John Berger's 'Ways of seeing' are the only ones that have really touched me. There are any number of books about writing, poetry, painting or just plain living which have been more helpful to my photography than, say, Barthes, who - if you look closely - seems to think all photographs are of people.

Umm, there is not a place in my writing, where I wrote that only photographers can say something about photography? I was probably too deep into Leonardo's "Trattato della pittura", where he is criticizing writers and poems. My bad. Everyone can have an opinion on photographs. But I must agree with you, general art critiques are the ones to follow. Barthes? Do you mean "Camera Lucida"? Ugh...

I'll look at the links you provided. And those two books might be worth to look at. I mean I read John Berger's "The use of photographs". It was interesting, but again: people, people, people and war photography on top of all that. Photo magazines? What photo magazines? I mean there isn't much in Slovenian in the first place, but those in English that I thumb through are just "what to do" magazines, with half of it being occupied by adverts!

Cheers,
Marko

Struan Gray

27-Sep-2010, 02:03

You simply *must* look at the video.

Been there. Done that. Can't see what all the fuss (here) is about.

Crosher is doing things that I find interesting. Mining archives for insights which were included unintentionally, or which only emerge when the archive is seen as a whole. Looking at how images condition behaviour, and at how we interact psychologically with images of all types and formats. The way that photographs present only part of the whole, and how recovery of what's missing becomes harder and harder as the physical archive deteriorates and the chance of interviewing the participants fades along with it.

The talk was typically insular, and included a certain amount of jargon - but then, it's a talk at the Aperture Foundation. Were I ever to give a talk there, I would assume people were mostly interested in the photographic aspects of my work. I would also assume a basic familiarity with the language in which these kinds of issues are usually discussed.

I do detect an odd sort of cultural cringe. I'm not sure if the motivation is ring-fencing a secure little territory, or a continuation of photography's traditional inferiority complex; but the way both participants insisted 'it's not about the content' seemed like protesting too much. Of course it's about the content. Michelle Dubois' life is much more interesting, titivating even, than most, and the narrative which lurks in the background is calculated to attract interest, even if only prurient.

Perhaps I'm only confirming my own biases, but there is a point where raising issues isn't enough: you need to address them. This project isn't like the Hilbert Problems in mathematics. There is no great merit in simply pointing out that there are contradictions expressed in women's lives in the era of mainstream feminism. It's an issue that's been identified time and time again.

I am not one to insist that art be as self-contained and complete as a well-crafted and fully-researched essay. However, if you're going to insist that the conceptual is important in your work, and draw authority and prestige from the respect accorded to good examples of academic archive mining and found object anthropology, then you open yourself up to judgment using the tools traditionally used in the academy to decide whether your ideas are any good or not.

I live and work in a world where ideas are taken seriously, and not just consumed, but assessed for worth. That makes me a sort of über-snob: snobbish about work that most people here already seem to find snobbish. So be it. In this case I feel like a supervisor with a student who has done a basic run through the archive, and a bit of background reading, but no real work. It's a good start, and there are some promising ideas, but it's not enough to get my respect.

Brian Ellis

27-Sep-2010, 08:05

I'm curious.. Can you list for me all the other techniques that you personally feel once done would then have no (or little) artistic merit if done subsequently?

All? Of course not. Two that come immediately to mind - Sherrie Levine's appropriation series, Zoe Crusher's material disappearance series.

Daniel Grenier

27-Sep-2010, 09:49

Years ago, Ansel Adams said of Aperture "It's a sorry mess". That is quite a lot to say for someone who had helped found the magazine!

I think he'd be forced to come to the same conclusion nowadays.

Frank Petronio

27-Sep-2010, 13:42

Ansel Adams, Minor White, Harry Callahan were responsible for the creation of modern American academic fine art photography programs and this is the sorry result. Poor guys just needed jobs with benefits and instead they got this bullshit arts culture. I mean it's great that Ansel sold a bunch of expensive prints before he died and all, but now we're saddled with the inadvertent consequences.

The schools are cranking out literally tens of thousands of photography graduates and only a handful are worth even considering as photographers. Yet people are continually duped into spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and going into life-long debt to get an MFA degree that often inhibits their artistic growth. Walk through an RIT or Arts Center or RISD faculty show and you'll cringe with embarrassment at how lame (and pretentious) much of the work is.

If schools weren't sacred cows in our society, we'd see them as they truly are: scams run by extortionists and flim-flam womyn.

Aperture is just one small part of this corrupt culture. It's a way that a professor can claim to be published, it's more akin to porn since the goal is mainly masturbation. When I see it on a magazine rack I turn that stinking rag upside down and backwards!

Richard Mahoney

27-Sep-2010, 15:31

Ansel Adams, Minor White, Harry Callahan were responsible for the creation of modern American academic fine art photography programs and this is the sorry result. Poor guys just needed jobs with benefits and instead they got this bullshit arts culture. ...

Aperture is just one small part of this corrupt culture. It's a way that a professor can claim to be published, it's more akin to porn since the goal is mainly masturbation. When I see it on a magazine rack I turn that stinking rag upside down and backwards!

As an admittedly meagre counterbalance -- really Frank ;) -- one could perhaps pick up a copy of the following (I promise it's a good read):

Personal Name: Cravens, Richard H.
Main Title: Photography past forward : Aperture at 50, with a history / by R.H. Cravens and excerpts from aperture issues, 1952-2002.
Published/Created: New York : Aperture Foundation, Inc, 2002.

Best, Richard

John NYC

27-Sep-2010, 16:30

All? Of course not. Two that come immediately to mind - Sherrie Levine's appropriation series, Zoe Crusher's material disappearance series.

How about "New Topographics"? Or Uta Barth's out of focus work? Or Friedlander's continuing themes? Or the still life work of Laura Letinsky?

paulr

30-Sep-2010, 21:06

Wow ... I'm late to this party but glad I found it. Struan is in 2nd place only alphabetically and has said many things I would have tried to (and many that wouldn't have occurred to me), so thanks friend for doing the heavy lifting.

Jumping into this, I'll start by saying I'm reluctant to judge an unfamiliar artist by one piece of work (or especially by an interview or statement ... if she were expert at putting her ideas into words, she'd either be a rare bird among artists, or ... a writer). And I'm very reluctant to judge a whole movement / genre / period based on one or a few terrible examples.

That said, I agree that this is a pretty terrible example. I share Struan's disdain for work that's confirmative rather than exploratory. And even if this had been an unusual example of exploratory art in the sea of conceptualism, I can't see that it's exploring anything remotely interesting. It's a yawn even among the one-liners.

Do keep in mind that she doesn't bill herself as a photographer. She's of the breed of artists who happen to use photography, which rose to prevalence in the 1980s and 90s. Many of them came from a background in sculpture or painting or installation, and appreciated photography for everything it doesn't have in common with older media—which puts them squarely at odds with the traditional, craft-based photographers (like those odd fellows who have darkrooms and walk around with view cameras ...)

My personal biases don't make parsing this any easier. I'm increasingly bored with what I see in contemporary photography, to the point that it's an effort to get off the couch, get on the subway, and go to one of the bajillion galleries and museums right here in NYC.

But I'm not advocating a retreat to modernism. I'm also getting bored with the old stuff. Including my own!

I want to be challenged by art; I want to be pushed into seeing things in a way I haven't before. I want to feel compelled to wrestle with it, and I want big payoffs—belly laughs, epiphanies, new ideas. Sad to say, it's been a long time. I'm not having that experience in Chelsea, or on Zoe's site, or in my own dusty flat files.

I have been finding it in a whole generation of young poets, who are doing things with language that (at its best) has been rearranging my world. It's led me to a long (months!) thumb-sucking session, and a new project where I want to combine images with text. I'm hoping to do this in a way that inspires little nausea or outrage, but I'll have to dive in in order to find out. At any rate, I'm willing to risk failing miserably if it will buy me a chance at feeling that old excitement again.

Darin Boville

30-Sep-2010, 21:12

Do keep in mind that she doesn't bill herself as a photographer. She's of the breed of artists who happen to use photography, which rose to prevalence in the 1980s and 90s. Many of them came from a background in sculpture or painting or installation, and appreciated photography for everything it doesn't have in common with older media—which puts them squarely at odds with the traditional, craft-based photographers (like those odd fellows who have darkrooms and walk around with view cameras ...)

Just to push back a bit here, however she bills herself she is getting special billing by Aperture whose editorial staff presumably sees her as enough of a photographer to feature her and to offer her photos for sale in a limited edition.

Surely the well of non-traditional, non-crafts-based photographers has not run so dry?

--Darin

paulr

30-Sep-2010, 21:20

Just to push back a bit here, however she bills herself she is getting special billing by Aperture whose editorial staff presumably sees her as enough of a photographer to feature her and to offer her photos for sale in a limited edition.

Surely the well of non-traditional, non-crafts-based photographers has not run so dry?

--Darin

Sure, but my impression (based on glancing at aperture once or twice a year for the last decade ... ) is that it cross over pretty far into this world, where the artist has come to photography but has roots and possibly stronger allegiances elsewhere.

I'm not advocating for any particular approach in this case. Just making the possibly obvious observation that she's from a different world from most of us here.

Oren Grad

30-Sep-2010, 22:44

But neither do I think I can claim to have a reflective, contemplative approach to the landscape if my responses to it can be proven wrongheaded by a five minute browse of Google Scholar.

What attributes would qualify a response to a landscape as being "wrongheaded"?

Struan Gray

1-Oct-2010, 00:47

What attributes would qualify a response to a landscape as being "wrongheaded"?

For my work, and in my assessment of many contemporary projects, it's a matter of internal consistency. I do not believe in absolute rules, and am glad that there are many examples of successful art which challenge the whole notion of internal consistency (from Kafka to Diary of a Nobody); but when the stated purpose is to explore or investigate I find the naive approach gets dull quickly.

Each new source of knowledge can be just another excuse to procrastinate (I'll admit I am prone to refining my own Key to All Mythologies), but it can also correct real errors and suggest new ways of interpreting old data. I recently discovered that a colleague I have known since moving to Sweden seventeen years ago lives bang smack in the middle of the area of countryside I have been photographing and researching. Her family have farmed there for generations. It has been fascinating to tally her personal knowledge with my visual explorations, and with my book learning and the conventional academic wisdom about that landscape.

The old wood pasture, now reverting to secondary woodland, turns out to have had a farm in the middle - there's a wellhead deep in the underbrush that I had missed - as well as a one-room schoolhouse and a sawmill. More generally, I have been photographing forensically, looking at the traces left by people as anonymous actors, whereas my colleague knows their names and family histories in a way which brings the landscape to life as more than a dry archival record. I would now like to include that sense of people as people, even if only by including the rich stock of nicknames in my titles.

So, 'wrongheaded' in this case means working contrary to my own terms of reference. There is some merit, and pleasure, in looking over the photos I took when I knew nothing, and in terms of pure aesthetics they still make the grade, but they mean different things to me now; they fit into the framework of the project in different ways, and in return their new status partially re-defines what that framework is. The research and refine feedback loop is what is missing from much conceptual photography, and reduces it to a preconceived shopping list of pictures.

Richard Mahoney

1-Oct-2010, 03:00

...The old wood pasture, now reverting to secondary woodland, turns out to have had a farm in the middle - there's a wellhead deep in the underbrush that I had missed - as well as a one-room schoolhouse and a sawmill. More generally, I have been photographing forensically, looking at the traces left by people as anonymous actors, whereas my colleague knows their names and family histories in a way which brings the landscape to life as more than a dry archival record. I would now like to include that sense of people as people, even if only by including the rich stock of nicknames in my titles. ...

Speaking with someone who knows about what it is you are trying to frame matters doesn't it, especially the depth they can give through their memories and associations.

My `project' for want of a better term -- interest, emphasis, motive, reason (all are loose enough to do) -- is to capture something of how North Canterbury is changing, to look at growth and decay, especially as it is coming to pass on our early buildings -- mostly mid to late 19thC century farm houses, sheds and stables. This matters personally. I live in an early cottage and in the past decade I've seen them disappearing at a great rate. Few people seem willing to put up with the incovenience and discomfort needed to live in them but the trouble is that once they've been quit they are vulnerable and more than likely headed for a bad end. The sadness of all this is felt by many people whose families have lived and worked here for any real time.

With my work I generally need to be given access by land owners. Thankfully many New Zealanders have always been approachable. Access is generally just a case of talking to someone, telling them what you are up to, and asking them if you can set up your camera. But ... and this is the point I've been long at getting to ... it rarely ends there. Its more than often the case that the owner wants to talk about the house or stables or buildings. They tell you about when they were built, about who has lived there, about what the places meant and possibly still mean to those who care. And often, they are beside or close by when one is framing the picture. Sometimes I've been out for five hours and have only two pictures to show for it. Most of the time has been spent chatting. My point is that to me all this matters greatly although its got to be said that one certainly tends to loose one's detachment and objectivity ... its not an `academic' undertaking at all :)

Kind regards,

Richard

rdenney

1-Oct-2010, 07:33

There is some merit, and pleasure, in looking over the photos I took when I knew nothing, and in terms of pure aesthetics they still make the grade, but they mean different things to me now; they fit into the framework of the project in different ways, and in return their new status partially re-defines what that framework is. The research and refine feedback loop is what is missing from much conceptual photography, and reduces it to a preconceived shopping list of pictures.

Wow. Wow. Light bulbs going on!

A couple of years ago I made a photograph of the ruins of a mill a few miles from here. All I knew of it, and the ruins of the neighboring house, was what I could see. It seemed to have its own nameless identity. Aesthetically, I was trying to capture the death stare, like an empty skull.

Goofy, sure. And I was probably unsuccessful.

I will not include the image--it was not large format--but here is a link:

Potts Mill, Loudoun County (http://www.rickdenney.com/images/Loudoun_ruins_lores.jpg)

But the point was that my sense of the structure seemed to be linked to a history, and the question is whether my perceived history was a.) plausible, or b.) consistent with the real history. The question motivated me to explore that history, after making the photo. And, sure enough, the story of the mill was that Union soldiers were tasked with burning out the farmers in this area (most of whom were pacifist Quakers) so that their stores could not be used to support Confederate raiders in the area. The soldiers approached the lady who owned the mill (the miller was already dead), and she offered to feed them if they would spare her house and mill. They accepted the meal, and then burned her out anyway. So, my perception of a ruined mill presenting itself like an empty skull, goofy as it was, was factually consistent. I had not before now linked my aesthetic reaction to it and the fact of its history, and thought my interest in its history was an independent impulse. Connecting those two is a real epiphany.

I never thought of myself as a sort of forensic photographer, but the concept explains most of my impulses. The realization of it will change my focus, for sure.

Rick "thinking this at least a little akin to Paul's interest in relating photographic art and poetry" Denney

D. Bryant

1-Oct-2010, 09:22

If schools weren't sacred cows in our society, we'd see them as they truly are: scams run by extortionists and flim-flam womyn.

Tell it all brother, tell it all! Even some of Callahan's students from the RISD became department heads of photography departments in university art schools and ran it into the ground with all of this politically correct silly art school crap. Now they are retired but the memory lingers and probably will forever.

Don Bryant

Darin Boville

1-Oct-2010, 09:26

Has the combination of a modern university and the *practice* of art ever really made any sense?

paulr

1-Oct-2010, 10:00

Sweeping condemnations are fun, no doubt, but it's hard to play that game without sounding frighteningly like the old cranks who ganged up on the Modernists, the Impressionists, the Romantics ... or, really, on the artists of every era who were doing somethign new.

It's also fun to look back, with a sense of superiority, to the critics who dismissed the photography and painting that Stieglitz championed.

But what were those critics doing? They were defending a definition of art that they'd held all their lives. They were feeeling scandalized that someone was was trying to elevate something fundamentally different to the pantheon that they worshiped. They were saying, "this makes no sense to me, so it can't be good."

They were doing what Frank and a half dozen other guys are doing here now.

This isn't to say that all new work is good. Most isn't, and most of it wasn't back then either. History filters out most of the crap for us, allowing the illusion of golden eras. It takes an open mind to say "I didn't like the last show, but maybe I'll like the next one." Or, "I don't understand this, but maybe when I do I'll like it."

There are definitely some entrenched problems in the MFA system. And there's definitely some bad work coming from MFA students and grads. But it just doesn't follow that all the MFA programs are indefensibly bad, or that they're fundamentally similar, or that none of their graduates are doing interesting or worthwhile work. No one here, certainly, has looked closely enough to be able to support any such sweeping indictment.

Darin Boville

1-Oct-2010, 10:12

Let me put it this way, Paul,

Would a Sokal hoax even be possible in university-based, contemporary art?

--Darin

Oren Grad

1-Oct-2010, 10:34

For my work, and in my assessment of many contemporary projects, it's a matter of internal consistency....

Each new source of knowledge can be just another excuse to procrastinate (I'll admit I am prone to refining my own Key to All Mythologies), but it can also correct real errors and suggest new ways of interpreting old data....

So, 'wrongheaded' in this case means working contrary to my own terms of reference. There is some merit, and pleasure, in looking over the photos I took when I knew nothing, and in terms of pure aesthetics they still make the grade, but they mean different things to me now; they fit into the framework of the project in different ways, and in return their new status partially re-defines what that framework is. The research and refine feedback loop is what is missing from much conceptual photography, and reduces it to a preconceived shopping list of pictures.

What you describe isn't so much about internal consistency as about a particular notion of truth - one that's preconceived, conceptual, and programmatic rather than fundamentally emergent, experiential, and intuitive, else the experience of learning about and being influenced by the perspective of someone who has been more intimately embedded in the landscape wouldn't be framed as rectifying error.

Anyway, my experience has been different. Learning more about the history and geography of the places where I make pictures has had virtually no effect on the way I connect with them through a camera. I couldn't have predicted that it would turn out this way, but I've found that I'm not much interested in systematic documentation or in trying to get some message across. Instead, I get my entertainment value on the one hand from experiencing what it's like to be in a space, and on the other from grooving on how the media I use describe what I saw.

It doesn't matter, though. There's room for everyone.

Yes, I've read "Sand Boils". :)

paulr

1-Oct-2010, 11:27

Let me put it this way, Paul,

Would a Sokal hoax even be possible in university-based, contemporary art?

--Darin

Well, I've dreamed of doing something just like that, not for purposes of righteousness but to get rich ...

Trouble is, Sokal did his thing in an academic arena, where a few basic objective standards are supposed to rule—like getting your facts right, and using arguments based on logic. Sokal was able to embarass the lazy scholars at Social Texts by making up facts, and spinning ridiculous, specious arguments from them, and still getting them past the editors. He managed this, he argues, simply because his conclusions pandered to the editors' intellectual prejudices.

It's hard to conceive of a similar acid test in art. Partly because objective standards don't and can't exist. And partly because satire of art has for a long time been a legitemate category of art. If I did a gag project that poked fun at Zoe's work, I might consider it a big joke on the art world. And there's a small chance it would actually be taken seriously. This, by itself, wouldn't prove the emperor has no clothes. There may be more to my gag than I'm giving it credit for.

If you want stronger evidence that the emperor's naked, or at least devious and cynical, watch Banksy's "Exit Through the Gift Shop."

paulr

1-Oct-2010, 11:37

What you describe isn't so much about internal consistency as about a particular notion of truth - one that's preconceived, conceptual, and programmatic rather than fundamentally emergent, experiential, and intuitive, else the experience of learning about and being influenced by the perspective of someone who has been more intimately embedded in the landscape wouldn't be framed as rectifying error.

I don't read Struan's call for internal consistency as anything remotely programmatic or pre-conceived.

He's simply framing his interests as being investigative, and therefore concerned with anything he might learn. He did not describe his approach as 1) study; 2) form a theory; 3) illustrate that theory with pictures. Rather he described an ongoing feedback loop of photographing, learning (from the pictures and elsewhere), and photographing more, while informed by the new knowledge.

My own landscape work, for the most part, has not been concerned with this kind of investigation. It's been more formal, esthetic, and in certain senses lyric. So I did not put energy into investigating the history and sociology behind the places I photographed. This, looking back, was a deliberate naiveté, but one that was also internally consistent.

I think if I ever return to similar subjects, it will be with a more intellectually curious approach.

At any rate I think Struan is attacking artists who present a project as being about ideas, and who then fail to address those ideas in any meaningful way. That disjunct is the internal inconsistency; the broken promise.

Oren Grad

1-Oct-2010, 12:14

I don't read Struan's call for internal consistency as anything remotely programmatic or pre-conceived.

But when he elaborated on that, it became clear that consistency is a secondary issue. More important is the problem of misconstruing something for lack of information. Remember that Struan said "wrongheaded", not "different-headed". A construal becomes a mis-construal, and a problem, if you have some prior as to what makes an interpretation "right". There's some notion of truth in describing the landscape that he's trying to approximate through his photo-documentation.

At any rate I think Struan is attacking artists who present a project as being about ideas, and who then fail to address those ideas in any meaningful way.

Yes, that's part of it. But what is required to make an idea-driven photographic project "meaningful" is not straightforward, and bears some explanation.

rdenney

1-Oct-2010, 12:50

Yes, that's part of it. But what is required to make an idea-driven photographic project "meaningful" is not straightforward, and bears some explanation.

This is all such a new idea in my head I hesitate (momentarily) to even try to articulate it. So much of my own photography has been a mere expression of technique (such as it is), or a statement such as, "Isn't that neat?" It is more declarative, and less investigatory. For me, the investigation comes from being aesthetically sensitive to the subject from more than just its form and color, but also from its substance and history. That substance may be conceptual, or it may be factual, but it can be expressed as an idea in more than one media.

The composer Vaughan Williams resisted any attempt at describing his most controversial work (the 4th Symphony) by any "programmatic" narrative. He insisted that the ideas were purely musical, what Brahms called "absolute music". "It is about F minor" he is credited with saying.

But it has a powerful concept behind it, and that power is overwhelming. Nobody, on listening to it, would think it happy or cheerful. The power is intense and negative, but without an any way being cliche about it (such as by playing an obvious dirge). It is no wonder that in 1936, when it was first performed, people thought it was about war. He refused to describe his idea in words, but the music is still a clear investigation of negative power. His one sop to positivity, the resolution of the second movement on a major key, he rejected after the premiere--it violated the idea.

Sure, he could have written an essay about it, but he was a composer.

If someone thought that the idea that glamor was ephemeral needed to be expressed photographically, they might have conceived of the series of photos represented in this thread. The question is: Is that idea worth exploring, and is this a worthy exploration of it? If that isn't the idea, then the question would further be, why isn't the idea more clear? It seems to me that the statement is trite at best, and the idea being explored sophomoric even if it was considered in such direct terms. And then it is dressed up with pseudo-intellectual claptrap to try to raise a wind. Obviously, somebody bought into it. That's why I asked--I was afraid that I was missing something, and guys like Struan and Paul have opened my eyes to new things before now.

The revelation for me is the notion that a photograph can be aesthetically forensic--it can express at an aesthetic/emotional level a response that is consistent with, and therefore sensitive to, something real and factual about the subject, even without knowing that substance beforehand.

Rick "grappling with ideas that are too big" Denney

paulr

1-Oct-2010, 12:51

There are any number of books about writing, poetry, painting or just plain living which have been more helpful to my photography than, say, Barthes, who - if you look closely - seems to think all photographs are of people.

God, Barthes. I just struggled through the 1st half of Camera Lucida for the second or third time. What piece of lazy scholarship. And systematically so: in the beginning he says there are three ways to experience photography: as a subject, as a viewer, and as a practitioner. He says he has plenty of experience with the first two, but will not indulge in practice at all, because he is "too impatient for that."

I understand being too impatient to try your hand at architecture, or writing symphonies. But photography? I bet one afternoon with an instamatic, witnessing the ways his pictures turn out different from his expectations, would have resulted in an entirely different book.

I agree that good criticism can come from outside photography, but it needs to come from someone willing to learn about it.

Brian C. Miller

1-Oct-2010, 12:56

Would a Sokal hoax even be possible in university-based, contemporary art?

Would it have even been noticed? Would Disumbrationism (http://ecclesiastes911.net/disumbrated_art.html) be noticed today? In the contemporary art scene, how can anything be "fake" when even a pile of sand or strewn trash is considered art?

I read about a "scandal" over in the UK about a woman who submitted a painting made by her six-year-old daughter as hers, and the painting won a major competition. I remember a WTF-type story on 60 Minutes on modern art. There are a number of web sites where you can test yourself to see if you can differentiate between "real" and "fake" artwork. How many times has Jackson Pollock's artwork been faked?

What we have here is the art of selling. Demand for the objects is based on a sales pitch, and not on any other discernable factor. What is a person really getting from that artwork? Does a person feel enobled? Enlightened? Inspired? Happy? Hopeful? Creative? Wistful? A bit of insight?

Or is there something better to cover the crack on the wall behind it? I'd rather have David Muench's photographs, myself. (And they're cheaper!!)

Paul Kierstead

1-Oct-2010, 13:29

Get off my lawn!

paulr

1-Oct-2010, 13:33

Would it have even been noticed? Would Disumbrationism (http://ecclesiastes911.net/disumbrated_art.html) be noticed today? In the contemporary art scene, how can anything be "fake" when even a pile of sand or strewn trash is considered art?

By "today" you're really talking about post-world war one, when at the more progressive end of the spectrum, the definition of art was blown wide open.

But it's important to not conflate the questions "is it art" and "is it good." Anything that you contextualized as art will be looked at as art, but that is hardly a guarantee of how it will be judged. Just try to get to get work of any kind into the Whitney Biennial: you'll find the competition is as brutal as at the very top end of any field. And while you might disagree (or fail to comprehend at all) the standards that are applied, you can be confident that the standards are tough.

Are the standards academically rigorous? Defensible? Fair? Those are much harder questions to answer, since we are dealing with art, which has a core of subjectivity, and which by its nature tries to redefine itself and break away from its old identities.

At any rate, the "my kid could do that" brand of criticism dates back to the late 19th century, and has been meaningless since before it was first uttered. The history of Modernism has been closely tied to the subversion of craft to vision, and direct expressions of this idea can be traced at least as far back as Duchamp. Sure, your kid could hang a bicycle wheel from the ceiling. My kid (if I had one) could probably retype a Shakespearean sonnet. No one would be impressed ... neither kid actually created anything or even had an idea.

As far as Disumbrationism ... his "fake" paintings are pretty interesting. I'm willing to bet his serious work is as dull as dirt. This hoax truly wouldn't make waves today, simply because people are more critically savy, especially in the postmodern era. No one falls for intentional fallacy, or the idea that serious work can't result from play, or even an anti-serious endeavor. If that guy hadn't been so bound by his ideology, he might have realized he'd discovered something! Keep in mind this was the 1920s ...

imagedowser

1-Oct-2010, 13:40

I gave the last 3 years of back issues to the local library, they were very pleased, go figure....

Struan Gray

1-Oct-2010, 13:51

At any rate I think Struan is attacking artists who present a project as being about ideas, and who then fail to address those ideas in any meaningful way. That disjunct is the internal inconsistency; the broken promise.

That's it.

There is a video somewhere on Youtube where Tom Waits brushes off an interviewer trying to over-interpret the opening line to one of his lyrics by saying "It's just song logic." Most art has song logic built in, and insisting on absolute, universal truth is counterproductive. Conceptual art often seems to want more, to be taken more seriously, and makes a claim to some of the respect given to truly great and innovative conceptual thinkers. The consistency I was thinking of was between the implicit claim to be part of the history of ideas, and the behaviour traditionally expected of those who practice and create that history.

But what is required to make an idea-driven photographic project "meaningful" is not straightforward, and bears some explanation.

Fair enough. I think your remarks about my example being related to truth are perceptive, but it was intended as an example from my personal experience and tastes, not a general prescription of how to run or assess a photographic project. My point was that it would simply be lazy for me not to do the background reading and research, given my desire to present the photographs as representing more than a naive personal response. I think that laziness, if indulged, would represent an inconsistency between my implicit and stated aims and my actual behaviour.

I am not looking for an unbroken chain of reason between axiom and synthesis. The truths I work with are more like the truths of history than those of mathematics. My 'prior' is not a predefined yardstick for rightness, but the input to a Bayesian assessment of the clues the landscape is giving me. Ignorance can be accommodated in such an assessment - the calculation always gives an answer - but it is not the only option.

I work in different ways at different times. The cultural landscape project grew out of the 'Tanglings' work on my website, which was in fact a deliberately naive collection of things I found visually interesting. The naivete was employed to help me stop worrying about what a photograph should be and try to concentrate on things I myself found engaging. It was a useful technique to break free of a too well defined notion of what makes a 'good' photograph, but it wasn't how I wanted to spend all my photography time. I still do the odd uninformed mooch - my scanning in tray includes a pile of film from a day in the zone among building sites in Barcelona - but for any long term effort I want to be more than a magpie.

As you say, there's room for everyone.

Struan Gray

1-Oct-2010, 14:01

"my kid could do that"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/sep/19/alec-carmen-soth-brighton-biennial

Struan Gray

1-Oct-2010, 14:05

The revelation for me is the notion that a photograph can be aesthetically forensic--it can express at an aesthetic/emotional level a response that is consistent with, and therefore sensitive to, something real and factual about the subject, even without knowing that substance beforehand.

You can play renaissance music on period instruments, or you can write the Tallis Fantasia. Or you can hum greensleeves having watched an episode of The Tudors. All are valid, but some are more valid than others :-)

I know, not fair to play on your heartstrings.

I am still foolish and ambitious enough to aim for the Fantasia.

paulr

1-Oct-2010, 14:13

Well, this is another way of undermining "my kid could do that"—sometimes your kid can, and in those cases it elevates the kid rather than cheapening the art.

Lartigue also comes to mind.

In the case of Soth's daughter, we need to bear in mind that she was the beneficiary of her dad's gentle guidance (prodding her to look at what she'd done and fill in what she hadn't ... Struan's feedback loop in action) but more significantly of his editing.

I won't insult young Soth by comparing her to roomful of monkies at typewriters, but a kid with a dslr can generate a LOT of material—and a talented kid will produce enough interesting material that an editor with elder Soth's eye will be able to craft from it a coherent body of work.

paulr

1-Oct-2010, 14:28

There is a video somewhere on Youtube where Tom Waits brushes off an interviewer trying to over-interpret the opening line to one of his lyrics by saying "It's just song logic." Most art has song logic built in, and insisting on absolute, universal truth is counterproductive. Conceptual art often seems to want more, to be taken more seriously, and makes a claim to some of the respect given to truly great and innovative conceptual thinkers. The consistency I was thinking of was between the implicit claim to be part of the history of ideas, and the behaviour traditionally expected of those who practice and create that history.

This is a great distinction. I tend to value the arts specifically for their hospitability to song logic ... I spend way too much time in my head much of the day, researching facts and parsing logical arguments (usually as a form of procrastination) and in conversation can drive friends crazy with my buzz-kill literal-mindedness. Art is often a way for me to escape from myself, into a world of more interesting possibilities.

I don't see this as an invitation to bullshit, which is how many conceptual artists seem to take it. The ones you allude to who lay a claim to some kind of intellectual authority and then do little more than fingerpaint with poop.

I like the artful use of illogic, fantasy, and disjunct; when it's put into a structure that allows it to serve a larger purpose, with an overall sense of cohesiveness. I don't think this is photography's strength, really—what photography does better than anything else is to give a sense, true or not, of what's actually there. Which might explain my recent leaning from the straight photo tradition toward the poetics of obscurantism...

Oren Grad

1-Oct-2010, 15:34

I am not looking for an unbroken chain of reason between axiom and synthesis. The truths I work with are more like the truths of history than those of mathematics. My 'prior' is not a predefined yardstick for rightness, but the input to a Bayesian assessment of the clues the landscape is giving me. Ignorance can be accommodated in such an assessment - the calculation always gives an answer - but it is not the only option.

"Wrongheaded" is rather stronger language than a Bayesian would typically use to describe since-revised priors, under all but the most extreme revisions. Seriously: the necessary rightness can be procedural rather than substantive; the way you describe what you are doing - which makes sense - says that your compass is in some fundamental way very strong.

Conceptual art often seems to want more, to be taken more seriously, and makes a claim to some of the respect given to truly great and innovative conceptual thinkers. The consistency I was thinking of was between the implicit claim to be part of the history of ideas, and the behaviour traditionally expected of those who practice and create that history.

Can you make that concrete by citing an example of conceptual art that you consider to be successful in these respects?

EDIT: A nugget of context for my question: if we take Rick's example of Vaughan Williams, I would have been happy to take the composer's protest at face value. For my taste, the song logic is what's interesting about his work.

Mark Sawyer

1-Oct-2010, 16:41

In the case of Soth's daughter, we need to bear in mind that she was the beneficiary of her dad's gentle guidance (prodding her to look at what she'd done and fill in what she hadn't ... Struan's feedback loop in action) but more significantly of his editing.

I won't insult young Soth by comparing her to roomful of monkies at typewriters, but a kid with a dslr can generate a LOT of material—and a talented kid will produce enough interesting material that an editor with elder Soth's eye will be able to craft from it a coherent body of work.

As an aside, this reminds me of a conversation with a student a few years ago, wherein she pondered whether a million monkeys typing for a million years could reproduce the works of Skakespeare. I asked whether she believed in the theory of evolution and she said yes, so I pointed out that it had pretty much already happened...

Maybe the biggest advantage of analog large format photography is that monkeys aren't able to imitate us:

http://reverent.org/an_artist_or_an_ape.html

That such testing of the art world's validity has been so common for so long is a half-sad/half-healthy commentary of the state of modern/post-modern aesthetics...

Brian C. Miller

1-Oct-2010, 16:51

At any rate, the "my kid could do that" brand of criticism dates back to the late 19th century, and has been meaningless since before it was first uttered.

I wasn't thinking of Marla Olmstead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Kid_Could_Paint_That), but that and a number of similar examples serves to point out that, yes, a child can paint that, and for big bucks. At the time, Marla was four years old, and simply a normal child. Can any kid do that? Depends on the parents, depends on the kid.

The history of Modernism has been closely tied to the subversion of craft to vision, and direct expressions of this idea can be traced at least as far back as Duchamp. Sure, your kid could hang a bicycle wheel from the ceiling. My kid (if I had one) could probably retype a Shakespearean sonnet. No one would be impressed ... neither kid actually created anything or even had an idea.

But if an MFA does it, why is it classified as art? I think that Duchamp's bicycle wheel (http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=81631) is the art of salesmanship. The claim is that the viewer is being challenged on what is art. "... he subverted established notions of the artist’s craft and the viewer's aesthetic experience." No, really? And that subversion is supposedly a good thing? To what end? To fleece the gullible?

Congo the Chimp's paintings sold for over $25,000 at an auction, while Warhol and Renior were ignored. Children produce paintings for big bucks. Since paintings by an animal or small child are more interesting and are literally worth more than an established artist with an MFA and associated bootlicking, why bother supporting the artist? Or, better yet, why not pick up some art supplies and have some fun?

What are we chopped liver?

And outdone by chimps and children!

I really think that "modern art" is functioning in a vacuum. Practitioners have abandoned all former aesthetics, and everything comes down to politics and associated BS. It has become a reply to the question, "What the hell is that?" "Why, it's modern art!"

rdenney

1-Oct-2010, 16:56

EDIT: A nugget of context for my question: if we take Rick's example of Vaughan Williams, I would have been happy to take the composer's protest at face value. For my taste, the song logic is what's interesting about his work.

The notion of song logic is interesting, but in the context of Tom Waits could be taken two ways. It could be that Mr. Waits just didn't care if his lyrics were logical, or it could be that he was insisting that the logic of the lyrics is fully explained by the lyrics alone. The latter would have been Dr. Vaughan Williams's insistence. The former would be the intentionally naive artist, rebelling against too much thinking.

Rick "thinking that RVW could communicate at an emotional level well enough not to have to be demonstrative emotionally in other ways" Denney

Oren Grad

1-Oct-2010, 17:16

The notion of song logic is interesting, but in the context of Tom Waits could be taken two ways. It could be that Mr. Waits just didn't care if his lyrics were logical, or it could be that he was insisting that the logic of the lyrics is fully explained by the lyrics alone. The latter would have been Dr. Vaughan Williams's insistence. The former would be the intentionally naive artist, rebelling against too much thinking.

OK. In the interest of not muddying the waters too badly, let me retreat to the perhaps more neutral "musical logic", or "logic of the medium".

Saying the medium has a distinctive logic isn't the same thing as saying that practitioners who focus on that logic to the exclusion of verbalization are "rebelling against thinking". Creating new music, for example, can require pretty intense thinking, just of a different kind.

rdenney

1-Oct-2010, 17:21

Well, this is another way of undermining "my kid could do that"—sometimes your kid can, and in those cases it elevates the kid rather than cheapening the art.

When someone values innovation above all else, then they have to be the first to do it. The problem with "my kid could do that" is that my kid didn't. Copying an easily executed but powerful idea misses the point. The powerful idea is the tricky bit.

There is nothing new here. Whistler was accused by a critic of flim-flamming the public with what the critic considered childish painting. Whistler sued him for libel. Here's an interesting excerpt, where the critic's lawyer is asking questions:

Holker: "What is the subject of Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket?"
Whistler: "It is a night piece and represents the fireworks at Cremorne Gardens."
Holker: "Not a view of Cremorne?"
Whistler: "If it were A View of Cremorne it would certainly bring about nothing but disappointment on the part of the beholders. It is an artistic arrangement. That is why I call it a nocturne...."
Holker: "Did it take you much time to paint the Nocturne in Black and Gold? How soon did you knock it off?"
Whistler: "Oh, I 'knock one off' possibly in a couple of days - one day to do the work and another to finish it..." [the painting measures 24 3/4 x 18 3/8 inches]
Holker: "The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?"
Whistler: "No, I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.

Here's the painting:

Wikipedia's filed, Nocturne in Black and Gold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:James_Abbot_McNeill_Whistler_012.jpg)

Methinks that painting would be worth a fair bit more now.

Rick "rebellions are often put down, but occasionally they win" Denney

rdenney

1-Oct-2010, 17:31

You can play renaissance music on period instruments, or you can write the Tallis Fantasia.

You are free to tug on my heartstrings all day with the Tallis Fantasia--I'm happy for any excuse to bring it to mind.

But it's not a good example of the art being discussed here. Vaughan Williams took an ancient idea, and wrapped it in modern execution. The craft was superlative. It is utterly unlike art where the innovativeness of the idea is supreme and the technique purposely thrown away. Unless you can claim that the modern execution was itself the main idea, which I'm not sure RVW would have tolerated.

Rick "noting that the Tallis original is properly played on period voices" Denney

paulr

1-Oct-2010, 18:23

I like the idea of an artist getting to sue a critic for libel.
On the other hand, a critic or viewer should be able to bill bad artists for their time.

I went to the Whitney last weekend ... Yoko Ono is going to be hearing from my accounts receivable department.

Mark Sampson

1-Oct-2010, 19:29

well, Whistler eventually won his lawsuit, and was awarded damages of one penny, or something equally trivial. I do like paulr's idea though... until I realize that I might have to (wrongly of course) face bills of that sort myself. I have enough bills to pay already.

Greg Blank

1-Oct-2010, 19:53

To be nice, I hate that publication.I gave up my subscription after they published suggestive nudes of children back in the early 1990's and dismissed my protest letter.
Toilet paper has better content.

Lenny Eiger

1-Oct-2010, 21:38

God, Barthes.He says he has plenty of experience with the first two, but will not indulge in practice at all, because he is "too impatient for that.
I agree that good criticism can come from outside photography, but it needs to come from someone willing to learn about it.

I agree. I also read this book. Ignorant. After he gets his picture taken, he thinks he's figured out photography. He comes up with a conclusion or two, which are entirely faulty. The entire starting premise is misguided, and of course, so the rest must be.

Then there's Michael Fried who spends all his time promoting his best buddy. He is so impressed with himself - that he can describe an image (which one is looking at) in every possible detail - as if he were writing about something extremely wonderful, which we would never get to see - maybe a beach in Tahiti or Bora Bora or the most exquisite food ever made. I doubt he could come up with a fraction of his description if he weren't looking at it himself when he wrote it. He does this repeatedly, continually gushing about completely boring images; as if an image, by being described by him is made historic, or even wonderful.

He goes over this photo that Jeff Walls took - that took Walls two years - that any decent architectural photographer could do in an afternoon. He is so impressed that Walls could darken the image in a window (or composite a darker exposure in there) using PhotoShop. Gee, that's hard. The writing is an obnoxious, long-winded, obfuscating pile of drivel.

He presumes to decide for us that people in photographs should never, ever, ever, look at you. We are to have no interaction with images. What about Walker Evans or Dorothea Lange? People want to interact with their world. It's all so stupid, as if someone is trying to get everyone to change what they think just so they can feel more powerful in their tiny little lives. What a disaster.

I saw Laura Letinsky give a talk about her images. She goes on and on about the connection to painting from a couple of hundred years ago. She talks about paintings that were recordings of the things people owned. When she finished her talk it was over - I mean it was like a faucet turning off. I won't say she didn't make a reasonable point or two, but it was a talk she had given plenty, an act. She was talking a lot but it wasn't coming from her gut. It was that feeling that you get when you are listening to someone when you know they're lying to you, or just feeding you a line of bull. You really should get digital cable and your internet combined because for a limited time we are going to bring a digital fibre connection right to your door.....

When you looked at the images, they were a a photo of a rotten peach on a table, or a vase with very old flowers and that disgusting water they make if they aren't tended. When you have a big mouth, or a big talk, I think its incumbent for an artist to come up with the goods.

I'll stop. Modernism has its contradictions, but its better than this...

Lenny

paulr

1-Oct-2010, 21:57

Marko Trebusak

3-Oct-2010, 01:31

The sad thing is that Barthes is actually an important thinker. I'd be curious to hear what he'd say about photography had he done his homework, rather than just following the path of least resistance as determined by his uninformed tastes. I want to know what a throrough study of the medium by an expert on semiotics would give us. We just didn't get it from him.

I would like to see an essay of non photographer on photography, that would not get caught on modernism and it's obseesion with "metropolis". I mean, if one happen not to live in "big city", is then by modern standards excluded from map of art, or regretfully convicted to "neo-romanticism"?

Marko

Struan Gray

4-Oct-2010, 01:08

"Wrongheaded" is rather stronger language than a Bayesian would typically use to describe since-revised priors, under all but the most extreme revisions.

The die hard Bayesians I've known have all had a strong evangelical streak. "Wrongheaded" would be comparatively mild :-)

Seriously: the necessary rightness can be procedural rather than substantive; the way you describe what you are doing - which makes sense - says that your compass is in some fundamental way very strong.

I hope so. The procedure fits my biases and preferences - I enjoy ferretting out obscure facts from primary material, and I came through an education system that valued the long, nuanced view. A built in distrust of certainty is fundamental, and useful, but it can gnaw at my confidence in what I'm doing - or, at least, my confidence that anyone else will enjoy the results as much as I do.

At the risk of being a shill for the LRB, I recommend Keith Thomas' essay on how he works. His books on the history of ideas are perfect examples of how to synthesise something worthwhile out of a directed survey, and, sadly, of how *not* to do things (if you're not Keith Thomas) if you want rapid advancement in today's careerist academia. Substitute proof prints for notes and you get close to my preferred method:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n11/keith-thomas/diary

Can you make that concrete by citing an example of conceptual art that you consider to be successful in these respects?

I've being trying, but I can't. I think that's why I posted in the first place.

Work I do like can be strongly conceptual, but specific examples fall into two camps. Either there is a strong journalistic element, which I suspect would lead to it's rejection as true conceptualist art; or the themes addressed are small-scale and personal, and rely on a sense of self-exploration a tad too much to count as an investigation of an idea or concept.

Simon Norfolk is a name most people here will recognise. His work seems very conceptual to me, and his published thoughts indicate that he thinks hard about what he does, but he is closer to, say, Susan Meiselas' work with the Kurds and other long-term off-the-radar photojournalistic projects than he is to most self-professed artists.

Our local paper (Sydsvenskan (http://www.sydsvenskan.se)) is rare in that it is committed to good photography, and still funds longer term photoreportage. They published what was in essence a very conceptual piece, with Becher-in-colour mundane shots of the exterior of typical Swedish apartment blocks. It was a very well thought out piece, aesthetically and in terms of it's internal coherence, and there was a shock of disjunction between the mundane places and the fact that all them had been sites where enslaved Eastern European women had been forced into prostitution under captivity. Again, the didactic, newsworthy background is too concrete for a typical conceptualist. To my shame I cannot recall the name of the photographer, and Google turns up too many false leads.

In the second camp I would include photographers like Stephen Gill, whose work is very conceptual, and often directed towards a concrete end, but who avoids the artspeak guff and makes no claims to tackling grand themes. The point is not that I demand humility, but that too many artists rely on their declaration of purpose as if that were enough on its own.

Sonja Thomsen is another artist whose work and train of thought I enjoy following. She works in academia, so her work is NSFRM (Not Safe For Real Men).

I once helped a Swedish artist, Lars Siltberg (www.siltberg.com) plan a film he made of my vacuum system ('Visusomatic' in his list of works). I was off photographing sunsets over the Minch when he actually made the film, but watching the planning process, and talking over his preparatory ideas was fascinating. Siltberg can hold is own with anyone here when it comes to technical competence and detailed practical planning, but his motivations and the things he wishes to express are completely different from a typical photographic audience.

Art as documentation of a process is one of the post-modern tricks I find most compelling. I have an intrinsic sympathy for Land Art, and it is a short hop to enjoying art about art, or art about the process of making art. The 'problem' with such art is the tendency to form exclusive little groups, especially groups whose only real activity is deciding who gets to be a member. I've never liked clubs.

Vaughan Williams wrote some very programmatic music: The Lark Ascending, Antarctica Symphony, The Wasps (my wife and I processed out from our wedding ceremony to "The March Past of the Kitchen Utensils"). He wrote at a time when a lot of English composers where putting out rather gooshey tone poems, full of pretty, bucolic smugness. I can see why he would want to emphasise the pure music aspects of his non-programmatic works. For me, the amazing thing about the Tallis Fantasia is the balance between what is ancient and very English, and what is unmistakably himself alone. As a way of incorporating tradition in a new work it is exemplary.

'Song logic' is a great concept, especially when there is a Besserwisser in the room. It's related to certain sorts of humour ("We need the eggs"), but also the practical sense that enough is a good as a feast, and that finished is better than perfect.

PS: already mentioned, but Darron Almond and Susan Derges are two more of my favourite photographers with a strong conceptual bent.

ric_kb

4-Oct-2010, 08:24

song logic:

here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfj1WzuGuh8

John NYC

4-Oct-2010, 17:46

Oren Grad

4-Oct-2010, 18:34

Struan -

For now, just a quick thanks for, as always, a thoughtful and richly informative response. I've got some homework, and some learning, to do (he says, happily :)).

rdenney

4-Oct-2010, 21:56

Struan -

For now, just a quick thanks for, as always, a thoughtful and richly informative response. I've got some homework, and some learning, to do (he says, happily :)).

Likewise.

Rick "claiming credit for drawing Struan and Paul out, heh" Denney

rdenney

4-Oct-2010, 21:59

Why don't you all start by listing 10-20 varied modern photographers that you like that don't come out of the Ansel Adams or Robert Frank veins, so I can understand where all this talking actually leads?

Does it have to lead anywhere? Or, stated another way, are there enough paths leading away from the discussion to allow you to do some exploring on your own?

Rick "who has some exploring to do" Denney

Oren Grad

4-Oct-2010, 22:22

Rick "claiming credit for drawing Struan and Paul out, heh" Denney

Need to revisit my Vaughan Williams.

:)

Call out to Paul, too. I'm always picking up a lot even when I'm giving you a hard time.

And everyone else who has posted something more than just snark.

John NYC

4-Oct-2010, 22:37

Does it have to lead anywhere? Or, stated another way, are there enough paths leading away from the discussion to allow you to do some exploring on your own?

Rick "who has some exploring to do" Denney

I think you are misunderstanding my comment. Modern (read that term generically) art has been my personal interest for decades, and it is how I occupy a lot of my free time.

Not many here on this thread -- when you read it from the start -- have come out with examples of what they think is good in modern photography, but rather just criticized this one artist, this or that other artist, conceptual art in general, etc. I think it would be interesting to hear, if one thinks this artist is not successful, who is in modern photography in their view.

Darin Boville

5-Oct-2010, 00:12

Richard Mahoney

5-Oct-2010, 01:41

Here is one of my favorite articles on this topic. Ten years old but it culd have been written about the Aperture Magazine print sale:

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/27/magazine/how-to-succeed-in-art.html?scp=40&sq=homework%20art%20gallery&st=nyt&pagewanted=2

A "must read" I would say.

--Darin

Well thank you Darin but this is really all too depressing. So to clear the air a little why don't we read a little about someone who *actually* knew something about form and colour, the things of interest to most of us:

NYtimes :: Balthus, at 88, Still a Man of Mystery
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B07EFD81530F936A1575BC0A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

The impatient can always skip to the bottom where they will find the gist of it all:

''Art is a metier,'' Balthus declares, having worked himself once more into a lather. ''I don't consider myself an artist. I consider myself a worker. Unfortunately, now this idea seems useless because if you look at modern art you see that now everybody can do everything.'' He shakes his head in disgust. ''And in fact nobody does anything.''

Best, Richard

Marko Trebusak

5-Oct-2010, 02:04

paulr

5-Oct-2010, 10:52

I think you are misunderstanding my comment. Modern (read that term generically) art has been my personal interest for decades, and it is how I occupy a lot of my free time.

Not many here on this thread -- when you read it from the start -- have come out with examples of what they think is good in modern photography
...

I take it that by Modern you're including not just the modernists, but people who came after, including the contemporary ones?

I'm going to talk fast and loose, especially since I'm more ignorant about contemporary photography than I'd like to admit (by virtue of having tuned out so much in the last few years).

Here's some stuff I like, split into broad categories which may or may not be the smartest or most useful ones possible:

American Modernism: Weston, Strand, Stieglitz

Europen Modernism (including various sub-isms): Rodchenko, Moholy-Nagy, Kertesz, Atget, Sudek, Man Ray (this list could be way long)

American late modernism: (later Weston, Walker Evans

Late 20th Century American (I see this stuff straddling modernism and postmodernism; other think this is a dumb description): the new topographics people (Robert Adams, Mark Klett, etc.), Friedlander, Winnogrand, Arbus, Eggleston, Shore

Big Staged Vignettes: I mostly dislike this stuff ... Tina Barney was more than enough, but it persisted for decades. I'm including it because Jeff Wall is awesome; he's the first to make this genre transcend itself.

The Big Germans: Gursky and Struth are doing relevant, interesting things. I dont yet know how to describe them in any meaningful way.

Other people whose work seems conceptual but also exploratory. Sugimoto comes to mind. Struan? who else? You've been napping less than me.

Struan Gray

5-Oct-2010, 12:33

Some favourites, not confined to the conceptual, nearly all landscape. All photographers.

Jem Southam, Mike Smith, Richard Misrach

Beth Dow, Sally Gall, Michael Kenna

Ralf Grossek, Corinne Vionnet, Bas Princen

Ray Metzker, Emmet Gowin, Lee Friedlander

Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Aaron Siskind, Frederick Sommer

The order is random, the groupings less so.

John NYC

5-Oct-2010, 20:48

Yes, I meant modern through contemporary, as opposed to traditional landscape, portraitry, etc.

Struan, what a great list! Some new things to explore for me there, too.

If I were creating my own list it would definitely include some already mentioned: New Topographics folks, Friedlander (one of my favorites), Jeff Wall (when you see some of these in person, you get it), Sugimoto, to name just a few favorites.

I'm on my way out of town, but here are a few off the top of my head of many I like, in no particular order.

Gabrielle Basilico
Erwin Wurm
James Casebere
Lewis Baltz
Laura Letinsky (yes, sorry folks)
Uta Barth
Dan Holdsworth

Darin Boville

5-Oct-2010, 21:32

Jeff Wall (when you see some of these in person, you get it),

What is the fascination with Jeff Wall? I've seen plenty of examples of his work in person and read about his work (often in his own words--here is a nice example: http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2007/jeffwall/).

In my mind he is sort of a poster child of university art--which is to say dry, boring art. He'll give you all sorts of historical reference points for his work--you'll be googling the paintings he references even if you are an art student--and places his work in a detailed art historical context. You can see the attraction that academics would have to the work. So much to write about! So much to categorize and analyze!

But are the pictures themselves--that is, the pictures without the "wall" (ahem) of words-- worth so much attention?

I'd love to hear what it is about Wall's work that is so wonderful. To me his work "works" only in the sense that it suggests to us that the image is from a film, a movie. An implied narrative, an ambiguous narrative. Again, I can see how academics would *love* this sort of thing...so perhaps the attraction for some is precisely the turn off for me.

Anyway, without tainting the waters too much more I'd like to hear why I should stop worrying and learn to love Jeff Wall's work.

--Darin

D. Bryant

5-Oct-2010, 21:56

Anyway, without tainting the waters too much more I'd like to hear why I should stop worrying and learn to love Jeff Wall's work.

--Darin

If you do not like his work then you should write a letter to him explaining how you feel. Perhaps by doing that you will get to know his work better and be able to state explicitly why you dislike his work. I'm sure Jeff would like to hear from you.

Just accept his work for what it means to you Darin and then move along. You may change your opinion about his work sometime or maybe not.

Don Bryant

Darin Boville

5-Oct-2010, 22:15

If you do not like his work then you should write a letter to him explaining how you feel. Perhaps by doing that you will get to know his work better and be able to state explicitly why you dislike his work. I'm sure Jeff would like to hear from you.

Just accept his work for what it means to you Darin and then move along. You may change your opinion about his work sometime or maybe not.

Don Bryant

Well, uh, O.K. But I thought we were having a conversation here, no? :)

I'll write Jeff when I'm in the right mood but until then I'm hoping to hear from some of the folks who expressed a fondness for his work why he is on their list of photographers they posted a few posts back...

--Darin

John NYC

5-Oct-2010, 22:27

What is the fascination with Jeff Wall? I've seen plenty of examples of his work in person and read about his work (often in his own words--here is a nice example: http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2007/jeffwall/).

In my mind he is sort of a poster child of university art--which is to say dry, boring art. He'll give you all sorts of historical reference points for his work--you'll be googling the paintings he references even if you are an art student--and places his work in a detailed art historical context. You can see the attraction that academics would have to the work. So much to write about! So much to categorize and analyze!

But are the pictures themselves--that is, the pictures without the "wall" (ahem) of words-- worth so much attention?

I'd love to hear what it is about Wall's work that is so wonderful. To me his work "works" only in the sense that it suggests to us that the image is from a film, a movie. An implied narrative, an ambiguous narrative. Again, I can see how academics would *love* this sort of thing...so perhaps the attraction for some is precisely the turn off for me.

Anyway, without tainting the waters too much more I'd like to hear why I should stop worrying and learn to love Jeff Wall's work.

--Darin

I first reacted emotionally to his work, actually. When I saw this (huge mounted back-lit), I loved it: http://daramol2.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/jeff-wall.jpg

I had the same emotional connection with the disconnected emotions of this image:
http://www.booooooom.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/jeff_wall_05.jpg

There are several other images I really like of his, but most of those in the link you gave of the MOMA show are not my favorites.

Struan Gray

6-Oct-2010, 00:54

Darin Boville

6-Oct-2010, 01:10

Crewdson = all the reasons I don't care for Wall times two. :)

--Darin

rdenney

6-Oct-2010, 05:05

The only Jeff Wall I have seen in the flesh is a rather small one, Diagonal Composition (http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=76417), which I love as a photograph, but which looks rather silly standing proud of the wall on its too thick light box. Perhaps the bathos is the point, but I like it for the strong sense of formal composition.

Yes, indeed. I very much like that photograph, even in the tiny web display.

But I'm still trying to figure all this out. I see the word "honest" applied to photographs of desultory people pretending not to pose for the camera (vis a vis Cartier-Bresson's image of children playing, who are happy and honestly oblivious to the camera). I see pictures of rotting corpses of buildings, rotting corpses of animals, and rotting corpses of people presented as "challenging". The only challenge I feel is whether I can turn away quickly enough. Nobody trusts pictures of dramatic nature even if they are abstract. I get accused of not seeing what is there (I see situations like the one Wall photographed in John's second link all the time and see nothing meaningful about them), yet those dramatic landscapes are something I see every day as well. They bring me wonder, joy and peace: palpable emotions that don't require pseudo-intellectual claptrap to describe.

We are conditioned to think that people who live in the country and work in the cities are evil usurpers of farmland and destroyers of the environment. But I really think a lot of people who judge art find their natural resonance in cities. Maybe if nearly every day they saw mist over a Virginia cornfield, or the sun setting over the Blue Ridge, or bright red Japanese maple leaves in their own yard, they wouldn't have such mistrust of natural beauty. They seem to trust pictures of rotting animals more than glorious displays of natural beauty. Paul has said that perhaps photos have to do more then depict natural beauty--that maybe it isn't enough. Struan has expressed the worry of making photos that are merely decorative. I take these comments seriously, because they describe most of what I do as a photographer, but honestly they leave me nowhere to go. I don't want to make "honest" pictures of people pretending not to pose or of rotting animals.

I guess I'll have to go back to old buildings--not rotting corpses of city buildings intentionally (and often unnecessarily) forced to rot but honest ruins of country buildings going to seed all by themselves, and often still in use. I think I like the story inherent in those better than seeing broken dolls in the semi-razed debris of a sanitarium. I suppose that makes me some kind of romantic.

Rick "honestly stuck, but refusing cynicism" Denney

D. Bryant

6-Oct-2010, 05:38

Crewdson = all the reasons I don't care for Wall times two. :)

--Darin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WoA7Zwov5Y

Don Bryant

Jack Dahlgren

6-Oct-2010, 08:08

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WoA7Zwov5Y

Don Bryant

Well, he certainly seems like the type to "impregnate" his photographs.

I suppose he has a story to tell in there somewhere, but he does not seem very economical about getting there.

John NYC

6-Oct-2010, 08:20

Honestly, I think Wall is far different than Crewdson. I am not a Crewdson fan personally. Wall's output is far more varied and less kitschy, to make just two quick points.

Lenny Eiger

6-Oct-2010, 11:42

I had the same emotional connection with the disconnected emotions of this image:
http://www.booooooom.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/jeff_wall_05.jpg
.

I learn nothing from these works. Especially the one of people at the airport. There is no skill here, no connection (as you state) of the photographer to the subject, and therefore nothing to communicate. Am I to be moved by someone who is that disconnected from their reality? If he is not moved, then why should I be? Should I feel pity for him?

Why not simply wave a camera in the air randomly taking pictures, and then make up a story about them later. Where is the seeing? Where is the insight? Why should I go look at this disconnected work, or buy it? What would I learn, how would it feed me?

Lenny

Richard Mahoney

6-Oct-2010, 12:37

... Nobody trusts pictures of dramatic nature even if they are abstract. I get accused of not seeing what is there (I see situations like the one Wall photographed in John's second link all the time and see nothing meaningful about them), yet those dramatic landscapes are something I see every day as well. They bring me wonder, joy and peace: palpable emotions that don't require pseudo-intellectual claptrap to describe. ...

I guess I'll have to go back to old buildings--not rotting corpses of city buildings intentionally (and often unnecessarily) forced to rot but honest ruins of country buildings going to seed all by themselves, and often still in use. I think I like the story inherent in those better than seeing broken dolls in the semi-razed debris of a sanitarium. I suppose that makes me some kind of romantic.

Rick "honestly stuck, but refusing cynicism" Denney

Yes, for me at least, there just has to be some essential beauty in an image ... and balance (if things are decaying then surely there also has to be at least the suggestion of growth). Genuine engagement on the part of the photographer is also primary, and failing a certain awe, at least respect for the subject. You know I was just jotting down a list of photographers that I `like' -- well not always the right word -- and I was a little surprised at the distance between them and some of those we've been discussing.

Jeanloup Sieff
Paolo Roversi
Ralph Gibson
Sally Mann
Eikoh Hosoe
--
Clarence John Laughlin
Frederick H. Evans

Best, Richard

Brian C. Miller

6-Oct-2010, 12:57

But I'm still trying to figure all this out. I see the word "honest" applied to photographs of ...

Rick, face it, you are thinking like Balthus.

Art is a metier. I don't consider myself an artist. I consider myself a worker. Unfortunately, now this idea seems useless because if you look at modern art you see that now everybody can do everything. And in fact nobody does anything.

After looking up the various photographers who've been listed here, I keep coming to one conclusion: I absolutely know what I like, and those people don't produce it. I find nothing wrong with photographs of amazing natural beauty. There is nothing disingenuous about those photographs. Neither Galen Rowell nor David Muench faked or posed their photographs. There was no production crew or actors. How can photographs like theirs be called anything other than honest? Yes, their photographs are on calendars. I can't find anything wrong with that.

I also like Japanese maples. I have a nice shot of Japanese maple leaves against a deep blue sky, Velvia and enhancing filter. Is it gorgeous? Of course it is. Why do people plant Japanese maples and cherry trees? Why do people plant rose gardens? Hello, clue time for some forum members: beauty isn't kitsch. Just ask any Playboy photographer.

Jack Dahlgren

6-Oct-2010, 13:08

I learn nothing from these works. Especially the one of people at the airport. There is no skill here, no connection (as you state) of the photographer to the subject, and therefore nothing to communicate. Am I to be moved by someone who is that disconnected from their reality? If he is not moved, then why should I be? Should I feel pity for him?

Why not simply wave a camera in the air randomly taking pictures, and then make up a story about them later. Where is the seeing? Where is the insight? Why should I go look at this disconnected work, or buy it? What would I learn, how would it feed me?

Lenny

I struggle with this as well. A replica of the mundane seems like a poor selection of the universe of things to spend time on - either by the creator or the viewer.

That said, I have plenty of airport photos -
http://static.zooomr.com/images/2871093_571a1976d0.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2253/2058793402_6b18827cc3.jpg
so I understand that at least there is some attraction.

In my opinion, photographs - even the constructed sorts - are fundamentally a selection. Wall is selecting images from a stream of life which is either imagined or recreated from earlier experiences. And in the selection itself tells us something about what is important (or by contrast unimportant). In diagonal composition, the composition is important and, I think, interesting despite the content (in my case though they are a nostalgic reminder of a certain wash sink on the 6th floor of Wurster Hall).

In the case of Crewdson, the selection is clearly a selection from his own fantasy world - despite his talk of it being a realistic story. But it is overcomplicated with technique at the expense of grace. As I mentioned it is uneconomical - like a Vegas Showgirl. The suggestion is too baroque for my tastes. I can just see him moving into 3d. But that is of course personal preference. I like my selections to tell a story with as little complication as possible.

rdenney

6-Oct-2010, 14:05

Rick, face it, you are thinking like Balthus.

Heh. Is that good?

But in my case, I am really struggling, for the simple reason that the photos I like end up stacked against the wall inside a closet. Whatever it is that makes people want to look at photographs--these aren't providing it. So, I'm trying to figure it out.

The natural scene can't be anything but what it is, and therefore it is honestly that. But we may make it dishonest, I suppose, by making it something it isn't. When I choose Velvia or a polarizer, I'm not really trying to duplicate the scene. I'm trying to represent the impression it made on me, which is always more colorful than the way photographs usually look. The intensity of color I see with my eyes has to be represented somehow. Is that honest? I think so. But inside my closet they remain, heh.

I was once accused of being an exponent of the Pretty Rocks School, and even the label suggests that such photographs are trite. They probably are. My photos are probably like the amateur paintings one sees at small-town arts-and-crafts fairs. Or even the photos. And even I look at those paintings and photos and internally roll my eyes at their triteness.

So, I don't understand the appeal of the post-modern/contemporary/whatever stuff, and the traditional/modern/Adamsy stuff has lost its power. Even though I'm an amateur, I would like to say something with photos that might make a difference for others, but it's hard to know any more whether that happens.

Rick "not being a curmudgeon--this time" Denney

D. Bryant

6-Oct-2010, 14:18

But it is overcomplicated with technique at the expense of grace.

What does that mean?

I like my selections to tell a story with as little complication as possible.

IMO, single images can't tell stories, but merely suggest ideas and leave the viewer with questions if they are interested in photo to begin with.

Crewdson doesn't need to be economical; his editions sell out at a quick pace, but that doesn't make his work great art, it just means he has been recognized as an important and collectible artist.I don't really consider him a photographer, just as we wouldn't consider Hitchcock or Kubrick a great cinematographer. I do consider Crewdson a significant artist who exploits the medium of large format film.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Andrew Moore in this thread who is probably one of the more conventional LF photographers on the contemporary art scene.

Alec Soth also rates, IMO.

Don Bryant

Struan Gray

6-Oct-2010, 14:23

Why do people plant rose gardens?

I'm going to plant a nuttery, thanks to a photo by Beth Dow.

I'll take a plum over a cherry as I love the resonance of the Three Friends in Winter, and you can eat even the pretty ones. There'll be a Tibetan Quince if only I can source one. Maples (German and Norwegian) sneak in all by themselves, so my Japanese tree will be a hornbeam. My neighbours already have a 150 year old Ginkgo, but perhaps I'll find a female one and play Noah.

Art photos and nature photos of these trees are vanishingly rare. You can find them in botanical guides and enthusiast shots on flickr, but not when people pick up a camera to do Photography with a capital P. They are beautiful too, more so in my mind, but are crowdsourced out by the herd.

Regression to the mean is a law of averages, it need not dictate to the individual. The only shame in loving red maples is if you let yourself be blinded to all the other beautiful trees. Photography as a whole has let itself be blinded.

Jack Dahlgren

6-Oct-2010, 14:27

Heh. Is that good?

But in my case, I am really struggling, for the simple reason that the photos I like end up stacked against the wall inside a closet. Whatever it is that makes people want to look at photographs--these aren't providing it. So, I'm trying to figure it out.

The natural scene can't be anything but what it is, and therefore it is honestly that. But we may make it dishonest, I suppose, by making it something it isn't. When I choose Velvia or a polarizer, I'm not really trying to duplicate the scene. I'm trying to represent the impression it made on me, which is always more colorful than the way photographs usually look. The intensity of color I see with my eyes has to be represented somehow. Is that honest? I think so. But inside my closet they remain, heh.

I was once accused of being an exponent of the Pretty Rocks School, and even the label suggests that such photographs are trite. They probably are. My photos are probably like the amateur paintings one sees at small-town arts-and-crafts fairs. Or even the photos. And even I look at those paintings and photos and internally roll my eyes at their triteness.

So, I don't understand the appeal of the post-modern/contemporary/whatever stuff, and the traditional/modern/Adamsy stuff has lost its power. Even though I'm an amateur, I would like to say something with photos that might make a difference for others, but it's hard to know any more whether that happens.

Rick "not being a curmudgeon--this time" Denney

What more is there to say about pretty rocks? Is there something else you see that people would be interested in? Which people? Why? How would you photograph it?

I'm satisfied with photographing things for a number of reasons:

To document them - I have shots of disassembled machines to help me put them back together and photos taken inside wall cavities where I can not see.

To share - primarily group activities and family photos

For historical reasons - I'm interested in towns and the shapes of cities, the way things are or were

For aesthetics - I like the color, shape, texture, view point ...

but only a few of those interest other people.

Lenny Eiger

6-Oct-2010, 14:41

I struggle with this as well. A replica of the mundane seems like a poor selection of the universe of things to spend time on - either by the creator or the viewer.

I couldn't agree more.

In my opinion, photographs - even the constructed sorts - are fundamentally a selection. Wall is selecting images from a stream of life which is either imagined or recreated from earlier experiences. And in the selection itself tells us something about what is important (or by contrast unimportant).

Photographs, fundamentally are a selection. But if that's all they are, then why bother? There is an extra added element when they communicate something. So what are they capable of communicating. A lot, as it turns out. The History of Photography is filled with photos that meant something to people, beyond the selection.

I am only interested if I can learn something - why else would I waste my time. There is so much to do, and see - why should I, for an extreme example, go to a war zone and watch people kill people? Should I get a telescope and watch my neighbors having sex? I don't choose to view these things because they don't interest me. Similarly, when someone simply takes a shot with no content I don't want to bother.

Further, there are deep thoughts and lighter ones. Weston spoke a lot about sensuality, for example. He found himself in nature, one could say. Begs a number of questions. It has been said, and I believe it, that man is not judged by what he knows, but by the quality of his questions. There is certainly something lacking in the questions of today's work.

Much of color photography I find ends up talking about color. I'm not a fan of Galen Rowell. I'm not particularly interested. There is a huge difference between pretty and beautiful. I can do without all the orange sunsets. The best portrait I ever took speaks of intimacy. Hey, there's a big word. What about integrity? What about presence?

If you look at enough of Lewis Hine's work, you will see how he approached his subjects. Every time, he allowed them to speak. That speaks of humility, something that is a lifelong learning process. That's the expression - one's relationship to one's world. That's how you communicate.

At the end of the day, my question is, 'what do you have to share with the rest of us?' Is there any value to your communication? Do you have any wisdom and can I see it in your image?

Anais Nin said:

"If you do not breathe through writing,
if you do not cry out in writing, or sing
in writing, then don't write, because our
culture has no use for it."

The post modern tradition has allowed people to define what photography is that 1) don't understand what photography is at its core, 2) aren't photographers, and 3), are apparently shut down emotionally to the point where they are sterile beings.

I'm with Anais Nin on this one.....

Lenny

Darin Boville

6-Oct-2010, 14:43

... just as we wouldn't consider...Kubrick a great cinematographer.

Careful there. Some of us have built shrines in our homes to Kubrick and we say our prayers every night.

--Darin

Jack Dahlgren

6-Oct-2010, 15:08

I'm going to plant a nuttery, thanks to a photo by Beth Dow.

I'll take a plum over a cherry as I love the resonance of the Three Friends in Winter, and you can eat even the pretty ones. There'll be a Tibetan Quince if only I can source one. Maples (German and Norwegian) sneak in all by themselves, so my Japanese tree will be a hornbeam. My neighbours already have a 150 year old Ginkgo, but perhaps I'll find a female one and play Noah.

Art photos and nature photos of these trees are vanishingly rare. You can find them in botanical guides and enthusiast shots on flickr, but not when people pick up a camera to do Photography with a capital P. They are beautiful too, more so in my mind, but are crowdsourced out by the herd.

Regression to the mean is a law of averages, it need not dictate to the individual. The only shame in loving red maples is if you let yourself be blinded to all the other beautiful trees. Photography as a whole has let itself be blinded.

Ginkgos are difficult to photograph. I've been trying for 30 years and still don't have a shot I really like. The huge one in Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū-ji was reportedly a thousand years old, and fell over this past spring. They certainly are a common motif in Japanese art. Persimmon is another under appreciated tree.

I'm not particularly successful photographing trees. Leaves are relatively easy. Flowers too, but the whole tree is difficult.

Struan Gray

6-Oct-2010, 15:32

Ginkgos are difficult to photograph. I've been trying for 30 years and still don't have a shot I really like.

I thought I could cheat by just concentrating on the buds. No luck yet.

I wanted a persimmon, but my wife insisted on a medlar. In any case, we're going to have a lot of fruit that needs a frost to be edible.

On topic: one of my favourite botanical photographers is really a garden designer; Piet Oudolf (oudolf.com).

They certainly are a common motif in Japanese art.
That is sort of what I was hinting at: there are many trees and plants which have long traditions in abstract and pictorial art, but which Photography tends to ignore. It's not just the Eastern traditions - think of all those plantains and wild strawberries in the foregrounds of medieval Western paintings. There is a group-think about what is worth photographing and what makes a 'good' photograph, and it's both pervasive and influential. Perhaps the most useful function of 'banal' photography is the way it makes us look again at something we think we already know.

This is not a new idea (http://www.lingfieldreserves.org.uk/great_turf.htm). What's more, the old ideas can get very, very old (http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/poems/pggreen.htm).

D. Bryant

6-Oct-2010, 17:03

Careful there. Some of us have built shrines in our homes to Kubrick and we say our prayers every night.

--Darin
Nothing against Kubrick, just that he is considered to be as Jack Nicholson would say, "The man!". Even though he shot some of his own footage, understood photography and cinematography we normally don't regard him as a cinematographer.

He is one of my favs.

As Kubrick explained to Jack once:

"We're not interested in photographing the reality. We're interested in photographing the photograph of the reality."

Don

John NYC

6-Oct-2010, 19:27

There are all kinds of beauty. I have half a dozen Ansel Adams tomes I love, but that doesn't preclude me from being moved just as deeply and in different ways by other types of photography. I don't have to limit myself. Just like I can like Bach and Ligeti both with as much passion as I do.

sgelb

6-Oct-2010, 19:43

no offense to the artist, but I find the work to be absolute drivel

who cares about images of some hooker from the 1970s fading into white. why is this work important? why is it going to be important in 100 years?

I think there are very few standouts in today's world of photography. biggest issue I have is that a lot of people who are artists, who are using photography as a medium, are getting a lot of recognition because they are friends with the right people.

they arent photographers per se. they dont take pictures, they dont value or spend time thinking about their work. they just try and out "Im soo hip and my visual idea is soo interesting, it doesnt matter that i didnt take the picture or what process I used" , which is total bollocks IMO.

burtynsky, yes, well remember him in a 100, even a thousand years, but this artist, to be honest, I think the work is totally meaningless and destined to be forgotten like many other photographic works in gallery world today.

John NYC

6-Oct-2010, 22:26

no offense to the artist, but I find the work to be absolute drivel

who cares about images of some hooker from the 1970s fading into white. why is this work important? why is it going to be important in 100 years?

I think no one in all the posts has said they like this work or think it is important.

What I was curious about myself was that because they know and love other contemporary photography and this work doesn't measure up? Or is it that they just don't like or respect any -- or little -- contemporary photography? I think we have seen both cases in the last posts in this thread.

Jack Dahlgren

6-Oct-2010, 23:47

I think no one in all the posts has said they like this work or think it is important.

What I was curious about myself was that because they know and love other contemporary photography and this work doesn't measure up? Or is it that they just don't like or respect any -- or little -- contemporary photography? I think we have seen both cases in the last posts in this thread.

I like photography by architects and designers (David Burdeny for example) because it is the sort of work I like making too. Is it contemporary or modern or what? How about aerial photography (kite work, google earth, my own images shot out of airplane windows) - is that contemporary? Modern - probably. Looking at the earth and creations on the earth is like looking at a portrait. One with wrinkles and scars.

Do you have to "make" the photograph for it to be contemporary, or is writing and speaking about it enough?

Telling a story seems a constant theme, but reading "my pet goat" is not enough. It has to be a good story at the right time to the right people. I think that some contemporary art is telling a story to a group of people that probably doesn't include me for reasons that don't concern me. But I'm fine with that.

From almost any perspective Sturgeon's Law applies, but that golden 10% may be different to different people. It would be ridiculous to expect otherwise.

rdenney

7-Oct-2010, 06:02

I'm satisfied with photographing things for a number of reasons:

All of those reasons apply to me, too. But I'm not talking about utilitarian photography, into which I include reportage (even though such photography can be done artistically). I'm talking about photography with a capital P, as Struan put it--photographs intended to stand on their own as art.

You ask if I have something to say about pretty rocks. I certainly do! But that doesn't mean others haven't also said it. Most of what I say has been said. I hate the fact that we feel something must be utterly innovative before it can be art, but I also confess that lots of photos of things already photographed extensively bore me, too. But many don't.

So, let me take a different tack. (This is me talking to me, by the way. You guys are just in the way. I solidify ideas in my own mind by writing them down.) What photos displayed on this forum really pluck my string? What qualities do those photos have? Some photos have a sense of balance and clarity (maybe even simplicity) that glows in the dark, no matter what objects are being photographed. People often respond to those photos with statements like "what a lovely place!" But I think those places are actually pretty routine and are similar to many other places. What makes these photos different is the balance and form they display. When the balance is right, the photo settles down into natural resonance with my senses.

Such balance is rare. To name names, what makes Nana Sousa Dias's photos different from mine? His work has a balance to it that reveals a special way to see. The subjects are pretty, but I could photograph those same subjects and not demonstrate that natural resonance. It's not about the subject. So, even if the subject is common, the representation of it is not. Even if the techniques are common (and expertly applied), the purpose served by those techniques is not. Even if the medium is common, the artistic intent plainly is not. Even if the picture is beautiful, the effect it has on me is not based solely on beauty. I have this feeling that Dias's work has more to do with what he excludes than what he includes. His work has a distinctly contemporary minimalist feel, but without being a picture of Kansas emptiness.

I also see many photos displayed on this forum that do not move me in that way, but that attract all manner of other praises. So, what constitutes clarity and balance for some might not for others. That's comforting, actually, except for the fact that my own work doesn't seem to display the qualities I most admire.

Maybe that's the element, at least consistent with my own sensibilities, that makes the photo "enough" in Paul's characterization, or not merely decorative in Struan's. But that balance seems purely compositional--how the subject is arranged in the frame. I can't connect it to the explorative qualities that both Struan and Paul have articulated.

Like I said, I'm struggling with this. My attempts to understand all this is not a pretense.

Rick "who knows what he likes, but not how to achieve it" Denney

rycollier

7-Oct-2010, 08:27

Photography is a means for some to explore. Photography is one medium in Art. Explore the physical world, explore history of a place or photography itself, explore yourself, etc. Florian Maier-Aichen, for example, does a really fantastic job with the physical world and history of a place. At the same time he exploits/explores the medium. There is a Art21 season 5 episode 2 on him.
Sometimes when someone puts all these things together, you just get eyes rolling. It starts to sound like a possibility but it is just too impulsive and contrived. Crosher's work is more like installation work, in a contemporary art sense. It's pretty clear that she is working in the vein of Richard Prince but calling it about digital, but I'm not sure she knows it. When she starts referring to Cindy Sherman, I just think that she is lost about what Sherman is doing.
BTW, I think we all forget how short of a period photography has been considered art.

Mark Sawyer

7-Oct-2010, 16:14

I like photography by... because it is the sort of work I like making too.

Uh-oh... :rolleyes:

Part of the issue may be that we too often tend to like in others' work what we like in our own work. The "Contemporary Fine-Art Photography" we've been discussing has other goals than to be liked, which is foreign to most of us. To some extent, one of its goals is to foster arguments like these. And the more you react against it, and think and debate about the issues that raises, the more successful the work is.

Some of the great moments in photography have been the arguments: Ansel Adams vs. William Mortensen, P. H. Emerson vs. Robinson and Reijlander, etc. The unsettling of the issues is a healthy thing, whatever direction it pushes you to grow, and even if you feel you're arguing against bs, it can still make great fertilizer...

Jack Dahlgren

7-Oct-2010, 18:25

Uh-oh... :rolleyes:

Part of the issue may be that we too often tend to like in others' work what we like in our own work. The "Contemporary Fine-Art Photography" we've been discussing has other goals than to be liked, which is foreign to most of us. To some extent, one of its goals is to foster arguments like these. And the more you react against it, and think and debate about the issues that raises, the more successful the work is.

There are plenty of people who "like" to "foster arguments". That is why they invented the internet.

Jack "not trolling this time" Dahlgren

Darin Boville

7-Oct-2010, 23:08

Speaking of Crewdson, I'm looking at books and just came across the blurb to his new one:

"In these 40 black-and-white photographs, Crewdson (Beneath the Roses) travels to Rome's Cinecittà studio, home to some of the most famous works of Italian cinema. While Crewdson emphasizes the artificiality of a film set (and the photographic medium itself) by portraying the Cinecittà as a composition of gray tonalities, he also suggests the possibility of movement and life, and teases us with nonsensical elements that prevent the sequence from forming a coherent narrative: a small set of stairs leads to nowhere, dull light casts shadows through a distant doorway, and Roman architecture stands next to modern scaffolding. As film critic A.O. Scott notes in his lyrical preface, Crewdson--like the discontinuous world of the unconscious--gives us "the sense that what we are looking at is both actual and illusory." Unlike Crewdson's previous work, those color-saturated shots like film stills, this collection addresses the dream world of film in a historically significant setting, but the relationship with the viewer remains intimate, as he or she becomes "the solitary walker tiptoeing through secret places and dreaming fragmentary epics." "

Can someone point to any meaning at all in that second sentence?

--Darin

Richard Mahoney

8-Oct-2010, 00:10

Mark Sawyer

8-Oct-2010, 00:14

There are plenty of people who "like" to "foster arguments". That is why they invented the internet.

Jack "not trolling this time" Dahlgren

Forgive me for differing. Please return to the familiar and comfortable; isn't that what the "fine arts" are for?

D. Bryant

8-Oct-2010, 05:01

John NYC

8-Oct-2010, 08:24

Don't confuse the critic for the artist.

This is a very salient point. A lot of the bogus faux intellectualism is not the artist talking. The Art 21 series mentioned earlier is really great in that it shows only the artists (painters, sculptures, performance artists, photographers) talking about their own work for a change, with the questions edited out.

Jack Dahlgren

8-Oct-2010, 10:24

Forgive me for differing. Please return to the familiar and comfortable; isn't that what the "fine arts" are for?

Actually with the quotes around "fine arts" you may be right, just a matter of punctuation.

Jack "familiarity breeds contempt" Dahlgren

Brian C. Miller

8-Oct-2010, 10:45

Well not to sound argumentative it's just a little art speak, describing what Crewdson usually does which is to create questions in the viewrs mind. What those questions are will be determined by the viewer.

Don't confuse the critic for the artist.

(emphasis added)

Yeah, but the question that pops into my mind is, "why should I bother looking at this?" Come on, a big theatrical production just to produce an image of a grocery parking lot or a neighborhood street?? And then major Photoshop post-production? Crewdson says that he spends about the budget of a small independent film on each photograph. "It's that tension between the ordinary and the strange that really attracts me." (source: ArtPatrolTV YouTube video interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdfUCQjYPCQ)) Without the artspeak advertising, without any preamble at all, what do his photographs really have?

Honestly, I'd much rather have something that really is real, like a few prints of Arthur Fellig's news photography.

D. Bryant

8-Oct-2010, 11:18

Honestly, I'd much rather have something that really is real, like a few prints of Arthur Fellig's news photography.

Well let's keep this in mind:

"A good photograph is one that makes the viewer so aware of the subject they are unaware of the photograph."

Nothing that is presented in a photograph depicts reality. If you don't like Crewdson' work, that's fine. As to why you should brother looking at anything is up to you.

Come on, a big theatrical production just to produce an image of a grocery parking lot or a neighborhood street?? And then major Photoshop post-production?

What's wrong with any of that? I don't see the problem if that is what he [Crewdson] wants to do.

Don

rdenney

8-Oct-2010, 13:16

Well let's keep this in mind:

"A good photograph is one that makes the viewer so aware of the subject they are unaware of the photograph."

I think I have to disagree with this on the face of it. Would we apply the same standard to a painting? A sculpture?

I agree that technique is usually conspicuous by its absence. But I think a photograph that is intended as art has to look like a photograph. It seems to me that the photograph has to clearly depict how the photographer responds to the subject, not the subject itself. And that may be quite unrealistic, even if it maintains straight photographic sensibilities.

Documentary photography is another thing altogether.

Rick "wondering why we keep applying dictums not expected of other art media to art photography" Denney

Jack Dahlgren

8-Oct-2010, 14:28

Well let's keep this in mind:

"A good photograph is one that makes the viewer so aware of the subject they are unaware of the photograph."
Don

Let's keep this in mind:

"The best aphorisms are obvious... and wrong"

Darin Boville

8-Oct-2010, 14:39

"The best aphorisms are obvious... and wrong"

It's a self-referential recursive black hole!

I like it.

--Darin

paulr

8-Oct-2010, 15:55

Honestly, I think Wall is far different than Crewdson. I am not a Crewdson fan personally. Wall's output is far more varied and less kitschy, to make just two quick points.

Yeah, that's my impression also. I saw the big Wall retrospective a few years ago and loved it. The range of his work is impressive, as is the open-endedness of it. I find the "fine art" and historical allusions to be gravy; the elegant compositions and overall mysteriousness of the work is the meat and potatoes.

Jack Dahlgren

9-Oct-2010, 11:45

I also like Japanese maples. I have a nice shot of Japanese maple leaves against a deep blue sky. Is it gorgeous? Of course it is. Why do people plant Japanese maples and cherry trees?

Little known fact, the Japanese maple was initially cultivated by Dainippon Cellulose Company Limited in the 10th century in their early quest for a highly saturated organic film. In 1934, Fujifilm assumed the assets of Dainippon under government mandate to develop a domestic photographic film industry. Decades later they took the name of the maple (Acer Velvium) as the name of one of their films.

The history of the blue sky is somewhat cloudy however.

paulr

10-Oct-2010, 12:57

Ok ... are there any good "conceptual" artists. Just thought of one I love. And he's as pure as they come, because with him the concept is everything. What's unusual is that his concepts are brilliant, and have actually managed to cause some bouhahas among scientists, philosophers, and theologists.

He's Jonathon Keats (not to be confused with the long-dead, similarly named romantic poet).

Among his projects are $20 kits that allow the user to create new universes using quantum phenomena, a collaboration with U.C. Berkeley genetecists to place God as a species on the phylogenetic tree, and the constuction of a camera obscura to make a 100 year-long exposure (which a magazine has agreed to publish in their January 2110 issue).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathon_Keats

paulr

11-Oct-2010, 14:18

I was once accused of being an exponent of the Pretty Rocks School, and even the label suggests that such photographs are trite. They probably are.

They often are. But I'm not sure they have to be. Triteness doesn't come from the subject matter, or even from simply embracing a traditional sense of form or beauty.

I think triteness is the result of art that doesn't challenge us to see in a new way. Once upon a time, non-traditional subject matter was an easy way to do it. Not any more ... It's hard think of any subject matter that hasn't been put under photographic scrutiny. Same with abandoning traditional ideas of beauty; avant garde movements have been self-consciously rejecting these in one way or another for over a hundred years.

So we face a challenge that's made harder simply by the relatively recent maturity of our medium and the broad reach of its history. We have to make work that's actually about something—itself an idea that can be broadly interpreted—and that offers the world a perspective that feels both fresh and relevant.

And of course there are no objective standards for anything like freshness and relevance. Which is fine ... these are art issues, and you can't expect everyone to agree on them. But the conversation somehow needs to be elevated. It's not enough to simply work within an old genre and crank out examples that fit the mold. At least if the conversation is going to be about something beyond therapy for the artist, or decoration for a wall.

One of my favorite examples of an old guy working with old subject matter and showing us something new: Friedlander's landscapes from the 1990s: like this series (http://www.artnet.com/usernet/awc/awc_workdetail.asp?aid=424415352&gid=424415352&cid=84105&wid=424479602&currentPage=143&page=24).

So, I don't understand the appeal of the post-modern/contemporary/whatever stuff, and the traditional/modern/Adamsy stuff has lost its power. Even though I'm an amateur, I would like to say something with photos that might make a difference for others, but it's hard to know any more whether that happens.

That's always a tough question. I think it starts with making photos that make a difference for you. Worry about finding your audience later. The good news is that there are 6 billion "others" out there, and no two agree on everything. That's also the bad news!

rdenney

11-Oct-2010, 17:10

One of my favorite examples of an old guy working with old subject matter and showing us something new: Friedlander's landscapes from the 1990s: like this series (http://www.artnet.com/usernet/awc/awc_workdetail.asp?aid=424415352&gid=424415352&cid=84105&wid=424479602&currentPage=143&page=24).

Thanks for responding to my questions. Let me reward you by digging a bit, heh.

I looked at the whole gallery. I can't see anything about the landscapes that provide a fresh perspective. Don't get me wrong--I like them--a lot. I'm just not getting how these are something new said by an old guy about old subject matter.

One of the non-landscapes in that series I really liked was the photo of the New York, New York hotel in Las Vegas, which he framed with the side mirror and A-pillar of his car. That captures the Las Vegas thing perfectly--the architecture is really designed to be seen from a car, and also that you have to draw a tight frame around many subjects there to prevent them from becoming contextually ridiculous. I don't know whether that's what he intended, but since it caused me to ponder it, I assume he would consider that a success. I would love to hear you try to emulate an art critic in a regular newspaper, and describe his streetscapes as art in way that would encourage people to want to explore it. I'm afraid my attempt would sound like a middle-school essay. "It was really awesome. But that other one, I didn't like."

Several of his landscapes were trees in front of famous mountains, with the famous mountains shown but obscured by the tree. I suppose a traditional approach would be to use the tree to frame the mountain. I liked them, but I'm not sure that shift a few paces to the side could be considered a fresh perspective. Several more of his landscapes could be described as the "wide-angle lens picture of a really close rock in water with a scenic mountain in the distance"--a description I've seen used on this forum (not by me!) to describe triteness. I showed the pictures to my wife, and she remarked at one of those as: "That looks like the kind of picture you take."

As far as saying something to myself, well, that's what I try to do anyway, and I succeed often enough to keep me going, without really achieving it consistently. I sure would like to be able to articulate why something speaks to me, without resorting to trying to persuade myself and others of its meaning using claptrap. If I could, maybe my keeper rate would improve beyond the single digits of percent.

I mean, I know it's hard to set standard for "fresh", but I would at least like to hear a definition.

Rick "looking for a more sophisticated way to judge my own work" Denney

Darin Boville

11-Oct-2010, 17:16

A fairly direct hit upon our discussion here:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/in-defense-of-naive-reading/

The topic is the study of literature but I think that the current situation in photography (e.g. Aperture Magazine) springs from literature studies so it remains essentially a bullseye.

Wordy and slightly dull, but perhaps worth the effort. If nothing else skim through the comments.

--Darin

D. Bryant

11-Oct-2010, 17:39

John NYC

11-Oct-2010, 17:53

Paul, fantastic post and so right on the money on so many points... in my book at least.

And about this...

I think it starts with making photos that make a difference for you. Worry about finding your audience later.

... I could not agree more. The best composers and painters I have known are focussed more on what is interesting to them, and are, in fact, driven to do the kind of work they do regardless of whether or not it is connecting with people. Eventually, people come or they don't, but the work should be about the work and the internal desire to create a personal language. The people I admire most as composers of the past 100 years (Igor Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, Olivier Messiaen, Gyorgy Ligeti, Morton Feldman, Aaron Copland, Witold Lutoslawski, Per Norgard, Gerard Grisey, etc.), while having very different sounding music and very different means of getting there all developed a highly evolved and thorough personal language of their own (in the case of Ligeti, more than one!)

You mention Friedlander, and he definitely has that in his work. And there are many other important photographers that do. I would actually argue that Ansel had it, and that is one reason his work is so enduring.

John

rdenney

11-Oct-2010, 19:10

The people I admire most as composers of the past 100 years (Igor Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, Olivier Messiaen, Gyorgy Ligeti, Morton Feldman, Aaron Copland, Witold Lutoslawski, Per Norgard, Gerard Grisey, etc.), while having very different sounding music and very different means of getting there all developed a highly evolved and thorough personal language of their own (in the case of Ligeti, more than one!)

My "test" of whether a composer has an evolved personal language is whether I can recognize his work on first hearing, without knowing he composed it. There are many composers over the centuries who pass that test, some profoundly so.

Some contemporary composers are quite abstract in their constructions, including, say, John Adams, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, since I seem to be in a minimalist mood today. Any excerpt from their works is unassailably theirs. But Lutoslawski? I can't tell that the middle part of one of his works is done by the same composer as the first part. The language seems to me to be the formula of randomness or chance. I'm assuming you see a characteristic pattern within that music even if I don't, so I'm making no complaint. But sometimes I wonder if the personal language of a composer like Mozart is deemed too trite, even though Mozart is clearly Mozart by enough of a margin to be distinct from, say, Haydn. Maybe a strong personal language isn't enough.

For example, one photographer's language might be photographing dead and rotting things. Or (fresh on my mind because she was interviewed on Good Morning America this morning) Anne Geddes and her sleeping infants. Do these constitute a language, or just a few words? One aspect of your description seemed to indicate that your favorite composers wrote a wide variety of music that still clearly voiced their language. Vaughan Williams (and you knew I'd bring him up) also wrote an extreme variety of music over his 60+year career. But it is all still his. Yet he doesn't get much credit for it perhaps because his language was based on folk song, which is just not hip enough. Anyone can sing a folk song, or play a modal chord. That accessibility works against its hipness. Lutoslawski, though--that's hip, heh. (And I mentioned my favorite minimalists so you'd think I was hip, too. I wouldn't want you to think my entire musical world view is Bushes and Briars--the musical equivalent of needing to kill a moose or chop wood.)

And this is the problem with Ansel Adams. His work was varied, prolonged, and personal. But his language includes a vocabulary we all now know how to speak. That makes it accessible, and one thing I wonder is whether accessibility is the real problem when deciding whether something is important or merely decorative.

(I quite understand and take Paul's point that trying to be important to others is fatal. But my statement above could be qualified by adding "to me".)

My own view of Friedlander's work is that 1.) I like most of it, 2.) he obviously has the respect of being a serious artist, but 3.) it seems as though his language is either too accessible (which is why I llike it), or so inaccessible that I didn't get it (which is why he gets that respect). I suspect the latter, but that may be paranoia.

I don't see much value in a thread like this unless it gets us to thinking about our own work. There is no doubt that my personal language in my photography trods a well-worn path. Perhaps I have my own dialect, but I don't think I've made up any new words to speak of. So, what I'm trying to get a handle on is whether the problem with my own work is that the language is muddled, such as one might hear from a toddler, or that the words are clear enough but the story they tell is unimportant, even to me. Is it that the meaning of my work is unclear, or not meaningful? (Is that a question of semiotics? Probably not--the semiotic question would be "what constitutes meaning?" and at that, I have to mentally curl up into a fetal position.)

Rick "who wishes Paul had not forced him to look up the word 'semiotics'" Denney

Heroique

11-Oct-2010, 20:39

I blame the French. Stupid Philosophers. ...it is their fault.

:mad:

Comme l’on serait savant si l’on connaissait bien seulement cinq à six photos.

John NYC

11-Oct-2010, 20:50

But Lutoslawski? I can't tell that the middle part of one of his works is done by the same composer as the first part. The language seems to me to be the formula of randomness or chance. I'm assuming you see a characteristic pattern within that music even if I don't, so I'm making no complaint. But sometimes I wonder if the personal language of a composer like Mozart is deemed too trite, even though Mozart is clearly Mozart by enough of a margin to be distinct from, say, Haydn. Maybe a strong personal language isn't enough.

Rick "who wishes Paul had not forced him to look up the word 'semiotics'" Denney

Well, I don't want to bore you with it, but yes, Lutoslawski's is a quite complex personal language with a well thought out and unique approach to harmony (and the melodic content that grew out of it) as well as controlled semi-aleatoric techniques, and no, it is not accessible readily to the layman. I was a composer for many years before my current career and I have studied his music in depth, along with the others I've named.

I agree that it is not enough to have identifiable "markers" in your work. By saying "a language" I mean something that is well thought out, rich in content, expansive over the course of many works and expressive of the artist's intent. Whether or not one or another viewer/listener or critic thinks that artist is successful is not really important, especially to the artist who is intent on working towards such a goal, and that was my point.

rdenney

11-Oct-2010, 21:23

I was a composer for many years before my current career and I have studied his music in depth, along with the others I've named.

Just to twist your tail and to bring up another point that emerged in this thread, this admission might put you in the same category as photographers critically reviewing photography.

And I'm afraid my study of Lutoslawski was limited to listening to a couple of CD's. I traded them to a friend for some Honneger CDs which he did not get at all, and we were both happier.

Rick "already in a deep enough hole and withholding further comment" Denney

John NYC

11-Oct-2010, 21:27

Just to twist your tail and to bring up another point that emerged in this thread, this admission might put you in the same category as photographers critically reviewing photography.

Rick "already in a deep enough hole and withholding further comment" Denney

Well, I studied the work to learn, not as a critic. There has never been a decent composer alive since printed music who has not studied the scores of other composers.

No offense taken. ;-)

Struan Gray

12-Oct-2010, 00:34

There's something indefinable (http://www.google.se/images?&q=anne-sophie+mutter) about recordings of Lutoslawski's music that has always attracted me :-)

You don't have to like everything. In fact, I find it really useful to think about those canonical or currently successful photographers who do *not* touch me emotionally. The gap between public definitions of art and my own personal response is a very useful place to go looking for clues about myself and my photography.

Friedlander is (IMNSHO) a genius. He hasn't been afraid to try new things, and on the surface at least seems to reinvent himself on a regular shedule, but there is also a tight coherence to everything he does. It's not just the black and white, or the use of square images: there's a formal sense of syncopated composition that runs right through his work from the earliest street photographs to his current tree and car window obsession.

Naive readings are a bit like noble savages: they are a comforting idea - if a little condescending at times - and they lead us gently by the hand into a lost land of innocence. The trouble with those pesky academics is they have conclusively shown that the lost land never was: a naive reading is at root a complacent one. Which is not to say that you not allowed to just relax and enjoy the sight of a butterfly, a flower or a sunset (or, for that matter, a cute violinist in a slinky silk evening gown), but that some of us find it useful at times to ask ourselves why such things are attractive.

There are authors who write great books using complex language, intricate plotting and a whole host of writers' workshop tricks of the trade. And then there are those who manage to captivate and inspire with simple words and a plot that reads and-then-and-then-and-then. Ulysses vs. Huckleberry Finn, for example. Both are good - great - but the latter has to work harder in environments where the apparatus has come to mean more than the end result. Vaughan William's use of folk tunes is really no different from, say, Peter Maxwell Davis', but the latter is easier to pontificate about. The odd thing in contemporary photography, is that the 'academic' photographs themselves tend to be much simpler than the more easily appreciated work, wheras traditionally it has been the highbrow stuff that gets knotty and involved.

Oblinks: 1. Dalton Rooney (http://daltonrooney.com/) and 2. Marco van Middelkoop (http://www.marcovanmiddelkoop.com). Both feel very contemporary to me, and I don't think it's just the muted colours and lack of shadows. Both are nice to just look at, but offer more if you care to read and think as well.

rdenney

12-Oct-2010, 06:39

You don't have to like everything. In fact, I find it really useful to think about those canonical or currently successful photographers who do *not* touch me emotionally. The gap between public definitions of art and my own personal response is a very useful place to go looking for clues about myself and my photography.

Exactly why I started asking questions in this thread. I do not trust myself not to be lazy, and to check whether my own likes and dislikes need to be shaken up a bit.

There are authors who write great books using complex language, intricate plotting and a whole host of writers' workshop tricks of the trade. And then there are those who manage to captivate and inspire with simple words and a plot that reads and-then-and-then-and-then.

Maybe the "thoughty" books are those that get knotty. But some authors are celebrated for elegant simplicity. V.S. Naipaul is the best example that comes to my mind--his language is so clean as to be transparent. I suspect that the pontification about Naipaul centers on what he says, rather than how he says it. That is the eternal tension between content and expression, which is no new conflict within photography. Or music: When I was really following the musical avant garde, the minimalists were in full bloom. Many times, they were using distinctly western tonalities, but in distinctly new ways. The repeated arpeggios that characterize Philip Glass's work are not new scales and chord structures, but are new ways of presenting them, perhaps like Vaughan Williams's ancient church modes. And new ways that have a new meaning (unlike RVW): Music as an evolving process rather than music as a narrative, or even as points of color (about which follows). When I listen to the music of Koyaanisqatsi (I confess that I cannot watch the movie), the visual that comes to mind is the endlessly scalable and repeating fractal patterns of the Mandelbrot Set--chaotic but with underlying order.

At some point during the 20th Century, it seems as though the idea of meaning collapsed. Poetry in the 19th Century had subtleties galore, but the words used also had a literal meaning. Much modern poetry (not all, of course) can't be plainly deciphered at all, and whatever meaning it has must be ferreted out from the subtleties. This seems to me to preclude "naive" reading. Music has shown the same shift--compare a Strauss waltz to Ravel's La Valse, and the one thing that vanishes is the literal tonality. Nothing in the conception of Romantic painting could have prepared use for Impressionism, which lost much of its literal meaning through the purposeful obscuration of detail. Vaughan Williams studied with Ravel, and described the experience as "learning to orchestrate in points of color rather than in lines". The lines provided the literal meaning, and even with his familiar modal harmonies, Vaughan Williams's 4th Symphony is pretty hard to describe beyond a general emotional impact.

Perhaps Brahms was as indecipherable to late Romantics as Lutoslawsky is to me. But I somehow doubt it.

(The naive reading thing is also a topic in music, of course. There are many who advocate no study whatsoever of the music other than on its own terms. Many teachers will instruct their students NOT to listen to other recorded performances of a concerto, for example, for fear of tainting their conception of the work. And they complain when people provide detailed reviews of prior performances, thinking that delving into analysis snuffs out the magic candle. And for them, it's probably true.)

Rick "for whom the musical manifestations are clearer than the photographic: both a problem and perhaps a path" Denney

Brian Ellis

12-Oct-2010, 07:04

John NYC

12-Oct-2010, 11:38

Perhaps Brahms was as indecipherable to late Romantics as Lutoslawsky is to me. But I somehow doubt it.

(The naive reading thing is also a topic in music, of course. There are many who advocate no study whatsoever of the music other than on its own terms. Many teachers will instruct their students NOT to listen to other recorded performances of a concerto, for example, for fear of tainting their conception of the work. And they complain when people provide detailed reviews of prior performances, thinking that delving into analysis snuffs out the magic candle. And for them, it's probably true.)

Rick "for whom the musical manifestations are clearer than the photographic: both a problem and perhaps a path" Denney

I think you are starting with the assumption that no one reacts emotionally to modern music and then has to learn about it to appreciate it. In fact, with me it was the opposite. I reacted with overwhelming emotion the first time I heard Luto's 3rd, which is what then spurred me on to get the score and study it at the piano. It later became an influence in my own music.

On another note, the idea that it is somehow more pure to know less about something than more doesn't sit well with me. The intellect and the heart are not mutually exclusive. In my own experience, they can actually feed each other... If one is open enough to let that happen. And I am talking about being open in both directions.

rdenney

12-Oct-2010, 12:15

I think you are starting with the assumption that no one reacts emotionally to modern music and then has to learn about it to appreciate it.

I'm not assuming that for everyone, I'm observing it for me. And certainly not all modern music--just Lutoslawsky specifically, and him only because he came up in the discussion.

But it does bring up the question of what is or is not accessible in simple terms but also rewarding at the level of fine nuance. My experience suggests that there is as much art that is inaccessible in simple terms, and that the artist often shows disdain for those who would want to access it that literally. My experience also suggests that there is plenty of art that seems accessible in simple terms but then provides no deeper substance to reward further exploration. My favorite art is the stuff that does both. That may sum up a huge swathe of this thread, heh.

Obviously, even if one accepts my categories, they would not put the same art in the same bins as I do. But if they say there is something deep when I don't see it, then I wonder what it is. I do not, however, deny that it doesn't reward my exploration just because it is hip. And sometimes stuff that rewards me deeply is scorned by those who profess greater sophistication who claim that only low-brows such as myself would be moved by such triteness. (See the David Meunch thread for accusations back and forth related to this.) I won't deny being moved just because they aren't. That is why I do not complain that you express having been moved by Lutoslawski even though I cannot.

Rick "who has actually listened to L's third symphony all the way through at least three times" Denney

John NYC

12-Oct-2010, 15:14

I'm not assuming that for everyone, I'm observing it for me. And certainly not all modern music--just Lutoslawsky specifically, and him only because he came up in the discussion.

But it does bring up the question of what is or is not accessible in simple terms but also rewarding at the level of fine nuance. My experience suggests that there is as much art that is inaccessible in simple terms, and that the artist often shows disdain for those who would want to access it that literally.

Ok I understand that you are just talking about your own experience in this, which I do respect for certain.

I pinky swear that this will be my last comment on Lutoslawski.

Lutoslawski's language become more and more simple as he got older. He distilled it. (same thing happened with ligeti actually... Sort of) You might try the 4th if you have not. The opening five minutes are brooding modernized Mahler-esque. Compared to the admittedly dense 2nd, there is an order of magnitude of more melodic content.

Heroique

12-Oct-2010, 16:36

...a naive reading is at root a complacent one. Which is not to say that you’re not allowed to just relax and enjoy the sight of a butterfly...

“Butterfly” – reminds me of the most famous of lepidopterists, Vladimir Nabokov, and the sly objections he’d offer:

“In reading, one should notice and fondle the details,” he says. And being ever-mischievous, Nabokov knows you know he knows you know who’s the author of that brilliant and playful novel, “Lolita” – hence (one can safely presume) his choice of words, “notice and fondle,” etc. “There is nothing wrong [he continues] with the moonshine of generalization when it comes after the sunny trifles of the book have been lovingly collected.”

(Whoops – “moonshine,” “lovingly collected” – there he goes again. Enough to make one wish to be a student in his popular lectures on literature at Cornell in the 1950’s.)

Nabokov, as you’ve already noticed, asks us to be “naïve.” First and foremost. He’s asking – in a few words – what it takes that other Professor (Professor Pippen, in Darin’s entertaining NYT link) several paragraphs to describe. Yet, Pippen does finally manage to describe his point. (Not all of us can be a Nabokov.) That is, naïve reading is noticing the sunny trifles. It’s collecting them (like butterflies). It’s fondling them (like … well, nevermind). All this before – even to the healthy neglect of – the “moonshine of generalization” (i.e., outside influences, such as abstruse theory, etc.). And it can be done w/ the greatest of subtlety; its results can be shared w/ the greatest of simplicity. Certainly, at its best, it’s never “complacent.” At article’s end, the “pesky” Pippen even does a quick, “naïve” take on Henry James’ Washington Square. And you know, it’s pretty good! (Certainly better than most 20-page introductions to the short novel.) Way to go, Pippen! Now that’s being “naïve” with a vengeance.

Our “moonshine-first” friends over at Aperture – and many of us here, myself included – could learn a lesson or two from Pippen. Or better, from Nabokov. We could learn to see photos, like this butterfly expert suggests we “see” literature – with a subtle sobriety. Make that a subtle, playful sobriety. Let the drunkenness of moonshine come later, if come at all, Nabokov would add. After all, there’s nothing wrong with it!

Heck, one might even listen to Lutoslawski this way. I might even give his 4th try.

:rolleyes:

rdenney

12-Oct-2010, 20:12

You might try the 4th if you have not.

I'll take it under advisement.

Rick "that was a joke; you can laugh" Denney

Struan Gray

13-Oct-2010, 00:26

We could learn to see photos, like this butterfly expert suggests we “see” literature – with a subtle sobriety. Make that a subtle, playful sobriety. Let the drunkenness of moonshine come later, if come at all, Nabokov would add. After all, there’s nothing wrong with it!

This I how I usually work. The analysis and research comes at the editing stage, or when deciding how to round off a set of photos as a collective whole.

That said, many times a photograph works through the "shock of recognition", and then it helps to have a broad cultural awareness. I expect Migrant Mother or Tomoko Uemura in her Bath would evoke sympathy anyway, but they are stronger, and more directed in their message, thanks to centuries of Virgin Mary iconography. Sometimes, like with jokes, you need to just 'get' a photograph in order to get it - explanation ruins the effect.

I.E.: http://www.stuartpilkington.co.uk/whatisengland/paulrussell-group.jpg

Butterflies are an interesting linguistic phenomenon. Every language and dialect seems to have its own, distinct word for them. That sense of taking something general and making it specific is something I aim for in my photographs. The academic, poetic method usually runs the other way.

paulr

13-Oct-2010, 01:03

At some point during the 20th Century, it seems as though the idea of meaning collapsed. Poetry in the 19th Century had subtleties galore, but the words used also had a literal meaning. Much modern poetry (not all, of course) can't be plainly deciphered at all, and whatever meaning it has must be ferreted out from the subtleties. This seems to me to preclude "naive" reading.

I'm not so sure. There are many schools of contemporary poetry; among the ones that are routinely accused of abandoning meaning I think only a handful have actually done so. And these often aspire not to incomprehensibility for its own sake, but to something more basic, like the qualities of music—a medium that we're happy to simply experience, rather than to mine for literal meaning.

In this sense, obscurantist poems are uniquely suited to naive reading.

In most cases, though, I think the idea of naive reading is a red herring. I thought the Times piece itself was naive for not mentioning the fundamental problem with this approach: we always read through the lens of literary theory. Even as a first grader, you approached the books you read with assumptions about how to interpret them. You probably hadn't articulated any kind of coherent theory, but your answers to questions like "what does this mean?" and "how do you know that?" would reveal a world of inherited ideas.

So really, naive reading isn't reading without theory; it's reading with a theory that you're unaware of, and which you therefore haven't questioned or considered as merely one possibility among many. I can't think of any advantage to this kind of naivitée.

paulr

13-Oct-2010, 01:09

I haven't seen a response from PaulR to this statement by Rick "who always says something interesting at this point in his posts" Denney: "I looked at the whole gallery. I can't see anything about the landscapes that provide a fresh perspective. Don't get me wrong--I like them--a lot. I'm just not getting how these are something new said by an old guy about old subject matter."

That was said with reference to the Friedlander link that PaulR provided. I mention it because like Rick "who didn't see a new perspective by an old guy" Denney, I didn't either and I'd like to hear what PaulR sees in them that I'm apparently missing. I confess I didn't look at the entire gallery, I looked at about 10 photographs and of the 10 the only one that struck a chord with me was "St. Petersburg."

I didn't answer because Struan already did such a good job:

"You don't have to like everything. In fact, I find it really useful to think about those canonical or currently successful photographers who do *not* touch me emotionally. The gap between public definitions of art and my own personal response is a very useful place to go looking for clues about myself and my photography.

Friedlander is (IMNSHO) a genius. He hasn't been afraid to try new things, and on the surface at least seems to reinvent himself on a regular shedule, but there is also a tight coherence to everything he does. It's not just the black and white, or the use of square images: there's a formal sense of syncopated composition that runs right through his work from the earliest street photographs to his current tree and car window obsession"

I can't defend his work as fresh in any deductive way; I can only say that no one has shown me the world quite like he has in those landscapes, even though all the individual elements are familiar. Many photographers' work share superficial similarities with his, but none share that spectacular DNA.

I think it's easier to see if you look at large groups of his pictures. Or maybe you just don't agree ...

Darin Boville

13-Oct-2010, 08:53

In most cases, though, I think the idea of naive reading is a red herring. I thought the Times piece itself was naive for not mentioning the fundamental problem with this approach: we always read through the lens of literary theory. Even as a first grader, you approached the books you read with assumptions about how to interpret them. You probably hadn't articulated any kind of coherent theory, but your answers to questions like "what does this mean?" and "how do you know that?" would reveal a world of inherited ideas.

So really, naive reading isn't reading without theory; it's reading with a theory that you're unaware of, and which you therefore haven't questioned or considered as merely one possibility among many. I can't think of any advantage to this kind of naivitée.

Even as a first grader? Are we defining "theory" far too broadly here, Paul? To go from an acknowledgment that we "live in a world of inherited ideas" to claiming that literary theory is already *the* framework for understanding defines "literary theory" far too broadly.

Do you have children, Paul? Have you ever taught someone to read?

What it seems to me you are striving for is a creation myth for theorists: Since children naturally, and unavoidably, see and understand the world through literary theory, than theory therefore is obviously the natural order of things and a reflection of true physical reality.

Blah, blah, blah. :)

Either you've said something foolish or you've defined "theory" into nothingness.

--Darin

rdenney

13-Oct-2010, 10:04

...Or maybe you just don't agree ...

That is a possible conclusion, but I sometimes don't trust myself to run to such conclusions without an attempt at understanding. As Struan said, when someone is getting attention and I just don't see why, it's worth exploring. It may be a bandwagon on which I don't need to jump, or it may be that I'm clueless. But the more (carefully, rather than falsely) thoughtful the passengers on that bandwagon, the less confident I feel about having a clue.

I think your definition of theory-based artistic reception as the alternative to naive reception draws too sharp a line. Receiving art from the perspective of some innate or inherited theory of meaning does not seem to me to constitute the sort of analytical receipt that the proponents of naive receipt oppose. I think what they are saying is that we can play word games with ourselves to the point where it becomes impossible to receive the joy that art can deliver, if we are not careful. That will not affect everyone the same way, of course, and for some, that analytical approach is the joy. As an engineer, I deeply understand that joy. But for others, the machinations of analysis will absolutely rob the art of its emotional impact, and for them art will become dry and joyless. The advice for those who want to enjoy receiving art should perhaps be to be true to their own enjoyment processes. And then the question becomes whether academic study becomes antithetical to the concept of non-analytical enjoyment, or even antithetical to the value of enjoyment without the burden of deep theoretical understanding.

Sometimes, photographs are so much about the point they are making that they fail as photographs. The natural naive response to them is "too preachy!"--and that response is likely to be tempered by the degree of agreement the receiver has with the point being made. Often, the point is trite even if the photographs are not: War is horrible, love is good, youth looks good on anybody, urban decay is ugly, etc. And the biggest one of all for long-time practitioners of the Pretty Rocks School: Rocks are pretty. The most interesting art probably offers a surface message in addition to a deeper message to reward those who consider it more deeply. If I understand the definition correctly, the semiotic question is the mechanism by which photographs can symbolize these points at whatever level. And I think that's where I get stuck trying to understand Friedlander: I can't really ascertain what he is trying to symbolize in a way that suggests a coherent point of view. But I do like the surface symbology. The question for you, though, is that if we can't escape interpreting art through our theoretical filter, even if we have never understood or articulated that filter, then why are you forced to use such generalities in describing why you think Friedlander is a genius? Stated another way, if you can't articulate it, then most of us are going to have a lot of difficulty getting beyond "I like it" or "I don't like it".

Rick "goading Paul" Denney

paulr

13-Oct-2010, 12:54

Even as a first grader? Are we defining "theory" far too broadly here, Paul? To go from an acknowledgment that we "live in a world of inherited ideas" to claiming that literary theory is already *the* framework for understanding defines "literary theory" far too broadly.

Well, a literary theory is a set of ideas about how we derive meaning from a text. Almost every imaginable idea on the subject has been codified and named.

So you can take someone who has no formal knowledge whatsoever about literary theory—as long as they're an advanced enough reader to read a story and come to some understanding of it—and through questions you can ascertain which ideas they subscribe to.

Their ideas will almost all be inherited ones (from parents, teachers, culture at large) but they will fit squarely into some existing literary theory or theories. I promise.

So I don't think I'm being either dim or ridiculous by suggesting that everyone is employing literary theory. Maybe you don't like the idea of calling it a theory if the person who believes it does so naively. That's fine, but I think this is a semantic difference. My point is that concsiously or not, we bring ideas with us when we read, and these ideas profoundly effect how we understand what we read. This is true whether we're aware of this phenomenon or not, or whether we can identify our ideas taxonomically or not.

I'd challenge anyone to propose an approach to understanding a story that hasn't been codified by literary theorists. You'ld have to be thinking pretty far outside the box to come up with something that doesn't already have a name!

paulr

13-Oct-2010, 13:11

I think what they are saying is that we can play word games with ourselves to the point where it becomes impossible to receive the joy that art can deliver, if we are not careful. That will not affect everyone the same way, of course, and for some, that analytical approach is the joy.

Yes, absolutely ... but the issue here isn't theory, it's theory-heads.

I once read a great definition of the nerd: someone who uses the telephone to talk about telephones. You see the same phenomenon in literature and the other arts ... scholars who use theory to talk about theory. I sense that this species is less in vogue now than 10 or 15 years ago, thankfully. If you walked into a graduate lit class dominated by them, and were expecting to talk about stories, you'd think you landed a most unhospitable planet.

But the fact that theory becomes an end in itself for some people doesn't mean that this is an inherent property of theory. Nor is it an inherent result of learning about it. For me theory was about aquiring different sets of tools, and learning their unique abilities and limitations. It also allowed me to question my own assumptions about reading and art, and to put them in a broader context of existing ideas.

It's hard for me to imagine how this could take pleasure out of reading. It has simply allowed a deeper understanding of what I read. And it's helped me broaden the range of books I can enjoy.

Darin Boville

13-Oct-2010, 13:14

Almost every imaginable idea on the subject has been codified and named.

Well, that's what literary theorists *do*--I mean, scientific method certainly isn't the centerpiece of their methodologies...

My point is that concsiously or not, we bring ideas with us when we read, and these ideas profoundly effect how we understand what we read. This is true whether we're aware of this phenomenon or not, or whether we can identify our ideas taxonomically or not.

But isn't that a trivial observation? Does it rise to the level of "theory"? Isn't this along the same lines as the "insight" offered by post-modernists that power structures are revealed by art?

Not to pick on your personally but, really, have you ever taught someone to read?

--Darin

paulr

13-Oct-2010, 13:27

If I understand the definition correctly, the semiotic question is the mechanism by which photographs can symbolize these points at whatever level.

I know less about semiotics than most people who can spell it right three times out of four. I don't see myself as using a semiotic approach to understanding or appreciating photographs. I'm fascinated by semiotics and photography on a kind of meta-level, in that semiotic principles can help distinguish photography from other media in a more meaningful way than other I've encountered ... but that's another topic entirely.

The question for you, though, is that if we can't escape interpreting art through our theoretical filter, even if we have never understood or articulated that filter, then why are you forced to use such generalities in describing why you think Friedlander is a genius? Stated another way, if you can't articulate it, then most of us are going to have a lot of difficulty getting beyond "I like it" or "I don't like it".

That's a great question. My best answer is that I don't claim to understand everything about a photograph in an intellectual or theoretical way. Learned ideas and theoretical frameworks help me see more than I would without them. They work like turning up the lights in a room, or in some cases like being allowed to lean closer, or touch or sniff or look at the work from the back. But in the end, understanding why a particular photograph works or moves me as powerfully as it does often remains a mystery.

Criticism that pretends to explain the the experience deceives itself. Good criticism can help illuminate or amplify or deepen it, but it can't translate it into words.

A better critic than me would make a more convincing case for that Friedlander series. All I can say is that I look at a lot of work in that genre (including my own) and Friedlander's always strikes me as somehow unique. I'll think about it ... maybe i can find something more articulate.

By the way, this phenomenon—the resistance of some art to having its power easily understood—fascinates me. I think it's a quality that's shared by all my favorite art and literature. William Carlos Williams once wrote (I'm paraphrasing), "I want to write poems that you can understand, but you got to try hard." That act of trying—of meeting the artist halfway, of struggling through the woods toward the light—is where much of the beauty is created.

rdenney

13-Oct-2010, 20:48

I know less about semiotics than most people who can spell it right three times out of four. I don't see myself as using a semiotic approach to understanding or appreciating photographs. I'm fascinated by semiotics and photography on a kind of meta-level, in that semiotic principles can help distinguish photography from other media in a more meaningful way than other I've encountered ... but that's another topic entirely.

Looks like four times in a row spelled correctly to me.

Rick "a real good speller" Denney

(The notion of using the symbology of meaning to distinguish photography from other media is indeed quite interesting. And it involves that one unique characteristic of photography--its indexical relationship to the subject. The camera must have been there, but being there does not necessarily overcome obscurity. Interesting. If I start using words like "semiotic" and "indexical" routinely, will I attract women?)

(Oh, and your telephone story is better and more accurate with radio amateurs, most of whom indeed use ham radio to discuss ham radio, with no awareness of how much that identifies them--us--as nerds.)

paulr

13-Oct-2010, 21:26

But isn't that a trivial observation? Does it rise to the level of "theory"?

Yes, I think it does rise to the level of theory. Theories are most often about understanding what already exists, or the ways people already behave. Newton didn't invent gravity; he described it. Same with Freud and the Oedipal complex (Euripides didn't invent it either ...)

Some literary theries may be synthetic and prescriptive (created to get people to read in entirely new ways) but many simply describe the assumptions, habits, and methods of readers throughout the ages.

Not to pick on your personally but, really, have you ever taught someone to read?

No. But I'm not talking about anything relevent to learning reading in the mechanical sense. "Theory" enters into the conversation later, when the reader starts thinking about stories beyond the most literal level. Any time a kid starts finding a moral in a story, for example, they're engaging in interpretation, and are therefore employing some kind of theoretical premise.

But I might want to take back some of what I said earlier. It may be possible to engage a story with no interpretation whatsoever. Like, if you read Jack and the Beanstalk and simply enjoy the action and suspense, and for you it's just about one thing happening after another. I suppose a lot of younger or less educated readers do engage stories this superficially.

In these cases, they still may be affected unconsciously/emotionally by metaphor and allegory and symbol and cultural references. I don't think I'd say that someone's employing a theory when they're reacting passively and unconsciously ... although in these cases theory still probably explains the way the readers' buttons are getting pushed.

Richard Mahoney

13-Oct-2010, 22:32

(The notion of using the symbology of meaning to distinguish photography from other media is indeed quite interesting. And it involves that one unique characteristic of photography--its indexical relationship to the subject. The camera must have been there, but being there does not necessarily overcome obscurity. Interesting. If I start using words like "semiotic" and "indexical" routinely, will I attract women?)

Well I've recently come across an example where individuals seem to be trying to break down these distinctions, or at least to provide `cracked mirror images' which make one wonder whether any distinction is valid. See these for example:

Balthus - Nu au repos (archetype)
http://fr.wahooart.com/A55A04/w.nsf/Opra/BRUE-6WHK4T

Jan Saudek - ditto (photographic reinterpretation of the archetype)
http://www.saudek.com/en/jan/obrazky-na-plochu.html?o=07-wp

Valerie Lamontagne - ditto (archetype combined with photographic reinterpretation)
http://www.valerielamontagne.com/becomingbalthus.html

Oh why have things become so complicated :)

Kind regards,

Richard

Struan Gray

14-Oct-2010, 11:54

...

Brian Ellis

14-Oct-2010, 12:39

I didn't answer because Struan already did such a good job:

"You don't have to like everything. In fact, I find it really useful to think about those canonical or currently successful photographers who do *not* touch me emotionally. The gap between public definitions of art and my own personal response is a very useful place to go looking for clues about myself and my photography.

Friedlander is (IMNSHO) a genius. He hasn't been afraid to try new things, and on the surface at least seems to reinvent himself on a regular shedule, but there is also a tight coherence to everything he does. It's not just the black and white, or the use of square images: there's a formal sense of syncopated composition that runs right through his work from the earliest street photographs to his current tree and car window obsession"

I can't defend his work as fresh in any deductive way; I can only say that no one has shown me the world quite like he has in those landscapes, even though all the individual elements are familiar. Many photographers' work share superficial similarities with his, but none share that spectacular DNA.

I think it's easier to see if you look at large groups of his pictures. Or maybe you just don't agree ...

Thanks for the response. I understand that it's not always possible to explain precisely in so many words why some work is appealing.

You quoted the first two paragraphs of my message in your response but you didn't include my third paragraph. I assume you did see the third paragraph and understand that I wasn't arguing with you or challenging you to defend your opinion of the photographs in question.

paulr

14-Oct-2010, 12:45

Well I've recently come across an example where individuals seem to be trying to break down these distinctions, or at least to provide `cracked mirror images' which make one wonder whether any distinction is valid.

How do these break down or invalidate any distinctions?
They look like examples of hybrid work, which combine photographic and non-photographic elements.

Such cocktails have existed since the earliest days of the medium. Mixing scotch and water may be tacky in some people's eyes, but it does not make the two liquids somehow equivalent.

I think when evaluating manipulated photographs (including the old fashioned hand-painted or hand-composited variety) the semiotic model is a useful way to determine to what degree, if any, the image still has photographic qualities. Is the image still an index? To what extent has the indexical link to the referent been obscured or broken?

Oh why have things become so complicated :)Richard

They always have been, even when we pretended they weren't ;)

Brian C. Miller

14-Oct-2010, 16:45

By the way, this phenomenon—the resistance of some art to having its power easily understood—fascinates me. I think it's a quality that's shared by all my favorite art and literature. William Carlos Williams once wrote (I'm paraphrasing), "I want to write poems that you can understand, but you got to try hard." That act of trying—of meeting the artist halfway, of struggling through the woods toward the light—is where much of the beauty is created.

What effort does a person need to find beauty in a flower? Aside from people who experience anthophobia, there seems to be some hard-wired attraction within people to find beauty in flowers. There is no struggle, it just is, and it is good. Both the novice and the connoisseur are satisfied. When I roast coffee at home, I know the subtleties of the cup. For everyone else, it's just the best coffee they have ever tasted.

So why should any art require a struggle to understand? Isn't that an unnecessary conceit on the artist's behalf? "Art" should distill a concept, not obfuscate it, or even have only a claimed relation to it. Say, like haiku.

Consider these views of haiku (from The Essence of Haiku, as Percieved by Western Haijin, by Max Verhart (http://www.modernhaiku.org/essays/VerhartEssentialHaiku.html)):
"Haiku is a short poem that uses concrete images to convey the essence of an experience of nature or of human situations, communicating layers of meaning of various kinds." -- Kaj Falkman
"For me the essence of haiku resides in the fleeting moment of an observation, an experience which nevertheless sets free a certain stream of thoughts." -- Erika Schwalm
"Haiku is a moment of fleetingness, saved as the eternity of the moment." -- Boris Nazansky

Spring opens the lens
Summer light falls on the film
Winter dark slides shut.

paulr

14-Oct-2010, 17:46

So why should any art require a struggle to understand? Isn't that an unnecessary conceit on the artist's behalf?

Quite the opposite. Because I'm not talking about gratuitous difficulties, intended to stump the viewer. But rather a degree of open-endedness, ambiguity, or disjunct that allows the viewer's participation in order to connect the dots. There's lack of conceit here; the idea being that the beholder always participates in meaning-making (through assumption, mood, interpretation) and that there's something artificial or limiting or even autocratic in an artist trying to take this freedom away.

"Struggle" isn't always the right word, although sometimes it is. "Participation" might be more universally accurate.

I'm not offering this as a postmodern fashion statement; great art has been challenging viewers for millennia. You will find hundreds of volumes of critical discussions on classical poetry and drama. Hundreds on any individual Shakespearean play. The moderns and post-moderns were just more self-conscious about working the process. "I'm at war with the obvious," said Eggleston. Power to him.

For other examples, look at the degree to which Szarkowski allows some of the most (apparently) simple pictures to challenge him in his "Looking at Photographs" book.

"Art" should distill a concept, not obfuscate it, or even have only a claimed relation to it. Say, like haiku.

I'll steal your example. Great haikus are indeed distilled, but they are not easy. They often distill as much interpretive challenge into three lines as has ever been done in literature.

Here are some examples; if they seem simplistic and closed to interpretation, it's because you're opting out of doing the work ;)

Basho (1644-1694):

Passing through the world
Indeed this is just
Sogi's rain shelter.

a cicada shell:
it sang itself
utterly away

Yosa Buson (1716-1783)

coolness-
the sound of the bell
leaving the bell

John NYC

14-Oct-2010, 22:51

Oh why have things become so complicated :)

Richard

You might find this interesting reading...

http://www.amazon.com/Lexicon-Musical-Invective-Composers-Beethovens/dp/039332009X

John NYC

14-Oct-2010, 23:04

What effort does a person need to find beauty in a flower? Aside from people who experience anthophobia, there seems to be some hard-wired attraction within people to find beauty in flowers. There is no struggle, it just is, and it is good. Both the novice and the connoisseur are satisfied.

I do not struggle to find beauty in a decaying building. Honestly. If the picture is done well, it can be very moving to me and say much more than something in nature like a flower because there is a human element present there --- of age and decay and loss -- that I might connect with more on a personal level.

Or not. Depends on the photo. When I see an Ansel Adams photo, I can also lose my breath in awe and joy.

Most importantly, I do not feel I have to choose which one is better. That is a game for people who are always searching for some universal truth in something that doesn't have an associated universal truth.

How is a decaying rock on a beach different than a decaying rock that has been moved and stacked atop another by man to form what is now a crumbling wall? It is one's own mind that makes it different. And that is all. If one decides that this or that is beautiful and another thing is not, one has made that choice internally, not by following some universal law that all agree on. We don't agree.

Struan Gray

15-Oct-2010, 00:13

"Wagner is the Puccini of music."

My favourite bit of criticism, and a relevent Text to this discussion.

As I understand it, classical haikus should contain a tension in the last line, a minor shock that makes you re-think the preceeding lines and the associations they have awakened in you. Felix Feneon used to write "Novels in Three Lines" which worked in a similar way.

In mathematics there is the idea that as you go to higher dimensions you don't just gain possibilities, you lose them as well. From one dimension (a line) to two (a plane) you lose Order, the sense that some things unambiguously lie in front of or behind others. It's why narrative is less-well defined in photographs, and why interpretation as a text often doesn't satisfy: you can't control the progress of the viewers' attention well enough to pull the haiku or three line novel trick.

An exception would be the use of captions, but even then you cannot be certain whether the viewer reads the caption before seeing the photo, or vice versa. Marcus Neis (www.markusneis.de (http://www.markusneis.de/index.php?/ongoing/folgelandschaften/)) - a conceptualist I can stand - creates tension between the rather mundane landscapes he shows us and the fact that they were the sites of definitive battles of European history. It works, but it lacks the light touch of a good haiku. For that to work in pictures, I think, you need to work with shared cultural references, and accept that you automatically limit your audience - or, that you have make the effort to educate them within the frame of the picture.

http://www.paulrussell.info/galleryshow/04.html

PS: Bart Michiels (www.bartmichiels.com (http://www.bartmichiels.com/Course_of_History/courseofhistoryw.html)) does mundane battlefields too - it's already a schtick :-)

paulr

15-Oct-2010, 08:04

I do not struggle to find beauty in a decaying building. Honestly. If the picture is done well, it can be very moving to me and say much more than something in nature like a flower because there is a human element present there --- of age and decay and loss -- that I might connect with more on a personal level.

I feel the same way. But this isn't new or unusual on our parts; finding beauty in decay has been a trope in Western civilization since the Romantics first started gushing over Roman ruins.

But since decay hasn't always been seen as beautiful, this raises the interesting issue of beauty being based on cultural ideas. We may be hard wired to see certain things as beautiful—flowers, the human form—but it's actually very difficult to know for sure if something is innate or just common across cultures for other common reasons.

In some cases we know for sure that the Beautiful is a learned idea. Mountains, for example, were seen by Europeans as the antithesis of beautiful until just a few hundred years ago. Might have something to do with their negative influence on survival back before the skiing and alpinism and tourism industries ...

Anyway. Long-winded way of saying that what's beautiful, what isn't, and what beauty is easy see and what isn't, are all deeply influenced by our cultural circumstances. Which is one reason that the art that a previous generation struggled with often seems obviously awesome in hindsight.

rdenney

15-Oct-2010, 08:57

Anyway. Long-winded way of saying that what's beautiful, what isn't, and what beauty is easy see and what isn't, are all deeply influenced by our cultural circumstances. Which is one reason that the art that a previous generation struggled with often seems obviously awesome in hindsight.

The danger, of course, is using art criticism as a proxy for cultural criticism. I don't like hip-hop music, but is it for aesthetic or cultural reasons? I did consider that, and came to the honest conclusion that it was a bit of both. I found the words hopeless and in some cases abhorrent. But even if the words expressed something profoundly positive to me, I still wouldn't like the music. Even that, though, runs the risk of the music being associated with what I consider to be hopeless and abhorrent words, and changing the words may not be enough to disconnect that association.

So, the struggle and the perception of obvious awesomeness doesn't have to cross a generational divide. Because it is cultural, and because cultures are not monolithic, it crosses cultural boundaries as well.

Yes, the Romantics and Victorians were "into" ruins. Their ruins, though, were not like modern pictures of decaying buildings. Their ruins showed old structural elements (often constructed in their gardens to look old) overgrown by vines and flowers--new growth replacing the old. Old architecture often has that feel of providing some positive connection between past and present. But much modern art that centers on decay seems not at all oriented to the hopeful aspects of old things morphing into new and better things, but rather old things rotting in hopelessness. If hopelessness is a theme--or concept--then the pictures probably should be bleak.

And when I consider why I don't like them, I again have to ask whether my response is primarily cultural or aesthetic. And, again, I conclude that it is a bit of both. My sense of many photographs of decay is that the photographer is wrapped in hopelessness, or that the photographer is blaming someone else for hopelessness. Often, the stuff in the latter group becomes heavy-handed and preachy, but not necessarily. The artist who is himself wrapped in hopelessness may appeal to others who are also hopeless--they "get it". But the hopelessness may utterly drive me away. Not that the artist cares, of course. A hopeless artist may have difficulty caring about anything.

There is a difference in my mind between hopelessness and melancholy, and between melancholy and anger. I tend to enjoy stuff that expresses the latter two emotions, but not the former. Further, my disdain for hopeless art is based partly on my aesthetic sense that it is ugly, and partly on my cultural belief that hopelessness is a "sin". But I think a lot of modern hopeless expression is done by those who think melancholy is merely sentimental, and I share the cultural dislike of mere sentimentality even if I don't share a cultural sense of hopelessness.

And that finally leads me to a clue about Friedlander. His photos really are unsentimental, and perhaps that is the common thread in his work. But they are unsentimental without being hopeless, and maybe that's why I like them.

Rick "who has explored about ten new ways of considering art as a result of this thread" Denney

paulr

15-Oct-2010, 10:28

In mathematics there is the idea that as you go to higher dimensions you don't just gain possibilities, you lose them as well. From one dimension (a line) to two (a plane) you lose Order, the sense that some things unambiguously lie in front of or behind others. It's why narrative is less-well defined in photographs, and why interpretation as a text often doesn't satisfy: you can't control the progress of the viewers' attention well enough to pull the haiku or three line novel trick.

An exception would be the use of captions, but even then you cannot be certain whether the viewer reads the caption before seeing the photo, or vice versa.

The general failure of photography as a narrative medium interests me a lot. Even with captions, it seems that the only way to create a true narrative is to subordinate the image to a position of illustration.

But you can use sequences of images, not so much to create narratives, but generally as you described: to add and (more importantly) subtract possibilities for interpretation.

Any single image could fit into an infinite number of different imaginable groups. Any of these would push you toward a different emphasis and a different idea of what the image is primarily "about." But the group, and the sequence within the group, pushes you toward a particular understanding. It does this both by layering new information and also by narrowing your focus.

paulr

15-Oct-2010, 10:36

The danger, of course, is using art criticism as a proxy for cultural criticism.

I don't know if that's a danger. Art criticism and literary criticism have often been deeply intertwined with cultural criticism. Unsurprisingly, since art and literature are such obvious products of (and commentators on) culture.

It's only some narrow schools of critical theory—like New Criticism in literature or Formalism in visual arts—that attempt look at the work separately from its cultural context or implications.

And that finally leads me to a clue about Friedlander. His photos really are unsentimental, and perhaps that is the common thread in his work. But they are unsentimental without being hopeless, and maybe that's why I like them.

Nice description. I'd say that describes my favorite work from every era.

rdenney

15-Oct-2010, 11:33

I don't know if that's a danger. Art criticism and literary criticism have often been deeply intertwined with cultural criticism. Unsurprisingly, since art and literature are such obvious products of (and commentators on) culture.

Intertwined, yes. But the danger I was expressing was that one would serve as a mask for the other. If I find that the reason I don't like a body of art is because I don't like its cultural perspective, I might still learn something useful from it aesthetically. I do this all the time--there are movies, for example, that I enjoy despite deploring their cultural representation. But I might miss something if I insist my criticism is aesthetic when it fact it is cultural.

I'm thinking of the David Muench thread. It seems to me that some of the comments were framed as aesthetic criticism, when in fact the issue was the "idealist" presentation, appropriate for hyperbolic travel magazines and calendars, rooted more in the advertisement culture than in the culture of artistic integrity. In that thread, I commented that it seemed like aesthetics vs. ethics, but I think I was wrong. The cultural vs. aesthetic distinction might be closer to the mark. I suspect that discussion might have been less contentious had the distinction been expressed more clearly, as it has been in the most recent posts. But they are, as you say, intertwined, and that distinction might be a challenge to unravel.

Rick "exploring well-trod paths as if they are dark territory" Denney

Jack Dahlgren

15-Oct-2010, 12:49

Intertwined, yes. But the danger I was expressing was that one would serve as a mask for the other. If I find that the reason I don't like a body of art is because I don't like its cultural perspective, I might still learn something useful from it aesthetically. I do this all the time--there are movies, for example, that I enjoy despite deploring their cultural representation. But I might miss something if I insist my criticism is aesthetic when it fact it is cultural.

I'm thinking of the David Muench thread. It seems to me that some of the comments were framed as aesthetic criticism, when in fact the issue was the "idealist" presentation, appropriate for hyperbolic travel magazines and calendars, rooted more in the advertisement culture than in the culture of artistic integrity. In that thread, I commented that it seemed like aesthetics vs. ethics, but I think I was wrong. The cultural vs. aesthetic distinction might be closer to the mark. I suspect that discussion might have been less contentious had the distinction been expressed more clearly, as it has been in the most recent posts. But they are, as you say, intertwined, and that distinction might be a challenge to unravel.

Rick "exploring well-trod paths as if they are dark territory" Denney

Where is the culture in pretty rocks?

I'm thinking they are an escape from culture.

Jack "not everyone loves culture" Dahlgren

rdenney

15-Oct-2010, 15:18

Where is the culture in pretty rocks?

I'm thinking they are an escape from culture.

Jack "not everyone loves culture" Dahlgren

There is a difference between culture and Culture. The former is inescapable by even the most misanthropic recluse. In fact, the whole "leave me alone!" culture is a culture. It is the natural context of human interaction, and the desire to share expressions of pretty rocks is absolutely cultural. If it weren't, the apreciation for the rocks would not motivate a desire to share.

Capital-C Culture, in the other hand, is what one seeks to display when spouting the art-speak that motivated this thread. It's what people send their precious children to snooty schools to acquire. Nothing to love there, in my view.

Rick "who just likes art and doesn't mind pondering why" Denney

Jack Dahlgren

15-Oct-2010, 20:50

There is a difference between culture and Culture. The former is inescapable by even the most misanthropic recluse. In fact, the whole "leave me alone!" culture is a culture. It is the natural context of human interaction, and the desire to share expressions of pretty rocks is absolutely cultural. If it weren't, the apreciation for the rocks would not motivate a desire to share.

Capital-C Culture, in the other hand, is what one seeks to display when spouting the art-speak that motivated this thread. It's what people send their precious children to snooty schools to acquire. Nothing to love there, in my view.

Rick "who just likes art and doesn't mind pondering why" Denney

I think your sharp line between "culture" and "Culture" is rhetorical. It can not really be resolved with our powers of observation.

paulr

15-Oct-2010, 23:21

I think your sharp line between "culture" and "Culture" is rhetorical. It can not really be resolved with our powers of observation.

I don't think it's rhetorical at all. I believe what Mr. Denny is saying that photos of rocks are acultural only in that are no cultural artifacts depicted in the frame.

However, all the ideas and esthetic dispositions that led the photographer to photograph those rocks, and the ideas and esthetic dispositions that lead the viewer to his or her reactions to the photograph, are deeply rooted in culture. There's no way out of this.

This is why (to use my example from upthread) a painting of mountains from the 15th century would mean something very different to European viewers from its own time than it would to us. They wouldn't see beauty and unspoiled nature; they'd see the wrath of God.

The color white has traditionally been associated with purity in Western art, and with death in Japanese art.

Even the most basic understanding of landscape has evolved radically over the years. Before the 18th century it meant little more than "background." Between the 17th and mid 19th century, it mostly meant pastoral, tamed, well-ordered land. Only in the late 19th century, starting with Thomas Moran and a few others in the U.S., was completely undeveloped land seen as landscape ... and this was a radical idea. It's the main reason the survey photographers (like O'Sullivan) weren't seen as artists until many decades after they did their work.

Jack Dahlgren

16-Oct-2010, 00:02

I don't think it's rhetorical at all. I believe what Mr. Denny is saying that photos of rocks are acultural only in that are no cultural artifacts depicted in the frame.

However, all the ideas and esthetic dispositions that led the photographer to photograph those rocks, and the ideas and esthetic dispositions that lead the viewer to his or her reactions to the photograph, are deeply rooted in culture. There's no way out of this.

I have no problem with that - just that the sharp distinction he makes between small c and big C culture is not so sharp. I think he is conflating big C culture with pretension.

False dichotomy is a rhetorical trick.

paulr

16-Oct-2010, 09:00

I have no problem with that - just that the sharp distinction he makes between small c and big C culture is not so sharp. I think he is conflating big C culture with pretension.

False dichotomy is a rhetorical trick.

It's not a dicotomy at all, but it's a significant distinction. In some art, culture is the direct subject, in others it is specificallly avoided as a direct subject. Consider the difference between Ansel Adams and Robert Adams.

We tend to see R. Adams' work as cultural criticism in a way that we don't see A. Adams' work—even though A. Adams' work can function indirectly as cultural criticism if you place it in a broader context.

And as with all art, we look at both of their pictures through the lens of own cultural context, which is going to have a strong influence on how we see the work and perceive its relevance.

So when you talk about culture in a piece of artwork, it's helpful to be clear about whether you're speaking broadly (as you can about any art), or specifically, as you can about art that directly shows the products of culture.

Jack Dahlgren

17-Oct-2010, 06:39

It's not a dicotomy at all, but it's a significant distinction. In some art, culture is the direct subject, in others it is specificallly avoided as a direct subject. Consider the difference between Ansel Adams and Robert Adams.

We tend to see R. Adams' work as cultural criticism in a way that we don't see A. Adams' work—even though A. Adams' work can function indirectly as cultural criticism if you place it in a broader context.

And as with all art, we look at both of their pictures through the lens of own cultural context, which is going to have a strong influence on how we see the work and perceive its relevance.

So when you talk about culture in a piece of artwork, it's helpful to be clear about whether you're speaking broadly (as you can about any art), or specifically, as you can about art that directly shows the products of culture.

The point I'm trying to make (it is simple) is that photography can be and often is a mix of the two, neither just a naive product, nor the gag inducing pretension that Rick described. You don't have to choose one.

paulr

17-Oct-2010, 10:23

The point I'm trying to make (it is simple) is that photography can be and often is a mix of the two, neither just a naive product, nor the gag inducing pretension that Rick described. You don't have to choose one.

It may be simple but I don't get it. For one thing, I don't know what gag-inducing pretension you're talking about. If by pretension you mean "complexity" or "depth" then maybe we're on the same page.

Whether something is simple or complex is generally less a question of the thing itself than about how we choose to look at it or frame it.

Someone picking up a cup of tea and sipping it, for example—you could look at it as a simple gesture. Or you could put it in a sociological context and compare it to different mores and rituals. Or you could look at it like a neurologist and describe it in hundreds of pages and 3-dimensional graphs ...

Different tools, different perspectives, different purposes.

rdenney

17-Oct-2010, 13:39

I have no problem with that - just that the sharp distinction he makes between small c and big C culture is not so sharp. I think he is conflating big C culture with pretension.

False dichotomy is a rhetorical trick.

The context your complaint was that my description of culture was that which could and should be avoided. The culture of which I was writing cannot be avoided at all--it is built into the context by which we view subjects and are motivated to express that view. When people say that they desire to avoid culture, they usually mean the sort of cultural responses being imposed on them by a cultural elite with whom they do not agree. Perhaps I misunderstood you. I don't think the culture of which I was speaking can be avoided, though some cultural constructs can be preferred over others.

Rick "accusations of rhetorical trickery is a rhetorical trick" Denney

Jack Dahlgren

17-Oct-2010, 20:03

Paul,

This is the polarization of culture I'm arguing against.

"Capital-C Culture, in the other hand, is what one seeks to display when spouting the art-speak that motivated this thread. It's what people send their precious children to snooty schools to acquire."

Rather than being one of those people who says this kind of thing is good and that kind is bad I'm with Sturgeon and would suggest that 90% of everything is crap.

Jack "all rhetoric is trickery" Dahlgren

rdenney

18-Oct-2010, 04:28

Rather than being one of those people who says this kind of thing is good and that kind is bad I'm with Sturgeon and would suggest that 90% of everything is crap.

Anarchy is not the answer.

By the way, saying things like "all rhetoric is trickery" and "90% of everything is crap" is itself profoundly cultural. Even iconoclasm is a cultural context, and one shared by many people who think nothing can be gained from discussing ideas. I suppose the alternative is to throw rocks at one another. Which is why anarchy is not the answer.

Rick "channeling Doc Sarvis" Denney

paulr

18-Oct-2010, 15:54

Paul,

This is the polarization of culture I'm arguing against.

"Capital-C Culture, in the other hand, is what one seeks to display when spouting the art-speak that motivated this thread. It's what people send their precious children to snooty schools to acquire."

Now I really don't see your point. This definition of culture-with-a-capital-C is yours from a previous post, and has nothing to do with the point Rick is making—which is about two distinct uses of a word, and not about polarization.

You're knocking down a straw man here, which I suppose is an example of rhetoric being trickery ...

Jack Dahlgren

18-Oct-2010, 16:06

Now I really don't see your point. This definition of culture-with-a-capital-C is yours from a previous post, and has nothing to do with the point Rick is making—which is about two distinct uses of a word, and not about polarization.

You're knocking down a straw man here, which I suppose is an example of rhetoric being trickery ...

No, that quote is from Rick. It was the distinction HE was making.
I don't agree with it.
Looks like you don't either.
Maybe it was just a throwaway line?

Is there any more to be said?

-Jack "prolly not" Dahlgren

paulr

18-Oct-2010, 16:55

rdenney

18-Oct-2010, 23:00

Apologies. I didn't recognize it out of context.

Rick, why don't you clarify which uses of the word "culture" you're talking about. I don't want to sit here and put words in your mouth. I had a pretty good idea I knew what you meant and that I agreed with you ...

Again, when people complain about culture as being something to be shunned, they are usually talking about what other people think of as culture; people with whom they disagree. Based on the quote below, that's how I interpreted what he said--a complaint about those who would define (and discuss in threads like this) their own refined tastes as Culture while defining the taste of others otherwise.

Where is the culture in pretty rocks?

I'm thinking they are an escape from culture.

Jack "not everyone loves culture" Dahlgren

I took this to mean Jack was opposed to culture as an establishment, and had confused that with culture as the context of artistic interaction, which is how we have been discussing it.

Jack might have meant that because rocks are utterly non-human, they cannot be cultural as subjects. That was your interpretation, as I understand it. You rightly countered that the culture is not a subject, but rather the context of both the artist and the viewer in determining what subjects are worthy as art (and what those subjects mean).

So, maybe both of us were putting words into Jack's mouth. In our defense, he wasn't making it easy, heh.

But on rereading Jack's comment (and with the benefit of his subsequent comments, even the uncharitable ones), I think he was defining culture as the context of human interaction, and pretty rocks are an antidote for human interaction. This was my second interpretation, and I would agree except for the desire to photograph them, which can only have the purpose of sharing them with others. And that sharing is as much a matter of culture as is the context within which the artist and viewer might interpret that subject.

Rick "figuring Jack probably really meant we just talk too much" Denney

paulr

18-Oct-2010, 23:26

Ok, got it. So the passage of yours that Jack quoted was basically caricature.

You were saying, in a sense, that those who use rock photos as anti-culture are themselves a culture.

This is a little different from what I was saying (you pretty much nailed it in your last post) ... I think these are just different perspectives on the same set of issues, and are perfectly compatible. But I was definitely putting some words in your mouth, so sorry for that.

I don't think we put words in Jack's mouth (not counting the quote I misatributed to him) ... I'm still honestly don't understand his objection is to your original idea. Or to my variation on your idea.

If it's that we talk too much, maybe it's because this isn't a good forum for dancing.

Jack Dahlgren

18-Oct-2010, 23:51

Again, when people complain about culture as being something to be shunned, they are usually talking about what other people think of as culture; people with whom they disagree. Based on the quote below, that's how I interpreted what he said--a complaint about those who would define (and discuss in threads like this) their own refined tastes as Culture while defining the taste of others otherwise.

I took this to mean Jack was opposed to culture as an establishment, and had confused that with culture as the context of artistic interaction, which is how we have been discussing it.

Jack might have meant that because rocks are utterly non-human, they cannot be cultural as subjects. That was your interpretation, as I understand it. You rightly countered that the culture is not a subject, but rather the context of both the artist and the viewer in determining what subjects are worthy as art (and what those subjects mean).

So, maybe both of us were putting words into Jack's mouth. In our defense, he wasn't making it easy, heh.

But on rereading Jack's comment (and with the benefit of his subsequent comments, even the uncharitable ones), I think he was defining culture as the context of human interaction, and pretty rocks are an antidote for human interaction. This was my second interpretation, and I would agree except for the desire to photograph them, which can only have the purpose of sharing them with others. And that sharing is as much a matter of culture as is the context within which the artist and viewer might interpret that subject.

Rick "figuring Jack probably really meant we just talk too much" Denney

Now I have to figure out what I meant...

I generally agree with both of you. There is definitely a culture of pretty rock photography and before then a culture of pretty rocks which goes back centuries in China and in Japanese gardens. Of course there are a bunch of rules for those pretty rocks, but I think that perhaps the impulse behind them is not far removed from photos of pretty rocks (or vice versa).

I would also agree that without some understanding of culture, art is often not fully enjoyed. Sir Bannister Fletcher when confronted with architecture from Asian countries dubbed it "ahistorical" and devoted a chapter or so out of his "History of Architecture" to it. Apparently those traditions were too far out of his culture for him to recognize or appreciate.

Culture can be native to the extent that it is unnoticed or it can be established and shared and as you have noted codified and elevated to a ridiculous degree. It is something that makes us human. Of course at times (the extremes) it makes humans look incredibly stupid as well. Faced with unfamiliar culture there are those, who like Bannister Fletcher ignore what they don't understand, or malign it, or retreat from it. I would hardly put either you or Paul in that category.

The pretty rocks phenomenon (or worse, hot air balloons over a reflecting lake) does have some elements of escapism. But it is completely reasonable to argue that contemporary culture IS escapist to a tremendous degree. I'm more of a pretty leaves guy though so I'm not 100% certain about the motivation of pretty rock photographers. I do have some strong suspicions about long exposure waterfall people though.

There is also a culture of dry humor - sometimes too dry in that it stings the eyes like blowing dust - which is not always appreciated or recognized, but is irresistible to its practitioners. So if you think I'm uncharitable, please understand it is not really meant that way. Or maybe it is.

So... I think that is sort of what I meant to say. I'll argue against myself if it keeps the discussion going.

Jack "putting phrases in my sig since the last millennium" Dahlgren

rdenney

19-Oct-2010, 00:40

Jack "putting phrases in my sig since the last millennium" Dahlgren

As was I. I learned it from two practitioners more expert than myself: Maddy Page (RIP), Terror Queen of Alt.folklore.urban, the online horror movie for those who drew conclusions without having done even minimal research, and Sheldon Brown (also RIP), bicycle guru who learned machine work from--small world--S. K. Grimes.

Rick "internym goes here" Denney

Jack Dahlgren

19-Oct-2010, 01:05

As was I. I learned it from two practitioners more expert than myself: Maddy Page (RIP), Terror Queen of Alt.folklore.urban, the online horror movie for those who drew conclusions without having done even minimal research, and Sheldon Brown (also RIP), bicycle guru who learned machine work from--small world--S. K. Grimes.

Rick "internym goes here" Denney

Usenet RIP.

paulr

19-Oct-2010, 09:28

Culture can be native to the extent that it is unnoticed or it can be established and shared and as you have noted codified and elevated to a ridiculous degree. It is something that makes us human. Of course at times (the extremes) it makes humans look incredibly stupid as well.

I like the idea that both extreme self consciouness and extreme lack of it make us stupid!

The pretty rocks phenomenon (or worse, hot air balloons over a reflecting lake) does have some elements of escapism. But it is completely reasonable to argue that contemporary culture IS escapist to a tremendous degree.

I'm not convinced that escapism is always bad. I think it's questionable if the only art (or activity, or relationship ...) that a person is drawn to is escapist, but we all need our escapes.

For me it's more a question of where the escape leads us—someplace so familiar that we are immersed in thoughts and feelings we've had a hundred times before, or someplace revelatory? Pictures of rocks can do either; contrast Weston with Weston-clone #6 million on Flickr.

I think it's just much harder to do something interesting (escapist or otherwise) while working inside the bounds of a very old and familiar genre.

Jack Dahlgren

19-Oct-2010, 09:55

I like the idea that both extreme self consciouness and extreme lack of it make us stupid!

I'm not convinced that escapism is always bad. I think it's questionable if the only art (or activity, or relationship ...) that a person is drawn to is escapist, but we all need our escapes.

For me it's more a question of where the escape leads us—someplace so familiar that we are immersed in thoughts and feelings we've had a hundred times before, or someplace revelatory? Pictures of rocks can do either; contrast Weston with Weston-clone #6 million on Flickr.

I think it's just much harder to do something interesting (escapist or otherwise) while working inside the bounds of a very old and familiar genre.

I don't think escapism is all bad either. As you say it depends where the escape leads us.

For me, getting out and taking photographs leads me to interesting places. It is enough for me most of the time. Most of my photographs don't "say" all that much. This one for example might fit in the pretty rock school:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4864823483_427c7ebfed_b.jpg
except that it is a bit messy. It is more about texture than line or form, so I think I'm the only one who likes it, and likely because it reminds me of the sunny late afternoon when I took it.

I could style it as the death mask of millions of bivalves. Those clam's were someone's great-grandmothers. Or perhaps it is just a precursor to some future photographer's portrait of a limestone crag.

John NYC

19-Oct-2010, 17:05

I could style it as the death mask of millions of bivalves. Those clam's were someone's great-grandmothers. Or perhaps it is just a precursor to some future photographer's portrait of a limestone crag.

Just like there is bad and good of any kind of representational art, there is bad and good conceptual art. I do not believe the best artists would do what you are implying -- that is, take a picture of something and decide post facto how they could sell it as conceptual art.

There is plenty of bad conceptual art. The trick is -- if you are interested in looking at it at all -- trying to find the things that move you and that you admire and respect. And, in that, it is no different than any other kind of art.

Garry Madlung

26-Oct-2010, 09:06

Having an MFA in painting and having observed the art industry, I can understand their motivation.

The theory of art has eclipsed art. Or perhaps art history has eclipsed art. We've raced along trying to compete with history - trying to mimic and become history. Or perhaps we've tried to interpret it as inadequate so that we can demonstrate how we are superior. (The use of "we" is directed towards the art industry.)

This has created a need to market/package/sell the idea, and art is being generated according to shtick. There is a perception that it must be explained before it is produced. Artists are becoming theoreticians rather than practitioners. Your brain runs in circles following the logic. ("ok, I get it now")

(There is a line in a Woody Allen movie where two artist are talking. One says, "If I can get some money, I'll work on a concept. Then if I can get some more money, I'll turn that concept into an idea.")

It's not about artistic passion or some kind of exploration or learning to see (imagine using our eyes!!), and if your packaging doesn't suit an agenda, you are ignored. Art has to somehow fit into a 'current' or 'discourse'. Once an artist gains acceptance from a critic/writer, their work is suddenly 'relevant'.

As more traditional photographers, we don't dismissed contemporary art. There is a lot of worthwhile work being done. I am actually fascinated by some conceptual art, but it's logic can't be too deliberate. Like too much Stephen Wright, the brain can run into overload (I'm relieved that he doesn't do encores).

I'm also not making a critique on the work of the artist referred to in the link in the original post - just the art industry in general . It seems apparent that some theory is based on positioning our large format work as being dated and irrelevant.

I still make photo-based abstracts that have a slight conceptual angle, but I consider them to be a visual experience not a mental exercise. An instructor of mine once said that I have a "way of making things look good". I took that as a compliment though he might not have meant it as such.

When on a backpacking trip photographing landscapes, I am dealing directly with my environment, not the art world. Whatever theory I could apply to my work is pointless. If I don't watch my step, I might roll an ankle, and if I don't hang my food in a tree a bear will steal it.

Oh yes, there is some physical effort involved.