The role of education in the art of photography [Archive]

Brian K

15-Jun-2011, 05:15

We're lucky to have any art in schools. The whole enterprise is threatened by political interests that see the arts inessential. The result is going to be kids in wealthy districts and private schools getting arts education while no one else does.

And why do they view the arts as inessential? Let's say you're a member of congress, or a member of your state senate, or a member of the local school board, and you just went to a museum and saw a show of contemporary work, work that looks like it was done by a 10 year old, or worse still, you see Serrano's "Piss Christ" or some other often considered offensive work, just how motivated are you going to be to fund the NEA, or that statewide art program, or hire that art teacher over a math or science teacher when test scores are dropping?

The average person today views much of what the art world is pushing as bull shit. Hell, I went to art school, taught art school and made my living in art for 35 years and view much of it as bull shit, so what do you think some farmer, factory worker, admin, or firefighter is going to think? And you can argue that they are stuck in the traditional notions of beauty and that they just don't get it, but they know what they like, they know what they value, and they're not going to pay for something they view as frivolous when their roads are crumbling, their jobs are at risk and they can't pay for their healthcare.

When the politicians and general public viewed the creation of art as a valued skill, that it's perpetuation and support benefitted our society, it was easy to fund it. But now it's often viewed as silly and superfluous.

Brian K

15-Jun-2011, 05:47

My art education started in High School, junior year. I had previously played with photography but never considered the art aspects of it. My school then had classes in all the arts except glass blowing. I took a sculpture class. My teacher was a painter but was well versed in the other arts. He started me sculpting in stone.

Carving stone requires patience, something I was lacking, but knowing that rushing the work could lead to a catastrophic failure, literally cracking the stone in two, I had to learn patience. In my sculpture class there was a group that was seriously dedicated to the work. We'd call ourselves the sculpture club. We would stay late after school to work on our pieces, we'd cut classes to work on our pieces, it was the first real commitment I ever had to anything. The group would go to museums and galleries, our conversations, if they weren't about girls, would be about art.

My first stone took about 2 months to complete. I couldn't wait to start on my second.
By now I had bought my own tools, (I still have them) and was getting the hang of it. My photographs were starting to change at this time. They were more thoughtful, and I was spending more time on them as well and it was showing in the work.

There were advantages to being in the sculpture club, cutting classes being the biggest. But this perk came only because of one thing, the National Scholastics Art Competition. Apparently for 2 years running a sculpture student from my school would win a medal in this competition and apparently it was a big deal. The principal would have the winning piece appear in his office after it came back from being exhibited and he was quite proud that this average NYC public school was now considered quite highly for it's arts programs, and he too would bask in the glow of it. So we had perks. Cutting classes, staying past school closing, coming in on weekends to work, we pretty much could do what we wanted.

In my senior year, the principal called a special session in the auditorium, actually two sessions, as the auditorium could only hold half of the 5200 students at any one time, the purpose, to announce that again we had won National Scholastics medals.
I did not attend this, I was already working as an intern through a high school program, I was in Manhattan assisting 4 advertising and editorial photographers. The announcement that I missed, I had won a National Scholastics Gold medal.

That internship program that directly led to my becoming a photographer, gone. That sculpture program, gone. Most of those art classes, gone. They still have a football team, they still have a baseball team, they still maintain a huge athletic field. But almost no arts.

If there had been a public outcry against cutting those programs maybe they'd still be in existence. But apparently the arts aren't appreciated as much as football.

As for my art teacher, we've been friends for a long time. And whenever he and his wife visit NY, which is often, we seem them.

bob carnie

15-Jun-2011, 05:48

I walked into photography- Fanshawe College - three year photography program in the fall of 1973.

Two months earlier I was setting chokers in a High Lead Logging camp on Vancouver Island. I had never taken a photograph before grabbing the required Minolta 35 to do the course.

Immediately the head of the program wanted to throw me out as I had zero background in the arts and did not belong. Fortunately a teacher by the name of Don Dunsmore, worked with me , encouraged me, introduced me to some of his friends- Stevan Livik being one notable person, I barely passed first year but from then on I have been hooked on photography and have been lucky enough to place my printing in some of the worlds nicest Museums and private collections and hopefully a lot more.

My take is a good teacher is one who gives you the confidence/encouragement to continue on and does not immediately peg you as a loser and talks over your head.

Ash

15-Jun-2011, 06:23

Education has allowed me to know "how" and "why". I totally rely on art history to contextualise what I'm doing, whether it is justification to myself or to someone else. However as a result none of my work is good enough to the standards I compare it to.

15-Jun-2011, 07:17

I'd consider my public school art education to be sort of see what your options are for mediums and see who is actually creative.

Grade school was mostly crayon/marker/paint/glue/construction paper; have fun making rainbows, resemblences of people, cars, boats, animals, etc...

Jr.High we actually got to do dangerous stuff we wouldn't be able to do now. We did woodcut blocks with sharp tools. I thought that was great fun. Did some photograms in the darkroom. When we told the teacher is was sort of simplistic doing shadows of things on photo paper, we were told a person named Man Ray did it with great art success. We did some batik, tie dye, and some other crafty things. In industrial arts, we used a router and chisels to carve letters, cast lead with acetylene torches, and other dangerous activities.

In high school, we had to take I think one year of art class during our 4 years, be it something music or something painting/drawing/photography. Photography was popular. As everyone is not artistic, and everyone was required to have art credit to graduate, there was plenty of generosity in terms of art skills or allowing a lack thereof. It didn't include much for history. This was 1993 and we shot photos with k1000's and developed them in a school darkroom. It was a mix of technique, journalism, self-expression. Lots of people liked the class, but never ended up being serious amateurs or pros. By that time, I was already serious about photography and didn't do much in the class if it wasn't for helping friends along. I'd pull a negative I'd already shot and print it to satisfy an assignment. New photos for the class, I'd shoot and develop along with my other stuff so I didn't have to fight for darkroom time or used up chemicals. It was a fun class, but the art aspect was mostly here's the tools and DIY. The teacher practiced painting, photography and other media outside of class and was indeed skilled and loved her job.

In private college, I took art history and photo history courses. I like history and I like photography. These were great and the focus was on history and understanding rather than technique. I think the professor was not an artist or photographer though, but was a student of art history who became a professional student who became a professional teacher. You need such knowledgeable and affluent people though who are interested in art, but not artists to promote and collect art. It's kinda like I really like piano music, but I'm not talented at piano or at any musical instrument. There's certain things we all appreciate but aren't cut out to do.

paulr

15-Jun-2011, 08:28

And why do they view the arts as inessential? Let's say you're a member of congress, or a member of your state senate, or a member of the local school board, and you just went to a museum and saw a show of contemporary work, work that looks like it was done by a 10 year old, or worse still, you see Serrano's "Piss Christ" or some other often considered offensive work, just how motivated are you going to be to fund the NEA, or that statewide art program, or hire that art teacher over a math or science teacher when test scores are dropping?

This argument's a hundred years old and I don't buy it. Legislators who like the arts in principle but who don't like what they see in museums would come to an entirely different conclusiont: improve art education, don't banish it.

As it is now, we have a growing sentiment that's anti-intellectual, anti-elite, anti-urban, anti-reason, and (connectedly) anti-art, with minor allowances made for certain kinds of kitsch that reinforce parochial views.

Europe, Japan, and Canada aren't experiencing the kinds of broad, government rejections of art education (or funding ... but that's another topic) that we have here, but the art on their walls is essentially the same as ours.

And you can argue that they are stuck in the traditional notions of beauty and that they just don't get it, but they know what they like, they know what they value...

Just like without education in English they'd never move past being able to read Peter Rabbit. You're just making a stronger case for competent art education, as far as I'm concerned.

paulr

15-Jun-2011, 08:34

Art practice is part of it but art appreciation is at least as important. Taking kids to museums, to the symphony, to see experimental music, architecture, public art, etc. etc..

Part of this is just to open the kids' minds. A big part of it, especially when dealing with less privileged kids, is sending the message that this stuff is for them, too. You'd be amazed at how many things send them the message that it isn't.

Schools generally have entrenched programs for literature. It's curious to me that English class (once it moves past the nuts and bolts of grammar and composition) isn't more widely seen as what it is: literary arts appreciation. There are reasons I'd like to see it split off from composition, except that this would likely put it under the magnifying glass of the funding-cutters.

Drew Wiley

15-Jun-2011, 08:36

Don't kid yourself. The second wealthiest zip code in No. Cal wouldn't even pass a bond measure to fix leaky public school roofs, and was the first to lay off art and music teachers, over a decade before the recession even hit. Something like a million plus per household income = skinflints. Money and cultivation aren't the same thing.

paulr

15-Jun-2011, 08:48

Don't kid yourself. The second wealthiest zip code in No. Cal wouldn't even pass a bond measure to fix leaky public school roofs, and was the first to lay off art and music teachers, over a decade before the recession even hit.

I get it. I don't think money is the reason for this; It's just increasingly the excuse. The issue is cultural values.

This being said, poorer communities get hit hardest and fastest in general. If you did a national survey of arts programs in schools, I'm sure you'd find strong correlations with money.

Drew Wiley

15-Jun-2011, 09:41

Society is a strange thing, Paul. Even in a world-class university like UCB here, guess
has has the highest income (by a factor of two to one): the Chancellor, one of the
numerous nobel-prize laureates, or the football coach?

Brian K

15-Jun-2011, 10:26

This argument's a hundred years old and I don't buy it. Legislators who like the arts in principle but who don't like what they see in museums would come to an entirely different conclusiont: improve art education, don't banish it.

As it is now, we have a growing sentiment that's anti-intellectual, anti-elite, anti-urban, anti-reason, and (connectedly) anti-art, with minor allowances made for certain kinds of kitsch that reinforce parochial views.

Europe, Japan, and Canada aren't experiencing the kinds of broad, government rejections of art education (or funding ... but that's another topic) that we have here, but the art on their walls is essentially the same as ours.

Just like without education in English they'd never move past being able to read Peter Rabbit. You're just making a stronger case for competent art education, as far as I'm concerned.

"In 1989, Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association held a press conference attacking what he called "anti-Christian bigotry," in an exhibition by photographer Andres Serrano. The work at the center of the controversy was Piss Christ, a photo of a plastic crucifix submerged in a vial of an amber fluid described by the artist as his own urine. Republican Senators Jesse Helms and Al D'Amato began to rally against the NEA, and expanded the attack to include other artists. Prominent conservative Christian figures including Pat Robertson of the 700 Club and Pat Buchanan joined the attacks. Republican representative Dick Armey, an opponent of federal arts funding, began to attack a planned exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe at the Corcoran Museum of Art that was to receive NEA support.
On June 12, 1989, The Corcoran cancelled the Mapplethorpe exhibition. Museum director Christina Orr-Cahill said she did not want to imperil the NEA's future funding allocation. Orr-Cahill was criticized and picketed by artists, civil liberties activists, and gay leaders for her act of censorship; she later apologized."

What's wrong with those people? They can't appreciate a photo of their most cherished religious symbol sitting in urine? What philistines!!

The simple reality is that the governments, Federal, state and local, fund what the voters want. If the majority of voters think that art is a waste or they don't care about it, it doesn't get funded. Period. Legislators, school boards, etc. prioritize funding based on the wishes of their constituents. And the way in which the arts are funded clearly demonstrates that people see little value in art today.

And yes there's growing sentiment that's anti intellectual, and when it comes to art, that is because the trend in art has been over intellectualized. Most people don't want a lengthy essay on why that picture is significant, they want the picture itself to show them and that is what contemporary art has lost. And that is what is alienating a large portion of our society away from the arts.

You show them an Ansel Adams, or a Norman Rockwell and they'll say it's art, you show them a Friedlander and they won't know what they're looking at. You tell them that a Richard Prince photograph of a photograph of a Marlboro Man ad, sold for a million, and they'll think it's the stupidest thing, or the biggest scam out there. Yet some curator will explain in language that most people can't understand why a copy of a photo is worth 1000 times more than the original. And those listening will still think it's just a scam or that curator is a fool.

The reality is clear, most people in the US no longer value art, or at least not enough to fund it or pay to educate people about it. You choose to blame the people, because they are anti intellectual, but they are the majority and they control the purse strings, and who's to say that they aren't actually right? I choose to blame the art and the art world, because IT alienated the people. If you own a restaurant and lose the majority of your customers because they don't like the food, it's THEIR fault?????

Drew Wiley

15-Jun-2011, 10:48

The NEA has always seemed to me to be overly influenced by what looks good on a
resume. It's inherent to the process. You apply for a grant with a hypothetical idea
and they respond to it conceptually or not. A little more involved than that of course;
but the whole system is skewed to being baited. We live in a free society and artists
can do pretty much what they please; but who should pay for this is another thing.
At one time public funding went to things of public interest, like WPA murals and so forth (though much of this work was considered deeply politically sensitive in its own era). By contrast, I've seen quite a bit of grant work which was visually very weak and
suceeded only on paper, as a novel idea. Then there have been people like AA who
had a significant role in the very existence of certain natl parks and who were contracted to illustrate features of these landscapes in public venues - that makes sense. But someone who gets artsy just because the work offends the public - OK, but
let them pay for it with their own money or private money, not mine. Some of the things shown around here have pretty well crossed the line even into pornographic -
why should any public money or facilities go for that kind of thing?

paulr

15-Jun-2011, 11:21

The NEA has always seemed to me to be overly influenced by what looks good on a resume. It's inherent to the process. You apply for a grant with a hypothetical idea and they respond to it conceptually or not.

How do you know this? Have you ever talked to one of the artists who sat on the jury?

If you have it must have been a while ago; the NEA hasn't given grants to individuals (outside of a couple of specialized programs, like Jazz Masters) in fifteen years.

I have friends who have been jurors for both the New York Foundation of the Arts and the Brooklyn Arts Council individual grants. They've been serious artists, and while most of them have had academic training none were academics. The selection process they described was rigorous, and was not rooted in any particular conceptual dogma. It was based mostly on the art they saw, and partly on the projects proposed for funding.

Some of the things shown around here have pretty well crossed the line even into pornographic -why should any public money or facilities go for that kind of thing?

"Pornography" is one of the oldest rhetorical expressions in this kind of debate. It's the classic idea defined by "I don't know how to define it but I know it when I see it" ... in other words, prejudice. Among works that have been attacked on grounds of pornography are DH Lawrence's Lady Chaterly's Lover, Ginsberg's Howl, and Joyce's Ulysses.

I don't want to suggest that this is just a 20th Century phenomenon ... at least half a dozen of Shakespeare's plays were censored for indecency; as was the Venus de Milo and Michelangelo's David and Last Judgment fresco.

For me the problem is that the most conservative (read: small-minded) voices tend to ring the loudest. Art that is incapable of offending anyone, that is attractive and accessible to everyone, even if such a thing could exist, would likely be so bland and retrograde that we'd be hard pressed to justify paying for it at all. I do not want a future where the most restrictive and backwards ideas possible are the ones that determine funding policies. If people can't relate to what the most creative and forward looking people are making, then I'd want to deal with it by educating the people rather than dumbing down the art.

paulr

15-Jun-2011, 11:34

On the topic of the NEA, I think the decision to only direct its funds to state and local arts organizations is a smart one, even if it was mandated by an art-hostile congress. It keeps the same funds flowing, but it puts the decisions of taste and judgment closer to the level of the communities that will actually see the art.

This won't stop gas-bag religious senators from causing a stink over it, but nothing will. Piss Christ, for example, won a contest from a California arts organization that received some funding from the NEA. But the NEA itself did not give Serrano an individual thumbs-up.

My thoughts on the whole issue are best summed up here (http://www.theonion.com/articles/republicans-dadaists-declare-war-on-art,858/).

Brian K

15-Jun-2011, 11:38

Art that is incapable of offending anyone, that is attractive and accessible to everyone, even if such a thing could exist, would likely be so bland and retrograde that we'd be hard pressed to justify paying for it at all

Bland by YOUR aesthetic tastes, which happen to be in a minority. What about those of us who think that a fair amount of the work being praised by the academia of art is pointless and lacks any visible merit? Why are we supposed to swallow whole YOUR vision of art?

If people can't relate to what the most creative and forward looking people are making, then I'd want to deal with it by educating the people rather than dumbing down the art.

Creativity is also a matter of opinion. What you consider creative and forward thinking many others would consider boring or pointless. And as for "educating the people", there are many educated people, and educated in art specifically who don't think the work you champion has value. So why is it that WE need some sort of additional education to be able to understand why the art you like is so valuable? Maybe YOU or those you support should be educated in how to create art that does not require a written explanation to be able to enjoy? And maybe that is the problem. They have been educated to produce art that only those who have undergone a similar "education" can enjoy.

And the fact is, that as our general society has clearly demonstrated with it's pocketbook, it does not seem to value what art has become today.

cyrus

15-Jun-2011, 11:59

The average person today views much of what the art world is pushing as bull shit.

Dogs playing pool, painted on black velvet.
Now, THAT's ART! :p

paulr

15-Jun-2011, 12:00

Bland by YOUR aesthetic tastes, which happen to be in a minority. What about those of us who think that a fair amount of the work being praised by the academia of art is pointless and lacks any visible merit? Why are we supposed to swallow whole YOUR vision of art?

You're not. Who cares about my vision of art? The vision of art that's being challenged is not mine nor is it a minority vision; it's a whole range of visions held by people who have studied art the most: art historians, critics, curators, and artists. The people who curate the major collections and sit on the grant juries are selected from these pools. As they should be. Who do we want making these decisions ... the people who know the most or the people who know the least?

And the fact is, that as our general society has clearly demonstrated with it's pocketbook, it does not seem to value what art has become today.

I don't know where you get this stuff. If you spend a few minutes researching what's actually been happening on Earth (http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Museum-attendance-rises-as-the-economy-tumbles/19840), you'll find that museum attendance is up (in spite of increasing admission fees and broad economic woes). Art prices have been rising at a higher rate than inflation for many decades, with bumps and dips that pretty well follow the broader economy.

You seem to be projecting your own opinions on "the average person" and "our general society," when I really only see it echoed by church groups and a handful of the most vocal conservative legislators.

Brian K

15-Jun-2011, 12:48

You're not. Who cares about my vision of art? The vision of art that's being challenged is not mine nor is it a minority vision; it's a whole range of visions held by people who have studied art the most: art historians, critics, curators, and artists. The people who curate the major collections and sit on the grant juries are selected from these pools. As they should be. Who do we want making these decisions ... the people who know the most or the people who know the least?

I don't know where you get this stuff. If you spend a few minutes researching what's actually been happening on Earth (http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Museum-attendance-rises-as-the-economy-tumbles/19840), you'll find that museum attendance is up (in spite of increasing admission fees and broad economic woes). Art prices have been rising at a higher rate than inflation for many decades, with bumps and dips that pretty well follow the broader economy.

You seem to be projecting your own opinions on "the average person" and "our general society," when I really only see it echoed by church groups and a handful of the most vocal conservative legislators.

What's actually happening on Earth and why museum visitation is up is based on an increase in "Staycations", which in the article you posted was stated by the director of the Museum of Contemporary art in Chicago, and a 4% annual increase in international tourism to the US. When you travel on a vacation, do you visit the local museums? I do, I was in Boston 2 weeks ago, one of my stops? The Boston MOMA. Which by the way had lovely shows of Chihuly glass, Impressionists and modernist photography (Ansel, Weston, Sheeler), no Freidlander and certainly no Serrano. Hmm I wonder in order to keep the doors open if museums are appealing to those parochial and bland tastes that you refer to?

And what type of fare is drawing the crowds? A Frank Lloyd Wright retrospective at the Guggenheim, A visiting show from the Louvre, not exactly the new topographics. Also helping some museum's attendance was the opening of long awaited expansions.

And don't attribute the gains that SOME museums have seen as being due to the type of work being discussed here, as gains and losses in attendance occurred at museums showing both contemporary or traditional art. And even the contemporary museums are running more popular and easy to view works. Pandering to those poor dumb masses?

As for art prices rising, how have your sales been? Have you raised your prices lately? Maybe art is selling at the big auction houses for ever increasing rates, but nearly every gallery owner I know, will state that things have not been all that wonderful the last few years. And many long established and very reputable galleries have closed.

As for my "projections" I'm beginning to think that you're blind. Art programs are closing in schools all over America, all that is required to prove that is a quick google search or a visit to your local school. And while that says to you that people have bland tastes it says clearly to me that most people do not value art enough to pay for it. Not even enough to pay for it for their CHILDREN. So why do most communities no longer value art? And please don't blame this on the current economic climate because it's been going on for much more than a decade.

paulr

15-Jun-2011, 13:47

As for my "projections" I'm beginning to think that you're blind. Art programs are closing in schools all over America,

Um. Look upthread and see who first made the point that art programs are closing in schools.

I don't think the explanations are any more complicated than a protracted culture war. I just happen to be on the opposite side of you and Jesse Helms.

And curiously, people are still lining up to see the "New Topographics" work, even though it's ancient history; the original show was in 1975. It was so popular that it was invited to travel to several locations over the next several years including the UK, Tucson, the Eastman House, and Los Angeles. It traveled just last year to SFMOMA, where it drew pretty big crowds, and is scheduled to keep touring. Pretty impressive for such an old war horse.

But it pales in popularity to much of the work you profess to hate most. If you like, I'll take pictures of the crowd outside the Cindy Sherman retrospective next year, and you can tell me if you think contemporary art is struggling for an audience.

Oren Grad

15-Jun-2011, 13:53

I was in Boston 2 weeks ago, one of my stops? The Boston MOMA. Which by the way had lovely shows of Chihuly glass, Impressionists and modernist photography (Ansel, Weston, Sheeler), no Freidlander and certainly no Serrano.

Um, there is no "Boston MOMA". It's the Boston MFA that currently has all those shows, as well as this one -

http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/conversations

- which you evidently missed.

(That one's coming down in a few days, so for the benefit of later visitors to this thread, the two photographs leading the web page promoting the show are by Friedlander and Eggleston. And in the show itself, there's Cindy Sherman, Tina Barney, Alec Soth, and more.)

Drew Wiley

15-Jun-2011, 14:07

Paul - "small-minded" can also be the idiotic assumption that something is "art" just
because it's offensive. Might be a gimmick to attract ticket sales to certain struggling
venues, but otherwise corneeee. Rotting stinking roadkill on a blank canvas ... that was done in the 1920's. Porno or SM images so sleazy that it would get the FBI on your case if you posted them on the internet - why should the public being paying for that??? Or why should that make it "art". Pretty dingleheaded logic. I have personal reasons for disliking Jesse Helms (he got a relative of mine kicked out of the state dept simply due to ethnic prejudice)... but what's that got to do with it. There's a
difference between being forward-thinking and being airheaded (not implying that's you
personally, but you get the point). Back in the 50's and 60's to be an artiste you had
to take your vows of poverty, unchastity, and civil disobedience ... now I'm watching
members of that genre go pale waiting for liver transplants after all their booze binges and lead and cadmium posioning ... it don't seem so cool anymore. Art and lifestyle are
two different things, and I doubt that being dissipated or demented has really improved anyone's actual talent.

paulr

15-Jun-2011, 14:32

Paul - "small-minded" can also be the idiotic assumption that something is "art" just because it's offensive.

It could be, but who assumes that? Who is giving funding to someone because they find the work offensive?

I just think this is another way of saying "I know porn when I see it." Someone gets offended by art and assumes there is nothing present but offensiveness. Most likely there are people who genuinely admire it, who are not offended by it at all, and this is why it's hanging on the wall.

why should the public being paying for that??? Or why should that make it "art". Pretty dingleheaded logic.

The dingleheaded logic lies in assuming the offensiveness (a subjective judgment held by particular viewers) is what makes something art.

I mean, seriously. Look at how polarized people's views can be. It wasn't that long ago that Jock Stuges got his door kicked down and his whole studio confiscated by the FBI, all on charges of child pornography (which were eventually dropped). Very vocal groups of people here in the U.S. thought he was the devil incarnate, but they were almost all from the bible belt. Meanwhile, in Europe, people assumed he'd cooked up the whole story a publicity stunt, because they couldn't even imagine that anyone would find the work offensive.

Struan Gray

15-Jun-2011, 14:34

I'm self-taught when it comes to the visual arts. I did the usual drawing and painting lessons in junior school, but at secondary level art was an expensive elective topic and I was too busy playing sports and getting my hands dirty in the metal shop. I did study technical drawing in my free time, but that was a driven by a utilitarian fascination with how to represent things.

At the same time I started goofing off from family shopping trips to visit bookshops and art galleries. 'Public funding of the arts' for me meant free access to the city art gallery for children and students. I was surprised at the time that the civic body should be so generous, and will always be grateful. That public museums should be free for everyone to enter seems to be one of the few lastingly good ideas to have come out of Britain in the years I have been an expat.

I lived in Berlin for a while, where arts subsidies were generous and extensive. There were large and enthusiastic audiences for all manner of oddball contemporary arts. You didn't have to like or love something to find it worthwhile or stimulating to experience it, and the lowered barriers to entry truly did nullify most of the usual class and wealth distinctions in the audience. Compared to the way major sports are coddled with direct and indirect subsidies, the money involved was usually piffling.

If I have a problem with formal arts education it is that it encourages a careerist approach to creativity. Project-driven, grant-funded, work tends to be confirmative rather than exploratory, and less likely to surprise either the artist or the audience. One of the many reasons Robert Frank was unique was that his Guggenheim dared to say that he would just wander about and allow the art to emerge. Few would get a fellowship by saying that these days.

rdenney

15-Jun-2011, 14:38

We're lucky to have any art in schools. The whole enterprise is threatened by political interests that see the arts inessential. The result is going to be kids in wealthy districts and private schools getting arts education while no one else does.

Be careful about blaming political interests. If the majority agree with the politicians on this issue, which I think is unfortunately likely, then the case for art education (and really more than just education) hasn't yet been made. That's an uphill road, for sure. But the politicians may actually be representing the majority of their constituents' views on the topic. It's more difficult than 300 years ago when patricians separated themselves from the masses by being interested in and supporting the arts, and the only thing an artist had to do was capture the support of a wealthy patron or the king's court (alternative: starvation or worse).

Rick "who has discussed this at length in the context of music, too" Denney

paulr

15-Jun-2011, 14:42

If I have a problem with formal arts education it is that it encourages a careerist approach to creativity.

I think this is increasingly true in education in general. School of any kind is getting so expensive that only very wealthy people are having an easy time put their money behind old liberal arts principles.

Students of all kinds want to think they have a fighting chance of paying back their debts when they get belched out into the world. This makes arts education (or academia in general) a dubious bet. And it's one of the reasons the academic world and the art world have developed such incestuous relationships ... all these MFAs getting created each year need jobs. Even though the programs are absurdly competitive, you still have a few hundred in each discipline graduating each year in search of income. The closest thing to a reliable source is teaching. There are grants, of course, but everyone's fighting for the same ones.

The chances of anyone getting paid simply by selling the work they want to do is infinitessimal. This is really the story of bohemianism; academic art can be seen as the professionalization of bohemia.

Darin Boville

15-Jun-2011, 14:50

Struan Gray

15-Jun-2011, 14:51

Paul, it's not just art. The hard sciences are mostly run that way too. It's the downside of professionalisation - there's a hardening of opinion on what is worth doing, and being predictable gradually transforms from vice into virtue, and soon thereafter becomes a necessity.

Brian K

15-Jun-2011, 14:56

Um, there is no "Boston MOMA". It's the Boston MFA that currently has all those shows, as well as this one -

http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/conversations

- which you evidently missed.

(That one's coming down in a few days, so for the benefit of later visitors to this thread, the two photographs leading the web page promoting the show are by Friedlander and Eggleston. And in the show itself, there's Cindy Sherman, Tina Barney, Alec Soth, and more.)

You're right it's the MFA, but I looked for that show and couldn't find it. They instead had a small show of work from Cuba in that gallery.

Darin Boville

15-Jun-2011, 15:01

I don't know if that's fair. Crappy art classes are just a lesser symptom of art curricula being given a low priority.

Art curricula is given a low priority because people don't see the value of it. I'm facing this exact choice right now. My oldest kid is entering high school. We are choosing classes. Guess what class she is not taking? That's right, Art.

Why? Because in the mix of things it ends up being a "nice but not critical" class. They (I have two kids) get better (both in quality and quality) exposure to art and the ideas in art from being in my family--they go to museums, they see art being created, the do their own thing. They are immersed in an active, world-wide connected culture of music and imagery. They travel and see art outside of their own culture.

To take art means not to take something else. Resources (time, for example) is not endless.

So now ask yourself, what does a high school art class, as it is currently implemented, offer to my kid? We're not talking about kids from some low-income shithole who might have their hopelessness alleviated a tad with the glimpse of some other world beyond, nor some hayseed seeing paintings other than the brown-toned Jesus above the fireplace.

High school art class is like band. Nice but not really relevant to much of anything. I wish it was.

--Darin

rdenney

15-Jun-2011, 15:02

Art practice is part of it but art appreciation is at least as important. Taking kids to museums, to the symphony, to see experimental music, architecture, public art, etc. etc..

All that was done in my youth. Much of it was optional, however. My parents insisted that I pursue those options. The (visual) art classes I had in high school were electives. But I also played music throughout school.

Part of why it is under attack is that we have discovered that the basics of language, math, and science have been neglected, and time spent on the arts is as a result considered extra-curricular. But we make it so--most band teachers in schools measure their outcomes using band contests, which turn music education into music sport and abandon educational opportunities (which require reading widely from the literature rather than memorizing a contest program by rote).

Nobody has ever seen the need for visual arts. How's anybody gonna make money doing that?

But we have to recognize that one of the reasons art history gets eliminated is that many complain that it only covers western art. So, rather than enhancing it, they protect themselves by eliminating the study of "dead white Europeans". That's an unintended consequence of your second point, and also an outcome of our litigious society. You can't blame all these outcomes on conservative elements, as you imagine them.

Schools generally have entrenched programs for literature. It's curious to me that English class (once it moves past the nuts and bolts of grammar and composition) isn't more widely seen as what it is: literary arts appreciation. There are reasons I'd like to see it split off from composition, except that this would likely put it under the magnifying glass of the funding-cutters.

What concerns me is what gets classified as the literature canon as taught in schools. In my schooling (60's and early 70's), much of the literature we were forced to endure were in the form of short stories in "literature" textbooks. Few of these could be considered the classic literature, and many had an obvious social agenda. This did nothing to interest kids in reading, that's for sure. In high school, I was moved to an advanced English class and that teacher was able to set aside those textbooks in favor of complete books, some classic and some modern, but all aimed at presenting to us the range of excellent writing that was available. But that teacher had to stop that--she was requiring her students to buy those books, and that was declared discriminatory and as a result she could no longer use them. That happened in my junior year, and so the more advanced literature she had planned for us (that program used the same teacher for three years of high school) was no longer an option. Again, an unintended consequence of those who would have preferred the schools buy the books for all students, and in some cases those who thought that excellence in some places means unfairness elsewhere.

To me, any study of the arts should take a survey through what has been done. My high-school art teacher devoted about a third of the class to art history, and I studied art history in a college course as well. That's what makes it education. The only music history I studied in school music programs (other than a general and extra-curricular music appreciation course I enjoyed in grade school) came from the music that we played. Just teaching the skills of making art is another job training activity rather than education. There needs to be some balance there.

Of course, 75 years ago, we had no expectations that all children would make it through high school, let alone college, which seems to be the minimum expectation these days. A much higher percentage of kids make it through much more schooling than in the historical past. This is generally good, but we have to recognize that when we focus on inclusiveness, quality and depth are often the trade-off.

Rick "whose tour through great literature was mostly done on his own" Denney

Mark Sawyer

15-Jun-2011, 15:21

High school art class is like band. Nice but not really relevant to much of anything. I wish it was.

High school is like a sewer, what you get out of it depends on what you put into it... :)

I teach high school photography, and I have former students who are doing well in commercial photography, military and police photography, and some who have gone on to college art programs. Some use it as an adjunct to a completely different career. Some just have nicer family albums, or know the name Ansel Adams when they hear it. And yup, some don't get anything out of it at all.

If you don't want it to be relevant, you'll get your wish...

Brian K

15-Jun-2011, 15:36

Um. Look upthread and see who first made the point that art programs are closing in schools.

I don't think the explanations are any more complicated than a protracted culture war. I just happen to be on the opposite side of you and Jesse Helms.

And curiously, people are still lining up to see the "New Topographics" work, even though it's ancient history; the original show was in 1975. It was so popular that it was invited to travel to several locations over the next several years including the UK, Tucson, the Eastman House, and Los Angeles. It traveled just last year to SFMOMA, where it drew pretty big crowds, and is scheduled to keep touring. Pretty impressive for such an old war horse.

But it pales in popularity to much of the work you profess to hate most. If you like, I'll take pictures of the crowd outside the Cindy Sherman retrospective next year, and you can tell me if you think contemporary art is struggling for an audience.

Me and Jesse helms? Because I think that Piss Christ is pointless and it's only redeeming value is that it's shocking and offensive?

So basically if one thinks that work sucks, one is on the side of Jesse Helms? And for the length of the lines for Sherman, I'm willing to bet that Ansel at 100 drew a far larger crowd in more cities and for longer time than her and the new topographics combined.

Here's a link to a piece on Serrano gallery show, a series of 66 prints of animal shit

http://www.villagevoice.com/slideshow/the-piss-christ-artists-shitty-show-133704/

I bet that really helped fund some high school art classes......

Drew Wiley

15-Jun-2011, 15:39

I won't mention what kids did in the high school darkroom ... but it didn't have nothin'
to do with the yearbook. They didn't learn much either except the importance of penicillin. I don't have a much better impression of the newspaper art critics. They
remind me of interior designers - if you need one you probably don't have enough taste
of your own to know whether they're bunk or not. Around here everyone with green hair and a nose ring thinks they're an artist, and probably not one could produce a painting or photo worth being traded for a Snicker's bar. I don't see anything particularly progressive or creative about these folks - just a bunch of jellyfish who don't know how to think for themselves. Art school wouldn't help these types. There are a handful or very skilled photographers around, but not one of them has green hair or a nose ring or lives in a flophouse smoking dope - I guess that disqualifies them from being real artists.

Oren Grad

15-Jun-2011, 15:40

You're right it's the MFA, but I looked for that show and couldn't find it. They instead had a small show of work from Cuba in that gallery.

Cuba is in 169, "Conversations" is in 184. Yeah, it's a big place, easy to miss things beyond the blockbusters.

Brian K

15-Jun-2011, 15:44

Nobody has ever seen the need for visual arts. How's anybody gonna make money doing that?

I know a lot of people who have made a lot of money through the visual arts, myself included. When you teach art in high school, you don't usually get professional painters or art photographers. You get a lot of art directors, graphic designers, clothing designers, architects, commercial photographers, wedding photographers, photojournalists, etc. The problem is that most people don't realize that. Their idea of who an artist is is a fine artist, and all they know is that fine artists starve and most do work they can't understand.

Drew Wiley

15-Jun-2011, 15:46

I wonder what Serrano would think if someone pissed on his prints. Visually, there is
nothing there. If it wasn't for the predictable motheaten cornball tactic of public shock value, why would this kind of thing ever have been displayed in the first place.
Maybe the curators should put on hip boots and visit a dairy farm so they can enjoy the full experience.

Drew Wiley

15-Jun-2011, 16:09

My high school art teacher was a mediocre artist himself, but he and his wife treated me wonderfully and were bohemian enough to admire the fact that I routinely ditched class and ignored everything they formally taught. Still, he was good enough at
teaching basic technique that a few of my old classmates have managed to make a
decent middle class living selling their watercolors and so forth. ... not precisely fine
art, but good enough for a buck and a piece of property in the country. Around here
it's a whole different ball game. If someone is exceptional and they work their butt off they've got a chance in Silicon Valley in advertising or making movies. But it takes a
high income just to live here. Traditional commercial photography is disappearing fast;
but still a few good opportunities exist in food photography and architecture. Don't
see many portrait or wedding studios surviving. That's why the art schools are in fact
primarily vocational and not academic. An MFA per se is good only if you enter the system and teach that kind of thing yourself, then pay your dues to all the hierarchy
nonsense of academia in the processs, plus pay your school loan time the end of time!

rdenney

15-Jun-2011, 17:06

I know a lot of people who have made a lot of money through the visual arts, myself included. When you teach art in high school, you don't usually get professional painters or art photographers. You get a lot of art directors, graphic designers, clothing designers, architects, commercial photographers, wedding photographers, photojournalists, etc. The problem is that most people don't realize that. Their idea of who an artist is is a fine artist, and all they know is that fine artists starve and most do work they can't understand.

I looked for the tags, but this system doesn't provide them.

Rick "thinking much that's wrong with education is the expectation that it is job training" Denney

paulr

15-Jun-2011, 21:26

What concerns me is what gets classified as the literature canon as taught in schools.

The canon, as an argument for what's good / significant / important, will always be a fraught subject. From what you're describing, your school's version was pretty lame indeed, but any interpretation is going to arouse complaints from someone.

As long as the debate is illuminating and not just paralyzing, I think it's healthy.

For now, I'll settle for exposing kids to anything. Anything is probably better than nothing. I could be wrong ... some versions of anything might be so bad that the kids will never want to open another book or go to another museum. But I suspect it's woth that risk ...

paulr

15-Jun-2011, 21:31

I wonder what Serrano would think if someone pissed on his prints.

Probably the same thing you'd think if someone printed on yours. Your point?

Visually, there is nothing there.

Another splendid example of opinion stated as fact; your esthetic being imposed on the world.

Why don't you spend a few minutes researching criticism on Serrano? I think you'll find that a lot of people, in fact, see things differently from you. You're under no obligation to agree with them, but you can do them the courtesy of acknowledging that their points of view exist.

Brian K

16-Jun-2011, 04:14

Probably the same thing you'd think if someone printed on yours. Your point?

Another splendid example of opinion stated as fact; your esthetic being imposed on the world.

Why don't you spend a few minutes researching criticism on Serrano? I think you'll find that a lot of people, in fact, see things differently from you. You're under no obligation to agree with them, but you can do them the courtesy of acknowledging that their points of view exist.

Paul you're missing the whole point. I'm sure one can find some MFA writer who has written about how significant the Serrano shit pictures are, and I'm sure you can find some collector who paid a ton for a print of the shit, but what escapes you, and them, is that they are photographs of SHIT.

And it's not like he's made the shit into something more than what it is, all he's done is put shit on an over saturated background. It's like he's saying to himself, or joking with someone else, that," the art world is so full of shit I bet I can get people to hang shit in a gallery and pay for prints of shit" And some academic will laud that sentiment because ,"it's such a bold statement on the art world" and then call the piece significant. What they fail to realize is he's laughing AT you, not with you. But the art world as it stands now seems far too narcissistic. It seems to be most interested in work that reflects or says something about itself. It's more concerned with what's new and not what's really of interest to people, it only cares about what is of interest to itself. And it has alienated much of it's audience.

Justifying this work is really similar to fashion critics justifying the Emperor's new clothes. They can argue that his non visible clothes is a creative and humorous response to the current state of fashion. "It's minimal building on the early minimalist movement and taking it to it's logical conclusion." "It''s clothing deconstructed!" "It's perfect for those long hot summer days, just don't forget the sunscreen!" Anyone clever and verbally resourceful can justify the silliest of things.

But you know to the average person, they look at the Serrano shit series and just ask themselves ," what is the art world coming to? These are pictures of shit. Do they have any respect for their audience? Are they so full of themselves that they take this seriously?"

Drew Wiley

16-Jun-2011, 08:29

Paul - what I was implying, is that if someone pissed on Serrano's images, would that
enhance their alleged artisitic value even futher? Then they would not only look offending but smell so too, which would seem exponentially increase their cutting-edge
artsy-fartsy impact, at least according to the Fashionista Fluffhead Flatlanders who
hung his work in the first place.

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 09:05

Paul you're missing the whole point. I'm sure one can find some MFA writer who has written about how significant the Serrano shit pictures are, and I'm sure you can find some collector who paid a ton for a print of the shit, but what escapes you, and them, is that they are photographs of SHIT.

Brian, you may never believe this, but I'm not missing any points. Your points would be impossible to miss, because they are clichés, and they are older than you are by hundreds of years, and furthermore, they are all rooted in what the Greeks liked to call logical fallacy.

You are offering proof by assertion ("my last arguement didn't work so I'll say it again louder!"), and the circular reasoning of tautology.

Basically, you are dismissing anyone who disagrees with you because they are obviously unqualified / dubious / hoodwinked, which you know for sure—because they disagree with you. This is no more convincing or clever than those who know the word of God is true because the Bible says it is—and they know to trust the bible because it's the word of God.

Honestly, this is like arguing with a child.

Additionally I dare you to try to make a make a point without invoking your seemingly infinite authority on the opinions of "most people" or "the average person." I'm pretty sure neither of these imaginary groups elected you to represent them.

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 09:09

Paul - what I was implying, is that if someone pissed on Serrano's images, would that enhance their alleged artisitic value even futher? Then they would not only look offending but smell so too...

What you're not acknowledging is that the people who like Serrano's work don't find it offensive.

I don't especially like it, but I appreciate it on a formal level, and I certainly don't find any of it offensive. I think piss christ is hilarious, actually (which I don't think was the intent, either, but I'm not intersted in guessing at people's artistic intent).

Drew Wiley

16-Jun-2011, 09:41

All I'm acknowledging is that it was a predictable boring cheap stunt to raise a commotion and sell museum tickets so people could see what the fuss is about.
Then there was the guy painting with elephant dung, then the two clowns painting with human dung. I couldn't care less except that public funding became involved, and why should my tax dollars or anyone else's be going to stuff like this.

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 10:00

All I'm acknowledging is that it was a predictable boring cheap stunt to raise a commotion and sell museum tickets so people could see what the fuss is about.

You're not acknowledging, you're assuming. Such assumptions are based on the same pretend logic I've been poking at all along, only now you're also claiming to know someone's intent, which requires clairvoyance.

Drew Wiley

16-Jun-2011, 10:09

Oh get real, Paul. Were you just born yesterday?

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 10:11

Oh get real, Paul. Were you just born yesterday?

I'd likewise ask if you were born in the mid-19th century, and chose to stay there...

But I'd rather stick to the points being discussed. There's no need to fall back on an ad hominem attack unless you've completely run out of anything reasonable to say.

Darin Boville

16-Jun-2011, 10:15

Regarding Piss Christ, although it sort of lands with a thud, like a poorly told joke, in person the print has a sort of eerie beauty (with a small "b"). No kidding.

But the shit picts stir me to say it yet again: In the Art World it is impossible to do a Sokal hoax.

--Darin

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 10:30

In the Art World it is impossible to do a Sokal hoax.

We've talked about that before. I agree that it would be impossible, but I think this is for structual reasons. A Sokal hoax works when there are presumed scientific or academic standards. Every avant garde movement since the early 20th century has been about, in part, subverting the possibility of objective standards (and if this work didn't exist, there would be no temptation to prove anything with a Sokal hoax ...).

Sokal's piece worked because he presented, as scientific fact, information that was easily, verifiably wrong. And he made an argument that was ridiculously invalid by the standards of formal logic. His gambit was that he could get away with it simply by appealing to the ideological prejudices of the editors of Social Texts. His point: the basic standards of scholarship in the world of cultural studies is lacking.

In art itself, what similar objective standards (like fact and logic) could there be?

What you could do is a Sokal hoax that pokes fun of bad criticism. You could probably get a completely specious essay published, somewhere. This is so obvious it would amaze me if it hasn't already been done. If you're lazy, just have your computer do it (http://10k.aneventapart.com/Uploads/262/#).

Drew Wiley

16-Jun-2011, 10:31

Mid-19th C ... Paul, you go around touting things as new and exciting that have been around half a century. Art-as-offense gimmicks are about as stale as it gets, unless you're the uneducated general public, who gets excited about this stuff in negative way enough to pay to see it. I wouldn't waste a dime on it either way. We got this at
least as weird on the West Coast, and every two bit artiste and photographer with no
real perception thinks they can make a splash doing something more outlandish. Here its simply been boring and amateurish for a long long time. It's a cul-de-sac. People
are simply getting numb to the same old stunts.

Brian K

16-Jun-2011, 10:33

Brian, you may never believe this, but I'm not missing any points. Your points would be impossible to miss, because they are clichés, and they are older than you are by hundreds of years, and furthermore, they are all rooted in what the Greeks liked to call logical fallacy.

You are offering proof by assertion ("my last arguement didn't work so I'll say it again louder!"), and the circular reasoning of tautology.

Basically, you are dismissing anyone who disagrees with you because they are obviously unqualified / dubious / hoodwinked, which you know for sure—because they disagree with you. This is no more convincing or clever than those who know the word of God is true because the Bible says it is—and they know to trust the bible because it's the word of God.

Honestly, this is like arguing with a child.

Additionally I dare you to try to make a make a point without invoking your seemingly infinite authority on the opinions of "most people" or "the average person." I'm pretty sure neither of these imaginary groups elected you to represent them.

No Paul, you're missing the point, you're supporting the point of view that photos of animal feces is significant. And please don't use religious crap with me because I'm an atheist, a cynic. It is you who is clinging to the absurd academic dogma and are supporting the notion that photographs of shit has serious merit. Your dogmatic small mindedness blinds you from the fact that it is just photographs of shit and you are desperately trying to justify it's merit or change the subject by attacking me. ("like arguing with a child")

I have a simple question for you. Who's work do you think is more popular world wide, Ansel or Sherman? Ansel or Friedlander? You dare me to make a point without mentioning the tastes of other people because quite frankly your opinion is very much in the minority and you know you can't argue that successfully. Google "Ansel Adams" and you get 7,130,000 hits. Google "Cindy Sherman" and you get 1,470,000. Google "Lee Friedlander" and you get 396,000 hits. So nearly 30 years after his death, and more than a decade before the internet, Ansel Adams is written about, spoken about or referenced nearly 5 times more than Sherman and 18 times more than Friedlander, even though they are still active, producing new work and promoting themselves in the digital communications age.

So just maybe my views reflect the general public's view of the art world more accurately than yours. And as for your "arguing with a child" in reference to me, maybe your frustration has to do with finding means to justify work that has little justification. I mean really, having to find merit in photos of shit?

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 10:35

Mid-19th C ... Paul, you go around touting things as new and exciting that have been around half a century.

Name ONE thing I've touted as new and exciting. Drew, you don't even read what I write. You just spit stuff back.

[/QUOTE]Art-as-offense gimmicks are about as stale as it gets..[/QUOTE]

You're just re-asserting the assumption that people are interested in X because it's offensive or a gimmick. You reject, with complete prejudice, the reactions of people who 1) don't find it offensive, or 2) like something else about it.

Oren Grad

16-Jun-2011, 10:41

Google "Ansel Adams" and you get 7,130,000 hits. Google "Cindy Sherman" and you get 1,470,000. Google "Lee Friedlander" and you get 396,000 hits. So nearly 30 years after his death, and more than a decade before the internet, Ansel Adams is written about, spoken about or referenced nearly 5 times more than Sherman and 18 times more than Friedlander, even though they are still active, producing new work and promoting themselves in the digital communications age.

Google "Thomas Kinkade" and you get 5,290,000 hits. Google "Anne Geddes" and you get 5,030,000 hits. Google "Peter Max" and you get 18,500,000 hits.

With these additional data, you can construct an even more comprehensive theory of artistic merit.

Drew Wiley

16-Jun-2011, 10:47

Well if it's so damn important to you I can send you some sensitized iron salts and you can mix this with some used cat litter to create a whole new style of relief poop prints and maybe get a museum show of your own.

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 11:22

Well if it's so damn important to you...

Are you ranting now?

Here's a hint: what you seem to think is an impassioned defense of poop pictures on my part is just a response to the arguments you and Brian have been making against such pictures.

I don't care who likes these pictures, but I'm irked by people who 1) state opinions as facts; 2) instead of simply stating that they dislike or lack interest in something, declare the impossibility of anyone liking or being interested; 3) champion any evidence, however strong or weak, that supports their opinion; 4) dismiss any evidence, however strong or weak, that challenges it.

Wrapped up in all of this is an unspoken assumption that pre-modern ideas about art are the only ones. Also implicit is a knee-jerk dismissal of anyone who has formally studied art (unless that person happens to agree with your position).

This is all tiresome. I would actually rather look at pictures of poop than to dig through more retrograde opinion pretending to be fact supported by pretend logic.

Drew Wiley

16-Jun-2011, 11:49

Paul - I don't have a problem with spoofs per se ... it's just the montony of them. I
walked into an interview one time for something equivalent to a Sierra Club nature calendar, with a portfolio box with some beautifully matted color prints of decaying
wild animals. They really were nice prints; but I was obviously trying to raise some
eyebrows, and at least give me credit for holding a straight face doing it (which is really a hard act for me). I've pulled even worse stunts on highbrow galleries just for the fun of it. Got offered a one-man show once without them even looking at any
of my work just because I dressed up wierd and acted exceptionally rude - therefore they surmised I was some kind of appropriately unbalanced important artist. Airheads!

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 12:01

What makes you assume Serrano is spoofing?
This would require knowing his intent. Always tricky business. I've read a few interviews with the guy. I don't think he's the deepest well in the yard, but I also don't see any reason to think the work is a hoax or even satirical.

He strikes me as playing a fairly old game, but trying to take things further than what he's seen done. The game isn't shock-for-shock's sake, but rather to see if there's a limit to what can be estheticized. It a challenge to the powers of formalizing, or to the surface prettiness of photographic materials. In this sense it's not so far removed from Weston's photographs of dead birds or dead people, or Joel Peter Witkin's similarly macabre work.

Not so different from what you describe with your hoax, but why would anyone assume your pictures were hoaxes? I'm surprised that "beautifully matted color prints of decaying
wild animals" would raise any eyebrows at all. It's practically a genre. I'd think such work would simply be judged on its own merits.

What Serrano shares with Witkin is a penchant for borrowing iconography from classicism and religious art ... I haven't looked closely enough at the poop to see if he employs it there but he obviously does so with the whole body of work that piss christ comes from.

Brian K

16-Jun-2011, 12:17

Google "Thomas Kinkade" and you get 5,290,000 hits. Google "Anne Geddes" and you get 5,030,000 hits. Google "Peter Max" and you get 18,500,000 hits.

With these additional data, you can construct an even more comprehensive theory of artistic merit.

Oren, the point wasn't about artistic merit, it was about which aesthetic is more popular, those based in the traditional notions of beauty or the post modern stuff that eschews them. And you have further proven my point.

The aesthetic of Thomas Kinkade is more popular than that of Sherman, or Serrano, or Friedlander or ANY of the post modern photographers. So when I tell Paul that most people would consider photos of shit to be without merit, my statement is not without basis on how people think. And what Paul seemed to forget is that I spent 25 years shooting for advertising and editorial, where the aesthetic taste of the general population is one that I needed to understand and be able to appeal to.

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 12:20

Drew Wiley

16-Jun-2011, 12:26

Paul - you seem to assume that all these venue gurus are somehow objective experts.
I'm merely stating how they can be manipulated if someone knows the system. I did
this kind of act merely to differentiate the kind of venue I wanted to represent me and the kind I didn't - a process of elimination with the airhead galleries excluded. The animal prints were anything but routine and some of them did get shown, but not because there was an ounce of shock value to them - unless of course someone was
expecting typical jam atop sugar cubes nature content. But it's fairly useless discussing that topic if someone can't even differentiate the vast difference between
Moran and Adams.

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 12:31

So when I tell Paul that most people would consider photos of shit to be without merit, my statement is not without basis on how people think.

It's completely without basis. It's tortured logic. Art A is more popular than art B, so you conclude that most people would find B completely lacking in merit?

You're smart enough to know that this reasoning is absurd.

I find notions of popularity to mostly useless in art; I rarely see correlation (at least in the contemporary work of any age) between what's most interesting and what's most popular.

I only point out the popularity of some people's work to refute the charges that no one likes their stuff besides a few ivory tower academics. Which is often patently false, at least in the visual arts.

The long lines outside Cindy Sherman exhibits say nothing to me about the quality of her work, or its relative merits compared with Thomas Kinkaide or anyone else. They do tell me that her work strikes a chord with the public and is not some academic fabrication.

Drew Wiley

16-Jun-2011, 12:32

And next time, Paul, show us some prints we haven't all already seen a thousand times, or in my case, have seen in person.

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 12:41

Paul - you seem to assume that all these venue gurus are somehow objective experts.

Huh? I don't assume any such thing. I'd just hope that someone running a gallery that shows photography would have some passing familiarity with the history of the medium.

I find it very easy to get people to roll their eyes; very hard to raise eyebrows.

it's fairly useless discussing that topic if someone can't even differentiate the vast difference between Moran and Adams.

Not sure what you're getting at with that. I bring up Moran in relation to Adams because in my experience so few photographers acknowledge Adams debt to—or even entrenchment in—19th century Western American romanticism. Esthetically and philosophically he's much closer to Moran and the other romantics than he is to Chagall, Munch, Picasso, Brancussi, Klee, Kandinski, Duchamp, or the other artists who introduced Modernism to the U.S.

Brian K

16-Jun-2011, 12:44

The game isn't shock-for-shock's sake, but rather to see if there's a limit to what can be estheticized. It a challenge to the powers of formalizing, or to the surface prettiness of photographic materials. In this sense it's not so far removed from Weston's photographs of dead birds or dead people, or Joel Peter Witkin's similarly macabre work.

If there's a limit to what can be aestheticized??? So that means anytime I had to photograph some ugly thing and make it beautiful I was actually doing cutting edge art? Hmm, one of my former studio mates had to do some photographs of a person changing their colostomy bag for use in the directions that came with the bag. He must have done something worthy of MOMA with that one then. I should call him and tell him to contact some curators because his work is testing the boundaries of aesthetics.

But when I take some telephone poles and make them pretty, or shoot an oil refinery and make it pretty, I'm not testing the boundaries of aesthetics? Why, because they're well composed and well lit? But if I shot mediocre photographs of shit I would be? I'm sorry but this all sounds like an over-rationalization. While I place a great deal of value on the ability to make a mundane everyday item or scene into something more, to me shooting shit, or piss, which is pretty much what Serrano is known for, seems more about getting attention than producing work of real value.

As for Witkin, while his subject matter was often shocking, his aesthetic was traditional. His work is well composed, really well lit, has great tonality, is visually interesting , and are excellent examples of traditional photographic ideals, just with rather strange content.

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 12:45

And next time, Paul, show us some prints we haven't all already seen a thousand times, or in my case, have seen in person.

My point is that people who know photography even a little bit have seen this work a thousand times. It's a mode within which a lot of people have worked, with some variation, for over a hundred years. Which is why I'm surprised by your experience of dead animal pictures shocking anyone, and why I reject the idea that Serrano's work is nothing but novelty or shock.

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 12:46

If there's a limit to what can be aestheticized??? So that means anytime I had to photograph some ugly thing and make it beautiful I was actually doing cutting edge art?

Show me where anyone said that estheticizing something ugly was cutting edge.
You're arguing against points that have been made by imaginary adversaries.

Brian K

16-Jun-2011, 13:10

The long lines outside Cindy Sherman exhibits say nothing to me about the quality of her work, or its relative merits compared with Thomas Kinkaide or anyone else. They do tell me that her work strikes a chord with the public and is not some academic fabrication.

Paul, back in 1968 Nehru Jackets were considered very cool and were very popular.
In the 1990's women wore shoulder pads worthy of the NFL.
Leisure suits were immensely popular.

We look back now at these super popular trends with embarrassment. We all thought they were the cutting edge of fashion and design. And why did we go along wearing such obviously unattractive clothes? Because the "experts" said they were the "look", they were modern and stylish, they were cool, and we followed the herd. We are the sum of our times and it's trends.

There were clothes though that stood the test of time. Why? They had aesthetic values that could transcend their time.

The only difference between the trendiness of fashion and art, is that the art trends last a little longer. Every 30-50 years there seems to be a new trend and the old trend gets rejected.

CHRONOLOGICAL LISTING

Ancient & Classical Art Nabis Surrealism
Medieval & Gothic Art Fauvism Constructivism
Renaissance Art Nouveau Abstract Expressionism
Mannerism Art Deco Harlem Renaissance
Baroque Ashcan School Black Mountain College
Rococo Group of Seven Pop Art
Neo-Classical Modernism Op-Art
Romanticism Expressionism Minimalism
Hudson River School Der Blaue Reiter Fluxus
Pre-Raphaelites Bauhaus Indian River School
Arts & Crafts Movement De Stijl Situationism
Symbolism Cubism Neo-Expressionism
Realism Dada Post-Modernism
Impressionism Futurism
Post-Impressionism Bloomsbury Group

The formatting does not work, there should be 3 columns, oldest left, then middle, then newest right
And of course there are many more....

Brian K

16-Jun-2011, 13:14

Show me where anyone said that estheticizing something ugly was cutting edge.
You're arguing against points that have been made by imaginary adversaries.

You're the one who wrote,"The game isn't shock-for-shock's sake, but rather to see if there's a limit to what can be estheticized."

Brian K

16-Jun-2011, 13:20

A brief anthology of pretty dead things ...

Edward Weston:

http://denniswitmer.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/weston-dead-pelican.jpg?w=510&h=451

Frederick Sommer:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FNndI0BvPNA/SlKjHDXTJmI/AAAAAAAAATA/PQDEKLCLlNc/s400/artwork_images_357_356008_frederick-sommer.jpg

Joel Peter Witkin:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_p5fffWA31cw/SaB9XMe2hRI/AAAAAAAAACw/0Fdc0nAQlOw/s400/joel_peter_witkin_05.jpg

Richard Misrach:

http://photographyforagreenerplanet.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/174592.jpg

And one of the pioneers, Matthew Brady:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5dimmpiF77Y/TJEKu7SHCUI/AAAAAAAAAU4/5UJ6yulMk5o/s1600/ARTSTOR_103_41822003005822-782710.jpg

The Misrach and Brady photos of death are more like photojournalism. Misrach is recording and making public the mysterious deaths of animals at the hand of man, en masse, in the desert. Brady is documenting the masses of death during the civil war. These images are a public service. They are not for shock value the way a photograph of piss or shit are.

And as for the Weston image, it's very emotional, interesting, well composed and quite moving.

To me the Witkin image is more about shock, and the Sommer image seems to me to be more like the early anatomy drawings that many artists did.

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 13:21

You're the one who wrote,"The game isn't shock-for-shock's sake, but rather to see if there's a limit to what can be estheticized."

That was paraphrasing Serrano from an interview, and it was stated as a personal challenge to himself; neither he nor I mentioned anything about the "cutting edge."

paulr

16-Jun-2011, 13:35

We look back now at these super popular trends with embarrassment.

Maybe you do. I think nehru jackets are cool.

And why did we go along wearing such obviously unattractive clothes?

They're only "obviously unattractive" when seen through the lens of another, incompatible time.

There were clothes though that stood the test of time. Why? They had aesthetic values that could transcend their time.

Which generally means a kind of neutrality. I've got some clothes that are pretty timeless by fashion standards. My Chuck Taylors are a design from 1917. My Blundstone boots probably from around the same time. But so what? They're a kind of neutral uniform. They never offend because they don't say much to begin with. They're too famiiar to be noticed.

It's starting to sound like the art you advocate for is stuff that's so familiar that it offers no challenges anymore. It's the comfortable old pair of levi's or grandma's meat loaf. This is fine, but I think you should forgive people who are looking for something different.

The existence of movements in art doesn't prove much. Times change, ideas change, sensibilities change. I'm not a believer in "progress" in the sense that each movement represents some kind of—but generally, each movement is built on the last, and adds something to the conversation. Sometimes the conversation is adulatory, other times adversarial, other times playful. But each new round of conversation brings with it the perspectives and textures of its own time.

I share your skepticism of people who blindly follow trends. But there is a difference between this and in participating in a conversation with your peers and forbears. And a big difference between this and doing the work that gets so much attention that it starts a trend.

Drew Wiley

16-Jun-2011, 13:40

Art pundits and the people who name paint color chips seem to have one thing in common: they get paid for routinely dreaming up clever esoteric but otherwise meaningless terms for things. Both careers should be consigned to the criminally insane
who have nothing better to do in their padded cells.

Darin Boville

16-Jun-2011, 13:58

>>to see if there's a limit to what can be estheticized.<<

Is that really an interesting question? Heck, even the straight photography crowd can point to Weston's white toilet.

To me that sort of question is just a smokescreen to support the marketing. Serrano is known for socially offensive photos using bodily fluids, etc. Put on your marketing hat and make a list of possibilities, thinking how you can expand the brand while not losing its essence. Routine process. Do it and you'll see on your list the word "feces" right there near the top. Take another minute to ponder "feces" and contemplate that it's sorta already been done, and maybe human feces is just a tad too far for $$$$ gallery crowd, then bingo, within minutes you arrive at animal feces. Mix in the greens. Put up a colorful background to offset the brown, print them big. Bingo. We're done.

That's about five minutes of work.

--Darin

36cm2

16-Jun-2011, 14:10

The moderators should have split this into two threads long ago, as the OP's topic has been mercilessly hijacked. That being said, the offshoot arguments are intriguing and Brian's excerpt below is one of the best I've read in a while. Resume battle!

"The simple reality is that the governments, Federal, state and local, fund what the voters want. If the majority of voters think that art is a waste or they don't care about it, it doesn't get funded. Period. Legislators, school boards, etc. prioritize funding based on the wishes of their constituents. And the way in which the arts are funded clearly demonstrates that people see little value in art today.

And yes there's growing sentiment that's anti intellectual, and when it comes to art, that is because the trend in art has been over intellectualized. Most people don't want a lengthy essay on why that picture is significant, they want the picture itself to show them and that is what contemporary art has lost. And that is what is alienating a large portion of our society away from the arts.

You show them an Ansel Adams, or a Norman Rockwell and they'll say it's art, you show them a Friedlander and they won't know what they're looking at. You tell them that a Richard Prince photograph of a photograph of a Marlboro Man ad, sold for a million, and they'll think it's the stupidest thing, or the biggest scam out there. Yet some curator will explain in language that most people can't understand why a copy of a photo is worth 1000 times more than the original. And those listening will still think it's just a scam or that curator is a fool.

The reality is clear, most people in the US no longer value art, or at least not enough to fund it or pay to educate people about it. You choose to blame the people, because they are anti intellectual, but they are the majority and they control the purse strings, and who's to say that they aren't actually right? I choose to blame the art and the art world, because IT alienated the people. If you own a restaurant and lose the majority of your customers because they don't like the food, it's THEIR fault?????"

CantikFotos

16-Jun-2011, 18:44

Meanwhile, across the pond........

The president of an historic art academy has quit in protest over 'populist' exhibitions just weeks after a 22ft Damien Hirst statue was erected outside the building.

Simon Quadrat, 65, believes that displaying pop art 'undermines the integrity' of the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) in Bristol, which was founded in 1849.

He has been locked in a long-running feud with board over what he considers to be 'feeble' exhibitions which are designed only to appeal to the masses.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004439/Academy-president-Simon-Quadrat-resigns-anger-22-ft-Damien-Hirst-sculpture.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-13782617

Bill Burk

16-Jun-2011, 20:07

That's a lot to respond to directly, so I will shape my response by impression.

I care that art is taught in school. Kids need to dream of greatness. They need to look forward to going to school. College needs to continue developing individuality. I recklessly say keep imagination flowing through college and leave the hard lessons for those years following school. I want my tax dollars to go to arts, even if a few dogs get in the fray, I want the opportunity to exist.

I would want a passionate teacher who tailored the class to fit their ability. A school is lucky to have anyone like any one of us.

If art history could be included at the high-school level, so much better. I'd want the classroom to have a huge shelf full of picture books, and a few solid technical books. After handing out assignments and seeing the kids give out their stumped look, I'd want to spread countless books across the table to show what is possible when tasked to "take a picture of an egg." {My shot from that assignment was truly awful}

I'd want the kids to come away with a feeling where their work fits in. I'd want them to be familiar with good stuff and bad stuff and if not able to tell the difference, at least be able to argue about it.

My teenager is entering his 2nd year of high school and, like Darin's, not getting art class. I expressed my concern to the counselors and super - "I support and encourage him to develop his artistic abilities, even if it means he's not ready for a job out of school" but there wasn't enough flexibility. Last year he hung out at the art club, the teacher encouraged him, and he displayed 6 pieces in the school art show. He's come a long way in the past year - self-taught.

The works in the show by the advanced students were as my dad described, a body of mixed works. Some unique and provocative works. Some stayed all in one medium like acrylic. Too bad the teacher is moving out of state, she'll be missed.

rdenney

17-Jun-2011, 09:58

The existence of movements in art doesn't prove much. Times change, ideas change, sensibilities change. I'm not a believer in "progress" in the sense that each movement represents some kind of—but generally, each movement is built on the last, and adds something to the conversation. Sometimes the conversation is adulatory, other times adversarial, other times playful. But each new round of conversation brings with it the perspectives and textures of its own time.

Each new movement adds some things to old conversations, but at the expense of other things, which are then forgotten. Sometimes those old things get revived when a new generation "discovers" them and treats them as if they are new again. All the things we laugh at will come back, and when they do, they will be seen by a generation too young to remember their previous incarnation as rebellious and hip.

From that, I gather that fashion and style are not the same thing, and art cannot be measured until any associated fad has died down. After people have lost interest in the fad, the stuff that is valuable will remain so and the stuff that was just following along will lapse into obscurity. Maybe every representation of that fad will become obscure for a while, until a later generation with enough perspective sees the value in it and brings it back. The music of Bach had its century in the wilderness, after all.

I don't argue that "piss Christ" is not art, or even that it is unimportant in the history of art. I do argue that at least part of its motivation was to offend people--perhaps people both the artist and his desired audience might want to challenge, perhaps a group seen as the forces of evil (from the perspective of the artist), perhaps for the anarchic satisfaction of watching the anthill stir when poked with a stick, or even perhaps someone interested in a propagandist attack on that group. I think it implausible--even if he said so--that his motive was entirely inoffensive, as a desire to see if it was possible to estheticize the destruction of religious iconography. As a member of the offended group, however, I believe that the offensiveness of the work can be attacked in its own right, without engaging the argument of whether it is art or whether it is important art. I don't challenge the artist's right to make such art, or the right of some to appreciate it, but I also don't think it's fair to expect me not to be offended, or to express my offendedness. I recognize that I separate myself from the rhetoric of most others in that group in making those distinctions--the usual dialectic is to declare it not art or trivial art, in the belief that art should not be offensive. Art that is challenging should expect a return attack, but I find that sometimes the artists seem almost surprised when it occurs.

Of course, all art that makes a point will pierce someone with it. I don't mind being pierced--my beliefs are well enough formed to resist such challenges. I do see it as part of a larger cultural war, where people of simple, old beliefs are often portrayed as reactionary toothless rednecks. It's not always the artists portraying them this way, but those who comment on the reaction the artists bring. When attacking those who do not live lives of rhetorical interchange, it's not quite fair to expect of them rhetorical sophistication. Of course, they often don't see their lack of sophistication, which does not strengthen their cause or accurately represent their wisdom. And artists, too, are sometimes their own worst defenders. Rhetoric becomes contentious and unproductive as a result.

By the way, those who believe the Bible do so as a matter of faith. That's the point. If they argue on the basis of faith with those who do not share it, they can't expect to get very far. (The Bible itself warns Christians not to do this.) There are other arguments that can be brought to bear, but most Christians are not educated in their use, and so they argue (poorly) on the basis of all they know. Perhaps if Christianity were not a dominant religion in this country, more Christians would be forced to sharpen up their apologetics. In any cases, this is not the place for such arguments, or even such examples.

Public school will always reflect the sensibilities of those who provide the money. Parents who think that insufficient should be prepared to supplement it, or even counter it. My parents certainly did, in support of those activities that interested me. Trying to make public education support sensibilities a majority of taxpayers find offensive, even if they do so for selfish reasons, will not ultimately work, I don't think. And even if it does in some ways and for some periods, I don't think it's sustainable. The idea that doing such will change the dominant paradigm and result in new sensibilities for those who will provide the money later in life does prove true occasionally, but that's a long-term play that won't help the current parent looking for a solution to a current lack in his or her child's curriculum.

Rick "finding that those who complain that others act offended do so themselves when it is their ox being gored" Denney

patrickjames

17-Jun-2011, 11:49

I don't particularly care about Serrano. I find work like that pretty banal and it would disappear completely if it was marginalized by just being ignored. The problem I have in relation to this discussion is that if I have to pay for things that are patently offensive to me, like foreign wars that decimate other countries and cost hundreds of billions, the bailing out of criminals on the grandest scale, subsidies for professional sports teams that I couldn't care less about, oil subsidies for companies that are making record profits (seriously?) etc. etc.. These are things that other people find important, surely a little tiny piece of the pie, and I mean a tiny, tiny piece, can be cut off for education and support of the arts. Even if that means that someone gets occasionally offended by it. I have put up with enough offense myself. I cannot for the life of me figure out how "Piss Christ" could be more offensive than killing hundreds of thousands in a ridiculous war yet the people like Helms don't bat an eyelash at that one. "Kill 'em all!" is what the right wing wackjobs want, but they won't support art because they might be offended by something they deem immoral or sacrilegious. It is a pitiful thing.

As for the point about how art is selling for a lot of money these days at auction- the auction markets are investment markets. They have little to do with art.

Jay DeFehr

17-Jun-2011, 12:18

paulr

17-Jun-2011, 13:36

Each new movement adds some things to old conversations, but at the expense of other things, which are then forgotten.

You really think so? Did guys like Picasso and Matisse forget the earlier ideas that they'd mastered before forging their own approaches? Did the post-modernists forget the modernists, or just react to them?

I don't see any evidence of history being obliterated by new movements. I mean, sure, some people can forget anything, but I don't know if the cause is something else coming along. I still remember the long-cancelled tv shows I watched when I was a kid. Some of them are even available online now.

paulr

17-Jun-2011, 13:38

Paul,

You are a trooper! I don't have your patience, or your respect fro your opponents' "arguments". I think what you're battling in your opponents is what Daniel Khaneman terms:

"Theory-Induced Blindness: adherence to a belief about how the world works that prevents you from seeing how the world really works”

Thanks Jay. I think I've been blindly adhering to the theory that incessant blabbing might in any way be helpful. I would like to enlist a trusted posse to tell me to shut up at much earlier and opportune moments. Let me know if you want to join!

Drew Wiley

17-Jun-2011, 13:41

Please don't stop Paul ... I find you interesting even if disoriented.

paulr

17-Jun-2011, 13:48

The problem I have in relation to this discussion is that if I have to pay for things that are patently offensive to me, like foreign wars that decimate other countries and cost hundreds of billions...

This year, the total NEA budget is about 25% lower than the Defense Dept. budget for military bands.

So yeah, I call b.s. to anyone who complains loudly about the NEA, claiming reasons besides a basic anti-art stance in the culture wars.

Drew Wiley

17-Jun-2011, 14:02

Exhibits on walls are only a small part of the NEA anyway. But when schools are closing
right and left due to budgetary limitations, and even several presidential candidates
probably couldn't pass a freshman high school civics class, is art on walls really THAT
important to overall education?

Darin Boville

17-Jun-2011, 14:23

This year, the total NEA budget is about 25% lower than the Defense Dept. budget for military bands.

So yeah, I call b.s. to anyone who complains loudly about the NEA, claiming reasons besides a basic anti-art stance in the culture wars.

One of the complaints about the NEA is that "who you know" was a too-important factor in getting an award. Reading the various books about how the NEA operates/operated only confirms such a view.

As for military bands, they've been under fierce attack for the past years and it seems their budget is being chopped as well:

http://shoreviewpost.com/news/2011/05/26/house-passes-mccollum-amendment-to-limit-pentagon-spending-on-military-bands/

Or maybe I have an anti-art stance, I don't know...

--Darin

rdenney

17-Jun-2011, 15:15

You really think so? Did guys like Picasso and Matisse forget the earlier ideas that they'd mastered before forging their own approaches? Did the post-modernists forget the modernists, or just react to them?

I don't see any evidence of history being obliterated by new movements. I mean, sure, some people can forget anything, but I don't know if the cause is something else coming along. I still remember the long-cancelled tv shows I watched when I was a kid. Some of them are even available online now.

You don't forget the old stuff, but the generation you teach does. They know the generation previous to you only in terms of what you (or others) tell them, not in terms of experiencing them when they were the current thing. So, there are aspects of them that get forgotten.

The Impressionists painted in points of color, and the impression of the color was more important to them than detail. Detail made a comeback (with Realism) but not by people who had first-hand (which includes being contemporary) experience with realism in the works of the Romantics.

Again, Bach and the other Baroque composers (except Handel in England) became quite obscure during the Classical and early Romantic periods, and had to make a comeback. Vaughan Williams was thought to be obsolete by the 1950's, and his connection to folk themes no better than quaint. Yet now he is making a comeback, even with sophisticates. But people who learned music in the 60's and 70's are still likely to think of him as "that folk-song composer" and dismiss him with no real experience. I played his fourth symphony (certainly his most shattering work, ca. 1935) to a Ph.D. composition graduate in the middle 80's. He'd never heard it. But he knew every work by John Cage. Now, I suspect Vaughan Williams's work is far more likely to be part of the canon.

Rick "forgotten because of being dismissed" Denney

rdenney

17-Jun-2011, 15:27

As for military bands, hey've been under fierce attack for the past years and it seems their budget is being chopped as well:

http://shoreviewpost.com/news/2011/05/26/house-passes-mccollum-amendment-to-limit-pentagon-spending-on-military-bands/

And the military bands provide the best opportunity for a musician of a wind instrument to earn any sort of living doing it. There are perhaps 30 professional orchestral tuba players in the U.S., and maybe 300 military tuba players.

Also, musicians easily demonstrate the highest education-to-pay ratio in the military. Musicians generally have at least a master's degree in performance, and many have doctorates, and still enter a premiere Washington band at E-6 (enlisted grade 6--a staff sergeant in the Army, for example). In every other military profession, a college graduate with advanced degrees will come in as an officer. The only officers in the military band programs are the premiere-band conductors.

Military band performances cover a wide range of music, and are given around the country in a series of free concerts. Their bread-and-butter are ceremonial events, including music for military funerals. But the premiere bands (including the field bands) perform sophisticated programs widely and publicly and never charge admission. I suspect they bring high-level music to people who might not otherwise get to hear it about as efficiently as any NEA-funded ensemble.

Rick "who knows quite a few military band musicians" Denney

Mark Sawyer

17-Jun-2011, 17:59

Hmmm... perhaps we need more military visual artists, military galleries, and military art critics...

Drew Wiley

17-Jun-2011, 19:20

Mark - the general ed requirements for getting into a key officer grad school are considerably higher than the typical grad studies program in a major university.
And the education regimen can be much tougher too. Even the professors are generally top tier and internationally recognized, and some of them might know art history way better than most of us. Their students are not Forrest Gump types with a football scholarship.

Kirk Gittings

17-Jun-2011, 19:53

One of the complaints about the NEA is that "who you know" was a too-important factor in getting an award. Reading the various books about how the NEA operates/operated only confirms such a view.
--Darin

I don't think it is that simple or sinister. I've known many of the jurors of and award winners of NEA grants and had a major one awarded to myself. Many years after I completed mine I met a guy (now deceased-he sought me out because he wanted to do a book with me on the subject) who was on my jury. He told me every grant winner had to have a strong advocate on their side to fight for the project through the process. I think well known people have an easier time gaining an advocate, because........their work is well known-they are a proven entity. I think established artists and arts organizations have an advantage because they have a proven track record of finishing projects with meaningful work. In my case this guy happened to be an architectural historian and understood the vital need for my project and by reading the proposal and my resume decided I was the right guy for it. He was my advocate. Without him I would never had the grant and would have never known why. Since I knew it was a great project, if rejected, I might very well have thought it rigged and I would have been wrong. The juries are of diverse backgrounds and I don't think there is a single or simple corrupt explanation for the how they are distributed.

Bill Burk

18-Jun-2011, 11:07

From the book I've been reading "How to look at everything" by David Finn, something relevant to some earlier points...

Finn compared the approach of Lenox and Rosenthal china. At Lenox, each year artisans create new designs that go through focus groups to determine which ones will be popular - and those are the ones they make. But at Rosenthal the selection is made by esthetics. Each year Lenox outsells Rosenthal. When a Rosenthal executive heard the comparison he asked Finn if there was any way to educate the public.

Finn responded that while marketing can improve the sales of any good product, catering to public taste will always outsell educating the public.

So I'm back to thinking we should educate the artists, so they can make art with more depth of understanding.

paulr

18-Jun-2011, 11:16

Finn responded that while marketing can improve the sales of any good product, catering to public taste will always outsell educating the public.

So I'm back to thinking we should educate the artists, so they can make art with more depth of understanding.

I don't understand the logic. It seems to equate sales with depth of understanding.

Should independent filmmakers emulate Hollywood's summer blockbusters? Should we emulate Thomals Kinkaide? This is where the art money is, so it would follow.

At least with the current divides in philosophies and approaches, we have a lots of different kinds of work. Some populist, some not. If everyone starts to worship at the shrine of sales and populism, we'll have greater homogeneity. Those who don't have populist tastes will be left in the cold. Some might consider this progress, but it would look like regression to me.

paulr

18-Jun-2011, 11:23

I think established artists and arts organizations have an advantage because they have a proven track record of finishing projects with meaningful work.

There's another element, also. If you're looking at projected slides (sometimes half a dozen projected at once) work that you've seen and thought about before is easier to appreciate than work that you're seeing cold.

It's a known problem with any kind of art jury, but no one knows what to do about it.

Mark Sawyer

18-Jun-2011, 11:40

There's another element, also. If you're looking at projected slides (sometimes half a dozen projected at once) work that you've seen and thought about before is easier to appreciate than work that you're seeing cold.

It's a known problem with any kind of art jury, but no one knows what to do about it.

...which gets into the issue of, do you educate the jury or cater to the jury? I really do wonder what they look for, or if they just react (albeit intelligently) to what they see.

I do think they support those with a track record over new-comers. Justifiably so, as if the work isn't out there being seen, it will have little influence/importance. But it's such a shame; so much wonderful work languishes, while splashier work gets the attention.

paulr

18-Jun-2011, 12:25

...which gets into the issue of, do you educate the jury or cater to the jury?

Juries members are generally drawn from a pretty educated pool.

I really do wonder what they look for, or if they just react (albeit intelligently) to what they see.

They're also typically drawn from a diverse pool, so I don't think there's one answer to this. My friends who have sat on jurries for for grants and fellowships have only occasionally sat on the same on more than once, and I don't think ever for consecutive years. They all report lively debates between people with far ranging opinions.

I do think they support those with a track record over new-comers.

Likely, but not always. When I see who gets the grants in my neck of the woods there's typically a mix of usual suspects and fresh faces. Some jurries work "blind" in a sense ... the work is judged without a name and resume attached. Of course this breaks down if the work is known to a juror, but it still reinforces the spirit of what they're doing. I've seen more of this with grants for writing than for visual arts.

Mark Sawyer

18-Jun-2011, 13:08

Juries members are generally drawn from a pretty educated pool...

This is what makes it an interesting choice. It is probably much more difficult to "educate" an already-well-informed jury. So does one show something very individual, or something that integrates with the current "hot trends"? The former would be more tempting, more rewarding, but the latter is the path most followed, and probably, alas, most successful.

I'd hope that such decisions don't guide artists' work, but I suspect that on a very large scale within a very small niche, they do. (If only the NEA jury were made up of nine-year-old girls, my pixie pictures would be a shoo-in. *sigh*)

paulr

18-Jun-2011, 15:10

This is So does one show something very individual, or something that integrates with the current "hot trends"? The former would be more tempting, more rewarding, but the latter is the path most followed, and probably, alas, most successful.

I can only speak to the handful of people I know who have been on juries. None of them is particularly interested in trends. Only one of them does work that I'd call trendy. I don't much like his work, but I'd be thrilled to have him sit on any jury, because he has a great eye and can speak intelligently about a wide range of stuff in many different media.

In my experience, education is less likely than lack of education to put blinders on someone. Even if you have strong opinions and narrow tastes, relevent education will push you to see the things you like in context, as one option out of a million. It allows you to take the discussion beyond mere taste.

I should mention that I'm not necessarily advocating for formal art education. That's one path. It's not the one I chose, for the most part, but it works for many.

Vaughn

18-Jun-2011, 16:36

Every print I make is educational -- for me and hopefully for the viewer.

"I photograph to learn how to better see...and my prints are my way of sharing what I have learn with others." is something I have written in my artist's statement many times in many ways.

Might be a bit corney (especially after saying it too many times), but it remains the main reason I photograph. It is fun, too...

Vaughn

Bill Burk

18-Jun-2011, 17:29

I don't understand the logic. It seems to equate sales with depth of understanding.

I left something out or put two disjointed thoughts into one post.

Make something good and you'll have fewer sales than someone who makes something predictably popular. Marketing will help somewhat.

Finn was just explaining reality. He admired Rosenthal for sticking to their mission of quality.

My conclusion is a separate thought, possibly loosely supported by reality, that I would accept lower sales as a fair trade-off for integrity. Then I went back to my tangent of educating artists so they can make better art.

Brian K

18-Jun-2011, 19:49

I left something out or put two disjointed thoughts into one post.

Make something good and you'll have fewer sales than someone who makes something predictably popular. Marketing will help somewhat.

Finn was just explaining reality. He admired Rosenthal for sticking to their mission of quality.

My conclusion is a separate thought, possibly loosely supported by reality, that I would accept lower sales as a fair trade-off for integrity. Then I went back to my tangent of educating artists so they can make better art.

Why is there an assumption that if work is popular it's at the expense of it's integrity? Maybe the artist producing the popular work simply shares the same aesthetic as most people? The statement of "make something good and you'll have fewer sales than some who makes something predictably popular" is under the false understanding that if something is popular it's not good.

Another false conclusion is drawn here in that Lenox is NOT a quality product because they test the designs on their potential buyers first. Lenox is making a product. There's an extent to which meeting the needs of their potential customers is a responsibility. And if the majority of potential buyers prefer Lenox over Rosenthal because they find the Lenox designs more desirable, then to them Lenox is the better product and in their view it's Lenox that's better quality.

I think there's a view in the intelligentsia of the art world in that if the general public likes something, by definition it's not good, or not art, or not cool enough. And that those who produce work that's popular are pandering to the masses. That in order for art to be art, or to get their approval, it needs to be obscure or exclusionary of popular taste. Hence prints of shit are art, prints of trees are kitsch.

paulr

18-Jun-2011, 20:10

I think there's a view in the intelligentsia of the art world in that if the general public likes something, by definition it's not good, or not art, or not cool enough. And that those who produce work that's popular are pandering to the masses. That in order for art to be art, or to get their approval, it needs to be obscure or exclusionary of popular taste. Hence prints of shit are art, prints of trees are kitsch.

It's not universal, but I see many people coming to those conclusions. I understand it. Especially if your tastes lean away from populism, it can seem like there's a causative link between popularity and crapiness. Of course, it's screwy logic.

Radiohead went through this and came out on the other side. They were weirded out by the huge success of OK Computer in 1997, and decided to forget their fan base and just do the experiments they wanted to do. They spent months in the studio recording discordant electronica, odd samples and odd rhythms, and were hoping to enjoy some feelings of purity as they became obscure again. Two weeks after Kid A was released, their manager sat them down and in somber tones reported that it had gone to #1 in the U.S. The band had a freakout ... a crisis of faith.

And then realized they were just being stupid, stupid snobs and that they should trust themselves and their fans alike. They don't feel like sell-outs just for being popular anymore.

Not so many artists are lucky enough to indulge their vision in a pure fashion and be rewarded with superstardom. But we know it happens every once in a while.

Drew Wiley

18-Jun-2011, 20:28

Bill Burk

18-Jun-2011, 20:37

Finn added in his book that Rosenthal's designs were widely considered by the art and design community to be far superior esthetically.

A professional photographer's integrity, to professionalism, requires taking the best picture of the subject and passing focus groups. It's business and it's necessary in order to get paid.

I feel that an artist should not care whether their work will sell. I also don't think an artist should make work designed for the walls of museums. Should they make something for shock value or notoriety? If that's what they must do.

I think the artist should have an internal guide, following their dream, soul or idea, so long as it is an internal driving force.

Maybe there isn't a direct relationship between popularity and quality.

I would give a bit of leeway if the internal driving force is the stomach.

Bill Burk

18-Jun-2011, 20:51

If someone were to make up two shows from the same photographer's work, one show of selections made by a consumer focus group and the other made by an esthetically sensitive jury.

I would be more deeply satisfied viewing the work of esthetically judged pictures. The quality could be proved the same.

paulr

18-Jun-2011, 21:03

I once had a board member of one of the most prominent and controversially progressive musuems around go wild over what I considered to be just a routine practice tree print (and this was someone who would have called Eliot Porter kitch), and can only conclude that these folks react with personal taste to subconscious clues just as much as anyone else.

It's impossible to know what to conclude, other than that you and this person disagree. Maybe the practice print had something special to it. Maybe the person was a nut job (plenty of people are on museum boards mostly by virtue of their enthusiasm and deep pockets ... they are not the curators).

Such choices don't automatically mean someone likes or dislikes your work - it might mean the shoe fits or doesn't fit a target audience. Heck, you'd need an incredible crystal ball to figure it all out, and I don't even have the will to try. I'd rather be making prints.

I think that's true, although I've only heard target audiences mentioned by directors of commercial galleries ... and in this case the audience is their customer list, who they know inside-out. When I proposed a group show to Yancey Richardson many years ago, she made it pretty clear that what she liked most and what she could sell were two different conversations.

Curators have criteria related to specific shows or to the missions of their collections. Grant committees have criteria given to them by the organization, often mixed with some ad hoc stew of their own ideas.

It's irritating that without knowing someone on the inside, you're unlikely to find out why your work gets given the boot.

Mark Sawyer

19-Jun-2011, 00:30

A professional photographer's integrity, to professionalism, requires taking the best picture of the subject and passing focus groups. It's business and it's necessary in order to get paid.

I feel that an artist should not care whether their work will sell...

Which leaves no room for the professional artist.

Richard Mahoney

19-Jun-2011, 05:27

Why is there an assumption that if work is popular it's at the expense of it's integrity? Maybe the artist producing the popular work simply shares the same aesthetic as most people? The statement of "make something good and you'll have fewer sales than some who makes something predictably popular" is under the false understanding that if something is popular it's not good. ...

I think there's a view in the intelligentsia of the art world in that if the general public likes something, by definition it's not good, or not art, or not cool enough. And that those who produce work that's popular are pandering to the masses. That in order for art to be art, or to get their approval, it needs to be obscure or exclusionary of popular taste. ...

Brian -- laying myself open to the suggestion that I may be willfully naive -- I have always held the belief [misconception?] that `art' is all about creating a response in one's chosen audience. And that `successful' art is something that succeeds in connecting with, or giving voice to, the most basic innermost desires and yearnings of that audience. It is natural that the qualities and interests of the groups that different `artists' are trying to appeal to will vary, but as far as I am concerned, a simple measure of the value of their work is to place it in front of the people they are trying to talk to and to see how they respond. In this context, whether one thinks one audience is inherently superior to another is irrelevant. What really matters is how well an artist communicates with those that he wants to experience his work.

Best,

Richard

And no, Paul, don't tell me that this is impossible to effect and control -- it undoubtedly is, v. the significant impact of propaganda and advertising in the 20thC.

rdenney

19-Jun-2011, 06:20

I suspect it's a common enough reaction from observers that some artists must be hostile to the views of their audience, and that the only alternative to that is to pander to them.

But let's think in a commercial sense and bring up a different form of art. Comedians are constantly evaluating the effect they have on their audiences. They video themselves and study those videos, and they make adjustments if the laughs don't happen at the right time. For most of them, doing this is a matter of professionalism.

Does that mean they are pandering to a lowest-common-denominator audience in order to seek stardom? I don't see how. It means they are pandering to their mission to communicate to their audience. Most comedians these days see their role as bringing up serious and often offensive issues, often in offensive ways, using humor is the shield against being attacked by the audience with pitchforks. Their subjects are edgy and often deeply personal, exposing the baser human traits to the light of day. Can we really say that, for example, Lenny Bruce was pandering to an audience? But even he studied the reaction he was getting.

The difference between most comedians and Radiohead is that they do desire beforehand to be successful, and work towards it. But the objective of the best comedians is not to conform their art to lowest common denominator so that they can be successful, but rather to perfect the execution of their art (or to get enough of it out there) so that the lowest common denominator can also develop a taste for it and enjoy it. That seems to be a critically important distinction. Radiohead did this perhaps unintentionally, and learned it by accident. But it's intentional with comedians.

I suspect that it's possible for photographers to be popular without pandering to the lowest common denominator. But to break out into stardom, they may have to take their art to different venues than certain museums and galleries. Maybe this distinction is hard to see for some art snobs, some of which are influential, who have come to believe that a positive reaction from a low-brow makes the work low-brow. And if an artist just happens to have taste that matches the popular conception, they may be successful and pure at the same time, even if they never attract the attention of the intellectuals.

The only advice all this suggests to me is that an artist must have goals, and those goals ought to be artistic, not purely commercial. The complaint is that if striving towards those goals brings commercial success, they will be dismissed by some elements of an intelligentsia that despises commercial success. Those might be the same folks that declare that a comedian has lost his edginess just because he was successful on The Tonight Show with a TV-acceptable monologue.

What's the old aphorism from the Bard? This above all: To thine own self be true.

The issue of education is very obvious in music. Tchaikovsky remains quite popular with the masses, and rightly so. But there is truly wonderful music that has been composed since Tchaikovsky, and music that isn't as overtly emotional. Do we want a populace that is stuck at Tchaikovsky? If Tchaikovsky is accessible by musical first-timers, shouldn't we work to give them enough experience to acquire a taste for later stuff? If you put it in terms of beer, the lowest low-brow would get it: Some beer (any beer?) is not enjoyed on first drinking, but after a while just about any devoted beer-drinker will develop taste for beer beyond what they could tolerate as beginners. Why shouldn't that also be acceptable in the arts?

Rick "who never expected to draw from Shakespeare and beer drinking in the same post" Denney

theBDT

19-Jun-2011, 08:08

I for one, despite usually being sympathetic with Paul's statements, am glad the Post-Modern era is ending. The display of various kinds of animal poop? Unengaging, uninspired, worn out... Yes, this is just a personal opinion, but considering the rise of movements like "metamodernism," "remodernism," and the "new sincerity," I'd wager many many artists are moving away from the "what is art? is the highest question art can pose" attitude of Post-Modernism.

Taking this discussion back to the topic (a bit), I found it supremely ironic, getting my BA in English at a fashionable institution well-steeped in Post-Modernism (Derrida taught there), when I was being taught in formal instruction that one of the points of Post-Modernism was to confound formal instruction. Indeed, the "revolutionary, anti-scholastic" nature of Post-Modernism was covered on some of the tests I took. So where does this leave the new movements, the Post-Post-Modern? Well, for one thing, while there still is no expectation to "explain" a work to the audience, making a work difficult, opaque, or strange merely for the sake of confounding the audience isn't, well... it isn't very sincere, is it?

I'm eagerly awaiting as Post-Modernism finally burns itself off completely. Some of the more "conservative" posters here might not like to admit it, but Neo-Pictorialism, focused on the equipment and process as much as the results, is VERY Post-Modern. :P

paulr

19-Jun-2011, 08:11

And no, Paul, don't tell me that this is impossible to effect and control -- it undoubtedly is, v. the significant impact of propaganda and advertising in the 20thC.

I never said that the viewer's response is impossible to control (well, control is a strong word, but I'd go with influence). I used propaganda and advertising photography as examples earlier in the thread.

I'm only talking about the desireability of doing this. The art that I'm interested in differs greatly from advertising, propaganda, or anything rhetorical. It's too layered and open-ended to elicit a predictable or universal response. In my view, if art moves people in predictable and universal ways it's essentially kitch. At best boring, at worst insulting.

I fully acknowledge that many people disagree. People have different reasons for looking at art.

paulr

19-Jun-2011, 08:31

I'm eagerly awaiting as Post-Modernism finally burns itself off completely. Some of the more "conservative" posters here might not like to admit it, but Neo-Pictorialism, focused on the equipment and process as much as the results, is VERY Post-Modern. :P

I studied English lit, and guessing from the details of your post did so in more or less the same era as you. As a result for years I couldn't get far enough away from the scourge of the po-mo.

But a couple of things happened. First, I noticed that postmodern ideas actually translated into some magical things, particularly in art forms that have a time component (fiction, film, poetry, theater, music). In contrast, self-concsiously po-mo photography, if it succeeded for me, did so as a one-liner. And it rarely succeeded. Painting had only a slightly better track record. So for reasons I don't understand—maybe because they're about nothing more than taste, I don't know—I found the 'ism to be fine even if its manifestations in the still visual arts were mostly crappy. Just food for thought.

The second thing was a recent conversation with an editor at a literary magazine, a guy I find especially insightful. He said, look, postmodernism isn't something you do. It's the era we're in. No matter what you do, whether it's some mash-up pastiche steeped in irony and self-reference, or a sonnet that looks like it's from the 16th Century, you're doing it in the postmodern era. You're doing it with full awareness of contemporary issues, and any sophisticated audience members will be reading it with that same awareness.

In other words, postmodernism isn't something you can opt out of any more than you can opt out of this particular calendar year. It's what you're swimming in at the moment. The question is, what are you going to do from within its context? Your choices are infinite, but the influence of that context on how your work will be seen cannot be escaped.

It's quite likely, and I believe desireable, that Po Mo work, with captital P and M, loudly declaring its postmodernity, will go out of fashion. I think it's already happened. But this won't mark the end of the po mo era; just the maturity of it. The earliest modern art had a lot to say about being modern (look at the avant garde movements in Europe: futurism, dada, constructivism, all the various 'isms and their manifestos). Likewise early rock gave us a lot of songs about rock. Early rap was all about rap.

The artists eventually moved on to other things, presumeably after staking out their ideological turf.

Brian K

19-Jun-2011, 08:56

Irving Penn and Arnold Newman, Avedon and Paul Outerbridge, Ansel, etc. etc. All did work on assignment. Commercial work. That means they had to understand the requirements of their clients and satisfy those needs. Yet much of their commercial work has been recognized as great art.

Ansel, who paid the bills for most of his life with his commercial work, is probably the most famous and exhibited of all American photographers, also the most popular. Does his popularity mean he's not an artist?

I think the notion that only work done solely for one's amusement is art, that once you are trying to meet the needs of someone else you have now lost the right to consider that work art.

So I guess all of the work produced by the great artists of the renaissance is just commercial and not art, because after all nearly all of that work hanging in the World's great museums and the vatican were done on assignment. The Sistine chapel must be commercial crap as well.

I think there is a cultural phenomenon happening now. The culture of the amateur. In many fields there are far more amateurs than professionals. And photography is probably the biggest example of that. I think many serious amateurs have a feeling of insecurity, jealousy or even a resentment when it comes to professionals. The camera makers and photo marketeers understand this hence the use of "pro" in many of their sales promotions and advertisements. "Light like a pro", "Shoot like a pro" "Pro camera". On this forum and APUG the amateurs outnumber the pros considerably. I have heard the argument many times, that work done commercially lacks the same merit as work done without compensation in the equation. I've even read in these pages where a commercial photographer can not consider themselves an artist as only someone working without compensation is a true artist. But what those voicing those opinions fail to understand is that every professional starts out as an amateur or hobbyist, and has that background and perspective behind them. But what the amateurs can't understand is the perspective of the professional because they have never been one. And that for many pros the challenge and the goal is not just to satisfy the client but to satisfy themselves with the work they do as well. And that dedicating your life's career to photography is a higher degree of commitment to your art than just doing it on weekends.

Bill Burk

19-Jun-2011, 09:13

Some more disjointed thoughts...

I was thinking along the lines of 'to thine own self be true.'

I think maybe studying lit might have given you guys a valuable vocabulary to compare and describe photography, that's the kind of education a photographer could use.

It's an interesting point to reconsider whether I agree quality might be measured by the success of communicating with the intended audience, improved by feedback as a comedian would time punch lines.

As to what the future may bring, I have keeping an eye on the thread titled " post alternative ..."

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=51078

ic-racer

19-Jun-2011, 09:20

Education is, in fact, what separates the educated from the un-educated.

Bill Burk

19-Jun-2011, 09:41

When I showed my portfolio to a close friend, I cringed when she gave me postive feedback on an old shot of Saddlerock Lake that, while nice, doesn't meet my current standards.

There are also several works on my wall, of my own, of church-related themes. They are there because they please my wife. In that sense they are successful professional photographs. Faith-based art is not something I feel moved to create for myself so they are not in my portfolio.

I have a negative that I shot while hanging around with friends (including an art student) where they came up with the idea to put on gas masks and hang around in bars. The negative is printable and the shot is well executed and would communicate successfully, but it never went beyond contact print because I don't feel like the idea was mine.

A professional photographer will be put in a situation where the idea for the photograph is pre-determined and their professional job is to execute the vision of somebody else. I would be embarrassed if I elevated the result as art, and later found there was no spirit of the photographer in it.

I can judge my own work on this basis because I know the motive behind each and every shot. I will not say that work done for other purposes is meritless or less beautiful. I would just appreciate disclosure of the motive.

Now I'd have no problem if there was a flexible assignment, and luck brought about an alignment of the photographer and subject, true to the photographer's self.

Or if the photographer learned to put a bit of their self in every shot no matter what motive was behind it.

paulr

19-Jun-2011, 09:52

I think the notion that only work done solely for one's amusement is art, that once you are trying to meet the needs of someone else you have now lost the right to consider that work art.

I'm not sure who you're arguing with. The modern era gave us a breakdown of hard distinctions between commercial art and fine art (by way of a break with previous eras that cared about "intent" of the artist). Szarkowski collected not just commercial photos but scientific photos and anonymous ones. The postmodern era dismisses these distinctions entirely.

What we can notice, however, is trends. Most work done successfully for commercial purposes works in particular ways. It leads viewers in a predictable direction. It gives up what it has to offer very quickly. This is compatible with some people's interest in fine art, but not with mine.

Nor even with Szarkowski's. He made clear that the commercial and scientific photos that succeed as art, in his terms, are exceptional not typical. Likewise, most of the interesting art done by journalists and commercial photogs (Ansel, Cartier-Bresson, etc.) was done on their own time, not on their employers'.

So I guess all of the work produced by the great artists of the renaissance is just commercial and not art...

That work was done on commission but was not commercial. Commercial work implies that it's done for the purposes of commerce, not just that you were paid for it. Hence the distinction between journalists and commercial photographers, both of whom work on assignment and get paid.

I don't buy the whole amateur jeaolousy thesis. I can look at the history of phtography from 1826 to the present, and pick out the photos that I find most interesting and significant, and I'll bet that fewer than 1% will have been made by a commercial photographer on assignment.

Bill Burk

19-Jun-2011, 10:51

Nice summary in post 123 Paul,

I'm trying to come to grips with what Brian is saying, he is a real photography teacher, so what he does has to be right, probably is right.

There may be one or two students in an entire teaching career who become talented art photographers. It would be fun to look back and see what advice they got, what involvement they had in class and what their classwork was like. Hopefully their talent was recognized and encouraged. But my work in high school was truly awful, so if a time and space warp put me in one of your classes, Brian, you would never know the influence you had on my life.
---

My favorite weasel-out concept paraphrased from Minor White...

If the photograph is not true to your self, the wastebasket is one alternative, the other is to make over your inner self until you correspond to the statement in the photograph.

Brian K

19-Jun-2011, 11:07

A professional photographer will be put in a situation where the idea for the photograph is pre-determined and their professional job is to execute the vision of somebody else. I would be embarrassed if I elevated the result as art, and later found there was no spirit of the photographer in it.

That opinion reflects your many years of experience as a professional photographer, or does that reflect your assumptions as an amateur? See what I mean?

I worked on just as many projects where there was no predetermined concept as there ones where there was. But by your standard, Paul Outerbridge, Penn, Newman, Avedon, Karsh, Halsman, etc are not artists.

What you take as someone filling an order is often closer to being a creative challenge, a test of one's talent and vision. A vision to see what's more than there. And the same assignment given to 10 different pro photographers could end up looking like 10 completely different photographs. Because each photographer has their own way of seeing their own perspectives and preferences. The end result is STILL an individual's vision. But as few of you have ever, EVER had to actually do assignment work, then you simply have no idea about what I'm talking about, and are rendering opinions about areas of which you have no firsthand knowledge. So it's all assumptions.

Brian K

19-Jun-2011, 11:42

I'm trying to come to grips with what Brian is saying, he is a real photography teacher, so what he does has to be right, probably is right.

There may be one or two students in an entire teaching career who become talented art photographers. It would be fun to look back and see what advice they got, what involvement they had in class and what their classwork was like. Hopefully their talent was recognized and encouraged. But my work in high school was truly awful, so if a time and space warp put me in one of your classes, Brian, you would never know the influence you had on my life.

Bill, the degree of influence that I or any teacher related to photography would have on your life is more related to you own desires for your photography. If you were seriously interested in photography few would be able to dissuade you, but most could even further fuel you. If you could care less about photography then a photo teacher would have little affect on you either way.

When I taught at SVA on the very first day of class I told my students that their entire grade was dependent on just one thing, their portfolio at the end of the semester. I also told them if they handed in their portfolios one day late they'd fail. I tried to emphasize to them that the work itself was EVERYTHING.

If you were my student I'd need to know a simple thing about you. Do you plan to make a living as a photographer, or are you just here for fun? Because the approach to the two, and the standards, is very different.

I would teach you what Duane Michals told me, "your best work will always be the work that means the most to you".

But understand that as an advertising photographer, even my commercial work meant something to me, a lot to me, and it wasn't just about doing a job or getting a check. I don't know a single commercial or professional photographer who got into photography for the money. They got into photography because they wanted to spend their lives doing what they loved.

paulr

19-Jun-2011, 11:53

The end result is STILL an individual's vision. But as few of you have ever, EVER had to actually do assignment work, then you simply have no idea about what I'm talking about, and are rendering opinions about areas of which you have no firsthand knowledge. So it's all assumptions.

My assumptions are based on the work that I see. As a commercial artist myself (in graphic design and print production, not photography) I work with commercial photography all the time. I see portfolios by the carload, annual workbooks, stock books, and the contact sheets or DVDs from shoots.

Paring this work down to the best, in terms of serving its commercial / editorial / fashion purposes, I still only once in a blue moon see something that would hold my interest as art. This isn't a dig at these photographers; most of them are doing something that I don't know how to do at all. The fact that we both use cameras just confuses people into thinking we play a similar game.

Are some of these photographers good artists also? Very likely. But they're not wasting anyone's time by showing their art portfolios to the advertising art directors.

Brian K

19-Jun-2011, 12:02

I'm not sure who you're arguing with.

There are several posts relating to whether work done by professionals is art or if work done with the end user in mind (lenox v Rosenthal) is art. And BTW if Rosenthal didn't care about people buying their products they'd be long gone.

What we can notice, however, is trends. Most work done successfully for commercial purposes works in particular ways. It leads viewers in a predictable direction. It gives up what it has to offer very quickly. This is compatible with some people's interest in fine art, but not with mine.

Well your personal preference is for work that seems to require a written explanation or a back story to justify. What you prefer could easily be considered vague or obscure. That the work is not required to stand on it's own. And you'll find that a significant percentage of people would rather the photo tell the story than have to read an essay.

Likewise, most of the interesting art done by journalists and commercial photogs (Ansel, Cartier-Bresson, etc.) was done on their own time, not on their employers'.

That work was done on commission but was not commercial. Commercial work implies that it's done for the purposes of commerce, not just that you were paid for it. Hence the distinction between journalists and commercial photographers, both of whom work on assignment and get paid.

Do you really think that artists have a switch on their backs that one sets for commercial or art? That their personal vision and perspective switches off when they are paid to shoot something? The same values, perspectives and philosophies follow an artist whether they are on assignment or not. The only difference is that the base subject matter gets picked for you. But that is also the case when you are assigned work in school, so i guess any work done in school on assignment is not art. I was assigned that Pepper to shoot, wasn't my decision to blow it up instead of following the herd and copying Weston an artistic and personal choice?

I don't buy the whole amateur jeaolousy thesis. I can look at the history of phtography from 1826 to the present, and pick out the photos that I find most interesting and significant, and I'll bet that fewer than 1% will have been made by a commercial photographer on assignment.

Well world wide you have perhaps thousands of amateur photographers for every professional photographer, don't you think that's going to skew the numbers a bit? As for the stuff done in the 1800's, almost ALL of the work surviving from that time was done by either commercial photographers or those on some assignment.

Brian K

19-Jun-2011, 12:08

My assumptions are based on the work that I see. As a commercial artist myself (in graphic design and print production, not photography) I work with commercial photography all the time. I see portfolios by the carload, annual workbooks, stock books, and the contact sheets or DVDs from shoots.

Paring this work down to the best, in terms of serving its commercial / editorial / fashion purposes, I still only once in a blue moon see something that would hold my interest as art. This isn't a dig at these photographers; most of them are doing something that I don't know how to do at all. The fact that we both use cameras just confuses people into thinking we play a similar game.

Are some of these photographers good artists also? Very likely. But they're not wasting anyone's time by showing their art portfolios to the advertising art directors.

Paul you have spoken of formal aesthetics with great disdain, of course tyour going to view work done that way with disinterest. And what goes into a commercial portfolio, or the Blackbook, etc is work designed to get more work. It's not necessarily the most artistic work those photographers produce. It's what is perceived as the market's requirement.

I'm curious Paul do actually do much in the way of shooting commercial photographic assignments?

paulr

19-Jun-2011, 12:22

Paul you have spoken of formal aesthetics with great disdain,

No I haven't.

Almost all the work I like is formal, and I've been told that all the work I've done is formal.

I've grown less interested over the years in work that offers little beyond form ... but that's not how I'd characterize the commercial work i see.

I just think it's uninteresting. It tends to be about two things: superficial esthetics, and making a product or idea look appealing. There's almost never anything to explore. You see it, you get it, you're done.

Most of what's there to get is banal, anyhow. It's what the audience already believes, already knows it wants. Yawn. At its most interesting, it's funny. Some people want nothing more than this from art. I'm not among them.

I'm curious Paul do actually do much in the way of shooting commercial photographic assignments?

No, because I don't like doing the work and I don't like looking at it. If it weren't part of my job I wouldn't look at it at all.

paulr

19-Jun-2011, 12:24

theBDT

19-Jun-2011, 12:31

Brian K

19-Jun-2011, 13:21

"The word amateur has two meanings. In its classical sense it is the antonym of professional, and refers to those who pursue a problem for love rather than for the rewards the world may offer. In this sense the word often identifies the most sophisticated practitioners in a field; many of photography's greatest names have been amateurs as pure as the crocuses of spring, and many others, though mercenaries during the week, have done their best work on the weekends."

John Szarkowski, Looking at Photographs, introduction to Jacques Henri Lartigue

Paul, amateurs in those days were a whole different animal than amateurs today. In the old days just to have an image consistently appear on film, just to make a print, one had to have a reasonable level of skill and experience earned through practice and experimentation. Those "greatest names in photography who were amateurs" were at a skill level that most would consider professional today. I don't think they had auto focus, auto exposure, auto everything, idiot proof cameras with 12 stop dynamic ranges. They had to work at their photography and with work comes skill and experience.

paulr

19-Jun-2011, 14:19

Paul: I think Post Modernism has run out of steam; I don't believe we're solidly in that era so much as solidly in the transition away from it. As it has no clear beginning, it obviously has no ending. I imagine we substantially disagree, since you seem to be of the idea that we're all still very much in the Post Modern era.

I discuss this issue more in my blog, and I don't think many here are interested in me pimping out links. PM me if you'd like to read it...

Sure, send me the link. Our difference of opinion might be more semantic than anything else. This "era" exists, as an era of ideas, because it has called into question significant foundational ideas of previous eras. The freshness of this observation certainly has an expiration date, but at the same time there's no return to innocence. Until something sweepingly different comes along, this is what we got.

Maybe you're proposing that something sweepingly new has come along?

paulr

19-Jun-2011, 14:24

Paul, amateurs in those days were a whole different animal than amateurs today.

Yes, and horses pooped gold nuggets. Oh, please. I'm not talking about "those days," I'm talking about any days. The spirit of Szarkowski's statement holds up for me, certainly. The commercial work I look at is from this decade and the previous one.

Richard Mahoney

19-Jun-2011, 14:27

... I've grown less interested over the years in work that offers little beyond form ... but that's not how I'd characterize the commercial work i see.

I just think it's uninteresting. It tends to be about two things: superficial esthetics, and making a product or idea look appealing. There's almost never anything to explore. You see it, you get it, you're done. ...

Paul, you have often expressed this sentiment, and I although I'm sure you are sincere, I don't believe that your assertion holds up to closer inspection. To use a particular example, how could one seriously maintain that there is little depth in the work -- `commercial' or otherwise -- of someone such as Paolo Roversi:

PAOLO ROVERSI -- http://www.paoloroversi.com/

Brian has suggested that it is inappropriate to attempt to draw a hard distinction between the `commercial' [`public'?] and `personal' [`private'?] work of committed photographers. In many cases I would agree. People who care about what they do, who are genuinely engaged in their work, don't tend to compartmentalize their lives. They see their life and their work as a whole -- their work, in many cases, *is* their life. And any suggestion that they are one person when they are working on a commission and another when they are working on their `own' is nonsense.

Kind regards,

Richard

rdenney

19-Jun-2011, 14:53

Paul, amateurs in those days were a whole different animal than amateurs today. In the old days just to have an image consistently appear on film, just to make a print, one had to have a reasonable level of skill and experience earned through practice and experimentation. Those "greatest names in photography who were amateurs" were at a skill level that most would consider professional today. I don't think they had auto focus, auto exposure, auto everything, idiot proof cameras with 12 stop dynamic ranges. They had to work at their photography and with work comes skill and experience.

Brian, must you seek to belittle many of the users of this forum so assiduously? I am an amateur, though I have done commercial work in the past. I, like many serious amateurs of today, take technique quite seriously, and I have pursued it with a lot of commitment at times.

In my professional work, I am in a different league, and admittedly find it sometimes tiresome to talk with non-experts. That said, I don't hang out in forums that include a lot of amateurs claiming that they can never know what I know. On the contrary, I consider it a professional responsibility to explain it to them. And I know plenty of pros who have the same year of experience 25 times.

As a professional, I have always adjusted my assignments to align with what I think is important. That's why I took a cut in pay to work harder in a government agency last year. But any professional assignment is a mix of what we want to do and what is expected of us, unless we are such a star that we can make demands of our clients.

Adams called it "assignments from without", versus "assignments from within". He said that after a long career of doing mostly the former. Can we take him at his word?

Rick "who knows as much about photographic technique as a lot of current professionals" Denney

Bill Burk

19-Jun-2011, 15:07

Post 126 is stirring, moving.

It's fathers' day so I'll talk about my dad.

Dad told me one day a former student came up to him to tell him his class saved his life, yet dad said he was one of those kids who never did his work and was always getting in trouble.

My dad likes to joke that my sister got the crayons and I got the box. She was always drawing and I was always making stuff. He signed me up for American Basic Science Club and one of the units was a full darkroom. Dad let me setup in the closet under the stairs and the bathroom. He bought a Pentax Spotmatic II and made it clear it was "his" so I only got to use it for professional purposes. We made a copystand out of a single sheet of plywood. I took copy pictures of flat art and used photofloods and sheets and boxes to take slides of sculptures.

Vaughn

19-Jun-2011, 15:25

Bill, my dad gave me his Rolleiflex as he no longer needed it to take the family slides (35mm film adapter inside). He bought a brand-new Kodak 804 Instamatic. It was my first camera, and only camera until I got a 4x5 (then a 5x7 then an 8x10, and soon an 11x14).

While the old Rollei bit the dust, I still own one and can not imagine not owning one.

Vaughn

Bill Burk

19-Jun-2011, 15:31

If I have dismissed Halsman, then I am wrong. He was all about love, I used two of his photos to illustrate my Valentine's Day card to my wife this year. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, before and after he told them "You cannot look at my camera like this; you are the most romantic couple in the world, the king who has given up his crown for the woman he loves."

So it only took me a couple seconds to find this...

In the article "100 Life Covers" from 1970 Halsman directly wrote about what we are discussing now.

"When you shoot a cover, you must ask yourself whether the magazine is sold on newsstands or sent only to subscribers. If it is sold by subscription only, you face a captive audience. In that circumstance any good photograph can be used as a cover, and you don't have to worry whether a cover will stimulate a desire to buy the magazine or not. You can be as original as your editor will allow."

"When, however, the magazine is to be sold on newsstands, the situation is much more complex. The cover must compete with other covers; it must have a poster effect...It must have this undefinable quality which will make the onlooker want to read the magazine."

[omitted paragraph that tells about the Renaissance artists working for clients, and paragraph stating that a photographer straddles both professional and artist]

"When I work to express myself, I try to please only myself. Of course I hope eventually the result will be published, perhaps in my own book; or perhaps it may be exhibited. I refuse assignments which are in conflict with my convictions. But, when I work on an assignment or on a cover, I am a professional trying to produce a photo which can and will be used."

Bill Burk

19-Jun-2011, 15:57

Vaughn,

Lucky you, and happy father's day.

My dad never gave me that Spotmatic, though once in a while I 'borrowed' it for months at a time.

Dad also bought and I wore out "Life Library of Photography" and its supplements.

Vaughn

19-Jun-2011, 16:09

Thanks, Bill...and I will make an assumption and wish you a Happy Father's Day, also! My dad was not a photographer (obviously -- giving up a Rollei for an Instamatic!).

I cooked waffles and bacon for my three boys this morning. I really like making waffles (and pancakes) for my boys...and I only have four more Father's Days before they are out of high school and (in theory) out of the house. They grow quick!

Vaughn

Brian K

19-Jun-2011, 16:17

Brian, must you seek to belittle many of the users of this forum so assiduously? I am an amateur, though I have done commercial work in the past. I, like many serious amateurs of today, take technique quite seriously, and I have pursued it with a lot of commitment at times.

In my professional work, I am in a different league, and admittedly find it sometimes tiresome to talk with non-experts. That said, I don't hang out in forums that include a lot of amateurs claiming that they can never know what I know. On the contrary, I consider it a professional responsibility to explain it to them. And I know plenty of pros who have the same year of experience 25 times.

As a professional, I have always adjusted my assignments to align with what I think is important. That's why I took a cut in pay to work harder in a government agency last year. But any professional assignment is a mix of what we want to do and what is expected of us, unless we are such a star that we can make demands of our clients.

Adams called it "assignments from without", versus "assignments from within". He said that after a long career of doing mostly the former. Can we take him at his word?

Rick "who knows as much about photographic technique as a lot of current professionals" Denney

Rick this is a forum of people choosing to use non automated, antiquated in design large format cameras. Not people who require idiot cameras, so why you take issue with that is beyond me, unless of course I have struck a nerve with you. And Rick" who knows as much about photographic technique as a lot of current Professionals" you have no clue as to how much you don't know. And while there are all sorts of people who call themselves professionals, the people I worked along side of and competed against are in a different league. And in comparison to their work, you would not arrogantly claim equal expertise quite so easily.

And why am I here conversing with so many amateurs? Because in spite of being a professional for 34 years, in spite of having majored in photography and art, in spite of having taught photography, in spite of having assisted some of the best photographers in the world, I realize that there is ALWAYS more to learn, unlike some people here who haven't gotten much further than recording an image on film yet think they know it all.

paulr

19-Jun-2011, 17:00

Paul, you have often expressed this sentiment, and I although I'm sure you are sincere, I don't believe that your assertion holds up to closer inspection. To use a particular example, how could one seriously maintain that there is little depth in the work -- `commercial' or otherwise -- of someone such as Paolo Roversi:

I said it "tends" to be uninteresting. I'd even say "overwhelmingly tends." This doesn't mean there isn't exceptional work that happens to cross over, being interesting beyond the pragmatism of commercial work. We've already established this.

I don't have the patience to get through Roversi's flash-based site, so I'll take youre word for it that he's one of the exceptional ones.

Brian has suggested that it is inappropriate to attempt to draw a hard distinction between the `commercial' [`public'?] and `personal' [`private'?] work of committed photographers. In many cases I would agree. People who care about what they do, who are genuinely engaged in their work, don't tend to compartmentalize their lives.

I disagree (not sure if you're accurately characterizing Brian's statement or not). Commercial photography has a distinct set of goals. These lead it in a direction that's so far from what good art (as I see it) does that it's atypical for anything to succeed as both. It's not a question of someone compromising their standards, but rather of engaging in different disciplines that happen to involve a camera.

Have you seen ansel's commercial work? It's all over his instructional books.

Here's a way you can undermine my argument: point out that it's tautological. I have charactarized commercial art in a way that I think most people here agree with: that it pushes viewers in a clear direction and that it gives up its message quickly. But my characterization of interesting art is directly and specifically incompatible with this. It's basically the opposite. So of course, in my view, there are typically incompatibilities between good art and good commercial imagery.

I think the exceptions happen for a couple of reasons: either the ad makes use of some obscurity, or (more likely) the image works on multiple levels—a quick and easy one, and others that can be dug through by anyone with the patience.

I think the better work by people like Penn and Avedon fits this last description.

Anyway ... if you disagree with me, fundamentally, about what makes good art good, then my argument will be unconvincing. For example, If you like art with a clear message, indisputable emotion, or instant readability, then you're likely to find lots of crossover between good art and good ads.

paulr

19-Jun-2011, 17:10

And Rick" who knows as much about photographic technique as a lot of current Professionals" you have no clue as to how much you don't know. And while there are all sorts of people who call themselves professionals, the people I worked along side of and competed against are in a different league. And in comparison to their work, you would not arrogantly claim equal expertise ...

What a bunch or arrogant hot air. Either Rick has the technique he needs to do the work he wants to do or he doesn't, yet. Nothing else matters. And you're not in a position to judge, and it would be irrelevent to the ideas here anyhow.

Technique serves a vision. Either that or it serves the egos of people who like to brag about it on the 'net.

Brian K

19-Jun-2011, 18:36

What a bunch or arrogant hot air. Either Rick has the technique he needs to do the work he wants to do or he doesn't, yet. Nothing else matters. And you're not in a position to judge, and it would be irrelevent to the ideas here anyhow.

Technique serves a vision. Either that or it serves the egos of people who like to brag about it on the 'net.

No Paul, I am in the position to judge, He made a statement. A statement that few would argue I am well qualified to comment on.

Thirty four years in the business and I can GUARANTEE I know more professional photographers, have worked side by side with more, have shared studios with more, and have assisted more, than you and Rick combined. Throw in 3000 professional assignments resulting in 25,000 photographs. So I have a pretty fair idea of the skills and knowledge of professional photographers. I've seen Rick's work, trust me I don't know any professionals who he seems more competent or knowledgeable than.

Rick TAKES pictures, a professional MAKES pictures consistently at a very high level on demand, everyday, regardless of conditions or restrictions. But maybe the issue is the definition of professional. My last sentence pretty much contains what I consider the most basic level of professionalism. But maybe Rick is comparing himself to guys who shoot their cousin's wedding for beer money as being a professional, with that definition maybe Rick is right.

For all the talk and assumptions about professional photography, neither of you actually makes your living as photographers. So who's arrogant and full of hot air?

paulr

19-Jun-2011, 18:52

Deniskellyjr

19-Jun-2011, 20:34

I am pleased to report that the Art Institute of Indianapolis' Digital Photography Program has a required class in Large Format. I will be teaching it again this summer for the second time. Because we do not have a digital back, we will primarily use Fuji instant film. Last year we also exposed some Tri-X and Fujicolor 160 color negative film. We have an Epson scanner to digitize the images. The institute has eight Toyo mono rails and one Nikon 45mm Tilt shift lens to use with SLRs. I plan to expand their regard for the plane of focus, distortion control and exquisite subtlety. If any of you have suggestions about film or teaching methods, please feel free to contact me. For me, education is a life long endeavor.

rdenney

19-Jun-2011, 20:50

Rick this is a forum of people choosing to use non automated, antiquated in design large format cameras. Not people who require idiot cameras, so why you take issue with that is beyond me, unless of course I have struck a nerve with you. And Rick" who knows as much about photographic technique as a lot of current Professionals" you have no clue as to how much you don't know. And while there are all sorts of people who call themselves professionals, the people I worked along side of and competed against are in a different league. And in comparison to their work, you would not arrogantly claim equal expertise quite so easily.

And why am I here conversing with so many amateurs? Because in spite of being a professional for 34 years, in spite of having majored in photography and art, in spite of having taught photography, in spite of having assisted some of the best photographers in the world, I realize that there is ALWAYS more to learn, unlike some people here who haven't gotten much further than recording an image on film yet think they know it all.

Well, that put me in my place.

I merely compared myself to a lot of current professionals. I know a lot of current professionals. In addition to the ones I know personally, I have conversed with a lot of them on other photography forums. I never claimed them to be those who you respect or with whom you worked, or who meet your standard, whatever that is. I didn't even claim that they represented the majority.

My point, of course, was not to claim expertise for myself, but rather to challenge mere experience (or job status) as the arbiter of ideas. This will be difficult for you to understand, but then some people don't know what they don't know.

People whose experience has real value are usually able to express ideas that are glowingly informed by that experience. Rarely do the most experienced members of this forum have to claim their professional credentials, except when being challenged by someone who is judging their resume instead of the ideas they are expressing.

I don't think it takes specific experience to understand what other people say about their experience. That's why I wrote what Ansel Adams said about his experience, and asked you if we could believe it. You chose not to answer that question, or even to discuss whether Adams's statement was one with which you could agree.

Furthermore, doing anything commercially that requires thinking creatively runs into the same issues between the creative standard we place on our own work and the standard and constraints our clients place on us. And there is no learned profession that does not require creative thinking when done at a high level. That experience informs ideas that transcend photography.

The issue of this thread is about education and its value to the creative artist photographer. Your prescription seems to be to gain 34 years of specific experience, with the level of commitment only someone doing it for a living for 34 years can even understand let alone attain, and furthermore to spend 34 years doing it with photographers which I'm sure really are out of my league. (You say you are a teacher, but I surely hope that is not how you teach.) Any time anyone challenges your ideas, you counter with your resume, and then invalidate their qualifications for deigning to challenge you.

If that is not your prescription, then perhaps you should consider fine-tuning your message a bit.

Rick "who'd like to learn something more from you than your resume" Denney

Bill Burk

19-Jun-2011, 21:51

Bill Burk

19-Jun-2011, 21:57

Brian,

I left out my point.

I'd like to keep working on this, I think we're getting close to a solution.

(But I have to do it in my spare time)

Welcome Deniskellyjr

I think you came to the right place at the right time.

Bill "and I get a kick out of Rick's sigs too" Burk

Richard Mahoney

20-Jun-2011, 02:37

I said it "tends" to be uninteresting. I'd even say "overwhelmingly tends." This doesn't mean there isn't exceptional work that happens to cross over, being interesting beyond the pragmatism of commercial work. We've already established this.

I don't have the patience to get through Roversi's flash-based site, so I'll take youre word for it that he's one of the exceptional ones.

As you appear to be somewhat flash-challenged, you may find this less of an impediment:

Pace/MacGill :: Paolo Roversi
http://www.pacemacgill.com/paoloroversi.html

Yes, Roversi is exceptional, but by no means an exception. A number of `commercial' photographers have always created work of significant `artistic' -- whatever that means -- merit. The strange thing, though, is that this has only relatively recently been thought worthy of special -- almost apologetic -- mention. The final paragraph of LaChapelle's short biography is a particularly extreme and vainglorious case to point:

His [David LaChapelle's] ability to create scenes of extreme reality using rich and vibrant colors makes his work instantly recognizable and often imitated. He continues to be inspired by everything from art history and street culture, to the Hawaiian jungle in where (sic) he lives, creating both a record and mirror of all facets of popular culture today. He is quite simply the only photographic artist (double sic) working in the world today whose work has transcended the fashion or celebrity magazine context it was made for, and has been enshrined by the notoriously discerning contemporary art intelligentsia. [http://www.lachapellestudio.com/about/]

Well, then, here's the rub. How many of us -- really -- believe that there is any value, let alone dignity, in prostrating ourselves at the feet of such a beast? Surely the rebirth of The Academy -- for that is really what we are seeing -- is something to be resisted, held out against, and spurned, as something that has always led to the death of all creativity.

Kind regards,

Richard

Brian K

20-Jun-2011, 04:26

Brian, you don't know Rick's work, therefore you are making assumptions based on your prejudices. What else could they be based on?

And you're making these assumptions based on the value of technique for technique's sake, which may be of interest to some people but is certainly of no interets to me.

I'm not going to engage you in this discussion anymore. I don't see the point. It was amusing for a little while reading responses to bizarre interpretations of my posts, but the constant reassertions have made me sleepy.

Paul, I looked at the work on Rick's website before I commented.

The difference between amateurs and professionals is about doing photography full time for many years, decades. Someone shooting on the weekends is not the same as someone shooting 5-6 days a week, every week for 20 years and who has had to shoot a variety of subjects, locations, conditions, usually with a client looking over their shoulder and always a tight deadline.

There's no "let's shoot this tomorrow because the light is poor today", instead it's the light is poor, MAKE THIS WORK NOW!". It's about having the skill set and experience that enables you to ALWAYS get the shot and to get it at a level that is consistently excellent.

When I was an assistant and I had worked for a photographer long enough, we'd get to some location, and I knew exactly how he was going to set up. I'd say to myself,' he's going to put the main light there, a sweeping light on the background there, a light there to define that edge, we'll move this object here and the subject would be here, f11 and we're ready to go.' and I'd be right. But then the first time it's your shoot, and the success or failure is totally on you the pressure starts to mess with you. And every assistant turned photographer that I ever spoke to has had the same experience. It's like target shooting versus shooting under fire. And unless you've been there day after day for a very long time you just can't understand.

When an amateur goes out to shoot, there's no consequences. Either they get a photo or they don't. If it's good weather and nice light they walk up to that existing scene and fire the shutter. If the weather's bad, they go home, or out for lunch, or whatever. It doesn't really matter because there's nothing at stake, they don't have the skills to make it work under those conditions and they can just come back again tomorrow or next weekend.

For the pro the consequences of not getting the shot or getting a poor shot can be devastating. You might lose a key client, and as many clients know each other, the word can get around and your reputation can suffer to the extent that you go out of business, in some cases you may face financial liability. Fly a crew somewhere, feed and shelter them, pay their fees, and if the shoot is a disaster, you will most likely eat all those costs. And if there was a fixed media buy that is literally waiting for the film to walk in the door and will then go straight out, and you miss that, they may sue you for the media buy. Target shooting versus shooting under fire. That's what they pay a pro for.

Lighting. The amateur with a real understanding of artificial lighting is pretty rare. While anyone can aim a soft box at someone from the front side, and maybe even have a gradating light on the background, or shoot some flowers with a sidelight against a black background, try shooting a scene that includes a spherical mirror finished object, or multiple mirror finished objects all angled differently, on a black textured background, show detail and gradation in all as well as lighting the entire scene in a manner appropriate to the scene that's also interesting and attractive. For an amateur it ain't going to happen.

So live in the illusion that there's no difference between a pro and an amateur except the pro charges for their work, if that's what your ego needs. Hell, go out and buy that "Pro" camera, that'll make you just as good as Avedon won't it? But for those of us who have gone from amateur to pro, we know the difference.

Brian K

20-Jun-2011, 06:20

Brian, your emotional involvement in this discussion proves you can express strong emotions. I sometimes worry that getting involved in strong threads might burst some illusion I have, leaving me exasperated and unwilling to continue the project. But tonight I feel more like continuing, hopefully to share honest feelings to be seen for what they are.

I've probably made less than a thousand dollars in photographic assignments in my life.

I could probably describe every assignment here. I know that most professionals have more experience in their first year than I will ever have.

So that would make me an amateur with limited professional experience.

My sights are set realistically to an achievable level. I cannot claim superior experience. I cannot even clearly explain why my photographs should be better than anyone else's. But I can assert that I strive for very high technical and emotional standards.

My exposure to art was by osmosis through my highly artistic family, my dad, mom, sister, grandmother and now my son. I'm more mechanically oriented, so when I signed up for photography, I was tossed into print shop. I was successful there, and since the processes are similar, it stuck with me, satisfied my creative impulse, and that's the career path I followed.

My career has been in graphic arts, but I remained interested in photography for over 35 years. Now I work for Kodak, (in software development related to graphic arts), the opinions and positions I express are my own and not necessarily those of my employer.

At one point I thought I might pursue outdoor photography, I lived in the mountains for three years (and started to build a reputation as the local photographer - not hard in a town with a population of 50 but even there I had competition in the postcard trade). I attended a workshop which gave me some business tips and adjusted my expectations downward to the reality that I was not the next Galen Rowell.

I always maintain a working black and white darkroom. Over the past few years I have re-dedicated myself to black and white and started shooting 4x5 instead of 35mm. I added sensitometric controls that come naturally to me because of my graphic arts experience. And I spent these few years getting better at black and white developing and printing than I had ever been. Though I realize there is room for improvement, I can realistically claim a better than average darkroom.

I've already met my original goal to make a couple prints for my wall. Next goal is to make about a dozen prints for show. Since I do this in my spare time, with three kids, it is taking years to happen. This very slow progress would never be professionally acceptable but it's working for me. I also do my snapshots in LF, which is an additional challenge and pleasure.

Meanwhile some nice things have happened with a few pictures I've taken. MTV's most popular episode ever of one of their shows has a half-dozen of my images (thanks to that photography business workshop MTV can't show it anymore). And just the other day a stranger made a random remark on a forum and I produced a photo of that person taken 35 years ago from less than 3 feet away (an awful shot that could have been f/8).

Bill, I have to say that I appreciate that you're always very even in your tone. I have strong emotions about this subject because quite literally I have devoted my life to it. It's all I've ever done, and all I ever will do. So the ignorant talk of some people in regards to their assumptions about the requirements of being a professional raises my blood pressure. And if people think that just about anyone is pro level today because they can have an image appear on a screen, it's because of all the posers out there claiming to be professional. It has seriously damaged the reputation of the industry as a whole and that reflects on the ability of real professionals, people who have dedicated themselves to photography, to be able to make a living. The way in which society has devalued art, is also what is happening to photography.

Too many people lacking the skills or experience are soliciting work on the basis of their being a pro. And they might even have a decent enough portfolio to get some work, but remember, those photos were taken on the good shoot days, or under the easier of conditions, not the real world professional challenges. So someone thinks they are hiring a pro, and the job turns out to be a disaster, that client will might twice now about hiring a pro, they might think they they could do a photo just as good as the "pro" they hired. And that hurts the industry and lower the quality level of the work.

From what I've read from you, you are realistic about your photography and simply want to enjoy doing it. And that's actually the healthy approach to it.

And getting back to the original topic, art education. To me going to college to learn photography is a good thing. What's bad is that the colleges seem to instill the illusion that these graduates are now professional photographers, that they're ready for anything, and they're not. What they are ready for is a few years of assisting, getting the skills, the nuts and bolts, the experience, the confidence and seeing the professional standards of both work and behavior required to be a professional. To see how a professional deals with a variety of situations. They may choose the commercial path, they may choose the fine arts path, they may choose to do both, but they will be prepared for both. And having professional skills is not a limiter for an artist but a liberator.

paulr

20-Jun-2011, 09:04

Yes, Roversi is exceptional, but by no means an exception. A number of `commercial' photographers have always created work of significant `artistic' -- whatever that means -- merit.

Yes, I appreciate the "whatever that means." It acknowledges that we all mean different things. I really mean in the sense of "interesting beyond being able to do its commercial job well, or beyond showing some kind of technical prowess, or beyond the attractiveness of its subject."

I do think that commercial work that achieves this is rare, based on looking at piles of it. Please don't think I'm talking about personal work done by people who do commercial work to pay the bills—that's ofen interesting. I'm just saying it's rare to find commercial work itself that transcends its role in these particular ways.

Is that work you linked to Roversi's commercial work? If so I wonder what it was used for ...

The strange thing, though, is that this has only relatively recently been thought worthy of special -- almost apologetic -- mention. The final paragraph of LaChapelle's short biography is a particularly extreme and vainglorious case to point:

Well, John Szarkowski, an arch conservative by today's standards, was collecting exceptional examples of commercial and other vernacular work for MoMA starting in the 1960s. By the 80s, the actual style and surface glitz of advertising photography became a much-copied trope among trendy art photographers. So I don't think we're talking about anything recent.

What's funny to me is that guys like La Chapelle, who are among the exceptional ones whose work crosses over easily, tend to do so by fitting the postmodern mix 'n mash esthetic that's so often reviled here. He's got all the ingredients: pop cult glam, pastiche, mixes of high and low art reference, plays on the sacred and profane, and .... photoshop up the wazzooo! I've always thought his stuff was fun ... we worked with him every year when I was at MTV. Definitely the most interesting commercial guy I knew about, but I personally consider him an artist of minor interest.

paulr

20-Jun-2011, 09:22

I should clarify that my comments are about the enterprise of commercial photography and not the photographers themselves. While many of the commercial photogs I know don't have any artistic bent, a good number do.

But the nature of most of the work is banal. It's what the clients demand. They want something familiar, conformative, that looks just like x, y, and z that they've seen before, even if they use ubiquitous buzzwords like "push the envelope!"

This is life in all the commercial arts. it's true in design and illustration and copywriting. Even architecture. Only the stars are designing buildings from scratch and entering international competitions. Guys right out of school (probably the most rigorous grad programs in existence) go to work assembling buildings from templates, if they're lucky enough to get a job at all.

My interests in photography are intense and quite specific; if I'm going to whore myself doing banal work, I'd rather not do it with a camera in my hands. It's why I do my whoring in design. And I'm planning to do more whoring in writing, if I can make a buck at it. The camera will remain my penniless, bohemian lover.

Bill Burk

20-Jun-2011, 23:03

Thanks Brian,

Since Deniskellyjr has a class to teach this summer I think it'd be good to narrow the focus from the overall education mix, to what a Large Format course should cover.

The first question I wonder, is developing going to be a challenge, or is there an existing darkroom with water, trays, chemicals? Are you going to spend time on the chem topics or zone system? Or will you basically shoot at ISO and have an assistant (or you) process the film after class?

Then there will be subjects to cover...

bob carnie

21-Jun-2011, 06:02

I think this is happening to professional printers as well.

I have printed for others my complete career, and survived, At no point during this period has there ever been more master printers in my area. Anyone owning a inkjet printer and two friends has a website and claiming years of experience and claiming to be such a person. Very few take up commercial rent and become legit.

For me it is good as I can concentrate on doing what I do to my best ability and if people see a difference, or become more interested in photography, the work we do becomes more important and we are seeing an upsurge in silver printing.
Also very few printers kept their darkrooms active so by default we are one of the few left standing practicing darkroom silver printing on a professional level.

Bill, I have to say that I appreciate that you're always very even in your tone. I have strong emotions about this subject because quite literally I have devoted my life to it. It's all I've ever done, and all I ever will do. So the ignorant talk of some people in regards to their assumptions about the requirements of being a professional raises my blood pressure. And if people think that just about anyone is pro level today because they can have an image appear on a screen, it's because of all the posers out there claiming to be professional. It has seriously damaged the reputation of the industry as a whole and that reflects on the ability of real professionals, people who have dedicated themselves to photography, to be able to make a living. The way in which society has devalued art, is also what is happening to photography.

Too many people lacking the skills or experience are soliciting work on the basis of their being a pro. And they might even have a decent enough portfolio to get some work, but remember, those photos were taken on the good shoot days, or under the easier of conditions, not the real world professional challenges. So someone thinks they are hiring a pro, and the job turns out to be a disaster, that client will might twice now about hiring a pro, they might think they they could do a photo just as good as the "pro" they hired. And that hurts the industry and lower the quality level of the work.

From what I've read from you, you are realistic about your photography and simply want to enjoy doing it. And that's actually the healthy approach to it.

And getting back to the original topic, art education. To me going to college to learn photography is a good thing. What's bad is that the colleges seem to instill the illusion that these graduates are now professional photographers, that they're ready for anything, and they're not. What they are ready for is a few years of assisting, getting the skills, the nuts and bolts, the experience, the confidence and seeing the professional standards of both work and behavior required to be a professional. To see how a professional deals with a variety of situations. They may choose the commercial path, they may choose the fine arts path, they may choose to do both, but they will be prepared for both. And having professional skills is not a limiter for an artist but a liberator.

Brian K

21-Jun-2011, 07:03

I think this is happening to professional printers as well.

I have printed for others my complete career, and survived, At no point during this period has there ever been more master printers in my area. Anyone owning a inkjet printer and two friends has a website and claiming years of experience and claiming to be such a person. Very few take up commercial rent and become legit.

For me it is good as I can concentrate on doing what I do to my best ability and if people see a difference, or become more interested in photography, the work we do becomes more important and we are seeing an upsurge in silver printing.
Also very few printers kept their darkrooms active so by default we are one of the few left standing practicing darkroom silver printing on a professional level.

Bob, I hear you. All it takes now to be a printer or print service bureau is an Epson. What's it cost for a 7xxx series Epson $3k-4k? Not much of a start up investment especially when you're also doing your own work on it. Maybe some of those people will also invest in proper calibration equipment and software, the best rip software, etc. Many won't. But they'll claim that they use the same printer as the expensive print shops use and print for less, so why pay more? Same printer after all, just not used in the same way, with the same commitment to quality and with the equipment working at the peak of it's capability.

Technology has rendered many difficult tasks easy, and with even little training someone can produce something of acceptable quality. And acceptable is becoming more of the norm, and those who strive for the highest standards, and have to charge more in order to have the time and resources required to make a high standard profitable, will suffer. Soon all that will be left is mediocrity. It's the dumbing down of the world.

Or is it the amateurization of the world? No one is a really pro anymore. We're all experts or near expert at everything, right? Got a pain, look it up online, diagnose yourself. Then see the ad for the drug you think you need on a TV commercial and then go to your doctor and demand a prescription for it. And photography? Gee, there's no skill required for that, no training, no experience, just point and shoot, and spit it out on your printer. Gosh golly, I'm just as good as any professional photographer aren't I? I mean after all it's in focus, it's not too dark or light, and the color seems ok, just how much more is there to photography than that?

bob carnie

21-Jun-2011, 07:39

Lighting ratios, expansion contraction, chemical formulas, optics, who needs to learn any of that stinkin nonsense.
Adobe, is here, it will make me good, and Epson says their prints will last.
What's there to learn, just undercut by 10 % on every job , who would of thought it is this easy.

paulr

21-Jun-2011, 07:51

Brian K

21-Jun-2011, 10:26

I'm surprised no one's making a distinction between education and training. When I hear education, I think ideas, not skills. This is the divide between the liberal arts and the trade schools, the university and the polytechnic.

A lot of what't getting talked about here is professional training. An old colleague of mine, an art director, got this. Like most of the people in our department, he'd studied at SVA in New York and went straight to the working world. Whenever a question came up that he wanted to escape from, he'd say, "Don't ask me, I went to trade school."

SVA has many of the same courses as you would find at any liberal arts BFA college or university. Art history, literature, writing, etc. I think your colleague is saying what he says just to dodge answering a question. And I would not use THAT as the basis for an opinion regarding "trade schools" and SVA's inclusion in that category, I would actually check out their curriculum.

And regarding the whole education versus training argument, who says that only those who undertake a formal education are educated? Those with the desire for knowledge can readily find it available in libraries. As for training, it's harder to learn those skills through books, because real life conditions and circumstances vary too widely to cover them all in formal education or books. And even colleges attempt to give "training" through the use of labs, workshops, etc.

To become a doctor, the most intense form of education, you need about 8 years of advanced formal education, 4 years of college (of which 3 are pre med), 4 years of medical school, and after that you STILL need the training part, a 3 year residency.

Further as you had mentioned an anecdote about your colleague, here's one I heard from my electrician. It seems he was hired to do some electrical work at a house that had suffered a small electrical fire. The cause, the use of speaker wire as household electrical supply. Why would someone think that was a good idea? Easy, the owner of the house, an electrical engineer, had done the calculations and had determined that there was little difference between speaker wire and 110v household electrical wire. Well I guess he learned the difference then between education and training. The difference between theoretical and practical.

Kirk Gittings

21-Jun-2011, 10:41

he'd say, "Don't ask me, I went to trade school.

Cute, but just a dodge. Maybe, because I went to university art schools, I should respond in a like manner to technical questions? No of course not because ideas and technique are essential to any kind of art work. He was trivializing peoples questions.

paulr

21-Jun-2011, 10:51

Cute, but just a dodge. Maybe, because I went to university art schools, I should respond in a like manner to technical questions? No of course not because ideas and technique are essential to any kind of art work. He was trivializing peoples questions.

Yes, it was cute, and a dodge, but mostly a friendly jab at his classmates in the room who weren't as smart as him and didn't acknowledge they'd gone to trade school. The guy who said this was in fact pretty well self-educated.

I should add that my colleagues did the graphic design program at SVA, not fine arts. And while they all had to take liberal arts requirements, they found the quality of the classes abysmal and so mostly did the bare minimum in that area.

I have no idea what the fine arts undergrad or the MFA programs are like at SVA.

Jim Michael

21-Jun-2011, 15:22

I'm surprised no one's making a distinction between education and training. When I hear education, I think ideas, not skills. This is the divide between the liberal arts and the trade schools, the university and the polytechnic.

It falls to expectations. With one you expect a competent technician capable of producing excellent work to exacting specifications on a regular basis. With the other, I sort of like this quote (full article here (http://www.rencontres-arles.com/A11/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=ARL_3_VForm&FRM=Frame:ARL_76)) that I found reading about the upcoming show in Arles:

... to surprise us with new grammars of the discipline, with ‘non-standard’ thinking—thinking that goes beyond preconceived ideas about photography.

paulr

21-Jun-2011, 17:13

It falls to expectations. With one you expect a competent technician capable of producing excellent work to exacting specifications on a regular basis. With the other, I sort of like this quote (full article here (http://www.rencontres-arles.com/A11/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=ARL_3_VForm&FRM=Frame:ARL_76)) that I found reading about the upcoming show in Arles:

... to surprise us with new grammars of the discipline, with ‘non-standard’ thinking—thinking that goes beyond preconceived ideas about photography.

Sure, sure. Although I don't think the implication is that you have to pick one over the other. It's a question of what you want to spend your formal education time and money on. My concern about technical education is that skills quickly become dated and you have to be equiped to relearn them all your life anyway. They're also easily learnable in apprenticeships, formal or otherwise, or on the job, or on your own.

Education, in the classical sense, is about things that go well beyond the pragmatic. You continue it on your own, of course, but I think there's something invaluable to having your ass kicked and your ideas challenged in some kind of rigorous context. Ultimately it's about learning how to learn. And making your world bigger, so you have a better of idea what questions are worth asking.

Things like printmaking and view camera movements and studio lighting ... these may or may not end up being important to what you do, but in comparison to the big issues they're relatively trivial to learn. And considering that we live in a democracy (of sorts) I'm interested in seeing the world populated by educated voters. Their competence at technical arcana in the esthetic realms is less likely to effect our future.

Brian K

21-Jun-2011, 19:39

Sure, sure. Although I don't think the implication is that you have to pick one over the other. It's a question of what you want to spend your formal education time and money on. My concern about technical education is that skills quickly become dated and you have to be equiped to relearn them all your life anyway. They're also easily learnable in apprenticeships, formal or otherwise, or on the job, or on your own.

Education, in the classical sense, is about things that go well beyond the pragmatic. You continue it on your own, of course, but I think there's something invaluable to having your ass kicked and your ideas challenged in some kind of rigorous context. Ultimately it's about learning how to learn. And making your world bigger, so you have a better of idea what questions are worth asking.

Things like printmaking and view camera movements and studio lighting ... these may or may not end up being important to what you do, but in comparison to the big issues they're relatively trivial to learn. And considering that we live in a democracy (of sorts) I'm interested in seeing the world populated by educated voters. Their competence at technical arcana in the esthetic realms is less likely to effect our future.

When you really know how to paint , or sculpt, or photograph. When you know how to light, print, expose, etc, you can better understand how those artists that came before you approached things. Understanding the technique yields insight into the artist. One need not take an art history course to view an artist's body of work, and in reality when you take art history courses what you are often hearing is that instructor's perspective on the work. Which may or may not be accurate.

And as for the technical being trivial to learn, it seems that a pretty fair number of people don't do them well, so maybe they are not that easy. And what makes you think that people with technical ability and training don't have ideas? That ideas can only come from a formal education? Gosh, I guess before there were colleges Man never had any ideas.....

rdenney

21-Jun-2011, 20:32

There has always been a difference between education and training, and we all know the difference. If your child comes home from school and announces she is in a sex education class, you might shrug. But if she came home and said a teacher was offering her sex training, I suspect your reaction might be different.

Training without education leads to skills. Education without training leads merely to knowledge. But college is for education, and learning under a master is for training.

We've always had education in this sense. Before colleges there were monasteries, and before monasteries there were temples. And that tales it back about as far as we know.

Education has not always been as widespread. But to make it so inclusive, its depth has been slowly replaced by breadth, and education has been forced into a training role.

I once asked my music teacher which was more important, musicality or technique. His answer: "Yes." Artistic pros (and really anyone engaged in a learned profession at a high level) must have both. I don't think there is any confusion on that point.

But when people confuse education and job training, much error
results. I also find that many value one over the other, usually compensating for the part they lack.

Rick "a professional trainer, among other things" Denney

Kimberly Anderson

21-Jun-2011, 21:03

Here's how I incorporate training and education in the Photo One class I'm teaching this semester.

Photo One - Utah Valley University (http://uvu1050s2011.blogspot.com/)

Jim Michael

22-Jun-2011, 04:18

I don't think anyone is claiming exclusivity in either scenario, although that continues to be raised as a counter argument. It is a matter of proportion. Consider two tracks containing either a focus on practicum or a focus on theory, where the proportion of one outweighs the other (it must, else why have this discussion). Is the proportion more on the order of 1:10 (i.e. a large imbalance), or 3:4? Frankly, when I read comments about contemporary work that amount to a classification of the work into a simple like/don't like matrix (often accompanied by some comment regarding a technical issue they have with the image) rather than a thoughtful analysis as to why a work is successful or unsuccessful in context, I think I know the answer. I take issue with the position that reading the books that constitute a course of study is equivalent to taking the course, "self-education". It is a rare individual who can glean the same amount of knowledge in either scenario. If I mischaracterized that assertion then please provide the details that I left out.

Brian K

22-Jun-2011, 04:23

A sidebar, for those who think that autofocus cameras are still TOO mentally demanding:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/technology/22camera.html?_r=1&hp

Brian K

22-Jun-2011, 04:58

I did the college route, then the assisting route. And it worked out pretty well for me. That is the route that I have been recommending to the hundreds of people who have sought me out on advice as to how to become a photographer.

This is purely anecdotal information on my part but is an observation based on 34 years in the business. What I have seen for some time now is people coming out of college, with little technical ability, assuming that they have it all down and that they are ready to call themselves professional photographers. Most of these people will never earn a living as a photographer. They will end up taking ancillary photo oriented jobs. Maybe they end up on this route because after dropping $100k on an education and coming out of it with heavy debt they don't have the financial freedom to spend several years assisting at low pay actually learning how to shoot. While that may not be a bad thing, I think that most people who pursue photography as a college major do so with the intent of shooting, not selling cameras, or working in someone else's gallery, or teaching, or going back to school to learn computer programming. I wonder if that $100k might be better spent instead by assisting and then traveling the world, seeing the art works in person and at your own pace instead of an endless slide show. And most importantly producing photographs.

In addition the whole idea that college gives you ideas or the ability to think or opens up your point of view, is very dependent on the student and their own college experience. One bad teacher can turn a student off. Instructors have their own POV and their own artistic agenda, and their prejudices or preferences influence their instruction.

It is also the academic world that has been giving credibility to the work that many consider absurd and most people find impossible to relate to. The academics are most likely to find merit in Serrano shit pictures, because after a great deal of verbal justification, they can talk about how it relates to the art world, THEIR world, and as it has some relationship to their world, it has significance to them. It is a form of narcissism or ego centrism, their fascination with their own world. But to the rest of the world, the vastly larger audience, it's just a series of photographs of shit, and those that see it as more than that appear to be fools.

paulr

22-Jun-2011, 08:34

I don't think anyone is claiming exclusivity in either scenario, although that continues to be raised as a counter argument. It is a matter of proportion.

I like your summary, although rather than saying it's a matter of proportion, i'd say it's a matter of heirarchy. In art, technique is at the service of vision. It needs to be kept in its place. This doesn't make it unimportant, but it makes it conditionally important—it has little value in and of itself, only in its ability to bring the vision it serves into the world.

This is not a postmodern or even modern idea. Heidgegger, in his essay "The Origin of the Work of Art," traces technique to the Greek techne, which means bringing forth, or revealing: bringing the immaterial truth into the material world. In other words, it is broad, but it is in service to that "truth" (aletheia).

If that truth is trite or banal or shallow or boring (eg. "puppies are cute"), then who gives a rat's ass about the success of the technique?

Good artists don't choose technique based on convention or on some absolute heirarchy; they do it based on what their vision requires. In some cases the choice will be traditional, craft-intensive, classically beautiful. In others it will be rough, gestural, vernacular. Likewise, in some cases, the craft / techne will occupy the majority of the artist's time and energy, while in others it will emerge almost as an afterthought. In any case it should be evaluated based on how well it does what it does—not based on some guild standard that privileges techniqe as an end rather than a means.

theBDT

22-Jun-2011, 09:14

Mapplethorpe spent most of his career "discovering" his sexuality and doing drugs. The few commercial assignments he did were complete failures, at least commercially (though they were fascinating studies in geometry and the male body, as usual). From what I have read, he barely knew any but the most basic settings of his camera for most of his career, and indeed often kept his Hassy' at f/16 "because that's where it's sharpest." He was hardly involved in any of the printing of his work, and at the end of his career had his brother do everything except light the flowers and push the shutter button.

Mapplethorpe strikes me as a perfect example of someone who is a "professional" artist, while a "semi-pro" or even "advanced amateur" photographic technician. He knew enough about his equipment to express his unique vision... indeed, he learned more about his quartz lighting and window light than he ever did his cameras or printing-out on paper.

Could he crank out a perfect image, on demand, regardless of the light? Hardly. Do I respect his work, and find it more moving than 90% of the "brilliant" commercial photographers out there? Absolutely. Great painters would wait a day, a week, sometimes an entire year if the light wasn't "just right" for a painting. For an artist, the vision is paramount, for the commercial technician, the vision must be negotiated between time constraints, client expectations, etc. The two skill sets occasionally overlap, but they are distinct.

Bill Burk

22-Jun-2011, 23:28

Reflecting back on my polytecnic education, and my ancillary photo career in printing, I am often thrilled to find some arcane things I learned in school relate recurringly throughout my life. Sometimes it shapes my tastes, like my appreciation for the feel of a letterpress-printed book. The crisp indentation and rich flat black color is a rare sight in all printed matter today that is done by other technology. Only the local greeting card shops seem to print letterpress these days and they go over the top to use soft paper and deep impression to dramatize the look. It's nice, but better when it's subtle and not trying to look like anything but legible print.

I get to brag that I learned to set type in high school on Linotype, challenged the course in college, and then after working two high-tech printing jobs, landed a job where the high tech typesetting machines were a bank of 30 linotypes in full production because nobody in Houston trusted computers.

So schools should offer courses in all possible aspects of photography, even the mechanical things that are trivial to learn. This will give the students life-long bragging rights.

Afterwards, go out and build a portfolio of what is going to be vintage work when you are older. Buy a flat file (that's what my sister did right after she got out of school) to keep your vintage work pristine.

It's those weird classes you never thought you'd ever need that will probably keep coming back to help you in the real world.

Bill Burk

22-Jun-2011, 23:32

In high school, we did hand-set type. I was mad that my print shop teacher only gave me one letter k because statistically that's all I needed. We learned that brass and copper letterspaces made awesome ninja stars.

Then in college we paid more attention to letterspacing and used it to balance space between letters. No, never got and never will get what you would call "good" at it like someone who really set display type.

But still one of the first things I try to figure out when learning a new typesetting program is the kerning and letterspacing commands.

Darin Boville

22-Jun-2011, 23:54

>>The crisp indentation and rich flat black color is a rare sight in all printed matter today that is done by other technology. Only the local greeting card shops seem to print letterpress these days<<

I know exactly what you mean...and I know next to nothing about the process! The black is magical.

It looks like we are neighbors. You say local shops with an "s"--I know of the place in HMB on Main. Are there others nearby?

--Darin

bob carnie

23-Jun-2011, 05:53

I too remember the California Job Case.
Very much like trying to memorize the shortcuts on my computer.

Reflecting back on my polytecnic education, and my ancillary photo career in printing, I am often thrilled to find some arcane things I learned in school relate recurringly throughout my life. Sometimes it shapes my tastes, like my appreciation for the feel of a letterpress-printed book. The crisp indentation and rich flat black color is a rare sight in all printed matter today that is done by other technology. Only the local greeting card shops seem to print letterpress these days and they go over the top to use soft paper and deep impression to dramatize the look. It's nice, but better when it's subtle and not trying to look like anything but legible print.

I get to brag that I learned to set type in high school on Linotype, challenged the course in college, and then after working two high-tech printing jobs, landed a job where the high tech typesetting machines were a bank of 30 linotypes in full production because nobody in Houston trusted computers.

So schools should offer courses in all possible aspects of photography, even the mechanical things that are trivial to learn. This will give the students life-long bragging rights.

Afterwards, go out and build a portfolio of what is going to be vintage work when you are older. Buy a flat file (that's what my sister did right after she got out of school) to keep your vintage work pristine.

It's those weird classes you never thought you'd ever need that will probably keep coming back to help you in the real world.