Fine art vs Fine art.

[false_Aesthetic]

What's the difference?

No, this is a serious question.

If you need a reference point go to painting:
Anselm Kiefer vs Thomas Kinkade
Bob Ross vs El Greco

or closer to home (PS, I don't mean to offend at all. Really I don't.)

Mapplethorp's flowers vs Ken Lee's

I'm not asking "What's better?" nor am I asking "What do you prefer?"

I'm asking something else.



Talk amongst yourselves.

[johnielvis]

the difference is in the calibur of those who purchase said art.

if a rich dude well respected in art circles buys it, then it becomes fine art

but it must be well done....it has to be a properly finished crayon scribble to NOT be confused with one of .... just any child's crayon scribble....you can't have drool and food/goo smears on it either...it MUST look intentional

[Jay DeFehr]

Ignoring absolute value and preference leaves consensus; the remaining difference between the pairs you noted is that one group is acknowledged as great artists, and the other as something less, or ignored completely by a consensus of critics, collectors, scholars, etc. Did you have something else in mind?

[Brian C. Miller]

Ken Lee's flowers are closer to how Adams photographed flowers. Seriously, I've been looking at both Maplethorpe and Lee. Maplethorpe used cut flowers, and the vase would be very much part of the composition. Lee and Adams photographed the flowers in situ, or at least it really looks like that. I expect to walk outside and see what Lee photographed. I would expect to see the flowers Maplethorpe used lying in the trash.

So, fine art and fine art?? Maplethorpe vs Adams. Honestly, False, I have no idea what question you are posing here.

Maybe you should make a photograph of your idea to explain it!

[r.e.]

[QUOTE=false_Aesthetic;798641I'm not asking "What's better?" nor am I asking "What do you prefer?"

I'm asking something else.[/QUOTE]

Well, what are you asking?

I'd really like to know. I mean, presumably you know wat you are asking.

[Nathan Potter]

Maybe false is asking if there something intrinsic in the image that determines what is Fine art. Something that renders external judgements irrelevant in calling an image "Fine Art". Something that excludes the subjectivity of the viewer, the critic, the public.

Dunno. that could be an interesting discussion.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Drew Wiley]

What is good food?

[Dan Fromm]

What is good food?Well, it isn't putrid unless its Durian.

[Drew Wiley]

One man's prize wall art is another's man's abomination. I actually knew someone who
came over here from another country to purchase art and went away with one of those sprayed black velvet Elvis rugs. At least he had better taste than to buying Kinkade. Hoped he liked our greasy burgers too.

[false_Aesthetic]

I think part of it has to do with fetishization of tools, process and image VS a fetishization of concept and delivery.

I do, acknowledge that it has to do with taste but chalking it to taste alone (as I feel a few of the responses have done) is too easy.

For example, I look at Donald Judd's work and totally dislike it. If I found one on craigslist for $50 I would probably buy a really nice Rye instead. But the work engages me on a level that goes beyond the visual, beyond the aesthetic. And for that I really appreciate it.

But, when I look at something like Sexton's stuff. I'm pulled in by the image and technique but its easy enough to turn the page and have my enjoyment end there.

[Jay DeFehr]

fA,

Are you referring to yourself, and your own valuations, or about the valuations of the world at large? I get the feeling you're as lost as the rest of us regarding your question.

[paulr]

I think there's a difference in what the art asks of the viewer.

Some art comforts, reinforces beliefs, or entertains: this art is observed passively. It is consumed, like entertainment.

Some art challenges, engages, or questions the viewer: this art requires active participation from the viewer before giving what it has to offer.

Of course, there is a huge gray area in between, but I think much of the anti-elitism in American culture somes from a general lack of understanding that the second category exists.

Someone approaching a painting by Cy Twombly, a photograph by Eggleston, a poem by John Ashbery, a movie by Almovodar—if they expect to sit back and passively receive some kind of easily digestible message, they will be disappointed. They will undoubtedly say that the work failed, rather than questioning if there's an issue with their own expectations.

I don't have any problem with art/entertainment of the passive consumption variety. Sometimes I need it. I'd be at a loss if this city didn't have pizza-by-the slice places for when I'm hungry, cheap, and in a hurry. But if that's all there was, I'd be seriously bummed.

[Ben Syverson]

Every time this comes up, this is what I think of:

Yeah, like, is something art just cuz you hang it on the wall? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DErlW7zw1Gs)

[Drew Wiley]

Cy Twombly - now there's a dude with his act together. Even the quality of his brushwork appeals to me, and not just the tones and composition etc.

[DrTang]

Ignoring absolute value and preference leaves consensus; the remaining difference between the pairs you noted is that one group is acknowledged as great artists, and the other as something less, or ignored completely by a consensus of critics, collectors, scholars, etc. Did you have something else in mind?


Yup

art = whatever an important critic says it is



no more/no less

[John Kasaian]

I prefer my Fine art (or the acronym F-art) I prefer it because I know exactly what it took to make it. Besides it doesn't cost as much since I've cut out the middle man ;)

[rdenney]

I prefer my Fine art (or the acronym F-art) I prefer it because I know exactly what it took to make it. Besides it doesn't cost as much since I've cut out the middle man ;)

I dunno. I've paid much more for my prints hanging on the wall that I have for other artwork.

Rick "not sure he's gotten his money's worth" Denney

[rdenney]

Some art challenges, engages, or questions the viewer: this art requires active participation from the viewer before giving what it has to offer.

I really try to get this, but I struggle with it.

I am totally in tune with the notion that obvious stuff ends up being rather uninteresting, even when it's pretty. A lot of my stuff falls into that category.

So, I have tried to spend time with stuff that is not obvious to see what it has to offer. I am not an unsophisticated receiver of art in other forms--I've run the whole avant-garde gamut in music, for example, with great satisfaction--but I still struggle to get anything out of art that is supposed to be important but that provides so few clues that no amount of study seems to bring me any illumination. It's not for lack of trying. I've been looking at art with serious purpose all my adult life, including much that is contemporary and avant-garde.

Last year, I spent a day at the National Gallery studying their modern and post-modern art collection. I made the attached image that day, of Newman's Stations of the Cross (at least four of them). The setting, which my picture shows, was fully up to the presentation, it seemed to me. The art and the room seemed to completely coexist on the same minimalist plane, and even my composition seemed to me consistent with that. I stood there for 30 minutes, opening my mind and my feelings. I walked away just as confused as when I went in. It reminds me of the sign a colleague of mine has taped to his office door: "Confusion is our most important product." (He's a college professor, natch.) I would LOVE to have been compelled by this work, on any level. In the end, the paintings on the wall held my interest no more effectively than did the wall color, the carpet, and that bench.

You once posted a Lee Friedlander photo that you described as rewarding you for continued consideration. Can you articulate what revelations came to you as a result of that commitment? The best I can get out of most people is "after a while, I started to see stuff." What stuff?

Rick "who finds the art in the picture below no less empty than the room--and the viewer's brain" Denney

[Drew Wiley]

Fine art is whatever you paid too much for, or had to pay just to look at. But we pay
for landfill too, so the dump must be a work of art.

[Heroique]

...You [i.e., Paul] once posted a Lee Friedlander photo that you described as rewarding you for continued consideration. Can you articulate what revelations came to you as a result of that commitment? The best I can get out of most people is “after a while, I started to see stuff.” What stuff?

I’m eager to hear what Paul has to say about this “stuff.”

Meantime, I’ve noticed your fondness for the music of Vaughan Williams, an artist whose works (I presume) keep rewarding you after repeated listenings.

What “revelations” come to you as part of that commitment – What “stuff” do you hear? There might be a useful parallel here to help address your interesting question.

[rdenney]

I’m eager to hear what Paul has to say about this “stuff.”

Meantime, I’ve noticed your fondness for the music of Vaughan Williams, an artist whose works (I presume) keep rewarding you after repeated listenings.

What “revelations” come to you as part of that commitment – What “stuff” do you hear? There might be a useful parallel here to help address your interesting question.

Hmmm. Where to start? Okay, how about the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. This is maybe not the best place to start, because the theme itself is ancient (Tallis was a composer during the Renaissance). But the voicing, harmony, and instrumentation approach could only have been done in the 20th Century, and more specifically only after the rise of French Impressionist music. (Not what you normally expect to hear when talking about RVW, but he was fresh from his studies with Ravel at the time--studies that transformed him for the rest of his life.)

The music opens with muted strings, in rich harmonies. The sound is just gorgeous, incorporating the resonance of a large stone cathedral even when performed in drier settings. None of the chords have not been heard before. None of them have been voiced in just that way, however, in the whole history of music.

The entire work uses only strings, but even so, manages to provide immense dynamic range that causes my hair to stand on end. (My hair did not stand on end when viewing Newman's Stations of the Cross.)

The score calls for a large string orchestra, a small string orchestra, and a string quartet. When I heard the Royal Philharmonic perform this work in London several years ago, the small orchestra was an octet on a different platform, and they played senza vibrato so that their sound would contrast with the large group. I cannot imagine what it takes to find eight string players who can play so perfectly in tune without their usual cover of vibrato. The dry sound of the octet made them sound distant, like an answering voice from a great distance--not an echo but more like a shadow.

In that performance, they did something that really put it over the top for me. They had a chorus of perhaps eight voices sing the hymn that Vaughan Williams had harmonized from the Tallis theme for the 1905 English Hymnal, offstage, and heard through an open stage door only. Then, the orchestra began. It quite literally brought tears to my eyes. It still does.

Here's the point: There was nothing in that performance that I did not hear in the work the first time I heard it, on a recording of maybe the London Phil conducted by Adrian Boult from back in the 60's. I have listened to this work hundreds of times since then. I do not even now perceive anything in the work that wasn't there to perceive the first time. But when I listen again, it cements what I already know and have already heard more deeply into my memory and psyche. I assure you that I could stop typing at this moment, and listen to the entire 20-minute work in my head.

The repeated experience with the work did not bring new revelations that weren't experienced at some level on the first hearing. What it did was allow me to fill out those revelations with deeper memory--I could add to what I experienced. Each addition was more of the same...magic.

Now, let me contrast that with, say, Philip Glass.

I first heard Philip Glass in a live performance (the ONLY way to hear his work the first time, in my view) at, I seem to recall, Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas maybe in 1983 or so. At the beginning, I sat there, arms folded, listening to his musicians repeat the same arpeggios up and down, up and down, ad infinitum. But, as with Newman, I gave it a good half hour. At the end of that half hour, unlike with Newman, I was engaged. It drew me in and I started to notice that the repeating patterns were just the high-frequency parts of a low-frequency shift in the shape that built over time. All music takes an idea--a theme--and explores it. Glass's music explores it through repetition and subtle variation rather than through geometric restructuring as we might have with, say, a sonata-form symphony. It makes me curious to see where it will go on the first hearing.

Again, I don't really learn anything new after the hundredth hearing, but it is taking me down a path that brings me balance and clarity.

Art that excites me on first viewing, and still makes me shake my head in awe after the hundredth, has it all as far as I'm concerned.

When I look at that Friedlander image, I'm passive about it. I like it well enough, and I admire how well he organized the seemingly unorganizable into such organic balance. But it has never made my hair stand on end, tear up, or shake my head in awe. Some modern art has done so (Pollack, for a surprising--to me--example). Some photography does, too. If I knew what in a photograph did that predictably, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Rick "whose test is whether it gets a response after many viewings" Denney

[Steve Smith]

Fine art = ordinary art + 40% (according to a friend who owns a gallery).


Steve.

[Heroique]

Here’s the point: There was nothing in that performance that I did not hear in the work the first time I heard it...

Your ideas on the “repeat” theme are quite engaging – even if the claim above rather surprises me. (Mainly because different conductors would seem to be presenting differing interpretations of Vaughan Williams’ score.) I’ll be curious if Paul, like you, believes he “saw” everything in his initial viewing of Friedlander – with subsequent viewings only deepening what that first experience revealed to him. Your fine reply will be interesting to compare to his.

[rdenney]

Your ideas on the “repeat” theme are quite engaging – even if the claim above rather surprises me. (Mainly because different conductors would seem to be presenting differing interpretations of Vaughan Williams’ score.) I’ll be curious if Paul, like you, believes he “saw” everything in his initial viewing of Friedlander – with subsequent viewings only deepening what that first experience revealed to him. Your fine reply will be interesting to compare to his.

A conductor may reveal something subtly different, but the conductor's role is not primary with music, despite what conductors think, unless they significantly depart from what's on the page. I tend not to like such conductors.

But even a bad conductor leading a performance of, say, Wagner will not make the music any less characteristically Wagner. He might distract from Wagner, but at his best, a conductor should be transparent. That is also not something most conductors would be pleased to hear.

Rick "who has indeed heard some execrable conducting of the Tallis Fantasia" Denney

[Brian C. Miller]

... a conductor should be transparent.

OK, so compare the conducting necessary in a PDQ Bach performance to Vaughan Williams or Wagner. A PDQ Bach performance can move a man to tears, too. Not necessarily the same sort of tears, but tears nonetheless.

[paulr]

Rick, when I talk about a work requiring engagement from the viewer or listener, I'm not necessarily saying it takes time or repetition to appreciate the thing. I do often appreciate things more after repeated exposure, but the only things I've had to really struggle with to "get" are things that were way outside my familiarity at first.

A lot of the Jazz that my college girlfriend exposed me to fits this. It just didn't sound musical to me at first. Now it does. What happened between now and then? I don't know, but it felt a little like learning a language. It's a language that doesn't involve words, so unfortunately I can't say "first I learned X, and they I learned Y ..."

Maybe Friedlander's work just doesn't resonate with you. Not everything will. Even If I could describe my experience of his pictures ("first I saw X, then I saw Y ...") I doubt that would be helpful. It would just be a description of one person's experience. Especially since his work is much less analytic than, say, Phillip Glass's work (which I also like very much ...).

As an illustration of my point in this thread, I'd contrast Phillip Glass with someone who writes simple, catchy, innocuous pop songs (forgive the lack of examples ... I'm looking through my itunes library and all the contemporary stuff is elliptical and weird).

Do you find yourself listening to them in different ways? What do you think is going on with the people who like the pop songs but are appalled by the Glass (this might describe most of the population ...)?

[johnielvis]

"fine art" is a concept

a concept conceived of by man--a definition with criteria....it's crap

it's a concept like money---valueless unless everybody believes it has value

the thing itself.....that is not a concept

that is something you know when you see it

you can't stop looking at it

it makes you do what you do

it is not 'fine art' that I.......seek

it's like common sense

a child can tell when something has value...or when something is bullsh*t

THAT's it...an intrinsic "truth" somehow...

a true revelation...something that makes you STOP and look

THIS is it...."fine art" is learned---it's an "aquired taste"...it's something defined by others that you can finally detect with enough experience.....

"fine art" can be good....

but there is a "simple" kind of good out there that doesn't require an aquired taste....this is stuff that the "uneducated" like--they see it in stuffy books and it opens their eyes for the first time

[paulr]

"fine art" is a concept

a concept conceived of by man--a definition with criteria....it's crap

it's a concept like money---valueless unless everybody believes it has value

Ok, so let's throw language, philosophy, and any other product of culture into the crapper.

[johnielvis]

that's what you got out of that?

intentional "taking things to the ridiculous conclusion".....

OH...I forgot..it's "fine art" around here to bash me and everything I say.

[paulr]

I think I took what you said to a reasonable conclusion. "Fine art" is a culturally determined category, as you point out, and therefore "crap." And so other categories and definitions that are culturally determined must also be crap, yes? Where's the slip in my logic?

[johnielvis]

"product of culture"...ok....

useful tools like language....nope

men invent useful TOOLS also...

I thought you were making me out like someone who would dismiss some of the greatest inventions of our time....

money is an invention that I NEED....for example

we can't "toss it out".

BUT....we have to realize what it's value is....

when you're alone...language is useless

but, right now, I'm not alone....

I probably can't live if i WAS alone....I don't think anyone can.

like that......I'm not going so far as toss out the tools....the LABELS...yes...

I myself used money---bad example perhaps...THAT's what went wrong...IT WAS ME!

[johnielvis]

it's kind of parasitic in a way.....but it's symbiotic....the art world is a microcosm of the real world...BUT the art world is not "needed" except among themselves....

x ray spex:

I live off you and you live off me
And the whole world lives off of everybody
See we gotta be exploited
See we gotta be exploited
By somebody, by somebody, by somebody
Cat eats the rat, while the pimp beats the whore
And she just screams out for more
See we gotta be exploited
See we gotta be exploited
By somebody, by somebody, by somebody
I live off you and you live off me
And the whole world lives off of everybody
See we gotta be exploited
See we gotta be exploited
By somebody, by somebody, by somebody

[rdenney]

OK, so compare the conducting necessary in a PDQ Bach performance to Vaughan Williams or Wagner. A PDQ Bach performance can move a man to tears, too. Not necessarily the same sort of tears, but tears nonetheless.

Comedy is as noble as tragedy.

Conducting anything from the Tallis Fantasia to Music For An Awful Lot Of Winds And Percussion requires two things: 1.) an idea of what the presentation should be, and 2.) the skill to execute that idea.

The first is harder, just as with any art form. It means that the conductor studies the score, and based on experience and study decides where to place tempi (when the composer provides flexibility), how to shape phrases, which voices to bring out and which to subdue, how to shape transitions, when to build to what climax, and so on. This requires a mix of knowledge and musicality.

Then, the conductor needs the rehearsal and stick technique to convey those decisions to the musicians.

The Tallis Fantasia's built-in emotion is so powerful that all it really requires is following Vaughan Williams's instructions, which are not necessarily that easy to do, however. The poor performances of it that I've heard have involved conductors trying to put their own stamp on it by departing from those instructions, or by abdicating the responsibility to make those decisions about sensitively handling transitions and so on.

A classic example is the way Beethoven was conducted in the early part of the 20th Century. Influenced by the Romantic period, and particularly by Wagner, the dominant German conductors of the day milked Beethoven symphonies for their sentimentality. Listen to a recording of, say, Furtwangler conducting, back in the 30's, Beethoven's 7th or such like for an example. It takes Furtwangler maybe 20% longer to get through the work than is indicated by Beethoven's (accurate) metronome markings. Also, he romanticizes it by smoothing over those percussive sforzandos that punctuate Beethoven's works. Compare that with Roger Norrington's more accurate conducting in his 1980's Beethoven series (or even Toscanini's historical works with the NBC Symphony back in the 30's and 40's). The difference is astounding. This is a case where a conductor was not transparent, and undermined the art of the composer by imposing his own.

Nobody could argue that Furtwangler was not a great conductor. He would be high on my list of favored conductors for Wagner, or Brahms, where his decisions will not vary from the score so much. But not for Beethoven.

Music is a little different from the way many of us do photography in that it is by necessity a collaborative effort. But as photographers we still make many decisions about what to include in the picture, what to exclude, the tonal values we assign to various subject elements, how we manage what is and is not apparently sharp, both in terms of focus and in terms of time blur, color rendition (if we use color at all), overall tone, contrast, and on and on. Most of the time, we can't articulate what we are doing very well, simply because we are not required to. A conductor must articulate his decisions, because nobody can hear that baton waving.

There have been many times when a credible performance of a work happened in spite of the conductor. "He at least didn't get in our way too much" is not an uncommon description.

The closest we ever get to that is when we have someone else print our work. It takes quite a bit of communication between the photographer and the printer to achieve the photographer's vision of the work. "This part needs to be darker. That part needs to be lighter. The whole image needs more zip." And so on. Unlike with music, our intentions are not clear from just the negative--it has limited tools for expressing our intent.

But all that is secondary to this thread. What makes music fine art is the effect it has. I could listen to the Tallis Fantasia played by a well-programmed computer and it would still convey a substantial part of Vaughan Williams's intentions. The live performers add important subtlety, but they are working at the margins of what makes the music fine art. Improvisational music like jazz moves that marginal boundary, increasing the role of the performer vis a vis the composer, but it's still there.

Rick "who has heard much avant-garde improvisational music that makes any jazz sound like it was entirely prescripted" Denney

[rdenney]

Rick, when I talk about a work requiring engagement from the viewer or listener, I'm not necessarily saying it takes time or repetition to appreciate the thing. I do often appreciate things more after repeated exposure, but the only things I've had to really struggle with to "get" are things that were way outside my familiarity at first.
...
As an illustration of my point in this thread, I'd contrast Phillip Glass with someone who writes simple, catchy, innocuous pop songs (forgive the lack of examples ... I'm looking through my itunes library and all the contemporary stuff is elliptical and weird).

Do you find yourself listening to them in different ways? What do you think is going on with the people who like the pop songs but are appalled by the Glass (this might describe most of the population ...)?

Many threads here, including:

-Appreciation by novices versus sophisticates
-Acquired tastes
-Vocabulary development as a function of repetition

Would I have had a positive experience with Glass had I not gone into that concert with a lot of previous listening experience? Perhaps. But perhaps not. My ability to articulate it as music that is superficially fast but meaningfully slow took a lot of living, mostly with words. But getting to the point where it affected me positively just took that half hour. Most people probably won't devote that much time.

But that is really no different than, say, the overture to Tannheuser. Musicians have emotional experiences playing that work, but the audience might be studying their program hoping for something less weighty. This is perhaps a matter of taste, but it's also a matter of pace. Some things just work too slowly for people who are accustomed to being engaged immediately.

But let me set aside Friedlander--I have not had time to really try to grasp his work. My purpose in bringing him up is because you obviously have had that time and I was hoping you could shine a light on the path you took. I realize that path might not actually exist.

Instead, let me go back to Newman. I have spent years looking at that sort of visual art, and I've done enough graphic design to have considered how those sorts of shapes affect me and others. This work is hanging in the National Gallery of Art, and there must be a reason why it is. I see two possibilities for those reasons, both of which have already been articulated in this thread. 1.) The cynical evaluation: Somebody with influence over a bunch of rich collectors persuaded them at some level that this was important, such that they learned to appreciate it for the statement it made about them rather than for any intrinsic value it has. Or, 2.) somebody with developed taste stands in front of it mesmerized by its power.

If the second reason is the real reason, and I hope and expect that it is, then I would like to know how to develop that sort of taste. Perhaps, as you say, it just won't resonate with me. I'm not sure that's the case: I rather like my photograph of it and its setting, perhaps more than I like the work itself, but both are of the same sensibility, it seems to me.

I think too rarely people who have that positive reaction to difficult art try to separate themselves from the philistine masses rather than try to articulate what brought them to that appreciation, so that the philistines might come to enjoy it, too.

Let me answer your question about shallow pop music (which is, of course, not all of pop music) by turning it around to photography. Many roll their eyes these days at the work of, say, Adams. You have yourself described landscapes as being interesting because of the subject or because of something that goes beyond the subject. There are many works by Adams that still take my breath away, despite the familiarity. No doubt many of these do because their subjects are compelling and his rendition of those subjects reinforced what makes them compelling. There seems to be a current that suggests a compelling landscape subject isn't enough. Sophisticates are bored by it, even though it's as popular as Coke to novices. But there are plenty of viewers who are still affected by it as profound art that could hardly be called novices.

I think that one of the explanations for the negative reactions to "fine art" have to do with many of those sophisticates setting themselves apart from those with lots of experience whose appreciation still seems too conventional. Those sophisticates use various tools to set themselves apart, and BS language is one of them. But I think a reaction to that goes too far when it cynically assumes that fine art is actually a construct of charlatans trying to impress rich patrons. Overcoming that reaction, though, will require something more concrete and inclusive from those who appreciate it.

And to answer your final question, I think the percentage of people who are appalled by Glass's work who have actually heard enough of it to see the direction it goes might be less than the percentage of people who never again go out of their way to hear Wagner, or Bruckner, or Brahms after a first exposure. Most people do not go to symphony concerts or collect classical music. Does that make those who do charlatans or snobs? Obviously not. But it may mean I should stick with music and forget trying to understand fine visual art.

Rick "thinking the cure for cynicism is clarity" Denney

[Alan Gales]

Robert Mapplethorpe's flowers versus Ken Lee's flowers. Which are art?

They are both art. Being famous has nothing to do with art.

[Jay DeFehr]

Alan,

Except for you in your post above, no one asked "Which are art?". The question posed by the OP is; what's the difference (excluding which is better or which you prefer)? The title of the thread suggests the OP isn't questioning which is art.

[Brian C. Miller]

Gee, and here I was thinking of conductor vs orchestra, with dueling baton and bow. Schickele had a show where two announcers gave color commentary on a performance of Beethoven's 5th.


... Then, the conductor needs the rehearsal and stick technique to convey those decisions to the musicians.

*thwack* "Pay attention, you! Arrrgh, hoist it up, third chair, before I have ye kettle drum-hauled!"


... A conductor must articulate his decisions, because nobody can hear that baton waving.

*snap**hiss* "I find your lack of allegro disturbing!" *vvvvvZZZZt* (YouTube: Darth Vader conducts symphony (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxRttTa5Ws8))


There have been many times when a credible performance of a work happened in spite of the conductor. "He at least didn't get in our way too much" is not an uncommon description.

I forget the piece, but one of my instructors told me about a conductor who gave the down stroke, and then just sat back on his chair for the rest of the performance. The meter was something weird, like 13/12.


I think part of it has to do with fetishization of tools, process and image VS a fetishization of concept and delivery.

Now, False's original question is what is the prime motivation of the producer. Schickele creates and delivers a concept, while a non-composing conductor interprets a concept. Imagine for a moment if Clearing Winter Storm was available for ready purchase as a negative. We'd be conductors when we print Clearing Winter Storm, and composers when we make the original photograph.

[Alan Gales]

Alan,

Except for you in your post above, no one asked "Which are art?". The question posed by the OP is; what's the difference (excluding which is better or which you prefer)? The title of the thread suggests the OP isn't questioning which is art.

Jay,

Perhaps you're right and I misunderstand the question. I see both sets of work as fine art. Excluding which is better or which I prefer the only real difference that I see is that Mapplethorpe is much more well known than Lee.

Now a perceived difference is something else entirely.

Alan

[rdenney]

We'd be conductors when we print Clearing Winter Storm, and composers when we make the original photograph.

We'd be performers when we print. "The print is the performance, the negative is the score." I heard that somewhere. The conductor is a musician (sometimes:)), but you can't hear the baton waving, and the sound is the point.

The conductor would be like a guy standing next to the printer, with a running commentary like "burn a little more over there...no, KEEP DODGING THAT BIT...more burn...MORE BURN!...STOP!" The printer would kill him. Making a print is more improvisational, and you don't often find conductors in improvisational jazz, and certainly not for the improvisational parts.

Think of Alan Ross making Special Edition prints of Clearing Winter Storm. He does not interpret those prints solely as he intends. It interprets them to look like the prints that Adams made from that negative. His job is not to make an Alan Ross print in that situation, but to perform an Adams negative so that it's Adams's art. Thus, some of the "notation" that creates the music is in the prints Adams made, and not just in the negative.

Rick "who often listens to recordings, particularly those conducted by the composer if possible, for ideas on how to interpret music" Denney

[Jay DeFehr]

Alan,

I'm not sure I understood the question, either. If the OP isn't asking which is art, which is better, or which we prefer, there's not much left to wonder about. I answered essentially as you did.

[Alan Gales]

I will add one more thing. I'm a big fan of both Mapplethorpe and Lee!

[Jay DeFehr]

Just Kids, by Patti Smith is a good read.

[Alan Gales]

Thanks, Jay. I was wondering if it was any good. I'll have to get a copy. I like Patti Smith too.

[paulr]

And to answer your final question, I think the percentage of people who are appalled by Glass's work who have actually heard enough of it to see the direction it goes might be less than the percentage of people who never again go out of their way to hear Wagner, or Bruckner, or Brahms after a first exposure...

You're bringing up the point that I was nudging toward. I think the reason so many people are married to the idea of their first impressions is that it makes life simpler and easier. If you can make a snap judgment, and say "I like that kind of thing, not this kind of thing," you do less work, establish a clear path, and instantly arm yourself with opinions.

I think it's common for people to not just make up their mind about someone like Glass after one listen, but to generalize that opinion to a class of artists. And at that point it's self-fulfilling; it they don't ever listen again, nothing can ever change their mind.

On another note, it was my hope to dodge the fine-art-vs.-whatever discussion, because I feel that got played out a hundred years ago (almost) when Duchamp hung a snow shovel from the gallery ceiling. It's been the story of Modernism (by now a very old one) that we don't have any grounding for normative definitions of art. Art is what we look at as art. Which is in no way a free ride for anyone or anything: if we look at it as art, we judge it as art. No snow shovel had ever been so unpopular.

But the larger point is that the emphasis falls on what we do when we look (or listen). And I think if we're going to make any kind of high/low distinction, we should consider the difference between what we do when we watch a movie by Ron Howard and when we watch one by Luis Buñuel.

I'm not even interested in establishing a heirarchy; I just think there's something fundamentally different in the ways an audience might approach a work—and some kinds of work strongly encourage one approach over the other.

[Jay DeFehr]

Paul,

Everything you've written makes perfect sense, as always. My point was that the consensus of critics, curators, scholars, collectors, etc., is meaningful, and not just a conspiracy by the intellectual elite to foist garbage art on the world, or to suppress the work of minor artists.

[Darin Boville]

Just wanted to point out that Glass is, by the standards of "classical" music a rather big seller. To suggest that his music is on the whole "hard to get" is missing it's popularity, especially among those who don't buy much, if anything, from the classical bin.

--Darin

[paulr]

Paul,

My point was that the consensus of critics, curators, scholars, collectors, etc., is meaningful, and not just a conspiracy by the intellectual elite to foist garbage art on the world, or to suppress the work of minor artists.

I agree! Even if it's hard to find a true consensus in these matters. The closest thing in any art form is the canon, but even that is more like a dominant argument than a consensus. There are always detractors and competing theories. And the postmodern era has posed some great challenges to canons and other historical meta-narratives.

Your point still stands though, even if we just say, "ok, there's no one consensus, but we have communities of people who make and study this stuff professionally and academically, and the ideas they put forth, even if sometimes diverse and contentious, are not arbitrary." I think it's a way of saying that the opinions of someone who studies a subject have more weight than the opinions of someone who doesn't. And certainly more weight than a coin toss.

[Corran]

There's a big difference between music and art prints.

Music is a fleeting moment, while the photograph/whatever is sitting on the wall and you can look at it for as long as you like.

I'm not sure who I agree with but as someone with 3 degrees in music I can appreciate and disseminate any piece of music but I haven't a clue about what is "art" and what is art when it comes to photography...except what I like and decide to call art.

[johnielvis]

there is FINE art....

and there is "fine art"...what is considered fine art.

THAT is how I interpret the question

the difference being who considers it FINE art.

if the person is much better than you, the it becomes "fine art"

whereas if it's just you who like it, it is then only FINE art

[Jay DeFehr]

Paul,

You put it much better than I did; thank you for expanding and clarifying the point.

[rdenney]

I'm not sure I understood the question, either. If the OP isn't asking which is art, which is better, or which we prefer, there's not much left to wonder about. I answered essentially as you did.

It seems to me the question is not any of those issues, but rather why some fine art ends up on museum walls and receives praise by experts while other fine art ends up in an obscure corner, perhaps only in the artist's studio.

It could be a matter of exposure, but I don't think that explains everything.

Rick "continuing this line in response to Paul" Denney

[rdenney]

On another note, it was my hope to dodge the fine-art-vs.-whatever discussion, because I feel that got played out a hundred years ago (almost) when Duchamp hung a snow shovel from the gallery ceiling. It's been the story of Modernism (by now a very old one) that we don't have any grounding for normative definitions of art. Art is what we look at as art. Which is in no way a free ride for anyone or anything: if we look at it as art, we judge it as art. No snow shovel had ever been so unpopular.

This is also not my purpose. C. S. Lewis, in his book An Experiment in Criticism, argued in favor of the notion that art is whatever is received as art, whether or not an elite art community thinks it should be. That is not fundamentally different than your notion that art is what we view as art, whether or not it achieves popular acclaim. Both approach the definition of art in the same way, and only differ in which group of naysayers might be wrong when they impose their tastes and preferences.


[Jay's] point still stands though, even if we just say, "ok, there's no one consensus, but we have communities of people who make and study this stuff professionally and academically, and the ideas they put forth, even if sometimes diverse and contentious, are not arbitrary." I think it's a way of saying that the opinions of someone who studies a subject have more weight than the opinions of someone who doesn't. And certainly more weight than a coin toss.

This gets at my main issue. I fully agree with this statement, and am happy to believe that those whose decision it was to hang Newman's work on the walls at the National Gallery of Art were justified in doing so.

My question is: What path might one take to come to that point? We can agree that it takes some travel down some path. We can agree that instant judgments will likely feed only strongly held opinions rather than considered opinions. We can agree that experts likely have more authority in making such judgments than non-experts. We absolutely agree that those expert judgments should not be dismissed without deep consideration.

But we weren't talking about those unwilling to consider the work, or those who have no experience looking at difficult art, or even those who are charlatans foisting a false sophistication for the purpose of selling crap art to rich and foolish people. We were considering what might be a large contingent on this forum, who have spent quite a bit of time over many years with these questions, mostly with an open mind and a desire to get it, and still don't. I think this is more the OP's perspective, and it certainly is mine. Maybe it would be easier to get if someone who does get it can describe how they came to that appreciation in terms that point in some travelable direction. Asserting that maybe it just doesn't resonate reminds me of an architecture professor of mine, who praised a design effort halfway through, and then gave it a poor grade in the end. When I asked him where I'd gone wrong (with the obvious intent of righting my course), his response was, "Well, I really thought it was cool, man, in the drawings, but in the models, I just found I just couldn't relate to it, man." The OP seems to be asking for direction. Is there nowhere to point? Is what sophisticates consider worthy so inarticulable that they, like my architecture professor, can say nothing of clarity to help people to an appreciation of it?

Rick "who has read past generations where sophisticates were not so tongue-tied" Denney

[paulr]

We were considering what might be a large contingent on this forum, who have spent quite a bit of time over many years with these questions, mostly with an open mind and a desire to get it, and still don't. I think this is more the OP's perspective, and it certainly is mine.

By "it"I take it you mean some work that's considered important for reasons you don't understand?

I'd consider the possiblity that your theory of art is not the same as the one held by the heads of the institutions that have sanctified the thing.

I realize people's eyes often glaze over when they hear a phrase like "theory of art." I've heard it suggested that such things exist only in the realm of academia, and that real people look at art "authentically," or naiively, or in some other way without theory.

But this is baloney. Everyone here could answer questions like "what is art for?" and "what do you look for in art?" and "what makes a work of art good?" and "what makes a work of art important?" ... along with more obscure questions, like ones about the nature of meaning and interpretation, the nature of authorship, the ways in which art is a product of psychology or intentions or tradition or culture ...

The answers to these questions would point to your theory of art. On one hand, it would be very unlikely if your answers were unique ... an incredible range of theories of art are already on the books. But on the other hand, it's highly likely that your theory would be different from mine, or from your mom's or from Anselm Kiefer's, or from the head curator at MoMA's.

If the theories in vogue right now at the most visible institutions difer much from your own, you will no doubt sense a rift when you walk their halls.

I don't think it's ever an unbridgeable rift. You may never love what the curator loves. You may never even be especially interested in it. But unless that curator is a terrible communicator, you should be able to figure out why she thinks something's important. If you're interested in art broadly, this in itself should at least be interesting, even if the work in question goes down like cough medicine.

It's also possible that your interests and tastes could change. Who knows what you'll fall for tomorrow. I'm personally pretty bored with most photgraphy right now, which is an interesting place for me. I'm waiting to see what the next spark will be.

[rdenney]

It's also possible that your interests and tastes could change. Who knows what you'll fall for tomorrow. I'm personally pretty bored with most photgraphy right now, which is an interesting place for me. I'm waiting to see what the next spark will be.

I'm sort-of in the same boat, except that it's mostly my own photography that bores me. But it sounds like maybe I'm asking the wrong guy, heh.

I don't think curators, etc., do nearly enough to explain why work is important. They either assert, or remain silent "to let the art speak for itself". Fortunately, those with whom I have enjoyed music have not been so constrained. They were able to find ways to explain something that encouraged me to push past my reluctance to experience something new. Sometimes, it does not work (I could never get to like Lutoslawski), but sometimes it catches hold. When it catches, though, it seems to do so pretty quick, with a little educational guidance.

I just seem to run into brick walls when I try that approach with much visual art. I have a hard time finding any articulation of the theory of art that actually encourages me to explore it. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

Most museums seem to be rather minimalist in their guidance. Orchestras are less so--their conductors have lectures with the audience before a performance, their programs provide notes written for regular people, recordings provide other similar information, books are available that compile critical reviews of recordings, and so on. The stuff I've tried to find regarding art in general has not been nearly so encouraging. Newman's work at the National Gallery provided nothing at all. "Stations of the Cross. Oil on canvas. Arnold Newman (date)" The program talks about the people who donated the work and how they filled their lives with important art, etc. The lectures we hear about that discuss photography seem to discuss the stuff I already know I like, almost universally.

So, when the question comes up, I ask. Maybe I'll get a clue here and there. But while I have no trouble with the notion that some art should be difficult, I do have trouble with the notion that art lovers and museum curators, etc., should be difficult. I also have trouble with the notion that experts can't express their expertise. Does it really take a college degree in art theory to be able to wander through the National Gallery with some illumination of why the stuff is there?

Rick "back to pretty pictures of pretty subjects, I guess" Denney

[paulr]

I'm sort-of in the same boat, except that it's mostly my own photography that bores me.

Oh, yeah, I was definitely including my own work when I said that ...



I don't think curators, etc., do nearly enough to explain why work is important.

Really? most of the big museums I go to have a lot of wall text, and if you're up for it, guided audio tours. Curators often write lengthy essays in exhibition catalogs and other books they edit.

You've mentioned your curiosity about Friedlander ... Szarkowski wrote mountains about him. The big retrospective curated by Galassi produced its own mountain in a single volume (http://www.amazon.com/Friedlander-Peter-Galassi/dp/0870703439) ... I think it's the biggest book I own. It's got over 30 foot-tall pages of text by Galassi.

I get the general impression that curators are doing more than ever to educate. Just out of curiousity, I did a search to see what resources were available. Here's (http://www.moma.org/learn/index) MoMA's education page. I don't know if institutions were doing so much of this kind of thing in previous decades.

By the way, it's not just their job to talk about about the work in question, but also to articulate the mission of the institution. This often has as much to do with the institutions charter and its tradition as with the values of any given curator. In NYC, for example, you'll see very different curatorial standards at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the International Center of Photography, and the New York Historical Society. They'll have (predictable) differences in opinion about what's "important."[/QUOTE]




I do have trouble with the notion that art lovers and museum curators, etc., should be difficult. I also have trouble with the notion that experts can't express their expertise. Does it really take a college degree in art theory to be able to wander through the National Gallery with some illumination of why the stuff is there?

Wow, I don't know ... fortunately, that hasn't been my experience. I mean, I love to make fun of the crappy writing that shows up too often in wall text, and everyone loves to make fun of embarrassing artists' statements. But I generally find articulate information when I look for it, especially at better museums and in better books. Where have you been looking where things are so grim?

[Jay DeFehr]

It seems to me the question is not any of those issues, but rather why some fine art ends up on museum walls and receives praise by experts while other fine art ends up in an obscure corner, perhaps only in the artist's studio.

It could be a matter of exposure, but I don't think that explains everything.

Rick "continuing this line in response to Paul" Denney

Hi Rick,

I've really enjoyed your descriptions of your musical experiences, and I always feel fortunate when you and Paul get into a discussion.

I think the question you pose is a good one, and the answer complex. I don't pretend to be an art insider, or even to be educated in the arts, but from my perspective it seems there is a system in place by which art is sorted and categorized and valued. A potential difficulty might result from the fact that the creation and appreciation of art are mostly right brain phenomenon, and sorting, categorizing and evaluation are mostly left brain activities, and making the subjective objective is never a perfect translation. I think this is what Paul was getting at when he mentioned a true consensus is not possible, or even desirable.

I've come to think of any creative act as essentially technological, and the purpose of homo sapiens sapiens as the creation of technology. It's what we do, and why we're here. Critique, curation, collection, and academic study are all technologies, and each utilizes a form of constraint satisfaction in its work, but the specific constraints are unique to each technology, and even to each worker, and at any particular time. What seems certain is that information technology, connectivity, and sharing are having an enormous, and in some cases transformative effect on all other technologies, and the traditionally insular world of fine art is not immune to, or exempt from these effects.

[Heroique]

Well now that’s getting back to first principles – Homo sapiens sapiens.

I’m curious why you believe his creative act is essentially “technological,” yet, I do suppose it’s important to remember that homo (“human”) technology appeared millions of years before he did (he appeared just 200,000 years ago), and art more than 100,000 years after he did. At least that’s what the current archeological / anthropological evidence seems to suggest.

Also makes one curious when H.s. or H.s.s. first made a tool to be more beautiful, just how conscious he was of making “fine art,” and the impossibility of discovering such a moment “in the record.”

[Jay DeFehr]

Heroique,

I don't mean to slight Homo habilis, or any other homos, but I think it could be argued their first purpose was to survive long enough to reproduce, and dabble in technology in their spare time. We're different. Surviving long enough to reproduce is no longer a first order problem for our species, and we are engaged, as a species, in the production of technology as our first order of business. Every creative act is technological. The word, technology is derived from the Greek, technologia, the study of art, craft, skill. Creativity is hardwired, and the defining characteristic of our species, and creation is impossible without technology.

As for beautiful tools, I would argue that every tool ever made was made to be more beautiful. Noam Chomsky even argues that language was first evolved for beauty, and then adapted to utility.

[lecarp]

Fine art vs Fine art.

Mapplethorpe vs Ken Lee?

Having never seen Kens work with a bull whip (link anyone?), It would
be very hard to compare the talents of the two artists.

[Heroique]

Every creative act is technological.

Still just a little curious – don’t you really mean, “every technological act is creative.”

That is, do you really believe that, say, music, song, or dance is necessarily “technological”?

Well, either way, I think you’ve opened up an interesting & useful way to discuss “fine art.”

[Jay DeFehr]

Heroique,

Yes, I mean that music and dance are technological. Anything that involves technique is by definition technological.

My point is that the creative act is hardwired and universal. There is no such thing as a non-creative person. Free will, if it exists at all, is an individual phenomenon and doesn't apply to a species.It's not at all clear whether intelligence led to technology, or the other way around. I tend to favor the latter.

What's interesting to me about the differences in the flowers of Lee and Mapplethorpe has almost nothing to do with works or the artists, and everything to do with the systems that have evolved to evaluate them. Art is the science of the right brain.

[rdenney]

Wow, I don't know ... fortunately, that hasn't been my experience. I mean, I love to make fun of the crappy writing that shows up too often in wall text, and everyone loves to make fun of embarrassing artists' statements. But I generally find articulate information when I look for it, especially at better museums and in better books. Where have you been looking where things are so grim?

I spent quite a lot of time after my visit last January trying to discover more about the modern-art collection that was displayed in the East Building of the National Gallery of Art. I found very little. There was no text on the walls, no program available for sale, and the online description just includes the provenance. The press reports discussed the donor and not much else. There may have been lectures and things like that, but a lecture in the evening on the Washington Mall is likely to appeal only to a few urban dwellers. I have seen many things at the National Gallery that I would not have seen otherwise, including much important photography. Some of that was explained in books available in the museum store, but this collection, which included what are generally more difficult works, provided little.

One photograph I saw when I was there was a photograph of...black. There was no image whatsoever. It look like a sheet of print paper developed under a strong light. Perhaps the photographer was channeling John Cage, or making some other point. I don't expect the artist to explain it--their explanation for better or worse is hanging right there on the wall. But it would have been nice if the museum provided something. But, no--just the small placard identifying the work. I could not find anything on their web site or their store that even mentioned it. Presumably, a curator thought it important, at least, either that person or somebody influential who was moved by it.

In contrast, there was mountains of stuff describing their Rothko display that was in another part of the building. But one doesn't need that for Rothko--the web is replete with good discussion of his work. That helped me to understand it better, and even to appreciate Rothko's direction even if the work itself isn't something I'd want on my own walls. It's the more obscure stuff that needs more explanation.

I've been looking for a Szarkowski, but haven't been able to find one. It's out of print, and people don't seem to want to sell their used copies. I don't have the money at the moment to buy one at a "collector" price.

Rick "who does not live in New York" Denney

[Steve Smith]

One photograph I saw when I was there was a photograph of...black. There was no image whatsoever.

That was 'Blind Man In A Coal Cellar Looking For The Black Cat Which Isn't There.'


Steve.

[rdenney]

A potential difficulty might result from the fact that the creation and appreciation of art are mostly right brain phenomenon, and sorting, categorizing and evaluation are mostly left brain activities, and making the subjective objective is never a perfect translation. I think this is what Paul was getting at when he mentioned a true consensus is not possible, or even desirable.

The dichotomy between right and left brain sometimes leads me to think they must belong to different people.

As an engineer and professional explainer, I live most of my life in the analytical world. But, I listen to and play music, and view and make art. My motivations for doing those things are emotional rather than analytical.

But I see that the two are tightly interwoven. When I play music, I'm thinking about the music, mostly in musical terms, to the extent my technique makes it possible. I'm always evaluating, on an emotional level, whether what I just played made the statement I intended. I know when I get it right because I feel an emotional thrill. But that emotional thrill is fully informed by analysis, and when I feel it, I immediately categorize what I just did as "right". And since I want to be able to do it again, I describe, at least to myself, what was right about it.

Sometimes, I make a photograph that gives me that thrill. But then I apply analysis, and often realize that the photograph is just another picture of a famous subject, or a plainly conventional way to present a non-famous subject. So, is my thrill based on achieving something that requires technical proficiency? Is it based on my own personal connection with that subject? Is it based on a personal theory of art (i.e., my vision) that is irrelevant to anyone else, or even to me perhaps next month? Usually I struggle to answer these questions, but in the end I usually realize that either I have failed to understand and illuminate my connection to the subject, or have depended on choosing a subject that others will connect to despite my failure. My own thrill is usually not transferable, but that's okay--I'm not selling my work or expecting others to develop an appreciation for it. I would like to improve, of course.

Sometimes, I view art hanging on a museum wall that does not give me that thrill. One expects that the person who decided to hang it on a museum wall, at the very least, did get that thrill. One assumes that if they are experts, they will have applied the same analysis I did above, except on a more sophisticated level. One assumes that after that analysis, they supplement that thrill with reasons for why they think that art will give other people that thrill in ways that further the purposes of that museum. If they come to the conclusion I often come to, that the appreciation is not transferable, then why would they display it? Clearly, they came to the conclusion that it is transferable.

But transferable to whom? And what path must the viewer tread to receive that appreciation? It seems to me the job of critics and curators to shine a light on that path.

If a work can be appreciated only for its academic importance, then I can see it in a university collection, but why would it hang on the wall of the National Gallery? I would assume the curators at the National Gallery would have a broader purpose.

I do not believe there needs to be a consensus. I don't mind if I come to disagree with the curator, but I would at least like to attempt to see it their way. That's why when someone whose opinion I respect praises work I don't get, I ask them to illuminate their path. Most of the time, even with people as articulate and clear-headed as Paul, that path remains unexplained. One possibility is that it is unexplainable.

Paul suggests that stuff becomes accepted as important because it becomes accepted as important--the canon defines itself. But I see stuff that seems no different from what is hanging on the museum walls that gets no consideration at all. There must be a difference there somewhere, and I'm still resolutely assuming that difference is artistically substantive and not merely commercial or political. But I seem to have trouble getting anyone to articulate it.

This is the issue raised by the OP, I think.

Rick "not expecting a consensus" Denney

[rdenney]

That was 'Blind Man In A Coal Cellar Looking For The Black Cat Which Isn't There.'

I see an entry on APUG where you described copying this work. Thus, I assume you are joking. I can't find a reference of this description to an actual work, despite that as a quote it has been apparently attributed to everyone from Charles Darwin to H.L. Mencken.

Here's where I attached a photo of the photo in question, in a thread appropriately about photographs about nothing.

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showpost.php?p=735483&postcount=18

In the 1980 FilmAmerica biography of Adams, he was making a Polaroid at a Yosemite workshop and apparently didn't pull the dark slide or something. The image was black. After everyone giggled about it a bit, he suggested, "Send this the Museum of Modern Art." He was joking.

Rick "thinking this photographer is guilty of plagiarism" Denney

[tgtaylor]

Yesterday afternoon I went for a hike in a local park featuring Redwoods, ferns, and a stream that rainbow trout spawn in. Walking along side a fence row to protect from a steep drop-off to the stream about 20 foot below, I suddenly caught sight of several crossing tree branches of a tree growing on the opposite side of the bank that had a green moss growing on them and facing me. Under the mostly cloudy sky the light was perfect and the green moss shown with such luminosity that it stopped me in my tracks. Knowing that this would make for a good image if I could capture it, I quickly set the camera up and managed to snare several smaller branches of a tree or bush that was growing on my side of the stream and obstructing the view with my hiking pole. Securing those branches in the fence, I exposed one sheet of color negative of the four sheets that I had available and began to pack-up. While doing so a voice came to my left from one of two women with small children asking “Can I take a look through your camera to see what you are photographing? Can I...Oh my God! Never-mind. I see what you are photographing.”

That's art.

Thomas

[E. von Hoegh]

Andy Warhol vs. Albrecht Duerer.

That is, if I correctly understood the question.

[Brian C. Miller]

Look at it this way: if the janitors clean up your artwork, then you've got a bit of a perception problem. (Gallery mulls 'damage' after cleaner scrubs modern art (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/07/art_attack/)) I remember this happened to an "installation" where the janitor swept everything up and chucked it out.

At least with photography it's in a frame.

[Jay DeFehr]

Rick,

Consensus was a poor choice of words on my part, and I never meant to suggest anything like unanimous consensus, just a prevailing opinion, subject to revision.

The right/left brain tension interests me very much. The more we learn about our brains, and cognition in general, the more it seems we are not a single, inseparable, impossibly complex self, but a community of not quite autonomous, specialized selves. In a very real sense, the person who remembers playing a piece of music, or making a photo, is not the same one who experienced those events, and we shouldn't be surprised when there is less than complete agreement among those persons who think in very different ways.

In the case of your reaction to work on a gallery wall, the community of selves has become a metropolis of selves, and the criteria on which it has collectively based its selection is likely highly complex. Your reaction to the work is at least partly explained by the alignment of your viewing self with the selfopolis that made the selection. The meta-data is as critical to the selection process as the data itself. Someone faced with making a meaningful distinction between Mapplethorpe's flowers and Lee's might not be able to do so without access to the meta-data, including the entire bodies of the respective artists' works, and the contexts within which they were made, but you already know all this. The selection is itself the shining light, and the path is yours to make. The commercial and political cannot be removed from the memeplex, and might be the dominant memes.

If we look at the work that forms the bases for Nobel science prizes, we might not be able to relate to much of it, but we're probably fairly confident that it has merit because the awarding body has a reputation for recognizing important work, and scientific work is subject to peer review that weeds out most of the insubstantial work. The art world also has a system of peer review based on reputations, and this is no accident. These systems are themselves emergent technologies. An important difference in the way people relate to art as opposed to science is that people tend to feel that if they don't relate to a work of art, there's something wrong with the art, while most people are very comfortable accepting a scientific work is beyond their scope of appreciation. It is for some, a point of pride, it seems.

Art and science differ only in application, and the mechanism that drives people to produce both is the same. I'm not suggesting we have an experimentation gene (though I'm not ruling it out), but something deeper. The process of evolution itself is fundamentally one of incessant experimentation based on random accidents. Whatever motivated Thomas to stop and make a photo is not unique to Thomas, as his account illustrates, and I wouldn't call it art, but stimulus response. When Thomas applied a technology in response to the stimulus he created something apart from himself and apart from the stimulus. This is what people do. Sometimes we call it art, other times science, and sometimes we don't bother naming it at all because it's so ordinary. Sometimes looking at what we do as a species can tell us a lot about what we do as individuals, to the extent there is such a thing as an individual.

[rdenney]

...selfopolis...

Oooh, I'm remembering that word. Think of the megalomaniacal statements that word can support.

I think what you are saying is that if we don't appreciate something, we should just keep looking at it and stuff like it, and then accept whatever appreciation comes (or doesn't). Fair enough--and not much different than what Paul described of how he came to appreciate jazz.

You are also saying that people develop a reputation for having a reputation, based on some considered and influential viewpoint. And having that reputation informs appreciation for individual works. That makes sense, too. The photographer that made that all-black image would probably have gotten no consideration at all but for the other work that person did that established them as being important. Sure: People earn the right to have influence, even when that influence is sometimes inexplicable in the isolated case.

But those things could be true if nobody ever walked up to Newman's Stations of the Cross and said, "Wow!" even before Arnold Newman was famous. This is apparently one of his most influential works. If somebody stood before that work and said "Wow!", I'd like to be a fly on the wall of their psyche trying to see how they got to that point. I envy those who can create art that causes people to have a visceral reaction like that. I have obviously never figured out what that is. Probably I never will.

I can live with that. But it's still worth exploring.

Rick "appreciating the thoughtful discussion" Denney

[Darin Boville]

I remember this happened to an "installation" where the janitor swept everything up and chucked it out.


Sometimes the janitor is the most perceptive critic.

--Darin

[E. von Hoegh]

That was 'Blind Man In A Coal Cellar Looking For The Black Cat Which Isn't There.'


Steve.

I have toyed with the idea of mounting/matting and framing black rectangles and hanging them, with titles such as "my darkroom", "The Adirondacks at Night" (contact print) "Lake Placid during The Blackout", and so on.

[Heroique]

If somebody stood before that work and said "Wow!", I'd like to be a fly on the wall of their psyche trying to see how they got to that point.

Well, the reason I asked you about Vaughan Williams is because he makes you say “Wow!”, and I was hoping to be a fly on the wall of your psyche to see how you got to that point.

Don’t worry, I already knew it wouldn’t work, never does. :^(

At least there’s consolation – it would be a drab world if we could not be touched by what analysis doesn’t touch.

[rdenney]

Well, the reason I asked you about Vaughan Williams is because he makes you say “Wow!”, and I was hoping to be a fly on the wall of your psyche to see how you got to that point.

Don’t worry, I already knew it wouldn’t work, never does. :^(

Actually, I provided you with several descriptions of how my psyche works in appreciating that work. If you took that and listened to it yourself, you'd know to listen for certain resonances and tone colors. It might not help you to like it, but it might well give you a hint. But that work is more accessible than is, say, Glass, which is why I brought it up.

But I also provide a few important clues to appreciating Glass, too. One is to listen for the slowly developing patterns happening underneath the usually fast patterns that are most obvious. That directs you to listen at two levels in a way I think anyone could. By the time they heard the underlying slow pattern, they'd either get it or they wouldn't, but they may open a door to listening the right way for the requisite period of time.

So, what I was fishing for was somebody who loves a work that I don't get to say: This works at this other level, where these relationships provide a symmetry not seen until you look past this other thing...whatever. Or, this work provides a progression from this state to that state, if you look at it in this way...

What I didn't want is, "I just seem to relate to it, man", which is no more considered than, "I just can't relate to it, man."

Rick "reminded that the role of a critic is not to pass judgments, but to expand horizons" Denney

[Darin Boville]

>>But that work is more accessible than is, say, Glass, which is why I brought it up.<<

I still don't know what anyone means when they say this. I would guess that Glass far outsells Williams. It's routine to see Glass CDs on the shelves (or playlists) in almost any urban apartment you go to. Much rarer to see Williams.

Average people--that is, those with little for no formal music training--don't find Glass difficult or inaccessible at all.

--Darin

[rdenney]

>>But that work is more accessible than is, say, Glass, which is why I brought it up.<<

I still don't know what anyone means when they say this. I would guess that Glass far outsells Williams. It's routine to see Glass CDs on the shelves (or playlists) in almost any urban apartment you go to. Much rarer to see Williams.

Look under V instead of W (Vaughan Williams is Ralph's double-barreled surname).

Glass has done some stuff that is more accessible these days, and I have to admit I'm not that current on his newer stuff. I'm channeling an earlier time when Glass was still avant-garde and minimalist.

I'll bet those CD's you see on those urban apartment shelves are not the soundtrack to Koyaanisqatsi, or Spaceship from Einstein on the Beach. I've played that early music for friends, many of them musically trained, that just didn't get it at all at first and still derided it after that first half hour. The newer stuff is less out there.

I think it would be safe to say that the Glass fandom and the Vaughan Williams fandom don't overlap much, and I'm not startled to discover that the Glass fandom might be centered on urban apartments, but on a worldwide basis, there wouldn't be much evidence to suggest one over the other over the last, say, 50-75 years. Glass is certainly more important in today's scene, but RVW is still widely performed and has a large discography over 50 years after his death.

Rick "who was present for the premiere of Akhnaten, in Houston, 1984" Denney

[Heroique]

What I was fishing for was somebody who loves a work that I don't get to say: “This works at this other level, where these relationships provide a symmetry not seen until you look past this other thing...whatever.”

Actually, I love “Fantasia,” and enjoyed your description of it too – but the central experience of art can be impregnable to analysis, so you might be fishing for explanations when it’s impossible to get even a nibble.

[Brian C. Miller]

In the case of your reaction to work on a gallery wall, the community of selves has become a metropolis of selves, and the criteria on which it has collectively based its selection is likely highly complex.

I don't perceive that an individual's decision is the decision of a majority. A gallery will have a curator, and it's that person who is making the decision of what goes up and what comes down. In the case of an institution, there may be a committee, and a committee will (likely) come to it's decision based on a plurality of ideas and a final consensus. Of course, bullying and bribery may also be a factor, especially in New York. (Although I've never heard mention of a dog's head being found on a doorstep in reference to a gallery hanging, unlike with waste management.)

I'm not sure that the selection process is complex, as more like it is muddled beyond fathomable belief of the common person.


Your reaction to the work is at least partly explained by the alignment of your viewing self with the selfopolis that made the selection. The meta-data is as critical to the selection process as the data itself.

Right. The selfopolis memeplex proclaims, "This is important." The common man replies, "Your head is evidently in a normally anatomically impossible position, but since you don't actually exist, that may be normal."


Someone faced with making a meaningful distinction between Mapplethorpe's flowers and Lee's might not be able to do so without access to the meta-data, including the entire bodies of the respective artists' works, and the contexts within which they were made, but you already know all this. The selection is itself the shining light, and the path is yours to make.

Meaningful distinction? Look at the flowers on the official Mapplethorpe site, and look at the flowers Ken posted. Nobody has to have a doctorate with post-doctoral studies to draw "meaningful distinctions." The differences are obvious. Now, to draw a line between Ken's flowers and AA's flowers, that takes some more work. If somebody stuck up a photo line-up of Ken's and AA's flowers and the viewer didn't know before hand which belongs to whom, it would take some discernment to make a differentiation.


The commercial and political cannot be removed from the memeplex, and might be the dominant memes.

The common man might proclaim that the dominant meme is the screaming memee. Imagine for a moment if the "Occupy _____" had been aimed at art instead of finance, and they decided to park themselves outside of MOMA until the it was crap free. "We are the 99% who have no idea what's on the walls!"

If all the labels applied to abstract art were removed, what conclusions would be drawn by the viewer? Stations of the Cross would just be a bunch of odd vertical lines. Pollock didn't label his drippings. Duchamp's Fountain was part of Dada, a protest of non-art against art. Without the label, would Fountain be anything other than a ratty used urinal?

[paulr]

Paul suggests that stuff becomes accepted as important because it becomes accepted as important--the canon defines itself. But I see stuff that seems no different from what is hanging on the museum walls that gets no consideration at all. There must be a difference there somewhere, and I'm still resolutely assuming that difference is artistically substantive and not merely commercial or political. But I seem to have trouble getting anyone to articulate it.

I didn't mean to suggest anything so arbitrary. I think anything on the wall at a museum got there through careful deliberation (and sure, being in a collection or on a wall is not the same as being canonized, but it's a step ...).

Exactly what values, forces, and social circumstances are behind those selections is complex and variable, but most public intitutions are concerned to some degree with historical importance. History isn't defined as one thing after another, but one thing leading to another. Participation in a chain of influence and evolution makes a work important to its era. The work's relationship to historical forces outside of art (culture, economics, technology, politics) is equally important. These two kinds of historical perspectives are often closely tied together.

All of this is a longwinded way of saying that the context a work comes from is as important as what it looks like.

If I make a photograph that looks just like a Weston photograph, I'm not actually doing something similar. Weston made his in response to his world in the early days of Modernism. His work was new, challenging, absolutely of its time, and profoundly influential. Mine was made in response to very old historical work. It's anachronistic, backwards-looking, derrivative, and easy. It will have no influence, and is therefore essentially ahistorical.

Which might explain why MoMA, in spite of having the whole set of Weston's peppers, keeps forgetting to return my calls, even though my pepper is really f'ing awesome looking.

[paulr]

Continuing that thought, in response to the all-black photograph ...

The date would be important. A black rectangle made in 2011 would inspire a big yawn from me. But if if it predated Malevich (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monochrome_painting) in 1918, it would be historically interesting—a really significant discovery.

I'm guessing it comes from sometime between those extremes, and I completely agree with Rick that some text would nice.

I didn't realize the National Gallery was so unhelpful with the photo collection. The last show I saw there was paintings by Arcimbolo ... someone I knew nothing about going in. The wall text from the painting curator gave me a great introduction.

[paulr]

I envy those who can create art that causes people to have a visceral reaction like that. I have obviously never figured out what that is. Probably I never will.

Why would you assume so? Your audience might not overlap so much with Newman's, but so what?

(Then again, it might overlap a lot, in which case you'll be scratching your head, but sometimes life is like that.)

[Jay DeFehr]

I don't perceive that an individual's decision is the decision of a majority. A gallery will have a curator, and it's that person who is making the decision of what goes up and what comes down.

I don't think it's a decision of a majority, and I don't think its a decision made in the vacuum of individuality, but the result of a process involving a diffuse network of memes, emerging as a selection.


Meaningful distinction? Look at the flowers on the official Mapplethorpe site, and look at the flowers Ken posted. Nobody has to have a doctorate with post-doctoral studies to draw "meaningful distinctions." The differences are obvious.

Obvious to whom? If the differences are obvious to you, you haven't told us what they are, or why they're important, so you haven't made a meaningful distinction.


The common man might proclaim that the dominant meme is the screaming memee

Except that a meme is not proclaimed, but emerges by an evolutionary process. I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

[Jay DeFehr]

Rick,

It wasn't my intention to place a value on understanding or appreciation, and certainly understanding and appreciation lie on a spectrum. No one understands or appreciates everything, and unless understanding or appreciating something is important to you, simply moving on to something else is a perfectly valid response. I don't speak French, and so my appreciation of French literature is limited by that deficit in my understanding, but not totally absent. I'm satisfied enough with my degree of appreciation that I'm not sufficiently motivated to learn French, but if I moved to France, my motivation would be enhanced. I suspect you've arrived at a similar place on your spectrum of appreciation for Stations of the Cross that I have on mine for appreciating French literature, moving beyond which, I lack sufficient motivation. While I still suffer pangs of inadequacy when I'm party to a conversation mostly conducted in French, with allowances made for my ignorance of the language, I feel no shame, and I think neither should you regarding Stations.

This has been a very nice discussion- thank you.

[Darin Boville]

>>The date would be important. A black rectangle made in 2011 would inspire a big yawn from me.<<

Just googling...there's Mathew Booth who does a highly reflective all black photograph which is apparently re-photographed in various locations.

Seems to me very much in the spirit of Cage's 4:33 (which has never struck me as having anything to do with silence).

--Darin

[paulr]

I think some of the abstract expressionists were inspired by Cage. If anyone's planning to be in NYC this winter, there's going to be an art show at Hunter College of Cage-inspired visual art. I met the grad student who's curating it a few weeks ago ... don't remember the details, but google will probably point to the deets.

[Brian C. Miller]

Obvious to whom? If the differences are obvious to you, you haven't told us what they are, or why they're important, so you haven't made a meaningful distinction.

Yes I did, back on the first page. :) I shall quote myself:


Ken Lee's flowers are closer to how Adams photographed flowers. Seriously, I've been looking at both Maplethorpe and Lee. Maplethorpe used cut flowers, and the vase would be very much part of the composition. Lee and Adams photographed the flowers in situ, or at least it really looks like that. I expect to walk outside and see what Lee photographed. I would expect to see the flowers Maplethorpe used lying in the trash.


Except that a meme is not proclaimed, but emerges by an evolutionary process. I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

But memes are proclaimed. Dada was proclaimed, not discovered later. No, it didn't come from out of thin air, but it was proclaimed, defined, and then "abandoned." Except really, it hasn't been abandoned at all. It still exists, in all but name. I am beginning to suspect that all of this comes down to whether something is Dada or not.

"This is not a post."

[paulr]

My guess is that if all Mapplethorpe had done was flowers, we'd never have heard of him. I think the flowers were only interesting in the context of the edgy stuff ... a lot of people may like them just because they're pretty, but people who are thinking about them in context get a whole different perception—one that's colored by the flowers' place alongside the homoerotica. This sexualizes them and nudges us to look at them less like Adams' flowers and more like a response to O'Keefe's.

[keith schreiber]

Interesting discussion, especially the comments from Paul, Rick, and Jay. I just want to note that Rick has twice referred to Mr. Newman as Arnold, though I'm sure he meant to say Barnett. ;)

~ Keith

[Darin Boville]

My guess is that if all Mapplethorpe had done was flowers, we'd never have heard of him. I think the flowers were only interesting in the context of the edgy stuff ... a lot of people may like them just because they're pretty, but people who are thinking about them in context get a whole different perception—one that's colored by the flowers' place alongside the homoerotica. This sexualizes them and nudges us to look at them less like Adams' flowers and more like a response to O'Keefe's.

Do you think there is enough there to sustain his reputation?

--Darin

[Brian C. Miller]

My guess is that if all Mapplethorpe had done was flowers, we'd never have heard of him.

If Mapplethorpe had never published the edgy stuff, then we would have heard of him because his portraits are really good. However, our society goes bananas for what is notorious. If Arthur Fellig never photographed anything but the crime scene or whatever newsworthy event there was, would we know him as we know him now, with Naked City? But of course what gave Fellig fame was that he turned the camera around, and gave us Their First Murder. Balthus painted The Guitar Lesson strictly for the noteriety and sensationalism he knew it would generate.

"There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary."
-- Brendan Behan

[Darin Boville]

>>then we would have heard of him because his portraits are really good.<<

Really? That surprises me. I was at a show of how portraits a year or so ago--at the San Jose mUseum of Art, I think, and I was turned off on Mapplethorpe the more I looked. And I really got tired of that soft-focus filter on the enlarging lens thing. Really started to look like a gimmick after a while.

--Darin

[Struan Gray]

I think some of the abstract expressionists were inspired by Cage. If anyone's planning to be in NYC this winter, there's going to be an art show at Hunter College of Cage-inspired visual art. I met the grad student who's curating it a few weeks ago ... don't remember the details, but google will probably point to the deets.

Cage had a close friendship with Marc Tobey, who is my favourite abstract expressionist, even if he wasn't really one of the NY core. There's a book ("Sounds of the Inner Eye (http://www.amazon.com/Sounds-Inner-Eye-Morris-Graves/dp/0295982748)") which explores the links between Cage, Tobey and Morris Graves. It's been on my wish list since publication, but my family keep buying me dime store fiction instead. Hope springs eternal.

I don't think there are any universal ways to learn to like art you don't yet get. Looking back at my own experiences the only hint I can give is that the quest is helped by an open, questioning attitude, and an informed, critical humility towards popular opinion. There is no need to cringe though: not liking something widely praised is a sign of a mature sensibility.

The trick is to balance humility and hubris.

I'm currently trying to like Tomas Tranströmer, but finding it hard going. I like lots of poets who cite him as a major influence, but even if I read the translations by which they know him I hit a dead end. But I try - for a while longer at any rate - because I trust in their judgement and sincerity, and I know from previous sea changes in my own opinion that I have the chance to end up richer in a way that justifies the effort. If not, it's hardly going to blight either my life or Tranströmer's, and I learn things along the way that make the journey interesting in itself.

Rick, perhaps you're just studying the wrong expressionists. I feel I understand why Barnett Newman is in museums and canonical art histories, and I get a strong aesthetic thrill from the works themselves. However, I get a similar thrill from derivative works or copies, while the more calligraphic expressionists like Tobey, Pollock, Motherwell, as well as the Germans before them, have a much greater sense of unique individual productivity. To me, Newman is more like a designer than a painter: his place in my history of art is as a creator of ideas and concepts more than physical objects.

In photography I can usually articulate why I do or do not like something. In other arts I find it harder, and it's not from a lack of trying. My tastes in classical music are at the periphery of the mainstream commercial concert series, but unremarkable to an insider (basically, my ears glaze over at germanic Romantic chromaticism). I just plain like some supposedly 'difficult' music, and grate my teeth at stuff everybody is supposed to love instinctively. That I can't really say why is frustrating, but doesn't stop me enjoying music appreciation as an empirical activity. If I want a theory that works I can always do quantum mechanics.

[Steve Smith]

I see an entry on APUG where you described copying this work. Thus, I assume you are joking. I can't find a reference of this description to an actual work, despite that as a quote it has been apparently attributed to everyone from Charles Darwin to H.L. Mencken.

I have never heard of it being attributed to a photograph before. In the 1980s, British comedian Rowan Atkinson used it in a spoof political speech monologue:

"... we dont want to end up, do we? Like the blind man in a dark room looking for the black cat that isn't there".
I changed dark room to coal cellar for my use. I have also used it as a suggested use for the ISO ratings in the tens of thousands now available on DSLRs.


Steve "insert witty, Rick Denney style signature line here" Smith.

[paulr]

When worse comes to worse we can always fall back on Abe Lincoln's seminal criticism:

"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."

[Struan Gray]

Whatever

[Heroique]

When worse comes to worse we can always fall back on Abe Lincoln's seminal criticism:

"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."

My ancestor died at Gettysburg so you wouldn’t have the freedom to say things like that.

[E. von Hoegh]

When worse comes to worse we can always fall back on Abe Lincoln's seminal criticism:

"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."

Reminds me of Ike saying some thing along the lines of "Things are more the way they are now than they ever were before".

[rdenney]

I didn't realize the National Gallery was so unhelpful with the photo collection. The last show I saw there was paintings by Arcimbolo ... someone I knew nothing about going in. The wall text from the painting curator gave me a great introduction.

That display was in the other part of the same building in which I saw the other work I'm describing, and I saw that one, too. Interesting and strange. And, yes, it was quite carefully described in ways completely lacking in the displays of modern stuff. But the Arcimbolo display was a special feature, while the modern stuff was out of the permanent collection. That may make a difference, perhaps.

The way that black photo was matted and framed suggested to me nothing earlier than the last two or three decades, unless it was reframed after the fact (which is a no-no in my book).

The National Gallery is a cool gallery for a lot of reasons, not least that it is fully allowed to make photographs of the art, even flash photographs. (The Arcimbolo exhibit, which was borrowed, was an exception.) It's a very open museum, but you have to take your own appreciation with you. That's good sometimes but sometimes also insufficient.

It occurs to me that I did indeed react to the Newman--I made a photograph of it. That photo was not intended to be used for subsequent derision (as was the case with the black photo), but more because I thought I could make an interesting photo of that art in its environment. Something about the art and its setting seemed worthy of making a bit more art, perhaps. I should not discount that effect entirely.

Rick "who wonders about stuff like Roy Lichtenstein, too" Denney

[rdenney]

Interesting discussion, especially the comments from Paul, Rick, and Jay. I just want to note that Rick has twice referred to Mr. Newman as Arnold, though I'm sure he meant to say Barnett. ;)

Heh. I don't know where I picked up the Arnold, but now that you say it, it comes back to me.

I'm sure his reputation will be undiminished by my mis-remembering his given name.

Rick "no idea where the Arnold came from" Denney

[Struan Gray]

Rick "no idea where the Arnold came from" Denney

I'm guessing here (http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1058&bih=931&q=arnold+newman&gbv=2&oq=arnold+newman&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=11077l12657l0l12880l13l12l0l6l6l0l197l743l3.3l6l0) :-P

A hidden treasure in one of my localish museums - Lousiana (http://www.louisiana.dk), just north of Copenhagen - is a small room of his portraits, mostly writers. His photography is better than it looks.

[Jay DeFehr]

My ancestor died at Gettysburg so you wouldn’t have the freedom to say things like that.

Why not? I'm not sure what the location of your ancestor's demise has to do with Paul's freedom of speech.

[E. von Hoegh]

Why not? I'm not sure what the location of your ancestor's demise has to do with Paul's freedom of speech.

I think H. was alluding to which side his ancestor fought on.

[Heroique]

Sorry Jay, he was originally from Georgia, fought under Longstreet, wounded in the Charge, straggled back to the lines, died a few days later.

Paul’s quote would have strengthened his anti-Lincoln cause!

[Jay DeFehr]

:) I see. Thanks.

[Heroique]

(The War Against Northern Criticism!)

[rdenney]

I'm guessing here (http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1058&bih=931&q=arnold+newman&gbv=2&oq=arnold+newman&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=11077l12657l0l12880l13l12l0l6l6l0l197l743l3.3l6l0) :-P

A hidden treasure in one of my localish museums - Lousiana (http://www.louisiana.dk), just north of Copenhagen - is a small room of his portraits, mostly writers. His photography is better than it looks.

Probably correct. I had read about Arnold Newman, but it's been a while--too long to keep the names sorted, apparently.

Rick "certainly familiar with that iconic Stravinsky portrait" Denney