Re: The Gregory Crewdson film is coming!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
D. Bryant
What is a "process" artist?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_art
An absurd claim for Crewdson but one that he cunningly makes for himself mostly through the marketing of doc shots of his set-ups and through the continuous harping on his so-called "obsessive" process. But as Vinny stated earlier in this thread, there is really nothing in his process that would distinguish it from that of a low budget cable show.
Re: The Gregory Crewdson film is coming!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John NYC
Does he himself say he is a process artist? Or is this a moniker other people have given him?
I've never heard him describe himself as a process artist. I saw his presentation at a SPE conference a couple of years ago, watched video of him speaking about his work, and read several printed interviews. In all of those he did not refer to his work or himself as a process art or photography.
If I had to pin a general single word description of or about his work I would describe him as a tableaux photographer. In the link below you can see images by Crewdson ,Sandy Skoglund (both work with LF color, though in very in a different manner from each). Other phothgrapher's work is shown there also such as Jeff Wall
http://tinyurl.com/7ov62p3
In short I don't get the "process artist" description of his style. The definition pointed to by frotog doesn't fit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_art).
Re: The Gregory Crewdson film is coming!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Darin Boville
I'm interested, too. A very interesting photographer. Tell me more about the film!
--Darin
It looks like it might be in the funding stage, but here is a preview-
http://lalettredelaphotographie.com/...vented-himself
Re: The Gregory Crewdson film is coming!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John NYC
Does he himself say he is a process artist? Or is this a moniker other people have given him?
Please read the first sentence of my last post more carefully. I doubt he's used that phrase exactly but he might as well considering that he's consistently steering the dialogue surrounding that body of work towards the so-called obsessive process of making it rather than the finished product. This conceit is implicit in the way he presents and markets his work, highlighting the production rather than the finished product. He's disseminated this claim far and wide - at museum talks, visiting artists stints, fluff pieces in magazines, etc. And apparently people are buying it. Take, for example, this post a few pages back - "I think you can't look at Greg's pictures as pictures. They extend beyond that. The interesting part of the images isn't the image its the production, the work behind the scenes." But when I look at the work of a truly interesting tableaux photographer like Jeff Wall, Cindy Sherman, or Bernard Faucon I'm looking at the image and that is what holds my attention not some yarn about how hard it was to produce or which movie stars participated or how much it cost or how the town had to close down a street, etc. When I think of photographers whose process is the essential aspect of their work, artists like Smithson, Long and Goldsworthy come to mind, not Crewdson.
Re: The Gregory Crewdson film is coming!
I think it's cool that he still teaches at Yale and has never done commercial work. He must have some marketing savvy to get the funding for huge projects like this, which is a talent in of itself. I remember him doing a big promo for Epson back when Beneath the Roses was touring. Apparently his wife is a gallery director in NYC.
Re: The Gregory Crewdson film is coming!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
frotog
When I think of photographers whose process is the essential aspect of their work, artists like Smithson, Long and Goldsworthy come to mind, not Crewdson.
Yes I agree Crewdson is obsessive about the process of creating his images and is is guilty of hyping that aspect of his work. Yet essentially his genre of photography is that of a tableaux photographer at least in my view. In my mind the final image is what I pay attention to.
Quote:
I think you can't look at Greg's pictures as pictures. They extend beyond that.
I do agree with that sentiment and this is what he [Crewdson, according to Crewdson] intended. What got me to listen to the "yarn" about the image making was the attraction to Crewdson's work to begin with. When I first started looking at his work (which I became engaged with immediately) I knew nothing about the production aspects of his photography, at least not until much later.
I do have some difficulty about categorizing Crewdson as a photographer. Certainly he is not one in the traditional sense or maybe not even a photographer at all.
In short I think his work is interesting. And thanks for pointing to Faucon's work. I wasn't aware of him.
Re: The Gregory Crewdson film is coming!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
D. Bryant
Yet essentially his genre of photography is that of a tableaux photographer at least in my view. In my mind the final image is what I pay attention to.
Yes, D. Bryant, I agree, he lies squarely in the time-honored tradition of tableaux photography, that post-modern lens-based art strategy that seeks to upend our assumptions about the medium's claim to veracity, a strategy boldly put forth by none other than Henry Peach Robinson. Surely he's ready for his close-up too;-).
Re: The Gregory Crewdson film is coming!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
frotog
Yes, D. Bryant, I agree, he lies squarely in the time-honored tradition of tableaux photography, that post-modern lens-based art strategy that seeks to upend our assumptions about the medium's claim to veracity, a strategy boldly put forth by none other than Henry Peach Robinson. Surely he's ready for his close-up too;-).
I don't normally think of Robinson in that context though I probably should.
Later today after my last post I recalled reading somewhere that Crewdson hypes the pre-production, production, and post-production to help promote pre-sales of projects in order to raise money for the covering the production cost. A challenge that a photographer like Robinson most likely never faced.
Re: The Gregory Crewdson film is coming!
After reading the further discussion, I still don't buy into him being a "process artist". He is a photographer who lights his shots like a sci-fi movie and references all kinds of Americana and loneliness, etc. His process, while more complicated than most photographers, is actually less complicated and involved than shooting a real movie with special effects, and we don't call these people process artists -- although maybe we should since most movies are more interesting in their behind the scenes "how did they do it?" these days than the actual final product.