Chuck Close 20x24 Polaroids in Vanity Fair

[Monty McCutchen]

that's frickin' awesome.



I'm not saying Chuck doesn't know how to light a portrait but just because someone has been doing something for decades does NOT mean they are experts in every aspect. I work with people on occasion who have been shooting movies or lighting people for decades who just aren't good at it. I guess their personalities got them this far. Same goes for any line of work.
If chuck wanted them to look awful (not just real) he succeeded by lighting them the way he did. As for the big noses, do they have noses that big in "real" life? No, they don't. Does the lighting used suit each celebrity or the shape of their face?
I haven't seen any of the 20x24's in person but it seems that most of the people using it are just treating it as a novelty snapshot and the quality worthy of the huge film and expense isn't there.

Vinny,

you are a thoughtful contributor here who I enjoy reading his thoughts and perspectives, so I'm not bent out of shape at all, quite the opposite I'm intrigued by your use of the word snapshot. Are you referencing the rental use of the photographers that use the polaroid 20 x 24 in your last statement, or 20 x 24 shooters in general that you have seen. I ask as a point of discussion for I believe there are some really fantastic 'big' shooters whose work is far from my definition of snapshot. Craig Tuffin, Alex Timmermans, Gibson out of Kansas City (sorry I forget his first name) Tri Tran just to name a few of the people who are using the big formats to share more of storybook viewpoint (can you tell I'm trying to avoid using the artspeak word 'Narrative') that a larger format offers as a strength. I haven't followed the Polaroid 20 x 24 to know if that is true, but I do enjoy the photographers mentioned above for their use of the strength larger formats offer. Most certainly you are correct in the fact that the expense and effort are considerable and the format is not for every shot or everyone but when used wisely can render subjects in a way that others maybe cannot. Of course at my best I'd like to think I contribute with the format something more narrative in nature than a snapshot. Here's a shot of my daughter where considerable effort went into the thought of her and the dangerous world that is around her and the path that she might hopefully take as she entered adolescence. This is a 20 by 24 Tintype on series labeled 'Before 10'.

Your thoughts are always given with a strong and clear voice and I would be interested in hearing what you define as a snapshot

By the way Kirk, I love the portrait Karen took of you. I think I've been there at that Arrow!

best

Monty

[Drew Wiley]

I've known a number of acclaimed painters and some of them really couldn't conceptually transition into the philosophical distinction between photog and painting. So just because someone has been canonized as a painter does not legitmately make them exempt from criticism. It might indeed give them an inside track, so to
speak. We can call the shots just as we see them, unless someone is just a rote slave to the abstract doctrine that current art critics are always right, and that once someone has reached a certain level of fame, everything they do is worthy of immortal fame. Twenty years ago I wandered thru an old book fair one day and there were some original signed Edward Curtis "fine art" Hollywood prints selling for twenty bucks apiece. They probably wouldn't see for much more today, even though a comparable print of Geronimo would sell for 100K. So even with a given media, the same artist might be viewed in the long run as either a genius or a bellyflop. But I'm not personally knocking Close's stand camera shots - I just don't relate to them. No resonance. Other than the fact that Close took them, there
is nothing in them that especially stands out, big noses or otherwise.

[Kirk Gittings]

Vinny,

you are a thoughtful contributor here who I enjoy reading his thoughts and perspectives, so I'm not bent out of shape at all, quite the opposite I'm intrigued by your use of the word snapshot. Are you referencing the rental use of the photographers that use the polaroid 20 x 24 in your last statement, or 20 x 24 shooters in general that you have seen. I ask as a point of discussion for I believe there are some really fantastic 'big' shooters whose work is far from my definition of snapshot. Craig Tuffin, Alex Timmermans, Gibson out of Kansas City (sorry I forget his first name) Tri Tran just to name a few of the people who are using the big formats to share more of storybook viewpoint (can you tell I'm trying to avoid using the artspeak word 'Narrative') that a larger format offers as a strength. I haven't followed the Polaroid 20 x 24 to know if that is true, but I do enjoy the photographers mentioned above for their use of the strength larger formats offer. Most certainly you are correct in the fact that the expense and effort are considerable and the format is not for every shot or everyone but when used wisely can render subjects in a way that others maybe cannot. Of course at my best I'd like to think I contribute with the format something more narrative in nature than a snapshot. Here's a shot of my daughter where considerable effort went into the thought of her and the dangerous world that is around her and the path that she might hopefully take as she entered adolescence. This is a 20 by 24 Tintype on series labeled 'Before 10'.

Your thoughts are always given with a strong and clear voice and I would be interested in hearing what you define as a snapshot

By the way Kirk, I love the portrait Karen took of you. I think I've been there at that Arrow!

best

Monty

Wow there is a story in that hair alone! Sweet shot. Love all the environment. That arrow Karen used as a "reference point (artspeak)" comes from my childhood growing up next to a RT. 66 curio shop with big arrows to attract tourists. That particular arrow is out side a WholeFoods on Sam mateo and I-40 in ABQ but long predates the WFs. It was there when I was a kid. Karen interviewed me before the shoot and loved that reference to my childhood.

[Drew Wiley]

My contention, is that if these kinds of photographs were not or readily recognized celebrities, and taken by a celebrity himself, would there be anything about them
above the ordinary? Now let's take something down by the hired guns down the street, really impressive - but if any number of photographers on this forum had
something printed up that big for forty or fifty thousand dollars and put in a prominent venue, would it be less impressive than a big-nosed self-portrait of Close?
Otherwise, if we didn't already know that someone of Close's reputation took such pictures, would there even be anything in them which inherently drew praise as
some kind of visual masterpiece? ... So let's momentarily flip the coin over, and surmise that St Ansel bought an oil painting set and fiddled with that - would anyone even pay forty bucks for it? Atget did paint for a hobby, and some of those still exist - nobody says wow or thinks they're valuable just because he has hence become an acclaimed photographer. And while Brett Weston's wood carvings look attractive and might have a modest following, none of these would even
be likely to make the cover of a woodworking magazine. But I can spot one of Brett's 11x14 prints clear across the room. It stands out, on it own merit. Just thinking out loud ....

[Tin Can]

Is Chuck making art or photographs? Does the entire body of work say something substantially different than individual prints?

What will he do with these?

I do think he gave these narcissists an outtake for souvenir.

This would have been a great shoot to be the fly on the wall, hearing and seeing everything, especially reactions to images.

[Drew Wiley]

That's why I made allusion to Edward Curtis. When he took photos of something nostalgaic or catchy in a personal celebrity sense, like Geronimo, his work is itself
famous. When he took shots of famous movie starlets, these have become almost worthless because nobody remembers these individuals anymore. I know someone who recently tried to auction off the last surviving vintage prints of one of the most famous rock n' roll incidents of the 60's and was expecting many thousands of dollars for it. Nobody even bid. And when somebody stumbles over one of today's superstars lying in a street gutter twenty years hence, will they even know or care who they are? I don't mean to sound caustic, but will anybody a hundred years hence even care who Oprah or Brad Pitt were, or that fact that Chuck Close took pictures of them. His paintings might well be admired for many generations, but what exactly qualifies the film portraits as exceptional other than the fleeting fame or the sitters? Does someone else actually see something in them -inherently - that I don't? Please explain, if you do.

[austin granger]

His paintings might well be admired for many generations, but what exactly qualifies the film portraits as exceptional other than the fleeting fame or the sitters? Does someone else actually see something in them -inherently - that I don't? Please explain, if you do.

I actually like the pictures, but I think this does get to the heart of it. The photos would indeed be nothing if it wasn't for the fame of the sitters. Or I should say, they would be nothing superior to a billion other snapshots. But, the fact that we DO know (or think we know) who these people are-after all, we've seen a million glamourous pictures of them-sets us up perfectly to see these pictures in a way that floor us. Or at least some of us. My overwhelming sense when I saw the pictures was that I was seeing these people clearly (and sympathetically) for the very first time. And that, considering the subjects, is a pretty exceptional thing!

[JMB]

Close’s personal story is moving, but his work unfortunately strikes me as repetitive pop photography that usually depends heavily upon the celebrity status of his subjects or image size for any sort of impact.

[StoneNYC]

Nice, I wish we all could afford to do this. I will settle for my project which is very similar in 11x14, using my infamous friends.

Infamous?

[Peter Lewin]

Aside from my discomfort in second-guessing as well-known (and collected and displayed) an artist as Chuck Close, this thread has made me think more about portrait photography.

Quite a few posters have suggested that Chuck Close's portraits would not be noteworthy if not for the fame of the subjects. It seems to me that that same critique can be applied to virtually any of the famous portrait photographers. If I think of Karsh, his portrait of Churchill jumps to mind; for Newman, it is Stravinsky and his concert grand piano; if I think of Annie Liebovitz, it is probably John Lennon. The point is that we know all of these photographers not only because of the photographer's skill, but because of a combination of the photographer's approach and the subjects themselves. Newman is known for placing the subject in an environment which speaks to the subject, Liebovitz may have been the first to essentially construct movie sets for her subjects, but in the end, it is the subject who made the photograph famous. Chuck Close is one of the very few portraitists to use the Polaroid 20x24, so his work also is a combination of a relatively unique technique plus the fame of the subject.

I also don't think Mr. Close is the first artist whose fame in one field gave him a "leg up" in another. I have a numbered print of one of Henry Moore's "Sheep Sketches" hanging in my living room, and I like it a lot. But I doubt that there would be monographs of his Sheep Sketches, nor much of a market, were it not for his primary fame as a sculptor.

By trying to separate each of the elements from the other (i.e. the subjects are famous, we aren't taken with his technique - those large noses, and Chuck Close's primary fame is as a painter) I suggest that we are doing something unfair, we have to take the work in its totality. I can't believe that the Museum of Modern Art, and the other benchmark institutions that display Chuck Close's photography have gotten it so wrong.