"Anyway - as for the whole CULTURE of artspeak and writing - well, there are those who don't do it well - as in all fields. But, like anything - it's a TOOL. A tool. A way to effectively communicate with others with a similar background. But not to others outside of that. Which, I suppose, is why it is attacked. Exclusion - perceived or otherwise."
I agree with this, however I think the exclusive nature of artspeak (or any jargon) often comes about unintentionally, and is a symptom of bad writing or fuzzy thinking. As evidence of this I take the best of the critics/philosophers of the medium, like John Szarkowski and Robert Adams, who can communicate ideas that are both profound to insiders and accessible to outsiders. When the exclusivity of language is deliberate, I think it's an example of the arrogance and detachment that the art world is so often accused of. It makes me crazy to see people simultaneously working towards exclusivity and complaining about the results (attacks on the NEA, a public that's hostile to the arts, etc.).
"It allows people to talk about what goes on with images in an effective way. We could use a bit more of that around here instead of talking so much about gear, don't you think?"
This i agree with. It's a little tiring using words i learned in 7th great english lit class and being accused of speaking in art-speak, psycho-babble, or nonsense verse! It's not with everyone, but in general I think a lot of photo communities have a lot more sophistication toward gear than toward photographs.
sorry if im not up to speed on all this (i go to art school)
but wasnt it harry callahan who came up with the basic formula for teaching photography at the colligiate level thats whats been practiced for the majority of schools?
As a photography student- the notion that photographing a concept rather than something that peaks visual intrest is true to a degree, and sometimes I see this way of working as just being something necessary that galleries require to stick your stuff on the wall and have some BS to write about in brochures or whatever and charge big bucks (here im thinking of people like andreas gursky and jeff wall). But when the idea being photographed is good, it makes the pictures work so much better it would be foolish not to try and work this way all the time (here im thinking about someone like alec soth or joel sternfeld)...but there is definite frustration if you want to say photograph a group of plants because you like the way they look- thats not acceptable. oh, i want to photograph those same group of plants because theyre referencing some old painting, thats brilliant! that kinda stuff gets on my nerves.
From my observations as a young photographer:
concept heavy stuff is pretty out of fashion right now anyway, a big fad right now is taking pictures of your personal life as a young adult and all the fun stuff that is with a cheap 35mm or digital camera, maybe this is what the article writer was thinking about. Documentary stuff seems to be coming back...from what Ive heard it used to be 99% black and white rangefinder stuff in the 60s and 70s. No one really commits to more than water cooler talk on people like sontag.
"I have seen a lot of images which initially arrest my eyes, but I wouldn't want them on my walls under any circumstance. The images that I want to produce are the one which don't need pages of artspeak gobbletygook to sell the image. I want the image to immediately resonate with the viewer, and to hang where its seen again and again, and be appreciated again and again."
I feel the key is often this distinction between "initially arresting" the eye vs. "resonating" with the viewer (if I had a bit more time I would probably chose slightly different terms.
Many photographs catch the eye, but have little substance. The best, most meaningful photographs often resonate in some way on first view - but it might just be an echo, or a pinprick to the memory for example - but over time, as more attention is paid to the image the viwer can go a little deeper. Which doesn't mean it's obtuse - in fact quite the opposite - it just isn't the visual equivelant of a 30 second sound bite.
The first is visual fluff, wallpaper (perhaps often "pretty" for want of a better word). The second is worth hanging on the wall for more than 30 days.
For me, this is what (among many others - but it's what I'm looking at right now) a lot of Friedlanders work does.
You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn
>> On the contrary, for the longest period of time colour wasn't really considered "serious" it was either the domain of the commercial photographer or the amateur (and "snapshot" was a derogetory term in that context). <<
I would argue that the reason it wasn't considered "serious" was because the artistic photographers used b&w for greater control (and let's not forget that even people like Ansel Adams did shoot color as well as b&w) and that the up and coming decided that they had to do the same.
>> Even today there is more than a lingering echo of the "colour photography shows the clothes but black and white shows the soul" bias which goes back aeons. <<
Ah, now here I must disagree. Painters have literally worked over millennia primarily in color. Those making drawings were as likely to work in toned conte crayon as in charcoal or graphite. Heck, even Greek sculpture was originally painted.
"I would argue that the reason it wasn't considered "serious" was because the artistic photographers used b&w for greater control (and let's not forget that even people like Ansel Adams did shoot color as well as b&w) and that the up and coming decided that they had to do the same."
I think it's worth looking hard at why it took color photography so long to be accepted in fine art circles. Szarkowki's interpretation is that it just took a long time before someone (eggleston) came along and did something relevent with it. I'm guessing that there were also at least a few prejudices at work, on the part of artists and curators and also the public, that just required time to errode away.
After all, what Erik says is true: artists had been studying and working with color for ages before kodachrome came along, so there's no reason it should have taken decades to figure it out. Unless the best artists just weren't trying.
Looking at how prejudices might have held artists back for so long can help us avoid the same narrow thinking in the future.
">> Even today there is more than a lingering echo of the "colour photography shows the clothes but black and white shows the soul" bias which goes back aeons. <<
Ah, now here I must disagree. Painters have literally worked over millennia primarily in color. Those making drawings were as likely to work in toned conte crayon as in charcoal or graphite. Heck, even Greek sculpture was originally painted."
Actually Erik, that view goes back to Aristotle at least and the painted sculptures illustrate it perfectly - the colour was seen as surface, secondary and somewhat insignificant in comparison to line which was the most important aspect of art. Colour was (and is still often seen as) cosmetic or ornament, surface or worse
Again, if you follow through the history of art, the art establishment has always tended to have a fairly tight hold over colour in painting - what was acceptable and what wasn't (see for example the impact of the many 17th and 18th century academies vis a vis colour in painting, or in the 19th and 20th centiry the various colour "theorists" albers etc).
I've debated this numerous times in the past, so I won't bore veryone again, but there is an excellent little book called Chromophobia by Batchelor
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/index/fyfe/fyfe2-13-01.asp
which gives a broad brush outline very well - you could follow it up with Gages two big books on colour Colour & Meaning and Colour & Culture.
I'll see if I can remeber this properly (so don't quote me if my memory is faulty andf i'm wrangling the 18 mth old...) - line (and in some senses form) dominate - the natural expressiveness of children, for e.g. with colour become limitied as they are told to make sure they "colour inside the lines". Line in drawing and painting (and obviously B&W) are, of course, closely related to writing and the power of language in our culture and human development - colour and colour perception though really pre-date language and in that sense is primary - although our tradition tends to have line usually trying to contain colour. Line and form are clearly within the realm of language - colour is generally pushing the bounds of language - or more likely it falls outside of it.
You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn
do you really think that in the mid 20th century (which is when the issues of color photography were being fought out) color was still seen as a 2nd class citizen by the art world and the public at large? I realize there's a pre-history to the debate, but it seems to me that by the time we're talking about, oil painting was pretty much considered the archetype for high art in western culture.
I guess I'm wondering what would have happened if color photography had been invented around the same time as bw ... would it still have been a second class citizen (which would suggest lingering ghosts of the old prejudices). Or would have been at least as respected (which would suggest that we just got used to the idea of black and white being for art).
For what it's worth, I'm finding the prejudice to be reversed right now. So many NYC galleries are only showing color work (of contemporary artists). All but my newest work is black and white, and a lot of people that I show it to consider it to be anachronistic (and they come to this judgement quickly enough that I wonder if it's based on superficial impressions, like the fact that the prints are small and monochrome). I'll be curious to see if my color work, which i don't think is any more "evolved" gets a warmer reception.
>> Actually Erik, that view goes back to Aristotle at least and the painted sculptures illustrate it perfectly - the colour was seen as surface, secondary and somewhat insignificant in comparison to line which was the most important aspect of art. Colour was (and is still often seen as) cosmetic or ornament, surface or worse <<
In sculpture there are technical reasons, because it is generally applied at the surface and the material of the sculpture itself presents form. In painting, though, color theory gets complex and intrinsic to artistic expression because it is defining light, shadows, and mass. A monochromatic drawing lessens the difficulty, but is traditionally seen as only a first step to the mastery of the craft.
>> Again, if you follow through the history of art, the art establishment has always tended to have a fairly tight hold over colour in painting - what was acceptable and what wasn't (see for example the impact of the many 17th and 18th century academies vis a vis colour in painting, or in the 19th and 20th centiry the various colour "theorists" albers etc). <<
There has also been tight control over technique and subject. Color isn't an exception; just an example. In other words, artists all have their internal bureaucrats. <s>
Proper use of color is also just blazingly difficult, so artistic evolution has taken time. After all, it took centuries before even master artists stopped simply mixing black in with color to make shadows and noticed that what they really needed to do was start blending complementary color with the primary shade. How obvious is it that a shadow is not a dark area, but a shade of the complementary color of the light illuminating the object? It's not something that most people notice.
>> I'll see if I can remeber this properly (so don't quote me if my memory is faulty andf i'm wrangling the 18 mth old...) - line (and in some senses form) dominate - the natural expressiveness of children, for e.g. with colour become limitied as they are told to make sure they "colour inside the lines". <<
That's also because line is just easier to see and to experience. Remember, when traditional 2D artists are learning craft, the first step is retraining the eye and brain to see all sorts of things: line, shading, mass, and texture. They must connect sight with tactile sense. One might start with line drawings, particularly in the form of contour drawings, but more advanced exercises have people trying to capture a sense of movement (even for static models and objects) and mass. It takes a while before you can start on drapery because the majority of the information comes in the interplay of highlights and shadows that define the curves - in mass, not the lines that are easier to see and describe. I don't know that I'd agree that line is related to words; otherwise, I'd expect more writers to have an easier time adapting to visual representation, and many are terrible at it. When I draw, my entire sense of perception and thought is entirely different from when I write (and the latter is how I make my living, so I do a lot of it). Also, everything I've seen on the subject of art education suggests that drawing and writing involve two separate brain regions, not that they are intrinsically related.
I will agree that the problem with making lines contain color is a cultural one, related to the issues that make people try to draw what they expect to see in an object rather than exactly what is before their eyes, so perspective and point of view are obliterated, resulting in a "primative" representation. Ask a child, or even many adults, to draw a portrait, and you might see both eyes on the same side of the face along with the nose and mouth becasue they "know" that all must exist. That, to me, is related to writing and reason, and it's something that you must struggle with if you hope to even approach representative drawing.
But, it's an interesting discussion. I'll have to check on that reference.
Perhaps in small part, the bias against color photography also stems from the fact that until VERY recently, color photography was not a particularly stable medium - color prints could begin to noticeably fade during the length of an exhibition if they were poorly placed in full sun. If you're buying "art" for hundreds, or thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars, you don't want to put money into something that will fade to illegibility within your lifetime.
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