Conceptual Photography?

[George Kara]

Conceptual art is one of those silly 1960's, 1970's excersizes in mental masturbation. Conceptual art is typically identified by a set of instructions that a person is to follow. The end result is supposedly not important, but rather the pre-conception of the end result. What a vague idea and what a bunch of crap. Applying this philosophy, Alfred Hitchcock and Fellini were certainly conceptualists before the term was coined. An airplane model, or instructions on the back of a microwave meal may also be considered as "conceptual art".

I have looked at many of the works suggested by all of you here and thanks for the wonderful image links by many of these shooters.

Not one of these photographers however seem to be "conceptual" as there aren't any instructions available or discussed to create or re-create the imagery which is the work of art.

If the end result is the most important item, then it isnt really conceptual. Now who gives a shit about such an idea other than some gallery owner or historian.

Here is one of my conceptual art works for photography:

A woman 75 years old stands in front of a window at 3pm on the day of summer solstice. The window is North facing and faces a garden. The woman is 2 feet away from the window and waves at the camera and smiles.

Oh wait a minute, thats a snapshot of my grandma.

[tim atherton]

Conceptual art is typically identified by a set of instructions that a person is to follow.

a little limited and narrow as a definition

a surprisingly good, concise overview from Wiki (though sounds like it was written in the UK)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_art

[Robert Hughes]

Sounds like a conceptual Lounge topic.

[Gordon Moat]

Tim, that Wikipedia article reminds me of a joke I use to describe to people:

Poor man's cocaine: take a hundred dollar bill (tough to acquire when you are poor), then cut it up into strips; then light the strips on fire, and try to catch the scent of the burning hundred dollar bill; lastly, notice the way you feel after doing that.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

[paulr]

Even though conceptual art has rarely been my favorite art, I think it has served a valuable purpose when made by people who get what they're doing. The granddaddy of conceptualism was Duchamp, and he got it. His 'readymades' served as a commentary on the direction modern art was going. For this project he took ordinary, industrial objects (a snow shovel, a urinal, etc.) and hung them in a museum.

There was a found art element, especially since he selected things that actually had some formal beauty. But the real point had more to do with the nature of art and craft in an industrial society, and what Modernism might look like if taken to an extreme. Duchamp was smart because he knew the point of his work was to make a point--and once that was done, the project was over.

Some of his post-modern followers (including my favorite whipping girl, Sherry Levine) seemed to miss the significance of this. Some of these artists came up with concepts that were basically one-liners, and tried to build whole careers out of them. Levine, if you remember, photographed famous photographs. This actually made some interesting points about appropriation, the possibility of originality, etc.--all relevent in the world of post modernism. But the point could have been made with a series of three or five images. Levine stretched this gimmick out for years, apparently confusing "making a point" with "making things people will actually want to look at." She stands for me as a shining example of conceptual art gone haywire.

Making the same point over and over is called beating a dead horse. Making the same point over and over is called beating a dead horse. Making the same point over and over is called beating a dead horse. Making the same point over and over is called beating a dead horse. (conceptual poem, © me)

[Brian Ellis]

"Even so called "straight" traditional photographers conceptualize projects."

I'm sure some do. However, I also think many "projects" become "projects" only after the fact, when the photographer looks at her or his body of work over a period of time and sees consistencies of some kind that cause a certain number of the photographs to hang together. Voila! A "project" is born.

[paulr]

I also think many "projects" become "projects" only after the fact...

and likewise, some photographers start with a project in mind, and end up with a completely different project after the fact. one look at my own evolving "statements of purpose" for the same body of work remind me of this ...

[Don Wallace]

(Off topic but my God, this is one of the worst websites I have ever come across from a useability angle...)

It is SO bad it is funny. I have no idea what the hell they are talking about and I couldn't find any images.

I agree more or less with the definition of conceptual as "a set of instructions." It can also mean a kind of detached observation, a description of something. In either case, it is usually the idea of art stripped down to the pure statement, and in either case, it has bored me to death since the 1960s. Just a little too precious for my tastes. We can blame it all on Marcel Duchamp and his fellow Dadaists, but they had a little more fun with it, in my opinion (recall Duchamp's urinal, turned on its side, entitled "Fountain" and signed "R. Mutt." Or the famous scupture entitled "In Advance of the Broken Arm" which was nothing more than a snow shovel he had bought upon arrival in NYC which he then hung on the wall as a "ready made" sculpture. You gotta chuckle, just a little).

But I don't think Misha Gordon's work is "conceptual" in that sense and I don't think we should get bogged down over that term. At a very conceptual level (heh heh), Gordon's work has a lot more in common with the early Pictorialists than he does with contemporary conceptual art, i.e., he creates an expressive context, quite artificially, and photographs it (in his case, it is mostly post-production of course).

Although in general, I am not drawn toward that kind of photography, I often find Misha Gordon's work very engaging, very beautiful, and often profound.

[paulr]

We can blame it all on Marcel Duchamp and his fellow Dadaists, but they had a little more fun with it, in my opinion

Yeah, I always felt like the postmodernists/conceptualists were at their best when they were being funny, and at their worst when they were being pretentious.