William Eggleston Show

[mcfactor]

I went to Eggleston retrospective at the whitney on friday was thrilled by it. The prints were absolutely spectacular. I have always been a fan of his work and what he has done for color photography. The dye-transfer prints were simply beautiful.

The other interesting thing about this show was that it had nearly every type of print. The majority were his signature dye-transfers, but there were also c-prints, inkjet prints, lightjet prints, gelatin-silver prints, and even an iris print. As i started through the exhibit i kept thinking to myself, "how would digital prints stack up to these dye-transfers?" By the time i got through the exhibition i had my answer: very well. The exhibition demonstrated that each medium has its own strengths, although the dye-transfers did have a certain something about them. The only prints that i had a problem with were the larger-scale b&w lightjets. They were completely grain/pixel free, which was very impressive, but seemed to lack a richness that gelatin-silver prints have (although the g-s prints there were not great).

Anyway, any one in the ny area in the next few months should see the show, it does not disappoint.

[Maris Rusis]

The best picture making technology works well for William Eggleston and the results are certainly worthy of admiration but you could do the same.

Just drop your exposed film off at the same lab where Eggleston drops off his exposed film. Order the same kind of prints as Eggleston orders and pay the prices Eggleston pays. Bingo! your pictures will be as gorgeous as the ones you admire at the Whitney. And your pictures could even be more interesting because they would feature your preferred subject matter seen the way you prefer to look at it.

The Whitney exhibition demonstrates the gulf between what Eggleston does, point and click a camera, and what wonders the lab staff (the actual picture makers) conjure out of his exposed film.

[mcfactor]

That could be true for the newer digital prints. However, the dye-transfer prints were all printed by him. I also happen to like looking at his work in particular. I can understand not liking it, he has a very particular way of looking at the world, and some do cross the line into the mundane. However, he is responsible for printing the vast majority of his own work and must be respected for that. He (along with stephen shore) is also a large reason why the majority of prints in galleries are color. He helped to demonstrate that color prints can rivial b&w one in beauty and craftsmanship.

He is, in a way, (read carefully here) similar to Ansel Adams: you may not like the subject matter, but you have to admire what he did for the medium.

[QT Luong]

He (along with stephen shore) is also a large reason why the majority of prints in galleries are color. He helped to demonstrate that color prints can rivial b&w one in beauty and craftsmanship.

I don't think it was primarily beauty or craftmanship that got color into the museum, more the image content, which is consistent with the remark by Maris. However, back in the seventies, when you couldn't produce super saturated prints as easily as now, dye transfers must have contributed to the impact.

[paulr]

I don't think it was primarily beauty or craftmanship that got color into the museum, more the image content ...

Well, it was his use of color. "Content," sure, but simlar subject had long been seen in black and white. Eggleston and Shore were the first photographers discovered by Szarkowski who used color the way painters do, which is to say they used color relationships to build a formally coherent image the way that black and white photographers used tonal relationships.

I'm not exactly clear on why Eggleston gets full credit (and not Shore), but Szarkowski famously said he "invented" color photography. When asked to explain this he said (and I'm paraphrasing), before Eggleston came along, color in photographs had either been merely pretty, or it had been completely superfluous.

[QT Luong]

Well, it was his use of color.
[..]
I'm not exactly clear on why Eggleston gets full credit (and not Shore), but Szarkowski famously said he "invented" color photography. When asked to explain this he said (and I'm paraphrasing), before Eggleston came along, color in photographs had either been merely pretty, or it had been completely superfluous.

Can someone elaborate on what "merely pretty" means ?

For instance, are the intimate landscapes of Eliott Porter (incidentally, a true master of the dye tranfer process) "merely pretty" ?

Two things are sure fact. First the color in them is certainly not "superflous" (try to convert to B&W the cover image of "In Wilderness" and see if it still works). Second Porter did his work way before Eggleston and Shore were discovered. In fact, if I remember he had an exhibition at the very MOMA in the 40s. The originality of Eggleston and Shore was in the way they used color *to photograph vernacular America*, but in my opinion, Porter is more deserving of being called the "father of color photography".

[adrian tyler]

For instance, are the intimate landscapes of Eliott Porter (incidentally, a true master of the dye tranfer process) "merely pretty" ?

can you really see such a departure - apart from the colour - from the work pioneered by weston et. al. to the work done by porter? to my taste i think he is treating the same subject matter but in colour.

whereas the reasurgance of shores' work could be interpreted as nostalgic, eggleston is altogether "a different kettle of fish" and, if only judged by what other artists have taken from him, must be seen as a major artist.

[QT Luong]

can you really see such a departure - apart from the colour - from the work pioneered by weston et. al. to the work done by porter? to my taste i think he is treating the same subject matter but in colour.

This is right, but I feel there are many of his images (though not all of them) where the color is the most essential part of the composition, which to me means that they would not work in B&W. On the other hand, I can accept that by art criteria, all nature work is pretty, but since this word seems to be used a lot, I'd still like someone to try to define what it really means.

[Ron McElroy]

That could be true for the newer digital prints. However, the dye-transfer prints were all printed by him.

I don't think Bill printed the dye transfers himself, but he did "art direct" the printers on what he wanted from the images.

[mcfactor]

I mean, the beauty part is always up for debate, so there's no point in arguing about it. Suffice it to say i find some of eggleston's dye-transfer prints (boy in red sweater) as beautiful as any print i have seen. One reason eggleston's work made it into museums in the 70s was because his subject matter was "mundane" and the prints were beautifully crafted. Demonstrating that color prints deserve a place in museums and that there is beauty in the everyday. I dont think that he would have gotten famous if his prints were 'drugstore' prints or simply made in some average lab as Maris implies.