View Full Version : Are museums collecting modern landscapers?
invisibleflash
8-Jul-2014, 07:18
If so, who are the photogrpahers making the grade?
Pretty much any successful photographer seems to prominently mention their work is in the collection of certain museums. Museums do show living photographers work, but collecting and showing are two different things. I'm no expert, but naively assume most museums get the majority of their collection from dead or aging patrons and other musuems. I've got photos in museum collections and didn't have to "make the grade". One is at a transportation museum because I volunteer with my camera and made photos nobody else did, and another is a documentary image at an art museum and if they still have it, it's probably in a file drawer somewhere and not in the climate controlled secure storage for fine art. Not knocking people who have made the grade with talented fine art and publicity and are deservedly collected, it's just a confusing thing to me about what should be collected that is made in the present.
If you're talking modern in terms of art eras, I think all the straight/F64 photographer's landscapes would qualify.
Kimberly Anderson
8-Jul-2014, 08:24
Yes. I've sold a 13-image portfolio to a university museum here in Utah. All work from my extended project on Utah's Great Salt Lake. Printed in pt/pd from 4x10 negatives on Arches Platine. Portfolio is limited to an edition of 18. Portfolio comes with individual letterpress folios for each image with caption information on the front. Portfolio is contained in a hand-made raw-silk covered clamshell box.
By modern do you mean contemporary? Or with a capital M, as in modernist? Not trying to get all semantic, but this distinction has been a big issue in the museum world. MoMA, for example, has been dealing with an identity crisis for the last 50 years ... are they a contemporary art museum or a modern art museum? They seem to be answering "both." Contemporary art, but with an especially strong holding of modern work.
FWIW, I see lots of both modern and contemporary landscape work in museum shows and collections. Here's (http://flakphoto.com/content/looking-at-the-land-21st-century-american-views) one survey of contemporary landscape. It's curated by Andy Adams of the FLAK photo network. He's not a museum curator, but has pretty contemporary views. A lot of curators follow the goings on on FLAK.
Drew Wiley
8-Jul-2014, 09:01
Once all the novelty of digital shchmigital trickery starts wearing thin, I think the next big thing will be an amateur renaissance of short film, due to the relatively low budget threshold of gear nowadays, namely DLSR's etc with video-like capability. The huge art museum being built by UC right up the street will largely be dedicated to that kind of thing as well as various "interactive" nonsense, which I have interest in even asking about. "Modern" art is largely a misnomer is you have "contemporaneous" in mind. Most of it, in terms of framed content, is now 75 years old and getting pretty predictable. Photography will get a foot in the door from time to time, especially if its "controversial" (a mandatory ingredient of Modernism off its leash and directionless, it seems), but I wouldn't hold your breath at some venues. Some museums - like the excellent Oakland Museum here - are largely dedicated to the preservation of key historical collections. They show newer work from time to time, but collect only token bits of it. Only so much funding and facilities out there. I'd expect regional venues to pick up a bit of the slack with things like landscape work, but many sponsors only know what they're "supposed" to collect - meaning the same ole 75-year old pop art stuff, or one or two
two deceased photographers who everybody knows about. It's a hit an miss game. Once in awhile you get lucky, if you have the right connections (which is at least half the battle).
invisibleflash
8-Jul-2014, 10:35
Pretty much any successful photographer seems to prominently mention their work is in the collection of certain museums. Museums do show living photographers work, but collecting and showing are two different things. I'm no expert, but naively assume most museums get the majority of their collection from dead or aging patrons and other musuems. I've got photos in museum collections and didn't have to "make the grade". One is at a transportation museum because I volunteer with my camera and made photos nobody else did, and another is a documentary image at an art museum and if they still have it, it's probably in a file drawer somewhere and not in the climate controlled secure storage for fine art. Not knocking people who have made the grade with talented fine art and publicity and are deservedly collected, it's just a confusing thing to me about what should be collected that is made in the present.
If you're talking modern in terms of art eras, I think all the straight/F64 photographer's landscapes would qualify.
I mean the big name museums. And modern would be last 20 years or so.
I know they collect the f64 guys, but was wondering how the current crop fits in.
invisibleflash
8-Jul-2014, 10:36
Yes. I've sold a 13-image portfolio to a university museum here in Utah. All work from my extended project on Utah's Great Salt Lake. Printed in pt/pd from 4x10 negatives on Arches Platine. Portfolio is limited to an edition of 18. Portfolio comes with individual letterpress folios for each image with caption information on the front. Portfolio is contained in a hand-made raw-silk covered clamshell box.
Good for you!
invisibleflash
8-Jul-2014, 10:39
By modern do you mean contemporary? Or with a capital M, as in modernist? Not trying to get all semantic, but this distinction has been a big issue in the museum world. MoMA, for example, has been dealing with an identity crisis for the last 50 years ... are they a contemporary art museum or a modern art museum? They seem to be answering "both." Contemporary art, but with an especially strong holding of modern work.
FWIW, I see lots of both modern and contemporary landscape work in museum shows and collections. Here's (http://flakphoto.com/content/looking-at-the-land-21st-century-american-views) one survey of contemporary landscape. It's curated by Andy Adams of the FLAK photo network. He's not a museum curator, but has pretty contemporary views. A lot of curators follow the goings on on FLAK.
I don't know all the terms. Let's say the last 20 years or so, living and who is still producing. I did have one museum tell me they don't collect anything from living artists. I was just wondering how the landscapers fit into the art scene with museums. If their work is valued or is treated more of an afterthought by the museums that may favor the artsy stuff.
It's interesting to see what curators say about their mission. Collections exist for different purposes, and curators have different visions (and job descriptions). I don't believe there's anyone curating a major photo collection who's ignorant of the history of the medium. Everyone that I've talked to or read anything from has known a whole lot more than I do.
If they're collecting stuff that isn't "good" by the same definitions you'd apply to Edward Weston, there are many possible reasons for it. One reason is that they're interested in the work people are doing today, which is exploring a very different world (and probably very different ideas about it). Another is that they have plenty of stuff already that looks like what Weston did. They probably have a lot of actual Westons. Why would they be interested in contemporary, anachronistic stuff that's trying to look like work 80 years ago? Another reason could be that they have a particular interest, or a particular slant. For example Quentin Bajac, who just took over photo at MoMA, said he's interested in looking at the way contemporary photography overlaps and interacts with other media, like painting.
I've never heard a curator say anything as obnoxious as "I'm only interested in groundbreaking work." That would be a setup for some serious pies in the face. But a lot are interested in work that feels like the product of today, rather than just a recycling of the familiar.
I wouldn't disagree with any of that, Paul. I believe you've expressed the situation much more elegantly than I, and so am deleting my post.
Drew Wiley
8-Jul-2014, 11:42
And there is indeed a difference in priorities between public exhibitions - which need to attract attention, by hook or by crook - and permanent collections, which
can be donor-oriented or have a relatively long-term archiving goal.
Jac@stafford.net
9-Jul-2014, 06:16
This topic reminds me of an insightful comment made by one of my favorite writers, Barry Holstun Lopez. Lopez was at first a serious landscape photographer, and he took his best work to National Geographic where editors told him that his work was as good as the best they had seen, "but we have an awful lot of that kind of work, and relatively little use for it." That experience was one of two he related regarding why he left photography for writing.
(Writer William Least Heat-Moon also began as a photographer and left it to write instead.)
Regarding the showing of contemporary photographers - yes, of course some museums have shows of living photographers, and some when the photographers were young. However, I do not know of any living classic landscape photographers being shown, but probably because I lack interest in such.
.
If so, who are the photogrpahers making the grade?
John davis, robert polidori, nadav kander, josef shulz, andreas gurski, wim wenders, josef kudelka, shai kremer and of course the bechers who have not had anything new to say for years. This is just a short list of the top of my head, but if i spend another second i am sure the list will be LONGER.
Less famous photographers who photograph "landscapes" (whatever that might mean) are in collections in museums, and that really does not mean anything either.
"but we have an awful lot of that kind of work, and relatively little use for it." That experience was one of two he related regarding why he left photography for writing.
(Writer William Least Heat-Moon also began as a photographer and left it to write instead.)
I'm surprised anyone would find the situation fundamentally different for writers. I can't think of a field of writing where editors are interested in fine examples of something they're already buried under. Especially not in creative writing. The fiction and poetry worlds are brutal, with droves of very talented people struggling to get published.
Edited to add ... I've put a lot of my own creative energy into writing over the last few years. My writing hasn't broken in anywhere, while my photography gets noticed from time to time. But I find trends and innovations in creative writing more interesting right now than trends and innovations in photography. Just personal taste, probably. Since 2010 I've bought maybe 20 poetry books for every photo book (also doesn't hurt that they're cheaper ...)
Kirk Gittings
9-Jul-2014, 08:31
If so, who are the photogrpahers making the grade?
"making the grade".......not sure what that means really. Yes there are superstars like those Koh303 mentioned above, but that is the perhaps newsworthy collecting, but there is ongoing collecting going on continuously at most museums. It is not as rarified as you seem to imply. I have over 200 images in museum collections, with the vast majority purchased. I think my work is collectable because it is competent and largely about places with some perceived aesthetic or historical value. Images about particular landscapes are attractive to state and local art museums, because photography represents both a record and an interpretation of landscape-both of which have some curatorial and historic value.
Drew Wiley
9-Jul-2014, 08:32
There were numerous landscape photographers before Natl Geo ever existed. It's all been done before by someone, even all this Fauxtoshop hanky-panky, at least
in principle. What I find demographically fascinating is how Western Culture defines artistic merit in terms of creativity and alleged novelty - the whole "Modernist"
ethos - new for the sake of new - while Asian culture largely grades according to proficiency within accepted traditions. There's been a fair amount of cross-pollination over the past century of so, but in many cases, the rule still holds true.
Kirk Gittings
9-Jul-2014, 08:36
Sugimoto?
"New for the sake of new" is a common dismissal, but it almost never holds up to close examination. And it never, ever holds up to the test of time. If work brings nothing to the table but novelty, it's instantly obsolete ... it will hold no interest next year. We have to consider that work accused of being new for the sake of new has frequently held up for over a century, and has also been tremendously influential to what follows.
We can take it as a truism that novelty isn't enough. But we also need to examine the ways newness is important.
You would not be content to look at the same picture forever, to the exclusion of all others. You'd get sick of it. You would not be able to re-live the sense of discovery that you had looking at it early on. So you want to look at other pictures. They have to be different, in some way, from the picture you've exhausted.
How different? Different in what ways? I can't answer that. But I believe that we can become fatigued not just by individual pictures, but by tropes, conventions, clichés, ways of looking. Over time the avant garde becomes garde. Experiments that initially led to discoveries eventually discover nothing more. They become exercises.
On top of all this the world changes. Ideas about the world change. Power relationships change. Surfaces change. We expect our art to take notice. How can it do so without becoming something new?
Drew Wiley
9-Jul-2014, 09:02
Guess you never heard of Dada, Paul, or have seen how Picasso made a bull sculpture with bicycle handlebars and a seat? Then the whole 60's and 70's Pop Art
era which every modern art museum worships today? It that wasn't all about novelty, I don't know what is. Yeah... I'm sick of it. But you can't even visit any major
museum venue around here without having it shoved in your face in at least one of them. Shock value, edginess... that still seems to be the name of the game,
so much so, that it's almost numbing by this point. Now I'm certainly not implying that ALL institutions are oriented that way. Most offer a variety over a calendar
year. But "modernism" per se is still basically the same stuck record formula of expectations. And please don't throw in any of that nonsense convoluted terminology
about pre-post-neo-demi-quasi-semi-Modernism. Bascially, it's the same mindset.
tgtaylor
9-Jul-2014, 09:04
Consider classic ragtime (1890's to 1920) vs novelty piano (1920's): Which genera has had the most revivals?
Thomas
Drew Wiley
9-Jul-2014, 10:03
I'd have to ask my Grandpa about either of em, and he hasn't been alive for a long time.
Jac@stafford.net
9-Jul-2014, 10:04
I'm surprised anyone would find the situation fundamentally different for writers. I can't think of a field of writing where editors are interested in fine examples of something they're already buried under.
But there are areas of writing that are quite poorly served. I am not a great fiction fan, so I point to the talent, topics and views of B. H. Lopez.
Especially not in creative writing. The fiction and poetry worlds are brutal, with droves of very talented people struggling to get published. [...]
A frequent lament is often, "There are just so many very good poets today", usually expressed by unpublished poets.
Regarding the topic title, well the meaning of landscapes changes so the answer is, "Yes, museums are collecting/displaying contemporary landscapes."
Drew Wiley
9-Jul-2014, 10:36
I keep only a casual eye on what is happnin in Frisco; but it's pretty obvious from the newspaper and even billboards. The big mega-museum featuring George Lucas' private collection of Norman Rockwell paintings and Starwars memorabilia got voted down by the public, cause frankly, it just doesn't fit the GG Natl Seashore theme. The ads are always the same stuck record: Warhol and Lichtenstein, or in photog, Cindy S. and Avedon. I don't know who spends money on that kind of thing except green-haired art academy students. If I wanted to see pictures of some gal biting her fingernails, I'd watch reruns of Dr. Phil. The Oakland Museum on this side of the Bay is dedicated to Pacific Rim subjects and Californiana history, and their archive is running at capacity. They'd need significant outside funding to expand their footprint to archiving anything contemporary. They've got a small token collection of very well known 70's color photographers who might have taken this or that in the state, but nearly everything else is dedicated to those who have been dead a very long time indeed. Sometimes current photographers are shown, and their former director rigged me a nice gig in the area once. I haven't kept much in touch. Most of these folks are no longer with us.
A couple of the old timers there asked to me work in their display dept after
I retire from here, cause I'm good at that kind of thing, but I have way too many irons in the fire already. Then that very expensive new UCB museum up the street looks like its gonna cater a lot to the cellphone generation - not exactly the kind of contemplative themes we grumpy ole men put into picture frames. But
over the previous museum has shown some really exceptional contemporary photography gigs from time to time. I didn't bother with a membership, even though
we could get quite a discount due to my wife being an alumni. Just too artsy/fartsy for me. I suspect their own archival role with be more oriented to film, that is,
in the movie sense. So that will be an excellent resourse for those more into the art film theme.
tgtaylor
9-Jul-2014, 10:46
Classic Ragtime - it's still being played and composed today. A classic is a classic and will always be around.
Thomas
Drew Wiley
9-Jul-2014, 11:00
Hmmm ... I still have my Grandma's lovely upright Grand with true ivory and ebony keys. I was her wedding present around the turn of the C. But my sister inherited
the old piano bench, which had all the sheet music in there - and that did include a lot of old ragtime. My older brother played a lot of it from those yellowed, cracked old sheets. Me on the other hand ... the local music teacher still gave me dirty looks until the year he died...
Jac@stafford.net
9-Jul-2014, 14:18
Hmmm ... I still have my Grandma's lovely upright Grand with true ivory and ebony keys. I was her wedding present around the turn of the C.
You are young! Oh, not the turn of the 20th century. Okay,
Aside: one day in class a student exclaimed, "Mr. Stafford! I just realized you were born in the first half of the previous century!" I'd o slapped him if I were not so tired.
.
Drew Wiley
9-Jul-2014, 15:22
The piano was purchased in 1903. I come from a rather long-lived family. My great grandfather actually fought in the Civil War!
Jac@stafford.net
9-Jul-2014, 15:41
My great grandfather actually fought in the Civil War!
I think very many of us have deep heritages. My greatest North American grandfather was among the first to leave Samuel de Champlain's ship to establish Quebec, partnering with a native woman to initiate our family in North America. BFD
Classic Ragtime - it's still being played and composed today. A classic is a classic and will always be around.
Thomas
Sure, but I doubt you'll find it included in collections that try to represent early 21st century music. It's early 20th century music, or re-enactments thereof.
One of my favorite NYC live music acts is a 60s-style funk band. All their stuff is original, and it's composed an arranged meticulously. You've heard them backing up Amy Winehouse if you know any of those records. But mostly they work with Sharon Jones and Lee Fields and a few other front people.
I see these guys live because I like this genre and I miss it, and their shows are the best way to get transported back to an era that I never even witnessed in the first place. But I don't buy their records. Because if I want to listen this kind of music at home, I'll go straight to James Brown and Aretha. As good as these guys are, they are re-enactors. Like the Blacksmith reenactor at Colonial Williamsburg. If I'm feeling nostalgic, I'd rather go straight to the source.
It's why I don't want to see some contemporary guy's photography if it looks like Weston's or Strand's work. I'd rather see the original than a reenactment! The curators seem to feel similarly. They must ... they could certainly get contemporary reenactments for a lot less money.
Kirk Gittings
9-Jul-2014, 21:45
Hmmm I always think the first question should be "is it any good?" rather than "is it derivative?". Everything is derivative really. A lot of original work does not represent the final best expression of that idea which may be accomplished by a different artist entirely. The overwhelmingly popular aesthetic of contemporary landscape photographers is based in New Topographics. and they have convinced themselves that they are doing something new. Their subject matter is new but not their aesthetic, which is a point Robert Adams made-nothing is new in photography except the subjects which are always new.
Hmmm I always think the first question should be "is it any good?" rather than "is it derivative?". Everything is derivative really.
Sure, everything is derivative. Which is why it's not a very useful idea. I think the more meaningful question is, does this bring something new to the party? Anything? Any reason that will compel me to look at this rather than to keep looking at what I already have?
How much difference you wish to see, and what kinds of difference, is a huge topic. I think the answers would vary a lot depending on who's doing the looking and even on what mood they're in. Sometimes I like to listen to Bach, sometimes Radiohead, sometimes experimental guys like Colin Stetson. When I'm feeling nostalgic I'll listen to the Beatles, or to some album that reminds me of a high school crush.
But a contemporary art collection probably shouldn't be about someone's mood, and it really shouldn't be about nostalgia. If you're charged with finding the work that represents the present era, you will be compelled to look for distinguishing characteristics—which by definition means differences. Differences between it and the work that represents previous eras. Unless, of course, your thesis is that nothing has changed ... I think you'd have to have blinders on to really believe this.
Drew Wiley
10-Jul-2014, 08:50
The harder people try to be different, the more they all look the same. Forced creativity is still basically just an adaptation of the lemming phenomenon, and no
substitute for real insight. I used to have a lot of interesting conversations with my aunt, just to see if, with both her significant personal art career and decades
of teaching art history, I could come up with something she hadn't seen long before. Blank white canvas in a frame - it was done in the 1920's. Stinking roadkilled
cat thumbtacked to a canvas in a museum - that was done too. What I think will hold up the worst over time are alleged masterpieces which merely depend on
some tweak in technology. People who got a lot of attention in the 70's for taking uncorrected daylight landscapes using tungsten film, for example ... so what, now that even wilder things are done by junior high kids in PS. Bright red whatever on Cibachrome - who cares anymore. Rearranged subject matter on huge prints (Gursky). Imitation painting. Will anyone even care once those big prints are all faded out. Maybe I'll piss off Kirk with that Gursky comment. Probably nobody would even take a second look at Robert Adams today. Nothing weird in his work. That's because nobody takes the time to bother and look. RA is about nuances.
And I'm one of those people that strongly believe that quality work is something that grows on you, not just grabs ya for a few moments. Maybe that's why RA
can be unimpressive in a book and remarkable on a wall, in the real print.
The harder people try to be different, the more they all look the same.
That sounds like a pretty good fortune cookie, but I don't see the relevance. Who says things only change by people trying to be different? The world is a lot different today when I started photographing. My ideas about the world are different. My ideas about photography are different. For my work to NOT be different today, I'd have to be stuck in a hell of a rut.
Kirk Gittings
10-Jul-2014, 09:44
I don't have any strong opinions about Gursky one way or the other. It doesn't engender any passion for me. But RA.......RA is even more impressive as a person. He was a mentor for me in graduate school. He did not teach there, but I sought him out to bounce my ideas off and we became friends. Traveling back and forth from Calgary to Albuquerque, I visited him at his house a number of times and I have a stack of fascinating correspondence from him. We have lost touch now as he has become very reclusive and hard to contact. He is perhaps the most humble and thoughtful of "bigtime" photographers that I have ever met. His imagery is very heartfelt and sincere and utterly unconcerned about trends or fads or the art market. I don't think anyone was more surprised by his enormous success than he was. He simply cared about the American West of today and used him imagery to generate discussion about that. Through it all he lived in the same humble house in central Colorado and his wife continued to work as the local librarian. Later he moved to a location where he could see the Columbia River daily and get further distance from the art world.
Hmmm I always think the first question should be "is it any good?" rather than "is it derivative?"...
Well, believe it or not, that was the thought so clumsily expressed in my first post that I later deleted it. I just don't believe, based on the curatorial types of major museums I've met and heard, that they operate like that authentically. I think both those conditions are necessary and sufficient (to curators), at least on the face of it.
Kirk Gittings
10-Jul-2014, 10:17
I just think that if the first question one poses is about whether a work is derivative......then one is not experiencing the work-not giving it a chance. If one leads with "is it derivative or is this new?" then one is approaching an artwork intellectually rather than experientially. Paul's original point about whether it looks like a Weston at first glance suggests to me that he brings a huge intellectual prejudice to viewing images-never giving what appears to be "derivative" work an even field to speak to him.
As a teacher of photography, I have striven to let go of my prejudices and attempt to let all work reveal itself without my preconceptions getting in the way. Its a goal like "objectivity" that one can strive for yet never fully achieve. But simply trying to lifts a huge curtain prejudice.
Once again, agree (shrugging). And artists work in a world not inhabited by most curators, which is to say that an artist needs to be focussed and uncompromising, even if the work is perceived to be "derivative". Curators (perhaps) have other concerns.
sanking
10-Jul-2014, 10:42
I just think that if the first question one poses is about whether a work is derivative......then one is not experiencing the work-not giving it a chance. If one leads with "is it derivative or is this new?" then one is approaching an artwork intellectually rather than experientially. Paul's original point about whether it looks like a Weston at first glance suggests to me that he brings a huge intellectual prejudice to viewing images-never giving what appears to be "derivative" work an even field to speak to him.
As a teacher of photography, I have striven to let go of my prejudices and attempt to let all work reveal itself without my preconceptions getting in the way. Its a goal like "objectivity" that one can strive for yet never fully achieve. But simply trying to lifts a huge curtain prejudice.
Kirk,
That is really well stated. Knowledge often imposes an intellectual burden/prejudice that engenders preconceptions.
Sandy
Oren Grad
10-Jul-2014, 10:43
I just think that if the first question one poses is about whether a work is derivative......then one is not experiencing the work-not giving it a chance. If one leads with "is it derivative or is this new?" then one is approaching an artwork intellectually rather than experientially....
As a teacher of photography, I have striven to let go of my prejudices and attempt to let all work reveal itself without my preconceptions getting in the way. Its a goal like "objectivity" that one can strive for yet never fully achieve. But simply trying to lifts a huge curtain prejudice.
I think these are wise words for helping to think about how an individual can gain the greatest fulfillment from looking at art. But to state the obvious, people do differ - some will naturally be inclined toward a more intellectual or analytic approach and will find that more satisfying.
Regardless, depending on exactly what a museum or other institution sees as its mission, the criteria that it uses to decide how to spend its scarce resources (money, exhibition and storage space, curatorial attention) may appropriately differ from those that guide an individual.
Drew Wiley
10-Jul-2014, 11:10
In this day of instant everything, when even portfolios are selected the lazy way by being web surfed, of course there's going to be a skewed emphasis on catchy
stuff. The word is already out: the emphasis on fine printing skills is something already done, and our era is over. ... Well, that philosophy itself will get pretty tiresome itself after awhile and there will be an inevitable counter-current. Besides, not every venue runs along those tracks. Personal connections have always
been important in this game, and always will be. But how much of the game you choose to play and whore yourself to, is up to you. Life is too short as far as I'm
concerned. Gonna shoot and print what I want to, not what I'm "supposed to". But yeah, I know the difference between this and commercial client work per se.
I just don't view the art world as a commercial client. I write my own rules in that game.
Kirk Gittings
10-Jul-2014, 12:00
I often times think that younger or mature curator's who are known for cutting edge collecting/exhibits won't be interested in my work. I have been so profoundly wrong about that so many times that I try and avoid that thinking and I would have lost many opportunities if I had let that get in the way of approaching people. AAMOF a couple of Santa Fe curators who are big champions of my work fall right into that experience.
You need a thick skin in this business but I wouldn't confound the issue by assuming someone will not like my work because it is "traditional". I had one such curator (who I like very much) tell me recently "you are the best photographer nobody knows". The truth behind that statement is I am very well known in some circles but not in hers. And that is the way the art world is. There are spheres of notoriety/recognition and few people cross over but it is possible and people should go for it.
Drew Wiley
10-Jul-2014, 12:14
I've been out of the loop for quite awhile, but doubt that much has really changed. Oddly, in each case I did get some kind of gig, I was approached by them and
not the other way around. Word of mouth. Some artist they really liked happened to admire my work, and they just all showed up together.
I just think that if the first question one poses is about whether a work is derivative......then one is not experiencing the work-not giving it a chance.
But who does this? Is there a real museum curator saying this is their approach, or are we projecting onto them?
Here's what's more likely: you see something, and it doesn't move you. If you then stop and think about why it doesn't move you, it's because it's so similar to work that you've seen a million times before. Looking at it feels like an exercise, not like new experience.
I often times think that younger or mature curator's who are known for cutting edge collecting/exhibits won't be interested in my work. I have been so profoundly wrong about that so many times that I try and avoid that thinking and I would have lost many opportunities if I had let that get in the way of approaching people.
That's a great observation to share. We are often the worst judges of our own work. Especially when it comes to judging its historical or cultural significance (or lack thereof). We're too close to it. Our connection to it is too personal. We can be blinded by our old ideas about it, or by what we were thinking when we made it.
What do you think Atget would have said about his pictures? Probably something like, "here are some shots of Paris. I'm selling them to theater set designers for one Franc." If it weren't for Dorothea Lange seeing something more, and then the surrealists flipping out over them, we might never have heard of him.
Scott Davis
10-Jul-2014, 13:43
I saw the title of the thread and had the thought, "well, I've never seen a dozen men with string trimmers in a museum".
Seconding what Kirk said, though, it is so totally personal and utterly dependent on the whim of the curator. I've had folks tell me all kinds of things about photography and how/why/who they collect. I've heard statements as outrageous as "if you're not shooting color, your work is behind the times and irrelevant". But what is the single most expensive photograph to date? A (very banal and derivative*, IMHO) landscape by Andreas Gursky. But it is a landscape. So obviously, contemporary landscape work is being actively collected and exhibited. And god knows there's plenty of "urban landscape" work being collected and exhibited - Todd Hido's work springs immediately to mind, as does Jeff Wall and Gregory Crewdson, although you could argue that Crewdson is a psychological portraitist who happens to use urban landscapes as a backdrop.
* Why I say banal and derivative? Banal because nothing is happening, even geographically. Derivative because it calls to mind Rothko's color fields. It's a subjective argument for another thread, and in the end it's my opinion, nothing more, and certainly not an authoritative judgment.
Drew Wiley
10-Jul-2014, 13:59
How do you "collect" any of these huge color mural things? It's almost impossible to archive them. They're intended for display, and even then will get rotated out if
it's anything public. Some private collector might put them on a huge wall; but in any such case, UV is going to be a constant problem. But I'd be careful with your
ethnic quips. Laborers tend to become successful entrepreneurs pretty fast in this part of the world, and lots of them make way better money than run of the mill
computer geeks.
Scott Davis
10-Jul-2014, 14:08
Drew- it was just a joke. But point taken and edited. No offense was meant to the folks of any ethnicity. They just happen to be the predominant practitioners of that profession.
"you are the best photographer nobody knows".
Oh geez, I hear that so much that I just want to puke. At least that tells me why I'm unknown. :D, :confused:, :(
Kirk Gittings
10-Jul-2014, 15:49
But who does this? Is there a real museum curator saying this is their approach, or are we projecting onto them?
Here's what's more likely: you see something, and it doesn't move you. If you then stop and think about why it doesn't move you, it's because it's so similar to work that you've seen a million times before. Looking at it feels like an exercise, not like new experience.
Well I'm just taking your lead here which I found totally believable. You are talking about first impressions. I am talking about giving work a real chance, reigning in the preconceptions and prejudices before you make the assumption that its "so similar to the work you've seen a million times before". Who does this? You are giving examples of how it is done.
If they're collecting stuff that isn't "good" by the same definitions you'd apply to Edward Weston, there are many possible reasons for it. One reason is that they're interested in the work people are doing today, which is exploring a very different world (and probably very different ideas about it). Another is that they have plenty of stuff already that looks like what Weston did. They probably have a lot of actual Westons. Why would they be interested in contemporary, anachronistic stuff that's trying to look like work 80 years ago?
Kirk Gittings
10-Jul-2014, 16:26
Oh geez, I hear that so much that I just want to puke. At least that tells me why I'm unknown. :D, :confused:, :(
She is an important force in photography in this region. In this case it was meant as a sincere compliment (though not thought through very well) and I took it that way. It led to inclusion in one show with much more to come I think in the future. If she wants to think she "discovered" me for her "sphere" with me at age 64 with 100 shows already behind me (next year) so what?-what's not to like about that? Its all just perception anyway beyond the work and the actual images.
Kirk, I'm just having fun with a difficult topic, grounding it, since none of us seems to be a curator of a museum by profession. I don't doubt her feelings about your work. I was merely having fun at the expense of my own, or according to some, what derivatively passes as my own.
Heroique
10-Jul-2014, 17:42
I see no reason why museums wouldn't collect modern landscapers – after all, they've been collecting modern tourists for quite some time.
For example, here are two pairs of modern tourists by artist Duane Hanson ("Tourists," 1970, & "Tourists II," 1988, life size fiberglass.)
Seeing these, one might imagine what a modern landscaper would look like. Instead of a man next to his wife, it would be a landscaper next to his Gitzo tripod. And in place of the neck-suspended 35mm camera, there'd be a Pentax digital. There'd also be an open bag or backpack on the ground, likely an REI purchase.
Oh – the landscaper would be sporting a beard of course. :D
Well I'm just taking your lead here which I found totally believable. You are talking about first impressions. I am talking about giving work a real chance, reigning in the preconceptions and prejudices before you make the assumption that its "so similar to the work you've seen a million times before". Who does this? You are giving examples of how it is done.
Well, you're really putting words in my mouth. I didn't say anything about first impressions. The phrase "you see something, and it doesn't move you" doesn't have a time limit built in. I also didn't suggest that anyone's first question is about something being derivative. I've never heard a curator say anything like that. You seem to have more relationships with curators than I do ... have you heard it?
Drew Wiley
11-Jul-2014, 08:10
I love it, Heroique! Guess that trend would qualify the Wax Museum at Fisherman's Wharf to become the next Louvre.
Drew Wiley
11-Jul-2014, 08:59
Of course, I was gonna add that there's nuthin new there. It looks 70's. Old hat. Roger Minick essentially did the same thing with a camera. But the next real new
wave will be taxidermy. The last authentic inhabitants of Bolinas and Garberville have already been netted for the 60's diorama at the Smithsonian. Rumor has it that
there is an empty spot next to it, should be just big enough for half a dozen taxidermied bearded view camera photographers. Here's your chance for immortal fame,
anyone! Any volunteers? ROL? Kirk?
Lenny Eiger
13-Jul-2014, 10:18
I'm more than upset by all of this. I grew up in the 60's and had all sorts of idealism. I wanted to see a world that was getting better all the time. One can blame any number of things, mostly political, which I will stay away from, but the long and the short of it is that it didn't happen. For the most part, things are worse now, and certainly this is true in the art world.
The tradition of photography that I grew up with was all about how deep and how close you could get. If you took a portrait of a person, the goal was to get every bit of their being onto the print. One should be able to see their whole life, all of their feelings, and know exactly who they are, or were at that moment. The portraits by Lewis Hine at Ellis Island and the work of Walker Evans in Georgia, just to name a couple, were great examples. If you had the right permission, and had the ability to be (platonically) intimate with your subject, you could capture everything about who that person was at that moment in time. Of course, you had to be able to get there yourself, and that required one's own emotional work. It wasn't a "taking" of a photograph, it was more like giving one, or simply creating something together. It was a celebration of humanity and depth. In an idealistic time the integrity of it was infectious and I was hooked. I know it was naive.
It wasn't limited to portraiture. In the zillion other subjects the idea was to discover, and focus on, the underlying principle that made something worth looking at.
Now everyone is talking about "the new". Just because its new does't mean its worth looking at, like all those tourist photos. Further, most of the stuff that is purported to be new, isn't. Everything has already been done before, at least once. Some of the points that post-modernism makes have some validity, however, to suggest that one goes forward while dismissing the entire history of photography make no sense to me at all. One simply has to go thru the entire aesthetic process all over again. I have actually read that "one should not ever take a photograph while the subject is looking at the camera". Imagine that. A total rejection of the rules, only to make a new, more restrictive rule. It supposes that what someone is doing is more important than who they are. I can't agree.
The music is bad. The TV is ludicrous, people are mindlessly spending their time at shopping malls. Kids are stuck in video games. Movies are so superficial that the most popular ones are based on comic books. Are we such a country of weaklings, that we can't handle real emotion, or real anything, for that matter? Is everything commodity and superficiality, is art only about the cerebral.
In art we have these people running the galleries and museums who, for the most part, want to be artists themselves and come up with themes for exhibitions, like everyone who photographs and has red in the picture. Oh look, "Filters". Wheeeee. I don't even bother going to galleries or museums anymore, there is nothing there, certainly not in my state. I know there are plenty of smaller institutions which present some good work. But I'm not impressed by the new Topographics, Cindy Sherman or Jef Wall. It's photography as deep as comic books.
I could go on. And on and on. I think I'll just stop there. I'm mostly just angry that it took me 50 years to figure out how this works. If I understood then what I know about the art world today I never would have started.
Lenny
Now everyone is talking about "the new"...
I'm hearing a lot of "golden age" bias in this. I don't believe you're old enough to have witnessed an era that had a fundamentally different attitude toward the New than we have now. All the early Modern work you refer to, all of that mid-century American landscape: it was radical, new, and controversial when it first showed up. Stieglitz fought a hell of a fight to get this work taken seriously, just as he did with the painting of the time (Picasso, Braque, Brancusi, Matisse). When you grow up with this work, it's easy to be comfortable with it and assume This is How it's Always Been. But it's an illusion; the work was unfamiliar and difficult for people who grew up with work of a different type. Some people never accepted it. It's always a question of which side of history you want to be on ...
tgtaylor
13-Jul-2014, 11:06
I agree with most of what Lenny has written.
Lately I have been studying-up on the art and times of Carleton E. Watkins and one of the things that I have “discovered” is that the “new” as represented in the work of Ansel Adams was not really new at all but essentially a remake of Watkins' work which I am sure that Adams was well acquainted with. But this is not bad as it is a confirmation that true beauty is timeless. It was then and it is now.
Thomas
Kirk Gittings
13-Jul-2014, 11:51
Define true beauty.
tgtaylor
13-Jul-2014, 11:58
Its definition would be similar to how the Supreme Court defined pornography: You know it when you see it.
Thomas
Jac@stafford.net
13-Jul-2014, 12:07
Define true beauty.
I can, Sir. Here it is embraced by quotation marks, ""
.
Kirk Gittings
13-Jul-2014, 12:37
Its definition would be similar to how the Supreme Court defined pornography: You know it when you see it.
Thomas
I believe that statement was in an interview with a SCJ not in a decision perse. All that says is that there is no universal definition and its left up to each person to define it.
I agree with most of what Lenny has written.
Lately I have been studying-up on the art and times of Carleton E. Watkins and one of the things that I have “discovered” is that the “new” as represented in the work of Ansel Adams was not really new at all but essentially a remake of Watkins' work which I am sure that Adams was well acquainted with. But this is not bad as it is a confirmation that true beauty is timeless.
Well, I'd suggest that Adams' work is radically different from Watkins' work, in the sense that it concerned itself with the dynamics of light and clouds ... the sense of ephemeral moments in nature. This is related to the drama of much of Adams' work; Watkins' work is more austere, still, open to barrenness and the flatness of mid-day sun.
There is possible influence from Watkins, but I see a much more direct connection to the American Romantic painters, like Thomas Moran.
Ansel was of the first generation of photographers who had the technology to capture detail in skies, and (like Cartier-Bresson) to capture fleeting moments. John Szarkowsky's observation was that Watkins' and O'Sullivan's generation photographed geology, while Adams photographed the weather. This can sound superficial today, when we can't even remember photography before it gained these powers. But it was radical at the time.
Watkins' photography was new enough that no one even thought of it as art until decades after it was made. The history of landscape art in America is interesting. Artists here inherited the European definition of landscape, which only encompassed fully-tamed, pastoral, inhabited land. In the beginning, it was believed that landscape art was an impossibility here, because there was literally no landscape. The documentation done by the survey photographers didn't fit any contemporary definitions of landscape or of art.
The Hudson River school painters, inspired by the European Romantics, were the first to stretch the definitions of landscape art. But Watkins (and especially O'Sullivan) leaped all the way into the realm of Modernism, before anyone even knew what that was.
Everyone mentioned here was doing something new. In their day they were all radical. Adams possibly less than the others ... but remember that he was part of the first generation that had to fight for photography's recognition among the arts. That was new! A lot of people didn't stomach it.
... a confirmation that true beauty is timeless. It was then and it is now.
I see a confirmation of the opposite. The definition of "true beauty," whether or not it's central to art (which is an ongoing conversation) evolves constantly. Every new era sees work that gets dismissed as out of bounds, and which later gets accepted by those who grew up with it.
Its definition would be similar to how the Supreme Court defined pornography: You know it when you see it.
That's the definition of pornography that led to federal agents kicking in Jock Sturgess's door and impounding his whole studio.
It's actually not a definition at all; it's an act of bestowing authority on one's biasses.
Lenny Eiger
13-Jul-2014, 15:41
I'm hearing a lot of "golden age" bias in this. I don't believe you're old enough to have witnessed an era that had a fundamentally different attitude toward the New than we have now. All the early Modern work you refer to, all of that mid-century American landscape: it was radical, new, and controversial when it first showed up. Stieglitz fought a hell of a fight to get this work taken seriously, just as he did with the painting of the time (Picasso, Braque, Brancusi, Matisse). When you grow up with this work, it's easy to be comfortable with it and assume This is How it's Always Been. But it's an illusion; the work was unfamiliar and difficult for people who grew up with work of a different type. Some people never accepted it. It's always a question of which side of history you want to be on ...
An interesting comment. I would love to have an explanation that settles it vs just feeling like I want to pick up my bat and my ball and leave. Perhaps, post-modernism isn't anything real at all, maybe its just the death of modernism, or the death of art as some have suggested. Something new and worthwhile hasn't presented itself. Tourist photographs, geological explorations, or blatant plagiarism doesn't merit a movement, IMO.
Maybe I can't conceive of what's next. I had hoped that that humanity might learn to grow a little, but there's one crisis after another and people still shooting and killing each other to settle their differences. We are not evolving. I read the philosopher's tomes about the new work and the only words that come to mind are vapid, devoid of substance, incorrect, uninformed, unintelligent. The Becher's are the most important photographers of the last 50 years? Categorizing this, categorizing that, site studies? Endless photographs of the same thing where one little stick in the foreground is different, or some guy's sweater is colorized in 9 different colors. Barthes describing being photographed and supposing what the photographer is going thru and getting it so wrong I was flabbergasted - in on of the essays that started the whole thing. That's almost like going to Iraq based on WMD's. I could be wrong but I think we are going nowhere.
When Stieglitz fought his fight, or Walker Evan's his, vitriolic as it may have been, it seems that they were over smaller moves. A changing of angles, shooting with more or less design. It wasn't attempting to ascribe meaning to things that have no meaning.
I have a friend who went to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, a highly regarded school, especially for Jazz. He studied during the time of Jazz Fusion. 30 years later he sounds pretty good, but no one wants to listen to it. The timeline shifted. He didn't see it coming, didn't adapt. He has 5 albums out and works at Whole Foods.
If death is indeed the goal, how does one adapt to this? Can one un-teach themselves how to feel, or how to see? Is that a good thing? How do you choose a side when the other side isn't there yet?
Lenny
Re: postmodernism ... looking back it's pretty easy to see it more on a continuum with modernism. Look at how Duchamp prefigured many of postmodern ideas, in 1917. The bigger question is, what's going on now? Hardly anyone's been doing postmodernism in the last fifteen years. There have been all kinds of new fusion-y things going on (look up metamodernism, for a set of examples). There have been reactions directly against it (look up "the new sincerity" ... which actually dates back to the early 90s ... )
When Stieglitz fought his fight, or Walker Evan's his, vitriolic as it may have been, it seems that they were over smaller moves. A changing of angles, shooting with more or less design. It wasn't attempting to ascribe meaning to things that have no meaning.
That's precisely the criticism he weathered. Cubism especially was called out for being a fraud.
I'm more than upset by all of this. I grew up in the 60's and had all sorts of idealism. I wanted to see a world that was getting better all the time. One can blame any number of things, mostly political, which I will stay away from, but the long and the short of it is that it didn't happen. For the most part, things are worse now, and certainly this is true in the art world.
The tradition of photography that I grew up with was all about how deep and how close you could get. If you took a portrait of a person, the goal was to get every bit of their being onto the print. One should be able to see their whole life, all of their feelings, and know exactly who they are, or were at that moment. The portraits by Lewis Hine at Ellis Island and the work of Walker Evans in Georgia, just to name a couple, were great examples. If you had the right permission, and had the ability to be (platonically) intimate with your subject, you could capture everything about who that person was at that moment in time. Of course, you had to be able to get there yourself, and that required one's own emotional work. It wasn't a "taking" of a photograph, it was more like giving one, or simply creating something together. It was a celebration of humanity and depth. In an idealistic time the integrity of it was infectious and I was hooked. I know it was naive.
It wasn't limited to portraiture. In the zillion other subjects the idea was to discover, and focus on, the underlying principle that made something worth looking at.
Now everyone is talking about "the new". Just because its new does't mean its worth looking at, like all those tourist photos. Further, most of the stuff that is purported to be new, isn't. Everything has already been done before, at least once. Some of the points that post-modernism makes have some validity, however, to suggest that one goes forward while dismissing the entire history of photography make no sense to me at all. One simply has to go thru the entire aesthetic process all over again. I have actually read that "one should not ever take a photograph while the subject is looking at the camera". Imagine that. A total rejection of the rules, only to make a new, more restrictive rule. It supposes that what someone is doing is more important than who they are. I can't agree.
The music is bad. The TV is ludicrous, people are mindlessly spending their time at shopping malls. Kids are stuck in video games. Movies are so superficial that the most popular ones are based on comic books. Are we such a country of weaklings, that we can't handle real emotion, or real anything, for that matter? Is everything commodity and superficiality, is art only about the cerebral.
In art we have these people running the galleries and museums who, for the most part, want to be artists themselves and come up with themes for exhibitions, like everyone who photographs and has red in the picture. Oh look, "Filters". Wheeeee. I don't even bother going to galleries or museums anymore, there is nothing there, certainly not in my state. I know there are plenty of smaller institutions which present some good work. But I'm not impressed by the new Topographics, Cindy Sherman or Jef Wall. It's photography as deep as comic books.
I could go on. And on and on. I think I'll just stop there. I'm mostly just angry that it took me 50 years to figure out how this works. If I understood then what I know about the art world today I never would have started.
Lenny
Lenny, this is a real meaningful post.
But don't disparge comics. Some comics express a great deal with as simple artwork as is possible, and it's somehow well understood by large audiences. We'd all do well to attain that goal, particularly with the conciseness that weekend comics in the newspaper provide. It's an art form I'd place far above Cindy Sherman or Gursky in terms of relevance and expression. For the most part, most movie plots aren't anything new anyway, coming from history or written fiction or older movies of some sort.
Brian C. Miller
13-Jul-2014, 16:48
After a perusal of various sites, some explicitly about metamodernism and some not, I really can't say what they're doing, and neither can they.
Metamodernism gives us a way to negotiate with (and between) contradictions and produce something that “goes beyond” or transcends both of the parts from which it was created. This is why academics will say that the Metamodern is that which emerges through “atopic metaxis”—or, a “nonplace place between two impossible spaces.” (link (http://www.oneblademag.com/blogs/sps2-the-modern-postmodern-and-metamodern-character-of-rollerblading/))
I read Shia LaBeouf's metamodernism manifesto (http://www.metamodernism.org/), mentally comparing it with the f/64 manifesto. At least with the f/64 manifesto you kind of know where they're going with it. Metamodernism, coined in 2010 (http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/shia-laboeuf-plagiarist-or-genius), looks more like Dada and Surrealism.
If, "We propose a pragmatic romanticism unhindered by ideological anchorage," is as close to a succinct definition of metamodernism as there is likely to be, then Instagram and its ilk are the current photographic expression.
So: do you want your photographs to look like they came off Instagram?
tgtaylor
13-Jul-2014, 16:50
Well, I'd suggest that Adams' work is radically different from Watkins' work, in the sense that it concerned itself with the dynamics of light and clouds ... the sense of ephemeral moments in nature. This is related to the drama of much of Adams' work; Watkins' work is more austere, still, open to barrenness and the flatness of mid-day sun.
There is possible influence from Watkins, but I see a much more direct connection to the American Romantic painters, like Thomas Moran.Ansel was of the first generation of photographers who had the technology to capture detail in skies, and (like Cartier-Bresson) to capture fleeting moments. John Szarkowsky's observation was that Watkins' and O'Sullivan's generation photographed geology, while Adams photographed the weather. This can sound superficial today, when we can't even remember photography before it gained these powers. But it was radical at the time.
Watkins' photography was new enough that no one even thought of it as art until decades after it was made. The history of landscape art in America is interesting. Artists here inherited the European definition of landscape, which only encompassed fully-tamed, pastoral, inhabited land. In the beginning, it was believed that landscape art was an impossibility here, because there was literally no landscape. The documentation done by the survey photographers didn't fit any contemporary definitions of landscape or of art.
The Hudson River school painters, inspired by the European Romantics, were the first to stretch the definitions of landscape art. But Watkins (and especially O'Sullivan) leaped all the way into the realm of Modernism, before anyone even knew what that was.
Everyone mentioned here was doing something new. In their day they were all radical. Adams possibly less than the others ... but remember that he was part of the first generation that had to fight for photography's recognition among the arts. That was new! A lot of people didn't stomach it.
I see a confirmation of the opposite. The definition of "true beauty," whether or not it's central to art (which is an ongoing conversation) evolves constantly. Every new era sees work that gets dismissed as out of bounds, and which later gets accepted by those who grew up with it.
Actually Watkins was very much concerned with the quality of the light (in surviving letters to his wife he complained on several occasions of being unable to work because the atmosphere was too "smoky") and began much of his work at dawn when there was no wind to create blurs in his subject. It was also cooler in the early hours which made working in the portable darkroom bearable: the plates had to coated and exposed while still damp and developed immediately). Although the "weather" (i.e.., clouds) were not a focus they do appear from time to time but the wet-plate process would not allow them to become the subject as if sometimes the case with Adam.
Also, thanks to the recent upsurge in interest in Watkins it now appears that it was Watkins who influenced the Hudson River School of painters several of whom first visited Yosemite in the company of Watkins and it was Watkins photographs that led to the land grant by President Lincoln in 1864 which resulted in the first national park.
Thomas
Lenny Eiger
13-Jul-2014, 17:30
Lenny, this is a real meaningful post.
But don't disparge comics. Some comics express a great deal with as simple artwork as is possible, and it's somehow well understood by large audiences. We'd all do well to attain that goal, particularly with the conciseness that weekend comics in the newspaper provide. It's an art form I'd place far above Cindy Sherman or Gursky in terms of relevance and expression. For the most part, most movie plots aren't anything new anyway, coming from history or written fiction or older movies of some sort.
Thanks. What a minefield. OK, let's say there are comic books and then there are comic books. Some have plenty of substance and some are just fluff. Or, maybe just people with superpowers who get to show us how powerless we feel in today's world... It's true, I shouldn't disparage the better comics. I was referring to the fluff.
As to pragmatic romanticism, I'm not sure what that is. I do know that "liberating one's self from a century of modernist ideological naivety" is pure bull. There are some interesting ideas in there, but nothing to point a camera at. Maybe we should take pictures of people being fake and the same people being their "true" selves. Then we could oscillate. Such contrivance... nowhereosity.
Lenny
After a perusal of various sites, some explicitly about metamodernism and some not, I really can't say what they're doing, and neither can they.
I read Shia LaBeouf's metamodernism manifesto (http://www.metamodernism.org/), mentally comparing it with the f/64 manifesto. At least with the f/64 manifesto you kind of know where they're going with it. Metamodernism, coined in 2010 (http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/shia-laboeuf-plagiarist-or-genius), looks more like Dada and Surrealism.
If, "We propose a pragmatic romanticism unhindered by ideological anchorage," is as close to a succinct definition of metamodernism as there is likely to be, then Instagram and its ilk are the current photographic expression.
So: do you want your photographs to look like they came off Instagram?
Looks like they used artybollocks.com to generate their manifesto.
David
Wayne Lambert
13-Jul-2014, 18:25
I would like to see some photographs illustrating No. 8 of the manifesto.
Wayne
tgtaylor
13-Jul-2014, 19:50
"I went to the ground, and, when there, selected the spot which would give the best view..." Carleton Watkins testifying in U.S. vs Fossat, 27 August 1858.
Thomas
After a perusal of various sites, some explicitly about metamodernism and some not, I really can't say what they're doing, and neither can they.
I read Shia LaBeouf's metamodernism manifesto (http://www.metamodernism.org/), mentally comparing it with the f/64 manifesto. At least with the f/64 manifesto you kind of know where they're going with it. Metamodernism, coined in 2010 (http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/shia-laboeuf-plagiarist-or-genius), looks more like Dada and Surrealism.
If, "We propose a pragmatic romanticism unhindered by ideological anchorage," is as close to a succinct definition of metamodernism as there is likely to be, then Instagram and its ilk are the current photographic expression.
So: do you want your photographs to look like they came off Instagram?
Brian, I don't know who Shia LaBeouf is, and I haven't yet encountered any artists who call themselves metamodernists. The term was originally coined by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, who are a couple of theorists trying to make sense of what's going on in visual arts, literature, movies, music, architecture, and really across culture broadly. They're offering a general description, not a manifesto.
They're using the prefix "meta" not in the usual sense of a higher or secondary position, but in the sense of the Greek metaxy, suggesting an oscillation back and forth between extremes. In their theory, the extremes are high Modernism, where meaning, or at least a ground upon which to build it is can exist, and postmodernism, where it can't exist. They see artists nostalgically acknowledging the hunger for meaning from the modern era, but having lost faith in the ability to satisfy that hunger—because there aren't any easy answers to the questions posed by the postmodernists.
The most interesting site I've found is Vermeulen's and ven den Akker's own. (http://metamodernism.com) It's not prescriptive. It's all about figuring stuff out. They don't boil things down to anything as goofy as "pragmatic romanticism unhindered by ideological anchorage," although I can imagine coming across a phrase like that ... hopefully with some context.
Just to be clear, in mentioning metamodernism I wasn't advocating for it (although I like a lot of the ideas). I was trying to illustrate that if you're complaining about these times we live in, you need to sling a better insult that "postmodern!" because those days are long over. The influence of postmodernism is with us ... as is the influence of modernism, romanticism, classicism, and a lot else. But we're still struggling to characterize our time, and metamodernism represents one attempt. This has been true for a lot of eras. It's easier come up with tidy labels and descriptions when you have some distance.
[COLOR="#0000CD"]Actually Watkins was very much concerned with the quality of the light...
Well, I think most photographers since the beginning have been concerned with the quality of light. For Ansel, the quality—more specifically, the ephemerality—of light and of weather, was a central subject. This just wasn't the case with Watkins. The materials of his day wouldn't have allowed exploring it anyway.
Kirk Gittings
13-Jul-2014, 21:59
Can a photographer not be concerned about the quality of light? I think They were both concerned about the light but I think you are saying (don't want to put words in your mouth :) ) that panchromatic films and contrast filters were necessary to be invented for AA to achieve his "emotional sky effects" and control of subject contrast etc. I totally agree and oddly enough wrote about this in my masters thesis in 83! Everyone learns to see and render light in the context of the materials available.
Yes Kirk, that's what I'm trying to say. Szarkowsky made the same point in an interview a few years before he died. He also talked about exposure times. I'm not the length of a typical landscape exposure with a wet plate in Watkins' time, but presumably it was too long to capture many typical Ansel subjects, like storm clouds rolling in around mountain peaks.
He spoke of Ansel and HCB as representatives of the first generation that could capture moments as they occurred in the world (Muybridge was the first to do it in a lab setting). S's larger point was that the history of photography is intimately tied up with the technology of the times. People's visions get formed, in some part, by the tools available to them.
Kirk Gittings
14-Jul-2014, 07:55
I want to chime in here about being an old photographer who feels young and how that effects how you see the art world.
I was very fortunate to accidentally end up at the University of New Mexico in the late 60's when it was an amazing center for photography worldwide and got to learn from people like Van Deren Coke, Beaumont Newhall, Ray K. Metzker, Betty Hahn etc. (as well as a few extraordinary teachers who were not so famous) as well as meet people like AA, Brett Weston, Imogene Cunningham, Paul Caponigro, Robert Adams, Wynn Bullock and graduate students like Joel Peter Witkin etc. etc. I started school as an economics major, knowing nothing about the photo program, took my first photo class at the end of my software year and it changed my life forever.
So I had direct ties with both the later part of "golden age" and the burgeoning vision of a whole new group of young photographers who were rejecting the expectations of their predecessors.
Obviously my work was very influenced by the old school west Coast Landscape Tradition, yet I also deeply appreciated the work of people who brought us New Topographics. I found both approaches fascinating and meaningful and NOT at odds with each other-but rather synergistic. Landscape Photography, in all its breath, was my religion and I found inspiration from many different diverse sources. This has always led me to an interest in and curiosity about all photographic directions. I go to every museum and opening I can. I may not like what I see but there is something to be learned about our society and art from all photographic endeavors.
I have many friends who are talented "old school" photographers my age who like Lenny are deeply disappointed by where photography has gone. I'm not. I accept it as a given. What we are experiencing happens to every aging generation of artists in the modern world. I have no interest in changing my art but every interest in learning where art is going and why art is changing. I do what I do and it is deeply satisfying. God forbid anything in art or society stands still. I think the contemporary world is fascinating and how young photographers see the world just as fascinating. I enjoy teaching photography to young people who look at the world very different than I do. It is an immense challenge for me that I find stimulating and rejuvenating. I have no desire to enter the later years of my life as a grumbling old fart photographer who thinks everything was better in some mythical "before" time.
tgtaylor
14-Jul-2014, 08:22
Kirk, “feeling young” doesn't imply that you have to eschew what turned you on when you were young and embrace or even appreciate the “new.” Foe example, if your heart truly lay within the West Coast Landscape Tradition then it would be absurd to think that embracing or even appreciating the New Topographics would make you “feel young.”
What makes one “feel young?” I believe it's that tingling sensation of desire that you get when considering something that you like which motivates you into action.
Thomas
Obviously my work was very influenced by the old school west Coast Landscape Tradition, yet I also deeply appreciated the work of people who brought us New Topographics. I found both approaches fascinating and meaningful and NOT at odds with each other-but rather synergistic.
It's interesting how a lot of developments that were seen as "reactions," given enough time, can start to look more like gentle evolutions. Comparing Robert Adams' early work with Weston's and Walker Evans' later work, it's hard for me to see anything but a continuum.*
I enjoy teaching photography to young people who look at the world very different than I do. It is an immense challenge for me that I find stimulating and rejuvenating.
I'd enjoy reading a longer post about the ins and outs of this.
*The words and other contexts surrounding Adams' images seem to be more different than the images themselves. In a sense, both Adams and Weston were dealing with loss. With Adams it was loss of a of a kind of connection to landscape. With Weston it seemed to be about his own impending death.
Drew Wiley
14-Jul-2014, 08:56
The whole notion of "Romanticism" in regard to anyone like Watkins, AA, et al, is basically utter flatlander nonsense. Same for describe-nothing-really pigeonholes like calling Watkins, Muybridgbe, Fiske, etc "frontier" photographers - they really weren't. Those days were already over, and it was railroad tourism at the fore. So yeah, all these guys had a commercial element, but also frequently managed to bend it into something much more. Watkins was a brilliant pre-Modernist in the sense he could weave together both structural elements (referring to line, not necessarily architecture, but indeed sometimes) and tapestries of organic landscape into some very sophisticated unified planes. I don't know any other photographer even to this day who could do this as well. So in this sense, he pushed the opportunities of blue sensitive film beyond what most had already learned. The emergence of pan film was a prerequisite for someone like AA to come into his own element. But to state that one was more a photographer of "light" than another is a pretty crude stereotype that doesn't work very long in front of an actual print.
Different strategies out there, for sure. But I'll be danged if I ever saw a monograph or biography about Watkins that ever even began to understand him from a
visual perspective, as opposed to simply a soap opera biography.
Kevin J. Kolosky
14-Jul-2014, 09:26
I suspect that Museums and such collect photographs not only for the photographs but also for the name of the person who made them.
Having seen work on here and many other places, there is no doubt, in my mind at least, that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of folks living and photographing today who can make very fine photographs, both technically and artistically, many of which are of much better (subjective) quality than those already hanging on the museum walls.
There is the stigma of the name.
After all, many on here are quite capable of traveling to a place, lets say Yosemite Park, and making the exact same image as one Ansel Adams made. The one by Ansel Adams will have significant value and will be collectible. The one by the member here not so much.
The point being that for new work to be collectible, a name has to go with the work (my opinion only). Some kind of hook that makes a curator feel like there is a value in the name as well as the work.
Of course, a lot of folks got their "name" by working for a large organization that put the name out there. Folks like Avedon, Irving Penn, Bert Stern, etc. But from what I have read, it seems as though the magazine business is going to the pooper, at least if sales are any indication.
I would think that if someone wanted to be collected in the future they might have to self publish to get their name out.
The whole notion of "Romanticism" in regard to anyone like Watkins, AA, et al, is basically utter flatlander nonsense.
Has anyone here called Watkins Romantic? I never would.
Adams is a different story. If you don't see a close connection between what he did and Romantic painting, I'd suggest revisiting your art history books.
After all, many on here are quite capable of traveling to a place, lets say Yosemite Park, and making the exact same image as one Ansel Adams made. The one by Ansel Adams will have significant value and will be collectible. The one by the member here not so much.
I think you're conflating some very different issues. One of them is a complicated philosophical one, that has to do with the value of attribution. A typical thought experiment might propose that you have a Da Vinci painting, and a forgery of it that is so perfect, no one can tell the difference. Is the original more valuable than the forgery? If so, what does that suggest about where the value lies? Clearly it lies somewhere outside the work itself—most likely in ideas we have about the work, since no one can tell the difference between the actual objects.
The other issue, less complex, is about influence and historical importance. It sidesteps the question above, and assumes there's value in attribution. But it's less about quality than about the influence an artist exerts on his or her contemporaries and followers. Weston's work is valued not just for its "quality," which itself is hard to define, but because of the enormous influence he exerted on artists that followed him. Of those followers, those who did nothing but follow were unable to influence anyone. They may have done Weston-like work to a very high standard, but they have no historical importance.
A more concise way to put it is to ask whose vision it really is. The standard goofball reaction to the modern art museum is "my kid could do that!" The standard answer is "yeah, but he didn't." And even if did, he'd just be copying.
tgtaylor
14-Jul-2014, 09:43
Drew, Watkins was an active photographer for several years before construction on the Transcontinental Railroad began (1863) and by the time it was completed in 1869 he had already gained a national reputation as a photographer. In fact it was his Mammoth photographs of Yosemite that spurred President Lincoln into signing the Yosemite Land Grant in 1864 that established the National Park system. It is interesting to note that Watkins was a childhood friend of Collis P. Huntington who boarded with the Watkins family in New York and both came to California during the gold rush. Huntington became one of the "big four" railroad tycoons and provided Watkins with a free railroad pass which Watkins used to transport his photographic wagon throughout the west on photo expeditions. Wherever the S&P went that Watkins wanted to go, it would deposit his car with the wagon and sometimes a sleeping car as well and pick him up on the way back.
As far as understanding Watkins from a visual perception, see the writing and various references cited by Peter E. Palmquist.
Thomas
Drew Wiley
14-Jul-2014, 09:44
I trust my eyes a lot more than any stupid art history book written by some flatlander who never bothered to really look at either Adam's work or ever personally
soaked in the same kind of light he worked in. A dumb, meaningless pigeonhole, that's all. Buying a set of rubber stamps doesn't make one proficient at any alleged
game.
tgtaylor
14-Jul-2014, 09:48
Has anyone here called Watkins Romantic? I never would.
Adams is a different story. If you don't see a close connection between what he did and Romantic painting, I'd suggest revisiting your art history books.
Paul, if you don't see a close connection between what Adams and Watkins, I'd suggest that you view their prints.
Thomas
Drew Wiley
14-Jul-2014, 09:48
Thanks, Tom. But I've been very disappointed by the monographs in general. They just don't seem to "get it". But regarding his sponsors ... I assume you've been up to Pioneer Basin. I always find it ironic how beautiful mountains get named for ruthless tycoons who would have willingly leveled them if there had been anything
resembling silver ore in them.
Brian C. Miller
14-Jul-2014, 09:58
Just to be clear, in mentioning metamodernism I wasn't advocating for it (although I like a lot of the ideas). I was trying to illustrate that if you're complaining about these times we live in, you need to sling a better insult that "postmodern!" because those days are long over.
... whimper ... but I didn't mention postmodern! ... whimper ...
And I do think that, "pragmatic romanticism unhindered by ideological anchorage," is actually an apt description of Instagram! Snap a shot, apply filters, send it off, non impediti ratione cogitationis (http://shop.npr.org/programs/car-talk-shameless-commerce/car-talk-latin-cobalt-mug)...
"Metamodernism, as we see it, is neither a residual nor an emergent structure of feeling, but the dominant cultural logic of contemporary modernity." (link (http://www.metamodernism.com/2010/07/15/what-is-metamodernism/)) Oh, and catch the huge run-on sentence in the last paragraph. Oy, vay. Metamodernism could be summed up as a pinball machine. As they say, it's just trying to essentially pin a new label on a large herd of cats, not that the description is supposed to be breaking new ground.
I don't view artworks as needing to be a type of Rorschach test. I want distilled information. I just have no personal use for vacuous expressions claiming to be artwork.
While I was out this past July 4th weekend, I visited Craters of the Moon (http://www.nps.gov/crmo/index.htm) in Idaho. (Visit at dawn, and bring lots of water!) Anyways, on my way out I came across a section of brush that had been burned, and in the burnout there was a roadside memorial cross. I found it poignant, so I stopped and photographed it with my 8x10, Fujinon 300mm, yellow filter, and Ilford Delta 100. And that's just it: for me the scene had poignant meaning.
Paul, if you don't see a close connection between what Adams and Watkins, I'd suggest that you view their prints.
I do see a close connection. And I see important differences. To me, at least, the differences are more interesting than the similarities, because the similarities are relatively superficial ... they were landscape photographers, they worked in the same kinds of places, they were both aware of European painting traditions, they used some similar formal conventions (as did a lot of photographers who were contemporaries of both of them).
But the differences I find fascinating. We talked about what Ansel brought to the table, which was largely an embrace of earlier Romantic picture making traditions alongside very contemporary abilities to freeze ephemeral moments of light and weather. In this sense he had one foot in the past and another squarely in his own time.
Watkins, on the other hand was ahead of his time in many ways. His contributions as an artist weren't fully grasped until decades after his death. While he influenced Ansel in some significant ways, the full weight of his influence wasn't felt until much later in the 20th century. Look at the way he used blank skies and mid-day light. You really don't this attempted again, at least not to such strong effect, until the New Topographics era of the 1970s.
To state things in a more extreme way, you could call Adams a Romantic working in the early modern era, and Watkins a late-modernist, working in the Romantic era. It reminds me of the contrast between Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Dickinson predicted all the modernist poets, and some of the postmoderns, decades before Millay came along with work that got categorized as modern, but which from our perspective seems almost completely romantic.
... whimper ... but I didn't mention postmodern! ... whimper ...
Ha ... I original brought up the whole metamodern can of worms in response to someone else's mention of postmodernism ...
And I do think that, "pragmatic romanticism unhindered by ideological anchorage," is actually an apt description of Instagram!
Agreed. At least the goofy filter aspect of it. The more interesting part of instagram is the sharing/social aspect. I don't use it, so can't comment much, but I bet we actually see some interesting things come of it.
Oy, vay. Metamodernism could be summed up as a pinball machine. As they say, it's just trying to essentially pin a new label on a large herd of cats, not that the description is supposed to be breaking new ground.
Indeed. I think these guys would argue (and I'd agree) that there are significant ways this herd of cats is different from the herds of 20 and 50 years ago ... which justifies all the trouble. But being a herd of cats, no one will ever really pin it down.
I don't view artworks as needing to be a type of Rorschach test. I want distilled information.
I just question if this is what art does well. If you picked a favorite piece of art and showed it to ten people, would they agree on what it means? What if you include people with different cultural backgrounds? Or people from different time periods? I think you'll always find multiple readings of the same thing ... and when you start asking people who don't intimately know the tradition the work came from, those readings can go really far afield ...
There are certainly limits to how interesting a pure roarsach blot can be. And I think there are limits to anything that tries to be so specific it can only be understood one way (like, maybe, a legal contract?). I suspect the art that moves us most gives us something solid to grab, and also plenty of room for our imaginations to participate.
tgtaylor
14-Jul-2014, 10:28
Paul, It appears that Watkins was not aware of the east coast or European painters but was very influential to members of the Hudson school. If you think that Watkins photographed with mid-day light, consider http://enticingthelight.com/2009/01/13/carleton-watkins-at-the-getty-museum/carleton-watkins-the-three-brothers/
Thomas
Thomas, I'm not sure what you're arguing. I never said he only photographed mid-day light. But he did do it a lot, and Ansel did it hardly ever.
I don't believe Watkins was unaware of European painters. There were painters in his close circle of friends in San Francisco, including William Keith, a Scottish painter who trained in London and New York. Watkins and Keith travelled together to make landscapes at least once. The formal similarities between Watkins' work and contemporary European painting are just too numerous to be coincidental.
Watkins actually said that he wanted to compete with painting (a reason for the huge plates) and that he he wasn't interested in copying the Romantic painters, as most of his contemporary photographers did.
Lenny Eiger
14-Jul-2014, 11:03
Well, I think most photographers since the beginning have been concerned with the quality of light. For Ansel, the quality—more specifically, the ephemerality—of light and of weather, was a central subject. This just wasn't the case with Watkins. The materials of his day wouldn't have allowed exploring it anyway.
I disagree. These things are in the intent of the photographer. If you take a look at what Sutcliffe could do with an albumen print, you wouldn't say this. Of course, the master was Frederick Evans, who had more quality of light than anyone. Panchromatic film and silver bromide paper were no match for his skills (and materials).
I have many friends who are talented "old school" photographers my age who like Lenny are deeply disappointed by where photography has gone. I'm not. I accept it as a given. What we are experiencing happens to every aging generation of artists in the modern world. I have no interest in changing my art but every interest in learning where art is going and why art is changing. I do what I do and it is deeply satisfying. God forbid anything in art or society stands still. I think the contemporary world is fascinating and how young photographers see the world just as fascinating. I enjoy teaching photography to young people who look at the world very different than I do. It is an immense challenge for me that I find stimulating and rejuvenating. I have no desire to enter the later years of my life as a grumbling old fart photographer who thinks everything was better in some mythical "before" time.
I was teaching at Parsons at 28. I had gone to Pratt and enjoyed a similar wealth of great teachers and meeting great photographers in NYC. In many respects I should have stayed there and built something. I was just too young to understand, too idealistic and too naive. I was at an apex of my profession, being at a respected institution; and making a whopping 8,000 a year. The institution didn't deserve the respect it had, the politics were unbearably nasty and the administration wasn't particularly interested in education. I had left Cooper Union a couple of years earlier because of the same issues. I had a feeling there had to be something more. My particular deck of cards left me with no one to explain to me that this was "normal". So I left.
I am very clear that the issues I face are not only photographic, but personal. This has as much to do with looking back at my life, in my early 60's and wondering who the hell came up with this plan. My daughter is off to college this coming year, going to school for Physics. It looks like a much better plan. A lot of this has to do with how well one is doing. I am currently working 7 days a week, trying to make a living. It's going ok, but I work for myself, so there is no 401K plan, no vision of retirement at the moment. I have plenty of stress.
I have a lot to be thankful for, I'm still in a house I own (sort of) and I am not behind on any payments. However, one can not miss that 4 million people have lost their homes, and the economy is in the toilet. A lot of people are hurting, and yes, almost all of them are having a harder time at it than me. Yet commercial photography, the kind that my father did, is gone. Getty has seen to that. I can not, in all good conscience teach people to do something they will not make a living at.
In NYC in the 70's a guy named Waxman sold his collection of photography to MoMa, I think, for something like 17 million dollars. (Anyone can correct me here as to actual facts if they care.) This one sale fueled an interest in photography and people were investing in images and portfolios for years. I sold a fair amount of work at the two galleries that showed my work. Reagan killed it by wiping out the CETA program and declaring publicly that "art is great but people - and gov't - shouldn't pay for it". It hasn't recovered. How many of us know someone who isn't a photographer who has purchased a print for more than $150-$200?
So, in fact, "things" did used to be better. We had a vibrant art-buying public and we had commercial photography. There were all sorts of ancillary services, from developing, scanning printing to teaching and making devices of one form or another. An entire industry (or two) is gone. Does it hurt my scanning and printing business? Definitely. Was there much more work before 2008 even? Absolutely. (Is there more war, more multinational corporations controlling everything, government nastier, more problems for everyone everywhere - yea, that too.)
I love teaching as well. It is as rewarding as can be. Aesthetically, I welcome new thoughts, new ideas, anything with a little life in it. It's the lifeless ones I wish to discard. When someone tells me I shouldn't connect with someone to photograph them, I am not impressed. When someone "steals" someone else's work and presents it as their own, I have a hard time celebrating. I might even resent that the DeYoung, who purchased Sherri Levine's work, could have purchased something else by someone here, who actually did something. I respect people that do the work to improve, whatever they are doing. I respect when people have taken the time to educate themselves.
I may be wallowing in a bit of old fartitude, but it will pass. I like to fully feel these things when they arrive, it helps me to actually get what I need to learn, and move on. I'm hoping that Paul is right, that something new and useful is around the corner. Maybe I'll live long enough to see it.
Lenny
Drew Wiley
14-Jul-2014, 11:22
If the print or whatever doesn't contain any ambiguities or different frames of reference, or different modes of interpretation, it's probably pretty shallow to begin with. But developing endless literary pigeonhole for an endless variety of such options seems to me not only the height of futility, but sheer presumption.
I disagree. These things are in the intent of the photographer. If you take a look at what Sutcliffe could do with an albumen print, you wouldn't say this. Of course, the master was Frederick Evans, who had more quality of light than anyone
Can you show us a Frederick Evans photo that's about ephemerality of light or weather? That's what Kirk and I (and Szarkowsky) have been talking about. It's the idea of capturing a changing moment. In Evans photographs the world appears to have been standing still forever.
How many of us know someone who isn't a photographer who has purchased a print for more than $150-$200?
Well, I've sold three prints for ten times that, this year, all to non-photographers. I've only sold a couple of prints in my life to photographers. One was part of a recent fundraising campaign for a book (small uneditioned prints for cheap), the other was to a close friend, also for cheap (he still hasn't payed me). It's not the photographers doing the real buying. Personally, I can only afford to buy books ... it's the closest thing I have to an art collection. And I don't think it would impress anyone ...
I think if you ask someone at a high end gallery, you'll find that they sell way more photography now, for way more money, than they did in the previous decades. There have been some bubbles (caused by the big financial bubbles) but overall, photography has never had so much prestige among collectors, both established and aspiring. The prices paid at auction go up and up.
This is not to say I think everything is healthy in the gallery world. There may be problems I'm not even in a position to know about. But the numbers show that interest in photography is at an all-time high.
Commercial photography is another story. I think you're right that it's in real crisis, at least for those who aren't at the very top of the food chain.
Kirk Gittings
14-Jul-2014, 12:37
I enjoy teaching photography to young people who look at the world very different than I do. It is an immense challenge for me that I find stimulating and rejuvenating. KG
I'd enjoy reading a longer post about the ins and outs of this.
So I teach at one of the perennial top rated schools, SAIC in Chicago and a tiny international liberal arts art school in Santa Fe-SFUAD. Both really good schools in their own way. About half my students are foreign nationals from all over but mainly Mexico, South America and Asia (mainly China), Spain and India. I see very little difference culturally. Youth culture is surprisingly virtually universal now because of the internet and social media. The biggest difference is attitude. This is a gross generalization but the foreign students are generally curious, hungry for knowledge and enthusiastic whereas the Americans are burned out, seen it all etc. I have both undergraduate and graduate students and most are from middle or upper middle class families and I teach both film and digital classes.
In terms of photography the biggest difference between me and the young students is perception and value of the photographic image. I revere it whether it is a snapshot of family or a fine print. a photograph to me is something to contemplate, absorb, learn from, where as to the young students they are like fastfood-quick tasty consumables. So a burst of flavor is all they need then on to another tidbit. They don't get subtleties till you can get them to slow down and actually look at an image. Taking them to shows is interesting (I always do this). Some recent trips in a nutshell-Ansel Adams (the big show at Andrew Smith's) means nothing to them-Freidlander, Metzger yes. Koudelka knocked them out. Work from their own country of origin can really move them like Bravo, or Garduno to the Mexican students.
As a teacher I have to get them to slow down and really look at images even when making them. You can't do that by lamenting how things used to be. I don't believe that anyway. In many ways now is the best there has ever been-but that is a longer story. You have to start with where they are at and lead them (not by putting them down).
Drew Wiley
14-Jul-2014, 13:34
You hit the nail on the head that time, Kirk.... slowwww down. Loook. I can accept all kinds of genre. I just don't like superficiality. Easy come, easy go, especially
for the instant-everything generation. But if yet let those kids actually look thru a well-composed image on a groundglass, most of them seem to get it. A difference in approach, based on what one is accustomed to? Yes. An inherent generational difference? Not necessarily. They've got eyes too. ... But you mention some interesting names. Once saw a lot of Bravo's original prints ruined in a back room with a leaky roof - scratched that gallery off my list quick. Metzger? Are you referring to the southern color photographer? .. the one who didn't know how to modulate anything? Even loud jazz doesn't work if it never has a pause where it's needed. Not that I like jazz, anyway. Blues, yes. Jazz no. But every type of music fails if it's all high-key monotone. Like eating so much of the same
flavor of ice cream that you can't taste anything after awhile. ... Or are you referring to Sheila Metzger? Totally different story, esp when viewing an authentic
Fresson print.
Brian C. Miller
14-Jul-2014, 13:35
I just question if this is what art does well. If you picked a favorite piece of art and showed it to ten people, would they agree on what it means? What if you include people with different cultural backgrounds? Or people from different time periods?
That depends on the art in question. Take for example religious illustrative text, from the 700s to 800s. From all of the illustrations of the various religions I've seen, I can always pick out who's holy, who's not, etc. There's various things that just seem to pop up independently between cultures. Now, consider the Chicago Cloud Gate sculpture. Just looking at it, who even guesses the name without being told? ("The Chrome Blob that Ate the Budget") If Barnett Newman's The Stations of the Cross were presented to you with no context, what would you guess? What could anybody guess? Without knowledge of Latin, what could someone make of a requiem mass?
By and large, there's always some social context clues for social art. However, abstract/surreal/dada art may very well have absolutely no social cues, e.g., Richard Tuttle's 3rd Rope Piece (http://fillip.ca/content/remain-in-life).
Kirk Gittings
14-Jul-2014, 13:38
You hit the nail on the head that time, Kirk.... slowwww down. Loook. I can accept all kinds of genre. I just don't like superficiality. Easy come, easy go, especially
for the instant-everything generation. But if yet let those kids actually look thru a well-composed image on a groundglass, most of them seem to get it. A difference in approach, based on what one is accustomed to? Yes. An inherent generational difference? Not necessarily. They've got eyes too. ... But you mention some interesting names. Once saw a lot of Bravo's original prints ruined in a back room with a leaky roof - scratched that gallery off my list quick. Metzger? Are you referring to the southern color photographer? .. the one who didn't know how to modulate anything? Even loud jazz doesn't work if it never has a pause where it's needed. Not that I like jazz, anyway. Blues, yes. Jazz no. But every type of music fails if it's all high-key monotone. Like eating so much of the same
flavor of ice cream that you can't taste anything after awhile. ... Or are you referring to Sheila Metzger? Totally different story, esp when viewing an authentic
Fresson print.
Sorry Ray K. Metzger. One of my mentors. https://www.google.com/search?q=ray+k+metzker&espv=2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=jz_EU4_yFoL2oATNjYKADQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg&biw=1024&bih=544
Drew Wiley
14-Jul-2014, 13:49
OK. Thanks. Metzger, the architectual photographer. Yeah.. a class act.
sanking
14-Jul-2014, 15:09
"I may be wallowing in a bit of old fartitude, but it will pass. I like to fully feel these things when they arrive, it helps me to actually get what I need to learn, and move on. I'm hoping that Paul is right, that something new and useful is around the corner. Maybe I'll live long enough to see it."
Lenny,
Adjusting to change has never been easy, and the pace of today's existence has all of us sucking air. But look on the bright side. You have kept up with many of the changes in technology and have something to teach. Lots of really good photographers out there have just been swallowed up by the changes they could not see coming.
I would not worry about what goes on in the museums. Even if it matters we can not control it.
Sandy
Kevin J. Kolosky
14-Jul-2014, 15:34
I think you're conflating some very different issues. One of them is a complicated philosophical one, that has to do with the value of attribution. A typical thought experiment might propose that you have a Da Vinci painting, and a forgery of it that is so perfect, no one can tell the difference. Is the original more valuable than the forgery? If so, what does that suggest about where the value lies? Clearly it lies somewhere outside the work itself—most likely in ideas we have about the work, since no one can tell the difference between the actual objects.
I would disagree with that idea. I would think that neither would have value until the real DaVinci was determined. I don't disagree that value lies in the work or the image, but a lot of the value, and therefore a lot of the collectability comes from the name as well.
Drew Wiley
14-Jul-2014, 16:10
Well, the forgery of a masterpiece would never exist if the forger didn't have someone to fake in the first place. If he had actually been the genius behind a particular style or technique or whatever, people would be faking him and not the other way around. Anybody can drip paint on a canvas, but who first thought about doing that? Any why does a genuine Pollock painting look so compelling, while an imitation just looks like a wannabee? I could say the same thing about photography. Learning the Zone System and visiting Yosemite hardly constitutes you into AA, even if you happened to work there prior to him. Sure, a lot of the "collectibility" aspect is the autograph. As they say, a mediocre work by someone famous is a better investment than a great work by an unknown. But that relatively superficial observation doesn't explain everything, by any means. And if you have the time and money, exposing a fake can nearly always be accomplished, unless it's something relatively contemporaneous to the alleged real artists, when exactly the same materials would have been available. Who cares?
I've spotted a few fakes over the years just using traditional IR film forensic techniques, and made a bit of easy money that way. Somebody thought they had a
long lost Carravagio. I took some shots of it, just to save them spending tens of thousands of buck they didn't need to. I could tell from clear across the room that
it was more likely Bozo the Clown with a housepainting brush that did that thing instead of an old master. But just to make the case definitively, the IR film did
reveal underpainting that was not, er, quite the era they expected, not by a long shot.
I don't disagree that value lies in the work or the image, but a lot of the value, and therefore a lot of the collectability comes from the name as well.
Not to sound ridiculous, but we also have to consider what we mean by "value." An investor might just mean monetary value, which is determined by market forces that can be fickle and superficial and circular (kind of like Warhol saying the famous are known for being well-known). For a museum curator, value has to do with the role it plays in a collection, and that has to do with the vision behind that collection. It doesn't have to do with money (just try to get to get a curator to discuss monetary value of work in their collection. They're in the business of getting people to give them stuff. They hate talking about dollars, IME).
Sometimes names are important, other times not. It was probably 10 years ago when Anne Tucker first bought an unknown photographer's print from his ebay store. Curators LOVE to get in on the ground floor with unknown talent. It's so much more impressive—and economical—to collect someone when they're unknown. It's also a bigger risk, but the stakes are low. Look at what Szarkowsky is most famous for: introducing the world to unknowns like Lee Friedlander, Dianne Arbus, and Gary Winogrand. And his most famous screw-up: refusing to buy Cindy Sherman's breakout series when it was new and cheap. Peter Gallasi had to buy the whole set when he took over, for several million dollars. (I know her work isn't popular around here, but Gallasi knew that any major 20th Century photo collection was incomplete without it. Like it or not, that work was hugely influential). Is this about Sherman's name? Maybe, but I think it's more about her role. A collection like MoMA's makes a statement about interpreting history. It attempts to define a canon, and that means finding the work that supports the historical narrative you're presenting.
Lenny Eiger
14-Jul-2014, 17:57
Can you show us a Frederick Evans photo that's about ephemerality of light or weather? That's what Kirk and I (and Szarkowsky) have been talking about. It's the idea of capturing a changing moment. In Evans photographs the world appears to have been standing still forever.
I care little myself for the moment. I don't like the idea of "the shot". I wasn't referencing the weather, just the sense of light. I think Frederick Evans knew more about light than most. I'm not a fan of churches, or the mother church, whatever that is. I actually like all of the other work more. There is one image in an attic that has a quality of light that is totally textural. There are demarcations in all the images based on lighting vs actual objects. There are many tones I had not see before looking at his original prints. The delicacy of the light is marvelous. The understanding of it is brilliant. Weather is another story. Sorry if I misunderstood.
Lenny
"How many of us know someone who isn't a photographer who has purchased a print for more than $150-$200?"
Absurd contention - untrue, ignorant and petty.
Kirk Gittings
14-Jul-2014, 18:46
Sometimes names are important, other times not. It was probably 10 years ago when Anne Tucker first bought an unknown photographer's print from his ebay store. Curators LOVE to get in on the ground floor with unknown talent. It's so much more impressive—and economical—to collect someone when they're unknown. It's also a bigger risk, but the stakes are low. Look at what Szarkowsky is most famous for: introducing the world to unknowns like Lee Friedlander, Dianne Arbus, and Gary Winogrand. And his most famous screw-up: refusing to buy Cindy Sherman's breakout series when it was new and cheap. Peter Gallasi had to buy the whole set when he took over, for several million dollars. (I know her work isn't popular around here, but Gallasi knew that any major 20th Century photo collection was incomplete without it. Like it or not, that work was hugely influential). Is this about Sherman's name? Maybe, but I think it's more about her role. A collection like MoMA's makes a statement about interpreting history. It attempts to define a canon, and that means finding the work that supports the historical narrative you're presenting.
Exactly.
Lenny Eiger
14-Jul-2014, 19:32
"How many of us know someone who isn't a photographer who has purchased a print for more than $150-$200?"
Absurd contention - untrue, ignorant and petty.
I'm not talking about people who go into galleries. I'm talking about your neighbors, other artists. What my local gallery owner tells me is that certain sectors of the market, defined by dollar ranges, is gone. There is plenty of money at the top. There's plenty at the bottom. However, there isn't enough in the 1-5K range. Those are his words, not mine.
You can hate me all you want, and I can be wrong about something, but it isn't about being petty.
Lenny
johnmsanderson
14-Jul-2014, 19:36
Watkins was a brilliant pre-Modernist in the sense he could weave together both structural elements (referring to line, not necessarily architecture, but indeed sometimes) and tapestries of organic landscape into some very sophisticated unified planes. .
Oh hell yes. This is possible one of my favorite photographs. I want to see the print.
http://31.media.tumblr.com/7473d70c202976ec6386e1e0409e8894/tumblr_mg7fwvrjso1r2hiibo1_1280.jpg
Strait of Carquennes, from South Vallejo, 1868-69
Kirk Gittings
14-Jul-2014, 20:49
The real question is would a museum collect landscape photos from someone who refers to the artists as "landscapers"? :) just saying...its a god awful term.
Merg Ross
14-Jul-2014, 21:34
The real question is would a museum collect landscape photos from someone who refers to the artists as "landscapers"? :) just saying...its a god awful term.
My thought exactly Kirk. Are you a "landscaper"? My burning question is whether museums are collecting modern "abstracters".
Brian C. Miller
15-Jul-2014, 07:02
The real question is would a museum collect landscape photos from someone who refers to the artists as "landscapers"? :) just saying...its a god awful term.
Kirk, Iluvmyviewcam isn't interested in his photographs being collected by museums, but in finding out which contemporary, living landscape photographers' work is being collected.
As for the term, I wouldn't worry about it, unless it makes its way out of this forum thread and into common usage.
Kirk Gittings
15-Jul-2014, 07:28
or Portraiters, or Architecturers.........
Drew Wiley
15-Jul-2014, 09:00
Pigeonholes. Avoid them like the plague. They're intended for people who can't think or look for themselves. ... So let me ask you Kirk, what you think of Philip Trager? An "architectual photographer"? a "surrealist"? A "shadow and light" guy? Don't all these stereotypes just spoil the whole experience? It's like dismissing
Watkins as a "frontier" photographer, or a "Yosemite" photographer. Stick him in a pigeonhole and be done with it. .... And John, thanks for posting that shot. A lot
of actual Watkins prints suffer from a bit of mildew by now; but being in front of one... well, they are very nuanced, and he sure knew his albumen. Anyone who
thinks he didn't understand ephemeral light is, well.... probably just not looking. That Carquinez area is still highly photogenic, though now rather industrialized,
but there are significant areas completely undeveloped - on one ridge I walked all day without encountering another person.. It's getting a bit hot out there, so I haven't been out there with my 8x10 for the last two months. The wind can also be an issue. This was also John Muir's home base, and quite a few hills adjacent
to his old mansion have been protected as parkland.
Kirk Gittings
15-Jul-2014, 09:09
or like you calling Ray Metzger "the architectual photographer"? :)
Kirk Gittings
15-Jul-2014, 09:13
Architectural photography is photography about architecture. IMHO when it is used as metaphor for something else or used as a backdrop for other ideas it is not "Architectural Photography". Metzger is not in MO an architectural photographer in any sense of the word nor is Siskind or Callahan (these three are closely related). His work is about light and shadow and a psychological response to the urban environment.
Drew Wiley
15-Jul-2014, 09:39
Well, you caught me in my own trap there, Kirk. Gotta admit. But if you saw the southern version of Metzger (Eggleston on hyper-colorized amphetamines), you'd understand. But to flip the coin, I see zero commonality between your Metzger, Siskind, and Callahan, other than the fact they all operated in the Midwest. In fact,
despite where Callahan taught, I don't even see the alleged connection between him and the alleged Bauhaus roots of the Institute. They all looked at their subject
matter very differently.
Kirk Gittings
15-Jul-2014, 10:02
I do see a connection and besides that I knew him and he told me so. He studied with them at the Institute of Design. I don't think the connection is always obvious but sometimes it is very obvious.
Drew Wiley
15-Jul-2014, 10:12
Well ... you'd obviously know a lot more than me. Other than flying over the midwest, I've never been there. I've seen plenty of Siskind and Callahan prints in person.
The latter seemed at bit premature when it came to color work ... guess the effort deserves honorable mention.
Merg Ross
15-Jul-2014, 11:07
Yes, a very strong influence of Callahan is evident in Ray Metzker's work. I think he built on some of Callahan's ideas, sometimes taking them a step further. Ray has always been among my favorites; we were in four group exhibits between 1962 and 1968 (Eastman House 1963). His first solo show was at AIC in 1959. I don't see that much of Siskind in his work, Callahan for sure.
Kirk Gittings
15-Jul-2014, 11:57
He taught at UNM when I was there. I didn't ever manage to take a class with him but had great discussions with him about his work and what he thought of what I was working on.
Merg you would be amazed to know that some of his work at the recent Andrew Smith show was going for as much as $85k and was selling!!! I could have bought the exact prints for $100 back in the day!
Where I see Siskind in Metzgers work is his use of strong graphic compositions mainly. I don't think that is a stretch because he told me he was heavily influenced by both those guys though I don't remember him being specific about how. He was a great guy and teacher.
Drew Wiley
15-Jul-2014, 12:28
Well, that kinda settles it. So for yet another stereotype - and this one does seem to be statistically relevant - the best kind of pigeonhole to be classified in if you
want to be collectible is the one labeled, "dead".
the best kind of pigeonhole to be classified in if you
want to be collectible is the one labeled, "dead".
I have to agree. I apologize in advance for my ignorance in the sense of not attending art school or even for that matter not following much in terms of art history...
In my opinion if the artist/ photographer has to be dead before his work is acknowledged or seen as valuable to collectors then what's the point. Sure, the artist's surviving family can benefit from his/her work, but if the artist can't reap or enjoy those successes while alive then what difference does it make how the "art world" classifies the work.
To me, if I can create art & enjoy what I'm doing/ making while managing to survive without having to get a "real" job, then I've won.
Who knows..if some work is preserved long enough, they can call it an artifact from the early 21st century. Ha
marfa boomboom tx
15-Jul-2014, 13:50
Isn’t art the need to hold, to make visible, what we believe or wish to believe? The elusive search, the frustration of incompleteness or inadequacy, the failed attempt at seeing, catching, recognizing, knowing something that points and reveals the nature or essence of our being–this attempt is an act by the artists: art is the message of that act.
–Ray Metzker
Brian C. Miller
15-Jul-2014, 13:55
In my opinion if the artist/ photographer has to be dead before his work is acknowledged or seen as valuable to collectors then what's the point.
William Turnage was Ansel Adams' publicist. (ASCAP: How to Know When You Need a Publicist (http://www.ascap.com/playback/2013/10/wecreatemusic/tracy-nguyen-when-you-need-a-publicist.aspx)) If you want to make money from something, then it's a business. Treat it as such. This means planning and advertising (i.e., publicist). What you produce is your brand. This means packaging your product, and putting it out in front of people's eyeballs. That's how museums will know that your work is something to collect.
It's sad that dead artists tend to command the highest prices (not just in photography). But it seems to be less the case all the time. Without having studied the matter, it looks to me like prices at auction are going up faster for living people than for dead ones.
Check out the current Megabux List (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_photographs). 10 of the 19, including the top 4, are still alive. Interestingly, #7 is by an unknown photographer (but has ... um ... celebrity subject matter).
Drew Wiley
15-Jul-2014, 14:05
Agreed. But then you're basically still just a commercial photographer catering to alleged museum tastes instead of the cutesy postcards or ads or whatever. And
there are only eighteen thousand wannabees out there doing the same thing. Life is too short for that nonsense. Or you can take the "Bohemian" or Hippie or
starving artist career route. Or you can ignore all the nonsense, simply make a living at whatever (including possibly pure commercial photography), and then shoot
and print whatever you damn well please on your own time and budget. Life is too short to compromise the latter aspect. And despite all the folklore, very very few
famous collectible photographers made their living primarily through "art". They taught, they shot a lot of commercial stuff they didn't particularly enjoy (or maybe
did), the scrounged. And the most successful ones did indeed do something extra to boost their fame: they croaked.
Jac@stafford.net
15-Jul-2014, 14:13
Isn’t art the need to hold, to make visible, what we believe or wish to believe [...]
Snip excellent artist statement|
by Ray Metzker
That Is certainly one of the most robust and endearing descriptions of art. Thanks for that.
marfa boomboom tx
15-Jul-2014, 14:33
... And despite all the folklore, very very few
famous collectible photographers made their living primarily through "art". .....
to Ed Grazda (written on invoice/receipt paper) by Robert Frank:
"I'm famous now what?"
the next year RF was photographing Allen Ginsberg for book cover...
I think it's true in all the arts, that very few people make a living doing art and nothing else.
In an interview Robert Frank talked about how common it was for artists to use most of their Guggenheim money to get out of debt. And he was talking about the '50s and '60s.
But I bet the living people on that top ten list don't need day jobs anymore.
Drew Wiley
15-Jul-2014, 15:40
I've seen a number of misconceptions on this very thread. Take the Bearded One himself. AA had just about every inside track you can think of in terms of connections. He was even at the foundation of some of the Photography depts in those now revered insitutions which allegedly call the shots. He was a well known
lobbyist, the head of a major enviro organization, hobnobbed with the rich and famous, including a lot of famous artists, and was himself an acclaimed photographer. Let he supported his family primarily as a commercial photographer. Got his lucky break financially by get paid with stock in the early days of Polaroid, for field testing their products. But his presumed art empire didn't really have wings until he was already in his 80's, just a few years before his death. It is largely his heirs who have benefitted, along with certain dealers who collected him earlier. But is that such a bad thing? The way I look at it, it's not necessarily the net value of what I put into this kind of gig, but the timing of when it might begin to pay off. Even if that only 50/50, it's a lot more beneficial to me to have supplementary income form prints trickling in when I'm old and really need it, and can't do other things, than to have it support me to a larger degree at the moment. That could make a significant difference in quality of life. Right now, I can do all kinds of things. But the day may come where about all I can do is flip
open the lid of a portfolio box, or have someone do it for me. ... and of course, I'll still have to feed the cats.
Kirk Gittings
15-Jul-2014, 16:06
Well, that kinda settles it. So for yet another stereotype - and this one does seem to be statistically relevant - the best kind of pigeonhole to be classified in if you
want to be collectible is the one labeled, "dead".
Ray K isn't dead.....yet. At the Andrew Smith show he didn't appear at the opening because of dementia.
Kirk Gittings
15-Jul-2014, 16:07
Isn’t art the need to hold, to make visible, what we believe or wish to believe? The elusive search, the frustration of incompleteness or inadequacy, the failed attempt at seeing, catching, recognizing, knowing something that points and reveals the nature or essence of our being–this attempt is an act by the artists: art is the message of that act.
–Ray Metzker
I like that. Where did you find it?
Drew Wiley
15-Jul-2014, 16:12
I just caught myself confusing the spelling Metzker for Metzner. Source of my confusion about this person versus that. Should have worn my reading glasses from
the truck today, instead of these cheapo plastic lens things my wife got at the thrift store.
His work is about light and shadow and a psychological response to the ("...") environment.
This can be said about pretty much any good photographer, by simply changing whatever goes into the scare quotes. Or leaving them out altogether.
Of course some of us get pigeonholed as "talentless hacks", but that's ok too, if we're enjoying ourselves.
On the subject of the question asked by the OP, no, museums in this part of the world do not collect "landscapers" of any sort, including multimedia artists, painters, etc. Not since the 1930s or so. I make it a point to seek out the token displays of local artists in our museums, even the recent exhibit devoted to amateur Montreal photographers in the 1950s did not contain a single landscape among 200+ photographs.
Kirk Gittings
15-Jul-2014, 16:36
museums in this part of the world do not collect "landscapers" of any sort
hmmm......Burtynsky?
Edward Burtynsky is known as one of Canada's most respected photographers. His remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes are included in the collections of over 60 major museums around the world
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, NY, USA
Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD, USA
Bibliothèque National, Paris, France
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswisk, ME
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, Québec, Canada
Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
CincinNatti Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH, USA
Fondation Arts et Culture, Jouxtens-Mezery, Switzerland
Gallery Stratford, Stratford, Ontario, Canada
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, USA
Gemeentemuseum Helmonds, The Netherlands
Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Haggerty Museum, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Kaspar Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, USA
Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Ontario, Canada
Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montréal, Québec, Canada
Library of Congress, Washington, DC, USA
London Museum, London, Ontario, Canada
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie, Ontario, Canada
McMaster University Art Gallery, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, Montréal, Québec, Canada
Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA, USA
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, MA, USA
National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV, USA
Owens Art Gallery, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada
Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA, USA
Presentation House, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, Spain
Ryerson Polytechnic University/School of Image Arts, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA
San José Museum of Art, San José, CA, USA
Scottsdale Museum of Contempoary Art, Linhart Collection, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, USA
Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN. USA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA
Spencer Museum of Art, The University of KS, USA
Saint Louis Museum of Art, St. Louis, MO, USA
Thessaloniki Museum of Art, Thessaloniki, Greece
Tom Thompson Memorial Art Gallery, Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada
Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England, UK
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, USA
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
Wilson Centre for Photography, London, UK
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada"
a lot of Canadian museum collections in that list, like 27 or so.
marfa boomboom tx
15-Jul-2014, 17:07
I like that. Where did you find it?
from this book : http://www.vincentborrelli.com/cgi-bin/vbb/102178
Unknown Territory: Photographs by Ray K. Metzker
METZKER, Ray K., TUCKER, Anne Wilkes
was at a show at HCP
I have most of metzker's books and catalogs; also several dozen prints.
Kirk Gittings
15-Jul-2014, 18:33
cool.
hmmm......Burtynsky?
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, NY, USA
Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD, USA
Bibliothèque National, Paris, France
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswisk, ME
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, Québec, Canada
Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
CincinNatti Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH, USA
Fondation Arts et Culture, Jouxtens-Mezery, Switzerland
Gallery Stratford, Stratford, Ontario, Canada
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, USA
Gemeentemuseum Helmonds, The Netherlands
Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Haggerty Museum, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Kaspar Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, USA
Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Ontario, Canada
Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montréal, Québec, Canada
Library of Congress, Washington, DC, USA
London Museum, London, Ontario, Canada
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie, Ontario, Canada
McMaster University Art Gallery, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, Montréal, Québec, Canada
Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA, USA
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, MA, USA
National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV, USA
Owens Art Gallery, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada
Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA, USA
Presentation House, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, Spain
Ryerson Polytechnic University/School of Image Arts, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA
San José Museum of Art, San José, CA, USA
Scottsdale Museum of Contempoary Art, Linhart Collection, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, USA
Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN. USA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA
Spencer Museum of Art, The University of KS, USA
Saint Louis Museum of Art, St. Louis, MO, USA
Thessaloniki Museum of Art, Thessaloniki, Greece
Tom Thompson Memorial Art Gallery, Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada
Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England, UK
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, USA
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
Wilson Centre for Photography, London, UK
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada"
a lot of Canadian museum collections in that list, like 27 or so.
The exception that proves the rule? I admit I don't know much about Burtynsky's early successes, but I wouldn't be surprised if his initial recognition came from outside Canada.
Kirk Gittings
15-Jul-2014, 19:02
I'm just responding to your very unequivocal statement which I knew had to be wrong.
On the subject of the question asked by the OP, no, museums in this part of the world do not collect "landscapers" of any sort, including multimedia artists, painters, etc. Not since the 1930s or so.
FWIW from my own experience, the Nickel Art Museum at the University of Calgary have a number of my landscape prints too but from 1983. I thought there were more but I may be confusing a different different portfolio at the Dept. of Art.http://contentdm.ucalgary.ca/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=all&CISOBOX1=kirk%20gittings&CISOFIELD1=subjec&CISOOP2=exact&CISOBOX2=&CISOFIELD2=subjec&CISOOP3=any&CISOBOX3=&CISOFIELD3=descri&CISOOP4=none&CISOBOX4=&CISOFIELD4=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=/art2&t=s
Drew Wiley
16-Jul-2014, 08:40
So now I caught you playing with the "Landscape" work, Kirk. Ha. Burtynsky? Why call him a landscape phtographer at all? He could equally be called a photographer of "Garbage". He eschews anything blue and green, likes rusty things that go exaggerated in color neg film, and would probably love how the world looks after a nuclear war. Probably would have been qualified to design the movie set of Total Recall. So somewhere back in the 70's somebody figured out people like Eliot Porter were out, but that if there was an outhouse in the foreground and you printed the shot all washed out, it was somehow suddenly socially relevant. Call it the "New whatever" if you like, but there's nothing new about it anymore. Most of the people who throw the terminology around probably weren't even born yet when that stuck record happened. So much for genre. But Burtynsky has carved a nice niche anyway, and it's to his skill with color and especially structural composition. Has a distinct look. But if he applied the same compositional strategies to something other than Garbage and mauled "landscapes" would the artsy
fartsy types still take notice?
Kirk Gittings
16-Jul-2014, 08:48
He calls himself a landscape photographer. Why not ask him?
But if he applied the same compositional strategies to something other than Garbage and mauled "landscapes" would the artsy
fartsy types still take notice?
What if, what if, what if. Who knows? Who cares? Irrelevant question since that is what he does.
What do you get out of all your endless negativity, sarcasm and vitriol? Do you enjoy this? It really gets tiresome.
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
Yes Drew, we know you hate the art world.......
You are a talented interesting guy. I would love to just have a normal conversation with you without all this crap.
bob carnie
16-Jul-2014, 10:02
Drew
Have you ever seen Ed's prints?.. Do you know he prints them himself?.. His colour correction skills are unmatched, I admire him for his work but he also is a Lab Rat like me and I love seeing his work.
I have been to almost all of Ed's shows in Toronto(his home town) and this goes back to the 80's.
You seem to have a fascination in belittling every contemporary worker out there.
Recently challenging Kirk to lay down prints in a past post, I would challenge you to lay down 10 print with Ed any day of the week. Just my 2 cents on this thread.
So now I caught you playing with the "Landscape" work, Kirk. Ha. Burtynsky? Why call him a landscape phtographer at all? He could equally be called a photographer of "Garbage". He eschews anything blue and green, likes rusty things that go exaggerated in color neg film, and would probably love how the world looks after a nuclear war. Probably would have been qualified to design the movie set of Total Recall. So somewhere back in the 70's somebody figured out people like Eliot Porter were out, but that if there was an outhouse in the foreground and you printed the shot all washed out, it was somehow suddenly socially relevant. Call it the "New whatever" if you like, but there's nothing new about it anymore. Most of the people who throw the terminology around probably weren't even born yet when that stuck record happened. So much for genre. But Burtynsky has carved a nice niche anyway, and it's to his skill with color and especially structural composition. Has a distinct look. But if he applied the same compositional strategies to something other than Garbage and mauled "landscapes" would the artsy
fartsy types still take notice?
Drew Wiley
16-Jul-2014, 11:15
Oh yeah, Bob. I was merely scratching my fingernails on the blackboard asking the hypothetical question whether he would have gotten formal recognition if his compositional skills had been applied to something other than apocalyptic detritus. Same game Misrach played around here somewhat earlier. It's "art" because it
allegedly makes a social statement. For example, Natl Geo published a few Burtynsky shots as part of a pollution article, which in that case didn't work visually
whatsoever cause they arbitrarily cropped the shots to fit the magazine spread, destroying the entire compositional impact; and of course, printing images like
that tiny doesn't work either. So why did they do it? Presumably just to get the credibility of an "art" name attached to the magazine and due to the "socially relevant" subject matter itself. Playing the game. I never insinuated anything negative about Burtynsky's visual skills. His compositions are rather compelling most
of the time. But they only work in sum, as he intended them in the first place. But if he had done the same thing with natural rocks instead of junk heaps, would
the museum crowd even given him the time of day? I doubt it.
Drew Wiley
16-Jul-2014, 11:39
So got it, Bob?? I like Burtysnky quite a bit, even his chosen subject matter. My gosh, I've taken far more than my own share of man-mauled whatever's over the years, though a lot of mine own work focused upon the mauling of the Mother Lode, and not computer-generation stuff. I just despise things when nominal subject
matter is the overriding consideration cause somebody thinks it should be. I feel the same way about the Academy Awards when some otherwise boring movie gets
an award because it's making some overt stereotypical statement the Hollywood crowd thinks is socially relevant. Saw one of those the other nite. But that's been the case forever. I'm attracted to how things are seen in their own right - getting into them, printing them to bring something inherent to the fore, but not necessarily to putting it in your face. Nuances. Sometimes that means saturated color, sometimes unsaturated, sometimes bold forms, sometimes not, sometimes
pure nature, sometimes not. I just don't like rote formulas of any species.
johnmsanderson
16-Jul-2014, 11:48
Drew
Have you ever seen Ed's prints?.. Do you know he prints them himself?.. His colour correction skills are unmatched, I admire him for his work but he also is a Lab Rat like me and I love seeing his work.
I have been to almost all of Ed's shows in Toronto(his home town) and this goes back to the 80's.
You seem to have a fascination in belittling every contemporary worker out there.
Recently challenging Kirk to lay down prints in a past post, I would challenge you to lay down 10 print with Ed any day of the week. Just my 2 cents on this thread.
I have seen his prints. Most are quite beautiful although the newer digital are very contrasty. His more recent aerial stuff looked kind of strange though. Parts of the landscapes looked desaturated and a bit wonky. But, this aerial landscaper series of his seemed to meander.
Early Burtynsky:
http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/site_contents/Photographs/image_galleries/Early_Landscapes_Gallery/OLD_LAND_03_81.jpg
http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/site_contents/Photographs/image_galleries/Early_Landscapes_Gallery/OLD_LAND_04_81.jpg
Drew Wiley
16-Jul-2014, 12:10
There was some aerial stuff at the gallery on the next block. That washed out look just didn't feel in place next to a bunch or "West Coast School" images. Wrong mix. My thing for decades was Cibachrome anyway (which incidentally, I often printed soft and nuanced). Right now I'm more on the learning curve of new color neg films and the relevant papers, though bagging a commercial-quality C print has always been a piece of cake. Still, there are some incredibly good color printmakers in this part of the world and I can certainly run in that pack with no problem. I'm allergic to RA4, so pace that game very cautiously. Starting to crank out prints up to the quality standard of my ole Cibas, but I have a VERY different objective than these folks who like to play the washed-out undersaturated game doing landscapes with what are essentially portrait films. I'm throwing a curve ball at the entire thing, basically pioneering certain color reproduction techniques per pure darkroom options. I don't want prints from color negs that look like color neg prints. I want the clean hues more reminiscent of chromes. What I do with that
kind of control is a subject in its own right.
bob carnie
16-Jul-2014, 12:14
The last show I saw of Ed's prints were at Metivier Gallery and the theme was Scale and was a group show.
The most incredible print in the show was one by Ed that was from the air shot with the new camera onto Fuji RA4 paper. I was blown away with the quality of this print, and the style.
I did not look at the name plate and when I did I was surprised it was his work.
I doubt he will go back to film and enlarger prints. I have seen both digital and film prints and I think he has mastered both.
Drew Wiley
16-Jul-2014, 12:43
Yeah.. all I was suggesting is that his kind of prints work well when grouped together. I don't even like my own C prints in the same room as Cibas, for example,
unless its Fuji Supergloss. With Lightjet or whatever, you can successfully span both ends of the spectrum, not necessarily with inkjet. I really love inkjet when
it comes to old school amateurish color neg films, esp small format. But let me reiterate that I like Burtynsky's personal style of composition. It's rather unique at
this stage of the game. I'm fine with his subject matter too. But when it comes to weeds, well, we true hillbillies might have cultivated that particular aesthetic a
bit better, even in C prints... Doubt many other people would even wish to crawl thru them with an 8x10 ...
Early Burtynsky:
Those look a bit Eliot Porter inspired.
As for the subject matter of "Garbage", if you're going to look at it that way, it's a useful and relevant re-hash of the theme Stieglitz championed (perhaps inspired by Coburn) with his cloud equivalents, where the subject matter was secondary to the artistic qualities, showing you don't need a beautiful subject to make a beautiful photograph. Which is a nice antidote to celebrity and postcard subjects.
Drew Wiley
17-Jul-2014, 08:23
Duuuh.... tell me something I haven't already known for the past fifty years. But "Garbage" is just my synomym for what got called "Environmental Photography".
You get somebody like Rbt Ketchum, who basically tried to copy some of those Eliot Porter things, or even postcard themes, but made sure there some human detritus was conspicuously in the foreground, and suddenly it's supposed to be artistically or socially relevant, just because of that?? That ploy got worn to death in the 70's.
... but made sure there some human detritus was conspicuously in the foreground, and suddenly it's supposed to be artistically or socially relevant, just because of that??
Have you considered that this is just what most of our world looks like? You have to go to exceptional places to see a landscape that shows no obvious signs of development, pollution, industry, or commerce. I could easily argue that pictures of unspoiled nature are more of a contrivance, or a "ploy" than the ones you're trying to marginalize.
Ansel admitted to hacking down tree branches and going wandering far out of the way of powerlines to get the views he wanted. I don't see how this is not a ploy, while simply including the power lines is.
Drew Wiley
17-Jul-2014, 09:55
So this is all about "A" versus "B" stereotypes, Paul? Like some multiple choice test - mark one of the following four boxes, based on your preference, like you can't think or see do do anything by yourself? But guess I'll have to cancel my upcoming vacation, where I was planning on walking for two weeks with only 50/50 odds of even encountering anyone else, much less some trash heap, just like I've done many times before. You obviously have less than zero notion of what kinds of things I actually have photographed, but I didn't do any of it because of some market forecast consciously catering to either the ceramic chipmunk crowd or the academic set. Do you actually believe that everyone who carries a big camera around outdoors is therefore some kind of AA clone? or just some postcard type?
I didn't introduce a stereotype, you did.
I'm suggesting that it's actually easier to make the opposite case.
Drew Wiley
17-Jul-2014, 10:42
Get in a plane and fly across the country. Yeah, it's pretty shocking how, once one hits the Rocky Mtn front at Devner (flying east) 95% of the landscape shows
a human footprint. Pretty much all plowed, planted, cut, whatever. But the rest of the country - it's urbanization and even suburbanization that's the exception.
Flying over Nevada, sure there are tiny little squiggles of dirt mining roads etc everywhere. But on foot they're pretty far apart, and driving them isn't exactly an
Interstate experience. Even here in Calif, where we do have big cities, much of the Coast Range is less inhabited than the Mojave Desert. And yeah, in the mtns
you do have places with a lot of visitors, like Yosemite Valley or Lk Tahoe. But there are places even within the boundaries of Yosemite Natl Park itself where you
could walk for days on end without encountering anyone else, where even official trails don't go. I grew up right next to a major canyon in the Sierras where I only met one other person - an old Indian - who had ever explored it, that is, prior to me and my buddies, and then later, a few whitewater enthusiasts. I've been in entire mountain basins numerous times where people have unquestionably been, but so rarely that not even a campfire circle, or tree blaze, or trail duck, or footpath was visible anywhere. So don't try to tell me what is fair game and what is not. I don't go such places necessarily to get postcardy or wilderness type pictures. Sometimes I don't even take a single picture, despite the incredible scenery. I go such places for personal reasons and not with a mercantile mentality. I've come back from long trips carrying an 85 lb pack of view camera gear, with maybe one or two shots that could have been taken in the nearest cow pasture. Why? Because the composition appealed to me, not cause it would look good in some coffee table book or fit some calendar stereotype.
marfa boomboom tx
17-Jul-2014, 11:46
should you wish to test Ed B's printing skill with your vision...
http://www.torontoimageworks.com
pull that wallet out of your weed skimmers...
urbanization and suburbanization may be the exception from the standpoint of square miles. But if that's your criterion, then land itself is the exception!
Look at what most people in this country are surrounded by at home, at work, while commuting, while relaxing. It's an urban or suburban environment. By most, I don't mean 51%. Consider that the New York metropolitan area is more populous than all but two other states. 3.75 times the population of Colorado. 6 times the population of Utah. 19 times the population of Montana. 34 times the population of Wyoming.
Most Americans spend virtually all their time in a built or highly-built environment. And it's even more the case in Europe, which is almost entirely deforested. There is no European Wyoming. If you spend time surrounded by forest or desert or mountain, you are the exception. Even if you spend your time surrounded by cultivated plains, you are the exception.
Nothing wrong with that. I personally escape to the mountains whenever I have the chance. But it's not my everyday reality, just as it isn't for most of us. If photographers are trying to make sense of what they see day in and day out ... or just trying to work with the landscape that's available to them ... then of course they'll show us a lot of city and suburb. And these days it will include a lot of wrecked city and suburb.
Drew Wiley
17-Jul-2014, 12:38
Mr Boombox, why on earth would I want to pay someone else to print my work? Then it wouldn't be my print, not even my work, as far as I'm concerned. Besides,
I already have a fully equipped personal color lab. And back to Paul.... well, I do count myself lucky to be living in an urban area with more public open space
than any other comparable place in the country. I am within three blocks of a seven thousand acre park, within minutes of driving to so many others that I haven't
even visited half of them. New ones are opening up soon. Don't compare these to city parks. I was on a ridgetop walk a few weeks ago where I didn't see another person the entire day. Then I finished off the day at on old port on the river where you can photograph rust and peeling paint forever if you want to. Just minutes from my house. Plus we have several nearby state parks, plus a sizable National Seashore. Then the Sierra is only about three hours away, so a fairly comfortable drive after traffic dies down at night. This part of the state is very different from LA. And if we squabble about things like taxes just like everyone else, at least the vast majority of people here will fork out a little both to protect and expand our public land trusts, trails, etc. Even at very popular areas like Pt Reyes or
Mt Diablo it's very easy to find solitude. Ninety percent of the people visit only ten percent of the places. The most crowded spot anywhere is Muir Woods. There
will be a dozen tour buses parked there at any given time, plus two hundred cars. Just cross the creek and walk the trail the opposite direction. You'll probably see two or three people the whole day, and it will be lovely. Probably the majority of 8x10 shots I took this year showed some kind of human imprint, even if it was only old roads, fences, and cattle. I go for what strikes my eye, regardless. Done far more than my fair share of wrecks and ruins or whatever, hundred of prints.
But to think that one has to work hard to find subject matter totally void of apparent human inflence is to be very naive about a lot of the West.
Brian C. Miller
17-Jul-2014, 12:51
And it's even more the case in Europe, which is almost entirely deforested. There is no European Wyoming.
:eek: (Insert very loud audio interpretation of Der Schrei der Natur here) I suppose I would be making Siberia a favorite stop for myself. If anything, this is exactly why that which is vanishing should be photographed all the more frequently.
Most Americans spend virtually all their time in a built or highly-built environment.
A crying shame! "Soylent Green is people!" How many distopias are urban or suburban? "In the desert you can remember your name, 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain."
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
-- George Orwell
If photographers are trying to make sense of what they see day in and day out ... or just trying to work with the landscape that's available to them ... then of course they'll show us a lot of city and suburb. And these days it will include a lot of wrecked city and suburb.
Time for a Mad Magazine moment. In one of the issues, America the Beautiful was illustrated using contemporary photographs. Such as, "And crown thy good with brotherhood," with images of Detroit riots. There have been plenty of photo exposés of Detroit's decay. One might be led to imagine that it has become a completely rotted corpse of a city, and there is no hope but the bulldozer. How much sense of that does the viewer need to make?
Another thing that pops into my mind is the Shoe Event Horizon, from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (link (http://www.clivebanks.co.uk/THHGTTG/THHGTTGradio11.htm)) Where does a person focus their attention when depressed? What does a person do to try and cheer themselves up?
The photograph frames a moment of time for consideration. It is mute. Upon a slab of wall, it is a window to another place. What shall we put into that window? Is it something that focuses attention "up," or "down?"
Drew Wiley
17-Jul-2014, 12:55
Wyoming might be forested with more gas wells than trees at the moment, but at least not where I'm going.
i seem to remember jorge g. years ago
spewing all sorts of stuff about how terrible ink prints were
how they were utter crap and anyone who did these terrible things was a fool &c.
until he visited someone from this forum ( name escapes me ) saw some of his prints
and admitted how wrong he was
... it was kind of refreshing ..
marfa boomboom tx
17-Jul-2014, 13:18
Mr Boombox, why on earth would I want to pay someone else to print my work? Then it wouldn't be my print, not even my work, as far as I'm concerned. Besides,
I already have a fully equipped personal color lab. And back to Paul.... well, I do count myself lucky to be living in an urban area with more public open space
than any other comparable place in the country. I am within three blocks of a seven thousand acre park, within minutes of driving to so many others that I haven't
even visited half of them. New ones are opening up soon. Don't compare these to city parks. I was on a ridgetop walk a few weeks ago where I didn't see another person the entire day. Then I finished off the day at on old port on the river where you can photograph rust and peeling paint forever if you want to. Just minutes from my house. Plus we have several nearby state parks, plus a sizable National Seashore. Then the Sierra is only about three hours away, so a fairly comfortable drive after traffic dies down at night. This part of the state is very different from LA. And if we squabble about things like taxes just like everyone else, at least the vast majority of people here will fork out a little both to protect and expand our public land trusts, trails, etc. Even at very popular areas like Pt Reyes or
Mt Diablo it's very easy to find solitude. Ninety percent of the people visit only ten percent of the places. The most crowded spot anywhere is Muir Woods. There
will be a dozen tour buses parked there at any given time, plus two hundred cars. Just cross the creek and walk the trail the opposite direction. You'll probably see two or three people the whole day, and it will be lovely. Probably the majority of 8x10 shots I took this year showed some kind of human imprint, even if it was only old roads, fences, and cattle. I go for what strikes my eye, regardless. Done far more than my fair share of wrecks and ruins or whatever, hundred of prints.
But to think that one has to work hard to find subject matter totally void of apparent human inflence is to be very naive about a lot of the West.
Hell I'll pay to find out if you're worth it. Or I'll fly to sf, my expense to see how strong your skills.
Drew Wiley
17-Jul-2014, 13:27
I'm not a commercial lab. I don't do other people's negs, just my own. And I'm allergic to RA4, so I only do limited numbers during mild weather when I can roll my
big drum processor outdoors. Half this game is learning how to shoot a neg or chrome to exactly match the suite of printing skills or equip you've mastered yourself. If you need a hired gun who works with other people's negs, talk to somebody like Bob Carnie. Otherwise, if you just want to see portfolios of completed prints, that's
an entirely different subject. My studio is torn up at the moment (distinct from the lab, which does not have a display area), so it would have to be at some prearranged location.
Kirk Gittings
17-Jul-2014, 13:47
But to think that one has to work hard to find subject matter totally void of apparent human inflence is to be very naive about a lot of the West.
If you know what you are looking for, even in a relatively unpopulated place like New Mexico, there is virtually no landscape that doesn't show the influence of man if you are looking for evidence from as far back as pre-historic and paleo indian presence. This includes deep desert areas and mountain tops. I've been fortunate to have had some archeological training by some of the best and know the NM landscape well. I amaze people by what I come up with even in places like the Bisti "Wilderness" where I have found ample evidence of human presence in that landscape. Just last winter on the volcanos west of Albuquerque in a very desolate area I found a Jay Phase basalt point approx. 7500 years old. There is a very innocuous native shrine near the top of Mt. Taylor 11,000+ feet. (what most people would consider a very "natural" place) that is 12,000 years old and has been a source for timber (Chaco) and stone for tools at least that long. It is so far from "untouched" that it is funny.
I would suggest that there are virtually no landscapes on this continent that haven't been modified in some way by the hand of man. What is "natural" in reality? Its all in the perception and definition. Is the Bisti natural and the Trinity site a human wasteland? Its just a matter of degrees. Neither, strictly speaking are natural, neither are any of the national parks. When some one suggests they are photographing "natural landscape" they are naive. I'm as big a sucker as anyone about getting away from modern civilization. But I always find myself in the midst of human history no matter where I go. A good popular read on the subject is "1491" where this is touched on somewhat.
marfa boomboom tx
17-Jul-2014, 13:49
I'm not a commercial lab. I don't do other people's negs, just my own. And I'm allergic to RA4, so I only do limited numbers during mild weather when I can roll my
big drum processor outdoors. Half this game is learning how to shoot a neg or chrome to exactly match the suite of printing skills or equip you've mastered yourself. If you need a hired gun who works with other people's negs, talk to somebody like Bob Carnie. Otherwise, if you just want to see portfolios of completed prints, that's
an entirely different subject. My studio is torn up at the moment (distinct from the lab, which does not have a display area), so it would have to be at some prearranged location.
Just off phone . Have reservation set. Will be in sf August 21, staying st Regis ... Would like to see dye transfer, ciba, some of your prior work is fine. Hope that is enough time to locate a couple prints...
Land after 3 pm...
Drew Wiley
17-Jul-2014, 14:04
Premature with DT. I'm only a wannabee in that dept. Have put together supplies and made some custom equip, and have remastered things like separation negs
pure darkroom using currently avail films, but otherwise am still learning the chords. Got plenty of Ciba work on hand except for big ones - almost all sold off some
time back, except for a couple I kept for our own house. Most of the C prints on hand are unmounted, since I only mount and frame those on demand (unlike drymounted b&w work), but they can still be viewed loose of course. If you just want to see a random portfolio of something portable like 20x24's for example,
that's not too difficult, just so you get a feel for the different media. Most people, for example, haven't seen just how well color negs print onto Fuji Supergloss fully analog, from an enlarger. Timing is a bit fussy due to potential bridge traffic. I'm on the other side of it from SF. I'll PM you a bit later.
Drew Wiley
17-Jul-2014, 14:20
Oh my, Kirk... you struck a chord there. I vividly remember reaching some of those remote mtn basins with no sign whatsoever of modern human activity, and seeing atlatl points littering the gravel. Of course, if moderns had been there, those all would have been picked up and taken home. This has happened numerous times. The artifacts were quite different from those of historic Indians, which predictably used the meadows, stream corridors, and easier passes that now trails grace. I have long surmised that they were either hunting different game at the time, had very different climate, different technology, or all the above. It's entirely possible, even probable, that some of the canyon routes were still blocked by valley glaciers. The small artifacts that normally people don't even bother picking up were entirely different from those of historic tribes. In fact, back then nobody confirmed my hunch until I came up here to Cal and showed them to Glynn Isaacs, and compared them to Paleolithic samples from Europe. He instantly recognized what I had. And there were times I was having a serious time groveling up some
nearly Class 3 pitch way above timberline, and there would be a broken atlatl point - maybe shot at a bighorn?? Whole different ballgame than how the historic
tribes went after the same critters. Only in the very most rugged areas, like the Enchanted Gorge and a few other mtn "sanctuaries" would there be an absolute
zero of such fragments of human presence. Was in one of them two years ago. Based on related artifacts I drew connect-the-dots maps, often using stereo aerial
photos, and the pattern was absolutely stunningly different than anything that made sense in the present climate regime, or even present or recent game patterns. But even relatively late Indians got around. They like to be atop the easier passes scanning for bighorn and getting away from the mosquitoes. But easy
is a relative term. One of the most dreaded "official" in Sequoia is undergoing maintenance, and hard enough to get up in modern boots. I got to the top and was
imagining just how rough it would have been on bare feet. But I knew they did it. While my buddies were resting and eating snacks, it took me less than two minutes poking around the summit rocks to find obsidian chips and identify the ethnicity.
marfa boomboom tx
17-Jul-2014, 14:25
Sounds good
But to think that one has to work hard to find subject matter totally void of apparent human inflence is to be very naive about a lot of the West
One has to travel to places that are entirely unlike what experiences on most days of one's life.
Which raises interesting questions about what we want to explore with art. Art that's about quotidian life is as old as art itself and shouldn't need any defending ... we need to make sense of the actual world we experience. Art that shows an antidote to quotidian life is also easy to understand.
I personally feel that too much of the latter becomes escapist and ahistorical, and ends up turning its back on much of what's relevant in the world. Some would disagree. I'm really not pressing this point. But I'll argue tooth and nail that art about the everyday landscape people really live in ... cities, suburbs, and odd, half-developed spaces ... is not some gimmick. It's not some special case or fad. It's IS contemporary landscape art, because it is about the contemporary landscape.
Just as in 18th century Europe landscape was cultivated, pastoral land, and in the late 19th century landscape was wilderness.
I would suggest that there are virtually no landscapes on this continent that haven't been modified in some way by the hand of man. What is "natural" in reality? Its all in the perception and definition.
I agree with this completely.
I also suspect that people are talking about something a bit different when discussing pictures of "wilderness" or "unspoiled nature." They're talking about an idea, or an ideology, or even a mythology ... one they've probably held onto for a long time and never questioned very hard. Upon questioning, it becomes problematic, because of the kinds of historical facts and contradictions you've described. But the idea, as vague as it is, is very real for people.
It's real for me. I'm heading off to the Tetons in a few days, and plan to spend as much time as possible in the mountains. I will be edifying myself in the "wilderness." Never mind that it's a park, that I'll be on trails half the time, that every inch of the place has been mapped and every feature named, and that from every high point I'll be able to see roads and towns and airports. But there's still enough of the markers of wilderness ... enough things that look, smell, feel, and sound like that idealized lost garden I cary with me in my imagination, that the experience will feel special. It will feel more different from my everyday life than it probably is.
Is this reaction honest, or is it self-deception? I think the former, because I'm not kidding myself about the actual state of things. In this regard I think people's reaction to landscape art that's looks pristine and unspoiled can likewise be honest. But again, only if they're not kidding themselves about what's actually going on.
And even then, I doubt this kind of experience, whether of place or of a piece of art, is enough. If I were privileged enough to spend my whole life wallowing in the illusion of the unspoiled, I'd be opting out of civic life. I'd be separating myself from the realities of virtually everyone else. I'd have no connection to their experience, their struggles, concerns, fears, and aspirations.
There's a place for escapism in experience and also in art. But there's a need for much more than that. And I believe the best art does more than provide a comforting illusion of world that's gone, or maybe even hasn't existed in anyone's memory. This doesn't mean a beer can or a parking lot (although if handled imaginatively, it could include these things). This doesn't mean work can't be pretty. The antithesis of pretty is no more profound than the merely pretty. My belief, simply, is that pretty isn't enough. And escape from the everyday isn't enough.
Drew Wiley
18-Jul-2014, 08:59
The Tetons are hardly remote, Paul. But there are surrounding areas with quite a bit of solitude, and even within the park boundaries you can go off trail. But the
concept of photographically rendering "pure" nature or "wilderness" per se is indeed closely ideologically united to that whole Thoreauvian ethos deliberately cultivated by people like Eliot Porter and the Sierra Club during seminal stages of both the Natl Parks and Wilderness movement. Developing the concept visually was crucial to the whole public relations and lobbying package involved during that long era, and still somewhat is. But your perspective is also highly skewed. Now I'm not like my nephew, who literally has gone on long expeditions to completely unexplored, unmapped parts of the Karakorum etc. I do find it psychologically necessary
to find some time every year to get utterly away from any sign of human impact, if possible, and generally succeed for a few days at least, with of course some
trail travel also a prerequisite somewhere in the process - but photographically I often prefer to have some signs of human history in the landscape. Even some
old rusted strand of barbed wire, or a fading miner's trail across the hillside - something to give a sense of "depth" in terms of human experience. If the print is a
two-dimensional thing, and only implies depth of perspective by various illusions, if I want that kind of perspective depth at all, at least there is another kind of
dimension. I've done the same thing with evidence of ancient inhabitants. Many of us have. But if the nature of the composition functions best with zero evidence
of man, I'll act on that premise, and do so frequently. But really.... you need to get out on your feet a ways. My memories are obviously very very different from
yours, and a lot of them do in fact represent actual wilderness experiences. Yes, in this day and age, at least here in the continental US, many such places are
officially protected preserves of one category or another. Some are just rugged places period, able to defend themselves for the moment. But there is still a lot
of area involved in some of them, and there's are still some pristine areas which get only get infrequent visitation from the determined hiker or climber. You'd have
to look damn hard for a tin can or fishing bobber or axe mark on a tree, or pile of firepit stones. So point your camera just about any direction, and "wilderness"
would not be in any sense a misnomer.
Kevin J. Kolosky
18-Jul-2014, 09:19
I think a lot of people, including some here, make things a lot more complicated than they need to be. Photography is a visual language and it seems somewhat senseless to use all of these big fancy words to describe things that may or may not be.
And then of course there are those who have to try and see if they can "outword" the other with their own personal subjective theories.
Enjoy the landscape for what it is. A rendering of a place.
Drew, I'm not sure how my perspective is "skewed." Toward what? By what?
I think we agree that the Thoreauvian (I didn't know that was the adjective ... thanks) esthetic is behind a lot of what we in America consider Wilderness. I consider Thoreau himself a Romantic, who even in his time was trying to reclaim a Garden of Eden he'd never known. Walden Pond was a short walk form town and a shorter walk from his neighbors, and he spent plenty of time having civilized conversations accompanied by food bought at the store.
I think you and I both value time spent in places that at the very least look and feel to us like wilderness. My point is that for us, and certainly for most people today, this kind of time is exceptional. It represents an escape from where we spend most of our hours.
And btw, yes, the tetons are hardly remote. I've also been in the Wind Rivers and the Sangre de Cristos and the Absarokas ... in the latter I was once a day's distance from the nearest trail. I think the difference between these and the Tetons is mostly a matter of degree.
I think a lot of people, including some here, make things a lot more complicated than they need to be. Photography is a visual language and it seems somewhat senseless to use all of these big fancy words to describe things that may or may not be.
Enjoy the landscape for what it is. A rendering of a place.
In my experience people pretend things are less complicated than they are.
I won't go as far as Socrates, who said "the unexamined life is not worth living." But I think it's a hell of a lot less interesting than the examined life. And likewise unexamined art is less interesting than examined art.
I also suspect that people are talking about something a bit different when discussing pictures of "wilderness" or "unspoiled nature." They're talking about an idea, or an ideology, or even a mythology ... one they've probably held onto for a long time and never questioned very hard. Upon questioning, it becomes problematic, because of the kinds of historical facts and contradictions you've described. But the idea, as vague as it is, is very real for people.
....
There's a place for escapism in experience and also in art. But there's a need for much more than that. And I believe the best art does more than provide a comforting illusion of world that's gone, or maybe even hasn't existed in anyone's memory. This doesn't mean a beer can or a parking lot (although if handled imaginatively, it could include these things). This doesn't mean work can't be pretty. The antithesis of pretty is no more profound than the merely pretty. My belief, simply, is that pretty isn't enough. And escape from the everyday isn't enough.
My style of landscape does not depend on vast untouched property. We have thick woods, and a moose or marijuana farm could be 50 feet away and you'd never know. Still the feeling of being with nature / natural elements more than people is what's important to capture. That feeling is important, but too often subordinate to the detail in f64 style photos. If your DOF is a few inches or a few feet, or mushy soft, you can show that feeling without a Jack London like adventure or having a massive western space, using layers, shapes, light and dark like a painter might. Even fully sharp, compositions can be chosen to eliminate or include as you wish in comparatively confined real estate. I think the grander purpose of escapism in terms of motivation to a photographer is to clear your mind so you can get that feeling which is exciting and challenging to sometimes capture. Winter can create that feeling too, as most people stay in out of the snow and you can have more places to yourself. Night can do it, but it's hard to photograph. Winter and night combined together into "Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening", which is big on feelings and thoughts and all that better done with words than photograph.
Drew Wiley
18-Jul-2014, 09:50
Paul - I'm not particularly fond of mixing up words, academic-style, with visual content, which I personally prefer to be ambiguous at times. But the whole Thoreu thing, versus cuddly Romanticism - and especially in that manner like EP embraced it per "Walden" - implies the holistic integrity of nature, taking it as it (allegedly)
is... the wisdom of intact ecosystems as inherently designed by nature (yeah, a philosophical stance, but never mind). Porter and others constructed visual metaphors for this. And yeah, that Pond itself, just like his family island home in Maine, had plenty of human signs - many in his own pictures - but before those big
projects like Glen Canyon - "intimate landscapes" presented the concept to the public. Who else at that time would photograph splotches of bird poop on a brown rock and find that aesthetically pleasing? That was a completely different stance than Romanticist painters trying to "improve" nature with some kind of mystical
ideal, or of the Oriental custom, or English Garden habit, of regarding some species and habitats worth preserving, and others worth removing and "improving".
I'm just stating what I think is the obvious trigger to that kind of color photography in its heyday. Not that I think that way myself, but recognize it. Prior to that,
I don't think the post-frontier landscape photographers thought that way at all. Now an awful lot of it is just mass-produced wannabee texture studies and so forth. The cat is long out of the bag. But from my viewpoint, I think there is a distinction. I will freely admit to printing a few "picture book" subjects last year,
intended for gifts. Not everyone is going to relate to what I print for myself. But at least I tried to do it in a tasteful way, that isn't stereotypical.
Kevin J. Kolosky
18-Jul-2014, 10:07
In my experience people pretend things are less complicated than they are.
I won't go as far as Socrates, who said "the unexamined life is not worth living." But I think it's a hell of a lot less interesting than the examined life. And likewise unexamined art is less interesting than examined art.
Does one who lives a life off the land in a cabin in the wilderness live a lessor life than one who lives in a city and, as you say, examines life? Each of us can only answer that question for our own selves, as Socrates may have been doing for his own self. Even though I am well read in photography - if I see a print of a landscape I don't worry if its of a romantic period or this period or that. Those are just definitions that could be any other word, and mean many different things to many different people. Rather, I enjoy the print for what it is - what is says to me - for that is the only person whom I can even attempt to understand.
Drew Wiley
18-Jul-2014, 10:33
Thanks for saying that, Kevin. If some academic can sit in an office and pontificate how everyone beyond the city limits is an ignorant "romantic" or whatever, I feel
free to play the same game an call them an uncultured flatlander. Not fair either way, but you get the point. Slow down, stop and look. Perceive.
invisibleflash
18-Jul-2014, 11:25
It's interesting to see what curators say about their mission. Collections exist for different purposes, and curators have different visions (and job descriptions). I don't believe there's anyone curating a major photo collection who's ignorant of the history of the medium. Everyone that I've talked to or read anything from has known a whole lot more than I do.
If they're collecting stuff that isn't "good" by the same definitions you'd apply to Edward Weston, there are many possible reasons for it. One reason is that they're interested in the work people are doing today, which is exploring a very different world (and probably very different ideas about it). Another is that they have plenty of stuff already that looks like what Weston did. They probably have a lot of actual Westons. Why would they be interested in contemporary, anachronistic stuff that's trying to look like work 80 years ago? Another reason could be that they have a particular interest, or a particular slant. For example Quentin Bajac, who just took over photo at MoMA, said he's interested in looking at the way contemporary photography overlaps and interacts with other media, like painting.
I've never heard a curator say anything as obnoxious as "I'm only interested in groundbreaking work." That would be a setup for some serious pies in the face. But a lot are interested in work that feels like the product of today, rather than just a recycling of the familiar.
I corresponded with tons of curators all over the world. I tried to get them into digital collecting to open up collection space as they complain of 'no space' issue. Had zero success.
invisibleflash
18-Jul-2014, 11:26
Once all the novelty of digital shchmigital trickery starts wearing thin, I think the next big thing will be an amateur renaissance of short film, due to the relatively low budget threshold of gear nowadays, namely DLSR's etc with video-like capability. The huge art museum being built by UC right up the street will largely be dedicated to that kind of thing as well as various "interactive" nonsense, which I have interest in even asking about. "Modern" art is largely a misnomer is you have "contemporaneous" in mind. Most of it, in terms of framed content, is now 75 years old and getting pretty predictable. Photography will get a foot in the door from time to time, especially if its "controversial" (a mandatory ingredient of Modernism off its leash and directionless, it seems), but I wouldn't hold your breath at some venues. Some museums - like the excellent Oakland Museum here - are largely dedicated to the preservation of key historical collections. They show newer work from time to time, but collect only token bits of it. Only so much funding and facilities out there. I'd expect regional venues to pick up a bit of the slack with things like landscape work, but many sponsors only know what they're "supposed" to collect - meaning the same ole 75-year old pop art stuff, or one or two
two deceased photographers who everybody knows about. It's a hit an miss game. Once in awhile you get lucky, if you have the right connections (which is at least half the battle).
It would be nice if the had more interest in outsider photogs. Most of the ones I have talked with are interested in old timers...tried and true. On the whole, curators don't seem to be risk takers.
invisibleflash
18-Jul-2014, 11:28
This topic reminds me of an insightful comment made by one of my favorite writers, Barry Holstun Lopez. Lopez was at first a serious landscape photographer, and he took his best work to National Geographic where editors told him that his work was as good as the best they had seen, "but we have an awful lot of that kind of work, and relatively little use for it." That experience was one of two he related regarding why he left photography for writing.
(Writer William Least Heat-Moon also began as a photographer and left it to write instead.)
Regarding the showing of contemporary photographers - yes, of course some museums have shows of living photographers, and some when the photographers were young. However, I do not know of any living classic landscape photographers being shown, but probably because I lack interest in such.
.
Good summation
invisibleflash
18-Jul-2014, 11:29
I'm surprised anyone would find the situation fundamentally different for writers. I can't think of a field of writing where editors are interested in fine examples of something they're already buried under. Especially not in creative writing. The fiction and poetry worlds are brutal, with droves of very talented people struggling to get published.
Edited to add ... I've put a lot of my own creative energy into writing over the last few years. My writing hasn't broken in anywhere, while my photography gets noticed from time to time. But I find trends and innovations in creative writing more interesting right now than trends and innovations in photography. Just personal taste, probably. Since 2010 I've bought maybe 20 poetry books for every photo book (also doesn't hurt that they're cheaper ...)
Very tough for writers. You need a literary agent to approach the big pubs.
invisibleflash
18-Jul-2014, 11:30
"New for the sake of new" is a common dismissal, but it almost never holds up to close examination. And it never, ever holds up to the test of time. If work brings nothing to the table but novelty, it's instantly obsolete ... it will hold no interest next year. We have to consider that work accused of being new for the sake of new has frequently held up for over a century, and has also been tremendously influential to what follows.
We can take it as a truism that novelty isn't enough. But we also need to examine the ways newness is important.
You would not be content to look at the same picture forever, to the exclusion of all others. You'd get sick of it. You would not be able to re-live the sense of discovery that you had looking at it early on. So you want to look at other pictures. They have to be different, in some way, from the picture you've exhausted.
How different? Different in what ways? I can't answer that. But I believe that we can become fatigued not just by individual pictures, but by tropes, conventions, clichés, ways of looking. Over time the avant garde becomes garde. Experiments that initially led to discoveries eventually discover nothing more. They become exercises.
On top of all this the world changes. Ideas about the world change. Power relationships change. Surfaces change. We expect our art to take notice. How can it do so without becoming something new?
Yes, hard to do new things. A lot of it is just variations on a theme. With zillions of photogs pressing the button the most many can hope for is some unique angle.
invisibleflash
18-Jul-2014, 11:34
I've been out of the loop for quite awhile, but doubt that much has really changed. Oddly, in each case I did get some kind of gig, I was approached by them and
not the other way around. Word of mouth. Some artist they really liked happened to admire my work, and they just all showed up together.
Your lucky, I never got a thing unless I knocked on their door...loudly!
invisibleflash
18-Jul-2014, 11:36
That's a great observation to share. We are often the worst judges of our own work. Especially when it comes to judging its historical or cultural significance (or lack thereof). We're too close to it. Our connection to it is too personal. We can be blinded by our old ideas about it, or by what we were thinking when we made it.
What do you think Atget would have said about his pictures? Probably something like, "here are some shots of Paris. I'm selling them to theater set designers for one Franc." If it weren't for Dorothea Lange seeing something more, and then the surrealists flipping out over them, we might never have heard of him.
Winogrand said he got maybe $10 a print from MOMA (back in the 60's?)
invisibleflash
18-Jul-2014, 11:42
I'm more than upset by all of this. I grew up in the 60's and had all sorts of idealism. I wanted to see a world that was getting better all the time. One can blame any number of things, mostly political, which I will stay away from, but the long and the short of it is that it didn't happen. For the most part, things are worse now, and certainly this is true in the art world.
The tradition of photography that I grew up with was all about how deep and how close you could get. If you took a portrait of a person, the goal was to get every bit of their being onto the print. One should be able to see their whole life, all of their feelings, and know exactly who they are, or were at that moment. The portraits by Lewis Hine at Ellis Island and the work of Walker Evans in Georgia, just to name a couple, were great examples. If you had the right permission, and had the ability to be (platonically) intimate with your subject, you could capture everything about who that person was at that moment in time. Of course, you had to be able to get there yourself, and that required one's own emotional work. It wasn't a "taking" of a photograph, it was more like giving one, or simply creating something together. It was a celebration of humanity and depth. In an idealistic time the integrity of it was infectious and I was hooked. I know it was naive.
It wasn't limited to portraiture. In the zillion other subjects the idea was to discover, and focus on, the underlying principle that made something worth looking at.
Now everyone is talking about "the new". Just because its new does't mean its worth looking at, like all those tourist photos. Further, most of the stuff that is purported to be new, isn't. Everything has already been done before, at least once. Some of the points that post-modernism makes have some validity, however, to suggest that one goes forward while dismissing the entire history of photography make no sense to me at all. One simply has to go thru the entire aesthetic process all over again. I have actually read that "one should not ever take a photograph while the subject is looking at the camera". Imagine that. A total rejection of the rules, only to make a new, more restrictive rule. It supposes that what someone is doing is more important than who they are. I can't agree.
The music is bad. The TV is ludicrous, people are mindlessly spending their time at shopping malls. Kids are stuck in video games. Movies are so superficial that the most popular ones are based on comic books. Are we such a country of weaklings, that we can't handle real emotion, or real anything, for that matter? Is everything commodity and superficiality, is art only about the cerebral.
In art we have these people running the galleries and museums who, for the most part, want to be artists themselves and come up with themes for exhibitions, like everyone who photographs and has red in the picture. Oh look, "Filters". Wheeeee. I don't even bother going to galleries or museums anymore, there is nothing there, certainly not in my state. I know there are plenty of smaller institutions which present some good work. But I'm not impressed by the new Topographics, Cindy Sherman or Jef Wall. It's photography as deep as comic books.
I could go on. And on and on. I think I'll just stop there. I'm mostly just angry that it took me 50 years to figure out how this works. If I understood then what I know about the art world today I never would have started.
Lenny
Well spoken post Lenny.
Now, when it comes to getting work accepted into museums...it is very, very hard. At least when it comes to getting into the better known museums. (And I'm not talking about Gugg or MOMA, I mean medium size museums.) Sometimes it can take 1-1/2 years to get approval. Two museums took almost 11 months to just answer an email.
You not only have to be favored by the Curator, but the Deputy Director and Director has to like your work as well as the Board.
In my early days of museum work I learned a hard lesson. My work was accepted by the Curator and presented to the Board by the Director. I felt sure they would accept it. So much that I listed it on my bio as in their permanent collection. Then after the Board met in 5 months I got the news the Board voted against accepting the gift. I had to rush and remove it from my bio. Luckily the mishap did not go any further.
Here is a rundown of what a photography Curator does...
The Curator of Photographs will have overall responsibility for the stewardship and development of the Museum’s extensive holdings of photographs.• The Curator of Photographs will be responsible for but not limited to performing the following job functions:
- Provides overall direction to the department and its activities including the mission, goals, and strategies of the Art Museum.
- Demonstrates curatorial responsibility for all art objects within the aegis of the curatorial department, and works in cooperation with other curators where departmental responsibilities for art objects overlap, for example with contemporary art or where an artist is ascribed dual nationalities.
- Cares for, researches, documents, exhibits, preserves (in consultation with the Conservation Department), and publishes works of art in the permanent collection, including those in storage or display.
- Responsible for the generation of temporary exhibitions, whether from concept or by assignment, organized by the Museum or by another institution.• Exhibitions involve organizing, researching, writing, supervising and/or coordinating details such as lectures, catalogues, brochures, labels, installation, photography, gallery tours, publicity, fund raising, presentations on• the exhibition topic, selection and negotiation of loans, hosting lenders and artists, and preparation of and adherence to budgets.• Museum procedures have to be followed, and all activities have to be coordinated with all relevant existing divisions such as: Museum Services, Development, Marketing/Public Service, and Learning and Interpretation.
- Lectures and writes on works of art in the Museum’s permanent collection(s) for scholarly meetings and/or publications, or general and particularized programs within the Museum, for books, newspapers, and general publications, all within the limits of curatorial specialties and based on or related to the permanent collections of the Museum.• Where necessary, all writing (e.g., grant writing, newspaper writing, brochure texts) must be coordinated with the proper division, such as Learning and Interpretation, Development, or Marketing/Public Service.
- Seeks and recommends new acquisitions of gifts or purchases within the curatorial specialties or the permanent collections, including scholarly research and background material to justify consideration of a given art object or objects and prepares acquisition worksheets.•
Gifts and purchases are recommended by the curator to the Deputy Director, Curatorial Affairs who recommends them to the Director and ultimately the Collections and Acquisitions Committee of the Board.• No works of art may be purchased or accepted as gifts without the Director’s and the Board’s approval.
- Furnishes consultation and advice on art matters to other museums, public and private collectors, at no time suggesting financial appraisals.
- Installs and labels works of art in the permanent collections in concert with the divisions of Learning and Interpretation and Museum Services.
- Responsible for division, maintaining and adhering to all relative budgets, including those related to permanent installations, temporary exhibitions, the department and special projects.• Where applicable, supervises departmental staff, including volunteers.
- Responsible for docent training, public lectures, gallery talks, and press education for selected projects in coordination with the divisions of Development, Learning and Interpretation, and Marketing/Public Service.
- Supports the fund-raising and public relations efforts of the Museum, in coordination with the divisions of Development and Marketing/Public Services.
- Serves as liaison between the Museum and departmental visiting committees and other groups with special interest in or support of the department.• Represents museum at social and civic events.
- Serves on various committees or panels, and attends meetings demanded by the position.
- Acts as courier in U.S. and abroad in coordination with the division of Museum Services.• Attends conferences and lectures, and visits museums and dealers in U.S. and abroad.
- Performs other miscellaneous duties as assigned by the Chief Curator.
Requirements: M.A. in Art History (Ph.D. preferred) with a minimum of five years relevant experience in the field.
Skills necessary: A proven ability to work successfully with others to achieve institutional objectives.• Must possess a broad familiarity with photographs; a demonstrated knowledge of museum practices; excellent written and oral communication skills; good working knowledge of database, word processing, and other relevant computer programs; and a commitment to both scholarship and working with diverse public constituencies; ability to present information effectively and respond to questions from museum staff, donors, members of the museum, and the general public.•
The Curator of Photographs must be able to create and manage program budgets.
--------------------------------------------
Bottom line...NO curator of photography I've corresponded with is a museum quality photog themselves. they are academics and about 75% - 80% of them are female.
Kevin J. Kolosky
18-Jul-2014, 12:15
" academics"
ah yes, that is the word I was looking for.
Rather, I enjoy the print for what it is - what is says to me - for that is the only person whom I can even attempt to understand.
I wouldn't ever argue with that. I just have trouble with an idea that's often implied ... that trying to understand something more deeply, or in a broader context, or in relation to more things, must somehow take away from our enjoyment. It only adds to mine. I get confuse by the old head vs. heart dichotomy, which is really the same argument. Why must feeling come at the expense of thinking, or vice-versa? I find they only enhance each other. The best art stimulates me on all those levels at the same time.
" academics"
ah yes, that is the word I was looking for.
adjective
of or relating to education and scholarship: academic achievement | he had no academic qualifications.
• of or relating to an educational or scholarly institution or environment: students resplendent in academic dress.
• (of an institution or a course of study) placing a greater emphasis on reading and study than on technical or practical work: an academic high school that prepares students for the best colleges and universities.
• (of a person) interested in or excelling at scholarly pursuits and activities: Ben is not an academic child but he tries hard.
noun
a teacher or scholar in a college or institute of higher education.
Kirk Gittings
18-Jul-2014, 13:06
It would be nice if the had more interest in outsider photogs. Most of the ones I have talked with are interested in old timers...tried and true. On the whole, curators don't seem to be risk takers.
Totally untrue in my experience. Nothing turns them on like discovering something new and good (can mean a lot of different things) that they can present to the public and their peers. I say that as a "tried and true old timer" who gets shows based on my reputation for work I haven't even created yet.
Heroique
18-Jul-2014, 13:13
Just a sidebar, what's wrong with being an academic?
Thoreau was a Harvard-graduated, dyed-in-the-wool academic.
But he was also a Romanticist, which is being bigger and smaller than an academic.
That is, he was equal parts Paul, Drew, and Kevin – esp. in his great work Walden. Profound scholarly and scientific reflection here, childlike (not childish) immediacy there.
The best visual landscapes, I think, provoke the viewer much like his written landscape does in Walden – and worth any curator's time to collect.
Here is a rundown of what a photography Curator does...
That's very interesting, although it sounds like a want ad ... I suspect this is one institution's job description, and so it won't perfectly mirror other institutions.
Curators at big museums, in my limited experience, rank fundraising very high on their list of priorities. Two I spoke with years ago (at the Brooklyn Museum and SF MoMA) said they had ZERO acquisitions budget. I don't know exactly what this means, because many things in their collections are listed as purchased. But they made it clear that they spend a lot of time getting people to give them stuff.
Bottom line...NO curator of photography I've corresponded with is a museum quality photog themselves. they are academics and about 75% - 80% of them are female.
Which I think is fine. Division of labor. I don't know any photographers who have the knowledge, breadth, or even the interest required to be great curators. Szarkowsky was a historical outlier.
Kirk Gittings
18-Jul-2014, 13:16
I am an academic, well I have one foot in academia and one foot in commercial photography and one foot in FA photography...........
I love some parts of academia and hate others but I can say the same about commercial photography and FA photography.
I am an academic, well I have one foot in academia and one foot in commercial photography and one foot in FA photography...........
Tripod
noun
1 a three-legged stand for supporting a camera or other apparatus.
Kirk Gittings
18-Jul-2014, 13:19
....:)
Drew Wiley
18-Jul-2014, 13:28
No, you're NOT an academic, Kirk. I assume you know how to tie your bootlaces. Most academics don't. Or if you're a genius capable of winning the Nobel prize, you don't know how to even put sox on by yourself. (Worse has publicly happened up here at Cal). Actually it seems to be a lot more complex, despite my own jabs at the profession. Some of these folks are indeed jellyfish who just float with the tide, but I doubt most are. Get to know them and they're in a tough spot. They might actually be rather perceptive, but have to juggle other priorities than just what appeals to them personally, or even what they might respect objectively. ... I mean priorities like funding, funding, funding, funding, getting public attention, placating and donors, supervising shrinking archival assets, managing the office, so to speak. At a certain point they have to put their worst foot forward, cause that may be all Ma Kettle recognizes and is willing to purchase a ticket to see. Or they may have to share debts with other institutions which have somewhat different priorities. Heck, I'm going nuts just figuring out
how to archive my own personal work. I don't envy them. I even know how to build my own flat files and museum cases - but then where do all those go?
Probably to the dumpster once I croak. Maybe somebody will find some prints digging around for some half-eaten pizza crust and I'll become the next Uncle Earl.
Kirk Gittings
18-Jul-2014, 13:56
Yes I am an academic. I've spent a huge portion of my life in academia and don't regret a minute of it. That's not to say that I agree with everything that goes on. That's 7 years in school and 27 years teaching. Since being a full time graduate student though I'm just not a full-time academic, though a few times over the years I have considered going full-time.
http://www.saic.edu/profiles/faculty/kirkgittings/
and
http://santafeuniversity.edu/academics/photography/faculty/
Paul - I'm not particularly fond of mixing up words, academic-style, with visual content, which I personally prefer to be ambiguous at times. But the whole Thoreu thing, versus cuddly Romanticism - and especially in that manner like EP embraced it per "Walden" - implies the holistic integrity of nature, taking it as it (allegedly)
You lose me here, with the idea that talking / writing about art is somehow at odds with the possibility of ambiguity or openness (it isn't). And with the idea of Romanticism being cuddly (I don't see it). And with Thoreau taking nature "as it is" (which is always a subject for debate. Even Thoreau's take on it has been debated, with critics viewing it alternately as Romantic, metaphorical, and satirical).
No, you're NOT an academic, Kirk. I assume you know how to tie your bootlaces.
If it isn't obvious from this exchange, Kirk is using using the word for what it actually means, and you are using it connotatively, as an insult. For a word like academic to have entered popular use as an insult, there must be a climate of extreme anti-intellectualism. Maybe that's not something you want to align yourself with.
Drew Wiley
18-Jul-2014, 15:19
I think of an academic as someone who analyzes and writes about stuff from an objective distance, not a teaching practitioner. Not to be rude, but just how many
textbooks of theory about all this stuff have you contributed to library shelves? I've got a couple real academics in the family, who also teach. One of them has a personal library of twenty thousand volumes, and as per contract is expected to publish about six books a year in a very arcane field. There are a helluva
lot of em right up the street; and at least in this neighborhood an "academic" is viewed as someone rather insulated from the real world implications of what they
study and teach. Not "go the horses' mouth" types. Maybe just a matter of semantics, but I certainly tend to use the term differently from someone who is a hands-on researcher. Yeah, you've got someone like Misrach teaching up there who has published a lot of shots, but nowadays they tend to look more and more academic, i.e., conspicuously packaged to a target academic audience. Quite a contrast from when he was just wandering around the streets at night snapshooting burnt-out hippies nobody was interested in seeing in picture frames. Maybe the custom is different where you are. I don't know. In this business an
academic is an architect or engineer who wears a suit, but has never pounded a nail into anything in his life, so is hell to work with.
Just a sidebar, what's wrong with being an academic?
Thoreau was a Harvard-graduated, dyed-in-the-wool academic.
But he was also a Romanticist, which is being bigger and smaller than an academic.
That is, he was equal parts Paul, Drew, and Kevin – esp. in his great work Walden. Profound scholarly and scientific reflection here, childlike (not childish) immediacy there.
The best visual landscapes, I think, provoke the viewer much like his written landscape does in Walden – and worth any curator's time to collect.
Nothing is wrong with being an academic, other than being constantly reminded of the fact by one person. Where was it implied that it was bad?
David
Drew Wiley
18-Jul-2014, 15:26
I missed your intermediate post, Paul... but yeah, I'm referring to the connotation, not the dictionary definition. Even in academia, it's often used as a put-down.
This neighborhood is swarming with phD's. Most never wear it on their label, so to speak, cause it's not viewed kindly. But it depends on the field of study. So the
customs are rather different in the Physics dept, for example. But people expect physicists to live up to certain stereotypes of peculiarities. The Cal art & photo program is better known for producing snobs than real artists, but there are some notable exceptions. But at least they provide token time with 4x5's and real film.
Heroique
18-Jul-2014, 16:14
Where was it implied that it was bad?
Mainly in posts by Kevin and Drew (posts 170-180), and fully clarified in post 189.
They're thinking of the "bad" academics, of course, but not acknowledging the "good" ones.
Or the supreme ones, like Thoreau.
Drew Wiley
18-Jul-2014, 16:28
Oh it is a convoluted terms, which changes like a chameleon from one context to another. I have a cousin with a phD in Medieval Languages, which have almost no practical implications today, so called him an "academic" would probably be appropriate and a compliment (I've never even seen him since he was two years old). On the other hand, when people refer to the Architecture Dept here at Cal as a bunch of academics, it's certainly not a compliment. In fact, some firms refuse to hire people out of that dept. They throw your resume away. And it doesn't help much that the ugliest most dysfunctional building on campus was designed by its own staff. I do know a number of friends and clients who were perfectly aware of that fact, saw the dept as merely a stepping stone, and wisely apprenticed in some hands-on field afterwards. Some have been incredibly successful. One got downright rich in photography, though now in older age has largely reverted back to building - which he also excels at. Others were creative types who first apprenticed hands-on with contractors specializing in difficult things, they started their own specialized construction firms. Another started a couple of very successful restaurants; and his creative use of decor and interior design is one distinct element in his success (though it sure doesn't hurt that his wife is an incredible chef). And at least around here, if someone was termed an art academic they'd probably be preconceived as some kind of bookish person in a dimly lit library corner. Maybe they'd be the world's expert on the life of George
Eastman, but wouldn't know how to press the button on a box Brownie. Stereotypes are never universals, but obvious have the momentum of popular precedent.
No big deal. Like arguing over the scope of the meaning of "Romanticism" or whether Walden's pond would meet todays contentious standards of being ecologically
and politically correct. So speaking of that latter term, a good moment for me to chime out for the day......
marfa boomboom tx
19-Jul-2014, 08:02
"In the interview he calls the “explosion in prices for young artists,” over the past year or so, “extremely unhealthy,” going on to note that mega-galleries are very much a part of the price-pumping game.
“It’s like day and night,” Lambert told the paper when asked about what the art market was like when he began his gallery in 1966, as compared with today. Lambert lamented that even 20 years ago much was different, with major changes having been brought forth by the internet’s ever-increasing penetration into the art space.
Previously collectors would come into his gallery to engage with the work and there were always questions about collecting and living with art in general, he recalls. Now, discussion, if any, often turns towards potential monetary return."
Mainly in posts by Kevin and Drew (posts 170-180), and fully clarified in post 189.
They're thinking of the "bad" academics, of course, but not acknowledging the "good" ones.
Or the supreme ones, like Thoreau.
Does one who lives a life off the land in a cabin in the wilderness live a lessor life than one who lives in a city and, as you say, examines life? Each of us can only answer that question for our own selves, as Socrates may have been doing for his own self. Even though I am well read in photography - if I see a print of a landscape I don't worry if its of a romantic period or this period or that. Those are just definitions that could be any other word, and mean many different things to many different people. Rather, I enjoy the print for what it is - what is says to me - for that is the only person whom I can even attempt to understand.
I am missing your point from my understanding of what Kevin has written. I concede Drew as an exception to the rule. I'm not trying to be obtuse but I just don't see your point.
David
Heroique
19-Jul-2014, 18:34
I would like to help, but I’m at a bit of a loss. I'm tempted to ask you to describe "the rule," what makes Drew "an exception" to it, what your "understanding" is, and what you believe my "point" to be. If you're a little confused about the flow of ideas here, I'm sure you're not alone. It's pretty typical of threads w/ more than 200 posts! It might be best to live with some degree of ambiguity at this late stage – or start a new thread about a concrete idea you're interested in developing. Lots of great ideas in this thread, even if they are competing in a confused manner. Alas, a democracy of ideas isn't always a tidy place. ;^)
Kevin J. Kolosky
19-Jul-2014, 19:39
"I think of an academic as someone who analyzes and writes about stuff from an objective distance, not a teaching practitioner."
Maybe so if the things being analyzed are able to be measured objectively, such as calculus or chemistry. But much of art, and thus of photography, is purely subjective.
Kirk Gittings
19-Jul-2014, 21:12
"I think of an academic as someone who analyzes and writes about stuff from an objective distance, not a teaching practitioner."
Maybe so if the things being analyzed are able to be measured objectively, such as calculus or chemistry. But much of art, and thus of photography, is purely subjective.
I agree and yet we have art production deeply imbedded in academia as an academic discipline.
There is ongoing conversation about whether or not art-studio counts as academia (and whether an MFA is an academic agree). I've encountered this mostly in the literary world, where there's debate over writing MFA programs. Do they belong in the English department (academic) or the art school (practice)? And what, exactly, is the relationship between the English PhDs and the Writing MFAs?
No one has agreed on an answer to this. Right now the two kinds of programs usually exist side-by-side under the English Dept., with a lot of overlap and also philosophical gaps in the faculty.
Kirk Gittings
20-Jul-2014, 08:33
I know of no university art professors who do not consider themselves part of academia. Some consider their art, pushing boundaries etc, is a form of visual and aesthetic research. As long as I have been seriously interested in photography and art (since I was in high school), art has been part of academia. The difference being-as opposed to just becoming an artist-being the intensive study of art history and theory in conjunction to practicing art in a critical environment.
Can all this be done outside of a university? Of course, but so can architecture, engineering and biology etc. My father was functionally an engineer without any formal training beyond high school. Yet he functioned as an engineer in the Army and then Air Force and later at Sandia National Labs and then private defense contractors.
Drew Wiley
21-Jul-2014, 09:33
Just a point of view concerning the terminology itself, Kirk. My aunt had three phD's, including in art history, taught art history in a NY University among other places and other subjects, probably has more personal work on the Natl Historic Register than even Diego Rivera. But she also taught technique, and was probably the most influential actual teacher of fresco in the 20th C - every aspiring muralist seems to idolize her (I happen to hate most of those old Social Realism murals myself, and vastly prefer her personal watercolors).... But I know damn well, that if anyone called her an "academic" she would have been infuriated. In some circle, that ran directly counter to "hands-on". On the other hand, my dad had to drop out of college to support his younger siblings when his stepfather died. But in the long run, I consider him just as educated as his sister with all those phD's. I think I personally learned far more being pulled out of school for all those family field trips than being in school. Even in the college years I mostly did independent study. And to the end of time I'll be grateful for my Aunt's advice to never attend an art school. My brother did go thru Brooks Insititute, and it was definitely an advantage in terms of commercial photography skills and connections. But
it didn't do a thing for his creative juices. Had to learn those on his own.
Brian C. Miller
21-Jul-2014, 10:57
Yes, museums are collecting landscapers!
I am a landscaper, and I was collected by a museum.
It came for me in the night, when everyone else in my house was asleep. I awoke to soft relaxing music, with gentle Rembrandt lighting streaming in through the windows. I found that I could not move or make any noise, as I was bound up by those soft velvet ropes they use to guide visitors into lines. The ropes, they had wrapped around me like some kind of snake, gagging me and choking me. I was drug outside by the ropes, and into a floating Calder mobile. There were people there, at least I think that's what they were. They wore white overall suits, masks, and gloves. I was entrapped in bubble wrap, and I could not free myself. I struggled when they tried to place me in a crate, but I stopped struggling when I heard someone say, "Shee-it, if'n he don' fit I'll jess git mah chainsaw an' cut him in two. Y'all kin nail him back up when yuh git there."
I don't know how long the trip lasted. It was dark, and hard to breathe in the crate. I finally lapsed into unconciousness. When I awoke, I was already in the exhibit. I was dressed in my work clothes, and there was a lawn rake beside me. There was a barrier, and people looked in at us. I could see some of the letters on the barrier, "t r a e c n a m r o f r e p e m i m".
Initially, I and the others tried to contact the onlookers, but they only stared at us for a while, and then wandered off. We would be fed through a slot if we used our tools as if we were actually doing our jobs. I couldn't hear any sound from outside, and there were no sounds coming through the small ventilation holes. A small "tool shed" hid the toilet. We talked about how we might escape from the prison, but nothing came of it.
Finally after I think three weeks we were let go. I woke up in a corn field in Iowa, all alone. I had to beg and hitchhike back to my family in California. No one would believe me when I told them about my abduction. Nobody would believe that a person could be abducted from their bed. I live in fear of the velvet ropes now. They haunt me, they could come again for me.
Jac@stafford.net
22-Jul-2014, 14:13
...
Sorry. Mistype.
Kirk Gittings
22-Jul-2014, 14:30
geez this is not all that complicated:
definition of an academic.........from the Oxford dictionary.
NOUN
A teacher or scholar in a college or institute of higher education.
academia....
NOUN
The environment or community concerned with the pursuit of research, education, and scholarship:
he spent his working life in academia.
Heroique
22-Jul-2014, 14:46
geez this is not all that complicated…
I mostly agree, but it gets a little more complicated when one takes into account secondary meanings (and tertiary meanings, etc.) – and let's not forget historical meanings that can change over time.
For example, I'm curious what your Oxford dictionary lists as the secondary meaning for "academic" (as a noun).
I bet it says something like: "One who is academic is background, outlook, or methods."
That makes Paul an academic, in good company w/ Thoreau. :D
Kirk Gittings
22-Jul-2014, 15:04
Online it only lists the one definition as a noun.
In my lifetime that is what it has always meant to me.
Drew Wiley
22-Jul-2014, 15:22
Well of course, a prim and proper Oxxxfooord dictionary would give an academic definition like that. It's an academic establishment to begin with. But would a dictionary compiled by Ed Abbey say the same thing?
Heroique
22-Jul-2014, 16:01
But would a dictionary compiled by Ed Abbey say the same thing?
I would say YES. Abbey was every bit the academic that Thoreau was – and, like the cabin builder at Walden, he was both more and less than one, too.
Many examples come to mind, but here are just two:
1) Abbey wrote a moving tribute to Ralph Waldo Emerson and delivered it as a lecture for a class he (Abbey) taught at the Univ. of Arizona. One academic praising another academic within academe. (See his essay titled "Emerson.")
2) Outside academe, I'll let Abbey speak for himself about his own academic inclinations. For a 2-week boat trip, mostly alone, down the Colorado River, putting in at Moab, he considers the following items important enough to mention – I feel no need to put the relevant item in bold, but it ain't the .357! :D
"In my boat, I carried enough food for two weeks, a one-man tent, a sleeping bag, some warm clothes in a rubberized bag, five gallons of drinking water, and the many other items needed for a week or more in the wilds – cigars, bourbon, The Portable Tolstoy, matches, Demeral tablets, pen, notebook, a .357 and a P-38." (See his essay titled "River Solitaire: A Day Book").
Hmm, maybe I should add this list to the "10 Essentials" thread...
Drew Wiley
22-Jul-2014, 16:16
So you're implying he was a fake all along???? Not that I'm shocked. When we all piled into the tiny Mexican restaurant in town, most of the people wore cowboy hats and had cow poop on their boots. Some were working cowboys, some real Indians, and some university professors. I've got family members in the latter category. Reminds me of when I went back to DC, when someone wanted me to partner in their ad agency. A tree had fallen in someone's yard. We got on our shredded Levis and one of them borrowed a beat up old pickup and a chainsaw, to split up the firewood. They were all golf buddies. One was a big time corn lobbyist, another was the CEO of a major oil corp, another was actually a senator, then there we two photographers. They all hung out together on the weekends. On Monday, the put their suits on and shifted roles, and probably publicly called each other the devil. Clock in /clock out.
Kirk Gittings
22-Jul-2014, 17:42
Every dictionary online gave about the same definition. And FWIW, believe it or not, EA could be a name dropping snob.
Robert Langham
22-Jul-2014, 18:47
Show your landscapes to a few curators and find out. I had one acquired by the Farmington Museum today and they were really glad to get it. Got a gate photo from Hubbell Trading Post to ship to their collection this week. Might have two different landscape solo shows coming up and a fairly major traveling show of my Bestiary work kicking off 2016. My feeling is that many folks are reluctant to show their work but curators usually happy to be solicited.
Kimberly Anderson
22-Jul-2014, 19:02
Well done Robert. Your approach to the museums about their purchases and how you approach the solo shows might be an interesting insight for many here who have never sold work or had a show. Care to give us any details?
I'll be in Farmington the weekend of the 26th. I will have to see if I can sneak in and see it.
Drew Wiley
23-Jul-2014, 08:52
Well, I've teased this tiger's tail long enough. Semantics personas can be fun. We used to have a union negotiator in these parts who would dress up in overalls and
talk like a sailor, then would sit down against a dozen lawyers. They all figured he was some dumb hick who would be a pushover. He spoke pure redneck with plenty
of rare expletives, and always went out of his way to ask the meaning any actual legal term in a contract, as if he didn't understand a word of it. But he'd be holding all the cards the whole time, and by the time those long ordeals were over, he consistently skinned them all alive.
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