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Kirk Gittings
11-Feb-2005, 15:19
Following the "What isn't art" thread. I wonder what is "art photography" or "Fine Art Photography"?

Intent, perspective, desire. These are not enough for me to describe art. To describe something as art means I have placed a value judgement on it. No one is truely objective or impersonal.

All writing is not literature. Even all writing intended as literature is not necessarily literature. The intent to create art by itself is not enough in and of itself.

Literature is often defined as "creative writing of recognized artistic value".

This implies value judgement on an individual and societal level.

The word writing is much like the word photography. It simply implies a specific form of technical effort. We lack a word like literature for photography of "recognised artistic value".
Perhaps "fine art photography"? I don't know. It is a term often misused.

Some 35 mm color stock photographers I know, who now own an Epson printer with Ultrachrome inks, are advertising on their website Fine Art Prints. They never did this before the Epson printers became available. It is as if archival inks is what is essential in creating art photography rather than some quality of the image. The images they produce are still mundane but will last 150 boring years.

You can't talk about art without making value judgements. It is humanly impossible. These values may be personal, misguided, silly, profound, worldly whatever. But we should be honest and try to describe what they are even if they are individual. It isn't easy.

Let me give you an example. I know for myself when I do an image that for me is art and when I don't. Part of that judgement is color, color for me is never art. That means that my commercial work is never art because it is all color. So that leaves b&w. All of it is done for personal reasons but I believe that only about one in twenty images that I make is art ie an image that I am going to take the time to print and hang on a wall. The stuff that falls short are just photographs.

Now people who see my work in magazines and museums etc. don't make these same distintions
that I do for my work. To them it is all my work and all my art. For instance there is a book and exhibit coming up that merge the color commercial work and b&w personal images. I allowed these projects to go forward partly because I was intrigued by their vision of my work. I am now rethinking the "not art" judgement that I made for my commercial work.

How do you define "art photography" or do you bother?

bob carnie
11-Feb-2005, 16:01
Kirk

difficult question but I will take a simple stab at it.

I have been involved in photography for a long while , I was very active with the camera in the beginning of my career and then there was a period where I have worked on the printing craft to business side.
About 4 years ago I decided to use the camera actively again and started a series of images that in the end I solarize. I have been very dilegent with this project and have produced a series of approx 60 working prints that I like.
Thirty years ago I started a project on ballet images and shot quite a few images, I revisited these negatives recently and made a portfolio of approx 20 images that I am happy with.

I just handed over the solarized portfolio to a close friend that will hopefully represent and produce gallery shows for me.
I did not hand over the ballet portfolio as it did not represent *my art* to me. It is work that though quite nice does not do any thing for me. It was not well thought out at the time and I feel that looking at the work I was influenced by other photographers , therefore it does not feel like my work.
The solarizations on the other hand were a by product of years flipping prints in the darkroom and thinking , some experimentation, some technical considerations , and then hundreds of rolls of film and prints to narrow down a body of work. This group of images I can call Art. The ballerinas I would consider to be just copywork.
I don't know if this helps
regards
Bob

Armin Seeholzer
11-Feb-2005, 16:34
Hi Kirk

I think art is it if it really comunicates a message to the public in an outstanding technical perfection!
Thats my shortest basic definition of art!
You will get many very different answers.

Good luck.

Darin Boville
11-Feb-2005, 16:51
It is all art. All of it. (there's no value judgement there)

It's just that there is good art and there is not so good art. (this is where the value judgement comes in)

--Darin

www.darinboville.com

Jorge Gasteazoro
11-Feb-2005, 17:10
I would tell you, but then someone here will chime in and tell me I just dont "get it"....so I am staying away from this one.. :)

Kirk Gittings
11-Feb-2005, 17:11
"It's just that there is good art and there is not so good art."

Is all writing literature? Is all photography art?

Does that mean that there is good art photography and not so good art photography?

I would argue that there is photography and then there is "art photography". This is a value judgement that I am pleased to make everyday.

If everything is art then nothing is art.

Leonard Metcalf
11-Feb-2005, 17:17
Have a look at this thread....


http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/topic/498124.html (http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/topic/498124.html)

Martin Miller
11-Feb-2005, 18:01
The message of the 20th century art world, starting with Marcel Duchamp's exhibition of a urinal as art, is that the question of what is art is just not a fruitful line of inquiry. Duchamp essentially said that art is whatever the artist says it is. Andy Warhol said that art is whatever the artist can get away with. In the last few dozen years, they have gotten away with quite a lot. It is futile to debate what is or is not art. As Darin suggested, the real issue, the one requiring critical judgement, is whether the art is question is good art or bad art.

Steve Williams_812
11-Feb-2005, 19:27
There is definitely a divide between "fine art photography" and "art". There is a commercial imperative to making prints that will sell at fairs or in galleries selling work that is "beautiful" or "decorative". I use these words guardedly.

On the other hand, there are artists and photographers working outside that particular commerical imperative (and audience) and are showing in different sorts of galleries, are funded through grants, fellowships, and their own monies, are chosen by curators to be in shows, etc. These photographers---Wall, Mann, Struth, Starn Twins, Gorsky, Goldin, Shore, Friedlander, Frank, etc, they don't show up at fairs.

Is one better than the other? No. Are they different animals and arenas? Certainly. The same thing happens in painting, sculpture. I guess in curator circles or with critics, fine art is commercial vs. "high art" that you may see at MOMA, the Whitney, or at Pace MaGill.....

steve

Mark Sawyer
11-Feb-2005, 19:32
Kirk wrote (in part): "Some 35 mm color stock photographers I know, who now own an Epson printer with Ultrachrome inks, are advertising on their website Fine Art Prints. They never did this before the Epson printers became available. It is as if archival inks is what is essential in creating art photography rather than some quality of the image."

Isn't it clear? Epson is marketing a "fine art printer" with "fine art inks" and you can print on "fine art paper," so what do you expect to get out of it?

As there are quite a few gelatin-silver "fine art" papers out there now, I suggest we all go to our darkrooms and inspect our paper package labels to see if what we've been doing qualifies as "fine art photography" or not.

Hmmm, here's mine, let's see... "Ilford MGIV Multigrade FB De Luxe." Don't say nuthin' about "fine art." Nope, I'm not an artist. Well, at least it's "De Luxe..."

Darin Boville
11-Feb-2005, 20:44
"Is all writing literature? Is all photography art?

Does that mean that there is good art photography and not so good art photography?

I would argue that there is photography and then there is "art photography". This is a value judgement that I am pleased to make everyday.

If everything is art then nothing is art."

If it claims to be art, it is art. If it claims to be literature, it is literature. If it claims to be science, it is science.

It is up to you to to judge it on a scale from "That's a load of b.s." all the way up to "My God, this makes my life worth living!"

It is the value judgement we really care about, not the identity. Most of the time when people make a claim to art they are mixing up both the identity and a value judgement, all in one. What we need is a new word for "art with a small 'a'" and reserve the use of "art" for those times when we mean "Art with a capital 'A'".

My kid creates art. I hope to create Art.

--Darin

www.darinboville.com

Paul Fitzgerald
11-Feb-2005, 21:23
Hi there,

In my rather damn arrogant opinion, because any opinion is rather damn arrogant, here goes:

99 44/100% of photography is just that, photography, because it does not create anything, it merely records whatever. There are exceptions but they are rare, extremely rare. Example:

George Hurrell was a famous photographer who took 1,000s of portraits. No matter how well done or elaborate, they were mostly product shots of Davis 'thing', Crawford 'thing', Gable 'thing', ect. There were a few 'snap shots' of persons but usually product shots. There is one exception that I have seen and Hurrell was not the artist, simply the technician that recorded the performance. The artist was Norma Shearer and in 1/10 second she transcends the medium, she transcends time and space, she transcends herself and projects 'Feminine' and gave Venus a face.

Is the photo 'Art'?. No, but it is a stunning and beautiful record of the art. I do not think photography can ever be 'Art' because it does not create.

"The message of the 20th century art world, starting with Marcel Duchamp's exhibition of a urinal as art, is that the question of what is art is just not a fruitful line of inquiry."

A urinal, a shovel hanging from the ceiling, three toilets, ect. is not art, it was a tasteless bad joke played by a pampered spoiled brat. It is funny but it is just a tasteless bad joke. If you don't get it, you're standing at the wrong end of the joke.

Smile

paulr
11-Feb-2005, 23:15
It looks to me like you didn't read the thread on "what isn't art" closely enough.
I know this because you're still clinging to the pre-20th century idea that "art" implies a value judgement.

As far as "fine art" and likewise "fine art" photography, these are likewise not value judgements.
Fine Arts are a designation originally meant to distinguish painting, music, and architecture from the Liberal Arts, which were defined in classical times. Today, Fine Art is a convenient term of distinction from the Commercial Arts (illustration, design, architecture, etc.)

Aaron_3437
12-Feb-2005, 01:06
I once learnt that Art has the following ingredients:- Ethos, Pathos, Logos.

Robert A. Zeichner
12-Feb-2005, 07:18
If you only make photographs that you think will sell, that to me is not fine art photography. The same is true with painting or sculpture or music. The goal in those instances is more commercial success than creating art. And there are some immensely successful (financially) people doing just that. Thomas Kincade and Kenny G. are two names that come to mind! If after making art, whatever form or medium you choose, you can honestly answer YES to the question: Have I to the best of my ability created this work for the sole purpose of satisfying a need to express what I'm feeling, regardless of what anyone else thinks or how marketable it might be? Then, it's fine art. Whether it's good fine art or awful fine art is another issue. If what you have created resonates with other people and they like what you've done enough to exchange their hard earned money for it, you are fortunate. If you are making stuff for the purpose of pushing the crowd's buttons and racking up sales, that's something else. I was once talking to a photographer who pointed out that he was recently inducted into the "Camera Craftsmen of America". He showed me a hard bound annual of his fellow members work and bios and proudly pointed out his picture in this volume. I was polite about it and congratulated him, but in looking at the alphabetical list of members, many photographers who I would regard as notable "craftsmen" were conspicuously absent from the roster. I asked him what the criteria was for being invited to this august society. His answer was: How many photographs you sell. A better title for the organization might have been "Photo Marketeers of America". Just some more opinions.

Jay DeFehr
12-Feb-2005, 10:24
Paul,

Duchamp's work was an indictment of the role of craft in art. If you don't get that, then I understand your position.

Jay

Kirk Gittings
12-Feb-2005, 11:51
"I know this because you're still clinging to the pre-20th century idea that "art" implies a value judgement. "

I would say though that I cling to a West Coast post-pictorial photography aesthetic.To the above quote, I say, So What.

The real question related to Duchamp, who I find very clever but not very profound, is to what purpose would one want to indict the role of craft in art? What purpose does that serve. What has been the result in art schools of the degredation of craft.

I don't know how many people out there have ever taught in art schools. I have, 12 years at the University of New Mexico and 5 years at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (currently). In the post Duchamp era, post judgetment era, it is difficult to say anything of real value to students because everyone is trying to be so non-judgemental and trying to de-emphasize the evils of craft. I don't know how many times I have talked to confused students, after a seemingly endless critique by some enlightened professor, who will come up to me and simply ask "do you think he liked my work?". Judgements are important. In my teaching, I try to be constructively critical but it is impossible not to make judgements. One just needs to be honest about their values and where they are coming from.

"It looks to me like you didn't read the thread on "what isn't art" closely enough." No I simply don't agree with those who worship at the feet of Duchamp, who appears to be an aesthetic god to many here.

Jorge Gasteazoro
12-Feb-2005, 12:11
to what purpose would one want to indict the role of craft in art?



Exactly! An APUG member expressed very well when he said art beguins where craft ends.

Ralph Barker
12-Feb-2005, 12:31
I guess my question, Kirk, is, "Does it really matter?"

It seems to me that, to a large degree, most of the analysis of art, and the assignment of classifications of art is completely artificial, or at least somewhat arbitrary. Which classification gets assigned depends more on the perspective of the person doing so than on some pre-defined, universally accepted criteria. Professional art critics, the people who most often take it upon themselves to proclaim these classifications, are always self-appointed, never elected. Their ability to get published may depend on some editor's conclusion that the critic has something pithy to say (or, that they'll sufficiently pith people off to sell papers or magazines), but I've yet to come across an art critic's licensing board.

So, unless a photographer (artist?) is trying to sell into a market that tends to define his/her work differently than he/she does, I'm not convinced that classifying work as "art photography" or "fine art photography" really makes any difference - other than perhaps as index tabs on the navigation structure of a web site. Essentially, the classification is only useful to the degree that a majority of people will not be shocked by the type of work they see behind the tab (or, gallery flier).

Annie M.
12-Feb-2005, 12:33
Hmmmmmm... by strange coincidence I happened to be at the Palazzo Grassi the day that
fellow peed in Mr. Duchamp’s urinal... (not the real urinal.... real pee though)... and as it was
explained to me... yes it had to be explained to me I didn’t ‘get it’... I thought there was a crazy
person loose in the gallery and I hid behind The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors
(evidently not the original either ) until the incident was over... apparently it was all about
‘intention’ in the mind of the artist... both the urinal and the pee were art because that was the
intention of the artists... mind you I believe Mr. Duchamp also added the viewer to the mix.

Now this has got me wondering.... I believe that I still have the ticket from the exhibition that
day, if I photograph it and hang it in my bathroom is it art... or does someone else actually have to look at it to make it so.

Hmmmmmm... just wondering also is Stieglitz’s photograph of the original urinal art or
documentary photography.

Kirk Gittings
12-Feb-2005, 12:50
Ralph,

Probably not, though I do think that everyone, concious or not, carries around an aesthetic philosophy that informs their work in one way or another. As an instructor at art schools I am expected to have a position and be able to articulate and defend it. Is it ultimately bull, of course, and worse than that it can be an intellectual game. But I find it useful when teaching, giving public talks and being interviewed to have some clear idea of where I am coming from.

Interestingly it was partly Fred Picker who helped me see the value in these kinds of discussions. His newsletters were always sprinkled with quotes and references to aesthetic ideas. Also I had some conversations with Ansel Adams in the last years of his life and he continued to be interested in the evolving aesthetic of photography's philosophical ideas. Remember the heartfelt positions of the f64 Group in oposition to the Pictorialists?

Brian Vuillemenot
12-Feb-2005, 13:24
I think it's more of a functional definition- photography as an end in itself is art. If it's for any other reason, it's not art.

Struan Gray
12-Feb-2005, 15:33
My own photography, and my own aesthetic and intellectual preferences, tend to be most in sympathy with the late stages of modernism (or earlier pre-romantic humanism, but that's a another story). I *like* a lot of current 'Art Photography', but I *love* relatively little of it. I think the reason I like so much of it is that it inhabits a world of ideas and concepts that I find intriguing in itself, even if the specific works or the specific ideas they express do not make any lasting impression. Consuming such art is a continuing process, much more like reading and discussing reviews and op-ed articles throughout the year than starting War and Peace and not eating or sleeping until you finish. The works I love have a more direct and instinctive - though not necessarily immediate - appeal, and often it is harder to explain why they engross me so much.

I think Kirk is better placed than most of us to say what 'art photography' is. For me though it is photography that conciously attempts to do more than depict. It also has a historical awareness and a desire to express something new, or in a new way, that are absent from 'Fine Art' photography, and which for better or worse make it conform to the ideals and norms of the wider art world rather than the guild-like confines of the Pale of photography.

Oren Grad
12-Feb-2005, 15:36
Kirk -

I don't bother.

Cheers...

Jay DeFehr
12-Feb-2005, 17:00
I think that Duchamp's contribution was to liberate art from craft, just as photography liberated painting from realism. I understand how one could resist this notion, especially if one has a stake in craft, as many painters did in realism, but you can't unring a bell. Weston's Commode, and Duchamp's urinal have both been said to elevate the mundane to the status of art. Weston relied on craft to support his idea, and Duchamp on pure intellect. Duchamp's urinal transcended craft, while Weston embraced it. Which is a more pure artistic expression, I leave for each of us to decide for himself. For the record, I don't believe that art and craft are mutually exclusive any more than I believe that painting and realism are, but neither do I believe that art is dependant upon craft. The fact that many people have no basis for understanding of art in the absence of craft might be one reason that so many are so quick to dismiss Duchamp's acheivements.

Ralph Barker
12-Feb-2005, 17:45
Jay - for the sake of discussion, let's say I'm having difficulty with your Duchamp-Weston comparison. If Duchamp's art truly transcended craft, where did the urinal itself originate? Wouldn't truly craft-transcendant art have left the performance artist peeing in the wind? For a painter, is the art in the waving of the brush in the air, and the craft the adding of paint and canvas?

Jay DeFehr
12-Feb-2005, 18:12
Ralph, Duchamp's art was in selection and presentation, not in production, like sampling in hip-hop music.

Jay

Ralph Barker
12-Feb-2005, 18:42
Ah, I get it. He outsourced the craft element. ;-)

Steve Williams_812
12-Feb-2005, 18:56
Duchamp chose his readymade. Jeff Koons outsources. As Jay points out Duchamp opened a door, rung a bell that cannot be unrung. He rendered craft optional. I think about that sometimes when I have the 8x10 set up, the spot meter working, recording zones....

this link has a good essay on the Elegant Pisser.


http://www.primitivebirdgroup.co.nz/mxart2.html (http://www.primitivebirdgroup.co.nz/mxart2.html)

John Kasaian
12-Feb-2005, 19:05
Kirk,

I'm still reeling from all the concepts posted on the "what isn't art" thread, but I'll take a stab at it:
Art Photography is Photography with the intent to commit Art;-)

Mark Sawyer
12-Feb-2005, 19:52
This is one of the better threads, I think, giving us all some good mental exercise and helping us re-examine some of our approaches and philosophies. Thanks all, I'm enjoying it! Though it begs the question- if no one had pee'd on DuChamp's art, would it still be a urinal?

If you ever want a good laugh, imagine the turmoil if all the artists went on strike, depriving the world of its culture...

Paul Fitzgerald
12-Feb-2005, 19:55
Hi there,

Kirk, I honestly do not think that photography can be defined as Art, so I know of no definition for 'art photograpy'. George Hurrell was one of the 'best of the best', Ansel Adams was one of the 'best of the best', there is nothing I has seen from either that I would confuse with Art, sorry.

Jay:

"Duchamp's work was an indictment of the role of craft in art. If you don't get that, then I understand your position. "

I do get it but I do not accept it as an indictment of craft in art, rather as an indictment of the entire gallery, salon, museum art scene. Art needs no explaination.

"The fact that many people have no basis for understanding of art in the absence of craft might be one reason that so many are so quick to dismiss Duchamp's acheivements."

It's possible but I dismiss Duchamp because he did not produce or create anything, least of all Art.

There was no connection from the viewer, thru the piece to the artist in the moment. There was no intention, affection, emotion, human reality or truth involved. The only sense of humor was "Aren't I too cute for words". Sorry, it's not Art or art, just a bad joke.

Just my opinion

Kirk Gittings
12-Feb-2005, 20:43
"I think Kirk is better placed than most of us to say what 'art photography' is."

I appreciate that, but in all honesty I am only really qualified to express my own personal motivations for my own art.

What would be a photographic equivilent to Duchamp's urinal? If I found in my late grandmother's trunk a snapshot of a dead chicken (they were West Texas farmers) and presented her image as my found object? Somehow that leaves me feeling a little less than satisfied as an artist or photographer or even chicken affectionado.

"Duchamp's art was in selection and presentation, not in production, like sampling in hip-hop music."

Alas I have said many times to my children in a different context that sampling is a cover for lack of creativity. It is the art of a culture that has litttle craft and no original ideas.

jhogan
12-Feb-2005, 20:48
Part of the difficulty with Kirk’s question stems from the linguistic implications of the words “is” and “isn’t.”

Contemporary human culture is obsessed with definitions, in order to make sense of an increasingly chaotic and arbitrary external/internal world. We find it difficult to identify signs that often may seem to have many different (and sometimes overlapping) meanings, based upon the various contexts in which we encounter those signs.

Suppose, for a moment, that some series of events occurred which eliminated all but a few human beings from the planet. And, suppose that all traces of our current civilization had vanished, with the exception of one advertising photograph depicting a person shampooing their hair.

Imagine the multitude and complexity of emotions that photograph would elicit in those viewers. Taken in this context, could this image be considered “art?”

In Camera Lucida, Barthes wrote: “The Photograph does not necessarily say what is no longer, but only and for certain what has been.” When he wrote these words, it could be argued that his thesis was valid. However, we know this is no longer the case: even Photography is not necessarily comprised of Photographs anymore. How often, as photographers, do we find ourselves struggling for adequate descriptions of what constitutes a genuine “photograph?”

Part of Postmodernism’s objective was to dismantle the definitions of the world that modernism had so well refined. In recent years, many (in both the academic and political worlds) are striving to construct new definitions, but find themselves confronting a history and experience that doesn’t allow for easy delineations.

It’s an old horse to flog, but (forgive me) let’s trot out the example of Mapplethorpe again. Which body of work was more “art”: “Flowers” or “Nudes?” Grandma might have different ideas than, say, a member of the U.S. Congress.

Words like “is” and “isn’t” can too often fail when applied empirically: What is/n’t beautiful? Where is/n’t too far? True or False: Life is/n’t worth living.

It is crucial for artists to move beyond the concept that ideas and intentions be defined in a linear manner, ie: black on one side, white on the other, and various shades of gray in between. Rather, we must begin to recognize that experience is better expressed as a spatial framework, where there are many colors at different levels, infinitely changing as our perspectives change.

As we age and interact with the world around us, our experience informs our perspective, and likewise, our perception of that world. Some of what we considered “art” as youngsters, we may no longer consider worthy. Which changed- the work, or our perception of the work? Consider also the maker of the work: Is it possible that in retrospect, s/he may have found her/his perceived motivations altered?

As artists, it is our obligation to engage the viewer and inform their perspectives-in doing so, we increase the depth and value of our own experience. Photography has a unique and powerful ability to do so, and luckily, it's a language of its own, rendering questions of “is” or “isn’t” artifacts of the 20th century.

Oren Grad
12-Feb-2005, 21:46
As artists, it is our obligation to engage the viewer and inform their perspectives

Why?

paulr
12-Feb-2005, 22:09
"What would be a photographic equivilent to Duchamp's urinal? If I found in my late grandmother's trunk a snapshot of
a dead chicken (they were West Texas farmers) and presented her image as my found object? Somehow that leaves me
feeling a little less than satisfied as an artist or photographer or even chicken affectionado"

Sure it wouldn't be satisfying--because it's been done, and the point has been made (assuming you're not putting any twist on it at all, so you're just saying "I'm recontextualizing someone's snapshot as a piece of art"). So there's no reason to do it again. When Duchamp did the urinal, it had not been done--not that blatantly. His work was a commentary on the state of art, and on the accomplishment of modernism in redefining it. And as with all true conceptual art, once the point had been made, the artist was done. Duchamp made his point with a handful of his "readymades," and then moved on to work that was actually more traditional and craft-based.

A lot of more recent conceptual, post-modernist types have somehow missed this fundamental catch to the game they're playing. They think they can make the same point the same way over and over and over, and call it a career. I won't name names, but if you look back to the 80s, you'll have no trouble finding a half dozen famous ones.

""Duchamp's art was in selection and presentation, not in production, like sampling in hip-hop music."

Alas I have said many times to my children in a different context that sampling is a cover for lack of creativity. It is the
art of a culture that has litttle craft and no original ideas."

This is a tough one to prove. Finding evidence of uncreative sampling doesn't count; there are crappy examples of every medium, genre, and style. In a sense, any act of straight photography is an act of sampling--we are taking samples of the real world, and using them to demonstrate our vision through the way we select them, frame them, arrange them, process them, and display them. Which is, by the way, precisely why photography had to fight for so long to be recognized as a legitemate medium for making art. Painters could say something to the effect of "you're not making anything new, you're just sampling what's already there!" It just took some time for people to figure out that a sampling medium was capable of being just as subjective, individual, and difficult to master as a more traditionally plastic medium.

As far as what kind of culture produced sampling, it was not a craftless and unoriginal one; it was a very innovative but poor one. It was kids on the street who could not afford instruments but figured out they could do amazing things with a pair of turntables and their parents' record collections. Personally, I'd rather listen to a live band 99% of the time, but that's just my tastes. Also, I've done the work of listening to a lot of traditional music (meaning: played by live musicians) to weed out what I like. I haven't done the same thing with hip hop and D.J. music, so my feelings are based on pretty limited experience.

Kirk Gittings
12-Feb-2005, 22:13
"As artists, it is our obligation to engage the viewer and inform their perspectives"

Oren,

Speaking for myself, I am deeply interested in communicating certain ideas and feelings about landscape and architecture to an audience. I worked on the Chaco Body portfolio for twelve years before I showed it to anyone, but when it was ready I sent it out into the world like an adult child. Maybe I am cynical, but I do not really believe anyone who says they have no interest in making art for anyone but themselves. I think that is a defense. Ultimately you have to be your own toughest critic, but that is not the same as saying that you have no interest in communicating with an audience.

Kirk Gittings
12-Feb-2005, 22:32
Paul,

Somehow linking sampling in hip hop to straight photography using subject matter (sampling) from the real world seems like quite a stretch. Sampling someone else's art to my way of thinking is intellectually parasidic (and arguably infringement as there has been many lawsuites around this in music for obvious reasons). There is a difference between "working in the tradition of" vs. physically reusing a part of someone else's art.

I am amazed at the defenses here of Duchamp. To me he was an interesting historical footnote, an "adolescent" shooting spitwads at the art establishment.

Oren Grad
12-Feb-2005, 22:57
Kirk -

I agree with you in part. When I make pictures, I'm doing it in the first instance because I want to capture certain emotional resonances for myself. Once in a while I actually achieve that to some degree. When that happens with a picture I make, it certainly feels very satisfying and rewarding if other viewers find that it does something for them too. I'd even go so far as to admit that I hope that will occur. But I don't imagine that other viewers are necessarily seeing or feeling the same things I am, or that I'm communicating anything in particular - that's far too much of a load for a purely visual artifact to bear. And I don't buy the idea that somehow there's an interpersonal obligation associated with what, from my perspective, amounts to scratching an itch.

Annie M.
13-Feb-2005, 07:53
A sincere question.... My photographs seem to elude the structure of emphasis of traditional
landscape photography and the expected relationships of visual constructs. I have trouble
resolving what I see as abiguities in the consensual reality of contemporary landscape
photography and it’s projection into nature of abstract ideas. I am self taught and work in
absolute isolation....my photographs are entirely self referencing and my ‘visual vocabulary’ is undoubtedly an idiomatic slang... I have no concept of my location within the flow of art
history..... does this mean that within the parameters of fine art photography that I am a
photographic folk artist engaged in producing visual whirlly gigs?

Bruce Watson
13-Feb-2005, 08:23
Now people who see my work in magazines and museums etc. don't make these same distintions that I do for my work. To them it is all my work and all my art. For instance there is a book and exhibit coming up that merge the color commercial work and b&w personal images. I allowed these projects to go forward partly because I was intrigued by their vision of my work. I am now rethinking the "not art" judgement that I made for my commercial work.

I think, perhaps, that this is the core of your argument. I think that "art" is the relationship between the viewer (listener, reader,...) and the "object" (print, painting, music, book,...) in question. If the viewer senses a resonance with the object, if the object can communicate something to the viewer, then, I think, that object is art for that viewer.

This explains why I find many of Ansel Adams prints to be art - they resonate with me. It also explains why I find most of Man Ray's work to be garbage. Other viewers find just the opposite. Neither is wrong. Both are right, because the definition of "what is art" is a personal value judgement reserved for the individual viewers.

This, I think, is why you and your currators disagree on what is *your* art. And that's a good thing, don't you think?

Martin Miller
13-Feb-2005, 08:32
"I am amazed at the defenses here of Duchamp."

Kirk, I think you may be misinterpreting the frequent references to Duchamp. Speaking for myself, at least, I would not deny that "... he was an interesting historical footnote, an 'adolescent' shooting spitwads at the art establishment." However, his influence on the art world is undeniable. That fact that his prank actually did influence the art world seems, at first, disturbing. However, art is an activity in which there are no absolutes, no unabiguous criteria for success. Duchamp's (and others') "works" can be viewed as a perfectly logical consequence to this critical vacuum. Is it a helpful, constructive contribution to the dialog? Not really, except in its exposue of pretense, which also flourishes in the vacuum.

Robert A. Zeichner
13-Feb-2005, 09:28
"A sincere question.... My photographs seem to elude the structure of emphasis of traditional landscape photography and the expected relationships of visual constructs. I have trouble resolving what I see as abiguities in the consensual reality of contemporary landscape photography and it’s projection into nature of abstract ideas. I am self taught and work in absolute isolation....my photographs are entirely self referencing and my ‘visual vocabulary’ is undoubtedly an idiomatic slang... I have no concept of my location within the flow of art history..... does this mean that within the parameters of fine art photography that I am a photographic folk artist engaged in
producing visual whirlly gigs?"

I don't know Annie, but put all of this in the declarative and I think you'll have a great artist's statement!

Henry Ambrose
13-Feb-2005, 09:48
Kirk, I think craft supports intention which sometimes results in the production of art. Using that as a guide I think some of your color work may be art whether you thought so in the past or not.

As far as I'm concerned Duchamp's "Urinal" is the equivalent of a stripper running topless onto a baseball field during a game. Its just a big stunt or joke and not anything to do with art - for Duchamp, a conceptual joke. That the art world bought into Duchamp's joke shows how easily some people can be fooled. Removing craft and judgement from art has invited in the stripper to be considered an athlete. But she still can't field or hit the ball. Of course you can't prove that about an "artist" like you can a ball player.

The result is "art" where all is equal and worthy and no one's feet get stepped on for being criticized for their lack of craft or talent. You drop the ball or strike out repeatedly and you still have a job. You're an artist just because you feel like it and no one will say that the artist has no art for fear of being outed themselves.

I defy anyone to show that craft is not essential to communicating art to a viewer.

Randy_5067
13-Feb-2005, 09:59
Just a word from a young dumb-a** newbie. Personal opinion only, OK?
The "art" of photography is not in the subject of the picture, but in the process of getting what you are seeing into a final product. If what you took the picture of invokes an emotion in someone else's mind, whether anger, sorrow, joy, etc etc, then you have created a piece of "art". And a final from Henri Cartier-Bresson "Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again" Of course he also said "Focussing is a bourgious concept"

Ralph Barker
13-Feb-2005, 11:40
To paraphrase a certain past president, "I did not have art with that photograph." ;-)

parsing, parsing . . .

Steve Williams_812
13-Feb-2005, 12:40
Henry Ambrose wrote:

"I defy anyone to show that craft is not essential to communicating art to a viewer."

Here we are 88 years after Duchamp signs R MUTT on the urinal and calls it art. Alfred Stieglitz photographs it. The DADAists are loving it, and in the LargeFormatPhotography forum we are still talking about it, debating it, agreeing, disagreeing, despising it, loving it, calling it art, rejecting it as art, branding it a demon that threatens everything we hold dear or pointing to it as a minor saviour come rescue us from the modernists.

Duchamp was already an established artist when the urinal came along. He had his painting skills and crafts in his pocket. He was using his creative energies to make another statement, one that is still ringing today.

Other painters since have come under fire for the "craftless" state of their work---Cy Twombly, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, and other minimalists and conceptualist. Despite the simplicity and ease of creation, no matter the only seeming effort was to recognize and deliver an object, still art.

A stripper on the baseball field? Maybe the question is not "Is it art?" but rather "Could it be art?". I believe almost anything can be art and leave its mark on the culture and pysche for a long time. I don't think the way a lot of conceptualists do, and my work follows more traditional forms that rely heavily on craft, but I see the power in a lot of other paths. I appreciate the efforts of every artist who wants to stomp the hell out of tradition, rules, structure, convention, conviction, politeness, and on and on....

Struan Gray
13-Feb-2005, 13:04
Duchamp is a canonical example of someone with impeccable art-world credentials who successfully argued that art is more than beautiful things made by great talents. He's not the only one to have done so, but he's the one everybody has heard of so he's a convenient shorthand. Edward Weston found his ideas inspiring enough to rush out and photograph a urinal, so those that dismiss him offhand are perhaps missing something.

I am surprised at Kirk's outright rejection of sampling, but then I was also surprised by his outright rejection of colour. For me, one of the things that makes art worth experiencing is the way it defies catagorisation or prediction. I have been bowled over enough times by things I expected to find trivial or stupid that I firmly believe it is worthwhile to trudge through a certain amount of dross. There is a spectrum of sampling, from straightforward reproduction or plagiarism all the way through to a fully poetic sense of reference. I've never met anyone who thinks that Eugene Smith's "Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath" is made weaker by it's borrowings from Michaelangelo. I have a long-standing love of the applied and decorative arts, and collection of exhibit photographs taken in museums to prove it (they never sell postcards of the things I like). The individual photographs don't say so very much, but the sum of the parts is a fascinating record of my taste and its development.

Struan Gray
13-Feb-2005, 13:25
The photographic equivalent of Duchamp's urinal? If you just want repurposing the list is endless: workaday photographs taken for routine commercial use, or pure snapshots, later put on a pedastal and declared art. Disfarmer, the Without Sanctuary collection, and even Atget would qualify. Thomas Ruff's latest book "Machines" is a topical example.

It's harder to find things from outside photography that successfully become photography because a photograph as an artefact is too tightly defined. That said, I'm fond of photographing shadows.

paulr
13-Feb-2005, 19:58
"Somehow linking sampling in hip hop to straight photography using subject matter (sampling) from the real world seems like quite a stretch. Sampling someone else's art to my way of thinking is intellectually parasidic (and arguably infringement as there has been many lawsuites around this in music for obvious reasons). There is a difference between "working in the tradition of" vs. physically reusing a part of someone else's art."

It IS a stretch. But I thought it was worth making the connection, because contemporary dismissals of sampling often contain a lot of the same reasoning as the original dismissals of straight photography as an art medium.
A much more direct parallel in the visual arts would be collage, or in some cases assemblage work.

"I am amazed at the defenses here of Duchamp. To me he was an interesting historical footnote, an "adolescent" shooting spitwads at the art establishment."

If his readymades were all that he did, then it might be fair to dismiss him as this. But you have to look at his whole career to understand why such a dismissal might not make sense, and also to see the bacground against which his readymades were highlighted.

Incidentally, I don't get the impression that Duchamp is anyone's favorite artist here (he's certainly not mine). But the work of his that's in question is precisely relevent to this topic. His work was intended to make a point about the nature of art; the fact that we can still point to his example as relevent this many decades later suggests to me that the work was succesful, even if it's not a shining example the art we might like the most.

Henry Ambrose
13-Feb-2005, 20:11
I was making reference only to "Urinal" and am not villifying Duchamp. I take issue with those who seem to think that Duchamp's big joke was more than a joke.

And I haven't seen anyone show "that craft is not essential to communicating art to a viewer."

paulr
13-Feb-2005, 21:44
"A sincere question.... My photographs seem to elude the structure of emphasis of traditional landscape photography and the expected relationships of visual constructs."

I don't know what this means!

"I have trouble resolving what I see as abiguities in the consensual reality of contemporary landscape photography and it’s projection into nature of abstract ideas."

I don't know what this means either!
You might get some interesting feedback on these ideas, especially if you can elaborate, on the contemporary landscape message board
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/contemporarylandscape/ (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/contemporarylandscape/)

"I am self taught and work in absolute isolation....my photographs are entirely self referencing and my ‘visual vocabulary’ is undoubtedly an idiomatic slang... I have no concept of my location within the flow of art history..... does this mean that within the parameters of fine art photography that I am a photographic folk artist engaged in producing visual whirlly gigs?"

I'm not sure what a visual whilry gig is, but you're definitely describing yourself as a folk artist. This is sometimes used as a pejorative, but in fact folk art has played a very important part in the history of art, as a kind of counterpoint that often gets assimilated into the mainstream later. Look at the Dutch landscape painting tradition as an example.

I also suspect that your claim of working in absolute isolation warrants some examination. It's very, very hard to work in absolute isolation. The fact that you have contacts among the living, here (if large format photographers count) and elsewhere calls that into question. As does the nature of your question: you seem to have some ideas about traditional and contemporary landscape photography, which makes me think you've seen some of it.

paulr
13-Feb-2005, 21:58
"I was making reference only to "Urinal" and am not villifying Duchamp. I take issue with those who seem to think that Duchamp's big joke was more than a joke."

Actually, people have shown a lot of evidence that Duchamps readymades, wheather they were jokes or not, raised serious issues that influenced the art that was to follow, that profoundly influenced the art criticism and curatorial practice that was to follow, and that are still being discussed today.

If you believe that they were no more than a joke, it seems the burden of convincing us would be on you.

"And I haven't seen anyone show "that craft is not essential to communicating art to a viewer.""

This would have to depend on what you mean by craft--it has a number of definitions. In the most mundane sense, craft implies the making of something (just as in ancient Greece, art was "techne," which means the physical bringing into being). With definitions this broad, then yes, it's hard to imagine art without some kind of craft.

If, on the other hand, craft means "fine craftsmanship," then there are many traditions of art that dismiss the need for it, or even react directly against it. Warhol called his studio the Factory for a reason--his vision was one of infinitely reproduceable, mechanically made art. You may or may not like it, but the result was art that reached people and influenced other artists on a grand scale.

Kirk Gittings
13-Feb-2005, 23:11
Struan,

"I am surprised at Kirk's outright rejection of sampling, but then I was also surprised by his outright rejection of colour."

I thought I made it clear that the outright rejection of color is a function of my personal aesthetic choices only. If my commercial clients went away and I was left doing just my personal work, I would never take another color image. I oftentimes even dream in b&w. B&W for me is a laserlike tool of abstraction that helps me to visually organize light and form and texture into something transcendent and meaningful.

Color for me is chaos, a meaningless, useless, distraction.

It is always either to real or too goofy. In 1970 I saw a Wynn Bullock show and never got over it, though I've made most of my living since 1978 doing or teaching color architectural photography and my color commercial work is widely published all over the world. But I greatly respect other's color work. Joel Sternfeld and Richard Mizrach for instance on one end of the spectrum and David Muench on the other.

And again referencing earlier art as Smith did is not sampling. For example Joel Peter-Witkin's work references earlier art, but it does not sample. Sampling is something very specific that I think you are redefining. Who was that idiot a few years ago who copied Walker Evans images and made the arguement that there were enough photographs in the world. Everything had been done and that their subject matter would be other photographers images?

Jay DeFehr
14-Feb-2005, 08:31
Isn't architectural photography a kind of sampling?

Jay

Kirk Gittings
14-Feb-2005, 09:25
Jay,

Along time ago (1982) in an article in the Journal of American Photography, I wrote about architectural photography "No other genre in commercial photography is so totally preoccupied with the interpretation of another art form". If interpretation is sampling then yes. But then you are then using the all-inclusive sampling definition where virtually everything becomes sampling in photography and photography becomes a totally derivative art form.

My favourite comment here is by Ralph:

"To paraphrase a certain past president, 'I did not have art with that photograph.' "

I 've got a very busy "sampling" week here and need to move on. Thanks for all the rich comments. It leaves me much to think about. My judgements are intact.

Edward (Halifax,NS)
14-Feb-2005, 10:00
For me, Art Photography (I haven't made it to Fine yet) consists of pictures I take with the purpose of hanging on the wall. Other categories are pictures for albums and pictures for email. The pictures for email can be further broken down to, look what I saw, look what I did, and look what I bought.

Kirk Gittings
14-Feb-2005, 11:33
After all is said and done I think that is a pretty functional definition. My addition would be that the ones that just don't make it to the wall, despite my best intentions, are just photographs.

Struan Gray
14-Feb-2005, 12:22
A few loose ends:

I like chaos. I nearly did a PhD in it.

I didn't intend to diss your personal aesthetic. I just found your comment absolutist, even within the context of your own creative acts.

Smith was an example of the referential end of the sampling spectrum. For the other, pure re-presentation end, take a look at "Boring Postcards".

Paul Fitzgerald
14-Feb-2005, 22:14
A last loose end ?

Rereading this thread and the others, 'what is not art' & 'what is fine art photography', I noticed a 2 glaring omissions, so I will overstate the obvious.

There is one truth about art:

* love needs no apology, art needs no explanation *

There is one fact about art:

* art is a purely human endeavor *

Those 2 lines void more than half of the "Art" on the planet. If the piece is devoid of humanity, it is not Art. If it does not engage the viewer's humanity, at any level, it is not art.

If the viewer must mentally take one step back to see the art (to get it) then that is the form and function of conceptual art and has been accepted by most people. If the viewer must mentally take 2 steps back to 'get it', it is not even a competent attempt at art.

"I have trouble resolving what I see as abiguities in the consensual reality of contemporary landscape photography and it’s projection into nature of abstract ideas."--Annie M.,

So do I and personally I do not accept any attempt to impose or project human 'realities' onto nature. Nature is nature, art is human, at least until the U.F.O.s land.

Sweet dreams people.

Jorge Gasteazoro
14-Feb-2005, 22:17
I like what Edgar Degas said about art, a quote found in Lenswork:

"Art is not what you see, but what you make other people see"

paulr
15-Feb-2005, 11:27
A pattern I see in this discussion, and many like it, is that the people voicing their opinions most passionately seem to have the least education on the topic at hand, the least amount of factual or historical basis for their arguments, and the least understanding of what constitutes a logical or illogical argument, or what is even in the realm of opinion or the realm of fact.

A recent example:

"I will overstate the obvious.
There is one truth about art:
* love needs no apology, art needs no explanation *"

Which beckons the questions: obvious to whom?
how are these truisms/cliches to be considered "truths?"
how could either of these statements even be demonstrated, much less proven?

which was followed by:

"There is one fact about art:
* art is a purely human endeavor *"

which beckons the questions,
how is this a fact? how could it ever be supported?
how could it stand up in the face of the numerous and seemingly obvious
counter examples, like artists who work with fractal software, Warhol's deliberate
mechanization of the art process, or other man/machine collaborations
like George Antheil's "ballet mechanique?"

Honestly, it seems like all but a handfull of the comments posted here would be completely shredded in any 100-level college philosophy class. I see impassioned statements that are aware neither of the assumptions that they're based on, the weaknesses of their internal logic, nor of the numerous historical examples that discredit the assumptions in the first place.

If anyone really cares about any of these questions, and it seems like people do, then why not read a good book the philosophy of art and esthetics? You'll find it's a topic that some real smart people have been researching and discussing for a few thousand years now--and that anyone's unstudied, knee-jerk opinion on the topic is extremely unlikely to come close to the kinds of understandings that have been gained by people actually willing to do the work.

Kirk Gittings
15-Feb-2005, 11:42
"the people voicing their opinions most passionately seem to have the least education "

In all honesty after spending a large portion of my life in academia, I would much rather have a discussion with the real practitioners of an art. Those who feel passsionately about the subject, but may not have an advanced degree in the topic, have the most light to shed on a subject. It can be frustrating sometimes because people often times don't bother to read the threads. But on the whole I find the participants here most refreshing. I often go to lectures, critiques etc. in Chicago at the Art Institute where I teach in the summers, and am often bored to death, oftentimes by the lack of passion in academia.

Jorge Gasteazoro
15-Feb-2005, 12:14
A pattern I see in this discussion, and many like it, is that the people voicing their opinions most passionately seem to have the least education on the topic at hand, the least amount of factual or historical basis for their arguments, and the least understanding of what constitutes a logical or illogical argument, or what is even in the realm of opinion or the realm of fact.



Wow.....

I was not aware one needed dual PhDs in art appreciation and art history to give an opinion in this forum. So far as I know nobody has been able to define what is art, so regardless of all the books you might have read, it is all an opinion for all I know.....jeeezzz...

paulr
15-Feb-2005, 13:13
"I was not aware one needed dual PhDs in art appreciation and art history to give an opinion in this forum. So far as I know nobody has been able to define what is art, so regardless of all the books you might have read, it is all an opinion for all I know.....jeeezzz..."

who said anything about PhDs?
how about just learning SOMETHING about a topic that has a rich history and some core literature before spouting off about it?

Incidentally, the fact that people who study a particular field haven't reached consensus on a definition does not imply that the definition is just a matter of opinion.

Scientists disagree on the exact cause of the dinosaurs' extinction, and we may never know the answer. This does not imply that a six year-old's whim-based opinion on the subject has any weight whatsoever. The kid doesn't know any of the facts, hasn't followed any of the long-standing arguments, and doesn't know what constitutes a theory and what doesn't, or how to challenge or support one. The same can be said for questions in history and philosophy. There are many questions whose answers lack consensus and which by their nature will never be proven. But meaningful answers will not likely be found by those who have so little understanding of the questions themselves or of existing threads of reasoning that they think the answer is just a matter of opinion. like "what's the best flavor of ice cream."

The definition of art is a question with legs in both history and philosophy. Like most definitions of major ideas in these disciplines, there is a long tradition of thinkers and practitioners grappling with it, evolving it, and reinterpreting it. Also like most such definitions, it is closely tied to developments in culture and in language. The state of the definition right now, or the possibilities for defintions that are currently under examination, are the product of over two thousand years of nearly continuous conversation. For someone to establish an opinion on such a definition without having listened to any of that conversation isn't just naive--it's arrogant. It's no less arrogant than thinking that your uninformed opinion on the distance of the moon or the evolution of primates is as good as anyone else's.

Remember first and foremost, this topic is not about a value judgement: it's about a definition. A definition, by definition, implies some kind of authoritative consensus. When I want to know what "philistinism" means, for example, I don't ask the guy hanging out at the bodega down the street; I look it up in the dictionary.

A college professor was recently interviewed about the sad state of incoming freshmen. He was asked if the problem was that they didn't know anything. "It's not that they don't know anything," he said. "That would be fine. It's that they don't even SUSPECT anything."

pdwcolumbus
16-Feb-2005, 13:35
I think that All of us have not studdied enough photo history to really understand. Art is Art, no matter if it is Photographic, Painting or a Song in the woods. It is en expression of ones passion for a subject from deep inside. Taking a coman thing and showing it in a way that has never been shown before. A personal view that only you can show. Yes you can do this when selling a tub of tooth past or what ever, but when you do it for the joy of self expression, is a a total different thing. That is why a photo from a photographer from K mart is so much different then a photo from Diane Arbus. The feeling is just not the same. Both subjects are a portrait but so different of a feeling.

Paul Fitzgerald
16-Feb-2005, 21:02
Hi there,

to all: appologies extended

to kirk: see what you started;-)

to Jorge: I agree with you BUT

to paulr:

I guess I should have checked my email last night, this is just too damn funny.

((A recent example:

"I will overstate the obvious. There is one truth about art: * love needs no apology, art needs no explanation *"

Which beckons the questions: obvious to whom? how are these truisms/cliches to be considered "truths?" how could either of these statements even be demonstrated, much less proven? ))

Define truth!

"truth "truth noun pl truths "truthz, "truths [ME trewthe, fr. OE treowth fidelity; akin to OE treowe faithful — more at true] (bef. 12c)

1 a archaic : fidelity, constancy

**b : sincerity in action, character, and utterance

2 a (1) : the state of being the case : fact

(2) : the body of real things, events, and facts : actuality

**(3) often cap : a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality

**b : a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true

c : the body of true statements and propositions

3 a : the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality

b chiefly Brit : true 2

**c : fidelity to an original or to a standard

4 cap Christian Science : god

in truth : in accordance with fact : actually"

Now try rereading what you posted with your eyes open, lips moving if neccessary.

((which was followed by:

"There is one fact about art: * art is a purely human endeavor *"

which beckons the questions, how is this a fact? how could it ever be supported? how could it stand up in the face of the numerous and seemingly obvious counter examples, like artists who work with fractal software, Warhol's deliberate mechanization of the art process, or other man/machine collaborations like George Antheil's "ballet mechanique?" ))

You try to start a fight where there is none. You try to start a fight with me when I cannot lose anything and you cannot win anything (the actual working definition of a fool). Then you prove my point, which begs the question:

What was the point to this silliness???

If you wish to continue this foolish waste of time, I seriously suggest you start a seperate thread. Personally I find it a bore.

Have a nice rest of your life.

paulr
16-Feb-2005, 23:14
Thanks for all that, whatever it was.

I find it so interesting when people react personally to attacks on ideas.
If you're going to let yourself get so so attached to an idea that you feel you have to
defend it with all your ego, why not at least make it a good idea?

For whatever it's worth, I did read the definition of Truth that you cut and pasted from the dictionary.
I even moved my lips, to see if it would help. You'll still have to explain to me how the truism,
"art needs no explanation" can be called a truth, by any of those definitions, or especially, how it could be
"the one truth about art."

I do wonder if you actually read my post before deciding it was an attempt to pick a fight.
Hint: it wasn't.

And in case your question, "what was the point to this silliness" was more than rhetorical, I'll attempt a short answer:
to point out the possibility (or in my opinion, the likelyhood) that profound questions deserve better than casual answers. And that profound questions which have a long history and tradition of discourse deserve answers that show at least a passing awareness of this discourse. Anything less runs the serious risk of being pointless fluff. Which I consider to be a more foolish waste of time than stepping on a few toes to point out the issue. And that's all.

Apologies to anyone I annoyed. This issue happens to be a pet peeve of mine, so I don't let it go as easily as I probably should. I do think it's important. Anyway, I'm off now to have a nice rest of my life.