Conceptual Photography?

[cyrus]

Anyway, what do you folks think of "conceptual photography"? I like Misha Gordin
http://www.bsimple.com/home.htm

Or Alessandro Bovari
http://www.alessandrobavari.com/english/sodom_gomorrah/gallery_sodom_gomorrah.htm#

Or Robert Gregory Griffeth

http://www.robertgregorygriffeth.com/

Though I am not sure where the boundary is between digital drawing vs photography (or if that matters since by definition, conceptual art ignores the method/materials and even the "product" itself in favor of concentrating on the underlying idea or concept that is intended to be communicated...but on the other hand much of these photos aren't really conceptual because they;re not really communicating a point of any sort that I can make out. Seems to me that rahter than conceptual photography, these are more like examples of surrealist photography)

[Gordon Moat]

Some of it might be more correctly termed photo-illustration, instead of photography. The things that have been somewhat more common in advertising photography are, in some corners, becoming more common in art photography.

Jeff Wall comes immediately to mind, mostly because the production and results are what I would more commonly find with advertising photography. Several other individuals spring to mind, such as Olaf Veltman (http://www.olafveltman.com/). Some of the latest conceptual works I have been viewing are on the website of photo-rep Tim Mitchell (http://www.t-mitchell.com/); I particularly like the work of Andric.

Most of the sites and photographers you linked might also be called surrealists. Obviously there is an appeal to this sort of work amongst some collectors. The ideas are not really often new, though the incorporation of different tools to reach the end result might be different. Jerry Uelsmann (http://www.uelsmann.com/) would be another example, and despite his film and darkroom usage, I still view this as photo-illustration. Not to state that it is any lesser than photography, since I think much of this is well done and quite compelling.

Of course there are photographers only interested in images of old buildings, or only in barren landscapes. The appeal can still be an escape for the viewer, and since the camera points both ways, works can also show the escapism of the photographer. Then we might separate to realistic, representational, surrealistic, or abstract as the main forms of images. Photography can rarely be entirely realistic, and more often is representational. Planning an image through ideas leads towards more conceptual imagery.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio (http://www.allgstudio.com)

[paulr]

I disagree with the idea that there's some separate medium called photo illustration. People have been using photography to construct images since the mid nineteenth century, and it's always been called photography.

Talking about 'conceptual photography' can be tough, because few people agree on what it means, including people who say they do it. In my personal dictionary, conceptual work is work where the idea is primary, and the work itself exists mainly to illustrate that idea. This is in contrast to work that starts with simply looking at something, and that unfolds as an exploration.

I tend to strongly favor work of the latter type. I find that in all media, people tend to do much more profound work when they let their art lead them somewhere than when they know the destination from the beginning.

There's obviously a big gray area ... work that starts with a concept and then leads somewhere else. At least to someplace subtly different.

I don't know to what degree I would think of the work Cyrus posted as conceptual. Except that Misha Gordin calls it conceptual (and he might have a completely different definition than mine). All these photographers create staged or constructed images, many of which feel a bit like surrealism as Gordon said. These can all be modes exploration, not just concepualism. It's sometimes hard to tell at a glance.

For some famous examples of work I consider conceptual, take a look at Bernd and Hilla Becher, John Pfahl, or Sherry Levine. Levine might be the purest example ... you get as much from a description of her work as you do from the work itself!

[Walter Calahan]

Whatever floats your boat.

Looks like some people can actually remember the nightmares. Ha!

[tim atherton]

I'd add the work of the Atlas Group...

http://www.theatlasgroup.org/

http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-heck-is-atlas-group.html

http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2007/03/and-winner-is.html

or Sophie Calle

http://www.sophiecalle.net/detective.htm

I know there are some who don't consider them photographers but "artists". Though I'm not quite sure what the difference is. In both cases, concept and photography tends to be central to most of what they do - as far as I'm concerned that pretty much makes them photographers.

[John Kasaian]

I don't know if this counts, but Zbigniew Rybczynski's visual arts are always a pleasure

[paulr]

I've always thought the Czechs and Slovaks did wonderful work ... more in the constructed/staged/fantasy vein than conceptualism:

http://www.czechslovakphotos.com/

(Pavel Pecha is my fave)

[Kirk Gittings]

Does anyone really work without a preconceived concept? None that I know of. Even so called "straight" traditional photographers conceptualize projects. In a sense it is a false way of cataloging visual approaches. To some extent you might say that some artist value their concept over traditional values of craft. That might have some small relevance, but not much as I see it.

I am in a upcoming show with Barbara Degenevieve, Patrick Nagatani, Tom Barrow, Adrienne Salinger, Alan Labb, Wafaa Bilal, Joyce Neimanas and many other notable artists from academia. One might argue that I am the most traditional photographer of the group yet all of us work conceptually, and having known many of these people for 20+ years, I know for a fact how much these people are concerned with and labor over their craft. However the production values of their craft may not be popular values. Distinctions like "conceptual" break down when looking closely at any group of artists. More often these distinctions are the tools of historians and critics divining a convenient tool to display their cleverness.

[cyrus]

I'd add the work of the Atlas Group...

http://www.theatlasgroup.org/

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

[paulr]

Does anyone really work without a preconceived concept? None that I know of. Even so called "straight" traditional photographers conceptualize projects.

There's a difference between using an idea as a starting point or guide, and using one as a predetermined conclusion.

Sherry Levine's work from the 80s can be described 100% using the idea she started with. As can Duchamp's Readymades. Yours can't. Their work served to illustrate an idea. Yours managed to discover some things after it's conception.

I think the difference is important. It's not about the presence of a concept, but the primacy of the concept.

[George Kara]

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

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

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

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

Here is one of my conceptual art works for photography:

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

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

[tim atherton]

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

a little limited and narrow as a definition

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

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

[Robert Hughes]

Sounds like a conceptual Lounge topic.:p

[Gordon Moat]

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

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

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio (http://www.allgstudio.com)

[paulr]

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

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

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

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

[Brian Ellis]

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

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

[paulr]

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

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

[Don Wallace]

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

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

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

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

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

[paulr]

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

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