Is This Art?

[Tin Can]

San Quentin State Prison

http://nigelpoor.com/project/san-quentin/

[Chance2]

In my opinion, absolutely.

[Mark Sawyer]

I believe he sees himself as the artist, but he is actually just the curator.

Today's curators often consider themselves artists, creating novel "artistic" exhibitions from art created by others, often reinterpreting it to their own ends. Whether that's good or bad is another thing...

[John Kasaian]

Whatever it is, it sure tells a story.

[Drew Wiley]

In a place like San Quentin, anything other than looking at a cobweb for months on end would qualify as art. But among a large imprisoned community like that, there can be little doubt that a number of creative and talented individuals would be present. I had a friend whose first job with the Corrections Dept was as a guard on Death Row. Ironically, that's the safest area because the inmates are in individual cells and highly restricted. But lots of them have things like guitars and drawing books, etc. Nothing else to do. But it was my impression that large format photographers are inherently classified as criminally insane instead, and get perpetually locked up in dark rooms.

[Chester McCheeserton]

Fascinating...I think the artist is a woman.

Probably the mainstream art world would consider this art. Probably not any of our waterfalls or nudes.

Google "Relational Aesthetics"....it's just a short hop skip and a jump down the line from F64.

[Pseudonym]

Fascinating...I think the artist is a woman.

Probably the mainstream art world would consider this art. Probably not any of our waterfalls or nudes.

Google "Relational Aesthetics"....it's just a short hop skip and a jump down the line from F64.

Chester McC is quite right. I write about modern and contemporary art for a living, and I would certainly look at Nigel Poor's project seriously.

I would also pay close attention to a lot of the waterfalls, nudes etc. on these threads if I saw them in exhibition. That said, I would also be looking for some kind of sustained purpose: a consolidated aesthetic sensibility, or thematic salience, or an extended proposition that takes the work beyond the realm of technical prowess. The most successful photographers in the art world tend to be outstanding (or at least innovative) technicians whose work reaches into fertile aesthetic, philosophical or historical ground.

[Heroique]

I think the artist is a woman.

No matter the gender, Nigel Poor struggles with grammar, but more important, uses overly specialized language that empties it of meaning:

"…She is interested in forms of portraiture and explores this vastly mined photographic area through unconventional mean; using fingerprints and hands, objects people have thrown out, human hair, dirt, dryer lint and dead insects as indexical markers of human presence and experience…" (a sample sentence from the "About" link)

Nonetheless, I'd like to see the exhibit so the art can speak for itself.

[MAubrey]

The only way to know for sure would be to ask the Art Decider.

[Mark Sawyer]

Pretty much anything anyone labels as art is art. Try thinking of something that absolutely cannot be art.

But that nagging question remains... is it good art?