Cindy Sherman Print Sells For $3.9 Million At Auction, The Highest Ever For A Photogr

[paulr]

... about Joshua Bell, the noted classical violinist, playing in a Boston subway for 45 min. with no applause and only 6 people stopping to pay any attention. The night before he had played in a sold out theater where the seats averaged $100 each. Context can define our perceptions to an amazing degree.

This is more than just coloring of perceptions. The people who payed to see the concert wanted to see the concert. They were in the mood. They were in a mindset to pay attention. The people in the subway at rush hour wanted to get home. They were in No Mood, as the expression goes.

As someone who has paid a lot of money to see concerts, and who has also probably rushed past many amazing performers in the subway, I can understand both sides of this easily.

I don't think it's because context led the people to assume the violinist was a nobody. Good street musicians in NYC, when they pick the right time and place, draw crowds. I was late to an appointment once because a latin jazz trio on the corner of Houston and Lafayette was so captivating. Two months later I saw the bassist playing in the Mingus Big Band—an all-star repertory group made up of many of the best musicians in the city. This was gratifying but not surprising.

[Drew Wiley]

Jim - I can certainly understand the convenience of curators viewing only electronic
images and not the real deal, but it's a default and pretty much automatically edits
out a lot of the quality and nuance what makes prints special in the first place. The
web is an extremely crude communication vehicle.

[kev curry]

There's a story that musicians tell amongst themselves about Joshua Bell, the noted classical violinist, playing in a Boston subway for 45 min. with no applause and only 6 people stopping to pay any attention. The night before he had played in a sold out theater where the seats averaged $100 each. Context can define our perceptions to an amazing degree.

Watched a documentary about this very thing...very enlightening!

[Brian K]

Brian, I don't even believe that you believe your rhetoric. Looking at your own pictures, I honestly don't know what "point of view" you're expressing, beyond 1) you are attracted to certain kinds of unspoiled landscapes; and 2) you like to participate in the early 20th Century formal black and white landscape tradition.

Honestly, those are pretty wide open rooms that one might move around in. I bet if we asked 20 viewers about your point of view or ideas or feelings, based solely on a series of those images, we'd get 20 different answers.

I strongly, even vehemently, believe that this is a good thing. I'm interested in art as exploration, not as dogma. I don't really care what an artist's opinions are. I want an artist to invite me on a journey. I want the richness and ambiguity of the world to be celebrated and played with, not reduced to a sound bite.

Paul, I think a child could pretty much see my POV and intention in my work, it's an appreciation of and a desire to share the beauty around us. Which is pretty universal among landscape shooters. Why do countless tourists shoot the scene from the scenic vista? Because they want to share the beauty before them with others. Perhaps you don't see that because you're looking for a more obscure meaning.

But as long as you're asking 20 people to view images and give feedback, why not ask 20 people on the street if they understand Sherman's or Friedlander's POV, or yours for that matter. Those 20 people will easily understand the desire that someone would have to photograph or create a scene of beauty, because most likely they have all tried the very same thing. But ask them if they understand the message behind Sherman's:

http://www.masters-of-photography.co...herman_10.html
http://www.masters-of-photography.co...herman_13.html
http://www.masters-of-photography.co...herman_14.html
http://www.masters-of-photography.co...herman_25.html

You might find them scratching their heads.

And I have to say a lot of the work I did at 16 or 17 looks like Friedlander work, and I wasn't familiar with his work back then. So maybe that's why I feel it has an amateurishness to it.

[Mike Lopez]

Perhaps Sherman and Friedlander aren't concerned with imposing a "POV" into their photographs...

[mdm]

I have a book that categorises landscape photographs into landscape as God, as Fact, Symbol, Pure Form, Popular Culture, as Concept, as Politcs and Propaganda. Brian K and Ansel Adams occupy the first category uncontaminated by thought. Call it a form of worship, like singing a hymn. Mr Friedlander ocupies other categories such as landscape as Fact and perhaps more, this is the space Mr Gursky occupies with the Bechers and the Dusseldorf school. Cindy Sherman, while not producing landscapes, is pehaps producing portraits as theatre, or concept (or popular culture) in the same way as Richard Avedon and Mr Penn. Landscape as God is valid and a venerable genre, but as the role of God in society has changed, so the landscape photo has become somewhat different to what it once was. Cant take back time.

[Brian K]

Perhaps Sherman and Friedlander aren't concerned with imposing a "POV" into their photographs...

Mike when you make a conscious choice to aim your camera at a scene or subject you are inherently imposing a POV. Quite literally your point of view, it's what you're looking at from where you stand and choosing to record. Whether a viewer can determine the POV that the photographer was trying to capture is a whole other story. And why bother taking that picture if you have nothing to say with it? Even an advertising image has a message and a POV, and we would expect LESS from art? I think that without question Sherman and Friedlander have a POV, it's whether or not the work expresses it without having to have someone explain it to you. And the argument here to some extent is that for some the work itself doesn't need to express it.

Does a concert pianist just play notes or do they impose their own feelings about the music when they play it? A player piano can play all the written notes in the proper rhythm without error. So why go to a concert and pay to hear Joshua Bell when you can have a synthesizer play it for you automatically and flawlessly?

[kev curry]

.....''uncontaminated by thought''? Who set up the gear and constructed the shot? The camera bag? ....''landscape as God'' what does that mean?

[Brian K]

I have a book that categorises landscape photographs into landscape as God, as Fact, Symbol, Pure Form, Popular Culture, as Concept, as Politcs and Propaganda. Brian K and Ansel Adams occupy the first category uncontaminated by thought. Call it a form of worship, like singing a hymn. Mr Friedlander ocupies other categories such as landscape as Fact and perhaps more, this is the space Mr Gursky occupies with the Bechers and the Dusseldorf school. Cindy Sherman, while not producing landscapes, is pehaps producing portraits as theatre, or concept (or popular culture) in the same way as Richard Avedon and Mr Penn. Landscape as God is valid and a venerable genre, but as the role of God in society has changed, so the landscape photo has become somewhat different to what it once was. Cant take back time.

MDM, I'm an atheist. The reason why I shoot landscape is that I spent 25 years shooting mostly in the studio. I also grew up in NYC and really enjoy getting away from crowds and enjoy the sense of space and wide open vistas. Landscape is to some degree a lifestyle choice as well. I shoot power lines, refineries, boats, gas station banners, sprinklers, granaries, surfers as well as trees and water. To me landscape is not God, but I am well aware that without it we die, and that we are effectively destroying a great deal of it.

I think if I were to fit any of the categories you listed it's most likely Form. My first show in NYC was described as formalist by the NY Times which is a style more in line with Weston. As for my work being uncontaminated by thought, I come from a background where the placement of a sesame seed on a hamburger bun is a five minute discussion and requires at least 3 polaroids. There's a lot of thought behind every aspect of my work, the trick is not making it look over thought or too conscious because then it looks fake.

[Colin Graham]

Brian, I don't even believe that you believe your rhetoric. Looking at your own pictures, I honestly don't know what "point of view" you're expressing, beyond 1) you are attracted to certain kinds of unspoiled landscapes; and 2) you like to participate in the early 20th Century formal black and white landscape tradition.

Honestly, those are pretty wide open rooms that one might move around in. I bet if we asked 20 viewers about your point of view or ideas or feelings, based solely on a series of those images, we'd get 20 different answers.

I strongly, even vehemently, believe that this is a good thing. I'm interested in art as exploration, not as dogma. I don't really care what an artist's opinions are. I want an artist to invite me on a journey. I want the richness and ambiguity of the world to be celebrated and played with, not reduced to a sound bite.

Well said!