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

[paulr]

The other issues that I have with Sherman and a great deal of contemporary work is a lack of understanding light, composition, tone and which elements to include or exclude from a photograph.

Why would you assume the artists have no understanding of these ideas? Don't you think it's possible that they're just concerned with different ones? It's a bit like accusing Mondrian of not knowing how to draw (which some craft-minded critics might do, if they haven't seen his earlier work).

I can tell you that these factors matter to me having come from the professional background and what typically looks amateurish is the absence of these qualities.

Yes, I can see this. I also see the same arguments time and time again historically, when ideas about a medium change, and members of a guild or old guard get up in arms in about it. The fundamental values in every medium get rethought every once in a while. It's why the end of civilization has been declared so many times over the last five hundred years, with respect to visual arts, literature, music, theater ...

The arguments always seem quaint after a few decades. In this case it seems three decades isn't long enough.

[Drew Wiley]

Amen, Brian. This forum is a nice collegiate round-table in which we can discuss artists
or images as public figures or through known representative images. There's elbow room for lots of different viewpoints. But has anyone ever known me to either criticize or praise anyone actually participating in this forum? There are some folks whose work I really admire - but I'm not likely to say who they are, and am unlikely to say anything at all unless it articulates what I do or don't respond to visually in a specific image or set of images. That some dealer out there has money to throw around speculating on the potential future importance of a particular piece doesn't make them the expert, just a high roller gambler. Heck, even experts like Warren Buffet and T.Boone Pickens lost a ton on the stock market recently. If its worth the risk, and someone can flip the print for a profit, then they won, but if not ... heck, ain't my money anyway. Just a very different game than I play.

[ASRafferty]

Rick "not holding anything against Cindy Sherman at all" Denney

Well, that will certainly prevent the possibility of sex we recognize but don't like.

[Drew Wiley]

Paul - lots of the new ideas are simply old one rehashed and remarketed, and not really
that creative in the first place (as if "creativity' was the sole value in the first place -
something wholly entrenched and thoroughly repetitious in Western Modernism itself).
And yeah, I can tell you exactly what I don't like about Mondrian (my gosh! criticize
someone canonized like that??? Heresy!) - I don't like all those damn masking lines which show on his repeatedly repainted surfaces. It makes the surface quality of his painting annoying. There, I've articulated it - now you can burn me at the stake.

[paulr]

Paul - lots of the new ideas are simply old one rehashed and remarketed, and not really that creative in the first place (as if "creativity' was the sole value in the first place ...

sure, but that's a platitude. You could say it any time about anything. It doesn't speak to any particular idea.

And yeah, I can tell you exactly what I don't like about Mondrian ...

if one of your reasons is that "he doesn't know how to draw," I'd point you to his earlier work, as evidence that he does ... so his later style demonstrates choice, not handicap. That was my only point with his example.

[Bill_1856]

How much do, or rather did, Cindy Sherman's pictures usually sell for?

[Brian K]

Why would you assume the artists have no understanding of these ideas? Don't you think it's possible that they're just concerned with different ones? It's a bit like accusing Mondrian of not knowing how to draw (which some craft-minded critics might do, if they haven't seen his earlier work).

Paul, I've seen enough of their work. And consistently poorly lit, poorly composed and poorly designed would pretty much lead one to the educated opinion that the photographer in question lacks those skills.

I don't know if Mondrian could draw, I assume he could as in his days even the most abstract of painters had classical training, but his work is also well composed, uses color and tone effectively, uses positive and negative areas affectively and is interesting to look at.

[D. Bryant]

But has anyone ever known me to either criticize or praise anyone actually participating in this forum? .

Yes. You called people discussing Richard Misrach's work groupies; that didn't come across as being very collegial.

You want to voice strong opinions but don't like people to push back with theirs.

[Drew Wiley]

I have no problem running over sacred cows. What on earth does that have in common with your own photography? I've certainly known enough of the art critic gurus and already canonized painters and photographers to know they're human too. They treated me as an equal (whether I deserved it or not). I've been around the block enough times to understand my choices in what time I might have left, and that
I don't want to waste any of them on hero worship. That kind of stuff is Little League
as far as I'm concerned.

[paulr]

Paul, I've seen enough of their work. And consistently poorly lit, poorly composed and poorly designed would pretty much lead one to the educated opinion that the photographer in question lacks those skills.

My point is that it's an uneducated opinion. It's based solely on the assumption that these artists are pursuing the same standards that you hold sacrosanct—an assumption that different standards couldn't exist. History shows us that fundamental changes in standards are commonplace ... as are blindered critics who mistake them for a collapse of standards.

Critics routinely accused the modern painters of not knowing how to draw. They accused modern composers of having no melodic sense. Modern poets for not knowing how to rhyme ...

You're doing precisely the same thing. And the point isn't that contemporary artists are somehow beyond the reach of criticism. A critic needs to understand what's been attempted before judging its success or failure.