Hockney on photography's failings

[Kirk Gittings]

Most people feel that the world looks like the photograph. I’ve always assumed that the photograph is nearly right, but that little bit by which it misses makes it miss by a mile. This is what I grope at.

It is in that gap between nearly right and the perfect document where the "art" is.

[Robert Hughes]

Oops, misread the thread title: "LF Forum on Hockney's failings".

[Struan Gray]

Hockney is a big boy, and hardly needs my approval. Similarly, I don't have to bow down before him, or take his word as gospel. I have always admired the skill of his drawing, and the sense of gesture he works into even his flattest and most static paintings. From what he has said in various interviews he has a way of working and thinking which is very photographic, or, at least, very similar to the sorts of photographic projects that I find most engaging. I can live with a little friction.

I agree with those who say the little missing bit is what makes the difference between a competent photograph and a good or great one. Hockney is being dogmatic (I doubt he's ignorant) when he seems to deny that any photograph is complete.

My own attempts to capture that little bit have rubbed home how much the tools of straight photography are different from the tools of painting. With digital processing the rules have changed dramatically, but I'm not sure that copying abstractions from the history of painting is the way to go - it certainly doesn't attract me.

One issue Hockney doesn't address in the interview is the differing expectations viewers bring to different media. Cartier Bresson's most famous works would be unbearably cute as paintings. They work superbly as acts of observation, but would be less convincing if assumed to be acts of pure imagination. The difference is drawn from photography's perennial - and seemingly impossible to eradicate - connection to the real, to the idea that something actually existed in front of the camera, even if staged. I suspect it is the erosion of that expectation among the general public that Hockney is referring to in his use of the word 'crisis'.

I don't think there is any crisis. Credibility has been an issue for written descriptions of the world since day one, and there are very well established ways of dealing with it - or playing with it for artistic purposes. My own photography explicitly seeks out the 'quietly odd', or fey, aspects of the world, the things you usually don't see because you are not consciously looking for them. I rely heavily on the idea that what is in my photographs is, or was, truly there; but I also rely heavily on the idea that the world observed closely turns out to be stranger and more wonderful than anything my powers of invention or imagination could dream up, and that aspect of photography is one that Hockney seems not to have grasped.

I'm a fan of Terry Pratchett's advice in his Tiffany Aching stories: 'Open your eyes, and then open them again'.

[Struan Gray]

A quick update: I now have the book, and have found time to read it. It is worth the price of admission.

It is not the sort of book you should read for explicit information about photography. Hockney's views are unremittingly critical, and in a snide, mean-spirited way at that. His privilege.

What is worth reading are his thoughts on how to respond to the world around you as an artist, particularly when that world is not the sublime or picturesque norm that immediately springs to mind when most people think of the word 'landscape'. Hockney works in a way that will be familiar to many photographers quietly stomping their own local patch, and the paintings have many similarities of feel and concept with photographic projects from many of my favourite photographers. That includes a desire to ignore the ugly realities of asymmetry and fly-tipping - a blinkered view I personally find verging on immature - but again, neither Hockney nor those photographers need my approval.

The paintings are being exhibited at the Royal Academy in London for another couple of weeks. Were I in the UK I would make the effort to go and see them.

At the risk of lecturing on the noble art of egg-sucking, anyone who likes the paintings but finds the attitude tiresome might like to investigate the work of the British New Romantic painters and print makers. I suspect Hockney owes them as large a debt as he does the despised art of photography. Paul Nash's "Wood on the downs" has a similar feel without the bombast.

[SergeiR]

Missed it somehow.

First of all - For many reasons in which i shall embark here, i dont see smug comments from him as anything special, b/c "greatest living" - i do hope he is not. Not a personal attack. Just summary of thoughts after looking at his body of work.

Secondly - it is very very VERY limited view that he has. I dont know why, either actual and honest "not have any idea" (as in - never ever seeing works of early pictoralist's movement, and experiments with projection controls and all sorts of things) or just desire to pose as "greatest". It is almost like he feels limited and threatened like many others by photography as medium. Just like it was since first photograph was displayed. Photography is not here to replace art of drawing/painting. They are very different and very similar in many great ways. Both are - expression forms, no more, no less. Its like saying "drawing with oil will be not a drawing, only charcoal is a way to go". Or that every drawing should have followed principles of human anatomy to the letter or disregard it. I.e. Its rubbish.

[Brian C. Miller]

Secondly - it is very very VERY limited view that he has. I dont know why, either actual and honest "not have any idea" (as in - never ever seeing works of early pictoralist's movement, and experiments with projection controls and all sorts of things) or just desire to pose as "greatest". It is almost like he feels limited and threatened like many others by photography as medium. Just like it was since first photograph was displayed. Photography is not here to replace art of drawing/painting. They are very different and very similar in many great ways. Both are - expression forms, no more, no less. Its like saying "drawing with oil will be not a drawing, only charcoal is a way to go". Or that every drawing should have followed principles of human anatomy to the letter or disregard it. I.e. Its rubbish.

From watching some interviews with him, it seems that he feels too constrained by photography. He wants to express something as he feels it, not as how it is absolutely seen. For him, Photoshop and digital photography allows photography to not be photography, but to become drawing and painting once again. He says that he can't draw or paint from a photograph, as he needs to experience the "volume" of a place. When he creates a collage, he calls that drawing, not an arrangement of photographs.

[Kirk Gittings]

He is really talking about HIS failings in working with the medium. A medium has limitations and in and of itself it can neither fail nor succeed.

[anglophone1]

Was in London last week, went for second time to the Hockney show at RA ( first in january)
I'd say its a must if you are in London, and although not photography Hockney is definitely a (the?) major living artist of the photo/ digital age.
Much of the latest work drawn on an IPad and then made wall size.
My daughter who is head of art at a major UK school was with me , she believes he is the Monet of our time, but as ever many won't see this until he's gone........

[Kirk Gittings]

I'm actually a fan. I am just criticizing his rhetoric about the medium.

[SergeiR]

From watching some interviews with him, it seems that he feels too constrained by photography. He wants to express something as he feels it, not as how it is absolutely seen. For him, Photoshop and digital photography allows photography to not be photography, but to become drawing and painting once again. He says that he can't draw or paint from a photograph, as he needs to experience the "volume" of a place. When he creates a collage, he calls that drawing, not an arrangement of photographs.

Well if it limits his abiity - thats fine with me. In interview, however, it seems a bit wider generalization And also , again, photoshop is not only way to gain control over projection and how things are done