A very interesting take on portraiture

[PaulDalex]

Not silly nor twee form me at all
It is never silly or pointless to hike on giants' shoulders
Art can teach you better photography
I do myself similar exercises. But they require a lot of effort time and money (think for example to the problem of finding the right dresses)
The hit of genius is IMO that of using a child model which simplifies production quite a bit

 

[RichC]

Brilliantly executed and very funny. I really can't see why anyone would have a problem with the concept, either. Hard to believe he can do each one in 8 hours.

I guess it depends on what you want from art. For me, art has to have both concept and craft - without the former, it is a meaningless "pretty" object, only fit to adorn a chocolate box; without the latter, it lacks those elements needed to communicate.

Obviously this is an overly broad categorisation - sometimes a pretty picture is enough, and Duchamp's readymades (like his urinal) exemplified a turning point in art.

Anyway, I'm a typical postmodern artist - art has a job to do, and that is to question, subvert and otherwise draw attention to and explore our culture and the world we inhabit.

The photographer is obviously hugely skilled technically - but I'm afraid would get short shrift from those leaning towards contemporary art. The portraits are appealing but say little worthwhile about the subject, the photographer or anything else...

There's nothing wrong alluding to paintings - many photographers do, including myself - and parody is a well respected approach in postmodern art. But it's what you do with the idea that counts. This photographer does nothing except create pastiche.

 

[daveleo]

Well, I looked it up and now I know what "twee" means, and I agree that those portraits are a bit twee, but I still like them.

As to whether the photographer intended them to be interpreted as great artistic works ? . . . . maybe he did . . or, maybe he was just having fun creating this particular set? Or maybe he created the set to generate some portrait business? (I know a couple who had their girls photographed as angels - with wings and harps ! on clouds !! - and they paid for the set !!! )


Maybe the writer kind of over-wrote the article (they often do).

 

[segedi]

And dare I say it me (though not portraits): http://www.richcutler.co.uk/photography/fast/

Dammit Rich. I quite wanted to disagree with you, as twee speaks to me. But art is definitely your thing. Well done.

 

[Roger Hicks]

.. .art has a job to do, and that is to question, subvert and otherwise draw attention to and explore our culture and the world we inhabit...

Oh dear. Has anyone told "art" what it its "job" is? And why should art believe them?

Yours is an unbelievably limited view of art, which began in the late 18th century (think Constable); grew throughout the 19th and early 20th, with the various schools and "-ists/isms" (Impressionists, fauves, cubists, vorticists...); and disappeared up its own bum in the mid-to-late 20th century. Fortunately it is not universally supported.

The idea that "art has a job to do", and that you (or anyone else) can define that one, single "job" in any terms, is so risible as barely to deserve rebuttal.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Further thought. Go to http://ceciledecorniquet.com/ and see if you find that she isn't "doing the job of art". If you think she wasn't, then SFR Jeunes Talents 2013 would disagree.

Analyze Cécile's pictures and see what preconceptions she is challenging. Then ask yourself what the difference is between Cecile's work (which I greatly admire, and I've also met the dear girl) and the pictures referenced here. Basically, it's the Artist's Statement, which is the substitute in much postmodernism for actual originality and talent. If any of those "leaning towards contemporary art" don't understand this, they're leaning towards empty theory, not art.

Cheers,

R.

 

[koven]

shes adorable

 

[Ranchu]

She's copying that other woman from a few years ago, Roger. I forget her name...

 

[Roger Hicks]

And another thought. What's so bloody modern about models with a single, glum expression? Yes, glum faces are fashionable. What's so artistic about that? There've been good fashions. For example, I like mid/late Victorian pseudo-classical scenes (Boulanger, Poynter, and greatest of them all, Alma-Tadema). Do I pretend that this is what art is "about", for all time? Of course not. And there've been bad fashions, such as glum teenagers.

Cheers,

R.

 

[potcab]

Basically, you like something or you don't. I lke this.

 

[RichC]

Oh dear. Has anyone told "art" what it its "job" is? And why should art believe them?

Yours is an unbelievably limited view of art, which began in the late 18th century (think Constable); grew throughout the 19th and early 20th, with the various schools and "-ists/isms" (Impressionists, fauves, cubists, vorticists...); and disappeared up its own bum in the mid-to-late 20th century. Fortunately it is not universally supported.

The idea that "art has a job to do", and that you (or anyone else) can define that one, single "job" in any terms, is so risible as barely to deserve rebuttal.

Not keen on contemporary art in general are you! As to "risible", you've just dismissed in its entirety the route art has taken since the Enlightenment.

It is the avant garde, those who spend their lives endeavouring to push the boundaries of human knowledge and creativity, that define our culture and directions within it - whether that be in science, art or any other human activity. This avant garde - whether professionals at work or gifted amateurs - drives the Establishment.

Within the Art Establishment, contemporary art is the mainstream: the movers and shakers in the art world - artists, academics, galleries, museums - consider concept and theory integral to art; craft is relevant only if it underpins the concept of an artwork - if it doesn't, why bother about composition or blown highlights for their own sake?

To say that this view of art is "unbelievably limited" and "disappeared up its own bum" is to dismiss the facts - that this idea of art is taught in every university, and every artist, museum or gallery interested in art relevant to the present subscribes to it.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own preferences, so if you dislike contemporary art, that's fine. But to ignore it as an elitist irrelevancy of no worth is foolish. I own objects for no other reason than they're beautiful: do I consider them good art? No - but that doesn't prevent me appreciating them!

I've never understood this dismissive attitude towards art. Take science: you don't hear people saying, "Physics since Einstein and Heisenberg has gone up its own bum, what with quantum mechanics and uncertainty - clocks running slow, things being waves and particles at the same time ... Not relevant to the real world! Modern science – it's unbelievably limited! I only like Newtonian physics!"

If you consider art to be a way of exploring and expressing the world we live in, then, like science, you need to accept that it evolves.

To finish, since this is a thread about portraits, here's a self-portrait (craft not needed!), "Dancing in Peckham", by Gillian Wearing, among the most influential and important British living artists. This piece is about making visible our internal self, which we usually keep hidden, by expressing it in an inappropriate public space, raising questions about personal identity and how we relate to others, and them with us. (Incidentally, this piece of contemporary art went down a storm with the residents of Peckham (a deprived, working-class suburb of London) - who loved it!)

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/video/2012/mar/26/gillian-wearing-dancing-peckham-video

 

[Charlie Lemay]

I love this work! If one compares it with images in the same genre made by Cindy Sherman and most recently by Amy Arbus, you will see how powerful this vision is. He manages to capture the life force of this little being, in a way that these others could not aspire to, given their standing in the Art Establishment. And he gets to hit the touchstones of postmodern irony and humor. There is also the eloquent comment tat most photography is about making images we've all seen before. Using his daughter as the model is like a clever wink.

As a contemporary artist with his own personal vision, I wholeheartedly agree with Roger about the irrelevance of the Art World to art making.

In his book, "The Painted Word," Tom Wolfe declared the modern art exists to illustrate its theory.

The Art World is corrupt. As for Science, it has similar problems. Just look at the latest neuroscience that states we make it all up, that we act in response to the winner of the competing needs of our many different biological systems and then create the narrative to explain our actions; the new debates in medicine over the evidence for the harm caused by best practices, and the most recent findings on the placebo effect; or the concept of dark matter and energy in contemporary physics for which there is as much physical evidence for as there was for ether.

Every artist has to find their own reason for art. For me the first job of the artist is to wake themselves up, the second is to wake up other people.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Take science: you don't hear people saying, "Physics since Einstein and Heisenberg has gone up its own bum, what with quantum mechanics and uncertainty - clocks running slow, things being waves and particles at the same time ... Not relevant to the real world! Modern science – it's unbelievably limited! I only like Newtonian physics!"

Have you been reading my notes? 😀

 

[Photo_Smith]

I didn't really like them, they seemed a little 'twee' to my eye. Well done though, but they don't float my boat.
I'm not sure about being 'great art'

 

[Roger Hicks]

Not keen on contemporary art in general are you! As to "risible", you've just dismissed in its entirety the route art has taken since the Enlightenment.

It is the avant garde, those who spend their lives endeavouring to push the boundaries of human knowledge and creativity, that define our culture and directions within it - whether that be in science, art or any other human activity. This avant garde - whether professionals at work or gifted amateurs - drives the Establishment.

Within the Art Establishment, contemporary art is the mainstream: the movers and shakers in the art world - artists, academics, galleries, museums - consider concept and theory integral to art; craft is relevant only if it underpins the concept of an artwork - if it doesn't, why bother about composition or blown highlights for their own sake?

To say that this view of art is "unbelievably limited" and "disappeared up its own bum" is to dismiss the facts - that this idea of art is taught in every university, and every artist, museum or gallery interested in art relevant to the present subscribes to it.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own preferences, so if you dislike contemporary art, that's fine. But to ignore it as an elitist irrelevancy of no worth is foolish. I own objects for no other reason than they're beautiful: do I consider them good art? No - but that doesn't prevent me appreciating them!

I've never understood this dismissive attitude towards art. Take science: you don't hear people saying, "Physics since Einstein and Heisenberg has gone up its own bum, what with quantum mechanics and uncertainty - clocks running slow, things being waves and particles at the same time ... Not relevant to the real world! Modern science – it's unbelievably limited! I only like Newtonian physics!"

If you consider art to be a way of exploring and expressing the world we live in, then, like science, you need to accept that it evolves.

To finish, since this is a thread about portraits, here's a self-portrait (craft not needed!), "Dancing in Peckham", by Gillian Wearing, among the most influential and important British living artists. This piece is about making visible our internal self, which we usually keep hidden, by expressing it in an inappropriate public space, raising questions about personal identity and how we relate to others, and them with us. (Incidentally, this piece of contemporary art went down a storm with the residents of Peckham (a deprived, working-class suburb of London) - who loved it!)

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/video/2012/mar/26/gillian-wearing-dancing-peckham-video

Dear Rich,

You really do suffer from extreme hardening of the categories, don't you? Have you by any chance a degree in art, or some other reason for understanding so little about the history of art? And was there no art before what you describe, sloppily, as "the enlightenment"?

You're as bad at arguing as at defining art. I said that yours is a view of art; a view, I suggest, that has disappeared up its own bum. Note that there is a big difference between "a view of art" (a limited version of which is what you are propagating) and the whole enormous, chaotic, disputatious and enormously welcome world of art as produced by artists.

Fortunately there are many more views of art, most (but not all) less blinkered than your own. Indeed, most of the practising artists I know would laugh in your face if you told them that you, or indeed an "art establishment" had any monopoly on defining art. Well, the nice ones would. Some might follow it up (or precede it) with a knee in the groin, if they were having a bad day.

Where did I say I don't like any contemporary art? Disliking one particular kind of art theory is not the same as disliking all contemporary art.

What on earth is the relevance of your little tirade on particle physics? Indeed, did you actually think before writing it down? There are plenty of times when Newtonian physics is more useful than particle physics, but the limitations of Newtonian physics are precisely why particle physics is also useful: the exact opposite of what you appear to be saying. Both coexist peacefully; each is used when it is appropriate.

In fact, I'd suggest that the particle physics rant is illustrative of the fact that you understand physics about as clearly as you understand art theory: you latch onto things you don't really understand, and talk about them as if you did.

Cheers,

R.

 

[philipus]

I think the idea is not bad, but I do think they are overly, and not always very well, post-processed. Perhaps the idea was to make them look fake, fine in that case. But they do look like ads one often sees on the internet for "portraiture software" with before and after photos with preposterous changes to the model's face.

I hate to sound unappreciative but my reaction was "meh".

 

[Vics]

I think they're beautiful pictures and a beautiful portrait of a young girl and her Dad taking on a perfectly lovely project. What's not to like?

 

[Roger Hicks]

I love this work! If one compares it with images in the same genre made by Cindy Sherman and most recently by Amy Arbus, you will see how powerful this vision is. He manages to capture the life force of this little being, in a way that these others could not aspire to, given their standing in the Art Establishment. And he gets to hit the touchstones of postmodern irony and humor. There is also the eloquent comment tat most photography is about making images we've all seen before. Using his daughter as the model is like a clever wink.

As a contemporary artist with his own personal vision, I wholeheartedly agree with Roger about the irrelevance of the Art World to art making.

In his book, "The Painted Word," Tom Wolfe declared the modern art exists to illustrate its theory.

. . .

Every artist has to find their own reason for art. For me the first job of the artist is to wake themselves up, the second is to wake up other people.

Dear Charlie,

Yeah, but what do you know? You're just a practising artist and art teacher. Since when do your views count?

Actually, come to think of it, you can't be a practising artist and art teacher, or you'd agree 100% with everything Rich says: "this idea of art is taught in every university, and every artist, museum or gallery interested in art relevant to the present subscribes to it."

I wonder how many artists he knows? Then again, I see his cop-out: "...interested in art relevant to the present..." Unless we all agree with him slavishly, we're irrelevant.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Charlie Lemay]

Thanks for clearing that up Roger. I have a degree in Art History, from a long time ago. I am self-taught in photography. Maybe I didn't get the memo about what I was supposed to be doing. Oh well, too late for me now.

 

[RichC]

Dear Rich... you understand physics about as clearly as you understand art theory: you latch onto things you don't really understand, and talk about them as if you did.

BSc in chemistry, MA with distinction in art, co-wrote the physical science in major dictionaries, including "The Collins English Dictionary"...