Contemporary art photography and reverse snobism

[AgentX]

On RFF I often sense a certain contempt for what I'd loosely surmise under the term contemporary art photography...

Of course the issue that generally arises is one concerning the 'art' part and who has the authority to assign this status. This often goes along with what I'm tempted to call reverse snobism, i.e. a contempt for academia, intellectualism etc. Or the opinion that art photography is just a load of BS that get's justified by a bunch of scholars writing BS about it that no one understands....

For the Art-Elite to maintain their hegemony they have little choice but to deride the tastes of the plebs as simply bread and circus, and conceal their own behind smoke and mirrors, I mean we're talking art here it isn't democratic ...

quod erat demonstrandum?

 

[Roger Hicks]

Maybe understandable but not justifiable. Nowadays no one wants to make an effort to understand something anymore. People read a few paragraphs of a text with a couple of words they don't understand and, instead of looking them up in a dictionary, they dismiss it as BS.
There's a lot of BS in all areas of photography. I'm sure in reportage photography there are lots of pompous a-holes who talk bs all day and think they're god's gift to humanity. So what? There are lots of footballers who also fit this description but no one would deny that they're good at what they do.

Then there are those who do understand the words; read the text to the end; and KNOW it's BS. It doesn't have to be, of course, and it isn't always; but I'd say that if you compare what is written about Fine Art photography with the photography itself, there's a far higher percentage of rubbish among the scribblings than among the art. Art theorists tend to be parasites on art, in much the same way that accountants tend to be parasites on business: worthwhile servants, but worthless masters. There are rare and noble exceptions, but they are rare. And the worst are the scum of the earth, such as the founder of their loathesome guild, John Ruskin (1819-1900).

Perhaps the ones who dismiss it are luckier. Then again, "when ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise". Those words are even more amusing when you know that they were written about a distant prospect of Eton College.

Cheers,

R.

 

[jsrockit]

Actually a large amount of currently relevant art photography is straight photography rather than conceptual.

Really? That isn't what I'm seeing. 🙁

 

[Peter R]

That Moma excerpt and many other mainstream museums' info may be quite factual and to the point, but pick up an issue of Frieze (for instance) for some serious onanism.

 

[thegman]

Could not agree more with Roger, about the "90% of everything is crap". I think most people look at modern art, be it photography or otherwise and think "it's all crap", including me, but that's because 90% (or in my view 99%) of it *is* crap.

I don't think that modern art should get any more kudos for being art than "America's Next Top Model" should, it should be judged on it's own merits. Just because one is classed as art and one as puerile entertainment does not make the art immediately better. Chances are they are just as sh*t as each other.

 

[Andy Kibber]

The patient says "Doctor, it hurts when I do this." The doctor responds "Then don't do that."

Surely it's easy enough to ignore art we don't like.

 

[Jamie123]

quod erat demonstrandum?

My thoughts exactly. 😉

 

[Jamie123]

Then there are those who do understand the words; read the text to the end; and KNOW it's BS.

Certainly. My point is that whether or not something is BS shouldn't be judged on the basis of how it's worded.

 

[chris000]

Where ever possible (and it usually is possible) I prefer to view the photographs before and without reading any supporting text. Then I read the text and if I find that I have missed something I will view the photos again to try to understand why.

Sometimes the text is enlightening, sometimes not.

I do the same with books of photography too.

 

[ebino]

On RFF I often sense a certain contempt for what I'd loosely surmise under the term contemporary art photography. By that I mean the type of photography that is held in high esteem by the art world (art market, institutions, etc.). There would be no point in trying to give an essential definition of art photography as I don't think there is one. However, it's safe to say that art circles often tend to favour a certain type of photography that is rather 'conceptual' (although I'm sure many art historians would slap my fingers for using this term here).

Of course the issue that generally arises is one concerning the 'art' part and who has the authority to assign this status. This often goes along with what I'm tempted to call reverse snobism, i.e. a contempt for academia, intellectualism etc. Or the opinion that art photography is just a load of BS that get's justified by a bunch of scholars writing BS about it that no one understands.

I'm somewhat annoyed by this because although I agree for a large part that there's a lot of BS in the art world I still don't think this warrants the overall dismissive attitude. I think some so called 'art' photographers are producing some of the best photographic work out there today. Jeff Wall is a genius in my book. Cindy Sherman's early work is fantastic. Hiroshi Sugimoto's work is great, too. I'm not completely won over by the Düsseldorf school but I very much appreciate Gursky's, Struth's and Höfer's work. Sometimes even Ruff's.
I'm also a big fan of Taryn Simon's and Alec Soth's work and of course all the stuff from the 70s and 80s by Shore, Sternfeld and Eggleston.

I'm generally not willing to forego aesthetics in favor of concept but I do find myself getting more and more bored with the kind of 'stunning' imagery that seems to move most people around here. All of the 'old school' Magnum reportage stuff just doesn't do it anymore for me. I used to love it but now I just find it awfully repetitive. These days the images that move me are those that make me think.

Good for you. You can be the lover of BBP (big boring pictures) of 'art photography', or commercial photography sold as art... But in the end of the day its still the same humble photographers who take 'normal' pictures that set the agenda.

'Art photography' can live on the fringe with its dealers and buyers/investors trying to turn photography into another commodity, but its not gonna happen, it did not happen in the last 90 years or so and its not going to happen now.

 

[Sparrow]

That Moma excerpt and many other mainstream museums' info may be quite factual and to the point, but pick up an issue of Frieze (for instance) for some serious onanism.

Really? this is the first one I came to on NYMOMA, I thought the last sentence in particular was a paradigmatic exemplification of the type

Roe Ethridge (American, born 1969) studied photography at the Atlanta College of Art. He shoots in “editorial mode” and also borrows images already in circulation, including outtakes from his own commercial work, sometimes already published in other contexts. “Everything seems to end up in a magazine sooner or later,” Ethridge has said. Drawing upon the descriptive power of photography and the ease with which it can be accessed, duplicated, and recombined, the artist orchestrates visual fugues, juxtaposing, for example, a picture in which he has superimposed an image of a plain white plate, grabbed from Bed Bath & Beyond’s website, on a checkered Comme des Garçons scarf; a photograph of a model dressed in an Alexander McQueen shirt posing against a tripod, which he took at Pier 59 in New York; two filmic pictures of a Julliard ballet student; a still life of moldy fruit he previously published in Vice magazine; a catwalk shot from the Chanel spring 2009 fashion show grabbed from The New York Times; an image of a pumpkin that is a magnified close-up of a sticker; and a picture of a red bag in a corner of the artist’s studio. The pictures acquire their meaning from the salient way in which they have been shuffled, sequenced, and laid out in nonlinear narrative structures. Combining and recombining already recontextualized images, Ethridge at once subverts the photographs’ original roles and renews their signifying possibilities.

 

[Jamie123]

Really? this is the first one I came to on NYMOMA, I thought the last sentence in particular was a paradigmatic exemplification of the type

What do you find puzzling about that last sentence??

 

[Jamie123]

Good for you. You can be the lover of BBP (big boring pictures) of 'art photography', or commercial photography at its most vile form, namely sold as art... But in the end of the day its still the same humble photographers who take 'normal' pictures that set the agenda.

There's this contempt again. Why is 'art photography' the most vile form of commercial photography? Of course it's a business. Art was always a business (although I admit that the state of the art market today is quite troubling). What seperates 'art' photography from what is usually referred to as commercial photography is that what's being sold is the image itself and not some other product.
I could just aswell say that war photography is the most vile form of commercial photography and I could bring forth arguments to support this claim (although I don't really believe it to be true).

Anyways, most art is an acquired taste. It's like wine. If you never bothered getting into it you most likely find it disgusting and the less you know about it the sweeter you like it.
That's perfectly fine. You don't have to like wine. You can spend the rest of your life drinking Coke and be happy with it. But if you give it a shot you might develop a taste for wine and maybe you'll take great pleasure in it. That does not mean that you'll like all wines. In fact, the more you get into it the more specific you get about what you like and what you don't like. But, unlike when you first dismissed all wine as disgusting, you'll now be someone who knows what he's/she's talking about.

 

[Jamie123]

Well assuming one has a working knowledge of 1950's US popular fiction, my mum's favourite Marius Goring film, fashion and cinema still photography of an unspecified era, the work of Stan Douglas, Douglas Sirk, Ali Helnwein, Alfred Hitchcock and Bryce Dallas Howard then it's crystal-clear, if not .. well it would be twaddle wouldn't it?

So your point is that anything that requires some prior knowledge is 'twaddle'? So it's only good if it's accessible to the ignorant and uneducated?

Look, there's nothing wrong in not knowing the references in that text and, chances are, if you don't then Alex Prager's work may not speak to you. Nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of work that doesn't speak to me simply because it doesn't deal with topics I'm interested in. But that doesn't mean I have to dismiss it as 'twaddle'.

 

[antiquark]

Although I generally agree with the OP, there is some art that sounds somewhat like BS. For example:

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/crisis-of-unspecified-specificity.html

...there's "a kind of unspecified specificity" to Frank van der Salm's photographs. Indeed, van der Salm's imagery "relieves the specific" – which only "heightens the impact of the unspecified, the 'artificial', if you will." Van der Salm "shows the specific and the unspecified at the same time, creating from the specific real a (new) unspecified, average."
Apparently, Rosalind Krauss can even prove this.
Having said that, however, Frank van der Salm's images are not "average in the dull sense of the word" – not at all: "they are just the opposite."
And if you're feeling confused while looking at these images, that is because "we see, recognize and understand" what they depict, but we "cannot accept" them. It even seems "as though we are being alienated by the sheer 'logic', by the sheer 'neutrality' of these banal images while our mind incessantly runs around in circles, wrapping itself up in the (to it) irrational equation specific + unspecific = artificial."

Unspecified specificity?

 

[ryan26]

If anybody would care to read an intelligent stance on the debate going on here, pick up some books by Bourdieu - there are many (and all difficult reads) - or start with his wikipedia for a taste of what he's about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu
He even has a book specifically on photography, lo and behold, titled "Photography: A Middle-brow Art", though I'd recommend his general works on art and culture first, as his photography specific book is more dated than others.

 

[Turtle]

Clearly this discussion elicits certain passions and prejudices, but perhaps - maybe - it boils down to this: sincerity on the one hand and also the scope of photography having outgrown previous definitions (and resistance to the same term being used for ALL photography).

Some regard the 'fine art market' as pretentious and prone to obfuscation. As one person put it earlier, 'smoke and mirrors'. I think it is hard to argue completely against this., but the question would be whether such criticisms cannot be made of 'traditional photography.' Surely it can, but perhaps to a lesser degree.

'Traditional' photography (that photography which is largely based on what things look like photographed to quote Winogrand) is widely regarded as less pretentious. Sure, I also find formulaic, repetitive photography dull irrespective of a pleasant aesthetic, but I will admit to being a sucker for some work irrespective of having seen similar work before or after. I think that's human nature ('never too much of a good thing' comes to mind)! While mimicry is never a good thing, fellow photographers might regard unimaginative work as at least unpretentious; it does not pretend to be anything other than what it is when you look at it. Unoriginal, maybe...

Maybe it comes down to the perception of deception! There is little room to hide with traditional work. Its is very hard to make it any more than it actually is. The same is not so of conceptual or contemporary fine art work where if you regard the work as 'poor' the photographer/critic/fan can always claim you don't get it. Such responses can easily be taken as an insult and dismissive of one's intellect. I don't think anyone would claim that the fine art world is entirely devoid of this reflex when faced with criticism. Aesthetic opinions of traditional photography work are somehow accepted to be subjective, whereas a poor opinion of a celebrated piece of work can be taken as objective evidence that the critic is just not bright or open minded enough to 'get it'.

From a very personal perspective, I prefer to deal with concepts at the conceptual level. Words, thoughts, personal interactions. I very personally find images (which I dont find interesting in their own right) as uninspiring portals into the world of provocative thought. In short, the images bore me and I would probably find the concept more interesting if I read it on a brochure or experienced it in a play or by reading a book... or taking part in a debate. I recognise that this is personal, but the problem is that the photography often leaves relatively little scope for depth and breadth beyond very simple concepts without rafts of supporting text or debate, in which case why the photos?

My own prejudiced idea of 'good photography' is simply that the beginning of this process, regardless of where it then goes, needs to be a photo that makes me want to look at it. If it fails on this count, surely photography is incidental to what follows and what we are really dealing with is conceptual art that should be couched as such? Its as if photography is the new medium for conceptual work and some feel the medium is being flooded by work that is not well tethered to the core of what photography is widely believed to be about. Perhaps it will pass in time, but I suspect not. Perhaps its just that digital photography is now merging with illustration and so the two combined are so broad and all encompassing that this progression (due to the potential for expression) is only natural. In this case, surely we are talking about conceptual art that uses a photographic component and not 'photography' as an beginning and end state?

Has 'art' (purely for utilitarian reasons) stretched photography beyond its previous definitions and are we now dealing with a debate as to where that definition should end and where 'true art' should begin i.e. the origins and new frontiers are poles apart and being human we need to compartmentalise things? Is this really about labels? Would people be happier if traditional work fell under the title 'Photography' and the conceptual art/illustration work under 'Artphoto'? This may seem silly, but....

 

[Sparrow]

So your point is that anything that requires some prior knowledge is 'twaddle'? So it's only good if it's accessible to the ignorant and uneducated?

Look, there's nothing wrong in not knowing the references in that text and, chances are, if you don't then Alex Prager's work may not speak to you. Nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of work that doesn't speak to me simply because it doesn't deal with topics I'm interested in. But that doesn't mean I have to dismiss it as 'twaddle'.

No! my point is the justification for the work is twaddle, the work itself may well be perfectly valid.

I contend that any description of an artwork must be motivated by the intention to inform not deceive. Would you not agree?

Perhaps you would care to explain the meaning of "Combining and recombining already recontextualized images, Ethridge at once subverts the photographs’ original roles and renews their signifying possibilities." and how it informs us as to it's relevance to a few folk photographed in 70's clothing under quite harsh lighting?

 

[mfogiel]

I continue the confrontations:

W Eugene Smith: http://www.lgtinc.org/content_images/Eugene%20Smith%20minamata2.jpg

Thomas Struth: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/cruelandtender/images/struth_smithfamily_lg.jpg

and

Andre' Kertesz: http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images_117186_240007_andre-kertesz.jpg

Taryn Simon: http://www.papermag.com/blogs/taryn simon.jpg

and

Ralph Gibson: http://www.iphotocentral.com/Photos/VintageWorks_Images/Full/10782bGibsonSardenia.jpg

Alec Soth: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/alec_soth_bonnie-1.jpg


An ape with a camera does not automatically become an artist either, although I am sure some galleries would be delighted to sell photo art produced by an ape.

 

[skibeerr]

If you keep your mind open you tend to get a richer life.

It is however an exercise which can be demanding and I find one can understand that people do not want to take the time or make the effort.

But those who don't should not judge those who do, or vise versa.

I am a student in an art school and sometimes my hairs stand on end when I have to listen to drivel expelled in a pitiful attempt to cover up bad work but I take the time to look at the work and separate the , sometimes extravagant, explanation that accompanies good work from the BS.