Did the Photographic Era Cause the Beginning or the End of Art??

[rxmd]

The question of how photography relates to art is a discussion that has gone on without letup since about 1843.

Apparently what makes photography special is only that the discussion started so early. For example with toilets it took some fifty years, from the invention of the urinal in 1866 until someone tried to put one on exhibit in 1917. With photography the discussion started right away.

 

[Sparrow]

 

[Steve M.]

People cutting animals in half and displaying them in embalming fluid killed art. Or, bad artists creating bad art killed it. Strictly an inside job.

 

[GSNfan]

Actually it was 'art' that compromised still photography.

When still photography was not considered art and had that freedom to be itself, it flourished and some of the best work that are purly photographic came about... It was when still photography was accepted in the art world that it begun its slow decent until today when it feels on the verge of dying.

With the 'artistic' licence came the notion that you could take all sorts of photos and by simply calling them art you had made art. This naturally resulted in lazy, boring and unimaginable work that had nothing to do with photography and everything to do with lazy so called artists abusing still photography because they could not paint.

Still photography as it is today, can only survive if its accepted as a medium into-itself and not art or documents or any other stolen idea from other forms of communicative media. Secondly photographers themselves should run as fast as they can if they encountered anyone who claimed their photos are art by default... There is no such a thing as art by default, its only after the fact. In other words you take the photos and present it, if its considered art after many years such as in the case of Atget then and only then its truly art.

 

[amateriat]

Stewart, I love this! (And, yes, I want a print of it.)

Yes, I do think this is art. Duchamp gets his due...or just-desserts.


- Barrett

 

[amateriat]

Actually it was 'art' that compromised still photography.

When still photography was not considered art and had that freedom to be itself, it flourished and some of the best work that are purly photographic came about... It was when still photography was accepted in the art world that it begun its slow decent until today when it feels on the verge of dying.

With the 'artistic' licence came the notion that you could take all sorts of photos and by simply calling them art you had made art. This naturally resulted in lazy, boring and unimaginable work that had nothing to do with photography and everything to do with lazy so called artists abusing still photography because they could not paint.

Still photography as it is today, can only survive if its accepted as a medium into-itself and not art or documents or any other stolen idea from other forms of communicative media. Secondly photographers themselves should run as fast as they can if they encountered anyone who claimed their photos are art by default... There is no such a thing as art by default, its only after the fact. In other words you take the photos and present it, if its considered art after many years such as in the case of Atget then and only then its truly art.

There was an interview of either Minor White or a contemporary of his around 1969 or so (I still have it somewhere, and I'll try to dig it up soon), more or less making the same point, effectively saying he didn't give a damn whether or not photography would ever be considered "art." There are people around me who don't "believe" in art, or its value, at all. What to make of that?

"I don't know about art. but I know what I like" is often thought the marker of a philistine, but that's the way most people on the planet judge this stuff (if they're paying attention at all). Those of us with a little knowledge of the stuff (and you know the saying about a little knowledge) spend an inordinate amount of time and energy crossing swords about what is or isn't art, which sometimes strikes me as a battle of one-upmanship over credentials, real or imagined. And photography has been something of a whipping-boy since its inception. I also think the mass-production of works has been a point of grousing. Yes, I can take a photograph, and reproduce numerous identical prints from that piece of film (or, on occasion in my case, digital capture). But the same can be said of paintings or musical performances. It's been argued that the ability of someone like be to purchase a copy of, say, van Gogh's Sunflowers or Bruno Walter's set of Beethoven's Symphonies (I do have the latter) diminishes the value of art in general. Does this mean the principal metric valuing "art" is its sheer scarcity? (I'm thinking of the NASA Space Shuttles that a few museums snagged...by the aforementioned metric, they're about as much high-art as Picasso's Guernica.)

I'm not trying to resolve the "Yes, but is it Art?" issue here; I'm thinking that's it's damned near impossible. But the notion that a particular form or means can't possibly lead to something called Art seems silly to me.


- Barrett

 

[GSNfan]

But the notion that a particular form or means can't possibly lead to something called Art seems silly to me.

- Barrett

In the last part of my post I wrote, "In other words you take the photos and present it, if its considered art after [some] many years such as in the case of Atget then and only then its truly art."

But anyway, first of all knowledge is not quantifiable, the notion of little or complete knowledge is simply a matter of spoken words, it has no critical meaning as to the actual measure of knowledge. How do we know whats little knowledge when we cannot even conceive of whats complete knowledge?

Modern art is a joke at best, and its no where more brilliantly illustrated than in the recent documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop. Just the fact that people cannot make up their mind if that documentary is a hoax or not shows how little faith people have in 'art' today and how 'in' they're in the joke that is modern art.

Still photography is somewhat serious, because of photojournalism and documentary-style work dealing with serious issues, in case the whole art circus gained a strong footing in still photography as its trying to do with all the lazy 'artists' finding cheap thrills with the ease of photography, still photography as we know it will be finished.

 

[Carterofmars]

1. Photography enabled art. Because most (if not all) art (traditional painting, sculpting) was done by commission prior to the invention of photography, art as a means of self expression didn't exist. Artists were essentially extremely skilled illustrators who worked for a paycheck filling the void of creating portraits and landscapes because photography didn't exist. When photography came along, it made this function - and the artists/illustrators obsolete. Photos were faster, cheaper, and more accurate means of essentially documenting. Artists, such as Picasso, reinvented art as a means of self-expression and using the medium to re-envision the world and as a means of communication. Art, therefore, didn't exist prior to the advent of photography because it was not a means of communication/expression and artists were highly-skilled illustrators, in essence.

Is it accurate to say that art didn't exist prior to photography?

Was Pieter Bruegel the Elder a commissioned artist? He painted peasants and even dressed as peasants and mingled with them at celebrations and weddings to feel their energy and draw inspiration.

Maybe he was the first street photographer? (replace photographer with painter)

I think the question is flawed because everything human beings do is a form of expression essentially. Therefor, a form of art?

 

[Jodorowsky]

'Art' influenced photography (still life, portraits, landscapes etc), then photography influenced 'art' (or 'painting', if you will), with cropped images, blurring, exposure variations etc. Art will never end, not until life does. Humankind, if it survives, which it will, will invent new forms; I'm still holding out for a Wim Wenders Dream Recorder... imagine being able to record your dreams, then running them through Lightroom 😉 We're all still primitive beasties. There's a lot more to come...