pggunn
gregor
I find much of the conceptual, pseudointellectual work at Aperture very annoying. It reminds me of the Emperor With No Clothes. Much of it is second rate photography, at best, and cannot stand on its own merits, hence the futile attempts to legitimize it with nearly incomprehensible, or more properly nonsensical, language. If it's truly good, the photograph speaks for itself. It doesn't require three or four paragraphs of four and five syllable words to induce vertigo to the point that ones vision begins to blur until the photograph starts looking better.
Or maybe I'm just ignorant. Perhaps both. I suppose Andy is right. I should just ignore it and move on.
Or maybe I'm just ignorant. Perhaps both. I suppose Andy is right. I should just ignore it and move on.
Al Kaplan
Veteran
The only true art photographs are MY photographs. Why don't the people at Aperture understand that simple obvious truth?
pggunn
gregor
Hey Al, I've seen your work and if Aperture would start displaying your photographs they would definitely be making a huge step in the right direction!
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Jamie,
Well, I know quite a bit about whisky and rangefinder cameras, and a modest amount about wine and art, and the point with ALL of them is that 'academic knowledge' is precisely what you don't need. No-one ever acquired a taste for (let us say) Laphroaig, Leicas or Lange from reading about them, especially from reading impenetrable treatises.
If someone cannot explain themselves in plain English (or even plain French or German), then they probably have very little to say and are concealing this in sesquipedalian verbiage. Alternatively, they may not be talking about their purported subject at all, but rather, are talking about hermeneutics and semiotics under the guise of that subject, often because they know a lot more about hermeneutics and semiotics (even though they know little enough about either) than they do about the subject in hand. Sontag springs to mind.
Cheers,
R.
pggunn
gregor
Exactly! That's why I threw my copy of Sontag's On Photography in the trash bin after suffering through the first two thirds of it, something I seldom do, being a bibliophile.
Sparrow
Veteran
I completely agree, but in the catalogue it may be better to put
“Exploring the contention that an overwhelming substantiation exists for the acceptance of reasoned expressional analysis being an illusory deception concealing a hypocritical confection”
it helps take peoples mind off the dull pictures
bmattock
Veteran
I think about it this way. Art critics and gallery owners and those who write about art must say something. There is always a desire to differentiate themselves from all of their compatriots and competitors. One does not wish to be the magazine editor who simply grunted "Nice photos. I like 'em," even if that is how one actually feels. Likewise, one does not wish to be the critic who says "I didn't get the artists point at all, but perhaps I'm just not clever enough to understand him."
I can also imagine phone conversations like this:
At this point, both men turn to the task of writing precisely 500 words on the towing genius that is Blargleberry. Within days, he's the toast of the town, within weeks he is snorting detergent and plooking groupies like a rock star.
I'd write a screenplay about it, but it's been done.
By the way, a good movie on this subject is called "Pecker" for the newbies in the group who have not yet seen it.
I can also imagine phone conversations like this:
At this point, both men turn to the task of writing precisely 500 words on the towing genius that is Blargleberry. Within days, he's the toast of the town, within weeks he is snorting detergent and plooking groupies like a rock star.
I'd write a screenplay about it, but it's been done.
By the way, a good movie on this subject is called "Pecker" for the newbies in the group who have not yet seen it.
Andy Kibber
Well-known
It's kind of embarrassing how worked up people get about this sort of thing.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
I can't understand the anti-art/anti education theme running through this thread.
Dear George,
Funny, I had the impression that most of us are pro-art and pro-education; just anti-obscurantist, and are underwhelmed by art that needs to be propped up by pseudo-intellectual discourse.
Of course a lot of perfectly good art, with no need of being propped up, is also set about with pseudo-intellectual discourse. Most of us are against that too.
Cheers,
R.
emraphoto
Veteran
What is also embarassing is the curmudgeony old man attitude here that some how art critics/writers and curators are imbeciles who despite probably 3-4 years of university education cannot form an educated opinion about that which they study.
It is a different ball game certainly but to deride something as vapid and without any merit simply because one doesn't apreciate the end result is... well, childish.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Not all of them.
But equally, 'probably 3-4 years of university education' does not automatically equip anyone for anything. Plenty of dunderheads graduate, especially in intellectually undemanding fields.
There's also a difference between forming an educated opinion, and being able to express it clearly. What most of us are deriding as 'vapid and without any merit' is the writing, not the art.
This is not a new argument. I take it you've read Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word (1975, reissued by Picador in 2008).
Cheers,
R.
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bmattock
Veteran
It was a child who dared to state what everyone else knew but dared not state; that the Emperor had no clothes.
emraphoto
Veteran
well Roger you are preaching to the choir when it comes to dunderhead graduates.
Of course, to the bewilderment of many, 3-4 years of education doe not gain one entry to a higher caste. I don't believe that was my point.
I have not read The Painted World and with the amount of reading I currently face I would be most appreciative of a synopsis.
emraphoto
Veteran
I am quite confident that I am not blind to reality Bill. I suppose I only suffer a differentiating opinion.
Sparrow
Veteran
My daughter is doing Art and Art History at A level at the moment so we have been “doing the galleries” a lot this year.
At one time, this sort of obfuscation was confined to the pretentious places that were just talking the price up a bit, but now it’s getting everywhere, and is becoming a real barrier to learning and understanding the art itself.
Now that’s fine for an old foggy like me I know what I’m looking at, I just find it amusing.
However my daughter has a real difficulty, and the very people who should be making the art accessible and understandable to her are instead hiding it behind this bizarre high class slang
At one time, this sort of obfuscation was confined to the pretentious places that were just talking the price up a bit, but now it’s getting everywhere, and is becoming a real barrier to learning and understanding the art itself.
Now that’s fine for an old foggy like me I know what I’m looking at, I just find it amusing.
However my daughter has a real difficulty, and the very people who should be making the art accessible and understandable to her are instead hiding it behind this bizarre high class slang
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Roger Hicks
Veteran
Sparrow
Veteran
don’t know how I missed that one over the years, something to read over Christmas, thanks
Dave Wilkinson
Veteran
surfer dude
Well-known
Of course, and this is especially true of post-modernism, you can always apply the old adage: if it smells like bs, it probably IS bs...
amateriat
We're all light!
Somehow, discussions of art and scatological matters frequently intersect...
(Trying to remember the writer [Dickinson? Nah...] who said that everyone secretly likes the smell of their own...well, you know...)
- Barrett
(Trying to remember the writer [Dickinson? Nah...] who said that everyone secretly likes the smell of their own...well, you know...)
- Barrett