Rudy_b
Member
I didn't mean it necessarily applied to her, more that it was impossible for us to know, as things stand.
Monkeys and pigs etc. is exactly what I was getting at. Here the difference between a 'snapshot' photographer and other kinds would be the former taking photos without much thought to meaning or discovery. 'Here is grandma in front of the Eiffel Tower' type stuff.
This is a more or less thorny distinction depending on your definition of art. This is obviously way too abstract (or personal) to get into here, but I'll briefly state this: to me, if a work has entirely aesthetic and no semantic considerations involved in its creation, it is craft and not art. This would exclude Duchamp/Fountain style 'second-order' aesthetic concerns, where the (/lack of) aesthetic characteristics of a piece use the context in which it is viewed to bear some semantic content. Hopefully I'm not devolving into talk of True Scotsmen, but who knows
Good point on the second part by the way. I guess it was guilt by association, what I'm used to that type of photography signifying, just me showing my prejudices. Mea culpa
Other posts have made me aware of some evidence for some knowledge she had of the formal art world. I guess the definition of outsider as 'child/mental patient' would obviously exclude her, but I'd known the term as being broader. Perhaps a better term would be 'naive art', or something to that effect as someone has suggested. My original point then stands, sorta. Can it still be classed as that, whatever that is (being outside of the orthodoxy), if she wasn't able to edit her own final output?
Ranchu
Veteran
Vivian Maier - 'Marketing Attempts' would be how I'd categorize it.
35mmdelux
Veni, vidi, vici
outsider? dont know that means....Pablo Picasso, Guernica ..
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
Art, shmart. Give no ... she was Photographer. One of the few, real one.
DNG
Film Friendly
Yes, Exactly....
So, a lot of use who have a talent, but no "Formal Training" also "outsiders"?
.
That term is very bi-est and Egotistical IMO, Bi-est in the way a Formally Educated person believes that only their circle of people have an option on what they where educated in for the rest of to accept as true, as far as an "Official" approval or not to the rest of us. That kind of thinking brings us to their Egotistical Attitudes problem.
As I said above.... So, all you amateurs with no "Formal Training" are waiting your time, if you accept the "Outsider" Explanation.
I am sure she self studied in photography (as most of us have. And we have a lot talented photographers here)
The elitist few that may or may not have talent are not the last word in what is considered great works. (Education dose not guarantee that you will be talented after the the training). Hard work and being able to apply Lighting, geometry, space relations and impact in a photograph will expose a talent over time.
Van Gogh couldn't sell one painting in his lifetime.. (He was an "Ouysider" to his day and time). His art was not what others painted.. He was not considered an artist to his peers. His work was colorful, interpretive, bold for the day.. it was not excepted! Now HE is the Greatest Artist of his time, and perhaps ours also.
One Painting can be worth over $1m !!!! today.
Vivian, may not be a Van Gogh in some respects, BUT, she had a great talent, and that talent for her, was all that mattered. I am sure she enjoyed printing and just looking at her work, and enjoyed her "Slices of Life". as we all do........And that can be very satisfying!
telenous
Well-known
Like you, I have a broader understanding of outsider art though it obviously grates with that of others. To your second question, whether external to the work editorial intervention changes fundamentally the photographic work, I think it depends. When there's repurposing of the original material then, of course, there is a fundamental difference. But sometimes an editor will approach a photographic archive with the intention to preserve/respect the category under which the work was intended to be classified. Take for example Szarkowski or, later, Rubinfien editing Winogrand's work. We can be reasonably sure that their editing choices wouldn't match exactly those by Winogrand, had he been alive to make them. For what would be the chances of that? But we also know that their edits do not reclassify the work in some other photographic category, say, something other than documentary or street. (Winogrand hated classifications but never mind that for a minute.) Had the selection been made with a mind to repurpose the original work for some other photographic or aesthetic reason, then the question you pose certainly arises. I guess there's still a question whether editors are completely untainted by the aesthetic concerns of the times they live in. My gut feeling is that even if they aren't, they can still make a conscious decision to address a work with the appropriate historical criteria. I realise of course this is a minority view in some quarters
.
airfrogusmc
Veteran
And I believe as Adams did about categories.
"Lets hope that categories will be less rigid in the future; there has been too much of placing photography in little niches-commercial. pictorial, documentary, and creative( a dismal term). Definitions of this kind are inessential and stupid; good photography remains good photography no matter what we name it. I would like to think of it as just “photography” ; of each and every photograph containing the best qualities in proper degree to achieve its purpose. We have been slaves to categories, and each has served as a kind of concentration camp for the spirit.”-Ansel Adams
"Lets hope that categories will be less rigid in the future; there has been too much of placing photography in little niches-commercial. pictorial, documentary, and creative( a dismal term). Definitions of this kind are inessential and stupid; good photography remains good photography no matter what we name it. I would like to think of it as just “photography” ; of each and every photograph containing the best qualities in proper degree to achieve its purpose. We have been slaves to categories, and each has served as a kind of concentration camp for the spirit.”-Ansel Adams
Pioneer
Veteran
I didn't mean it necessarily applied to her, more that it was impossible for us to know, as things stand.
Monkeys and pigs etc. is exactly what I was getting at. Here the difference between a 'snapshot' photographer and other kinds would be the former taking photos without much thought to meaning or discovery. 'Here is grandma in front of the Eiffel Tower' type stuff.
This is a more or less thorny distinction depending on your definition of art. This is obviously way too abstract (or personal) to get into here, but I'll briefly state this: to me, if a work has entirely aesthetic and no semantic considerations involved in its creation, it is craft and not art. This would exclude Duchamp/Fountain style 'second-order' aesthetic concerns, where the (/lack of) aesthetic characteristics of a piece use the context in which it is viewed to bear some semantic content. Hopefully I'm not devolving into talk of True Scotsmen, but who knows
Good point on the second part by the way. I guess it was guilt by association, what I'm used to that type of photography signifying, just me showing my prejudices. Mea culpa
Other posts have made me aware of some evidence for some knowledge she had of the formal art world. I guess the definition of outsider as 'child/mental patient' would obviously exclude her, but I'd known the term as being broader. Perhaps a better term would be 'naive art', or something to that effect as someone has suggested. My original point then stands, sorta. Can it still be classed as that, whatever that is (being outside of the orthodoxy), if she wasn't able to edit her own final output?
I certainly do not want the discussion to devolve into who is or is not a True Scotsman, but I think that your belief that some form of meaning is required before defining something as "art", is a bit exclusive, eliminating many forms of art. Aesthetics is usually critical for any art in the beginning. It establishes popularity. Semantics may or may not be important for a work of art to survive for the long term but, if it does survive, meaning is usually attached to the work whether it may actually have been there in the first place.
I don't see Ms Maier's work as snapshot photography, though some of what she did was take snapshots. Obviously Vivian Maier's work has aesthetic value, I think most will agree with that. But in my mind there is also great meaning for me in her work. One major thread I see is an exploration of age, and how people are affected and respond. Others may or may not see the same since it is my own individual interpretation.
I read a lot of people's posts where they attribute her success to nostalgia for the era in which she worked, or the attraction of her story and how her work was discovered. I am sure there is a lot of that involved but if you do spend time really studying her work you find so much more. The themes I see for myself seem universal, applying today as much as it did then. The look of the boy playing in the dirt between street and curb is eternal. Part question, part suspicion. Are you only a passing disturbance or do you intend to interrupt my play in some way?
In Ms Maier's case the superstition may actually be true. I think she has captured the souls of many of her subjects at that moment in time and embedded them forever in the emulsions of her negatives and prints.
kbg32
neo-romanticist
From Wikipedia -
Many details of Maier's life are unknown. Some early accounts indicated that she was born in France,[3] but further research revealed that she was born in New York City, the daughter of Maria Jaussaud and Charles Maier, French and Austrian respectively. She moved between the U.S. and France several times during her childhood, living with her mother in the Alpine village of Saint-Bonnet-en-Champsaur near to her mother's relations. Her father seems to have left the family for unknown reasons by 1930. In the census that year, the head of the household was listed as award-winning portrait photographer Jeanne Bertrand, who knew the founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art.[4]
In 1951, at the age of 25, Maier moved from France to New York, where she worked in a sweatshop. She made her way to the Chicago area's North Shore in 1956. and there, for approximately 40 years, she worked on and off as a nanny, staying with one family for 14 years. The families that employed her described her as very private and reported that she spent her days off walking the streets of Chicago and taking photographs, most often with a Rolleiflex camera.[5]
John Maloof, curator of some of Maier's photographs, summarizes the way the children she nannied would later describe her:[6]
She was a Socialist, a Feminist, a movie critic, and a tell-it-like-it-is type of person. She learned English by going to theaters, which she loved. She wore a men's jacket, men's shoes, and a large hat most of the time. She was constantly taking pictures, which she didn't show anyone.
----
The above shows that Vivian did not live inside of a shoe box. She was well traveled as well. She knew about "art".
Many details of Maier's life are unknown. Some early accounts indicated that she was born in France,[3] but further research revealed that she was born in New York City, the daughter of Maria Jaussaud and Charles Maier, French and Austrian respectively. She moved between the U.S. and France several times during her childhood, living with her mother in the Alpine village of Saint-Bonnet-en-Champsaur near to her mother's relations. Her father seems to have left the family for unknown reasons by 1930. In the census that year, the head of the household was listed as award-winning portrait photographer Jeanne Bertrand, who knew the founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art.[4]
In 1951, at the age of 25, Maier moved from France to New York, where she worked in a sweatshop. She made her way to the Chicago area's North Shore in 1956. and there, for approximately 40 years, she worked on and off as a nanny, staying with one family for 14 years. The families that employed her described her as very private and reported that she spent her days off walking the streets of Chicago and taking photographs, most often with a Rolleiflex camera.[5]
John Maloof, curator of some of Maier's photographs, summarizes the way the children she nannied would later describe her:[6]
She was a Socialist, a Feminist, a movie critic, and a tell-it-like-it-is type of person. She learned English by going to theaters, which she loved. She wore a men's jacket, men's shoes, and a large hat most of the time. She was constantly taking pictures, which she didn't show anyone.
----
The above shows that Vivian did not live inside of a shoe box. She was well traveled as well. She knew about "art".
airfrogusmc
Veteran
Click on the video at the top also about 24 min in on. Shows that she knew about Bresson, Brassai, Doisneau, Ronis, Izis. She saw The exhibit in New York 5 French Photographers at MOMA. Well here watch this.
http://interactive.wttw.com/jayschicago/vivian-maier-special#.UpOpZCithkc
http://interactive.wttw.com/jayschicago/vivian-maier-special#.UpOpZCithkc
Rudy_b
Member
As regards the first bold sentence, I have to respectfully disagree. Calling a definition of art exclusionist because it excludes certain types of art is begging the question, surely? It takes for granted that those things are art (rather than craft alone as I had contended). I'm not in any way saying aesthetic considerations aren't often important, but they can't possibly be the only thing that defines something as art. Is a beautiful sunset art? No because, it was not created.
As for the second bold sentence, I just wanted to clarify that I don't think she IS a snapshot photographer, more that we don't have a way of knowing without editing. Call back to the google streetview car etc
airfrogusmc said:
Couple of points here
Categories are bad when they constrain creativity. they are necessary in other circumstances. I mean, categories are essential to how humans see the world! A photograph is not a sandwich. If you see a photograph, you know whoever made it intended for it to be looked at, not sat on. Drawing the line there seems arbitrary. But of course I have todefer to Adams' wisdom, I mean the man's output spanned so many genres! From documentary, to fashion, to macro insect photography, you name it the man did it
Second, 'outsider art' as me and some others take it to mean, isn't a category in the sense that I assume Adams meant. It's more of a statement about her relation to the norms of the time. You can be an outsider artist and still every piece you create would be classed as a different genre, or create new genres altogether.
It is also, I hasten to add, NOT a value judgement, or elitism, or whatever. A lot of people here seem to have assumed as much. The question was whether she can be said to have created her work outside of the art establishment, it was never said that only the art establishment is allowed to create work.
telenous said:
You've consistently made some very isteresting points. Here I think you've presented a case where classifications are a boon - if Winogrand's chosen work had certain criteria in common with one another (call them what you will), then someone curating an exhibition when he is no longer able to choose would do well to look for works sharing these criteria. Otherwise they risk straying further from his presumed vision, and injecting their own preferences into the choice