What do YOU think of this photography?

I find such photos boring. Might very well be that I do not understand them, and that I am somewhat of an ignoramus. So be it - I want photography and any other work of art to "talk" to me right away, give me a kick so to speak - be that emotional, aesthetic, provocative or just plain funny.

I do not like jazz music either; people tell me, that it is because I do not understand it. This is probably right, but I do not really want to spend my time learning to understand, when I can appreciate Mozart or "The Boss" right away without having to do my home work first 😎

Don't get me wrong: I am not opposed to people making photos like these. For more than 10 years I was the member of a photographic gallery group in Denmark and every month we had a new exhibition. Thank God we took turns choosing the photographers 😉

I also must admit that such photos are very, very good for starting a discussion😀

Happy shooting (whatever you shoot)!
 
With Gebert's photos, the word "dry" comes to mind. In the same sense that you might refer to a dry sense of humor. Some people are so dry, you can't actually tell when they're joking or not.
 
zumbido said:
That said, I think what you're saying is true except the "right now" part. Except during the cyclical periods of return to "classical" adherence to proportion and etc etc, most of the history of art has been about trying to do something new. Other disagree but to me that's an essential part of what makes something "art" as opposed to "craft" or even decoration.
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You are probably right, yet the rythm of innovation has much accelerated over the last century, or maybe it is just the means of communication that allow us to be aware whatever is happening in the world. This is obvioulsy makes it more difficult to stand out among the million artists.
I have nothing about new creations by itself, but it is more about the intellectualization around some crap work to justify it. I read a lot of magazines on photography and read way too often photographers explaining their work by :
"I am trying to show the relationship between the human being and its environment and ... 50 lines of bla bla bla". It gets sometimes boring, all try to be original but in the end they are all common in the sense that nobody understands what they were trying to accomplish 😉 I was listening to the radio in my car a few minutes ago and an interview of Erwitt Elliott came up. To the question "how do you select your shots ?", he answered "I shoot what I like, what inspires me.". I though it was a perfect answer.
 
braver said:
I like Gebert's portfolio. Like Creagerj said, it comes together in the presentation, and has a certain kind of humor to it. The series in pages 18,19,20 is cool, I can totally appreciate it.
That said, as photography goes, the pictures themselves are nothing special.
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I disagree. There is a great amount of aesthetic, structure, composition, and intent going on within the photos.
 
Rogrund said:
However, I believe that conceptual art like this shouldn't be judged from the individual images.
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That pretty much sums it up. Some artists want their art to be viewed in a vacuum. Just put the photo up on a white wall and let people look at it. Other artists want images grouped together, sequenced, elaborated upon with text, etc.

Viewers may have a preference for one approach or the other. When someone says "an image should stand on its own!" he or she is just stating their preference as a universal rule.
 
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I am not aware of any universally accepted definition of what is art, so any discussion of artistic merit is bound to be polarising. Personally, I think there is too much stuff (unmade beds, piles of bricks) called art that appears to be a joke on the part of the creator. I'm happy to be artistically uneducated - means I don't have to find meaning in stuff that I don't like.

The short response is that I am with Bill M on this one.
 
yanidel said:
"I am trying to show the relationship between the human being and its environment and ... 50 lines of bla bla bla". It gets sometimes boring, all try to be original but in the end they are all common in the sense that nobody understands what they were trying to accomplish
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Few artists are good spokesmen of themselves. But such a dumb statement as that is barely college level.

For one, a artist should not exhibit if he is "trying" - either he has accomplished whatever he has set out to do (or at the very least, reached a important milestone) and should say so, or he should get back to the studio.

For the other, "relationships between human and whatever" is utterly 19th century, it was already a lame excuse centuries ago - given viewer who is pretty safely egocentric, absolutely everything can be analysed into a subject<>object relation, without telling anything about the real background. The surrealists already made fun of that. Any artist in search of a lame excuse should urgently look for something better...
 
Gid said:
I am not aware of any universally accepted definition of what is art, so any discussion of artistic merit is bound to be polarising. Personally, I think there is too much stuff (unmade beds, piles of bricks) called art that appears to be a joke on the part of the creator. I'm happy to be artistically uneducated - means I don't have to find meaning in stuff that I don't like.

The short response is that I am with Bill M on this one.
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A joke can't be art? Art has to have a meaning that you can find? 🙂
 
I think many people have a problem with the discourse definition of art. As long as the the amateur is still mastering the craft of photography she/or he will be put off by the gestures of current artists. The me too instinct sets in and dismiss the broader context of contemporary art photography. Most people at RFF are however into equipment and equipment using results and endless pictoral discussions about bokeh, sharpness and digital vs analog. That can be fun for the consumer in us.

Me? I enjoy both worlds 🙂
 
I have enjoyed reading the posts, but I am still wondering about the response elicited in those that enjoy/appreciate this sort of conceptual art. I am curious as to what sort of feelings or thoughts it tends to give rise to and whether these are fleeting, lasting and where the physical artwork fits into this. For those that very much 'appreciated' the work posted as an example, would any of you be so bold as to try to describe your appreciation? What hits you, what develops, what lingers and how it lodges in your mind on a longer-term basis?

For those who assume that all those who do not appreciate such conceptual art are impatient or lacking in the drive to delve down, I think this is a little unfair. I find a lot of the concepts make sense and not terribly difficult to understand. I see the artwork, but the concepts do relatively little for me in the main and the artwork is often (to me) visually unstimulating (in the main). Thats neither a blessing nor a curse on my part, but a fact of life with the eyes and brain I possess.

I suppose you could argue that it is rather like humour. A person might understand the joke, but not actually find it funny. I think this is where I am with such work. Whereas I can see a person laughing at a joke I don't find funny, it is harder to understand what 'is happening' for someone who thinks the posted work is the best thing since sliced bread when it leaves me cold in every sense. Its that which I am trying to understand as much as anything.

I very much enjoy photography which causes one to think, or that deals with concepts or ideas, but combined with visually stimulating photographs. I guess where I find my enthusiasm waning is where the photography seems to offer little as photography and the concept dominates and stands alone as an idea that needs no such photography. It leaves me wondering what the photography IS when removed from the written or otherwise conveyed conveyed background/explanation. If the photography does not work well as photography alone (in the absence of a concept) and the concept is unremarkable, why is there particular merit when the two are combined? I see the two ends, but do not find them really complimenting each other at what appears to be a reduced level of complexity or interest in their individual cases. Its this I am grappling with. I am happy to admit that I 'don't get' the 'combined effect of concept + photography', but that's not because I don't understand, just that 'the joke gets no laugh' to use the earlier analogy. I am not suggesting that someone else should not find this combination very stimulating. Many evidently do.
 
Turtle said:
I very much enjoy photography which causes one to think, or that deals with concepts or ideas, but combined with visually stimulating photographs. I guess where I find my enthusiasm waning is where the photography seems to offer little as photography and the concept dominates and stands alone as an idea that needs no such photography. It leaves me wondering what the photography IS when removed from the written or otherwise conveyed conveyed background/explanation. If the photography does not work well as photography alone (in the absence of a concept) and the concept is unremarkable, why is there particular merit when the two are combined? I see the two ends, but do not find them really complimenting each other at what appears to be a reduced level of complexity or interest in their individual cases. Its this I am grappling with. I am happy to admit that I 'don't get' the 'combined effect of concept + photography', but that's not because I don't understand, just that 'the joke gets no laugh' to use the earlier analogy. I am not suggesting that someone else should not find this combination very stimulating. Many evidently do.
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You're raising a valid question, but I'm asking myself whether your point of view may be biased.

I highlighted part of your text because implicitly, it sounds like the definition of photojournalism. There, we natually all expect that a photograph must ba able to stand for itself, delivering its message without any supporting words.

I don't think you can use the same definition for concept art or conceptual photo series. First, we could start a separate discusion about which concepts objectively can be considered remarkable. Second, if a concept does not convince you, it doesn't mean this type of work can no more be considered art.

Maybe it's just that this specific type of work doesn't appeal to you. Yet, that doesn't mean that others could not come to different conclusions.

To be frank, I have not spent too much time looking at the tree photographs. They didn't strike me as particularly remarkable, but I am aware I haven't spent a lot of time analyzing them. I might come to a different conclusion if I had, and therefore I am hesitant to voice a definite verdict.
 
I think you have to consider the opinions of the gallerists to get this straight. Some may have an idealistic view about beauty and art but the ongoing dialogue between elaborated artists and gallerists define contemporary photography art. No more, no less.

Without a background in literature dadaism makes no sense. Without the history of art music Arnold Schönberg makes just noice.

The intention and the context of the criticized photos must be appreciated and I think that is giving way to an elitist position. This way of consuming objects divides people by excluding the less educated by the privileged few.

I do understand the ridicule and the kind of stand-by-itself distinction and inherent circle definition but we can all learn a lot by studying the phenomena and hopefully get an educated view.

To much work?
 
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I hadn't heard of Gebart before this, but I find that portfolio pretty interesting. Definitely don't like all the images, but I find it conceptually stimulating. I like the Bechers too, and Eggleston, and other purveyors of "boring" photography.

I think it's valid for recontextualization to be a big part of the intended impact of a photo...I also like being challenged to ferret out something interesting in an apparently pointless picture. I often find overly intellectual work rather moving, though certainly not always.

Instantclassic said:
The intention and the context of the criticized photos must be appreciated and I think that is giving way to an elitist position. This way of consuming objects divides people by excluding the less educated by the privileged few.
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That's a canard, I think; you don't have to be educated to understand such art. I think if you're uneducated you might be more inclined to feel condescended to by this kind of work, or that it's not "for" you. But no education is required to appreciate the aesthetic. Education does give you a ready context for understanding it, but it just isn't necessary.
 
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Whenever I hear the "a child could have done that" type of comment, which really includes some of the comments here, I despair.

Most of these artists are technically more than capable of taking pretty pictures that conform to the aesthetics that most enthusiast photographers are more comfortable with. In fact their snapshots are the sort of thing many enthusiast photographers would frame proudly.

But in this sort of work they have moved beyond that; in many respects they are technically very much like the sort of picture many enthusiasts would delete in camera. But don't you think they know this? Isn't that in fact part of the point? If you genuinely believe that they cannot take nice pictures of sunsets and pretty girls then by all means dismiss them, but it's actually not that easy to get through really good art schools without quite easily being able to do what enthusiast photographers do.

It's amazing how many people think that if it's not beautiful that it's not art. Or that if they don't like it it's not art. Art is used as a superlative not a category. For myself I think almost anything can be art. It can be good and bad. And on independent axis I can like it or not. It can be beautiful or not.

In general the kind of thing I want to hang on my walls is stuff that makes me happy. This does not qualify, but I do like to see it in galleries and books. For me all that art photography needs to do is make me think about what the work means to me and the artist. It is successful or good to the degree that the experience is intense, interesting or long-lasting. What are they trying to get across? Is there anything particular to my situation that makes the work resonate. Are there any specific cultural references that I find interesting or provocative?

Tillmans is still the only photographer ever to have won the Turner prize. This stuff is to me quite clearly good art, and I like much of it even though most of it is not beautiful.
 
I really like a lot of the photos in the second link. In fact, I find a lot of them superb.

I have never studied art. I have no idea why I like them or how to verbalize what exactly it is I like about them. I like photos or I don't. They connect with "something" in me or they don't. I can't nor do I ever really feel compelled to explain or pinpoint why.
 
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zumbido said:
Caveat: I'm only an amateur art historian. I've read about 1/3 of the Thames and Hudson "World of Art" series so far and that's about as far as it goes. 😉 That said, I think what you're saying is true except the "right now" part. Except during the cyclical periods of return to "classical" adherence to proportion and etc etc, most of the history of art has been about trying to do something new. Other disagree but to me that's an essential part of what makes something "art" as opposed to "craft" or even decoration.

To be honest, many times I appreciate "craft" more, but I'm glad there are people out there who do want to do something else no matter their motivations.
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Dear Brian,

Not really. Until the mid-to-late 19th century -- the first 10,000 years of art -- novelty was not prized for its own sake. After the Impressionists, many people fell for the omitted middle. Great new art is often hard to understand and may even be shocking THEREFORE (omitted middle in logical terms) anything that is hard to understand or shocking is likely to be great art...

Cheers,

R.
 
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