I've been enjoying Gerry Badger's The Pleasures of Good Photographs lately. It's a beautiful book, written with personal conviction in clear, lucid prose, and without a lot of academic mumbo-jumbo. I have to agree with Jörg Colberg's recent assessment, "it is a must-have for anyone interested in photography," and within 20 or 30 years I expect it will take its place on every shelf alongside Why People Photograph, Looking At Photographs, The Nature of Photographs and other classics of the genre.One reason I like this book so much is that Badger describes a clear division within photography between the so-called art movement and the straight movement (for lack of better terms). Although his perspective becomes clear through the course of the book, it's only in the last chapter, It's Art, But is it Photography? Some Thoughts on Photoshop that Badger really comes out swinging. "When is photography not photography?" he asks. "When it's art." Them's fight'n words, but Badger puts them out there as calmly as if he's saying "The sky is blue." And he's right.
The art/straight argument flared up last spring in the aftermath of an essay by Paul Graham. Although Graham's essay received some accolades, he was also criticized by some, including Colberg. So I was mildly surprised to read Colberg's glowing review of Badger, since Graham's essay dovetails perfectly with Badger's opinions. Although Colberg cites many chapters by name in his review, he fails to mention the last one, the chapter which in some ways serves as Badger's straight photography manifesto.
Badger:
"This the crucial difference, the gulf that still divides "photographer" from "artist". The kind of prices asked for a Gursky as opposed to say, a Robert Adams or a Lee Freidlander, are enough to suggest that. The gap is not as wide as it was, and narrows daily, but it is still there. I would suggest that it represents the residue...of a prejudice pertaining in favor of the artist as opposed to the photographer, a notion that there is something not quite right about photography...
"We are rightly suspicious of documentary photography, but then again, we always should have been. All photography is an interpretation of the world....There is no such thing as an absolutely transparent photographic document, yet at its best, at its simplest, the contact with actuality is as direct as it could possibly be....
Yet for so many this marvelous faculty is not enough. For deep down, they do not believe that photography... is an art. For many... to be art, photography must be seen to be art. And that, to put it crudely, means tricking it up —making a print the size of a room, or controlling everything from first to last."
While I agree with Badger 100%, I think many in the art world would find his sentiments terrifying. If I cite Colberg as an example it's only because I think he represents a common view, that the differences between, e.g., Wall or Friedlander are only shades of grey in the great spectrum that is Photography. In which case, why can't we forget our differences and just get along?
And maybe in one sense it is all one spectrum. Yet, as Badger notes, there are fundamental differences between the two approaches, between photography as post-conceptual illustrative tool and photography as its own self-contained creative route.
The art world acknowledges this difference by treating straight photography as a second tier endeavor. Some people —I'd even venture to say most people, whether in or out of the art world— just don't get it. The idea that someone like Atget or Evans, or even an amateur snapshooter, can express something powerful by merely recording without need for more conscious intervention, strikes some as dull or, worse, meaningless.
I would agree with Badger: "If you don't get Atget, or Evans, you don't get photography." I'm not sure you could say the same about Crewdson or Wall.
I apologize if all this seems a rehash of my defense of Graham last Spring. I suppose this issue will never die completely. I just thought the recently published opinions of Gerry Badger on this topic were worth noting, and celebrating. I may have to revise my bumper sticker from Thank You, Garry to Thank You, Gerry.
Photography is photography. Art is art,
ReplyDelete...and comments are comments.
ReplyDeleteIn Gene Hackman terms (the only ones that matter), I think that the "straight" practitioners have Harry Caul issues: their qualities and sensibilities are often mistaken for the deficits of one who refuses to assert himself, stand for something and declare hard truths. The "art" folk are in the Royal Tenenbaum box: Nobody trusts them, but they are so interesting, and most will think that there is something to admire in their tenacious efforts to contain the world in one person's imagination. Sometimes the "straight" folks travel far enough, eat enough MREs, and have enough scar tissue to be known as the sons and daughters of Popeye Doyle. Doyles are a lot better off than the Cauls when it comes to careers and casual sex.
ReplyDeleteWe are a hard bunch to like.
Seems to me that the 'rift' might be cause by a difference in temperament. Those who need to see or imagine more in a photograph than there is in the offerings of life and those who like life reflected back. Could it be compared to those who think Nature is separate from 'man' (usually constantly intervening) or those who think nature and 'man' are one. Both are as right in one way or another, just different. 'The burning requirement for the new' vs 'the do with what exists' factions. It's a dog chasing its tail argument, but for me, well, God doesn't exist, life is what I see reflected.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: shouldn't photography (straight or not) first be engaging enough on its own terms to merit attention? I consider the image (either category) an opportunity to engage an audience... Same goes for "art"... ( more thoughts here: http://matt-niebuhr.tumblr.com/post/1125428499/image-makers-getting-it-straight-or-not )
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ReplyDeleteThough I overall agree with the argument developed here, I am not sure that one should blame the "art world" that much. I have very few insight about the "art world" though, what "it" wants. My personal - and probably biased - is that things are much more balanced. I don't speak about the numerous retrospective of street masters that were exhibited here and here lately, but speaking of contemporary straight photography I feel it is not that bad represented. Aren't Alec Soth and Martin Parr two of the most successful contemporary photographers ? And I believe both of them belong more to "straight photography", in the lineage of - say - Walker Evans, Robert Franck or Lisette Model, rather than the conceptual art world.
ReplyDeleteMy personal feeling (and it is merely a personal feeling) is that the gap which is discussed is more present in the "advanced amateur world". There is an heavy trend of photoshopping in the amateur world as well as a disdain for the own merit of capture. In other words there is a trend for pictorialization and it seems like countless of lazy captures are well ranked in contests thanks to post-processing merits. My very concern is more about a rampant trend of "eye-candization" (for lack of better word) that affects the practice of photography. There was a time when the moment of capture and the moment of (darkroom) processing were more clearly separated, and though the final product fairly is a result of both I believe that the process to come up with matters. Seems that today the process itself leads to a sort of confusion on what photography is about. It is a bit like it has lost its "innocence" for many folks (i.e. as it is put nicely "merely recording without need for more conscious intervention")
I think what Jacques says is pretty interesting. I also think it's amazing that we're still arguing this argument 150+ years into the game. I can't help think that a lot of it derives from economics. Art schools have to teach something and galleries like flashy stuff. I apologize for linking to my own erratic and not nearly as well written blog, but I bloviated about this a while back and its better not to take up real estate here. Heros and slobs
ReplyDeletePhotography as art; or photography on equal footing with other mediums, as a mode of expression is a victim of the so called 'thought-leaders' that attempt to defend photography in ways that are simply inaccessible to most audiences.
ReplyDeleteYou can walk into a great museum (e.g. the national gallery) filled with painting, put on the free headset and some calm, credible voice will whisper in your ear the merits of every painting you look at (and it’s good and you buy a postcard/poster of the painting you like best, at the very least).
Now, go to any blog ranging from Colberg’s to.... well i’ll leave the others out because at least they aren’t such nobs about their self-ordained authority... but basically you’re not going to find much describing the “merit” of the photographic image other than.... “i like this”.... and then a bunch of name dropping as to which famous photographer the images reminds them of. (fuck i hate that! Most can’t even tell you what about at famous photographer they like! Losers!)...
(Joe, Cont.)
ReplyDelete...My theory is that the other fields of art (art other than photographic) are filled with visually literate individuals steeped in the literacy of their chosen medium. This is simply not the case with photography. In this day and age someone can win a camera in a poker game and suddenly start making images with very exceptional visual merit and not know why, matter of fact most of the world’s new expressive photographers are of this origin (maybe replace poker game for ‘Christmas present’).
And this, more specifically, is what i feel Graham is on about, it’s not so much the art world ‘generally’ doesn’t understand the magic of Friedlander or Winogrand, it’s that they were not steeped in this media to be so conversant in, even most of photography's 'thought leaders' can’t talk about it more than to say "i like this and i don’t like that." But Wall and Crewedson are creating art with the intent that fits well with the mode of evaluation and communication that painting's or other academic medium's ‘thought leaders’ were programmed with by their art programs.
I know not everyone’s going to be as amused by this as me, but i think it would be good if some ‘authoritative’ thought leaders had the courage and the aptitude to do more things adorable like this:
http://mykriteek.com/
it may not be genius, but it's damn likeable and can do more for helping an audience along than blogs about thought leadership!
good blog and best wishes.
So Atget and Evans aren't artists? I feel uncomfortable about that. That bloody A word again, it messes everything up!
ReplyDeleteJoe, I've been trying to discover what type of photography is (or already has) going to replace conceptual and who the new hotshots are. You mentioned that the 'world's new expressive photographers' basically know nothing about the technical aspects of photography and I was wondering if you could supply some examples.
ReplyDeleteI think the division between 'art' and 'photography' isn't as big as many think. If you look at the academicization of photography it was happening long before Wall and Gursky, or even The Bechers. Many of the main people in the explosion of photography in the 1970's had at least a BFA and many had MFA's. Many also taught at universities for their main incomes. What did change was that some were able to tap in to the old money that usually went to painters and sculptures. They did this by becoming artists who used photography. But few of them did anything else but photography, so it's just window dressing.
I didn't mean to imply that the photographer/artist divide think is an either/or thing. Obviously there is crossover, and though I quoted Badger even he qualifies his statement. People like Louis Armstrong or Jerry Rice might be considered artists, but I don't think they approached their disciplines with the same hyper self-conscious historical awareness that many contemporary conceptual photographers do, or at least not to such an extreme. Maybe some straight photographers would fall under the same motivation, yet I think in general they're more concerned with using the camera to examine the world rather than to explore art history. Maybe that's a dated view, but good ideas never go out of style.
ReplyDeleteI should start by saying that I don’t get Atget, and I have trouble with Evans (who I think is more a lot complex than is often assumed; or maybe less complex).
ReplyDeleteIn any case, my starting point for discussions like this is always the analogy: photography is to art (made with a camera) as writing is to literature. There may be a question as to whether a given piece of writing is literature but there’s almost never one as to whether it’s writing. And same for photography. There may be an issue as to whether a piece of photographic work is art but almost never one as to whether it’s photography. (Though I admit this last is becoming more common in our increasingly digital world.)
I think a pretty clear picture emerged during the Paul Graham controversy as what the art world is looking for in the way of contemporary photography: basically, work that shows the clear, distinctive touch of the mind and hand of the artist (aka style aka “brand”). It’s a lot easier to find this in non-straight (staged, manipulated, and/or overtly conceptual) photography than in straight photography, whence the historical (for the last 30 years) bias towards the former as against the latter.
The question is whether this is now changing. I think it is. I think traditionally straight genres are attracting new interest, with portraiture leading the way and still life, landscape and “everyday” photography following in its wake. If true, this would be good news.
But I also see an increasingly pronounced trend towards quiet static images, often with subtle (or maybe not so subtle) hints of melancholy, loss and nostalgia (or all of them together – what the Welsh call hiraeth) –, romanticism and escape, and a general lack of conceptuality or edge. I see this as a response to globalization and declining quality of life (including both material and spiritual) in the West or at least the US. Kind of like wrapping your arms around your head and waiting for the tidal wave to wash over you. (But then, some say photography did a similar thing in the 70’s, and we’re all still here.)
I could be wrong, but that’s what I think I’m seeing. Like Droid, I’m fascinated by current changes in photographic taste and what they may mean for contemporary photography and its acceptance by the art world.
I should start by saying that I don’t get Atget, and I have trouble with Evans (who I think is more a lot complex than is often assumed; or maybe less complex).
ReplyDeleteIn any case, my starting point for discussions like this is always the analogy: photography is to art (made with a camera) as writing is to literature. There may be a question as to whether a given piece of writing is literature but there’s almost never one as to whether it’s writing. And same for photography. There may be an issue as to whether a piece of photographic work is art but almost never one as to whether it’s photography. (Though I admit this last is becoming more common in our increasingly digital world.)
I think a pretty clear picture emerged during the Paul Graham controversy as what the art world is looking for in the way of contemporary photography: basically, work that shows the clear, distinctive touch of the mind and hand of the artist (aka style aka “brand”). It’s a lot easier to find this in non-straight (staged, manipulated, and/or overtly conceptual) photography than in straight photography, whence the historical (for the last 30 years) bias towards the former as against the latter.
The question is whether this is now changing. I think it is. I think traditionally straight genres are attracting new interest, with portraiture leading the way and still life, landscape and “everyday” photography following in its wake. If true, this would be good news.
But I also see an increasingly pronounced trend towards quiet static images, often with subtle (or maybe not so subtle) hints of melancholy, loss and nostalgia (or all of them together – what the Welsh call hiraeth), romanticism and escape, and a general lack of conceptuality or edge. I see this as a response to globalization and declining quality of life (including both material and spiritual) in the West or at least the US. Kind of like wrapping your arms around your head and waiting for the tidal wave to wash over you. (But then, some say photography did a similar thing in the 70’s, and we’re all still here.)
I could be wrong, but that’s what I think I’m seeing. Like Droid, I’m fascinated by current changes in photographic taste and what they may mean for contemporary photography and its acceptance by the art world.
John, I agree with much of what you said, including Atget. If I wasn't told how important he was, then I probably would just look at his work with a historical eye. I'm not a detailed student of the history of photography so perhaps it was his place in the timeline that is more important than anything? It's beyond me.
ReplyDeleteAs for the style of potraiture now popular I think it goes back to artists such as Rineke Dijkstra in the 1980's. Even Alec Soth's potraits seem to be influenced by them. I also see a fashion/commercial photography aesthetic creeping in, especially with the use square format.
I have also read that the reason conceptual photography (Wall etc) become so big in the art world, stems from a prevalent thought that straight photography is relatively mindless and easy, whereas using art history as your starting point showed that the artist has put a great deal of thought in to their work...to make up for the lack of the physicality of painting and sculpture. This idea sounds logical to me.
However, one good thing about modern photographic art is that film still seems to be the medium of choice and once again I think it shows more of a commitment by the artist to their craft.
@ChuckP: I didn't know you had a blog. You make some good points.
ReplyDeletea) This does seem to be mostly about economics. Galleries and fine art mags need to make money, just like Hollywood studios need to make money, so they're going to do what they have to in order to make money.
b) "if we shrink it, print it in a magazine, post it on the Web, the game changes again. Negative size won't buy you anything at 800 by 1200 pixels. Will a growing interest in social issues and mass distribution push the aesthetic back toward the small and simple?"
This is great. I've been thinking about this recently and my feeling is that 'straight/street' photographers really should not concern themselves with the 'fine art' angle. For me, that style is more closely related to editorial.
And if you start to look at it from an editorial perspective, we have a tremendous opportunity to use the web to show this work in interesting ways. Maybe not there yet, but there's a certain intimacy with have a closer, almost personal connection with the photographer that I think really enhances the work.
I'm more inclined to be interested in a project I've been following for years on Flickr (Hin Chua - After the Fall) than Alec Soth's new project and book.
Naturally, I'll still want to see what Soth is doing but for me, it's not quit as interesting as hanging out on the periphery with the amateurs.
And honestly, if you get your big show, and accolades, then what? Think of the insane amount of pressure there is to produce hit after hit.
And what if the art world rejects your next project? What then?
I think the photographers who thrive in the next decades will be those that really use the we to harness a deeper connection with their fans and peers.
It's funny. The more I see of Atget the more I appreciate him, but the opposite is true for Evans. I don't altogether understand his appeal.
ReplyDeleteGerry Badger has a great essay on Atget in the book. One of his points is that Atget's photos were very personal. Although ostensibly he set out to document old Paris, and to sell those photos as historical recordings, he wound up putting a ton of himself into his work. His photos look like Atget's, and not like anyone else's. Badger contrasts this to Charles Marville who was documenting Paris around the same period (or a little earlier). His photos are much less involved. it's just the facts, Ma'am. Thus Marville's legacy is dwarfed by Atget's.
It's this personal involvement, I think, which separates truly great photography from the pedestrian. It's fun to see the world in photos but what we really care about is How Did X See the World?. That's what's fascinating. That's what can unify work across themes. And that's what most commonly survives history as artifacts.
Soth is a great example. On its face, his work is quite documentary. The reason people are entranced by it is that all those photos have become Soth's world, and once we enter that world basically any view that he shows us we are inclined to favor. If we saw one of his photos presented under someone else's name, it might not hit as hard.
Crewdson, Wall, Sherman, etc all have their own worlds to show too, but they're so self-referential that they bog down, especially without any exterior reality to prop them up.
I think the 800 x 1200 pixel argument is great. At this point, 90% of all photos I see are online and another 5% are in books (at relatively small size). The only place resolution matters is in real life, in prints. But how often do many of us actually see prints on the wall? I don't think that's necessarily an argument to aim small, but it raises the question how much time/money is it worth to spend on highly detailed images? You can hire a 100-person orchestra to play Beethoven, but what's the point when in the end it's going to be compressed into an mp3? No firm answers here, just thinking out loud.
My problem with Atget mostly has to do with his visual grammar. I like the pictures that include figures and objects, but the relentless monotony of the architectural and landscape work really gets me down. I think it’s the camera angles more than anything else. Always mildly oblique, never truly angular, never frontal. (OK, I know there are exceptions, but that’s how I remember it.)
ReplyDeleteThe question for me about Evans is, how much did he care about his subject matter and how much was he just exploring aesthetics.
I think Alec Soth is one of the leading photographers of today. I agree that he draws you into his world (whatever it happens to be at the time), but I think he’s about more than that. There’s a lot going on in his series/books: journey over time and space, recurrent themes and symbols, and an underlying if not overt narrative. It’s very skillfully constructed work, but it always stays human and never gives over to pure formalism. Plus he likes to experiment and take chances (which don’t always pay off, which is only fair).
I look at prints as much as I can. Even though I live in a provincial city (at least compared to NY), I find there’s a lot to see if I look for it. Plus nothing beats having a chance to talk about images in front of you with other people, including your fellow viewers, the staff of the host gallery or museum, and of course the artists themselves when you’re lucky enough for them to be there. I love books too, but the computer screen never really does it for me. (Of course I’m pretty old and stuck in my ways, as I’m sure Bryan Formhals will happily confirm if you ask him.)
My problem with Atget mostly has to do with his visual grammar. I like the pictures that include figures and objects, but the relentless monotony of the architectural and landscape work really gets me down. I think it’s the camera angles more than anything else. Always mildly oblique, never truly angular, never frontal.
ReplyDeleteThis is precisely one of the thing I like with Atget. And when he had people in the photograph it makes even more sense IMO, because he manages to provide the photograph with a global consistency, a completeness of what is framed, a sense of sketch, rather than a mere visual document. Don't know that much about photography history but I believe this maybe makes Atget, if not a precursor, at least an early figure of environmental portraiture in photography.
Thanks Blake. Always a lively post on this subject. I think John is right about Evans, ie modern artist first, concernd photographer second. It may sound cold but I love his work anyway. Gives me goose bumps or makes my head spin, like Friedlander after him. Anyway, Eqinox gallery next week to pick up my Herzog and New Topographics the week after at SFMoMA. Be well.
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