Talk Art Section???

ancient_mariner said:
I'd largely agree, but Sirch's point about those who do things the difficult way being treated as though what they were doing was of more creative value than someone rocking up with a DSLR and then applying a pile of effects to acheive an extremely similar image, mayn also be valid. Like when someone creates an image in oils - there's seldom a question about whether it's art (though it may be considered bad art) because of the process they went through to make it.
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Juno Calypso made an interesting comment in her interview with Ben Smith (http://bensmithphoto.com/asmallvoice/juno-calypso around 45:00 - contains strong language) about overhearing someone at one of her exhibitions saying how good it was to see someone still using film. Some of the pictures had been shot on a Canon 5D with grain added in Photoshop!
 
ancient_mariner said:
To answer why more photographers on TP dfon't see their work as art, I suspect it's because they've been told by a couple of key people that it's at best, just craft
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I think it's simpler than that, to an awful lot of people "art", as in contemporary gallery art, is pretentious crap with which they would hate to be associated. The vast majority on here do not see themselves as artists in any way, they are photographers trying to take technically good photos, I suspect many would prefer the term technician to craftsman. And of course there is nothing wrong with that, I often wonder why I care about art anyway, life would be a lot simpler if I just “liked what I liked” without looking for a reason behind it.

Ed Sutton said:
Just make pictures of stuff that interests you and try to form a body of work that stands together, rather than a collection of random images.
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I find I am interested in too many things, couple that with the desire to flex the photography muscle frequently and frankly just play with the toys and it is hard to narrow the field down. I see lots of inspiring photographs next to which mine are no better than your average holiday snaps and I want to know how I get from where I am to where I would like to be. In part I think that is why I find these debates very helpful because whilst I know I want to move on I am very unclear as to where I want to go.
 
sirch said:
I think it's simpler than that, to an awful lot of people "art", as in contemporary gallery art, is pretentious crap with which they would hate to be associated. The vast majority on here do not see themselves as artists in any way, they are photographers trying to take technically good photos, I suspect many would prefer the term technician to craftsman. And of course there is nothing wrong with that, I often wonder why I care about art anyway, life would be a lot simpler if I just “liked what I liked” without looking for a reason behind it.
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I wonder, does it *have* to have a reason behind it to be art?

I find I am interested in too many things, couple that with the desire to flex the photography muscle frequently and frankly just play with the toys and it is hard to narrow the field down. I see lots of inspiring photographs next to which mine are no better than your average holiday snaps and I want to know how I get from where I am to where I would like to be. In part I think that is why I find these debates very helpful because whilst I know I want to move on I am very unclear as to where I want to go.
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But you may find that you build a theme over several years. I've half a dozen themes that aren't complete yet that I've been shooting, almost since buying a DSLR in 2013, and eventually they may it.
 
sirch said:
I find I am interested in too many things, couple that with the desire to flex the photography muscle frequently and frankly just play with the toys and it is hard to narrow the field down. I see lots of inspiring photographs next to which mine are no better than your average holiday snaps and I want to know how I get from where I am to where I would like to be. In part I think that is why I find these debates very helpful because whilst I know I want to move on I am very unclear as to where I want to go.
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Having one or two core interests doesn't exclude you from doing other things. Like Toni I have a number of 'themes' I shoot to which have evolved over time but haven't become anything defined as yet. Although I am currently concentrating on a slack handful of projects I still take photographs of pretty sunsets and cats! Flexing the photographic muscles is always good, even if it's nothing serious. You're still practising looking - which is one of the main things to get to grips with in photography.

But photography doesn't have to aim at being art, it can be documentary, for example. Given the passage of enough time pictures which record things as they are become pictures of things as they were, and their interest increases regardless of how good they are as art.This is one reason I've shifted away from taking pictures which I want to be looked at primarily as pictures (art) to making pictures which are deliberately documentary in nature. Although sometimes there is a crossover.
 
I love this debate, it's refreshing to see a good discussion without all the normal to-ing and fro-ing, usually with anger bubbling just below the surface (or boiling over in many cases!).

I 'learned the craft' of photography a good few years ago. I started to get bored, jumping around different genre's hoping to settle on one that would satisfy my craving. I've always appreciated art forms, been jealous of those with artistic talent, usually musicians but often quite varied forms. Wished I could immerse myself and gain the pleasure these artists did from at least one artistic area. I haven't 'studied' art, not read into it, not spent hours sifting through artists statements/books/interviews etc etc. However, I've always been drawn to it. Always managed to 'connect' emotionally with work I've enjoyed. I've known I've gone deeper than simply 'listening' or 'looking'.

So, a few years ago I decided to use photography as my medium to try to connect with my emotions about things. I think I'm a passionate and emotional soul so decided I'd try to use taking pictures as my canvas, my block of wood, my guitar... I now produce work that attempts to become a 'body' of work rather than one picture (the stuff I shoot for me that is- sadly not my commercial stuff necessarily). I don't think of myself as an artist, I actually don't really think I'm very good particularly but I do now think very carefully about what I'm shooting and most importantly - why. I imagine that one day my work will be exhibited and try to shoot with that as the end game. I'm not stupid, I know that the likelihood of that ever happening is lower than 1%, however, it gives me a purpose. A reason to shoot and it's transformed both my photography and my well being. I enjoy working on my project.

Previously I wanted support and acceptance from my peers, now I honestly don't care what people think of my shots. Occasionally, if I'm uncertain about an image, I might ask a few trusted friends what they think and I'll listen (providing they understand the concept) but overall, I don't really worry what anyone thinks. I don't think that's arrogance or ignorance, it's just more certainty in me that I've managed to get what I was after (well, nearly, I'm never satisfied totally obviously!).

My point is, call it what you like, (art, snaps, photographs whatever) as I'm quite ignorant artistically, taking pictures with a purpose, with an intent to try to create a 'feeling' or make a statement (however big or small) has transformed both my enjoyment of photography and my skills. I now find myself enjoying the thought process, the planning and the execution pre and post. I have a purpose and a reason to shoot what I do. Of course it's totally personal and very insular but I now get frustrated with my lack of resources (finance and locations etc) rather than always searching for a technical outlet and 'likes' of my images that really didn't excite me when I took or worked on them in the first place.

Others may not consider my work art but again, I don't mind, I'm not sure I'd even call them artistic, but they are me, what I want to say and do now. They aren't 'clever' I don't think, the photography won't blow anyone away but to me they 'work'. I'm proud of them and surely thats all that matters isn't it? Nobody else could take the shots I have because nobody else is me and I like that...
 
Rich_Ellis said:
I love this debate, it's refreshing to see a good discussion without all the normal to-ing and fro-ing, usually with anger bubbling just below the surface (or boiling over in many cases!).

I 'learned the craft' of photography a good few years ago. I started to get bored, jumping around different genre's hoping to settle on one that would satisfy my craving. I've always appreciated art forms, been jealous of those with artistic talent, usually musicians but often quite varied forms. Wished I could immerse myself and gain the pleasure these artists did from at least one artistic area. I haven't 'studied' art, not read into it, not spent hours sifting through artists statements/books/interviews etc etc. However, I've always been drawn to it. Always managed to 'connect' emotionally with work I've enjoyed. I've known I've gone deeper than simply 'listening' or 'looking'.

So, a few years ago I decided to use photography as my medium to try to connect with my emotions about things. I think I'm a passionate and emotional soul so decided I'd try to use taking pictures as my canvas, my block of wood, my guitar... I now produce work that attempts to become a 'body' of work rather than one picture (the stuff I shoot for me that is- sadly not my commercial stuff necessarily). I don't think of myself as an artist, I actually don't really think I'm very good particularly but I do now think very carefully about what I'm shooting and most importantly - why. I imagine that one day my work will be exhibited and try to shoot with that as the end game. I'm not stupid, I know that the likelihood of that ever happening is lower than 1%, however, it gives me a purpose. A reason to shoot and it's transformed both my photography and my well being. I enjoy working on my project.

Previously I wanted support and acceptance from my peers, now I honestly don't care what people think of my shots. Occasionally, if I'm uncertain about an image, I might ask a few trusted friends what they think and I'll listen (providing they understand the concept) but overall, I don't really worry what anyone thinks. I don't think that's arrogance or ignorance, it's just more certainty in me that I've managed to get what I was after (well, nearly, I'm never satisfied totally obviously!).

My point is, call it what you like, (art, snaps, photographs whatever) as I'm quite ignorant artistically, taking pictures with a purpose, with an intent to try to create a 'feeling' or make a statement (however big or small) has transformed both my enjoyment of photography and my skills. I now find myself enjoying the thought process, the planning and the execution pre and post. I have a purpose and a reason to shoot what I do. Of course it's totally personal and very insular but I now get frustrated with my lack of resources (finance and locations etc) rather than always searching for a technical outlet and 'likes' of my images that really didn't excite me when I took or worked on them in the first place.

Others may not consider my work art but again, I don't mind, I'm not sure I'd even call them artistic, but they are me, what I want to say and do now. They aren't 'clever' I don't think, the photography won't blow anyone away but to me they 'work'. I'm proud of them and surely thats all that matters isn't it? Nobody else could take the shots I have because nobody else is me and I like that...
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(y)(y)
 
ancient_mariner said:
I wonder, does it *have* to have a reason behind it to be art?
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Having recently watched an arts documentary where the presenter bought a piece of paper rolled into a ball from an artist, then no it doesn't, although in that case even the artist declined to confirm that it was art. Personally knowing why an artist was motivated to create a work adds to what I get out of the work.


Ed Sutton said:
Having one or two core interests doesn't exclude you from doing other things. Like Toni I have a number of 'themes' I shoot to which have evolved over time but haven't become anything defined as yet.
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I have followed your efforts in the projects section and I really appreciate your openess, it is helpful. I have do have threads running through what I shoot and I guess I just need to start pulling these together.


Rich_Ellis said:
taking pictures with a purpose, with an intent to try to create a 'feeling' or make a statement (however big or small)
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Good post Rich, thanks for contributing, the quote above really strikes a chord with me, that is where I would like to get to.
 
sirch said:
Good post Rich, thanks for contributing, the quote above really strikes a chord with me, that is where I would like to get to.
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Thanks Chris, I found the wondering about it actually harder than the doing of it. At the end of the day, you needn't show anyone your results, have a go, laugh at yourself if it doesn't work and see how it goes from there!
 
I think I need to go explore the Projects section..
 
I've always regarded photography as a kind of interesting technical craft little blister on the side of Art of the image making kind, such as painting. It's clear that before the invention of photography one big movement in the history of painting was towards the production of realistic images. As time passed, perspective becme understood, paint technology improved, etc., realism improved to the point of approaching what we could now call photo-realism.

Then photography was invented and took the wind out of the sails of photo-realism. The photo-realistic style of painting seemed to disappear and be replaced by movements such as impressionism and cubism which tried to capture specific aspects of what we see which simple photo-realism couldn't. Meanwhile in portrait painting and drawing many artists started using camera images as memory aids, and to reduce or even remove the amount of time they required the presence of the sitter in front of them as they worked. Recently some of these painters started to hit back at photography's "photo-realism" by producing very large highly detailed photo-realistic portraits with so much sharp detail as to be beyond the capacity of any easily available photographic technology. Some digital photographers with computer image editing "photoshoppery" on the other hand have started producing abstract and unrealistic images which can only be called photographs and exhibited in photographic exhibitions because one or more photographs were used in the image creation process, and the final image was created and printed using photography's toolkit. I have been to some photographic exhibitions which I found very disappointing because they turned out to what I thought should have been called exhibiions of photoshopping dexterity. It seems that by some accident of history I belong to that school of photography which disapproves of photographs which have been edited to the extent of producing an image which nobody there at the time could have seen.

I've been fascinated to discover that David Hockney, in his book "Secret Knowledge", and some TV documentaries based on the book, seems to have shown pretty conclusively that the roots of photography and the photo-realistic paintings of the Renaissance and the Dutch masters were much more closely intertwined than previously thought. Painters used many optical aids, including images thrown by pinholes, lenses, and concave mirrors, to improve the realism of their paintings. They kept the use and development of these various tecnological aids secret, trade secrets, just as they kept secret how they obtained or made their rarest and most realistic pigments, because they earned their living in a competitive environment.

This not only revolutionises art history, but calls into question the practice of art colleges, who teach their drawing and painting students to develop the skiful co-ordination of hand and eye in the making of realistic portraits. Tracing over a photographic print or a projected photographic image is regarded as cheating. Or at least it was regarded as cheating way back in the last century when I was a university student who often went out drinking with art college students. Yet as Hockney has shown that is exactly what the old photo-realistic masters did. The impression I get from bumping into the occasional art graduate is that it is still, at least in some art colleges, regarded as cheating.

I find all this so interesting that I shall soon set about reading Hockney's "Secret Knowledge". Anyone else?
 
sirch said:
I have followed your efforts in the projects section and I really appreciate your openess, it is helpful. I have do have threads running through what I shoot and I guess I just need to start pulling these together.
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Thanks, Chris.I find writing about and discussing how to go about making photographs (not technically) as interesting as doing it.

I think it's important to keep on revisiting and re-evaluating what you've done in the past. When I look back at my photographs from when I restarted taking photography 'seriously' in 2010, and at my older stuff from the late '70s to early '80s I can see that although my reasons for taking photographs have changed the subjects and the way I photograph them haven't altered all that much. But in amongst it all I have realised there are underlying themes and concerns which tie it all together.

Like Rich I find imagining an end point for what I do (book, exhibition) helps concentrate my mind on how to get there, even if the chances of them ever happening are remote. The main thing, though, is to enjoy what you are doing and not to worry too much about what others might think.
 
Alastair said:
I think I need to go explore the Projects section..
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I just have. Seems I should start posting there.

chris malcolm said:
I've always regarded photography as a kind of interesting technical craft little blister on the side of Art of the image making kind, such as painting. It's clear that before the invention of photography one big movement in the history of painting was towards the production of realistic images. As time passed, perspective becme understood, paint technology improved, etc., realism improved to the point of approaching what we could now call photo-realism.

Then photography was invented and took the wind out of the sails of photo-realism. The photo-realistic style of painting seemed to disappear and be replaced by movements such as impressionism and cubism which tried to capture specific aspects of what we see which simple photo-realism couldn't. Meanwhile in portrait painting and drawing many artists started using camera images as memory aids, and to reduce or even remove the amount of time they required the presence of the sitter in front of them as they worked. Recently some of these painters started to hit back at photography's "photo-realism" by producing very large highly detailed photo-realistic portraits with so much sharp detail as to be beyond the capacity of any easily available photographic technology. Some digital photographers with computer image editing "photoshoppery" on the other hand have started producing abstract and unrealistic images which can only be called photographs and exhibited in photographic exhibitions because one or more photographs were used in the image creation process, and the final image was created and printed using photography's toolkit. I have been to some photographic exhibitions which I found very disappointing because they turned out to what I thought should have been called exhibiions of photoshopping dexterity. It seems that by some accident of history I belong to that school of photography which disapproves of photographs which have been edited to the extent of producing an image which nobody there at the time could have seen.

I've been fascinated to discover that David Hockney, in his book "Secret Knowledge", and some TV documentaries based on the book, seems to have shown pretty conclusively that the roots of photography and the photo-realistic paintings of the Renaissance and the Dutch masters were much more closely intertwined than previously thought. Painters used many optical aids, including images thrown by pinholes, lenses, and concave mirrors, to improve the realism of their paintings. They kept the use and development of these various tecnological aids secret, trade secrets, just as they kept secret how they obtained or made their rarest and most realistic pigments, because they earned their living in a competitive environment.

This not only revolutionises art history, but calls into question the practice of art colleges, who teach their drawing and painting students to develop the skiful co-ordination of hand and eye in the making of realistic portraits. Tracing over a photographic print or a projected photographic image is regarded as cheating. Or at least it was regarded as cheating way back in the last century when I was a university student who often went out drinking with art college students. Yet as Hockney has shown that is exactly what the old photo-realistic masters did. The impression I get from bumping into the occasional art graduate is that it is still, at least in some art colleges, regarded as cheating.
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I'd understood that this was the purpose of the camera obscura, rather than just being an interesting party trick. It's probably good to encourage those who will use drawing to develop the skills to do so well, rather than relying on external aids, although this may well be a backlash against photography, as you suggest. Having visited the Picasso museum in Barcelona, I was surprised at the incredible photographic quality of his early work (less said about the later stuff the better. ;) ).
 
Excellent thread, with some wonderful insights and comments. As photographers, craftsmen, perhaps we can ironically lose sight of the image we are creating. And the value of that image. Or of the creation of others that do not fit our understanding. The ability to see and articulate what and how we see is a broad church. Personally, I cringe when people sometimes call me an artist, a concious inferiority complex from being 'just' a photographer perhaps. A calling that, in the UK at least, has little appreciation in general public sensibilities compared to mainstream 'art'. Easy to dismiss by the cognoscenti. I remember the sneers of Brian Sewell.
 
These lines were useful.

In essence, the contemporary art world is essentially saying to photographers, “All the things you care about: technical mastery, creative composition and even originality of content, no longer matter.” Ouch.

It would be easy to say that all that matters is the idea or the emotion evoked — but that wouldn’t be true. Instead, what matters to the contemporary art world mafia (curators, gallery directors and reviewers) is how the work and the concept behind the work references cues within the culture, philosophy and other art works, present and past. And oh yeah, if the work is well-crafted (or was made by a famous person), so much the better.

This relationship between photography and contemporary art gets trickier still, because on the other side of the equation — the side with painting and three dimensional art — the move away from craft has intensified as well. In its divorce from realism, art has increasingly focused on exploring concepts and philosophies and less on advancing art on its aesthetic merits. Postmodern art especially is about dissecting historical perspectives and denouncing traditional narratives. Basically, you have no idea what you’re looking at nor how to judge it unless you read the often densely written artist statement afixed to the nearby wall.
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Basically having read the article, it seems that art has abandoned the ground of conveying meaning through what it is, and instead requires the viewer to contort themselves into a shape that lets them see the particular meaning that the artist may have tried to convey. (Training may enable the viewer to pre-contort themselves, allowing those experienced in art to understand more readily than the uninitiated).

Rather than see photography walking down the evolutionary dead end of modernism, I'd suggest that it has remembered the roots of art - to convey meaning to people - while art has gone walkabouts, having lost the ground it previously owned. Maybe one day it will come back to rediscover its roots and become relevent again?
 
I am tempted to respond that there is perhaps something of the nursery school about a lot of photography, colourful, clear, bold and obvious. May be a better analogy for the better end of popular photography would be something like a Disney/Pixar animation, colourful, clear and bold but with a hint of subtle intelligence/humour to keep the adults amused. Why should everything be immediately approachable and obvious? Why should we not have to work a bit harder to come to a detailed understanding if the artist has something complex to convey?

From what I see, there is plenty of art that has never left its roots. Most galleries are stuffed with figurative paintings of pretty scenes at various levels of abstraction; I have a few examples on my walls, they are pleasing and decorative but hardly mentally taxing. The issue isn’t about having lost something it is about having developed, evolved and gained some new dimensions, all that went before is still there if that is what you want, why care about things you don’t care for?
 
The article links to this one - http://www.diyphotography.net/disturbing-trend-photography/

And I wonder if something is being missed. Faced with a single contemporary deadpan image it can be difficult to understand the motivation or message of the photographer without an explanation, but en bloc in a gallery or book context it's far easier to appreciate both the series and the individual image within it from the images themselves.

Pretty modernist photos of sunsets and sunflowers work individually as something pleasing to look at but will convey little meaning beyond representation of the scene in time. The work of an artist (in any medium) will convey meaning in a series greater than the sum of its individual components. And this also works for photographers that might be considered conventional modernists - I think here of the likes of Ian Cameron and Joe Cornish, where there's a sublime and emergent abstraction evident in a curated exhibition that's not immediate from an individual image taken in isolation.

It's something you won't see in the follow-the-recipe Practical Photography school of landscape photography (aka "ultrawide-with-a-rock").
 
I appreciate the pixar reference, really. Having written that post, I went for a walk and remembered visiting Upton House a few weeks back and trying to explain a Heironymous Bosch painting to someone I was stood next to. Maybe Emin's bed is really the same thing, but just reflects the race to the bottom that seems inherent in society?
 
I don't know why photographers can't get on with making photographs and stop worrying about artists using photography to make art.

Then again, maybe if the artists stopped saying what they were doing was photography the photographers would.
 
Ed Sutton said:
I don't know why photographers can't get on with making photographs and stop worrying about artists using photography to make art.

Then again, maybe if the artists stopped saying what they were doing was photography the photographers would.
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Is there a difference between photography and art then? ;)

sirch said:
From what I see, there is plenty of art that has never left its roots. Most galleries are stuffed with figurative paintings of pretty scenes at various levels of abstraction; I have a few examples on my walls, they are pleasing and decorative but hardly mentally taxing. The issue isn’t about having lost something it is about having developed, evolved and gained some new dimensions, all that went before is still there if that is what you want, why care about things you don’t care for?
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Are those kind of paintings considered art by the art world? I seem to recall Pookeyhead suggesting they were just craft and not art at all.
 
ancient_mariner said:
I appreciate the pixar reference, really. Having written that post, I went for a walk and remembered visiting Upton House a few weeks back and trying to explain a Heironymous Bosch painting to someone I was stood next to. Maybe Emin's bed is really the same thing, but just reflects the race to the bottom that seems inherent in society?
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Have you personally seen Emin's bed, or only seen photos of it?
 
ancient_mariner said:
Is there a difference between photography and art then? ;)

Are those kind of paintings considered art by the art world? I seem to recall Pookeyhead suggesting they were just craft and not art at all.
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A painting isn't by default art. There's a difference between illustration and art. But that doesn't mean illustration can't be art. Same goes for photography and any other medium. :)

Since photographs have become more widely accepted as art the lines are blurring. There's a show on at The Open Eye Gallery (supposedly a gallery dedicated to photography) in Liverpool at the moment in which there's less than half the space given over to photographs. Part of the show is a display of clothes. Neither art nor photography! (The seated figures is a dummy...) IMO it's an exhibition put on by curators for other curators. Some of the photographs are good though.

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Emin's bed is also in Liverpool at the moment, at the Tate. There are almost as many photographs on show there as there are at Open Eye. Blurred lines...

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ancient_mariner said:
I've never seen any version of Emin's bed - isn't it different every time?
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Slightly, but I wanted to clarify if your negative judgement on it was direct or indirect. It's a three dimensional piece that needs to be seen to be appreciated, I don't know if it's earlier in this thread or the thread where it appears in Liverpool where someone comments that until you see it and realise that it tells a different story from every angle you view it that you realise what it's about.

I remember seeing The Coral Reef by Mile Nelson at Tate Britain (the Fiona Banner pieces with the Harrier and Jaguar were there at the same time) and no photo or series of photos could to justice to the physical piece itself.

To judge an installation piece from photographs of it is like judging a cake based on the recipe.
 
Ed Sutton said:
I don't know why photographers can't get on with making photographs and stop worrying about artists using photography to make art.

Then again, maybe if the artists stopped saying what they were doing was photography the photographers would.
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Presumably if they are capturing light on some medium then what they are doing IS photography but I agree that some people simply don't seem to see it as a big tent that can accommodate everyone. Drawing/painting can be used for a whole range of things from engineering drawings and product illustrations to abstraction at the level of Rothko and Pollock. No one* tries to make an artistic appraisal of a drawing of a gear box, it serves a different purpose and similarly the presence of "art" photographs does not devalue the skill and effort that goes into, say, product photos or wedding photos.

*No doubt someone is going to tell me that someone has...
 
Slightly, but I wanted to clarify if your negative judgement on it was direct or indirect. It's a three dimensional piece that needs to be seen to be appreciated, I don't know if it's earlier in this thread or the thread where it appears in Liverpool where someone comments that until you see it and realise that it tells a different story from every angle you view it that you realise what it's about.

I remember seeing The Coral Reef by Mile Nelson at Tate Britain (the Fiona Banner pieces with the Harrier and Jaguar were there at the same time) and no photo or series of photos could to justice to the physical piece itself.

To judge an installation piece from photographs of it is like judging a cake based on the recipe.
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I know a little about it. The original (as I understand it) was strewn with condoms and used sanitary towels among many other things, and I'm aware that it was to reflect a particular period of promiscuity, depression and other mental health issues. In a way it the 'message' has probably become much larger than the piece, and I've a suspicion that seeing it would be more disappointing than anything.

The negative aspect to my comment was that it's constructed essentially of detritus plus a bed and is all about the artist, while the Bosch painting was both a creation that was wonderful to look at and expressed messages of hope, fear, cruelty, uncovering, insecurity, betrayal and restoration. Comparing the 2, one looks like a self-indulgent race to the bottom, while the other is an incredibly intricate construct that tells a story greater than the artist. Perhaps it's the message as much as the medium?

Gents - I appreciate a chance to talk through this stuff, without name calling etc.
 
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ancient_mariner said:
Are those kind of paintings considered art by the art world? I seem to recall Pookeyhead suggesting they were just craft and not art at all.
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Well ... Pookeyhead :banghead:

Yes they are art, they are created by artists for the purposes of art and accepted by galleries as works of art, they tick all the boxes.
 
ancient_mariner said:
The negative aspect to my comment was that it's constructed essentially of detritus plus a bed and is all about the artist, while the Bosch painting was both a creation that was wonderful to look at and expressed messages of hope, fear, cruelty, uncovering, insecurity, betrayal and restoration. Comparing the 2, one looks like a self-indulgent race to the bottom, while the other is an incredibly intricate construct that tells a story greater than the artist. Perhaps it's the message as much as the medium?
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I think you summed up both pieces with that one phrase.

Several years ago pieces by Jake and Dinos Chapman came to our local gallery and "intricate constructs" would be a very suitable description for their rather Hieronymus Bosch-like and incredibly detailed dioramas.
 
sirch said:
Well ... Pookeyhead :banghead:

Yes they are art, they are created by artists for the purposes of art and accepted by galleries as works of art, they tick all the boxes.
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He's probably the closest we've had to an individual we could identify with as 'art' (or done the most damage to the perception of art on this site).
 
sirch said:
I think it's simpler than that, to an awful lot of people "art", as in contemporary gallery art, is pretentious crap with which they would hate to be associated. {...} I often wonder why I care about art anyway, life would be a lot simpler if I just “liked what I liked” without looking for a reason behind it
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These two statements sum up my opinion. I'll go further and say that one person's "great art" is another person's dislike - neither person being right or wrong.
 
Is art somehow removed from the process of simple reproduction, or to put it another way, unique, and is this a stumbling block for photography as art, because there are so many cameras abound and digital images are so commonly produced?
 
Alec Malbon said:
Is art somehow removed from the process of simple reproduction, or to put it another way, unique, and is this a stumbling block for photography as art, because there are so many cameras abound and digital images are so commonly produced?
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I think you need to read the all of this thread and some other threads on here and probably visit a few galleries and read some books...
 
Ok thanks sirch this was just a thought that presented itself to me after I had read this thread, although that's not to say I completely understood everything, I take it by your comment I have missed the point entirely. I think I may have also misinterpreted the source paper that has fed this thought, a paper by Walter Benjamin about art in the age of mechanical reproduction. I'm open to the idea of learning more though, and more than willing to accept I've got it all wrong. Could you direct me to the other threads I should tackle please.
 
OK, let's get to the heart of this. You say it's art, I say it's not (or vice versa) - which of us is right and why?
 
Sejanus Aelianus said:
OK, let's get to the heart of this. You say it's art, I say it's not (or vice versa) - which of us is right and why?
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Does this not kind of comment not rather smack of tabloid pantomime? Them and us, black and white, right and wrong? Is photography as a field not big enough to allow for a full spectrum of everything from dispassionate science (physics and chemistry) to emotionally charged art?

So it is both and can be both simultaneously in a single photo...
 
Alec Malbon said:
Ok thanks sirch this was just a thought that presented itself to me after I had read this thread, although that's not to say I completely understood everything, I take it by your comment I have missed the point entirely. I think I may have also misinterpreted the source paper that has fed this thought, a paper by Walter Benjamin about art in the age of mechanical reproduction. I'm open to the idea of learning more though, and more than willing to accept I've got it all wrong. Could you direct me to the other threads I should tackle please.
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I'd encourage you to step beyond the somewhat narrow walls of TP, great forum though it is, (it is largely a gear and technical forum) and have a look at this - https://petapixel.com/2016/02/29/may-photographer-artist/. Also try looking some artists who have used photography in their work, such as Andy Warhol or this https://theculturetrip.com/europe/u...0-contemporary-london-photographers-to-watch/
 
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