Alec Soth's Cool Blog

[bill schwab]

Don't get me wrong here...

Once again, a very refreshing read.

B.

 

[zenrhino]

I enjoy reading threads like this. The only thing I can add is that ultimately, history, and the market, together, sort it all out quite nicely in the end.

What it got me thinking about was rock bands. Rush is a great example. They were musically so far out ahead of their time that it took until Moving Pictures for the music-buying public to really catch up. The flipside is Triumph. Equally talented and agressively forward-thinking, but whatever it is that Rush had, Triumph didn't.

 

[zenrhino]

I have no intention of...standing by and photographing people suffering ( in order to show the world just how much compassion I have, by standing there aiming a camera at those in distress instead of actually helping them) in order to get a rise out of people who have been overstimulated and ultimately insensitized by shock photos and and the vast bombardment of imagery.

Man, am I ever glad to hear this. I run with a group of documentarians and I just don't have whatever it is that lets a shooter grab a capture of someone suffering and then think about the next shot. I always thought I was somehow deficient in that way. Hearing, "We're working to bring these people's suffering to light by documenting it" always seemed a lot like, "We'll point it out. You guys go actually do the work to fix it."

 

[bill schwab]

The flipside is Triumph. Equally talented and agressively forward-thinking...

Gulp...

Guess I never gave a second listen.

B.

 

[Early Riser]

ZenRhino, you stated," We live in an uncertain world where people do sit on their beds and stare off into the future." Uncertain world? Is that any more true than when people lived during the Great Depression? Or WWII? Or the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918 that killed 40 million people? To be honest the times we have now, while challenging are not the nearly same as those endured by our parents and grandparents. Yet there was photography done during and following the Great Depression, WWII and The Spanish flu that still managed to have beauty, timelessness and deep meaning. And they still managed to have good composition, good lighting, serious visual interest, etc. I think the problem now is that our society has become quite shallow and lacks the substance of our parents/granparents generation and the current photography either reflects that or is a symptom of it.

I'm not saying that mundane things should not be photographed, I photograph them all the time. But I attempt to take those mundane things and make them special, and it takes a lot of effort. If I simply wanted to photograph things that were mundane and keep them mundane, I need not even look through the camera. So why celebrate countless mundane moments that are given significance simply because someone aimed a camera at them? Why lower the bar to where mundanity becomes the desired affect?

 

[zenrhino]

I think the problem now is that our society has become quite shallow and lacks the substance of our parents/granparents generation and the current photography either reflects that or is a symptom of it.

Hrm. You might have hit on something there.

Perchance that instead of being a symptom, however, maybe the images (and the bombardment thereof) are a cause and the effect ends up being a retreat towards images that aren't so psychologically invasive (eg, advertisement, fetish, hardcore social documentary work, etc)?

If so, do you think a push towards minimalism would be the counterbalance? Seems like it'd be perfect -- calming, engaging and beautiful yet not mundane and posessing a higher level of artistic merit.

 

[Early Riser]

Hrm. You might have hit on something there.

Perchance that instead of being a symptom, however, maybe the images (and the bombardment thereof) are a cause and the effect ends up being a retreat towards images that aren't so psychologically invasive (eg, advertisement, fetish, hardcore social documentary work, etc)?

I think most Americans are so bombarded by images that unless they are shocked they simply change channels. I also think that with the advent of photography as a process that requires no thought or skill, that most Americans can associate better with, or are more comfortable with images that are reproducible with their own limited abilities. Afterall you don't even need to produce photos to call yourself a photographer.

If so, do you think a push towards minimalism would be the counterbalance? Seems like it'd be perfect -- calming, engaging and beautiful yet not mundane and posessing a higher level of artistic merit.

As a minimalist I certainly hope so!!! I can only speak of my own personal experience. I know from my own shows that the general public appreciates minimal landscape or still life. However for museum curators, they do not get recognition for putting on minimal, beautiful shows, they get far more recognition and press when they put on a show that is controversial. The reality is that mundane work draws more controversy than simple beautiful photographs. When people walk into a museum and they see beauty, there's no controversy, when they walk into a museum and see work they consider boring and mediocre, work they themselves could do or would even consider poor quality photography, it's controversy. Controversy gets people to wait in line.

 

[zenrhino]

As a minimalist I certainly hope so!!! I can only speak of my own personal experience. I know from my own shows that the general public appreciates minimal landscape or still life. However for museum curators, they do not get recognition for putting on minimal, beautiful shows, they get far more recognition and press when they put on a show that is controversial. The reality is that mundane work draws more controversy than simple beautiful photographs. When people walk into a museum and they see beauty, there's no controversy, when they walk into a museum and see work they consider boring and mediocre, work they themselves could do or would even consider poor quality photography, it's controversy. Controversy gets people to wait in line.

Im not entirely sure that in a world that has seen Mapplethorpe's hand up a guy's butt, a cruficix in urine and the like that people sitting on a bed staring off into an uncertain future (with or without Spanish Flu ) would be considered controversial. Seems to me that would be like being "internet famous" -- meaningful only to other art-world satellites. Even given the vagaries of fashion/trends/who's hot this week/etc if the raison d'etre of a gallery is to sell art, I'd think they'd want to put up art that people would like to see rather than something cerebral.

Maybe we need to look backwards one notch -- what was the movement before the Yalies took over? What is contemporary photography reacting to? Sadly, my art history was of the boring undergrad "art in the dark" variety, so I'm having to lean on you here a bit. The only theory I can rattle around is that maybe its an extention of the Eggleston aesthetic?

Speaking of minimalism, can you shoot me the names of 3 or 4 of the big dogs in that genre? After looking at your stuff, Im curious to see how the aesthetic evolved.

 

[skillian]

This is one of the most intelligent threads I've read here in a long time. Brian said something which really resonated with me, that people today are "overstimulated and ultimately insensitized". If one were to show Weston's pepper #30 to the average 20-something today, I doubt it would have anywhere near the impact it must have had on people in 1930. My own childhood lacked video games, 200 cable channels, cell phones and the Internet, leaving me sensitive to things that would probably be ignored by the average Gen Y kid today. Does this mean these kids are more sophisticated and progressive than we were, or are they simply jaded and disaffected? Either way, I can't help but wonder how important the universality of a photograph is to its success. If contemporary photographers create a body of work which mostly appeals to gallery owners, curators and collectors, then what can be said if it fails to capture the hearts and minds of ordinary people? Is "good art" only the stuff that connects with the Guggenheim selection committee and the galleries in Chelsea?

I ask the question - "what is contemporary photography"?

 

[zenrhino]

I ask the question - "what is contemporary photography"?

And a damned fine question it is!

When we asked George Slade (artistic director of MnCP) one night in my advanced photo class at MCAD, he presented us with this:

http://www.photolucida.org/current.aspx

Critical Mass (run by Photo Lucidia) is a snapshot (pardon the pun) of the zeitgeist in contemporary photography. Take a gander through there -- there's everything from straight documentarianism to Yale-ish narrative portraiture to pictorialism that would make Mortenson blush to art in other media that just happen to have been shot with a camera.

Unfortunately, if your question is "what is cool and wow in fine art photography right now?" I don't have the answer. Give me a week to roam Nordeast (the art district in Minneapolis) and I can come up with an answer but not off the top of my head. An artist (or better yet -- a curator!) would be much better suited to answer that sort of question.

Having given that pathetic disclaimer, I think its safe to say the Yalies and narrative portraitists have the spotlight right now and good for them! People seem to be responding (for better or worse) to shots of ordinary people taken on Portra NC, whether they're the work of Hilliard, Deutsch, Strassheim, etc.

But there's plenty more out there. Ansley Simmons (an MFA holder and PhD candidate at Florida State) does some beautiful historicism that really blurs the line between fine art and documentarianism. A cursory look around the internet will show that figure studies are alive and well despite the thoroughness of examination that Weston, Cunningham, etc. have given the genre. If I could find a size 14 model, I'd be doing the "Dove Girl" version of figure studies.

If you want a truly up to the femtosecond look at current photography (and I mean the good, the bad and the d*gital shots of cats), check out the interestingness stream at Flickr or the hall of fame list at photoblogs.org. It may not be art school (but in some cases, it may be!) calibre stuff, but it is a truly up to the moment look at what, where and how people are shooting photos.

 

[zenrhino]

Gulp...

Guess I never gave a second listen.

B.

It's never too late to appreciate good rock.

 

[Early Riser]

From what I can recall from the art history classes I didn't sleep through, Minimalism was originally a movement in Europe in the 1920's and 30's which I think centered more on design and architecture, the whole Mies Van de Rohe "less is more" thing. There was a revival of minimalism in painting in the US in the 50's or 60's, I think Ellsworth Kelly was one of the bigger painters in that style. In photography I think one of the more notable contemporary minimalist photographers is Michael Kenna, although I don't know if he considers himself one. Currently minimal photography is quite popular among landscape photographers. My own work, even in my teens was already minimal, maybe because I started as a sculptor, but after 25 years of shooting single objects on white backgrounds I guess I was locked into a minimal style.

I credit (blame?) Eggleston for a lot of the mundane type of work. At first glance I thought Soth's photo was an Eggleston. So that makes me also wonder how cutting edge this style is given that it has it's roots in the 60's. I don't know how much impact the "yalies" had in the course of photographic style.

Weston's pepper brings me back to one of my first photo assignments while a student at School of Visual Arts in the 70's. My class was assigned to photograph a pepper. Almost everyone went out and tried their best to do a Weston pepper. I thought that didn't make sense because it had been done before and there was already a huge benchmark assigned to it, it was a stereotype already. I thought I would do something different. So I blew them up, literally. I photographed them outdoors at night, because I thought an expoding pepper would look better against a dark background and all photo students like to shoot against black. I had to do it outdoors because exploding fireworks in the apartment was frowned upon, even in the name of art and my education.
I thought I had produced a photo that literally blew away the Weston clones. For my efforts it only got a B. While my instructor was impressed with my concept, it's originality, my execution could have been better. I realized then, that in order for a photo to be really good, it has to have a good concept and good execution. The problem I have with most of the new stuff I see is that it's usually obscure concept and no execution.

 

[bill schwab]

It's never too late to appreciate good rock.

Hey... I'm a Detroit boy...born and bred. Compared to the MC5 and Stooges that I cut my teeth on... Triumph is easy listening! I'll give you Rush though. 2112 never left my turntable the whole year of 10th grade.



Bill

 

[RAP]

Too many isms in this world. I don't know where to start.

As for the mundane, I would think Diane Arbus would be the prime candidate in this ism catagorie. Though I read somewhere that putting a camera in her hand was the same as a handgrenade. Did the mundane drive her to suicide, or what did?

Look at George Tice's book, "Urban Landscapes," all images of NJ, about as mundane a place as you can get. Yet he saw designs and patterns in aluminum sided raised ranches and bus station bathrooms, with an 8x10!

Personally, I never attended any art classes, except in grade school. I always questioned the benefits of formal art education and the amount of influence it can have on the individual style of the artist. Either delaying its emergence or destroying it all together. To many isms maybe that can act as a straight jacket.

I took Photo 1 and 2 junior and senior year in college. Here is the first real photograph I ever made, my junior year:

Dead Link Removed

 

[Jim Chinn]

Speaking of minimalism, can you shoot me the names of 3 or 4 of the big dogs in that genre? After looking at your stuff, Im curious to see how the aesthetic evolved.

Minimalism came out of New york in the early 60s as a reaction to Abstract Expressionism. Minimalism is art stripped of all symbolism, metaphor, and multiple meanings. Think Samuel Beckett for plays and john Cage for music.
The big names in the art world in the 60s were Donald Judd, Ad Reinhardt, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Frank Stella. The idea was more is less, less is more. Minimalist art is about paring down untill you end up with the final irreducible components of the piece.

For photographers David Fokos and Richard Misrach come to mind off the top of my head. I think Michael Kenna has a lot of work, especially his Japan images that are minimalist in nature. Look at Bill Schwab's web site. Quite a bit of Bill's work fits the tennant of "less is more".

 

[ineffablething]

I read his blog once. He is so full of himself some times that it really cracks me up. I originally thought he was much younger (which in my mind would excuse some of the more bombastic statements), but it seems he's well into his 30's.

The one that really cracked me up was the one where he mentioned that William Eggleston had a cameo in a recent Cat Power music video and then went on to openly address Chan Marshall stating that he would be in her home town that coming weekend and was available to be in any more of her videos that might currently be in the works. HAHA. I mean, I really like Soth's photos, but William Eggleston he ain't.