Are you relegated to the periphery of the art world

[Pieter12]

of course photography is on the periphery... how often can you afford to buy a favorite, interesting, fantastic photograph?

any music fan can buy any song they want without having to pay the equivalent price of a guitar. Gallery's and their pricing has made photography beyond the reach of the average Joe.

We've made archival processing more important than enjoying, understanding, appreciating the image!

how many images of your favorite photographer(s) have you bought? Do you own?

But high prices actually put photography closer to the center, it was when it was further out on the periphery that it was affordable. It wasn't until photography became noticed by collectors and museums that prices started to skyrocket. Not that long ago, museums were buying prints from now legendary photographers for $25 each, and some even balked at that. There is an interesting book out on the phenomenon of the art world's lack of acceptance of new art styles or movements that was recently published: Picasso’s War: How Modern Art Came to America. In the '30s, the Museum of Modern Art wouldn't buy a single Matisse and even turned down Van Gogh's "Starry Night." And so it goes.

 

[Don_ih]

high prices actually put photography closer to the center

However, not many photos actually demand high prices. The list of "legendary" photographers is also short - and each of those photographers is normally known mostly for only a handful of photos.

Other than staged photographs (still-lifes, studio shots, actually posed photos), people don't really think photographers are in control over what they photograph. To most people, that means it's not art - it's a "capture". While people will acknowledge "capture" takes skill, they think of it more like someone with a butterfly net. You capture a butterfly and pin it to the wall - you didn't make it.

In contrast, most people believe a true artist is in control of the art. Some people even get surprised when they learn about things like the camera obscura and the fact that many artists trace or copy from photos - they feel that diminishes the art, that it's cheating.

 

[faberryman]

In contrast, most people believe a true artist is in control of the art.

Most people have never even thought about it. Meanwhile, we have had conceptual photography for 40-50 years where the photographer is in complete control. Maybe people whose knowledge starts and stops with HCB's Man Jumping Over Puddle (1930) think photography is about capture.

Meanwhile, I find myself sort of in the capture group myself I am old and old fashioned. So I guess I am more a hunter-gatherer photographer than a farmer photographer. Conceptual photography seems to me to be almost exclusively about the concept, and once the artist has created it, photographing it seems almost beside the point. I mean, you do need to have a record of what you have created, so I guess you need a camera. Sort of like when you make your kids Halloween costumes, and you take a picture of your kids wearing them so they will remember them.

 

[VinceInMT]

However, not many photos actually demand high prices. The list of "legendary" photographers is also short - and each of those photographers is normally known mostly for only a handful of photos.

Other than staged photographs (still-lifes, studio shots, actually posed photos), people don't really think photographers are in control over what they photograph. To most people, that means it's not art - it's a "capture". While people will acknowledge "capture" takes skill, they think of it more like someone with a butterfly net. You capture a butterfly and pin it to the wall - you didn't make it.

In contrast, most people believe a true artist is in control of the art. Some people even get surprised when they learn about things like the camera obscura and the fact that many artists trace or copy from photos - they feel that diminishes the art, that it's cheating.

Don, a very meaty comment and lots of food for thought.

Regarding artists using photos or tools to create their non-photo work, yes, I’ve heard that for years. In fact, when I was in 7th grade, the only time I ever had “art class” in my K-12 years, I flunked a drawing of a lighthouse because I’d used a ruler to lay out the vertical lines, flunked for “cheating.” Years later I trained and then worked as a mechanical drafter in the pre-computer era when I never “flunked” a drawing for using a straightedge or templates. In the meantime, I continued to draw outside that mechanical world and mastered drawing straight lines without the assistance of tools. I suppose I turned that 7th-grade experience into a positive.

Moved ahead to 2015-2022 and I find myself completing a BFA where not only are straightedges readily available in our art studios but also opaque projectors, especially useful when enlarging small sketches or other reference pieces to mural size. I never heard that these methods were a form of cheating.

And I think you are right on with your observation that photography might be marginalized as it only captures what is there. On a related note, a few semesters ago I was taking an advanced photography class where we designed our own syllabus and submitted a proposal for approval and critique by the rest of the participants. Everyone in the class was planning on shooting digital and using lots of Photoshop where I was going to use Van Dyke, cyanotype, Mordancage, and Sabbatier with the specific goal to place the “hand of the artist” into my work and I challenged the other students that, if the hand of the artist is an important feature of art, to explain how they would show the same in their work. After all, where is it in a digitally-assisted photo and who gets credit for the work produced by using the filters in Photoshop, the artist who selected them or the programmer who wrote them? ( I lean toward the former but it was interesting to create a discussion point.)

While I fully understand the issue of photography only ”capturing” what is there, HCB did tell us that it is more than just that and I fully agree. I’ve taken that to heart along with my search for Barthes “punctum” in my own work, two things that continue to challenge beyond the mechanical and technical sides of photography.

 

[Don_ih]

After all, where is it in a digitally-assisted photo and who gets credit for the work produced by using the filters in Photoshop, the artist who selected them or the programmer who wrote them?

The issue is related to a broader concern regarding tools in general. Tools of all kinds are often given credit for the work they are used to perform - to the point where, if you make something very well, people will comment on how you must have all the tools.

Well, even if you do have all the tools (whether they are machinist tools, woodworking tools, visual art tools, or photography tools), the person wielding them is you. They extend your will into the world, in their own particular way, and effect change in exactly the same way bare hands do.

Of course, tools leave marks. With sophisticated tools like Photoshop filters, the marks may be too overwhelming. Yes, the photographer chooses to apply the filter and changes the work accordingly. It is the photographer's approval that allows that change. But perhaps that application makes the photo look too much like other photos that have been changed by that filter.

It's just like all the cabinet doors that have been made using the same profile raised panel bits. Who can tell who made those?

But it is the choice of the person wielding the tools what tools will be used. They never lose ownership of the work because of that choice. They might render the work mundane, though.

While I fully understand the issue of photography only ”capturing” what is there, HCB did tell us that it is more than just that and I fully agree.

The idea of a "capture" is almost non-sensical, anyway. Photographic "capture" is actually more like recognizing a butterfly than capturing it in a net. The use of a camera is the same as any tool - your will passes through it to acheive your result (with more or less trouble and success).

Maybe people whose knowledge starts and stops with HCB's Man Jumping Over Puddle (1930) think photography is about capture.

Most people don't know who HCB is. Non-photographers usually have no interest in photographers.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Monet and his contemporary impressionistic artists used photography on its own and to help them make their paintings. So there is no line to blur.

My friend was a commercial artist who frequently used photos as the start point for his work.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I thought about this for awhile, but nothing was happening so I got a beer.

Now I'm on the periphery of sobriety and art. Perfect.

Work does seem more artistic once you had a drink or two.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

As I have thought about this topic quite a bit for the last half-dozen years or so, I decided to blur the distinctions by merging my photography with my drawings and see where that takes me. It’s been an interesting excursion. I tend toward the Surreal and the abstract and what I did was create cyanotypes on large sheets of drawing paper. After the coating, exposure, development/wash, and dry, I finish the image by drawing, either with graphite or pastel or a combination of them. I am quite happy with the results and will pursue this more in the future.

If you’d like to take a look at them, you can see them on my website here:

http://www.codecooker.com/projects_visual_arts/index.php?f=portals00

Interesting material and nice. I've noticed in museums that many photo art they present combine photos with other materials. I forget the name of this type of art - maybe someone can help me. I think museums look for something different.

 

[faberryman]

Most people don't know who HCB is. Non-photographers usually have no interest in photographers.

Right, it was just the first obviously "capture" photograph that popped into my head, so I used it as an example. Even though non-photographers may have no interest in photographers, I'll go out on a limb and say that most people have seen a couple of iconic photographs sometime during their life, which probably inform their opinion of what photography is about.

 

[Vaughn]

I find it more interesting that Western Art thinks it is the center of human achievement. That it is the Art to judge all other Art by.

 

[Helge]

I find it more interesting that Western Art thinks it is the center of human achievement. That it is the Art to judge all other Art by.

What does that have to do with the topic at hand?

 

[Helge]

The capture vs. controlled creation argument doesn’t hold water, even if there probably is a smidgen of cognitive or perceptive truth to it among social strata and personality types, that are not habitually asked to or want to judge and critique art.

The highest pedigree in pre photography painting was truth to nature (realism in current folk parlance) and/or being able to capture a scene exactly.
On the other hand found art is definitely not a phenomenon that starts with Marcel Duchamp.
The consecration of it as official sanctified “art” probably is, but then the whole modern idea of “art” is quite new.

 

[Vaughn]

What does that have to do with the topic at hand?

The "Art World" is much bigger than most people think. That affects what one considers "periphery".

 

[Helge]

The "Art World" is much bigger than most people think. That affects what one considers "periphery".

It hinges on what you consider the “Art World”.
Starting with posh galleries, museums and university professors and experts at “the top” where does the “Art World” end or extent to?

 

[Vaughn]

It extends to artists and their art.

The Art World. It could encompass all of humankind and their activities...or just the space between a creator's ears. There is the public face and the private face. The business face and the personal face. And edited to add academic and non-academic faces.

"Do you feel that you are “relegated to the periphery of the art world” because you are a photographer?" To answer that question as a photographer, one has to assume the mantle of an artist. If one considers themselves not to be an artist and that ones photographs are not art, then one is not participating actively in the Art World as a photographic artist...and one is not on the periphery of the art world, but outside the border looking in.

 

[Pieter12]

I guess it depends on your view of the "art world." For some, it encompasses all forms of art and all who make it, sell it and display it. For others, its is the influential critics, collectors, galleries and museum curators (and trustees who approve the purchases) who determine the validity of what may be considered "art."

 

[Vaughn]

I guess it depends on your view of the "art world." For some, it encompasses all forms of art and all who make it, sell it and display it. For others, its is the influential critics, collectors, galleries and museum curators (and trustees who approve the purchases) who determine the validity of what may be considered "art."

Yes, it is a ponder. I worked for a university art department for a couple decades (and add a decade before that as a volunteer). In that world, photography, along with graphic arts, is low on the art-pole...and painting is on top. We (the photo area) brought in the bucks (non-art majors taking classes) so were fairly well tolerated and supported (and I believe we were the third university in the USA to have a photography program under an art department). An interesting part of the Art World, which along with the SPE I do not miss (except helping students and the free use of some incredible facilities).

The gallery world is also interesting and there is also the workshop world...and art fairs, or whatever level one wants to participate in. Photography is the center of its own little art world. I have not seen it as much these days, but the calls for work, "All Media, including (or excluding) Photography" and so forth were always entertaining.

So to answer the OP -- no, I do not feel to be on the edge of the art world, mostly because I see it as having no edge.

 

[Sirius Glass]

What does that have to do with the topic at hand?

The point is that the Western World likes to view art, architecture, history and culture through eyes of the west and looks down on Australian Aboriginal, New Zealand's Maori, and North America Indigenous art, amoung others, as inferior and unworthy. Exactly a part of being regulated to the periphery.

 

[jtk]

Whatever "art world" means, its influence on "us" is hard to deny. That's especially the reality given that many of "us" have devolved in a way that precludes first-hand engagement with art objects and manifestations (whew!).

I like to visit galleries and talk with artists. That may distance me a bit from "art world-think."

I do like conceptual art more than many who are less aware of that category...and I do strongly believe that commercial photography has long been more "fine" than has "fine art photography."

 

[MattKing]

Perhaps the Art World is like the world - no edge, so therefore no periphery.

 

[Helge]

The point is that the Western World likes to view art, architecture, history and culture through eyes of the west and looks down on Australian Aboriginal, New Zealand's Maori, and North America Indigenous art, amoung others, as inferior and unworthy. Exactly a part of being regulated to the periphery.

That is not universally true.

There is the whole trope of the noble savage.
There is naïveté, primalism and neoteny as strains and isms running through art. With foreign art as huge inspirations.
Kandinsky, Picasso, Chagall and Klee are famous progenitors.

Letrec, Van Gogh and impressionists was famously hugely inspired by Japanese woodblock prints (that in turn earlier was inspired by Dutch painting) and East Asian painting.

Islamic art has been very influential in a number of ways and at different times in different periods.

And of course Australian aporiginal art, as an example, is culturally simpler (in the most original and basic sense) and less culturally connected and involved.
Doesn’t make it less interesting or worthy though.
Some would even say, on the contrary.

 

[Pieter12]

To most people, that means it's not art - it's a "capture". While people will acknowledge "capture" takes skill, they think of it more like someone with a butterfly net. You capture a butterfly and pin it to the wall - you didn't make it.

Interestingly, there was a movement in the late '60s called Photo Realism, where the painter would painstakingly reproduce a very obvious snapshot, but at a huge scale. So they were using highly developed artistic skills to reproduce "not art."

On the other hand, a quote from Elliot Erwitt: "To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place...I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them."

 

[Vaughn]

Perhaps the Art World is like the world - no edge, so therefore no periphery.

If one defines humans as an art-making animal (good as any other definition), then that rings true. Art existed before commerce (my assumption), so I see the business of art as a small subset of the world of art.

Seems the best way for a photographer to break into the business end of the Art World is to photograph famous artists.

And all Siriusness aside, I was referring more to the Euro-Centric viewpoint of art. It is very important and has been and will continue to be a major world influence. I just do not consider Western Art to be the high point or the standard of human civilization up to this point in time. Western Art has used non-western themes. Western Art has been quite effective at taking native arts and bending them into Western art forms. It is an interesting way to demonstrate ownership. The Chinese probably have a different viewpoint about the rather immature arts of the West.

 

[Don_ih]

it was just the first obviously "capture" photograph that popped into my head

There are far more obvious "captures" that most people will think of when it's mentioned. Getting the photo of blowing out the candles, the picture of getting handed the diploma, kissing the bride, a particularly silly expression on a kid's face. Using a camera to "capture" moments has been the mission statement of Kodak for over a century. It's something everyone knows how to do - or at least they think they do.

It's not against painting that you need to establish the validity of photography as an art form, but against the everyday, banal and mundane, ubiquitous generation of photos by the billions of people who in no way consider what they're doing "art".

 

[Sirius Glass]

The point is that the Western World likes to view art, architecture, history and culture through eyes of the west and looks down on Australian Aboriginal, New Zealand's Maori, and North America Indigenous art, amoung others, as inferior and unworthy. Exactly a part of being regulated to the periphery.

That is not universally true.

There is the whole trope of the noble savage.
There is naïveté, primalism and neoteny as strains and isms running through art. With foreign art as huge inspirations.
Kandinsky, Picasso, Chagall and Klee are famous progenitors.

Letrec, Van Gogh and impressionists was famously hugely inspired by Japanese woodblock prints (that in turn earlier was inspired by Dutch painting) and East Asian painting.

Islamic art has been very influential in a number of ways and at different times in different periods.

And of course Australian aporiginal art, as an example, is culturally simpler (in the most original and basic sense) and less culturally connected and involved.
Doesn’t make it less interesting or worthy though.
Some would even say, on the contrary.

I posted "likes" which is not a total universal without exception statement. That does not mean all. To expand on my points, before the Europeans the Australian aboriginals had permanent houses that they used in rotations, megastructures, river damming for fishing with retention pools to keep trapped fish alive, large irrigation projects, petroglyph stones across the country to show water holes, commerce, hunting and migration trails. They have the longest continuous civilization dating back 65,000 years with very few battles or wars, while Western Civilization gets teary eyed over the 14,000 year old Neanderthal cave painting in southern France and northern Spain which is not even part of a contiguous civilization. Yet because they did not make and use pottery they were not considered civilized or a civilization. That is definitely a Western Privileged Viewpoint.

Before someone from a northwestern state gets his panties twisted in to a knot, here are two references:

• Dark Emu, Aboriginal Australia and the birth of agriculture, Bruce Pascoe, Scribe Publications UK Ltd, Victoria, Australia & London UK, 2018 ISBN 9781947 53087
• The Biggest Estate on Earth, How Aborigines Made AustraliaU, Bill Gammage, Allen & Unwin,rows Nest NSW Australia, 2011 ISBN 978 1 74331 1325