Art Exhibition shows versatility in artforms - but excludes photographs

A large art exhibition is on show, which has included all sorts of art mediums. When I made enquiries why there was no photography they said it was too difficult to define art / fine art in photography and therefore it has been excluded altogether from the exhibition.

What are your thoughts?

On a side note: Going into commercial galleries that do on occasion show photographic prints, I find it interesting that unless a photograph has "shock value" it is of no interest to the gallery.

I think things have gotten worse for photography in the arts. I don't think there is another medium where the practitioners are subject to such great marketing forces as photography. The unyielding need for those forces to homogenize all of the medium as one practice has led to an identity crisis in a discipline that is by historical standards still in its infancy. Until photographers themselves grow up and embrace the idea that photography is many mediums akin to painting, it will continue to be the redheaded step child.

Funny how the work that was done before the great democratization, when photography was away moving from pictorialism, is the work that is consistently selling at auction for gazillions, and that the current trend is towards pictorialism and "photographs" that look like the products of graphic design. Course it's all the same thing, just ask most any newbie photographer, as most cringe at any thought of provenance.

I thought we had gotten past that in the 70's, but I guess it's back. I wonder if the 'digital revolution' has caused this?

Alas, my impression is that photography has always been the poor stepchild of the art world. Some apparently think photos are "too easy." I suppose one can find arguments going in both directions. I was surprised last week when I actually got a prize in a local art show judged by a plein air oil painter. Obviously many of the basics apply - vision, composition, etc.; one could say it's just another way of capturing an idea in time.

A little local art club I belong to has a 50+ year history and still a number of very tradition oriented folks. As such, we still allow no "computer art" in our shows. We've recently been prodded a bit by a guy who is shooting gazillions of pictures with the machine which shall not be named and Photoshopping them until they're unrecognizable as photographs. They are bright, bold and catchy and might even sell well as decoration, but most of the rest of us are not even sure what they should be called -- and even I have some wonderings about are they "art" for the purposes of our organization. Maybe it's just tough to accept anything that doesn't have a 500 year history.

All that said, my nearest major art museum -- the Philadelphia Museum of Art -- has major collections of photographs and just about always has some sort of exhibit up featuring photography.

DaveT

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And again I say that historians interpet art and its place within its society. The present only serves to evaluate subject matter.

Hi, Nicole.

Like others here, I believe that photography is not considered "art," whatever that may be, by many art instructors, critics, and gallerists. In my personal experience, other artists are far less prejudicial of photography than are those who simply teach or talk about art, but do not produce work of their own that they put out there for others to see and criticize. So much for my personal rant.

Sometimes I wonder if analog photographers do not discriminate against digital artists in the same we we are discriminated against by other mediums. I will confess that I get excited whenever I see an interesting black and white image, then lose interest as soon as I find out it was digitally produced. But even though I may not think as highly of the image, I do not publicly dismiss it. So much for confessing my sins.

I love what I do: making black and white photographs using classic photographic materials and methods, and I never settle for less than the very best of which I am capable. Sometimes I produce a photograph that satisfies me greatly. I made up my mind a long time ago to do what satisfies me, regardless of how others in the art world may view my work.

Interestingly, I just this afternoon took in "Cézanne and Beyond," an exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Museum, this year's "blockbuster". Besides 50 or so Cézannes, the exhibit is interspersed with work by other artists who claimed or show influence from Mr. C. Lo and behold, there were several works included done by Jeff Wall, a Canadian photographer (born 1946) -- transparencies approaching 40 by 50 inches or so, displayed on light boxes mounted on the wall -- quite dramatic. Fine print on one caption seemed to suggest there might have some d!git@l work done to produce them or at least the most recent one; I do find museum displays of such photos frequently lack any technical details other than the medium. They were quite impressive and illustrated card players, harbors and subjects reminiscent of some of the earlier paintings by the others.

Another gallery containing work by Philly's own Thomas Eakins noted that he also worked in photography and had several small prints on display done in albumen, platinum, and cyanotype.

Across the street in the Perlman Bulding, there was a display of work from the eighties by Japanese photographer Daidõ Moriyama, shot mostly in Tokyo.

DaveT