Critic thinks photography shouldn't be hung in art galleries.

[ME Super]

+1

 

[eddie]

Sometimes I think art critics should be hung in art galleries. People who derive their opinions from art critics should always be hung in art galleries.

 

[eddie]

by the neck?

Yes.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

I would like to see professional/peer references from this "critic". He writes with all the bitterness of an aloof, distant and out of touch passing observer. Not worth getting knotted and bent of shape over such conceited views.

 

[Terry Breedlove]

I haven't read the article yet but if you are young and have never been to a good Gallery with good film based Photography on the walls. I could see how today's instagram generation might feel like the garbage they see nowadays online isn't art. To walk into a Gallery with gorgeous hand made prints from really great Photographers is amazing and might just change his mind.

 

[removed account4]

I haven't read the article yet but if you are young and have never been to a good Gallery with good film based Photography on the walls. I could see how today's instagram generation might feel like the garbage they see nowadays online isn't art. To walk into a Gallery with gorgeous hand made prints from really great Photographers is amazing and might just change his mind.

from what the forum critics suggest, he is in his 50s, not so much the instagram generation.
i have to disagree with you though but i do love looking at photographs on my cellphone, much better than seeing them in person.

 

[MattKing]

Maybe he should look at some work from Jerry Uelsmann or Jeff Wall, if he wants to understand that photography means many things.

I wonder what he thinks about charcoal drawings?

 

[David Allen]

My initial thought was 'what a load of rubbish!' Oh, but then the thought came to me that 'hang on, much of what one sees in exhibitions is really poor photography'. It is precisely because so many exhibited photographs lack an investment in time and difficulty, material complexity, textural depth, talent and craft, imagination and “mindfulness” that they are no good and boring to view. And yes, there are many photographers work that is better viewed in print or on screen but these are precisely the images that do not rely on the extra physical qualities that certain types of photography exhibit. I would suggest that Mr Jones stops going to art world 'star' photographers exhibitions and visits instead exhibitions by photographers who are working directly with the qualities of the medium - just like (some of) the painters he cites.

And to rant even more . . . the next person that tells me that this or that particular underexposed, blurred, picture of nothing in particular is a delicate meditation on the transitory nature of life will experience the less than delicate experience of my booted foot connecting with their derrière.

David.
www.dsallen.de

 

[Dali]

an OD of Cindy Sherman maybe?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Critics are people who are unable to have an original thought or idea. Why would any intelligent person read a critic's opinion.

 

[pdeeh]

Because they don't hold everybody else's opinions except their own in utter contempt, perhaps?

Because they're open minded, think that they can learn something, might get a new perspective, will have their own blinkered opinions challenged, are interested in a world outside their own, don't believe they are right all the time, take pleasure in the diversity of thought and belief ...

In short, plenty of reasons to read critics.

If the criterion for posting at APUG was originality of thought and idea, there'd be about three posts a week, maximum

 

[removed account4]

Because they don't hold everybody else's opinions except their own in utter contempt, perhaps?

Because they're open minded, think that they can learn something, might get a new perspective, will have their own blinkered opinions challenged, are interested in a world outside their own, don't believe they are right all the time, take pleasure in the diversity of thought and belief ...

In short, plenty of reasons to read critics.

If the criterion for posting at APUG was originality of thought and idea, there'd be about three posts a week, maximum

+1

 

[moose10101]

Because they don't hold everybody else's opinions except their own in utter contempt, perhaps?

Because they're open minded, think that they can learn something, might get a new perspective, will have their own blinkered opinions challenged, are interested in a world outside their own, don't believe they are right all the time, take pleasure in the diversity of thought and belief ...

In short, plenty of reasons to read critics.

If the criterion for posting at APUG was originality of thought and idea, there'd be about three posts a week, maximum

+1

 

[OptiKen]

"I don't know art, but I know what I like."
"A blind man is introduced to an elephant for the first time and feels one of it's legs and thinks, "the elephant is like a tree trunk"
"Another can only reach the elephants tail and thinks, " an elephant is like a piece of rope"

It's sort of funny how an awful lot of photographers and critics are complaining lately that photos are beginning to look too much like paintings (or 'too artificial') and the writer is saying they are too flat (as opposed to what? An oil painting that is flat?)

The writer needs to follow a photographer around for a day....see just what is involved and then finally compare the 'shot in the camera' to the final piece that is hung on the wall. It is not, "point-click-print-frame".

I do not appreciate all photos I see that are put on display. Nor do I appreciate all paintings put on display. That doesn't mean I cannot see what is there. One of the things that photography teaches us is how to see things that are there but not often noticed. As a photographer, I don't try to show you a snapshot of the here and now. I am trying to re-create what 'I' see, or rather how my mind interprets what I see. And what I see is as much felt as seen. The author admits that he only gives photographs a cursory look and doesn't even try to see the art or what is 'behind the picture'. He cheats himself. If he were to expend the same amount of time and energy to a Picasso as he does to a photo, he wouldn't get that either. Simply because he doesn't 'get it', doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve it's place hanging on a wall in an exhibition.

 

[John Koehrer]

Opinions are like other portions of the anatomy.
Everybody's got one.

 

[Søren]

I'm not from the UK and was quite surprised that the guardian afforded this guy the opportunity to publish such article. At least before I considered the guardian a serious newspaper. Well, maybe the online department is actually independent, hence less good/experienced than the print department?

My impression is that he lacks the understanding of the difference between art and craft. Interestingly, he mentioned Caravaggio a painter whose paintings a half a millennium old, a time where painting was more craft-oriented than in our modern times. Not that I don't appreciate renaissance or baroque art at all (I used to live in Florence) but there is a difference between Caravaggio and Kandinsky. But that guy would probably rant about expressionism as well, because 'a four year old could draw an expressionist painting'... oh well...

And that suggestion to show photographs on an ipad...

 

[Sirius Glass]

[h=2]Critic thinks ...[/h]

Critics can't think. End of story. See my first post.

 

[removed account4]

this is kind of funny to be honest,
i agree with a lot of what he said, a lot of the photographs that currently are
in museums and galleries are not the cream of the crop.

over the last few years a lot of people here on apug have been excessively vocal
and railed some of the "museum and gallery darlings" .. i don't have threads handy
to link to, but comments range from "that person is a poser, thinks bigger is better"
to "that person has no idea about craft, and his(her) statement is a load of bs" to
my 3 year old with a point and shoot camera can do better photographs" kind of the
same yadda yadda yadda that people say about folks who use holgas or lomo or diana camers ...
and i find it kind of funny that as soon as a critic says the same thing ..
he is a fool, just out for publicity, knows nothing about anything, speaks nonsense he is a critic
and a someone not to be listened to ...

 

[pdeeh]

it's those danged other people again I reckon ...

 

[removed account4]

it's those danged other people again I reckon ...

yep, sure are a lot of them ...

 

[Mark Minard]

Click bait. Nothing more.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

If it's click bait then he's a master at it.