Hilla and Bernd Becher :

[halfaman]

I have enjoyed the intellectual level of this discussion. Though the participants disagree at time the conversation has not descended into acrimonious insults as frequently happens on others on other sites.

Sontag argues against interpretation. She says that, " The task of interpretation is virtually one of translation. The interpreter says, Look, don’t you see that X is really - or, really means - A? That Y is really B? That Z is really C?" But we have learned more about the human perceptual system since Sontag's time. We now know that a human can never directly experience the outer environment or close to it. The senses provide the brain chaotic and fragmentary data about the outer world that the brain uses to make a best-guess model of what it out there. For example, my eyes may send to my brain some information some lines and shapes "X" that my brain interprets as really "A" that the car ahead of me is the same model I have. The brain is hugely biased toward creating some story, some interpretation of the information is getting to the point it would much rather make a wrong guess than have not guess at all. That is how optical illusions work. The brain is a pattern seeking machine. Much of this is unconscious. But in trying to create a workable simulation of the outer environment, our brain changes and simplifies things, makes assumptions which do not exactly match the outer scene. So everything we experience in our minds perceptually represents interpretation.

One could ague that this is a narrow technical statement that doesn't pertain to understanding art. But it does. This huge bias the brain has to labeling things, to attributing stories to things, does not end with basic perception, but imbues all our thinking whether we choose to or not. Unlike Sontag, I don't think it is possible to experience art in a neutral way without interpretation. But where I agree with Sontag is that it is limiting to have one reductionist interpretation of art. It is often said that a great power of art is that is resonates on multiple levels, has layers of meaning. Those that try to say that art has a single meaning be it Freudian, Marxist or other strip away the richness of the other layers. There is also the danger of substituting the interpretation of others for our own as often happens with ideological doctrines. But there is a difference between more individualist societies and more collectivist societies about this.

Sontag really claim that art is meant to be "experienced" and not so much "interpreted", so you both are in agreement. I think this is one of the main problems of postmodernism, the belief that the viewer has to unlock some kind of mistery ("meaning") when contemplating contemporary art in order to enjoy it.

I think it was Peter Bogdanovich who pissed off John Ford for constantly asking the old master "Why?" for any aspect of his movies during their famous conversations. Art creation is mainly an instintive activity, not a rational one.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I think this is one of the main problems of postmodernism, the belief that the viewer has to unlock some kind of mistery ("meaning") when contemplating contemporary art in order to enjoy it.

"In order to," I believe, is a general misconception. There's no "in order to." Both are possible, in that you can appreciate a work on a gut, instinctive, purely emotional level, and you can also choose to question it, dialogue in different ways with it, which can also give you pleasure. People tend to view "meaning" as a purely intellectual quest. It's not. Meaning is, amongst other things, how are things relevant to us — as individuals, community, society, for our time, etc. No "mystery" there, no quest for the Grail or secret Masonic handshake.

I find it interesting that there is, at times, such a reluctance to discuss meaning and intent in photography, as there is—my impression—no other art form in which the practitioners have been so vocal, in their own writings, in interviews, through viable second hand conversations, about their intent, at least partially, when photographing.

We know that Gordon Parks wanted to use his camera as a "weapon" for social change, we know that Cartier-Bresson was searching for a "surreal order" with his decisive moment, we know amongst other things that Robert Adams' photos are imbued with the idea of faith and redemption, we cannot look at a Winogrand photo without thinking about "I photograph things in order to see what they look like photographed", we know that Walker Evans' main influences when developing his ideas about photography as "lyric documentary" were Flaubert and Baudelaire, we know why David Goldblatt chose to shoot the consequences of Apartheid a certain way, we know what Gene Smith was trying to achieve in Minamata, and Robert Franck with The Americans, and what Avedon was looking for in The American West, and we know just about everything we would want to know about Stephen Shore's approach to photography through his writings, and countless others, from Luigi Ghirri to Tod Pappageorge to Lewis Baltz to Joel Meyerowitz to Dawoud Bey, who have give us very clear clues about what their intent was when working on certain projects.

The list of photographers for whom their art is an instinctive activity and a rational one goes on and on and on. A lot of photography is about intent, and intent is about meaning. Each of these photographer produced works that stand on their own. You can decide that everything they said or wrote or may have mentioned about their work and what they were doing and why is irrelevant to you, and that's fine. Nothing is lost if there is pleasure and enjoyment.

I tend to think art can be both "experienced" and "interpreted". Not a huge fan of Sontag, as you can tell.

 

[jtk]

Bluechromis, thanks for that Ted Talk, more for your essay/post.


The Ted Talk misses two crucial reality factors totally. Hoffman is teaching something that ignores the reality of his audience.

First, perception isn't limited to an individual's experience. Nobody at that Ted Talk had mere individual perception. Every one of those individuals shared experiences (despite Hoffman's sermon).

Second, and this remains the practice of many, labels on photographs are intended to "explain" what the artists believed they weren't capable of communicating with their art objects. Labels on art objects (and especially photographs) are intended to change or even take away from our perceptions

fwiw: It happens that my Masters Degree pursuit was in Psychology of Perception. I operated a sensory deprivation room (not mere chamber) at San Francisco State College. While at that I also contributed to our Experimental College, opposed the war in Vietnam, discovered the work of hundreds of soon-to-be-famous photographers in our huge slide library (we know those photographers here, but Popular Photography Magazine never did). And I taught a psych course, using the work of those photographers. My soon-to-be wife, a fiber arts student, directed me to Ansel Adams at the Sierra Club office in downtown San Francisco. I pawed through dozens of his original prints, then discovered Edward Weston, who we all know discovered sex. Somebody had to do it, and that wasn't Ansel.

 

[jtk]

If one wades through Sontag's ultra-dense "Against Interpretation" one will discover this observation at the very end, which rebuts the now common misinterpretation of what she actually wrote. To understand that, one would have had to suffer through Bergman's "The Silence" , which I hated.

" Ingmar Bergman may have meant the tank rumbling down the empty night street in The Silence as a phallic symbol. But if he did, it was a foolish thought. (“Never trust the teller, trust the tale,” said Lawrence.) Taken as a brute object, as an immediate sensory equivalent for the mysterious abrupt armored happenings going on inside the hotel, that sequence with the tank is the most striking moment in the film. Those who reach for a Freudian interpretation of the tank are only expressing their lack of response to what is there on the screen. It is always the case that interpretation of this type indicates a dissatisfaction (conscious or unconscious) with the work, a wish to replace it by something else. Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art. " Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation

 

[bluechromis]

Bluechromis, thanks for that Ted Talk, more for your essay/post.


The Ted Talk misses two crucial reality factors totally. Hoffman is teaching something that ignores the reality of his audience.

First, perception isn't limited to an individual's experience. Nobody at that Ted Talk had mere individual perception. Every one of those individuals shared experiences (despite Hoffman's sermon).

Second, and this remains the practice of many, labels on photographs are intended to "explain" what the artists believed they weren't capable of communicating with their art objects. Labels on art objects (and especially photographs) are intended to change or even take away from our perceptions

fwiw: It happens that my Masters Degree pursuit was in Psychology of Perception. I operated a sensory deprivation room (not mere chamber) at San Francisco State College. While at that I also contributed to our Experimental College, opposed the war in Vietnam, discovered the work of hundreds of soon-to-be-famous photographers in our huge slide library (we know those photographers here, but Popular Photography Magazine never did). And I taught a psych course, using the work of those photographers. My soon-to-be wife, a fiber arts student, directed me to Ansel Adams at the Sierra Club office in downtown San Francisco. I pawed through dozens of his original prints, then discovered Edward Weston, who we all know discovered sex. Somebody had to do it, and that wasn't Ansel.

Thanks for sharing, what an amazing background you have. I love the idea of teaching psych concepts using art photos. Yes with Weston there are the alluring models and I even find some of his still-life pic's, like the peppers if not sexy, at least sensual.

 

[halfaman]

"In order to," I believe, is a general misconception. There's no "in order to." Both are possible, in that you can appreciate a work on a gut, instinctive, purely emotional level, and you can also choose to question it, dialogue in different ways with it, which can also give you pleasure.

All fine for me because both mentioned aspects are what I call "the experience".

We know that Gordon Parks wanted to use his camera as a "weapon" for social change, we know that Cartier-Bresson was searching for a "surreal order" with his decisive moment, we know amongst other things that Robert Adams' photos are imbued with the idea of faith and redemption, we cannot look at a Winogrand photo without thinking about "I photograph things in order to see what they look like photographed", we know that Walker Evans' main influences when developing his ideas about photography as "lyric documentary" were Flaubert and Baudelaire, we know why David Goldblatt chose to shoot the consequences of Apartheid a certain way, we know what Gene Smith was trying to achieve in Minamata, and Robert Franck with The Americans, and what Avedon was looking for in The American West, and we know just about everything we would want to know about Stephen Shore's approach to photography through his writings, and countless others, from Luigi Ghirri to Tod Pappageorge to Lewis Baltz to Joel Meyerowitz to Dawoud Bey, who have give us very clear clues about what their intent was when working on certain projects.

The list of photographers for whom their art is an instinctive activity and a rational one goes on and on and on. A lot of photography is about intent, and intent is about meaning. Each of these photographer produced works that stand on their own. You can decide that everything they said or wrote or may have mentioned about their work and what they were doing and why is irrelevant to you, and that's fine. Nothing is lost if there is pleasure and enjoyment.

Carthier-Bresson described the "decisive moment" as a reaction of the photographer to what appears on the camera viewfinder, and Robert Frank shot 28,000 photographs to select around 70 for The Americans. Modern psychology tells us that most of our decisions are not rational even when we think they are. Our responses are based on our emotions "trained" by our system of beliefs, rational thinking comes afterwards to understand or justify what we have done. It applies also to arts and, of course, photography among them. To photograph with a motif or a theme that can be explained does not imply it is rational decision.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Carthier-Bresson described the "decisive moment" as a reaction of the photographer to what appears on the camera viewfinder

There are countless writings and interviews that show that it was infinitely more complex than that. His training with André Lhote notwithstanding, you can't be as close to the Surrealists as he was and it not be infinitely more complex than that! Cartier-Bresson was not only friends with André Breton, his whole discourse about photography is influenced by Breton's at times indecipherable language, and his thinking about photography is anything but simple—to the point where most people get lost when trying to read his preface to The Decisive Moment (Images à la sauvette).

To photograph with a motif or a theme that can be explained does not imply it is rational decision.

Does not imply that it isn't either. But more to the point, why do you insist on separating the two? Why can't the emotional also be rational and the rational emotional? I would tend to think that it's when the two wonderfully mesh one with the other that we are in the presence of great art. Hate to bring in good ol' J. S. Bach into this, but he is the most obvious example of it.

 

[bluechromis]

Thanks for sharing, what an amazing background you have. I love the idea of teaching psych concepts using art photos. Yes with Weston there are the alluring models and I even find some of his still-life pic's, like the peppers if not sexy, at least sensual.

All fine for me because both mentioned aspects are what I call "the experience".





Carthier-Bresson described the "decisive moment" as a reaction of the photographer to what appears on the camera viewfinder, and Robert Frank shot 28,000 photographs to select around 70 for The Americans. Modern psychology tells us that most of our decisions are not rational even when we think they are. Our responses are based on our emotions "trained" by our system of beliefs, rational thinking comes afterwards to understand or justify what we have done. It applies also to arts and, of course, photography among them. To photograph with a motif or a theme that can be explained does not imply it is rational decision.

 

[AgX]

Art creation is mainly an instintive activity, not a rational one.

However things have changed at art academies, now teaching an intellectualism in creating art.

 

[bluechromis]

Bluechromis, thanks for that Ted Talk, more for your essay/post.


The Ted Talk misses two crucial reality factors totally. Hoffman is teaching something that ignores the reality of his audience.

First, perception isn't limited to an individual's experience. Nobody at that Ted Talk had mere individual perception. Every one of those individuals shared experiences (despite Hoffman's sermon).

Second, and this remains the practice of many, labels on photographs are intended to "explain" what the artists believed they weren't capable of communicating with their art objects. Labels on art objects (and especially photographs) are intended to change or even take away from our perceptions

fwiw: It happens that my Masters Degree pursuit was in Psychology of Perception. I operated a sensory deprivation room (not mere chamber) at San Francisco State College. While at that I also contributed to our Experimental College, opposed the war in Vietnam, discovered the work of hundreds of soon-to-be-famous photographers in our huge slide library (we know those photographers here, but Popular Photography Magazine never did). And I taught a psych course, using the work of those photographers. My soon-to-be wife, a fiber arts student, directed me to Ansel Adams at the Sierra Club office in downtown San Francisco. I pawed through dozens of his original prints, then discovered Edward Weston, who we all know discovered sex. Somebody had to do it, and that wasn't Ansel.

I agree with you that "perception isn't limited to an individual's experience." One's social and cultural milieu can powerfully influence how one perceives the world. Differences in the way cultures talk about colors exemplifies this. Some cultures identify only three colors, red, black and white. They say the color blue is never mentioned in the writings of the ancient greeks. Apparently blue was seen as kind of black. It seems that identifying blue as a distinct hue is a fairly recent phenomenon in Western civilization. These distinctions cannot be attributed to differences in perceptual hardware, but must reflect culturally based differences in the software. Some say that we should set aside our cultural biases when viewing art and just experience the art work in itself. But it is immensely difficult to do that because those bias are baked into our perceptual machinery at a deep, often unconscious, level.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I agree with you that "perception isn't limited to an individual's experience." One's social and cultural milieu can powerfully influence how one perceives the world. Differences in way cultures talk about colors exemplifies this. Some cultures identify only three colors, red, black and white. They say the color blue is never mentioned in the writings of the ancient greeks. Apparently blue was seen as kind of black. It seems that identifying blue as a distinct hue is a fairly recent phenomenon in Western civilization. These distinctions cannot be attributed to differences in perceptual hardware, but must reflect culturally based differences in the software. Some say that we should set aside our cultural biases when viewing art and just experience the art work in itself. But it is immensely difficult to do that because those bias are baked into our perceptual machinery at a deep, often unconscious, level.

So by your statement, you could not have existed in the time of the Ancient Greeks. What would have happened if you were to go back there and walk into the Agora? Would you be able to be seen or would you have been invisible?

 

[logan2z]

Robert Frank shot 28,000 photographs to select around 70 for The Americans.

Not to be pedantic, but there are 83 photos in The Americans. Still, a tiny fraction of the number Frank shot during his road trip.

 

[jtk]

So by your statement, you could not have existed in the time of the Ancient Greeks. What would have happened if you were to go back there and walk into the Agora? Would you be able to be seen or would you have been invisible?

Seems a silly question (and certainly has nothing to do with anything bluchromis posted).

The Agora was full of slaves...maybe they actually were 'invisible' Just as some Americans remain invisible.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Not to be pedantic, but there are 83 photos in The Americans. Still, a tiny fraction of the number Frank shot during his road trip.

Not sure what point that is supposed to prove. If you look at the contact sheets for The Americans (available in the book Looking in: Robert Frank's The Americans), you see Frank spending many frames on a subject (up to 14 in the case of the two girls at the picnic running under the American flag). Frank wasn't just shooting whatever he saw out of instinct. He was looking for something, all the time, something that had to do with his vision of America (why else would he call it The Americans?).

We actually have Frank's Guggenheim application to show this (a good read), in which, amongst other things, he states that "What I have in mind is observation and record of what one naturalized American finds to see in the United States that signifies the kind of civilization born here and spreading elsewhere... I speak of the things that are there, anywhere and everywhere—easily found, not easily selected and interpreted. A small catalog comes to the mind's eye: a town at night, a parking lot, a supermarket, a highway, the man who owns three cars and the man who owns none, the farmer and his children, a new house and a warped clapboard house, the dictation of taste, the dream of grandeur, advertising, neon lights, the faces of the leaders and the faces of the followers, gas tanks and post offices and backyards... The uses of my project would be sociological, historical and aesthetic..."

Why so few in the book? Because Frank did his own editing and had something specific in mind in the sequence. That info too is available.

Moreover, no book was ever meant to hold the whole of a photo project. That's not the purpose of a book. Again, Frank: "Ultimately the file I shall make should be deposited in a collection such as the one in the Library of Congress. A more immediate use I have in mind is both book and magazine publication." Frank, influenced in that by Walker Evans (who helped him write the application) was building a catalog. We know that his vision changed and was darkened as the trip went along, when he was confronted with images of injustice and racism.

The purpose of a photo book is to synthesize a project and, through visual narrative, make clear what it's about. Because of Frank's careful editing and sequencing, The Americans is one of the most brilliant one around. No wonder at the time it was both moving (still is) and challenging.

 

[logan2z]

Not sure what point that is supposed to prove.

Umm, it wasn't meant to prove any point. Just simply pointing out the fact that the book contained 83 photos, not 70. Not quite sure why that would set you off.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Umm, it wasn't meant to prove any point. Just simply pointing out the fact that the book contained 83 photos, not 70. Not quite sure why that would set you off.

Oops. Sorry. Quoted the wrong quote. Wanted to quote the quote you were quoting:

Robert Frank shot 28,000 photographs to select around 70 for The Americans.

 

[jtk]

just an aside: The Bechers seem to have stimulated sharing of many perspectives and remarkably little combat.

Photrio deserves some credit for this. Thanks!

 

[logan2z]

Oops. Sorry. Quoted the wrong quote. Wanted to quote the quote you were quoting:

No worries, thanks for clarifying.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Seems a silly question (and certainly has nothing to do with anything bluchromis posted).

The Agora was full of slaves...maybe they actually were 'invisible' Just as some Americans remain invisible.

Apparently you were born without a sense of humor and any understanding work play. You need to go back to your manufacturer and request an upgrade.

 

[Bill Burk]

Perhaps you saw them at Pier 24 Gallery, San Francisco in 2017.

Roger

Oh, it was at the Art Institute of Chicago

 

[MattKing]

Seems a silly question (and certainly has nothing to do with anything bluchromis posted).

The Agora was full of slaves...maybe they actually were 'invisible' Just as some Americans remain invisible.

Apparently you were born without a sense of humor and any understanding work play. You need to go back to your manufacturer and request an upgrade.

So jtk missed the "pun" reference to bluechromis' screen name and the reference to the ancient Greeks not having a word for blue.
And then Sirius typed something about "understanding work play", which I expect was supposed to mean something else.
Settle down folks.

 

[awty]

Their style seems quite automative, think I prefer the individual to the collective.

 

[jtk]

Their style seems quite automative, think I prefer the individual to the collective.

Don't know what awty means with "automative" (automatic?) but I don't think Bechers were engaged in any particular "style." Instead, they seem to have pursued a single, "individual" life-long project.

Presumably awty studied their actual prints...to decide he saw a "style".

I guess it'd be appropriate for the body of work of many street photographers to be called a "style" as well, if like HCB they mostly print one way on one paper, perhaps photographing unknown people.

The many Becher prints I've studied were all low contrast, low drama, virtually uncropped, depicting very large structures. I don't think they wanted any sort of variation, print-to-print. They intentionally sought unexciting light, they avoided inclusion of humans. Hilla explained the reasoning, fwiw.

Like many of us, I seek something inherently interesting, usually printing in color (though I've often printed B&W first, printing again in color) often cropping and avoiding significant sky. If I wanted photos of sky I'd photograph sky. I avoid titles (except locations and identities etc.) assuming the images tell the story (others count on titles).

I don't think any of that as my "style" .

When does lith printing become a "style" more than one sort of dramatic or moody technique?

 

[Arthurwg]

If you really want to understand the context of this work, I recommend "German Photography: 1870-1970," published by Dumont. 1997. Great book that explains it all.

 

[jtk]

If you really want to understand the context of this work, I recommend "German Photography: 1870-1970," published by Dumont. 1997. Great book that explains it all.

Thank you Arthur. I think some of today's conceptual-art-focused galleries are crucial to understanding photography, broadly. (I mentioned Dia / Beacon). It's important to actually see (and struggle in person with) the work that constitutes "context". I don't think books can do that, but Weston's Day Book 2 was crucial for me. What could explain more than a bell pepper?