- Joined
- Apr 17, 2011
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I've always had the opinion that to test whether a photographer is an artist, you have to first repossess their house, then seize all of their assets, and see if the first thing that they do is to sell the clothes off their back, buy a disposable camera, and get prints made at CVS. If yes, then they are an artist. Opinions on art are like that asterisk looking drawing in Breakfast of Champions. "Everybody's got one." Mine is that art is born out of an immutable drive to express things a certain, whatever-that-may-be way that you cannot express otherwise.
I also hold the opinion that the commerce in art is a sort of parasitic symbiosis between on one hand the artists inherent narcissistic belief that his way of expressing something that he cannot otherwise express is significant (which is a perfectly reasonable thing to believe, if you consider yourself an artist) and on the other the equally narcissistic desire of the person who can afford to purchase art, and present the fact that he possesses and therefore appreciates art to be also significant. This whole artist/patron deal goes way back. Capitalism has just made it into the sort of Hell-On-Earth where someone can submerge a dead fish in a large jar filled with preservatives and sell it to another someone (under the agreement that the transaction is, in fact, legitimately following the terms of the precedent of the artist/patron thing, no matter how finger-to-nose and then followed by belly laughs and the lighting of cigars with large-denomination bills all around, and also under agreement that he is purchasing what is, in formal terms, a preserved fish), only to have the fish later begin to rot because it was not preserved (in the most basic and fundamental sense of something being preserved) to begin with. And then the patron foots the bill, at a huge expense, to have a second fish properly mummified and suspended in the large jar to replace the first one, in order to say that he does, actually, own the work of art that has come to be known as the first fish in the large jar. This is where you get the kid in the newsie hat yelling, "Extra! Extra! Exploitation Of Postmodernity Hits New Low!"
Back on topic.
I'm not a huge fan of Stephen Shore, but I absolutely adore William Eggleston's photographs. Whereas in Shore's work I see a sort of "National Geographic" sense of clinical objectivity, whenever I look at Eggleston's there is nothing but a complete sense of awe at what the man sees in the world; I get the sense that he just loves the hell out of photographing things. This could very well be that I know way more about William Eggleston the person than I do about Stephen Shore the person. Also, there are probably some photographs where I could not differentiate between the two, but having seen a whole ton of their respective work, I can say that I "get" Eggleston in a way that I do not "get" Shore.
So in summation, if you make a photograph that can elucidate in someone who views it a way of looking at the world that makes them either cry or feel uncomfortable or terrified or experience any or more of the vast sorts of emotions that humans can, and not a sort of ambivalent, "Oh, that's nice/pretty/not a good photograph at all...;" your photographs do that to someone, and also if you are consumed by the desire to show your photographs to people not only to elicit these sorts of reaction but also because you feel it is absolutely necessary for you to do so in a way that you cannot explain, then you're making art. Note that this audience is also yourself, i.e. your work instills in you a sense of not knowing exactly what it is you are photographing (aside from the represented object, natch.). This is probably as requisite as the aforementioned desire to show other people. Ultimately all of this comes down to what would be acceptably labeled as "having a vision," and then realizing said vision through photographs, and editing your work as to execute it, and then showing it. Its really a shame that a whole ton of people think that money needs to be brought into it.
That being said, there are a lot of coffee shops out there who would gladly hang your photographs up on their wall if you asked them and if they like them, and for free. Part of being an artist then is also probably to have the confidence to say, implicitly by giving someone your work, "This is what I believe in." My favorite photographs are always the ones by people who don't feel that they have to fall back onto the safety nets of "pretty" or "compositionally correct" or "acceptable subject matter to photograph," and still believe that they should have a right to show them to people. Always, these are people who would love to make money by way of selling their art, but who have these thoughts/hopes about as far from their mind as possible when they are creating it.
In actual summation and not the premature summary of the previous summation, fixating on the disgusting state of art commerce is really, really depressing. It's an equal amount of really really hard to feel confident about your art when you're depressed.
As a footnote, I'll admit that I haven't taken my own advice about coffee shops, but I'm working on that. Feel free to disregard my ranting as the screams of a resentful and jealous lunatic if you are so inclined.
I also hold the opinion that the commerce in art is a sort of parasitic symbiosis between on one hand the artists inherent narcissistic belief that his way of expressing something that he cannot otherwise express is significant (which is a perfectly reasonable thing to believe, if you consider yourself an artist) and on the other the equally narcissistic desire of the person who can afford to purchase art, and present the fact that he possesses and therefore appreciates art to be also significant. This whole artist/patron deal goes way back. Capitalism has just made it into the sort of Hell-On-Earth where someone can submerge a dead fish in a large jar filled with preservatives and sell it to another someone (under the agreement that the transaction is, in fact, legitimately following the terms of the precedent of the artist/patron thing, no matter how finger-to-nose and then followed by belly laughs and the lighting of cigars with large-denomination bills all around, and also under agreement that he is purchasing what is, in formal terms, a preserved fish), only to have the fish later begin to rot because it was not preserved (in the most basic and fundamental sense of something being preserved) to begin with. And then the patron foots the bill, at a huge expense, to have a second fish properly mummified and suspended in the large jar to replace the first one, in order to say that he does, actually, own the work of art that has come to be known as the first fish in the large jar. This is where you get the kid in the newsie hat yelling, "Extra! Extra! Exploitation Of Postmodernity Hits New Low!"
Back on topic.
I'm not a huge fan of Stephen Shore, but I absolutely adore William Eggleston's photographs. Whereas in Shore's work I see a sort of "National Geographic" sense of clinical objectivity, whenever I look at Eggleston's there is nothing but a complete sense of awe at what the man sees in the world; I get the sense that he just loves the hell out of photographing things. This could very well be that I know way more about William Eggleston the person than I do about Stephen Shore the person. Also, there are probably some photographs where I could not differentiate between the two, but having seen a whole ton of their respective work, I can say that I "get" Eggleston in a way that I do not "get" Shore.
So in summation, if you make a photograph that can elucidate in someone who views it a way of looking at the world that makes them either cry or feel uncomfortable or terrified or experience any or more of the vast sorts of emotions that humans can, and not a sort of ambivalent, "Oh, that's nice/pretty/not a good photograph at all...;" your photographs do that to someone, and also if you are consumed by the desire to show your photographs to people not only to elicit these sorts of reaction but also because you feel it is absolutely necessary for you to do so in a way that you cannot explain, then you're making art. Note that this audience is also yourself, i.e. your work instills in you a sense of not knowing exactly what it is you are photographing (aside from the represented object, natch.). This is probably as requisite as the aforementioned desire to show other people. Ultimately all of this comes down to what would be acceptably labeled as "having a vision," and then realizing said vision through photographs, and editing your work as to execute it, and then showing it. Its really a shame that a whole ton of people think that money needs to be brought into it.
That being said, there are a lot of coffee shops out there who would gladly hang your photographs up on their wall if you asked them and if they like them, and for free. Part of being an artist then is also probably to have the confidence to say, implicitly by giving someone your work, "This is what I believe in." My favorite photographs are always the ones by people who don't feel that they have to fall back onto the safety nets of "pretty" or "compositionally correct" or "acceptable subject matter to photograph," and still believe that they should have a right to show them to people. Always, these are people who would love to make money by way of selling their art, but who have these thoughts/hopes about as far from their mind as possible when they are creating it.
In actual summation and not the premature summary of the previous summation, fixating on the disgusting state of art commerce is really, really depressing. It's an equal amount of really really hard to feel confident about your art when you're depressed.
As a footnote, I'll admit that I haven't taken my own advice about coffee shops, but I'm working on that. Feel free to disregard my ranting as the screams of a resentful and jealous lunatic if you are so inclined.
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