What Makes it art, when it simply could be a snapshot?

[shootsingh]

I have been looking at a few images from Stephen Shore over the last few days. My wife was peaking over my shoulder this morning and comment "What makes these special? Aren't they just snapshots?" She was commenting on his shot US93, Kingman AZ - http://www.jacksonfineart.com/private_artist.php?id=53&imageid=154

I have to admit, that his did start my own questioning on what is art and what is a snapshot? While I actually enjoy Shore's work (I like images that you must explore and not simply just look at), I do see my wifes point.

So, who decides that imagery like this is art? Does it come down to the effort put in? Does it come down to the strength of previous work? Or are we like sheep - I.E., if someone says it's good we all then think it must be good? (I believe he had connections with Warhol)

Just some random thoughts

Cheers

May i recall the defination of a SNAPSHOT
"an informal photograph, especially one taken quickly by a hand-held camera"

Please note stephen shores work is shot on a 8x10 large format view camera. shooting on a large format camera itself is a genius approach towards the medium. It involves muscle power, vocabulary, well established aesthetic sense and a lot of experience to burn the 8x10.
Will you call it a snapshop..??
Technically = NO

I liked his work and have listed him in one of my favourites.

" It is very difficult to shoot when there is nothing in front of the camera "

Now what nothing stands for???

 

[shootsingh]

My post was simply about a snapshot. What is art? is difficult to say, may be impossible for me. But i agree to the essays written above. 

 

[markbarendt]

Sparky,

I don't want a fight either.

I also have no gripe with anyone creating whatever art they please regardless of what the professional art world thinks.

Culture, context, and relevance, just like the news, changes with time.

Okay Mark - well I guess I'd have to ask you what topic of discussion exists outside a historic or cultural context of ANY kind? I don't wish to pick any fights here but simply saying that argument is limited because it refers to a limited context isn't useful - or worse - it's using a tautology to defend one's point of view. The point I was making DOES refer to the context in which the photograph was made - I can see no more relevant way of exploring a given situation. By ignoring the context we end up back at square one. That's the point. Consider the context. Yes. the 'Art world' or the world of educated opinion. That's the context in which it was made and to which it refers. Just like much of the work by 'some fine art photographers' as we call them might be meaningless and valueless without the existence of ansel adams, or edward weston, or Wyn Bullock or what-have-you. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

I am not personally a FAN of Mr. Shore's - but I do defend his right to make the kinds of photographs that interest him. As we all must. The only alternative to this would be fascism - to dictate the kind of subject matter one can and can't explore... I would suggest you read Szarkowski's introduction to the MOMA book 'The New Color Photography' to get a grasp on what these people were attempting... and go from there...

 

[Sparky]

Well those are issues of interpretation... I'm trying to explain things, I suppose, from the INTENT of the artist/photographer/snapshootist (whatever you choose to call them...). I was just trying to say that (in the aggregate) there are reasons behind why people do things... and in this case it wasn't pure haplessness that resulted in shore's works...

Sparky,

I don't want a fight either.

I also have no gripe with anyone creating whatever art they please regardless of what the professional art world thinks.

Culture, context, and relevance, just like the news, changes with time.

 

[bwrules]

That's it - I think that the intent, and since this is art, the idea is important. It is possible that one intends to take a simple snapshot and ends up with a great work of art, and the opposite can be true as well. Such is the nature of photography rather than painting for example. So much of it depends on luck, chance, being in the right place and time, choice of subject and time of day, etc. One may come up with an artistic idea as well - they don't call pioneers of color photography, or pioneers of social landscape photography for nothing. Photography is rather unpredictable and much more complex than might seem on the surface. Given the complexity and broadness, one should ponder these rather than what picture is worthy of being called art or not. Heck, it's safe to assume that photography is simply an art form with statistics being a big part of it.

As for me, good and interesting shots happen very rarely, and I believe this is true for most people. We also learn a lot from pictures after they are taken, since photographs look so different from our perception of the moment a picture is taken. That's why we should discard preconceptions and shoot more often to improve the art facet of it .

 

[michaelbsc]

A snapshot is a momento to remember by.

Art is a method of communicating.

Intent is extremely important.

That said, an artist may exploit a snapshot as part of the work.

Some time ago I was involved in a discussion whether images needed or should have titles. My position was that the title can help clarify the intent. The idea that all images must stand alone without context is folly to my way of thinking.

 

[TSSPro]

So- I've taken the lazy route and not read everyone's post, there are just a heck of a lot of them. When it comes to these sort of discussions, I feel that like they are a bit futile. The question of "is it art" is discussed over and over again and the only thing accomplished is eventually some one gets pissed off. The questioning of art's status as art is an often revisited topic, too. See: Marcel Duchamp

 

[Rudeofus]

To all those who defend Shore's work as fine art: while you technically answer the questions presented by the original poster (and many others just like him), in reality you don't. The real question many ask is not "why is this art?" but "why do people spend 5-7 digit amounts on this kind of picture?". I really doubt many people would rip on Shore and their likes if their works would sell for a few hundred <insert your favorite currency here>.

When I walked into the national treasury of Vienna for the first time, I saw a lot of extremely intricate artifacts made from gold, ivory and huge gems in the first few rooms. In other rooms I found rather simple golden crosses which at first appeared bland to me, especially compared to what I saw in the first rooms of the exhibition. Only later it occurred to me that these golden crosses contained bone splinters or teeth of saints. These were relics and during imperial times more treasured than all these unbelievably precious objects in the first rooms!

A lot of the praise for (and the sometimes obscene prices of) this art reminds me of the worship for relics: while it is obvioulsy quite simple to reproduce most of Shore's (and most other's) works with little effort, the value of his images comes more from the admiration of his thoughts expressed through this image than from the aesthetic value of the image we get to see.

 

[bwrules]

the value of his images comes more from the admiration of his thoughts expressed through this image than from the aesthetic value of the image we get to see

An often forgotten aspect of photography. Also this is one of the reasons why series of images often work, while any particular image out of a series does not stand on its own.

 

[Nikanon]

I think in this case what makes them Snapshots is their lack of visible consideration of composition, and other technical elements in order to evoke an emotional response that would be the concept. Ansel Adams photographs are Fine Art, some of the finest there is, and anyone who really knows what a good work of art is would know that. Art isnt something you search for, it's something thats very self-evident, such as a Rothko painting. A GOOD work of art will very effectively represent the original intention or emotion that was the catalyst for the work in the first place. If your intention of consideration is to look unconsidered, well what is fine about that? Anyone can throw some crap on a table and say they meant to.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Is it me or nobody has so far commented on the fact that Shore works in series?

His medium is not the individual frame, but the aggregated, serialized set of images. If you pickup American Surfaces, you will see that this is quite obvious. His best-known work, Uncommon Places has more photographs that stand individually as tableaus, but it remains a series.

His work reaches all the way back to Walker Evans, who himself can be said to reach to Atget. If you look at his pictures, like his forebears', they are pictorially competent in a very traditional manner (compositionally structured, tonally harmonious, etc), while at the same time eschewing the extravagant, the flashy, or the high-impact style of more accessible photographers.

The link with the New Topographics is meaningful not in the sense of participation in a "movement" but rather in kinship of intent: document with a precise eye the lived and built environment.

I don't think the question "What makes it art" involves an answer that must satisfy the criterion "art that so and so likes". There's plenty of art out there that I hate (literally, I don't even give it a passing "well in a way it's kind of interesting") but it does not prevent me from calling it art.

I hope it's the same for other people. I personally like Shore, but even if I didn't like him I wouldn't have much trouble considering him as art.

 

[michaelbsc]

I think I'll stick with my statement earlier that a snapshot is really a memento for remembering, while art is a method of communication.

And I'll still maintain that an artist may use what was originally a snapshot in an artwork, but the former "snapshot" becomes subjugated to the whole in that context.

Not meaning to imply that the original series under discussion started out as snapshots; clearly they did not.

 

[ostgardlaw]

I think in this case what makes them Snapshots is their lack of visible consideration of composition, and other technical elements in order to evoke an emotional response that would be the concept. . . . Art isnt something you search for, it's something thats very self-evident, such as a Rothko painting.

The comparison of Shore and Rothco is a lot of fun in this discussion because of how much it illustrates the challenge of defining art. For years after my first exposure to Rothco decades ago at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, he was my personal poster-boy for ‘phony art’, stuff that absolutely fails to connect with me (I’m referring to his ‘multiform’ and late period work). The Shore images, in contrast, do connect for me but only after study and contemplation. I can definitely see the elements of form and composition in his work and my eye is drawn to it, even though I prefer the work of other photographers. I was motivated to understand Shore because of my passion for photography; I have remained unmotivated to understand Rothco – but I have come to see that as MY problem, not the artist’s. And of course both Shore and Rothco were specifically inspired by reactions against what they saw in preceding movements within their respective mediums, and have this role of ‘rebel ground breaker’ in common.

I have taken up photography late in life, and only in the last few years. I am still struggling to make worthy images though I think I have made progress in composition. Every time I trip the shutter of a film camera I am intending to make art, but still most of what I produce I reject as no better than a snapshot.

There is that expression “finding an audience”, and it occurs to me that even when our goal is art, and when we have finally produced a work that we believe is deliberate art, we have not yet succeeded until there is an audience which recognizes the art in our work, an audience which discerns the form, the theme, the emotion, the ideas encoded within the representation we have made. I wonder if this is what is meant when it is said that art is a “collaboration” between the would-be artist and the viewer, an exquisite communication. In this sense, we can never “make” art, we can only be fortunate enough to link up with an audience which is moved enough by our work to seek to understand it, thereby elevating it to art.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I did, two posts above yours. Though not by name.

Ah! Glad you did!

 

[removed account4]

artists make the difficult seem as simple as can be ...
and make people think ...

i think shore did both of those things ...
12 pages worth of debate whether his work is worthy of being called "art"
and suggesting that huge enlargement from 8x10 camera
is just a snapshot with an instamatic ...

 

[c6h6o3]

Big, color (sort of) and about as interesting as watching paint dry. Art for sure. A series bound to sell out fast, and for megabucks.

 

[shootsingh]

personal declaration vs established facts,why ? Art has always been seeking our acceptance for a work done or performed, why ? Onus is on us, We are the final judges, why?
Art is a virtual concept, and can not be measured. We cannot give grades. Its a personal way of releasing energies. As long as its personal and has been released in a very personal way, i believe its a work of art, regardless of what majority feels about it. Art does not require votes. Its personal, its simple. We can comment but cannot declare.

 

[2F/2F]

Is it me or nobody has so far commented on the fact that Shore works in series?

I mentioned it too...

 

[tomalophicon]

Hey I reckon his pictures are great.

 

[CGW]

"As long as its personal and has been released in a very personal way, i believe its a work of art, regardless of what majority feels about it. Art does not require votes. Its personal, its simple. We can comment but cannot declare."

What? Sorry but this is relativistic fog.

 

[2F/2F]

"As long as its personal and has been released in a very personal way, i believe its a work of art, regardless of what majority feels about it. Art does not require votes. Its personal, its simple. We can comment but cannot declare."

What? Sorry but this is relativistic fog.

As is much art!

 

[markbarendt]

As is much art!

Yep.

 

[hoffy]

Is it me or nobody has so far commented on the fact that Shore works in series?

I also mentioned that I was probably being unfair as the picture may not be in context. I was trying to imply that the context was the series!

I really think that this has been an awesome discussion. I really respect most of your reveiws and I have in myself determined that this kind of imagery is indeed worthy of being viewed as Art.

This discussion nearly seems that it might be worth while starting a thread to discuss certain works, whether they be famous or even drawn from the gallery here (I am not sure whether this has been done before).

Just another thought

 

[Focus No. 9]

thanks for the link. i feel much better about my art. Errh, I mean my snapshots. Unfortunately, after joining and reading the forums last year I stood at the trash bin flipping my my art errh, snapshots into it.

 

[TSSPro]

Its worth noting that the arts establishment and academia are firmly entrenched in postmodern view of art, thats to say the ones who assign value, monetary and otherwise, or pass the "art"/"not art" judgments on pieces of art are mainly of a postmodern persuasion. Without speaking to the artist's work specifically, the snapshot aesthetic is a tool used in work today. The art is meant to be viewed and judged without the context of which it was created, the history of the author, intentions of the author, or circumstanced surrounding its creation. Barthes' "death of the author" is a poignant example to reference: The author is no longer the historied "authority" of the work, its meaning or intention; the author is reduced to the "scriptor" of the work, stripped of all authority to govern the interpretation of the work and its acceptance, denial, like or dislike by a judging body or community.

The infinite reexamining of a work is also emphasized in the postmodern critique. The "artistic value," meaning or interpretation is forever subject to change and meant to change based on the local and global influences exerted on the critiquing/viewing audience.

Just food for thought.