why is it that you think 99% of photography isn't considered an art form?

[nmp]

The “fine art” photography (photographer) (photographs) thing irks me. While I obviously don’t have an exhaustive knowledge of every well-known name, I can’t think of any highly accomplished photographers who call themselves that.

"Fine Art" term has a very specific meaning - which is not to say it is "finer" than the the rest. It has its roots in the old art world as a way of distinguishing practical (e.g. decorative) art from aesthetic art produced by the artist as way of self expression, unaffected by any commercial incentives. Similarly in photography, it started to denote works of commercial photographers (such as fashion or product) who did personal work on the side that was not sponsored by any business entity. It really does not have anything to do with whether the work produced in this manner was somehow better or more "highbrow" than any other out there.

:Niranjan.

 

[BradS]

I reject the the notion that intent is a necessary precondition.

Consider, for example, the 100,000+ photos taken by Vivian Maier. Do we know what her intent was? Is there any record of her aspirations? Was she just taking snapshots to document her life? What does that mean about her work? Is it all in limbo? contingent upon her (presumably unknown) intent?

 

[MattKing]

You may need to differentiate between individual photographs intended to stand on their own as one off pieces of Art, and bodies of work that are intended to be considered as Art together.
It is very rare that a single piece of work - photographic or otherwise - is acknowledged as Art without there being a body of work that it fits within.
Editing and curating is a large part of a lot of Art.
For that reason, photographs that were intended to be documentation can become Art through careful and purposive organization - the Art is mostly within the curation.
If you set out to create Art - intention from the beginning - you may end up with less that needs to be discarded when it comes time to do the editing.

 

[faberryman]

I reject the the notion that intent is a necessary precondition.

There are non-intentists, partial intentists, and intentists among those who have studied the issue. You seem to fall among the non-intentists. The issue is not settled, though it may be settled as far as you are concerned. Some non-intentists are interested in accidental art, like what paint in a can looks like when you are mixing up different colors, or when leaves fall a certain way on the sidewalk. One issue that arises in accidental art is whether you can have art without an artist? As a non-intentist, you might consider a painting produced by a rhinoceros whose attendant placed a paintbrush in his mouth and directed him toward canvas as art. I have one of those. Is the rhinoceros the artist? An intentist might also consider the painting as art, and he might say rhinoceros's attendant is the artist since the rhinoceros is just the mechanism by which he created the work. Lots to think about.

Consider, for example, the 100,000+ photos taken by Vivian Maier? Do we know what her intent was? Is there any record of her aspirations? Was she just taking snapshots to document her life? What does that mean about her work? Is it all in limbo? contingent upon her (presumably unknown) intent?

If you thought about it, you might be able to infer an intent, or multiple intents on the part of Vivian Maier. It doesn't trouble me that we might not know for certain what her intent actually was. Do we ever know what was going on in the mind of the person who created a work? Clearly she intended to make the photograph. Perhaps that is enough. Go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or The Louvre. Do you think we know the specific intent of the artists who created the paintings, sculpture, and other objects for each and every work on display? Are all those works really in limbo as art?

 

[removed account4]

There are non-intentists, partial intentists, and intentists among those who have studied the issue. You seem to fall among the non-intentists. The issue is not settled, though it may be settled as far as you are concerned. Some non-intentists are interested in accidental art, like what paint in a can looks like when you are mixing up different colors, or when leaves fall a certain way on the sidewalk. One issue that arises in accidental art is whether you can have art without an artist? As a non-intentist, you might consider a painting produced by a rhinoceros whose attendant placed a paintbrush in his mouth and directed him toward canvas as art. I have one of those. Is the rhinoceros the artist? An intentist might also consider the painting as art, and he might say rhinoceros's attendant is the artist since the rhinoceros is just the mechanism by which he created the work. Lots to think about.

with regard to the sidewalk it ends up being "found art" by someone who notices it. that's all us photographers are anyway is we hunt and gather and find interesting things to put on film and paper, nothing more nothing less, unless we construct or whatever .. did most of the things people photograph intend to be photographed ? like with the famous macro photograph of the typewriter keys ( that I always think is Paul Strand but it isn't ) or the Strand portrait of the Blind person. did the manufacturer intend for the keys to be photographed like that, did the blind person even know their soul was stolen?
with regards to the rhino, the person who gave it the brush and directed it is its agent and gets 50%. but then again there is the famous monkey selfie image, so who knows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute

If you thought about it, you might be able to infer an intent, or multiple intents on the part of Vivian Maier. It doesn't trouble me that we might not know for certain what her intent actually was. Clearly she intended to make the photograph. Perhaps that is enough. Go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or The Louvre. Do you think we know the specific intent of the artists who created the paintings, sculpture, and other objects for each work on display? Are all those works really in limbo as art?

according to some historians ( whom I can not quote or cite but I've read their words ) often times paintings &c that are pre 1700s were never intended to be "high art" they were commissioned / decorative works for rich people and churches &c .. decorative objects, not museum pieces .. or so some people believe, so the intent of the artist was not for the work to be put in a museum, museums didn't exist back then, they are a modern institution, and as a result, the work is all out of context.

 

[BradS]

There are non-intentists, partial intentists, and intentists among those who have studied the issue. You seem to fall among the non-intentists. The issue is not settled, though it may be settled as far as you are concerned. Some non-intentists are interested in accidental art, like what paint in a can looks like when you are mixing up different colors, or when leaves fall a certain way on the sidewalk. One issue that arises in accidental art is whether you can have art without an artist? As a non-intentist, you might consider a painting produced by a rhinoceros whose attendant placed a paintbrush in his mouth and directed him toward canvas as art. I have one of those. Is the rhinoceros the artist? An intentist might also consider the painting as art, and he might say rhinoceros's attendant is the artist since the rhinoceros is just the mechanism by which he created the work. Lots to think about.



If you thought about it, you might be able to infer an intent, or multiple intents on the part of Vivian Maier. It doesn't trouble me that we might not know for certain what her intent actually was. Do we ever know what was going on in the mind of the person who created a work? Clearly she intended to make the photograph. Perhaps that is enough. Go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or The Louvre. Do you think we know the specific intent of the artists who created the paintings, sculpture, and other objects for each and every work on display? Are all those works really in limbo as art?

Thanks for the well reasoned reply.

The issue is not settled in my mind but my mind cannot conceive of any rational reason for intent to be necessary. I'm open and would really like some of the people who have said that intent is a necessary precondition to say why. It does not seem necessary at all to me (though, as @MattKing as suggested, it clearly helps). It just seems to me to be an arbitrary academic precondition - an axiom - and if that is the case, then that's fine but nobody has come right out and stated that (though you seem to be hinting at it).

Your last paragraph supports my thoughts. Consider for example, a painting by an acknowledged master, hanging in a world renowned art museum - what if the artist created the work simply to earn money? It seems not impossible, for example that some commissioned portraits might not have been produced with artistic intent but rather simply for economic considerations.

 

[nmp]

I understand that. But when I see people describe their work as fine art photography on their websites etc. I'm pretty sure that's not what they mean.

In any case, none of this has much to do with photography's historical "struggle" within the visual arts, in my opinion.

I guess it is kind of chicken and the egg situation. Photographers misuse the term and their patrons misunderstand the term thinking they are looking at a more sophisticated version of photography, not the snap-shooting kind they see everywhere. And the term gets perpetuated.

It also kind of circles back to this sense of photographers that they are not being taken seriously as artists. I am not sure why that is important at all. I don't set out to do art when I take my camera out. I set out to do photography. I don't understand this whole issue of being accepted by some in the mainstream art world as a legitimate art. If they don't, it's their problem. Don't call the Art Gallery, call the Gallery of Photography. They know what you are doing.

;Niranjan.

 

[BradS]

...
according to some historians ( whom I can not quote or cite but I've read their words ) often times paintings &c that are pre 1700s were never intended to be "high art" they were commissioned / decorative works for rich people and churches &c .. decorative objects, not museum pieces .. or so some people believe, so the intent of the artist was not for the work to be put in a museum, museums didn't exist back then, they are a modern institution, and as a result, the work is all out of context.

An excellent point. Consider all of the works commissioned by the Roman Catholic church during the reformation. Many of these can now be found in respected art museums and are considered Art. However, the comments and descriptions art historians that I have heard regarding these works have all mentioned that the works were commissioned by the church as, decoration or propaganda.

 

[faberryman]

An excellent point. Consider all of the works commissioned by the Roman Catholic church during the reformation. Many of these can now be found in respected art museums and are considered Art. However, the comments and descriptions art historians that I have heard regarding these works have all mentioned that the works were commissioned by the church as, decoration or propaganda.

You seem to be attributing the intent of the party commissioning the work to the artist creating it. I don't see any reason why Michelangelo cannot create a work of art to fulfill a commission from the Pope to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with scenes of incidents and personages from the Old Testament. Maybe the Pope was a just a fan of the Old Testament and had decoration in mind. Or maybe the Pope thought he could make some money by having Michelangelo paint the ceiling with with scenes of incidents and personages from the Old Testament and then charge tourists admission fees to look at it, not to mention sell postcards and every other gimcrack imaginable in the gift shop. Or maybe the Pope wants to use the incidents and personages from the ceiling to illustrate some books he is going use to convert the heathens, which some might consider propaganda. I am not sure how any of that impacts the status of the ceiling as a work of art.

 

[BradS]

You may need to differentiate between individual photographs intended to stand on their own as one off pieces of Art, and bodies of work that are intended to be considered as Art together.
It is very rare that a single piece of work - photographic or otherwise - is acknowledged as Art without there being a body of work that it fits within.
Editing and curating is a large part of a lot of Art.
For that reason, photographs that were intended to be documentation can become Art through careful and purposive organization - the Art is mostly within the curation.
If you set out to create Art - intention from the beginning - you may end up with less that needs to be discarded when it comes time to do the editing.

Let's do thought experiment. For this thought experiment, let us again consider the body of photographic work attributed to Vivian Maier. For the purposes of this thought experiment, let us stipulate that Vivian Maier's intent was something other than to create art. Perhaps, like so many of us, she was fascinated by the camera, wanted to document her life or, simply enjoyed the process and took pictures to pass the time while she was doing her day job as a nanny. Fast forward to present day. Suppose that John Szarkowski has access to her body of work and, with the intent of hanging a show in the MoMA, he selects, has printed, sequences and hangs an exhibit of sample of her work. His intent is to exhibit her work so that people can see it and, ostensibly, enjoy it...along with all of the economic and social implications.

Is her work still not art?
Is it now art because John Szarkowski says it is?
Are the photographs not art but the exhibit is?

 

[BradS]

You seem to be attributing the intent of the party commissioning the work to the artist creating it. I don't see any reason why Michelangelo cannot create a work of art to fulfill a commission from the Pope to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with scenes of incidents and personages from the Old Testament. Maybe the Pope was a just a fan of the Old Testament and had decoration in mind. Or maybe the Pope thought he could make some money by having Michelangelo paint the ceiling with with scenes of incidents and personages from the Old Testament and then charge tourists admission fees to look at it, not to mention sell postcards in the gift shop. Not sure how any of that impacts the status of the ceiling as a work of art.

All possible but none rule out the possibility that the guy that wielded the brush did not have artistic intent. Perhaps, he just wanted to make a money doing what he knew how to do, maybe he did it for the prestige...point is, we do not know and cannot rule out any of these possibilities and nobody would claim that the work was not a work of Art. Again, suppose an archeologist dug up the artist's journal in which he explicitly stated that he took the job because he knew it work bring a substantial fame and fortune. Does that make the work not Art? Thus, the idea that artistic intent is a necessary condition seems completely absurd to me (although, it is transparently obvious why academics would insist upon it).

 

[faberryman]

Not sure why it is transparently obvious why academics want to insist on artistic intent as a prerequisite to the creation of a work of art. I don't think all do. I think I mentioned that from my reading there is a spectrum of opinion on the issue.

 

[MattKing]

Is her work still not art?

It may have always been Art, or at least Art in progress. In many cases it is difficult to tell when work changes its character from something else, and becomes Art.

Is it now art because John Szarkowski says it is?

It may now be recognized as Art because John Szarkowski says it is.

Are the photographs not art but the exhibit is?

The exhibition itself may be the only Art - think of an exhibition made up of found negatives, as an example.
But in this case, the Art is probably the sum of both the photographs and the curation. In Vivian Maier's case, we don't have the benefit of her perspective on issues of what should be included and what should not - which makes the Art of the exhibition diffferent than the Art would otherwise be.
There is no check box or switch or yes/no question that can determine what is Art.

 

[BradS]

@MattKing , All very sensible to me. I completely agree.

 

[BradS]

Not sure why it is transparently obvious why academics want to insist on artistic intent as a prerequisite to the creation of a work of art. I don't think all do. I think I mentioned that from my reading there is a spectrum of opinion on the issue.

indeed. my parenthetical comment is sloppy, a bit cynical and better left unsaid. I would retract it.
Still, the academics who posited the idea, the intentionalists as you called them, seem to have left the conversation.

 

[faberryman]

indeed. my parenthetical comment was a bit cynical and better left unsaid. I would retract it. Still, the academics who posited the idea seem to have left the conversation.

The "academics" you refer to are random guys on a photography forum expressing their personal opinions which may be unfounded, ill founded, or well founded, and even if well founded you may not agree with them.

 

[BradS]

The "academics" you refer to are random guys on a photography forum expressing their personal opinions which may be unfounded, ill founded, or well founded.

Yes, obviously. mea culpa.
...and still, I'd like a chance to hear, possibly to understand, their reasoning.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Those who find intentionality irrelevant on the one hand and and Messers. Joyce, Campbell, Merriam, Webster and Lindan who find it vital on the other hand are never going to change each others' minds.

Intention as a bone of contention in the evaluation of art may only be significant in photography. It may be that the lack of the need for intention in creating a photograph is what makes it a second rate art in the eyes of curators.

To me, the work informs intention. Adams, Weston, Brandt, Strand, Stieglitz, Evans, the list goes on, leave no doubt their work is intentional. If I have to ask then I guess I have answered by own question.

There is a distinction between intentional and unintentional art and I think that I, at least, have to leave it at that.

 

[faberryman]

I dare say we are not going to arrive at a consensus on whether artistic intent is required for the creation of a work of art if we have not established a consensus on a definition of art, and I have no expectation that we will.

 

[BradS]

...

To me, the work informs intention. Adams, Weston, Brandt, Strand, Stieglitz, Evans, the list goes on, leave no doubt their work is intentional. If I have to ask then I guess I have answered by own question.
...

Which implies that art is in the eye of the beholder. It is Art because a viewer decided it is Art.

 

[awty]

All possible but none rule out the possibility that the guy that wielded the brush did not have artistic intent. Perhaps, he just wanted to make a money doing what he knew how to do, maybe he did it for the prestige...point is, we do not know and cannot rule out any of these possibilities and nobody would claim that the work was not a work of Art. Again, suppose an archeologist dug up the artist's journal in which he explicitly stated that he took the job because he knew it work bring a substantial fame and fortune. Does that make the work not Art? Thus, the idea that artistic intent is a necessary condition seems completely absurd to me (although, it is transparently obvious why academics would insist upon it).

Vivian was a cranky old French woman who had strong social views, was well travelled, was well trained and capable photographer. Had no interest in her own fame and fortune, could of easily set her self up to be a photographer if that was her intentions, she knew how. She would of seen her forfeited items as being stolen, much in the way indigenous peoples around the world see their ancestral items being displayed in museums. Her pictures are displayed completely out of contexts, to support some sort of fairytale marketing ticket, which I would imagine make her turn in her grave, if she had one.
I would imagine context is very important to being art, if its given a different context by third parties so they can profit from it then I cant see it being considered art. I believe art has to have some form of intent and context to be considered and its not good enough for other people to just make it up..

 

[Pieter12]

Vivian was a cranky old French woman who had strong social views, was well travelled, was well trained and capable photographer. Had no interest in her own fame and fortune, could of easily set her self up to be a photographer if that was her intentions, she knew how. She would of seen her forfeited items as being stolen, much in the way indigenous peoples around the world see their ancestral items being displayed in museums. Her pictures are displayed completely out of contexts, to support some sort of fairytale marketing ticket, which I would imagine make her turn in her grave, if she had one.
I would imagine context is very important to being art, if its given a different context by third parties so they can profit from it then I cant see it being considered art. I believe art has to have some form of intent and context to be considered and its not good enough for other people to just make it up..

I see you have insights into Ms Maier and her work that others don't. What context are you citing? She did indeed sell some of her shots as postcards, but I will posit (unless you have knowledge to the contrary) that she had issues that impaired her successfully working as a commercial photographer. Plus, the type of photography she did only seems to be monetarily rewarded when recognized by an institution or foundation or published in a book.

 

[awty]

I see you have insights into Ms Maier and her work that others don't. What context are you citing? She did indeed sell some of her shots as postcards, but I will posit (unless you have knowledge to the contrary) that she had issues that impaired her successfully working as a commercial photographer. Plus, the type of photography she did only seems to be monetarily rewarded when recognized by an institution or foundation or published in a book.

Theres numerous biographies, a very good BBC documentary anything that wasn't printed by those who seek to profit from her works.
Her mother and her lived with a female professional photographer for period of time, she did a bit of professional work in France. She inherited some money and used it to travel abroad to places less travelled. From interviews with people who knew her they described her as strong viewed and highly intelligent. We do not know what exactly was her motivations, but there is so much content you could work it which ever way you wanted. She is the only one who can put it in context, unfortunately we a led to believe she died before anyone bothered to find out and all of her written dialogue is lost.
None the less if you look at her works as someone who was intelligent and accomplished at what she did you must understand that if there is no context from her, then it is largely meaningless.

 

[Arthurwg]

It's not that you can't have "intention," it's just that it's not necessary.

 

[MattKing]

It's not that you can't have "intention," it's just that it's not necessary.

And if you do have intention, it can be relevant to the question.