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“
Fan Palm”
by
Michelle Bush
Photography-As-Art: A Parallel Experience?
The tension between photography-as-art and photography-as-photography is of course almost as old as the photographic process itself.
In the late 1850s and in the 1860s photographers tried to make artworks with the camera which would challenge on their own ground those made by traditional means. Early photographers felt it necessary to intervene in the actual photographic process in order to do so, producing results which moved away from the absolute objectivity of vision which their contemporaries ascribed to the camera. Photographer O.J. Rejlander made painstaking use of multiple negatives, pieced together to produce results which had never existed in front of the lens; photographer Julia Margaret Cameron make skilful use of soft focus.
After a brief interval, the cause of the photographer-as-artist was taken up once more by the pictorialists of the 1880s and the 1890s. New technical methods made it possible to produce photographic prints which could almost be taken for charcoal drawings or lithographs. The photographers of the “Linked Ring,” and other leading photographic societies of the time, regarded what they produced as being on an entirely different plane from what was being done either by professional documentary or portrait photographers, working for purely commercial or else for social ends (the documentation of social evils was regarded as a primary task by many late nineteenth-century photographers), or by the many thousands of amateurs whom George Eastman’s invention of the Kodak camera had turned into makers of images.
It is here, essentially in photography’s immense abundance and it its chameleon quality, that one hits on the reason for its initial exclusion as art. Over the course of 100 years, however, the field of contemporary art was since widened its definition to include photography as a viable and respected art form.
It seems logical to draw from this experience and conclude that the digital arts may realize a similar course to recognition and acceptance.
Reference: Phaidon Press, “Art Today”
“
Dali - Green Limos”
Art by Peter Artboook
What Others’ Think
Art is often made in abandonment, emerging unbidden in moments of selfless rapport with the materials and ideas we care about. In such moments we leave no space for others. That’s probably as it should be. Art, after all, rarely emerges from committees.
But while others’ reactions need not cause problems for the artist, they usually do. The problems arise when we confuse others’ priorities with our own. We carry real and imagined critics with us constantly - a veritable babble of voices, some remembered, some prophesied, and each eager to comment on all we do. Beyond that, even society’s general notions about art-making confront the artist with paralyzing contradictions. As an artist you’re expected to make each successive piece uniquely new and different -- yet reassuringly similar when set alongside your earlier work. You’re expected to make art that’s intimately (perhaps even painfully) personal -- yet alluring and easily grasped by an audience that has likely never known you personally.
When the work goes well, we keep such inner distractions at bay, but in times of uncertainty or need, we begin listening. WE abdicate artistic decision-making to others when we fear that the work itself will not bring us the understanding, acceptance and approval we seek. For students in academic settings, this trouble is a near certainty; you know (and you are correct) that if you steer your work along certain paths, three units of “A” can be yours. Outside academia, approval may be clothed in loftier terms -- critical recognition, shows, fellowships -- but the mechanism remains the same.
With commercial art this issue is often less troublesome since approval from the client is primary, and other rewards appropriately secondary. But for most art there is no client, and in making it you lay bare a truth you perhaps never anticipated: that by your very contact with what you love, you have exposed yourself to the world. How could you not take criticism of that work personally?
Source: David Bayles, Ted Orland “Art and Fear”
“I Work On A Computer All Day -- I Don’t Want To See Art On It In My Free Time”
Is this true?
We know that “Computer Art” is embedded in our daily lives more than most other art forms -- more than video and photography. This is simultaneously a great asset and a great obstacle. On the one hand, the link between computers and the economic, social and cultural fabric of our media-saturated lives gives digital and new media art relevance and urgency; on the other hand, the potential audience may not want to reflect critically on or engage creatively with the medium that is also a major tool in the work environment.
I would wager that this is a generational issue if an issue at all. What are your thoughts?
Reference: C. Paul, M. Sargent
IN-BOX
"Dear Mary,
How many Mary's Page supporters have entered the well known 'Artists Wanted Self Portrait' competition I wonder?
Part of the competition's objective is to encourage artists to publicize Artists Wanted by directing people to the applicant's portfolio and have them rated for artistic content. Unusually none of the portfolios are viewable without knowledge of each artist's web link.
"Ahhh… There are many commentaries and entirely not one on business:)"
from = Vadim
"Links and Winks"
An Artist’s Journey, Freeze-Framed
Ezra Wube
This page posted 18 January 2010
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