----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Colen" <[email protected]>
I find the whole question of what is art to be a form of mental
wankage of the highest order. About the only question that makes
any sense is "does this person find that object, or action, beautiful,
or artistic?".
Good question, and good evasion of the problem at hand, if the more raunchy
implications of "mental wankage" is ignored. :-)
My reaction to the Eggleston exhibit a bunch of us went to
in Chicago was that the vast majority of the photos there were no better
than the vast majority of PESOs on the PDML. For that matter, you
could have taken his 40 or so best, and put them up against the 40
or so in Augenblick, and the PDML work would have easily stood
up in quality. Yes, we had 40 photographers versus one of him, but
he covered 40 years, rather than just one from the PDML. As for
someone like Peter Lik, just take it as a given that if he's considered a
top level photographic artist, then I'd rather stay a photographic
hobbyist.
I think it was great to see so many of Eggleston's images together. What
emerged was more than the sum of the individual images. Take series of
pictures called "election eve", for example. The individual pictures in that
series I found to be badly composed and mere recordings of mundane places
and objects of daily life. Together, they conveyed something about the mood
on that particular night in American history to me. And maybe something
about ordinary people's attitude to the whole election process? I dunno...
But put together like that I found Eggleston's images to have far more power
than I had ever expected from seeing individual pictures presented together
with works of other photographers. They seemed carefully selected to be
pieces in a bigger puzzle.
Then take our PDML exhibit. Images produced by 40 minds, with 40 individual
styles, ideas, techniques, etc., etc.
Excellent imagery, and put together it spoke loudly of how much fun we have
together on this list. Visitors to Dank Haus without any connection to PDML
on the other hand, would probably start looking for connections between the
images. Maybe to see some collective thought we wished to express beyond the
obvious joy of exhibiting together.
I'm not saying there isn't one. I just say the comparison is unfair.
After discussing a few technical details with "art photographers" I really
think that what separates an art photographer from a photographic
hobbyist is merely marketing and a finely developed sense of pretension.
It sure as hell isn't technical skill or quality of work.
If you strike out "finely developed sense of pretension", you're pretty
close to that art photography lecturer from Gothenburg. She redressed
"marketing" as "catering to the right audience", and the importance of
putting the work into a defined project with a defined idea or purpose.
IIRC, the whole Eggleston exhibit was also organised so that images
belonging to each of his projects hung together.
Why do we always accuse art photographers of pretentiousness, btw? Seems
like the law of Jante to me...
Jostein
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