Stephen Shore's latest Aperture article

The photorealists addressed the failure of representation in painting -- the painters' generations long inability or unwillingness to render the new colors, light, and materials of the "consumer society" realistically. I find it interesting that it influenced photographers.

<p>"What Luis and I seem to be talking about is our willingness to understand and spend time looking closely at photographers"</p>

<p>I think that is exactly what I and many others in the forum are also very interested in, but we need to discuss works of art or photography in clear terms. "Poor philistines" is simply a tongue in cheek, or at worst a mildly sarcastic comment, that, among other things, recognizes that "willingness to understand" is often all that is stated. Those who see value in some types of photography could be ready also I think to describe the works and how and why they understand them.</p>

<p>We are likely all at some times "converted" to new or different reasoning, when our mind and senses are brought to fully appreciate the quality of that reasoning (yes, we can learn and decide individually all by ourselves, but if that was the only mechanism at play there would be little need for formal education, no?).</p>

<p>I sometimes make strong value statements pro or con something, in part to incite discussion of the real merits of a work. Discussions of the POW are often good in that sense, so why not here also in regard to the approach of the photo photo-realists, which covers also the question of philosophy or psychology of perception? (sorry about the made up term, photo-photo-realists. It is a personal failing - I made up a few scientific terms in support of the studied phenomena of my one-time thesis, was criticised for doing so by a conservative scientific external examiner, but I haven't changed).</p>

<p>Critical discussion of the pros and cons of works is what might be useful for the both the "poor philistines" (the unbelievers) and others who wish to discuss the works in concrete, or even less concrete but understandable (dare I say meaningful?) terms. For me that is where the pleasure and the value exists, not in the exchange of vague homolies or even vague appreciations.</p>

<p>Lest anyone think otherwise, I am not considering any of this as personal comments regarding any of us. My interest is only to see constructive discussions about the aforementioned pros and cons of particular art approaches, discussed in meaningful terms.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>My interest is only to see constructive discussions about the aforementioned pros and cons of particular art approaches, discussed in meaningful terms.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Luis, Don, and John A. have been doing it throughout this thread. You and Julie have ignored that as the thread has progressed, in favor of being dismissive.</p>

<p>Examples of dismissiveness:</p>

<p><em>"You can look at it from ten feet away and get the message." </em>--Julie</p>

<p><em>"The underblown in art is often overblown, or is it the question of "the emperor's new clothes"? (Yes, yes, don't tell me, the museum directors and the cognoscenti are among the front line of the waiting crowds)." </em>--Arthur</p>

<p>Luis brought up <em>American Surfaces</em> not to critique the work itself or to analyze the compositions, not because of whether he found it impressive or not. The thread was about Shore's thoughts and writings, his motivations, not his work <em>per se</em>. Luis brought up <em>American Surfaces</em> relative to Shore's thinking and its place beside other photographers and how it can be viewed relative to even his own other work. He went into quite some detail about that interesting and important aspect of it before you and Julie attempted to dismiss the photos. Re-read Luis's thread of today at 9:08 am and then read Julie's immediate response and later, yours. Draw your own conclusions.</p>

<p>Arthur, a few comments...</p>

<p>I think that like many out there, you grossly (and simplistically) underestimate the better gallerists and curators.</p>

<p>Regarding Julie, she is very much entitled to her own view on Shore. She's made it pretty clear without saying much, and unless she wants to expand and go into analysis and criticism, I don't know what else there is to say.</p>

<p>There are hundreds of new photographers outing themselves and their work every day on the web. What missing are editors, or systems of filtration for distilling, sorting, cataloging the work, let alone giving informed, meaningful criticism. There's no money in it any more, and it is hard, grueling, time consuming and often thankless work. And neither anger nor age is going to do it. Only a very intelligent and effective way to deal with the huge volume of work. We all know what happens when it's left to the web photo-mobs. Ever see the books of Flickr pics? Or note how desperate people here on PN and elsewhere are for feedback and substantive opinions on their work? This condition is going to continue because of a simple fact. <em>People are not photographically/visually fluent</em>. They can't talk about work, theirs or others'. Look in the critique section here.</p>

<p>So the huge majority of the medium is composed of a population that can recite technobabble like a magpie on meth, but can't read beyond "like-dislike" or "cool-uncool", yet pretends to write. I will always remember a professor in whose class I was a guest lecturer for a few weeks, reviewing student work saying vapid crap like "...there's something interesting happening here..." followed by nothing. </p>

<p>My take on Burtinsky has nothing whatsoever to do with his temporal coordinates in relation to Eggleston or Shore. Or the Emperor's vetements. The trick with the latter is to know about la mode. I won't go into detail here, but find B's ideas & topics good, but the execution more clever than brilliant; the consistent POV somewhat cliche'd, with regard to the culture of the times; too distant/cold to be effective emotionally; and a kind of microscope on lesser organisms passing for pseudo-dcumentarian work. Sometime I'll tell you how I <em>really</em> feel. </p>

<p>Great photographers almost always (true in Shore and Eggleston's cases) greeted by horrid reviews. They are so far ahead of conventional consciousness that it takes literally years (sometimes decades) for the rest of the world to catch up, although there are always a few curators, critics, editors, etc, who see them for the emissaries from the future they are.</p>

<p>I think you are robbing these photographers by referring to them as descendants of Photo-Realism. There are similarities, but the temporal aspects make them contemporaries, not derivative.Or if you're using the term as a made-up thing, it's too confusing. Colorists, and Photo-Luminists are two terms I've heard used for these guys, though Shore is more of a New Topographer gone astray than anything else. There are many others I would throw in here, like J. Meyerowitz's non-street work, Hugher Foote, Bill Christenberry, Bill Greiner, Mitch Epstein, and too many others established and young, pro <em>and </em> non-pro excellent photographers to list here. </p>

<p>There are no Philistines in my opinion. Those who don't get it, don't. It's not up to anyone to "convert" them, let alone for free. They get to see what they've learned to see like the rest of us, and live with the consequences. Great photographs don't need instruction manuals or proselytizers. What is needed is for the visual illiterates to want to partake of this great banquet of life, educate themselves(yes, it's all on the web and the public library) and/or ask for help and bootstrap up. Nor do they need convincing. Their viewpoint is 100% valid and seldom endemic. I respect them, and would hope they would respect those who disagree with them as well. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Thanks, Luis. Something I've really come to appreciate about your participation here is your calling my attention to photographs and photographers, some who are new to me, and some to whom you've provided a context I hadn't placed familiar names into before. Though you've certainly analyzed photos and bodies of work, I don't rely on you for this, as your exposing me to work, often with juxtapositions to and influences by other related photographers, allows me to discover them or go back to them in order to do my own re-exploration of them.</p>

<p>As I said of Shore's work, it's less about what it may mean to others and more about what I might learn from looking at his use of color and light as it might spark something in or for my own work. Whether I like it or am impressed by it and why is in many ways secondary.</p>

<p>I wouldn't explore suburbia out of some sort of distanced or academic notion that the subject of suburbia is somehow important to the world. I'd explore it because it was in front of me and because I'm becoming intimate with it as my trips to my dad in Florida have become more frequent, more intense, and of longer duration. It's not through aesthetic eyes or analytical tendencies that I would photograph suburbia. It's personal, experiential. It wouldn't be to try to convince anyone of anything. It would be to express myself, and to show what I'm seeing.</p>

<p>I like hearing your analyses and critiques of famous and not-so-famous photographers and I like hearing others. I often write about photographers not to convince anyone that I like them, or that they should, and often not even because I like them. I do it to articulate things, which helps me focus my thoughts and see better. If someone gets something out of that articulation, great. They shouldn't expect it of me nor I of them. Pointing me in a direction is just as valid as holding my hand and taking me there.</p>

<p>Luis, thank you very much for your very thoughtful reply to my comments/debating challenges. I did read your 9:08 comments before, but had read briefly only that part of the Shore and Eggleston statements that were visible in the links. I discovered only later that the comments went on and were considerably more informative, by clicking on the links of your two links.</p>

<p>I had not previously seen many of the images in your references. Some of Shore's images I can readily sympathize with, they seem quite revealing (analytically invasive of their subjects if I can use that term) of the places he has decided to compose/interpret. At least they show some of the unfamiliar of the generically familiar. They strike me as more than clever compositions of form and light, which by themselves would be more academic in value. I don't like them all (perhaps my problem was initially in seeing some of the scenes I am less convinced about - e.g., the so-called $8500 duo that I think John had mentioned earlier). Of course mine are but preliminary viewing impressions and these things take time (and should be complemented by other knowledge based input as you mention. As a researcher by trade, that is not something that scares me).</p>

<p>You may be right-on about Burtynsky having a rather colder and more detached approach. He photographs what is quite unknown to many of us (although perhaps vaguely imagined at some time by us, in view of our association of his subject matter with other aspects we have gleaned from our industrialised world) which is one thing that draws me to some of his work. One example you probably have seen: that impressive plunging image into the rectangular mechanical complex of the Vermont white marble quarry and its ant-like cutting machines and human presence, or their traces (ladders, left tools). I was inspired by his insights and tried some photos in part of that quarry in the fall of 2010. I got nothing of what he achieved (as expected), although quality of the results apart I was trying my own thing/approach with this fascinating subject matter. Shore and Eggleston are different in the sense that they are photographing subjects that we are nominally familiar with and showing them to us in a different and reflective manner.</p>

<p>Sometimes we have to wade through all the historical notes on the photographer, the "Bob's your father" relationship of the photographer to his colleagues, and other chatty interview stuff that may sound great but deliver little, to occasionally get an appreciation of his approach, or in some cases, happily, read analytical critiques by others. Anyway, thanks for putting some valuable meat into the analysis of his work. I will welcome any other insights you have about these two photographers, when you wish to give them.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Sorry, small error, my second line should read "...Shore statements..." and not "....Shore and Eggleton statements..."</p>

<p>Sorry, I don't "get" him. His pictures are not aesthetically exciting nor do I see much of a story line. They look like snapshots while he was traveling around through life. Not very compelling. Sometimes I think people like him must go home, shut the door and laugh in amazement at their notoriety. But what do I know?</p>

<p>What I don't understand, Alan, is why you would question Shore's motivations or sincerity just because you don't like or get him.</p>

<p>Arthur and Fred, thank you for your kind words.</p>

<p>One thing about Burtinsky that whispers to me is that he manages to get permission to shoot all these sensitive corporate places that almost never let other people in. That may explain his aesthetic, at least in part. Or the other way around, the aesthetic may explain his success with access. The somewhat sterile thing, distance and apparent emphasis on formal elements might be what keeps getting him access. I can't imagine a conventional, close-range, gritty documentarian being able to gain access to many of the places EB does for any length of time.</p>

<p>Alan, there are two books we're talking about. The second one, Uncommon Places, was released first. Afterwards, the first set of pictures (and book #2) was released: American Surfaces. I think you're referring to that one. He photographed the things and people he came came across, but not in "travels through life", but specific cross-country road trips, much along the lines of Walker Evans, The Beats, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, William Eggleston and many others. He photographed the personal landscape in the same way someone else would photograph the Grand Canyon, except the significance here has to do with many things, including journey, contact, proximity and entanglement. Shore is unusual (but hardly unique) in the sense that he is a conceptual landscape and portrait photographer. <em> </em></p>

 

<p>Luis G's comment <em>People are not photographically/visually fluent</em> gets to the heart of my original question. Without "artspeak", can the context of history, philosophy, and physiology of seeing help inform us about what Shore and others feel they have achieved - even if the photographer can't verbalize it?<br>

In short, if the Emperor does have clothes, what tools can we best use to describe them?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>In short, if the Emperor does have clothes, what tools can we best use to <strong>describe</strong> them?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>For myself, non-judgmental description is often a way to go, which your question itself suggests. Instead of worrying about whether the Emperor has clothes or not (I actually prefer my Emperors naked), a good description of what I'm seeing will often go a long way in helping my visually fluency. Articulation of what I see, not necessarily with either interpretation or with judgment of how good it is, helps me focus, find things, uncover my own biases, and open me to the photographer's vision while fending off my own sometimes very restrictive visual expectations or desires.</p>

<p>History can be particularly visual. I can relate Shore's work to the work of others, and to its historical context. That increases my visual fluency, the relationships through decades and eras of work, and provides a context which is sometimes necessary to give something a kind of meaning.</p>

"Without "artspeak", can the context of history, philosophy, and physiology of seeing help inform us about what Shore and others feel they have achieved - even if the photographer can't verbalize it?"

 

I may not understand, but if the photographer can't verbalize it, how should I know what they feel they have achieved?

 

Apparently, on this forum commenters can't verbalize their criticisms of Shore (see Alan, above). Not just this discussion, but others in the past. This is even moreso the case when the subject is Eggleston. Both photographers can be critiqued, and possibibly severely, but I don't know what the drive-by commenters mean.

<blockquote>

<p>He photographed the personal landscape in the same way someone else would photograph the Grand Canyon, except the significance here has to do with many things, including journey, contact, proximity and entanglement. Shore is unusual (but hardly unique) in the sense that he is a conceptual landscape and portrait photographer.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Thanks Luis for the references to his books. I think the difference between photos of a personal landscape vs. the Grand Canyon is that the latter stirs ones soul, producing a sense of awe. Try as I might, I don't get that from a picture of an ordinary house on a dusty Texas street. Maybe it's meaningful to the shooter because he was there and important things happened to him, but it doesn't do much for me. I can only look at the picture. Maybe the pictures are more expressive in real life rather than on a little computer screen. He did shoot with an 8x10. And I don't question his sincerity, Fred. I just wonder if he's like the guy who puts down two bucks in the local <em>bodega </em>and winds up winning a $30 million lottery. He can't figure out why he got so lucky. </p>

<p>Jon Wilbrecht, I think Shore's article *does* verbalize what he's after (my issue of <em>Aperture</em> finally showed up). I think he just doesn't happen to find metaphors that will work for you. I'll try (probably mine won't work either, but it's worth a try).</p>

<p>If you are expecting to hear music, you won't hear ambient/background/street sounds. Think of being in/at a movie; the soundtrack is more or less "invisible." You "hear" only the structured sounds -- any music, singing, speech; you don't hear all the rest. But if the soundtrack is removed -- the movie goes silent -- then you (should) realize what an immense role it is playing in your experience of the movie.</p>

<p>Crudely, if Shore's first picture was "music" [structured, built] then his second is the soundtrack [immersive, sensual] of the street.</p>

<p>How can he get a viewer to stop straining to hear "music" and ... listen/hear something/anything else?</p>

<p>I don't think it's so much about being photographically/visually fluent as it is about Shore being able to figure out what some viewer (you; who?) *think* you should be seeing -- and then finding the best point of leverage to shift you out of that perspective. (It's not "artspeak," it's engineering!)</p>

"Shore writes about trying to remove conscious or unconscious pictorial models from his photographs."

 

Ok. I understand that.

 

"He even argues that only painters/sketchers can compose; photographers structure an image."

 

Meaning the pictorial models discussed are from painting...I think.

 

"To consciously use perspective is adding "art sauce"."

 

To 'consciously' -- I'd say 'deliberately' -- use anything is adding art sauce.

 

"You have to photograph what the scene speaks to you."

 

Which means what? Is that Shore? After showing conscious/unconscious the door, he lets it in through the side entrance?

 

He should have kept the Rollei.

Julie, thanks for your helpful response.

 

With my limited knowledge of theories of comprehending visual information, I have the impression that comprehension is

based on modeling what we see. If there is no model, we interpret the scene as chaotic or repress it. So....... how do we

describe the subliminal model Shore wants to use?

<p>Jon, art <em>is</em> the model and art <em>is</em> an exploration of or into the chaotic. The chaotic is what constantly attracts the most adventurous artists (such as Shore) but even the most timid of us is, if art is what we're after, exploring (discovering then modeling) some fragment of chaos. "Drawing a distinction" as George Spencer-Brown famously put it.</p>

<p>So to answer your question, "So....... how do we describe the subliminal model Shore wants to use?" I have to answer, <em>we make art</em>. Yes we're very circular this evening, but I'm enjoying your wonderfully, deliciously involuted post even though it was quite probably so purely by accident (or perhaps it was subliminal).</p>

<p>[Disclaimer for the opinion police: all of the above is my own personal opinion (as if it could be anything else).]</p>

<blockquote>

<p>[Disclaimer for the opinion police: all of the above is my own personal opinion (as if it could be anything else).]</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Why the disclaimer? Stating something as "an opinion" is not a defense against challenge. When we put them out in public, we can't protect our ideas from critique just by putting an IMO in front of them. Just like we can't protect our publicly-viewed photos from critique by claiming that art is all subjective and we're only trying to please ourselves.</p>

<p>"To consciously use perspective is adding "art sauce"."<br>

To 'consciously' -- I'd say 'deliberately' -- use anything is adding art sauce.</p>

<p>I think most use of perspective is subconscious, <em>and</em> adds "art sauce".</p>

<p>Julie,<br>

Involuted, convoluted, or whatever - When I look at Shore's preferred picture, all I see is an uninteresting repeat of Duchamp's urinal.</p>

<p>Don, your last analysis really helps. It does seem that Shore is at risk of contradicting himself, letting "art sauce" in through the side door, as you say.</p>

<p>Jon, interesting comparison of Shore to Duchamp.</p>

<p>A quote from each might suggest a difference.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Shore: <em>"I discovered that this camera was the technical means in photography of communicating what the world looks like in a state of heightened awareness. And it's that awareness of really looking at the everyday world with clear and focused attention that I'm interested in."</em></p>

<p>Duchamp: <em>"My idea was to choose an object that wouldn't attract me, either by its beauty or by its ugliness. To find a point of indifference in my looking at it, you see."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>It seems Shore's focused attention is Duchamp's indifference.</p>

<p>I think I can see that difference as I think about their bodies of work. Certainly Duchamp's was a moving away from, a rejection, a nihilism of sorts. Shore's body of work doesn't seem similar in these regards. He seems to find and want to bond, though without fanfare.</p>

<p>Jon said, " When I look at Shore's preferred picture, all I see is an uninteresting repeat of Duchamp's urinal."</p>

<p>LOL! The nerve of those guys! Just when you have this chaos thing under control -- all tidied up and alphebetized and no stripes with plaid, and you step out to enjoy your law-and-ordered neighborhood, some kid whispers that you're not wearing any clothes. Here's a thought: chaos is BIG and we -- via science or art or just being here with an open mind (and an open, astonished mouth) only have our heads around a tiny fraction of it. Please don't kill the messenger(s) for making this hard(er) to ignore.</p>

<p>"...chaos thing under control" ? </p>

<p>Good quotes, Fred.</p>

<p>Which is Shore's preferred picture?</p>

<p>When looking at all those streets and intersections in <em>Uncommon Places, </em>why are they there? There's nowhere near that many in <em>American Surfaces. </em>What happened between those two series? Did the 8x10 Deardorff gravitate towards the street?</p>

<p>Artists often <em>make</em> chaos.</p>

<p><em>"Destruction is also creation."</em> --Duchamp</p>