A good photograph/photographer or work of art/artist you don't like . . .

<p>This seems to come up often. For me, it's a big discussion about the so-called subjectivity of art. Some claim that no one can tell someone else what is art. Each of us gets to decide. I disagree with that. I think there are cultural, historical, and social determinants of art as well as various qualities that works of art exhibit, whether I happen to like or recognize them or not.</p>

<p>There's room for a general discussion, but those tend not to go anywhere, since we wind up arguing over the definition of art, which is almost impossible to come up with in a post on the Internet. IMO, it takes a lot of discussion to even come close to defining what art is and it's often futile.</p>

<p>What I'm interested in, though, are photographs or photographers you recognize as good but don't like. And I don't mean that in the sense that you may be moved by it, but because it's effectively disturbing you wouldn't say you like it. I mean that it really doesn't reach you, does nothing for you personally, but yet you recognize that it's a good photo and you can understand why it would reach others. Likewise, are there works of art or renowned artists who you accept as artists but who don't move you at all, whose work you just don't get much out of.</p>

<p>I'll start with Avedon. I think he's an important photographer, one who's clearly an artist, but one who just doesn't usually do it for me. Now, that's not to say I haven't learned from reading about him and looking at his work. But, in general, his portraits leave me cold, get monotonous after a while because of the similarity of pose and the lack of context/background. I'm thinking particularly of The American West stuff, which I've seen in books, on line, and in person. There's no doubt in my mind that he's an artist, someone whose work I just don't like very much. To an extent, I feel the same way about Mapplethorpe. He's important, and having recently read the Patti Smith book about her life with him (Just Kids), I appreciate his role as an artist even more. But most of his stuff just doesn't reach me and I get a cold, distant feeling from it. Even the more provocative stuff which I know was very personal for him simply comes across as distanced and cold.</p>

<p>With both of the above, I understand why people like them and why they have the reputations they do. And I would include them in any list of important photographer/artists. In order to do so, I have to be objective and take into account other things beside my own likes and dislikes, my own personal reaction, and my own subjectivity.</p>

<p>I'd like to hear what you think and if there are specific people or works you'd want to discuss.</p>

<p>I certainly understand what you mean, Fred. I get very little from Georgia O'Keeffe, don't leave Kurt Vonnegut glad I spent the time, and don't feel improved by listening to Wagner. But they obviously Matter.<br /><br />I can admire Ansel Adams' long, hard work and perfectionism. And yet I just <em>yawn</em>. Sorry, Ansel! At the risk of sounding like a twit, I don't get much from Weegee or Cartier-Bresson, and I'm not fascinated by Weston's toadstools or peppers. For that matter, Diane Arbus's hand grenade boy pretty much just annoys me. But I believe I <em>get</em> them all, and recognize the footprints they've left.<br /><br /></p>

<p>Interesting question Fred. There a numerous "important" photographers who's work just doesn't appeal to me even though I can appreciate that they have originality, etc. A couple that pop in my head just now are William Eggleston and Martin Parr. They do seem similar to me as well. Both seem to have many shots that are seemingly "random" in a clever, self conscious way, as if to say "documenting" culture is enough. </p>

<p>Good, interesting post. Let me propose photographer/artist Garry Winogrand.</p>

<p>He was acclaimed the 'street' photographer of the second half of the 20th C. by no less than the Museum of Modern Art's curator John Swarkowski, who championed his work.</p>

<p>Swarkowski's enthusiasm plus the enormous body of Winogrand's work (and perhaps his then very close relationship with New York City where he shot 'street' for so many years before moving to places like Texas and Los Angeles), helped impel Winogrand to a place of fame and to book publishing deals. His name is rightfully known among 'street' photographers worldwide.</p>

<p>His work mostly leaves me cold; not all, but mostly.</p>

<p>He supposedly was famously undisciplined, but for an undisciplined man, he really was enormously disciplined and dedicated.</p>

<p>He didn't spent so much time choosing his shots before he took them; he could run through a roll (or two) 36-exposure black and white film in a city block's walk, schmoozing with his subjects sometimes as he went; he was a familiar face among NYC's denizens, even among its other 'street' photographers who also went on to fame.</p>

<p>I won't spend time enumerating how many contact sheets he had not reviewed when he died or how many hundred or thousand rolls of film he had not even developed when he died, but he was not a man who could instantly recognize a winner.</p>

<p>He did know, (and here he deserves some praise), that what we 'see' in person does not always come through in the finished production, and as a result, he preferred to 'see' his work afresh, literally after it had 'aged' -- kind of like meat. The good beef ages well, and preserved properly comes out with a little mold on it, its marbling throughout gives it a wonderful flavor and the enzymes break down the flesh, making it taste better and different -- it's prized.</p>

<p>Lesser qualities of meat, however, do not withstand aging well, and Winogrand knew that was the same with photographs. A stinker or even one that seemed 'pretty good' when taken or even weeks or months later, might on final review be a real stinker.</p>

<p>Winogrand was as close to a movie maker, I think as any still frame artist with a Leica has ever come. He also was a world class procrastinator when it came to review; perhaps a positive in his case.</p>

<p>I've seen videos of him at work, snapping away. He was extremely quick, almost invisible in his quickness, often did not frame with camera to eye; and snapped away rapidly, hopefully, often with the horizon tilted - to give his subjects and the scenes the 'edgy' look that he has become famous for.</p>

<p>Most of his work leaves me pretty cold -- I see little of the humanness that I am pretty sure was in the man revealed in his work.</p>

<p>In order to take so many photos on the street and not get pummelled regularly, one has to have marvelous street skills, and there is no doubt from recounts (and film/video review) that the man was a street photography wizard when it came to people skills.</p>

<p>But framing in the camera was something that he could not always do regularly, intentionally and produce winning results on a regular basis -- instead he went for enormous quantity and in the process was a really good critic -- of his own work, and the critic process relied on two things:</p>

<p>(1) he took enormous numbers of photos, especially for the film era, and especially since he did not use (in videos I have seen) a motor drive, so there are no sequential shots; it's all one-off, which makes him a sort of wunderkind among the prodigious producers).</p>

<p>(2) He was an excellent, of very tardy reviewer of his work, preferring for years ofen not even to develop his film.</p>

<p>And, as a Photo.net member who attended one of his photography classes when he was teaching in Texas (at the University of Texas, I seem to recall) noted, he was enormously popular with the students, and warm to them; the forum participant here noted he had great interpersonal skills with the students and was a favorite instructor/professsor.</p>

<p>So, he did apparently possess the basic humanity and warmth that I find lacking in his photos. His photos portrayed people as a little 'alien' -- sort of like 'objects' in many of them, sorts of disembodied objects to be studied under the lens not of a microscope but of his preferred Leica.</p>

<p>It is not necessarily such a wonderful, heart-warming or even edifying process to go through the vast part of his work. He was enormously lustful of women, even did a book about 'beautiful women' he had photographed on the street, and was extremely disappointed when it proved in his eyes to be a failure and sales just about flopped, especially compared to his other work which generally was well received critically.</p>

<p>He wondered aloud on film (now video) that people could want to collect his work, but at the same time, he was producing it before people were collecting it, and when he died, he was in Los Angeles, and last I heard an ex-wife was still processing those rolls and reviewing those remaining contact sheets (this needs an update of anyone has newer information, as mine is a couple of years old).</p>

<p>He also had a sense of humor - it shows in his shots taken at the Bronx zoo, especially his elephant shot, but it's something that occurs rarely in his exhibited work.</p>

<p>I have an enormous respect, however, for the intellect of this famously (supposedly) undisciplined shooter. He had thought the process through not only from the standpoint of someone who is a shooter, but also from the critic's standpoint.</p>

<p>One could literally write a small book of quotes of his that either are of should be famous, and if not famous should or could be remembered by any of us; he was as much a philosopher of photography and an intellectual as anyone I really know of, especially among the shooters, not the intellectuals who only wrote.</p>

<p>Some of his quotes seem tautological or even outlandish, but they reveal him to be most thoughtful and educated man.</p>

<p>Lifted from Wikipedia are some of the most famous:</p>

<p>********<br />* A photograph is the illusion of a literal description of hos the camera 'saw' a piece of time and space.</p>

<p>* Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed.</p>

<p>* I photograph to see what the world looks like in photographs.</p>

<p>* I like to think of photographing as a two-way act of respect. Respect for the<br />medium, but letting it do what it does best, describe. And respect for the<br />subject, by describing as it is. A photograph must be responsible to both.</p>

<p>* I don't know if all the women in the photographs (in a book of his) are beautifull, but I do know that the women are beautiful in the photographs. [book's name: 'Women are Beautiful'.]</p>

<p>* All things are photographable.</p>

<p>* I don't have anything to say in any picture. My only interest in photography is to see what something looks like as a photograph. I have no preconceptions.</p>

<p>********</p>

<p>The last quote is perhaps his most famous, especially the second sentence 'to see what something looks like as a photograph'.</p>

<p>It sounds tautological, but it really is quite profound, and worthy of great discussion, as the medium transforms a three dimensional world with all sorts of sensory queues into a two-dimensional medium only of light, often only black, grayscale through white, other times in color.</p>

<p>So, I have great respect for his intellectual side, and I have reviewed a substantial number of his published photographs.</p>

<p>I've seen him describe on film (later video) his own work, how it came about and the process of photographing to editing.</p>

<p>He was an enormously responsible (if more than tardy) editor, because he was a perfectionist. He spent far more time looking through his contact sheets when they were 'aged' then he did actually taking the photographs in them, is my conclusion, and apparently he didn't ever want to rush the process.</p>

<p>So, he died, his work unfinished.</p>

<p>It is claimed in LA where he ended up he taught, I understand, though not documented in Wikipedia. It is claimed his work withered there, but I have seen him recorded photographing and seen some of the work he produced there and it was really quit good.</p>

<p>Not to my taste or showing any warmth in any way, but good.</p>

<p>Frankly, for all his brilliance intellectually as a thinking man's street photographer, with three Guggenheim fellowships, his work just does not move me at all; I am impressed by his abilities, but still unmoved.</p>

<p>I acknowledge it, but feel little from it; it is important but 'so what?' is my feeling.</p>

<p>Maybe that's because he had no preconceptions when he picked up his camera or aimed it (he didn't always frame photos so much as 'aim' it, prefocused and basically 'know' what he was trying to capture in much of his work, and if he didn't capture 'it' that time, there were thousands of other rolls of film, and in some of those were some magic captures. He might take the photos one day and maybe months or years later 'discover' the good ones when he looked at the contact sheet in good time.</p>

<p>I suggest this man probably had a very warm heart, but his philosophy as a photographer prevented most of it from being transmitted to his work, and as a result, his work comes across portraying his fellow man as 'cold' -- he literally does a visual vivisection on many of his subjects as they walk by, stand on podiums and stages, attend livestock exhibitions, or are carried down wide Southern California boulevards on parade floats.</p>

<p>Maybe, if I met the man, I'd understand that for all the bonhomie shown on film and described by his students, inside he was that edgy man, horizon tilted sideways, more than a little cold, just as one sees in his photos.</p>

<p>But gobsmacked by pretty women.</p>

<p>I hope not, except I'd forgive him the last part.</p>

<p>Maybe someone who knew him, such as Lee Friedlander, a fellow Gugenheim award winner, might drop by here to let us know. They saw each other from time to time as paths crossed on NYC streets, I understand in the '50s and '60s.</p>

<p>Winogrand's 'fame' didn't start until the latter part of the '60s, however.</p>

<p>I was there in NYC in the '60s, even a NYC photo editor in the '70s for a while, attended Winogrand's alma mater as an undergrad in the 60s, began photographing my senior year, [1968] did not even know my university had a photography department however, never took a photo class, and did not learn of his work until after I joined Photo.net 7+ years ago.</p>

<p>I might still have met the man, as I did many famous photographers including Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson and a slew of Pulitzer winners, but did not.</p>

<p>From what I have seen of his work, nothing particularly lost.</p>

<p>But from what I have read, this is a man I think I would have loved to schmooze with.</p>

<p>(thanks Fred for the most interesting post).</p>

<p>john<br />John (Crosley)</p>

<p>Sophie Calle is a famous and significant writer/artist-photographer from France. I understand and appreciate the significance of her work, have seen a lot of prints in shows, and reproductions of all kinds, but it doesn't move me personally.</p>

<p>https://www.google.com/search?q=sophie+calle+photography&hl=en&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=7gYiT_CJFsSutwepvaGtBQ&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=496</p>

<p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Calle</p>

<p>At the risk of sounding like an idiot heretic, Andreas Gursky is another, ultra-significant photographer whose work I deeply appreciate and to boot, one of the Becher-wunderkinder, high-profile, top buck guys successfully working through the very difficult theme of globalization, but his work leaves me cold.</p>

<p>https://www.google.com/search?q=andreas+gursky+prints&hl=en&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=8QgiT5vRD8zXtweA_bQ7&ved=0CGEQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=496</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Where to start and when? I think its evolutionary and I spend more time with artists" work I don't get than I do with those I do. Right now there is a lot of work by Thomas(es) Struth and Ruff that I am trying to get a handle on. More Struth maybe. It isn't that I don't like it or don't understand it on one level, I just don't understand it on another level. But then I haven't seen his work in person and many who write about it suggest that you can't appreciate it without seeing it in person.</p>

<p>It's all just a journey and sometimes you run and sometimes you just slog along.</p>

<p>Ansel Adams, for the same reason as Matt gave above.<br>

The beach portraits of Rineke Dijkstra, to me they're just a bit too cold and lifeless, without getting annoyingly cold and lifeless (which would probably grab me) - it just falls in between things for me.<br>

There is probably more, but these two came to mind first.</p>

<p>There is a reverse side too, of course. Liking something and being truely moved by it, despite it being cliché/kitsch/sleezy. Photograpgy-wise, I can't think of something straight away, but certainly in music, the well-threaded path can be very effective (thinking something like Elton John, Candles in the Wind).</p>

<p>Just thinking of another thing that might come into play here (for me, at least): doubt. Quite a lot of images give me doubt, on whether I understand somewhat correctly what it tries to tell me. This can work 2 ways: either it 'hooks' me and make me search, study, look more. Or it works as something I shrug off. I don't get the message, and I'm not compelled to find it either.<br>

The Dijkstra photos I mentioned in the post above fall in the latter category for me.</p>

<p>I think of the body of their work when I look at artists. My appreciation of individual pieces can vary all over the place. Once I read why an artist is/was significant, thus informed, I look back at other artists of their kind I've disliked or ignored. For example, I didn't like Avedon or Penn, and now I like them. A gem, just sitting there in the right place at the right time, knocks me out. All artists will eventually disappoint. That is likely the fault of dealers and publishers.<br /> I'm more drawn to subjects rather than artists. National Parks, anthro-exotic, "studies of...", the list goes on, usually leave me cold. Many of the artists mentioned so far here are on my list too. What, no Karsh or Dali bashers? I often get a different feel for an artist once I've stuck my nose close to the real object. I appreciate craft a lot - can't see how any photographer could not love Weston. I can see why R .Frank and Winogrand are not liked by people who like A. Adams. Presentation and editing makes art and artists better. I have experienced dislike for an artist just because they were not presented well. Or, over-produced: Mapplethorpe. The impresario effect (aesthetic placebo) shouldn't be ignored.</p>

<p><strong>Fred</strong>,<br>

It is not really that there are good photographers which I do not like globally. I take a different position: there are single works or series of works which I like, and others which I do not like.<br>

Take Helmut Newton. I went to the Museum dedicated to him in Berlin. There are some works which are extraordinary, for example "here they come" in which Newton manages to capture a movement where there is actually no room for movement. But in many cases I had the feelings of repetitions.<br>

I recently went to the exhibition of Steve McCurry. Really beautiful images, he is a master of lighting and colours. As we all know, colours are not only a matter of technology (film or digital equal) but also of light. But there are repetitions as well and I did not like all. Of McCurry I would say that the relationship and his "embedding" in the situation are his really strong points. His photographs of 9/11 have only a fraction of the strength of Lyle Owerko's.<br>

Take Garry Winogrand. In general I like his work, but not all of his work. There have been changes. Some early ones look like Cartier Bresson's, the later ones are more personal. Some bore me.<br>

William Eggleston, another master of colour, with an extremely powerful printing technique. Some exceptional, some much less compelling.<br>

And there could be other examples.<br>

To come to your question, Fred, it is not so much about taking or leaving a photographer, but rather to appreciate specific photos and to value, but appreciate less other photos. To me it is very much related to the chords which a photo strikes. These chords depend on the beholder.<br>

L.</p>

<p>I like reading that a few of you (and I include myself here at times) feel like a heretic or idiot for not liking a renowned photographer. That's probably a good thing. Why not bhumble ourselves in that way of accepting that we may just not get something or, for whatever reason, may not be drawn to something that is, in fact, good or is, in fact, art? On the other hand, it may take guts and confidence to buck an accepted trend. It can be empowering.</p>

<p>Part of the mystery of what I'll loosely term aesthetics is this matter of taste and the sometimes inexplicable reactions we have to things. It's like there's a constant struggle going on between the individual and the greater cultural recognition of things. A certain tension seems to ensue when our own proclivities don't align with accepted artists. This tension is good.</p>

<p>Bodies of work have been brought up, a good focus. I find each happening. Sometimes I will not like some of a photographer's work but sometimes it's stronger than that, and really it's the photographer's body of work or approach or vision as a whole that doesn't do it for me. </p>

<p>Some like blondes; some like red heads.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><strong>Fred</strong>: I like reading that a few of you (and I include myself here at times) feel like a heretic or idiot for not liking a renowned photographer.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The adjective "renowned" strikes me. You seem to be able to draw a subtle line between the renown and the not renown and make a direct relationship with the level of their work.</p>

<p>When does a photographer cross the line between the known and the not known, and, more important, why, for what reason?</p>

<p>I do not have any feeling for "heresy" when I look at a renown photographer's photo and I "do not like it", as you say.</p>

<p>Again we address the radical difference between "liking" and "recognition".</p>

<p>As a matter of principle, the photographs of a renown photographer cannot be "not good", simply because somebody who is renown puts his or her main effort into producing photography. As a painter constantly puts effort into expressing creativeness into figurative form developing craft so that it satisfies the goals of artistic expression, and a musician or a dancer practices, practices and practices.</p>

<p>A "renown" photographer puts his/her time, work and creativeness into creating photographs, from elaborating visions, to creating situations where to unfold these visions. And then, further down the line, come the camera, the means, the editing - <strong>wow, how important is editing</strong> - the (post-)processing, the printing (for Eggleston, for example, the printing is nearly everything). And then comes marketing, which is one absolutely essential activity closely intertwined with vision and creativity, which makes the "renown" emerge from the undifferentiated mass of "photographers".</p>

<p>I feel I have the right not to like, or to criticise, some of the works of a renown photograph. For me it is not sufficient to belong to the "restricted circle" decided by somebody. This does not mean that I do not recognise the vision, ability, craft or technique. But still there are other elements, for example the way a photo speaks to me, or more in general, the way I think a photo manages to "speak a certain language".</p>

<p>The renown photographer, as any photographer, in entitled to create their own language, with concepts, ideas, a syntax and grammar. This "photographic language" is specific to the vision. And still the effect and impact of this language by its creator can show huge variation, like a novelist writing the same plot over and over again. It might be perfect in the craft and technique, but still it is the same plot.</p>

<p>The renown photographer is able, due to the huge amount of time s/he puts into this plastic art, to create a much higher critical mass of vision, knowledge, abilities, skills and network relationships. And the outcome normally shows this.</p>

<p>But beyond this, there is what I call the "visual message", which is the output of the "photographic language".</p>

<p>So I do not have any humble feelings for not "getting" the message of a renown photographer, simply because if I manage to "learn" his or her photographic language, I am able to to judge the resulting visual message, also comparing this message with the one of other photographers speaking the same or a similar photographic language.</p>

<p>The fact that somebody has "decreed" that a photographer belongs to the restricted circle of renown photographers is not important at all to me, except that I am grateful that the editing process has saved me from the less-than-refined part of the output. :-)</p>

<p>I totally and wholeheartedly agree with Luca A.R.'s last post, above. Beautifully put.</p>

<p>For me:</p>

<p>There are two kinds of "do something for/to me" that art can effect. The first kind of "do something to me,", which happens not that often -- in any form of art including photography -- is that a certain particular piece of art (photo, painting, sculpture, etc.) overwhelms me, moves me, totally "works" for/on me as I am looking at it. These are ones that I would love to possess; that I covet, however absurd and beyond my reach (thank goodness for reproductions ...).</p>

<p>The second kind, however, is [FOR ME] the necessary qualifier of all good art that doesn't have the first kind described above. If it's not there, as far as I'm concerned, it's not good. I don't give a rat's ass about who did it or how famous it is. This second kind of "do something to me" consists in its means, its how-it-works, why-it-works, what-its-doing. It's crudely analogous to what geometry is/does. Looking at geometic diagrams -- parallel lines, angles, circles, etc., doesn't turn me on, but what it means in the sense of what how-it-works has profound and satisfying power, application, continuity with many, many other areas, things, events. There is ... correlation, connection and so forth. For example, I can find Avedon's "means" echoed or mutated or developed both in other works of art and/or in my own ongoing experience. It "does something to me" in the sense that I feed off of the "means" that I've been shown for a long time both forward and backward.</p>

<p>These two kinds of do-something-to-me are not particularly connected; some works I find overwhelmingly moving to look at don't have much to offer beyond that intensity-of-contact. On the other hand, good, "chewy," work (stuff that I think about what-it-did/does for a long time) can be downright ugly. Or, in the rare case, work can do both.</p>

<p>Somewhat on a tangent, it's my opinion, reading what curators' write about exhibitions and museum collections, that the good ones (curators) love a skeptical viewer; they seem to me to be <em>movitivated</em> by the intelligent challenge of those who don't consider art to be a religion.</p>

<p>Luca, good points. You are right we have a right to be critical, and some visual languages work and some not - absolutely. <br />Yet, I sometimes indeed do feel heretic.... if I read praise everywhere, and yet that work does not spark any particular emotion with me, I doubt myself first: <em>Why am I the "only" one not getting it</em>?<br>

This question is, I think, realistic and rethoric. Having that question raised in my head, helps me arrive at the point which Luca described: a confidence that you're visually literate enough, developed enough and articulate enough to express your own opinion, to be able to substantiate your opinion, and to uphold also if the whole world disagrees.<br>

I like landscape work, and I like shooting landscapes. The renowned and default accept landscape-master, Ansel Adams, just manages to remove any trace of life (in my eyes anyway). The photos are too static, too precise and too de-human-ised. They lack a visual spontaneousness to me, which makes them appear kind of flat (in terms of content, I am not doubting AA's technique in presentation). It took me quite some time to figure out, since I assumed I was missing a point. But in this progress of "denouncing a master", I did and do find which qualities work for me in a photo - so investing time on it is time very well invested.<br>

Maybe it's just my reading, but actually I think Luca and Fred were actually saying the same thing here. And so am I...</p>

<p>For what it's worth, I mentioned doubt before, and it fits in here. It's when I'm not yet sure I am not getting it, and hence my dislike is a shaky unsubstantiated opinion, or I do get it and it just doesn't work for me. It typically means I need to spend a bit more time, and see more work of the same artist. Bodies of work, or series of photos, can be a big help here, to establish whether I'll eventually get the visual language.</p>

<p>"When does a photographer cross the line between the known and the not known, and, more important, why, for what reason?"</p>

<p>When their work is seen widely by others. Otherwise they are not known. Good examples are Bellocq or Vivian Maier. But I think Luca meant renowned. There you have a consensus that builds up through layers of experts and connoisseurs, the same way that someone like Bach or John Cage became renowned. If you are just a photographer, and have no real connoisseurship or expertise, then you're going by your own personal taste. That was the crux of Fred's question: Are there photographers/artists you appreciate at one level and not at the other? Religion has nothing to do with it in my case. Art can work in many ways and levels for me. No one's work reaches all potentials, but this is very different from something matching my taste in the sense of "could I live with the print on my walls every day?", which is very different from understanding its significance in the medium or its dynamics.</p>

<p>I was being funny when I spoke about feeling like an idiot/heretic for not personally liking the photographers I listed, and no, that doesn't mean I don't like <em>any </em>of their works (I should have included the usual necessary PN disclaimer, I know.) I get the visual language and understand the work, but I still may not find it to my taste. </p>

<p> </p>

<p> When I go to MOMA in Monterey or San Francisco I always like the photography. I cannot say I have seen anything that I do not like. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>As a matter of principle, the photographs of a renown photographer cannot be "not good", simply because somebody who is renown puts his or her main effort into producing photography. As a painter constantly puts effort into expressing creativeness into figurative form developing craft so that it satisfies the goals of artistic expression, and a musician or a dancer practices, practices and practices. --Luca</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I disagree. There are a great many painters and dancers who practice, practice, practice, work very hard at it, and aren't any good. Some simply don't have the ability, no matter how hard they try.</p>

<p>____________________________</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>I feel I have the right not to like, or to criticise, some of the works of a renown photograph. --Luca</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes. This was the point of my post. But having the right to be different from everyone else (or the vast majority of viewers and experts), for me, comes with some humility and tension as well as confidence and personal commitment. For me, a kind of tension comes with the territory of individuality, especially when that individuality brings me in discord with, as Luis puts it, connoisseurs. It's a tension which energizes me. I love the "heretic" metaphor precisely because there is discomfort in it. Does everything we do or say, everything we like and dislike, every opinion we offer have to be so damned easy and so damned certain, so damed acceptable, and so damned OK because it's <em>mine</em>? </p>

<p>_____________________</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>So I do not have any humble feelings for not "getting" the message of a renown photographer, simply because if I manage to "learn" his or her photographic language, I am able to to judge the resulting visual message. --Luca</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes. There are two levels here. One is not "getting" it. The second is getting it and still not liking it. I experience both feelings at times. I would suggest that sometimes "getting it" is much more than a matter of learning. One can learn a whole lot but without being able to empathize with the photographer in question. There will be a million reasons for a lack of empathy, often circumstantial rather than anything being wrong with the viewer. The "getting it" may never take place. As regards learning, there are certain things that are much harder to learn and, indeed, not as well understood by even the best of learners. Some mathematicians are much more fluent in geometry than algebra, even with a lot of study. The same would be true of photographers, for whatever reasons. I don't think I can "get" every photographer by learning. I don't claim to be able to "get" every photographer, for a variety of reasons, often my own level of exposure, my own level of experience and worldliness.</p>

<p>__________________________</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>The fact that somebody has "decreed" that a photographer belongs to the restricted circle of renown photographers is not important at all to me. --Luca</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's not that <em>somebody</em> has <em>decreed</em> anything. Renowned photographs, or what are generally viewed as great works of art, are not decreed to be so by any one person. There is usually general agreement (Luis used an important word in aesthetics and art, consensus) among a group of critics and peers. And this agreement often evolves over time and gets into the dominant psychology of an era or age. It's not so much decreed, not as if a new aesthetic law had been made. It is often a slow and evolutionary process, determined by many intersecting and interweaving factors and circumstances.</p>

<p>_______________________</p>

<p>Luis, I knew you were being somewhat tongue-in-cheek about the "heretic" stuff, but I think there's something serious there as well. I hope I made the serious part of it clear in what I just said to Luca. I think Wouter's articulated it nicely as well.</p>

<p>One of the great things about art [iN MY OPINION] is that, unlike science, each different response that I have to a work does not invalidate the previous response(s) I have had to the same work -- that the person I was before in the time before had to that work of art. Each response is as valid as the other. Given that I  never have the same response twice, this is a good thing ... And if I had some expectation of arriving at some definitive, ultimate, final "right" response, it ain't going to happen (short of death).<br>

 <br>

The only consensus I see in the art world is if viewed from a very, very long way off.</p>

<p>My experience with heresy, in this regard, is not my personal sense of being naughty relative to Big Art.<br /><br />It's the reaction - from mere eye-rolling to the more melodramatic Righteous Outrage - of <em>other people </em>at my failure to be moved (or - gasp! - my dismissal of a piece of work as being not as important as someone else says it is) that generates the heretical atmospherics. I'm simply not bothered by what other people think, though I begin to take note when the friction between what we think actually impacts me in some real way.<br /><br />A grand example might be the newly revealed <strong><a href="http://eisenhowermemorial.org/">Eisenhower memorial</a></strong>. Holy schlamoley. Yes, I <em>get</em> that Frank Gehry is Really Important. I even quite like some of his work. But that design is ... awful. It's just big, expensive (for all of us), bad art.</p>

<p>Julie brings up an important point, which is that our own responses can evolve. What I liked yesterday, I may not like so much today. What I thought I understood yesterday may today go through a process of revelation the likes of which will make me realize I didn't quite get it yesterday . . . or I got it but get it very differently today.</p>

<p>On validity of response. A response that varies from the experts can most certainly be valid. But that doesn't mean every response is as literate, as informed, as open, or as nuanced as another. And even the most literate, informed, open, and nuanced response may vary from the mainstream of the art world. That variance, however, is worth noting and is often significant.</p>

<p>On capitalizing IN MY OPINION. We know everything you say is your opinion. That doesn't make it immune from challenge. But it's good that you underscore that by shouting it. Because it's part of the whole point of this thread. Our opinions are often not as important as the more objectively-decided interweaving of circumstances which may say, regardless of whether I like it or not, that's a good and important work of art. We can puff up our chests and shout, "IT'S MY OPINION." And by that, we can try to declare we're somehow entitled to it. This is exactly what I'm questioning: the relevance of my opinion in the bigger picture and in the scheme of things.</p>

<p>Art is NOT solely a matter of taste (or OPINION, with caps or without), not purely subjective, and not entirely up to each of us to determine. It has social, cultural, interpersonal, and institutional components, whether we LIKE it or not. Our opinions really can only be seen in relationship to other more objective facts and circumstances. There are many lazy, uninformed, prejudicially-inherited opinions about art. They are as lame as opinions can be about other matters. It's why, when we critique something, we're asked to give REASONS for our opinions, not just an "I like" or "I don't like." That's so others can assess the basis for your opinion. That basis has a whole lot of relevance. If it's based on illiteracy, prejudice, narrow-mindedness, myopia, etc., then it's often a very worthless opinion. The IMO doesn't inoculate anyone from having a stupid, uninformed, or immature opinion.</p>

<p>Now, surely another photographer might disagree with me about Avedon. That doesn't mean one of our opinions is stupid, uninformed, or immature. Here, it could just be a matter of taste. But giving some amount of deference to an art world that has long recognized Avedon as an important artist seems to me a reasonable point of departure, even when considering my own feelings about the work. I can't imagine simply dismissing, nor would I want to, what connoisseurs, experts, critics, curators, historians, and other important and respected photographers think.</p>

<p>Fred, great discussion! It has helped me understand a little bit better why some photographers have become “important” in the art world even though I personally might find their work uninteresting. I will be the first to admit that I am not well schooled in art or art history, so sometimes its just that I “don’t get” a certain photographer’s work and its place in the grand scheme of things, and that its more than simply my “not liking” it. Gee, I’m not the center of the universe? Darn.</p>

<p>"That doesn't mean one of our opinions is stupid, uninformed, or immature."</p>

<p>I really can't keep up with you guys, but don't you think that it is more important to try and understand and appreciate than it is whether we like or don't like? Whether it is Adams, Avedon, Winogrand, Frank or whoever really doesn't matter--like or not isn't the issue. We learn from what has gone before and it informs where things are going--for us and for others.</p>

<p>John, I think liking and appreciating are of equal importance and come into play in different ways at different times. Whether or not I like* something is very significant to me and to the way I feel about it. Understanding and appreciating is a different mode of approach for me, no more or less important, just different.</p>

<p>*To reiterate, I'm using "like" here to refer to my taste, or something that turns me on or gets to me in some way. It can be in a not pleasing way. I can "like" something that is horrific, dangerous, sad, unlikable.</p>

<p>So, I can like something I know nothing about, am blind to the history of, and may have no greater context for than just how it hits me in the gut and in the moment. Likewise, I can appreciate something that just doesn't get to me like I am told it gets to others. I can understand why and how it may get to them. Of course, liking something and appreciating it often overlap. </p>

<p><strong>Fred - "</strong>Luis, I knew you were being somewhat tongue-in-cheek about the "heretic" stuff, but I think there's something serious there as well. I hope I made the serious part of it clear in what I just said to Luca. I think Wouter's articulated it nicely as well."</p>

<p>Yes there is. You did make it clear, and Wouter got it right, too. I should have known the word 'heresy' would be taken literally.<br>

______________________________________________</p>

<p>If one looks at the responses in this thread, it soon becomes apparent that the influence of the status quo of art affects everyone here to some degree in different ways, even if they're ignorant of it and openly disavow being artists.</p>