lukiacostello Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Why is a nude, like much Black and White photography, automatically considered 'Fine Art'? Is anyone else out there as completely bored with nudes and standard/ natural landscapes (a la Ansel Adams and such) as I am? Yes, they can be beautiful, it's a given. What more can be said here? Prove me wrong. Please, no Spencer Tunic, I have had my fill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leslie_cheung Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Who cares what is considered fine art? Just care about what interest YOU... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
upe_vantonni1 Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 i agree with leslie on this. but i also think you might be suffering (as I am) from the plague of familiarity. i look up photos on line, peruse the borders book shelves, even belong to a camera club. and you're right, i blow through most things, in my best valley girl impression, as "seen it". today is tuesday so it must be triplets by the grand canyon. *yawn* so it really is about depth and not bredth. like poetry or plays, find someone you really like and just absorb their style. I love the paintings of Steve Hanks (and own a few editions) and the photography of jonvelle. i don't know why they catch my eye, but they do. and so instead of doing a google search for fine art nudes or ansel adams landscapes. I try to understand the few photos (and paintings and other arts that I like) better and understand *WHY* i like them and then try to recreate the style that i was impressed by (say the use of light or the darkness of the shadows) in my own work. As to your first point concering "fine art" i have to disagree but only in a sense. There are plenty of nudes that are far more pornographic than "fine art" but it comes down to a couple of things. 1. is the perception of the viewer (ie you and me) 2. the need of companies to legitimize their book so that it can be sold in a store where any tom, dick, or jane (and their kids) can walk by and pick it up. call it fine art, its okey in spokane, call it porno and you're not going to sell anything (so it is a marketing gimmick) 3. fine art is also a name-brand creation. michaelangelo's david is a 20' tall naked man with a quite prominent feature. yet, and i loved this, even the simpsons tv show had an episode where the good ladies of springfield were going to protest the statue as filthy pornoography to which marge responded "but its michaelangelo's david?!" heck, a recreation of michaelangelo's ADAM from the sistine chapel is on Spaceship Earth ride in EPCOT. how many kids are looking up to the cieling and seeing, in its lowest common denominator, a nude male. but its michaelangelo and its great and thus its art. (as a note. after michaelangelo died successive popes had the genitals of the male and female characters (angels, people, ect) covered up with figleaves feeling it was pornographic and this wasn't discovered to the major restoration cleaning in the 1990s where they decided to clean it right down to the original sistine chapel. so again, Art really is ALL IN THE EYE OF THE VIEWER) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jochen_S Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 About B&W: It's somehow abstract from the normal view. It isn't a technical limitation anymore, most things could be done in color too, so whoever chooses this abstract way to express / emphasize something does art by definition. Would it sound better if exhibitions / portfolios were called "lucky accidents which occured among tons of boring family snaps"? - it might be the same as "fine art" in some cases, but luckily we aren't forced to reveal our trashcans too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beeman458 Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 "Who cares what is considered fine art? Just care about what interest YOU..." What she wrote:D I might add and if you're into the creating process, create what reflects what you think should be shown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert x Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Personally, I find that most photographs that have to label themselves as "Fine Art" normally aren't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelkh Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 That reminds me of something a friend once said about academia: any subject with "science" in its name, isn't one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt_needham Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Read this article and you'll give up trying to understand fine art and the art world. This guy sold a photograph of someone else's photograph for $1.24 million. http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001476300 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert x Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Matt - the idea that I could sell a pic for over a million has conversely made me think I want to understand how all the sooner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dickhilker Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 If there's truly a "Fine Art," what term might be applied to other kinds? Coarse? Semi-fine? Not-so-fine? Hmmmm . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_teufel Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 In response to the link about the Richard Prince piece, yes it's hard to understand why someone would pay that much for a piece of art. However, Prince's mentality in his image making has to do with the idea that there are too many photographs in the world already, and instead of making more, why not use from the pile? Kind of interesting in that he is pulling from the pile of existing photographs as subject matter and still making photographs, even though he says there are already too many. I know it doesn't make sense to everyone, but the reuse of existing images from pop culture is very common in contemporary art. An aside, If you are interested in this type of work, his site is http://www.richardprinceart.com Thomas Ruff is also famous for this type of work, among others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_laycock Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 The need to name and categorize is just human nature...it's a given. The term Fine Art seems to be a leftover from an earlier time (late 1700's) to denote art that was concerned more with beauty. In the late 19th century the term was elevated by the Modernists to show it's superiority to the 'applied arts' - ie furniture making etc - because the Arts and Crafts Movement wanted to be more inclusive of crafts in the arts. I think the term has been carried over to the genre of photography you mention as a last vestige of modernism. I find it quite handy and it's easier to say Fine Art than 'BW Nudes and Landscapes a la Ansel Adams' :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugene_scherba Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 "Fine Art" is an obsolete marketing term for an obsolete art form. The current catchphrase is "contemporary"; not sure what will follow that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephen hazelton Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 "Personally, I find that most photographs that have to label themselves as "Fine Art" normally aren't." I have labeled a number of photos as "Fine Art" for the critique here on photo.net. No, I don't think they ARE Fine Art, but that's what I was aiming at, so that's the category. If you go through the rated pictures here, you will find some nudes that don't do especially well on the ratings, surprisingly, along with some B&W landscapes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jd_rose Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Interesting question. Fine Art always meant fine material to me. I always figured Ansel Adams was fine art because he was so good at making a print with quality materials. I was never that impressed with his compositions. --- JDR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_kosoff Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 Regardless of it's original meaning the term 'Fine Art" has become shorthand for work that exists for it's own sake, that is art that has no actual function except it's own existence or the self expression of the artist. Of course work of this type does has a function, most commonly as decoration. To answer the original question regarding Nudes, Landscapes and B&W photography, it is common to consider those genres fine art because they usually have no other function except their own existence ( or decoration). As for the boredom that Lukia finds with nudes and landscapes, I think it's because most everything has been shot already and it is extremely difficult to bring something new to such over exposed genres. Most who do those genres merely imitate, intentionally or not, the work that they have seen before them. Then there are those who are so determined to be different that they will sometimes go in the direction of shock value and also disregard the classic, and ultimately ingrained in all of us, notions of beauty. Personally I find the sea of predictable imagery makes the few islands of exceptional work that more obvious and appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colmmccarthy Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 I agree pretty much with what B Kosoff said above. For me personally, the nude offers limitless possibilites. I can shoot the same model 100 times and still find something that surprises me at the printing stage. But as the original poster pointed out, yes, there are many many many boring "standard" images (and many which I just find confusing: nude in forest, nude on rock, nude male shot from behind stretched out against rock, nude male shot from side leaning against Grecian ruins - what does it all mean??) - and not just with nudes, but just about every genre. You just have to look really. There are some good folks working with the nude right now, not always doing something new but at least visually very interesting. I've been particularly impressed with some of the female photographers here on PN. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colmmccarthy Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 And before you ask, two female photographers that immediately come to mind are Sabine L* and Sylvie Lueders. And does the nude exist for no other purpose than decoration? The work of these two would seem to indicate that it functions as more than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jake_tauber Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 "Why is a nude, like much Black and White photography, automatically considered 'Fine Art'?" First you start off with an incorrect premise. Who considers it "automatically" fine art? Then perhaps you have not looked at enough work other than some of the "over exposed" imagages of Adams, Weston and the like. Check out the work of Francesca Woodman: http://www.slack.net/~kiki/woodman.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colmmccarthy Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 Ah, Francesca Woodman. She was awesome. What a sad waste. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_l3 Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 subject matter doesn't mean s**t, it's what they DO with it that counts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h._p. Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 You need to use the correct declension: I create fine art, you take photographs, he, she or it is a snapper.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_kosoff Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 Jake, thanks for linking to her work, some really interesting stuff, a shame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jake_tauber Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 Colm, I checked out your work. Nice stuff!! Some has the feel of Joel Peter Witkin. I can see why you admire Woodman. j Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2yellowdogs Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 Sure it's possible to be bored with nudes. Most posted here or seen elsewhere are just repetitions of things you've seen hundreds of times before. Sometimes, though, you see something different or just perfectly executed and it makes it all worthwhile. Here's an interesting one I just ran across here: http://www.photo.net/photo/4064792&unified_p=1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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