What Makes Photography "Art"?

I'm looking for a list of qualities that make photos art. The art director

(journalism BA) at the hospital where I work has been given ultimate power of

the pocket book to select & frame the artwork for our new research & education

center (my building). She has chosen 20 or so 20x30 macro photos of cut grass

to line our state-of-the-art auditorium walls. The photos are a poor excuse

for a masterﾒs project by a local SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design)

student. How can I tell her this is not ﾓartﾔ & it generally sux? I will

need a strong argument. Give me a list of "must have" to make the grade.

Thanks.

You should ask yourself instead "What makes any work in any art form "art'?' Telling some

one their opinion in art (or clothes or movies or lovers or politics) sucks generally doesn't

endear you to that person as you are telling them that you don't think very highly of their

taste or opinion. You might find out that they may think the same of you.

Karen,

 

It is art, so don't bother.

 

Art is whatever critics, connoisseurs, collectors, curators, historians, galleries, or "art directors" say it is. It is important only to commerce-seeking and status-seeking behaviors.

 

Artists think in the terms of their craft, not art.

 

Well, at least I do.

 

--

 

Don E

Yeah, but this is really bad. I have 2 other pro artist in my department & they both have the same opinion. I can safely say this gallery of 20 large very expensive photos will not be apreciated by most MD, PhD, BSN, MSN employees that attend the lectures in this space. Don't you consider your audience before spending a few hundred thousand bucks?

It sounds like they were chosen as a "safe" decorative option, a more contemporary

equivalent of random old engravings of plants or maps. The student may be known to her or

she may have just been desperate to find a coherent set of pics that look vaguely abstract.

 

I think your only hope is to suggest they change the exhibition every year "to keep it fresh"

and offer to help select next year's photos - you may find it more difficult than you think (and

be assured someone will say your choice is rubbish).

 

Best of luck, Jonathan

I have asked "What makes any work in any art form "art'? as I got my MFA in the 80s when expansion of the field was key. I still believe there must be substance to a piece that engages the viewer. By extraordinary subject, capture, technique, or point of view, etc, a photo should be excellent to be art. Not some crap I could throw together in an hour & call a ﾓseriesﾔ.

Karen, I'm not sure you are looking for art works. As far as I can read, you are looking for argument for what is agreeable to look at. However nothing is more subjective. Your art director seems to have the power due to her position to decide on what she believes is pleasant and impose it on the rest of you.

 

Art is, according to most, something different. It might often chock you are put you in a situation of discomfort. Real art makes you see the world differently; make you see something you have not seen before.

 

The market of art, functions somewhat differently. It is filled up with works that art dealers can manage to convince art buyers are art so that they are willing to pay for it.

 

Museums are filled up with a mixture of all three types of work and in most cases especially the first category.

 

This at least how I see it !

<i> I can safely say this gallery of 20 large very expensive photos will not be apreciated by most MD, PhD, BSN, MSN employees </i><p>

The your problems are solved. Those people are senior to support individuals. If they feel strongly enough, they will let your supervisor and their supervisors know.<p>

In the meantime, don't get into "art" arguments. It's a perennial time-sucking, go-nowhere argument. Who made you the Art Police? See how that works?<p>

Given that you have to ask for a list of qualities that makes "art" shows you aren't qualified, either. There is no list, and never was except in the official dogma of the former USSR, Muslim cultures, Facist Spain, and similar narrowminded, dead-end cultures.<p>

Get it?

It is a good question for the Philosophy forum. Of course, it applies to all forms of art and not just photography. It is not enough that an object is beautiful or harmonious or even just interesting because there are many things in nature that exhibit those qualities but are not 'art'. We may see beauty in a natural object but this is a human ability to appreciate pattern and harmony even in random objects...is is part of our psychology.

 

However, art is not random. It is the result of the creative actions of the artist. The artist has a concept...an image in mind and then tries (through his skill with the tools of his craft) to bring his vision into concrete form so that others may experience it.

 

How well the execution works in bringing out the artist's vision is dependent on the craftsmanship of the artist. One may have a wonderful idea but lack the ability to put it on paper or one may have excellent technical skills but no creative vision.

"Don't you consider your audience before spending a few hundred thousand bucks?" --Karen

 

Maybe. Or maybe you consider your resume and your career.

 

 

--

 

Don E

At the print shop every customers fine art is fine art, in their mind.

Don E's answer is probably the truth in one form or another.

 

"Maybe. Or maybe you consider your resume and your career."

 

The "art" chosen could very well be by the kid of someone who has or will donate millions to

the hospital.

 

There's always two reason they do things like this , the reason they tell you and then the real

reason.

Interesting that you have an MFA and are writing this--now I don't feel so bad that by BFA

son, whose college was a fortune, doesn't always get what art is either.

 

The biggest problem with "art" is that people think it should be defined within their own

taste. What makes art is not just beauty, but thought, committment and vision, otherwise,

just like this weeks POW, it becomes just decorative. Maybe you want decorative, most

corporations actually do. But I was just in a hospital that had its walls lined with the most

insipid landscape photographs I have had to look at in awhile.

 

Your grass stuff may not be of quality, I don't know, it is hard to say without seeing it. I

once had an art consultant bring in a graphic to hang in our corporate offices--a

healthcare organizaion--on looking at it, I started to laugh and ask if he was serious. He

looked at me and said "what do you mean" The title was EV 100 and, although he didn't,

most saw the Excited Vagina! Of course, one of the guys immediately snapped it up for

his office.

 

Anyway, my point is that you will always lose in picking art, I am no longer in the

corporate world as an indirect result of doing the art placement for 75000 square feet of

office space--long story. Try to get it pushed off onto someone else or at least the

decision--maybe your art director--and distance yourself if you value your career!!!!!

<i><blockquote> The biggest problem with "art" is that people think it should be defined within their own taste.

</blockquote> </i><p>

 

Speak for yourself. <p>

 

I have an expansive definition of art. There's acres of room for all kinds of crap to fall within the definition. It's just crap art, that's all.

I don't think you're going to define art in a corporate/committee context.

 

It's generally a good thing that corporations go out of their way to buy art and support

local and regional artists.

 

But companies have different sets of motivations. From the info you've given us, this

installation could be as base as the SCAD student being related to the art director, or

maybe the art director is a close friend of the student's faculty advisor. It might be that

this kid really is the next Avedon.

 

We don't know.

 

I would plant a bug in the art director's ear that this is a brilliant idea, a viewing that could

be rotated with other works from time to time. Then maybe offer that you and other

colleagues have something to say, too--photography, painting, whatever.

 

Have your portfoilios ready.

Karen, if you were given that amount of money what would you have chosen? I'm sure no matter what you chose that some people there would think you suck, and would probably write into a forum letting everyone know this. I think being able to make decisions are often more important than pleasing the most people. I can't really picture the images of the cut grass but it does sound intriguing.

 

BTW if you have an MFA what are you doing working in a hospital? Just wondering.

<i>I think your only hope is to suggest they change the exhibition every year "to keep it fresh" and offer to help select next year's photos - you may find it more difficult than you think (and be assured someone will say your choice is rubbish).</i><br><br>

 

I agree with this approach. Also agree that agreeing on art in a committee is very, very painful. Its even (marginally) worse than choosing a company name and logo where people get a vote. I mean, just terrible. God help you if you have to work with the people after a month or so of that crap, its bloody revealing! Utterly impossible not to eventually have a good knock down drag out over religon and politics during it, at least I found.

Karen,

 

There's an issue here to be wary of. Don't let it get personal (this assumes it is not already). I wouldn't refer to the Journalism BA, for example.

 

 

Good Luck,

 

Don E

What's art?

I might see the point here. I have noticed a genre of things shot in a studio. In other words if it is not shot in a studio under studio lighting then it is (to that genre) a snapshot. And this is like photographers being trained for fashion or advertising. So a competent studio result is the point but then if it is photography of another craft then there are two arguments for it. In other words it meets an administrators checklist. It's a genre recommended by curriculum and if the photography itself is not recognized as art then it might be recognized as a photography of an artistic craft. And this is the type of administrative logic that MBA students learn and practice. And so take this issue to an arbitration board and you will lose...

 

But we can't do an art criticism without seeing the art. And so what you need is an articulate art critic...

Please forgive my earlier harsh criticism. You are right, others may love it and I should give it a chance.

Karen, I agree with Pico and Andy above. Don't use words like art to confuse photography further. It's only a word, and words mean different things to different people.

 

A friend has commissioned me to do some 'art' for the care centre hospital she works in. I asked her what she wanted, she said 'anything'... From my point of view that includes drawing, painting, wooden wall fixtures, photographs, etc. In other words, anything that can hang on a wall. I plan to give them a very large print of flowers in my garden.

 

They don't know what they want, just give them something good and charge them for it. THEN they will call it art and the prices start going up. I saw a 1 foot sqaure piece of wood hung on a wall in a gallery once. They wanted $3,000 for it. The cost of the wood was $1

 

I felt sick.

 

Cheers.

Karen, just because someone can make something very well that does not ensure that it will be art. It depends who made it and who buys it, and how much they paid for it, unfortunately. You may very well be able to make better photographs than the ones being selected, indeed so may all of us. So what? The people with the money at your hospital have selected 'an artist' from whom they will purchase photos of cut grass, that is ultimately a decision that does not involve us. The hospital is buying photos of cut grass, a lame subject that will act as wall paper to the invalid. That's what they need, because that's what they want! Personally I'd love to see gorgeous nudes on hospital walls, but then that's just me...

 

Cheers.

Landscape..ish, nudeish...portraity..birdy,...monotoney but couloury (that's australian for colory), abstracty in a very structured manner, and last but not least, go together and form a pattern in a subtle kinda way, accepting we are talking about more than one.

I reckon go for the cut grass and ask for a discount for bulk purchase. Paying the money to an educational institute would probably attract tax write offs. You could reduce or increase the book value each year to suit benefits indefinitly. Great accounting.

..I hope you're smiling.

I would add to the above that if you list nudes as art you should specify female nudes. The reson for that is simply that most viewers on this site are simply not used to seeing a dick. The females on this site don't rate the dick. Also, the female form is lauded worldwide as being more beautiful than the male form. That kinda sucks if you are female, assuming you prefer the male species.

 

Am I wrong, or am I even allowed to have this point of view? Well I guess that depends on your pholosophy of photography and what constitues art, on topic.

 

Cheers.