Am I the only one to see a naked emperor?

[bruce watson]

The thing about art is, it's up to the artist. We, as viewers, can like it or not. That's beyond the control of the artist. You didn't like it. Which is fine.

 

I'm not sure of the motivation of this thread though. Disagreeing with an artist's call on print size isn't really worth a thread here. And complaining about the comments and descriptions? I just don't see what it is about this that raises such righteous indignation.

 

So what, really, are you so mad about? You don't like the artist's work? Don't buy it. Think you can do better? Go out and make better photographs. Mad that you didn't get the show but he did? Work on getting your portfolio out in front of more people, and ask for shows.

 

Me? I'm happy for the guy. I like to see my fellow artists getting their work out in front of people, whether I like the work or not. I like seeing photography sell. The more successful photographers we have out there, the better my odds of also being successful.

[shawn_kielty1]

Personally -- I enjoyed these images -- I think it is a good show -- solidly done and well presented. After reading all these comments -- I am thinking about the gallery and how the gallery is really there to inform -- i.e. to mediate the experience of the viewer. The fact that they capitolize on this shouldn't be cause for disdain. The idea that the viewer is "uninformed" is perhaps a bit unforgiving. After all -- we all know what we like -- and the real truth is -- that has absolutely nothing to do with it's value or quality as an artwork, and everything to do with why it is a success in a gallery. There is a clear distinction between great artwork and the success of "art" in the market.

 

As for the size -- 4x5 feet is really pretty small relative to many of the great artworks that have persisted for hundreds of years. For a painter or sculptor -- that is average. I'd like to see them big enough so that you'd have to build a building around them.

[dhbebb]

Cannot comment on the finish of the exhibited prints or how they looked at 4x5 feet, but I personally liked the work, it has a definite personal viewpoint, the handling of the medium in terms of tonality and composition seems assured, and the guy appears to be in touch with what galleries and clients want!

Your don't actually say what you dislike about the pictures (only the comments and descriptions). Can only repeat what someone else has already said - if you don't like this work, ignore it - better, go shoot your own images the way you like them!

[george_sheils]

I have just clicked into Chip Hooper's website and I think that both his landscapes and seascapes are very stylish and well seen. I haven't seen the prints close-up so I don't know if they translate easily to 4x5 feet, but at more normal sizes I wouldn't say no to owning one of these!

 

I do agree with Richard that many photographers could do without the 'psychobabble' crap that many artists and Gallery owners seem to dream up when describing the work on show. In fairness to Chip Hooper his website images are just simply titled and the images do all the talking.

 

That's my ?0.2c.

George.

[richard_ilomaki]

Well!

 

Thanks for all the responses.

 

I am not angry, envious or judgemental about the photos- I just made an observation without serious qualification. I was put off by the drivel in the descriptions, I guess.

 

The comments have been very informative and I now see the images in a different light. I myself wouldn't call them great, but they are still valid statements. Art is valid even if it evokes a negative response, but in my first observation, there was little if any response.

 

Double good fortune to Chip.

Cheers

[david_m._young]

Hmm.... I know Chip's work, and there's a lot I like about it. Seems if you don't like the look and feel of the more "zen-like" images, you probably don't care a lot for Michael Kenna's work either. (I greatly prefer Kenna personally, but I can see a lot in Chip's work that I like as well).

 

Quality of the prints? I have to know that they're top notch as those I've seen in the past (I also know Chip's darkroom manager, and he's one of the best printers I've ever seen.... and have had some of my exhibition silver work done by him as well).

 

4x5 FEET?!?! Never seen em that big, but I'm sure Chip has his reasons.... not to my taste though and I'd have to believe that it's not REAL collectable at that size.

 

Comments fatouous and precious... well.... I've seen a lot of photographers that so the same, especially in their artist's statements. I've been guilty of that as well and have actually been looking at my current one with that in mind (although I feel there's a lot of truth in there too). You wanna see BIG examples of that, look at the modern art world outside of Photography and read reviews of shows. WOW.

 

And someone said something about: "Marketing more important than talent and pratice? We see it in music, movie and now our beloved art??? "

Now, I'm not going to say anything about Chip in this regard, as I don't necessarily believe this is the case (well.... maybe the 4x5 foot pieces).... but can anyone say "Thomas Kincade - Painter of Light"

[d._kevin_gibson]

"4x5 FEET?!?! Never seen em that big, but I'm sure Chip has his reasons.... not to my taste though and I'd have to believe that it's not REAL collectable at that size."

 

Of course, small by the standards of a lot of paintings. Photography seems to have adopted a bias for miniature works even when the technical barriers for making larger work have long gone. It was, and is, a self limitation that is often detrimental imo. Everyone likes the old saw - "if you can't make it good make it big" - which may sometimes have an element of truth, but is far too much of a generalization to actually be meaningful. Indeed, the opposite is often true, there are many many not so good photographs out there that look okay when you keep them nice and small, but make them 2, 3 or 4 feet wide and everything that is wrong about them becomes obvious. Indeed, it is in some ways often much harder to make a good big photographs and for it to succeed.

 

On the purely practical side - it's a lot easier fo a gallery to sell one 50"x60" print to a corporate collection - bank, automobile company, investment house or whatever for $5,000/$10,000 or $20,000 etc. Than to sell five or ten 20x24 prints to individual private collectors

[b_kosoff]

"Photography seems to have adopted a bias for miniature works even when

the technical barriers for making larger work have long gone."

 

D. Kevin that's not the case. Painting on a larger canvas just requires a

larger canvas, more paint and a bigger easel. Making really huge prints on

the other hand requires the use of a large format camera, as smaller formats

have a serious degradation of image quality, (something that doesn't happen

when you paint a bigger painting) , the use of a large format wall projection

enlarger with a vacuum easel on the wall, these enlargers are usually

mounted on tracks and cost upwards of $20k for a decent one. You also need

giant trays, giant sinks, giant washers, etc. Also try handling a wet piece of

paper five feet across and moving it from tray to tray without kinking it, just one

kink or crack in the emulsion and the print goes into the trash. Then try storing

them if they survive the development ,washing and drying process. Paintings

can be left standing if they're still stretched, or unstretched and rolled, super

large prints have to lay flat , please find me a flat file with 4x5' drawers. The

difficulty , failure rate and costs in producing very large prints increase greatly

as compared to more standard sizes. I won't address digital prints because it

has been my experience with many galleries that most serious collectors

prefer traditional prints over digital.

[d._kevin_gibson]

"that's not the case. Painting on a larger canvas just requires a larger canvas, more paint and a bigger easel. Making really huge prints on the other hand requires the use of a large format camera,"

 

well - this is a Large Format list...

 

"as smaller formats have a serious degradation of image quality, (something that doesn't happen when you paint a bigger painting) , the use of a large format wall projection enlarger with a vacuum easel on the wall, these enlargers are usually mounted on tracks and cost upwards of $20k for a decent one. You also need giant trays, giant sinks, giant washers, etc. Also try handling a wet piece of paper five feet across and moving it from tray to tray without kinking it, just one kink or crack in the emulsion and the print goes into the trash. Then try storing them if they survive the development ,washing and drying process."

 

That's what I meant about excuses for not doing it

 

"Paintings can be left standing if they're still stretched, or unstretched and rolled, super large prints have to lay flat , please find me a flat file with 4x5' drawers."

 

Simple - build them

 

 

"The difficulty , failure rate and costs in producing very large prints increase greatly as compared to more standard sizes."

 

Clyde Butcher, for one, seems to do very well and have resolved all the above problems. Sugimoto is another - there are many more

 

"I won't address digital prints because it has been my experience with many galleries that most serious collectors prefer traditional prints over digital"

 

Again, excuses and bad information - all the major galleries are quite happy with collecting work which, for example started as a LF negative or transparency, was scanned and then printed digitally in some form (Lightjet, Chromira, Epson wide format) - often work that costs tens of thousands of dollars - Burtynksy, Gursky, Struth, Shore, Graham, Wall and plenty of others. Museums and serious collectors are mostly quite happy collecting such work. At least one major museum is actively collecting work produced via inkjet.

 

To say the above is simply incorrect. All your points do is re-confirm what I said - that there is in some areas apparently an inherent bias against large scale photographic prints, which is often justified by technical arguments that just don't apply any more.

 

Someone mentioned Kinkaid - which brings to mind the more popularist scenic photography of the Burkett and Fatali and Mangeleson type. I have seen quite a bit of this kind of work produced big on the "big is better and more expensive" approach. On the whole it just doesn't work - those saturated desert canyon photos or alpine meadows/sunny snow kissed peak shots often really don't seem to work well when made large - it really highlights their deficiencies as works as a whole and their lack of substantial content and they often come out looking more like that scenic wallpaper you used to be able to buy to put up in the den.

 

Compared with something like a very large Sugimoto print and the difference is obvious - one is clearly meant to be very large and the result is sublime. The other shows that if you want to make it big, it better be good.

[Troll]

Well I never thought that I'd be defending Fatali, but IMHO those big prints of his and Burketts do work exceedingly well (for what they are).

[b_kosoff]

Kevin you stated that, "Photography seems to have adopted a bias for

miniature works even when the technical barriers for making larger work have

long gone."

 

Part of my reply was," Making really huge prints on the other hand requires

the use of a large format camera," to which you replied," well - this is a Large

Format list... " The fact is Kevin that the vast majority of photographs done in

the last 50 years were done with small to medium format, not large format,

and that in itself prevents most photographers from making super large prints.

 

Kevin, you make it sound so easy to make the facilities to produce super

large prints with such easy to say statements like" simple- build them". You

talk about the need for a $20k horizontal enlarger, and giant equipment as

"just excuses". You forget that you also need a darkroom large enough to

house such equipment. I have 23' of sink in my darkroom, a Durst 184 10x10

enlarger and a Beseler 45MXT enlarger and with all that I do not have

enough room or facilities to print 4x5' prints. Let me ask you, do you

personally make 4x5' silver prints? Ever make a 24x36" print? If not, why

don't you? It is so easy after all.

 

I was curious if you were the David Gibson that shared gallery representation

with me at Edward Carter Gallery in NYC, apparently you are not, but it made

me look into some of your prior postings to see a clue if you were. One

statement of yours that I came up with that might shed a little light as to your

POV of the ease with which large prints are made is this post of yours,:

 

"D. Kevin Gibson , aug 26, 2003; 06:38 p.m.

I don't tell people if my prints are Lightjets printed for me by a technician from

a digital file or enlarger prints printed for me be a technician in the lab. They

are just dye coupler/chromogenic prints - they don't need to know anything

else. The printing is just a technical process I pay someone else to do to

relieve the tedium of it. "

 

I guess if you don't do your own printing and instead send your prints out to a

lab it's really easy then to get super large prints, someone else is doing all the

work. I guess the "tedium" of darkroom work is something that you're not

interested in. However I find it really unsettling that you choose to not inform

people that may choose to buy your work that you did not in fact print it. Not

to say that you are alone in that practice as many photographers today do not

print their own work and do not admit to that fact. However I do find that

deceptive as I have been asked many times by collectors if I have made the

prints myself, so apparently it is of interest to many of them. But that's just my

view. How many people out there would prefer to own a print personally

printed by Ansel Adams or a print printed by a technician?

 

As for Clyde Butcher, he is one of the few photographers equipped to make

super large prints. Most of the photographers showing super large prints did

not print them. They sent them out to the few exhibition printers who have the

facilities to do so. I can not state whether Sugimoto's large prints were done

in his own darkroom or done by or with an exhibition printer, but I'm willing to

bet it was the latter. Please tell me a few of the "many more" that you know for

a fact printed the super large B&W prints themselves.

 

 

I stated,""I won't address digital prints because it has been my experience with

many galleries that most serious collectors prefer traditional prints over

digital"

 

Kevin replied," Again, excuses and bad information" Kevin sorry if I don't

know what I'm talking about, but in my experience of making my living selling

prints through galleries and doing business with and speaking with dealers

and collectors on a daily basis, I must have been misinformed.

 

BTW the photographers who you mention that sell digital prints,' Burtynksy,

Gursky, Struth, Shore, Graham, they shoot predominantly color work.

Galleries do not have a problem with digital color prints because first off

traditional color prints were not terribly archival to begin with and because

very few gallery level photographers who shoot color print them themselves.

The most notable exceptions being Christopher Burkett and Michael Fatali.

For a while now the direction that exhibition color prints have gone have been

to fuji crystal paper. However the discussion was about B&W prints, not color.

I am curious though as to where you get you information about the gallery/

collector world is like as apparently all the galleries and collectors that I deal

with seem to be so misinformed.

 

[d._kevin_gibson]

"you make it sound so easy to make the facilities

to produce super

large prints with such easy to say statements like" simple-

build them". You

talk about the need for a $20k horizontal enlarger, and

giant equipment as

"just excuses". You forget that you also need a darkroom

large enough to

house such equipment."

 

Like Clyde Butcher - you make your own luck - he got a bargain on his first enlarger. Same here. I got a very nice horizontal enalrger from DeVere whose facility was just down the road in Barnstaple when they had a fire sale of the big enlargers they used to sell to the CIA when digital was coming in big time 15 or so years ago. It certainly didn't cost close to $20K. As for space - three colleagues got together for the lab and darkroom space - one of us was a boatbuilder and we made big big trays out of ply and fiberglass resin from his boat building shop (the third was an ex DeVere tech) - where there is a will there is always a way.

 

Yes, I work probably in colour now for 80% of my work now, but for big B&W work, which I still do at times I don't use the lab anymore (dissolved the partnership and gear a few years ago) I work from scanned B&W 4x5 and 5x7 negatives pritned onto fibre based paper digitally - does a great job and I get far more control over the print than was possible inthe darkroom. Prints can go up to 50" on the short side

 

"Please tell me a few of the "many more" that

you know for

a fact printed the super large B&W prints themselves."

 

Adams does for one, same for Burtynskys B&W work, Sally Mann (I think Salgado has a printer now)

[b_kosoff]

Kevin if it's so darn easy to print big why do you bother sending them out to a

lab?

 

The whole point I was making was that it is not a small thing to print very

large. You make it seem like it is nothing yet don't even do any "tedious"

darkroom work yourself.

 

I'm curious about your work, you have no samples online, and when your

name is googled the only references about you refer to Photonet. Where can

I see your work?

[benjamin_lineberry]

Gotta say, I think the show is pretty good.

 

Obviously, the point was to convey a sense of peace and serenity, and the show does. The fact that it can convey this feeling with very large prints, is even more impressive. (larger usually loses subtlety

 

Working bigger is harder, as we all know here on the LF forum....

 

b.