Photography as an art form

[aplumpton]

The act of painting or sculpturing do not make these media art. The product

does, or doesn't.

 

The act of photographing does not make it art. The act of writing does not

make the written work art.

 

Art is art. Even if the criteria are elastic and / or it takes generations or art

movements or communication or sensitive eyes and minds to recognise that a

particulear creation is art

 

Why on earth are we worrying about the medium of photography and art?

 

It's what you do with the instrument (a machine made brush and machine

made pigments or a machine made optical registering device like a camera)

that makes it art or not.

 

The Salons of the last 40 years of my local and internationally known camera

club, Internet galleries like Photo.Net, and others, even many public galleries,

contain much that is pretty or well-crafted. Very few of the photographic

images can qualify as fine art. But does that mean the method of creation is

inappropriate?

 

Work on your own. Work to a theme. Concentrate on a meaningful

(meaningful underlined) creation, for hours if necessary. Photograph when

you are hungry and tempted to sip coffee and eat a muffin at Tim Hortons or

Krazy Kreme. Forget about pleasing the judges or other photographers.

Commit yourself to creating photographs that communicate something

profound, or at the very least something compositionally aesthetic. "Paint"

with light and form. You are perhaps on the way to creating art. You will be

emphasizing the art of photography.

[garry_b]

What do you mean when you say "art form"? Does that mean the same thing as medium? At what point does any medium turn into art?

 

As a culture we consider the Mona Lisa or Moon Rise Over Hernadez as noteworthy works of art. What qualities do these images possess that persuade us to read them as more art-worthy than, let's say, Tim's daughter's paintings?

 

Are the values we hold dear about good art vs not so good art the same today as they were 100 years ago? And, are these values the same across many different cultures or are we being a little ethnocentric in our judgments?

[garry_b]

Arthur, you have made some excellent points. Thank you.

[michael_r_riley]

<i>"What qualities do these images possess that persuade us to read them as more art-worthy than, let's say, Tim's daughter's paintings?" </i><p>

<p>

THAT is the real question Garry (not to knock Tim's daughter... LOL). Unfortunatley, there are as many opinions on that as there have been humans alive during the history of the planet (I discount other possible intelligent beings because they probably would have no way of sharing the human frame of reference).

[lady_photographer]

I like Carl's answer. And in this endless question of "what is art?", it makes the most sense of any definition of art I've ever heard. Well done Carl. I can finally put this question to rest in my mind.

 

There are some here who categorize their 8th grader's rendition of the park as art. To them it is. Fine. Who's to say it's not? Not me.

 

To me daVinci's sketches of what might be, though they never were, are art. Because (Carl) he used his mind, hands and soul together.

 

To many the Mona Lisa sucks. Maybe it does. But a painter may see the nuances which make it stand out from the other portraits done at the time. This to me, makes it art. Though it still may suck to my next door neighbor. After all, prettier portraits have been painted... Who's really to say?

 

But I do thank Carl. Very much so.

[jtk]

 

Relates in some way.

[root]

John, I like your Ginsberg clip.

 

I see something, it appeals to me, I shoot it. That's it. Sometimes I try to analyze why I liked it and end up going in circles. Trust your first impression.

 

I shot this on Sunday. I like it. I don't expect anyone else to, and I'm not sure I can explain why I like it.<div></div>

[twmeyer]

That's the PO my W... t

[aplumpton]

Carl, in regard to your earliest post, which is very good, I hope you recognise

that it is not a black and white truth. Some crafstmen show a lot of heart in

their crafts (I guess popular art is often consider a craft, but some of the naive

work of country popular artists in my part of the continent is very

communicative and very much full of "heart"). Much art, which you have

correctly defined as using both mind and heart, shows little of either. Of

course, great art does.

 

What is often missing in our fine art photography is the presence of passion

(a.k.a., "heart") as well as any evidence that the artist has taken the trouble to

educate himself or herself by reading the various (non-photography) texts that

analyse the power of the better art that man has produced. Both are never-

ending quests of any artist, but their evidence is more often than not absent in

so many "pretty" or "technically impressive" images.

[root]

I agree.

 

The notion of utilitarian design as art gets tricky, but I tend to value it more than what many people assume to be art that appears to me to be no more than sentimental decoration. How much of yourself are you putting into it, as opposed to feeding other people's expectations?

 

And thank you, Tom. (At least I think you were responding favorably to my "chairs" shot.)

[Doug Keller]

<I>Carl says: "?A man who uses his hands is a laborer. One who uses his hands and mind is a craftsman. He who uses his hands, and his mind, and his heart is an artist.?"</I>

<BR>Therefore, pro wrestlers are the greatest artists?

[maris_rusis]

Photography isn't art. It is just a medium in which it is possible, but not necessary, to do art. Rather than agonise at length about the definition of visual art I find myself falling back to the simple (simple-minded?) adage: If it's thought made visible it's art.

[Doug Keller]

So someone flippin' you the bird is art then? And a wrestler flippin' you off is even higher art.

 

Actually, the thread was about "categories" and their usefullness. I think they are dangerous, as we can readily see from the many responses here ... they make narrow what should remain broad... as broad as possible. They are probably a necessary consequence of the structure of language (for anyone qualified to tackle such a huge subject [not me]) ... and bring up the question of alternative non-verbal means of communicating. But, then you've got me typing words to say that; and that isn't fair.

[root]

It is a language issue. . . . in this case, the definition of "heart"?

[tommyyearginjr]

If it is true that "life imitates art", then technically all photography is art.

[ronmatt]

isn't everything 'art' if we choose to call it that ??

[sobeystudio]

WOW! Too bad I wasn't around for this discussion earlier. You?re all full of it! Listen, when

was the last time you made a photograph that you considered art? Why did you think it

was art/not art? Photography CAN and IS an art form- its called a medium, just like

painting or sculpture or dancing. Just as modern dance can be art (not my personal

favorite) so can photography. It is about the person's ability to reference the past, capture

elements of popular contemporary culture (called POP art), use technically just methods

and finding a rhetorical methodology to capture a viewer's attention and to make them

(the viewer) think about what they are looking at (for good or bad). Art is about

representation and not just aesthetics- keep in mind contemporary art takes into account

what society as a whole values as aesthetic beauty. Art can be ugly and displeasing, and

not at all something that we may want on our walls, let alone something that gets publicity

or in museum collections (Picasso's scathing commentary on Franco in "Guernica"). The

other thing is this, art works on a timeline. The art ?now? is based upon art from the past.

Most of the people in the gallery and museum world understand this, and have specialties

according to select parts of art. Knowing all of the background art, history, culture, etc.,

only leads a contemporary artist to make what is considered art today. If someone today

were to take pictures of clouds or make solarized beauty prints, they had better be pretty

unique and build off of the past to call it art, because Stieglitz and Manray already did

those things long ago. Back to the original question by SC- should photography be put in

to 2 categories? Really? That's like saying there's only black and white, when in fact there's

loads of grey (and color!) If you need to categorize something as large and socially

relevant as photography, go ahead, make it easier for yourself. Obviously there is no right

answer, and unfortunately, not really any wrong answers either. Somebody up there

wanted relevant samples of contemporary art photography from the past 30 years- that's

a lot considering the technological advances in the world. Look into the world of Fluxus,

also Matthew Barney comes to mind (his body of work is huge and extremely dynamic &

and really, really metaphorically driven), David Hockney, David Levinthal, Richard Avedon's

"The West" series, Andrew Boardman, Chuck Close etc. I put my name in there too:

www.foabstractos.blogspot.com - Have at it.

[felicisimo_silabay]

In order to consider whether photography is an art or not, first we have to define what really art is.

 

Wikipedia has this to say about it, "Art is a (product of) human activity, made with the intention of stimulating the human senses as well as the human mind; thus art is an action, an object, or a collection of actions and objects created with the intention of transmitting emotions and/or ideas. Beyond this description, there is no general agreed-upon definition of art, since defining the boundaries of "art" is subjective, but the impetus for art is often called human creativity."

 

And additionally, Encyclopedia Britannica define the arts as "modes of expression that use skill or imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others."

 

Based on these definitions, there's no doubt in my mind that photography is definitely an art. Nothing more, nothing less.

[keith_lubow]

I would not say that "photography" is an art, per se.

 

I would say that "photography" is the practice of certain techniques of imaging, the uses of which are manyfold...art being one of the uses.

 

I also believe that you may have an artistic photo without it actually being art.

 

Keith

[tommy_houghton]

Lest we forget, photography was brought to the fore by a fraternity of pioneers for aesthetic purposes alone. However, as the meduim evolved, it's potential for other uses created other categories. To answer the original question "is it important to put everything into categories..." My answer is no! but don't forget the original thinking behind the invention and just accept the ambivalence.