what makes a postmodern photographer?

[aplumpton]

Ellis. A few straws, perhaps.

 

It is sort of a gut feeling I experience with the postmodern movement,

something that suppresses any analytical thought that I normally would prefer

to apply. The art movement situation could certainly be helped by clearer

enunciations of the critical acclaim received by the present standard bearers

of artistic creativity. There is too much in the "academic box" that does not

interface with the serious art audience, and many of these who have

sensibilities do not understand much of the theories or criticism and seem to

be ashamed not to agree with what their peers are saying, for want of being

intimidated by a consensus on their seeming ignorance.

 

I ran three quite highly reputed local artists of international reputation for a few

months in my seasonal contemporary art gallery two years ago, including an

artrist who was the successful former head of one of our province's foremost

art museums (she organised and hosted travelling exhibitions of the Pushkin

and Hermitage museums, Picasso collections, ashow from the Rodin

museum of Paris, etc.) and whose work had local acclaim. Each was involved

in the postmodern movement. I sold but one of these 30 works works to the

public, who were evidently not quite up to all the postmodern descriptions of

the press and others.

 

Like it or not, there is a cleavage between a public which buys art that moves

them greatly (and I am referring to serious and not popular or routine art

collectors) and that which is held in high acclaim by taste-setters, who may

never have lifted brush to canvass or swetted over demanding darkroom

creations.

 

While lamenting an absence of clear communication of the new movements, I

totally agree with you about the copiers of Adams, Cartier-Bresson, Haas and

other creators within our photographic firmament. Uniqueness of creativity is

not an easily acquired property.

[ellis_vener_photography]

"I sold but one of these 30 works works to the public..."

Since you sold more paintings from that ome exhibit than Vincent Van Gogh did during his life time, you obviously have a sharp eyed audience.

[aplumpton]

...or lucky to be in the gallery rather than in the darkroom or out on a country

drive that particular day.

 

Is it better, perhaps, for art, that fame come late (or posthumously) to the artist.

Fame didn't spoil the creativity of poor Vincent, but perhaps the utter lack of it

shortened his life. Very sad, especially when measured by our success is

everything society.

[ellis_vener_photography]

new bok on Modernism and Modernist thinking:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/books/review/Siegel-t.html

 

"a massive history of the movement in all its artistic forms ? painting, sculpture, fiction,

poetry, music, architecture, design, film (though, bafflingly, not photography, one of the

chief catalysts of the modernist revolution). "

[ellis_vener_photography]

kneed 2 lern hw tu typ ebtt er.

[AJHingel]

Ellis thanks for the link to the article in the New York Times reviewing "MODERNISM

The Lure of Heresy From Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond" of Peter Gay.

 

After having read the article I don't think it will answer the questions of Maria. The review

is not really an invitation to read the book as it mainly concentrates on the numerous

erroneous analyses of authors like: Joyce, Proust, Mann, Lawrence, Woolf, Gide or Brecht.

Futhermore the book seems to have misinterpreted the whole impressionist movement

and to present the abstract expressionist movement as "the end of the road for painting,

not the exciting beginning of a new frontier" according to the author of the review. Finally

the book does not include photography in its analysis of Modernism.

 

The review ends with the following words: "Expression is everywhere nowadays, but true

art has grown indistinct and indefinable. We seem now to be living in a world where

everyone has an artistic temperament ? emotive and touchy, cold and self-obsessed ?

yet few people have the artistic gift. We are all outsiders, and we are all living in our own

truth". In my view an interesting new threat for philosophy of photography.

[aplumpton]

Ellis, my thanks as well (I must add the NYT, at least the book reviews, to my

personal reading). Like Anders, I noted the significance of the last paragraph

as well, in additin to the two foundations of modernism described by Gay: the

lure of heresy (original), and the celebration of (uninterested or detached)

subjectivity (the culmination?), which the author seems to suggest is also a

look back at Romanticism.

 

That photography is not included in the Gay book is perhaps a serious gap in

his analysis. In any case, he does leave out many important thinkers, artists

and writers in his analysis.

 

As interesting and informative as all this is, it does NOT address the definition

of postmodernism or the portmodernist photographer.

 

I may be out in left field again, but what thinkest you of a definition along the

lines of postmodernism as qualified detached subjectivity (I see so many

articles qualifying what the artist is doing or where he is coming from, often

incomprehensible at first or even second reading), or perhaps as an

application of some sort of law of unintended consequences, that seems to

constitute a postmodern movement in the public administration sector.

[AJHingel]

By the way, the best discussion and analysis I have read on postmodernism and photography

is in Hal Foster et als "Art since 1900 - modernism, antimodernism, postmodernism"

(Thames and Hudson, 2004). See the chapter on the year "1977" (pages 580ff) where

especially Cindy Sherman and Sherry Levine are discussed.

[aplumpton]

I love this exchange, gents. T&H has produced some great books on art

(Picasso, Women, Art & Society, many others)!

[ellis_vener_photography]

Anders,

 

Thanks for joininh the conversation. I also like the photos you have posted recently so thank you for sharing your talents in that area too. I'll look up Foster's "Art since 1900..." book next time I'm in the library.

[AJHingel]

Ellis, if you read French dive into the books of Yves Michaud - you will be occupied for some

months. Since some years, he has announced postmodernism dead and buried. We are in the

post-postmodernist era without anybody apart from him noticing it !!

[jtk]

"I'm curious about your use of the term "decor" with respect to Mapplethorpe. I believe you've used it in other instances regarding Mapplethorpe as well." Fred G.

 

Fred, I believe Mapplethorpe intentionally photographed to produce decorative photos with good name recognition to accompany other living room artifacts. His prints certainly are handsome, as one expects from those commercial photographers who especially appreciate B&W prints.

 

I think NEA blessed him for the same reason it blesses some others: a supremely important connection.

 

You seem a better photographer, though I've not seen your prints. You explore with more precision and sensitivity than Mapplethorpe could have.

[ellis_vener_photography]

'I believe Mapplethorpe intentionally photographed to produce decorative

photos with good name recognition to accompany other living room artifacts. His

prints certainly are handsome, as one expects from those commercial

photographers who especially appreciate B&W prints."

 

The same general critism can be leveled at DaVinci, Titian, Rembrandt and Michelangelo. All of whom saw art as a way of making a living , courted fame and patronage and created their work to "decorate" various rooms.

"

[Norma Desmond]

John--

 

Thanks for the answer and you've been very encouraging and kind to offer such words about

my photos over the months. I mean it. It means a lot.

[jtk]

"The same general critism can be leveled at DaVinci, Titian, Rembrandt and Michelangelo."

 

They were not photographers, they conveyed deep and richly textured messages, whereas Mapplethorpe's photography didn't. They all served aristocracy.

[aplumpton]

The same general critism can be leveled at DaVinci, Titian, Rembrandt and

Michelangelo. All of whom saw art as a way of making a living , courted fame

and patronage and created their work to "decorate" various rooms. "

 

Decorate - one definition is to furnish with adornments. Ellis, one perception

of these great artists is that they simply adorned the rooms they were in.

Another, perhaps more widely held, is that their visual and emotive messages

are considerably more profound than that of simple adornments to a room,

like flowers in a church.

[rogerjporter]

isn't it awesome that you can go to Target and buy an original Cindy Sherman photo beach

towel now? does that count then as decorating your beach setup? i wonder if these towels

will have lasting and redeeming value like her museum and gallery pieces. maybe i should

pick one up.

[JDMvW]

Postmodern - relativistic, no truth

 

Dark side: Hitlerism

 

 

 

Modernist - materialist, truth knowable with proper method

 

Dark side: Stalinism

[ellis_vener_photography]

To Arthur's last answer:

 

Wel lse see that now but what they were hired to do was to essentially decorate a room, and paint pictures that flattered their patrons. Their The religious painting were to illustrate or bringto life moral tales fro mthe bible so that the illiterate could understand them. Pictures have always been a mode for communication. The idea of looking at or making art for its own sake is a relatively recent one (late 19th century?) but that notion hasn't replaced the communicative aspect: it is only sort of fitfully parallel.

[ellis_vener_photography]

"isn't it awesome that you can go to Target and buy an original Cindy Sherman photo beach towel now? "

 

if that is true good for her for figuring out how to make more money.

[ellis_vener_photography]

hitler was the extreme pinnacle of German Romaticism and a modernist (via Speer, and Riefenstahl)

 

Stalin was just a thug without a philosophy.

 

both were amoral.

[kelly_flanigan1]

For me one pivotal moment was using a Hannah Montana Digital Camera at a hockey game 2 nights ago. The little girl sitting next to me at the glass had one. We got better shots with covering up the flash and resting the VGA camera right next to the glass. The moment is helping folks use their camera and learning something new.

[Norma Desmond]

Ellis, et al--

<p><p>

From certain standpoints, what they were hired to do seems important. There

are perspectives from which what they <i>accomplished</i> is important, too. This

discussion

appears ambiguous with regard to intent and product. Many were hired to adorn

rooms. Those we still talk about and whose adornments we still look at (as art, from our

standpoint) gave their work that something extra that takes it beyond merely bringing life

to

moral tales. They were, indeed, creating art. They just didn't call it that. But what was

going

on is just what it takes. When it was believed that Zeus threw lightning bolts out of anger,

it was

nevertheless the case

that an atmospheric discharge of electricity was taking place.

[jtk]

It's far-fetched to compare Mapplethorpe to Zeus or Michaelangelo, unless we also compare the least of us to Zeus and Michaelangelo. Pebble in the ocean, flapping butterfly, etc.

 

More shocking than Mapplethorpe's sexual themes, I think was his treatment of subjects as compositional meat (significantly using black models).

 

A San Franciscan for nearly thirty years, before leaving in 93', I didn't think him equal to gay photographers exhibiting and publishing in my City. His images seemed cold and dehumanizing, contrary to values that flowered especially at the height of the AIDs crisis... values that were widely appreciated by straight people like myself, and almost all of San Francisco.

 

Neither Stalin nor Hitler were amoral, nor is the Biblical devil. Their morals were well defined. Evil morals are difficult to recognize when one comes upon them (as politically), but easy to enjoy.

 

Stalin and Hitler were miraculous leaders. Beloved, especially by the most humble people, they advocated traditional ethnic hatreds and treasured evils. People love to hate. Stalin's purges were substantially anti-semitic...read Alan Furst's novels for more history than most know. Stalin's biography is astounding: here's a bare outline.. http://www.stel.ru/stalin/young_joseph_1879-1904.htm

[Norma Desmond]

Misunderstanding, John.

 

I was no longer talking about Mapplethorpe. I was responding to what Ellis was saying about

adorners and artists in more general terms.

 

And I wasn't using Zeus as a comparison to anyone but as an example of something.