Artist or Photographer?

[william l. palminteri]

The last known interview to take place with Andy Warhol appeared in Flash Art magazine in April 1987. The

interviewer was art writer, Paul Taylor who died of AIDS a week after his 35th birthday in 1992. Here's a relevamt

quote from that interview:

 

<< Paul Taylor: Can you define an artist for me? >>

 

<< Andy Warhol: I think an artist is anybody who does something well, like if you cook well. >>

 

 

Bill P.

[s_u]

Earlier today, I was rooting about in the attic searching for "some quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore," with

apologia to EAP. Of all things, I fortuitously came across a book I read long ago, "The Image: A Guide to Pseudo

Events in America," by longtime historian and Librarian of Congress Dr. Daniel J. Boorstin. I found myself doing an

Evelyn Wood job on parts of it, but I finally fixed on a passage which reminded me of some of the themes raised

herein. I usually avoid "quoteitis" in these missives, but I can't resist reproducing for your approval a couple of thought-

provking paragraphs:

 

"Man fulfills his dream and by photographic magic produces a precise image of the Grand Canyon. The result is not

that he adores nature or beauty the more. Instead he adores his camera--and himself. He is impressed, not by what

he sees, nor by the forms that can be made or found. Rather by the extreme and ever-growing cleverness of his way

of seeing it. Fidgeting with his camera, he becomes less concerned with what is out there. Photography...is not,

oddly enough, a way of producing images with a life of their own detached from their maker (which, as T.S. Eliot

observes, is a true characteristic of a work of art). Instead, photography becomes a form of narcissism. 'Have you

seen MY snapshots of the Mona Lisa?'

 

Photography, by enabling any mechanically adept amateur to produce a kind of 'original'--that is, a unique view of an

unrepeatable moment of what was really out there--confuses our sense of what is original and what is a copy of

experience. The moment is gone, yet somehow the photograph still lives. By the almost forgotten axiom which one

made (but now dissolves) art, the image is again more vivid than the original. We live willy-nilly in a world where every

man is his own artist. Using a camera, every man can feel somehow that what he has made is 'his' image, even

though it has almost nothing of him in it."

 

Daniel J. Boorstin, "The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (Harper & Row: 1961), pp. 170-71 (emphasis

in original; ellipses supplied).

 

That was written forty-seven years ago, at a time which Dr. Boorstin saw as heralding the coming "graphic

revolution." I wonder what he would make of Adobe Photoshop?

[Norma Desmond]

Begging forgiveness, Boorstin's seems a myopic view. I, for one, would have little interest in photographing the Grand

Canyon in the same way I approach my other photography. I might, indeed, get a thrill out of having my own snap of

it that reminded me that I was there, etc. but snapping pics of the Grand Canyon and other tourist attractions does

not fulfill the camera's only usefulness.

 

"even though it has almost nothing of him in it"

 

This quote makes me sad for Boorstin, since he's likely never experienced putting himself into a photograph.

Sometimes, the camera even allows us to lie, and lying is an important part of art. Lying can yield great truths. Note

that the terms "art" and "artifice" have the same root.

 

"Instead he adores his camera--and himself. He is impressed, not by what he sees, nor by the forms that can be

made or found. Rather by the extreme and ever-growing cleverness of his way of seeing it."

 

Boorstin seems also not to be able to distinguish between self consciousness and self awareness, assuming for

some reason that a photographer might be more disposed to please himself with the images he produces than, say,

a painter would. He seems to find limits imposed by "what is out there" but they are, in fact, only his own self-

imposed limits. He seems to be talking much more about reproduction ("precise image") than creation. He doesn't

seem to have the vision or sensibility of an artist. And he doesn't seem to be communicating the full spectrum of

possibilities of the photographic medium.