Can Art be a Goal or is Art what we call Work that Sustains our Interest?

mizore · November 2, 2009

A friend of mine who was in a local art show in Pennsylvania didn't win even an honorable mention for a clay sculpture of a hare. It was, however, the only thing that sold.

The thing with the folks in Patrick County is that what they liked tended to be what seemed to me to be the better music. They had a developed public taste, which is really rare in most of the US today. But having a developed taste for traditional music wasn't going to make you socially superior -- it was, after all, hillbilly music. All that mattered was that the playing was good, and the locals tended to know what good was because many of them also played. Some doctor's wife decided that the locals needed to be exposed to some real culture, not this hillbilly music, and brought in a flaminco guitarist (American, not Hispanic). The guitarist promptly found the local musicians and they closed the Coffee Cup (owned by one of them) and jammed for hours.

A poet friend in San Francisco said that only peasants and aristocrats had good taste. If what you likes has no social currency (a peasant doesn't become an aristocrat for loving the opera and opera is much more generally popular in Europe than it is in the US), then your taste will be based mostly on what you know, your sense of delight in the work without worrying about being "right." Being even a very good fiddle player in Patrick County wasn't going to get you invited to the upper class parties. Being an accepted artist in NYC will.

Norma Desmond · November 3, 2009

I'm not getting the point.

A lot of this is about the business world of art. It's about monetary success or acclaim and fame. What does that have to do with making art or making photographs?

A lot of people I know make art in small studios in bad neighborhoods, not in downtown galleries. I talk to other photographers about what we're each doing. I hang out with poets, painters, a couple of playwrights, and we love to talk about the stuff we're doing.

I agree with the spirit of Arthur's first post here. Nobody should make apologies for doing art or for saying that's what they're doing. I tend to make apologies when I hurt someone, not for how I refer to myself.

I relate to what Rebecca says. I started taking photographs because my male subjects intrigued me. I was drawn to a "theme" and a niche. I have no problem doing that while having an awareness that I want to develop a unique approach, a voice. The latter doesn't contaminate the former. I know other photographers who started out to photograph because they wanted to express themselves, without a specifically directed passion. There are many ways to be an artist.

"The best of them couldn't care less what others think of their art."--Arthur That feels right . . . to an extent. Many artists don't and shouldn't care what judgments others make of their art. But what others think of their art is often enlightening to the thinking artist. Many artists love discussing their work, their process, sharing ideas with others. I recently went to a staged reading of a friend's new play. It's fairly typical of playwrights to have a preliminary reading and ask for feedback from the audience, precisely to know what others think of their art, including (in this case) judgments. The confident artist will know what to do with those judgments, whether they ring a bell that the artist may respond to or whether the artist will listen and do nothing because the comments don't move him. Asking for thoughts and opinions is not a compromise.

"Groups are a cul de sac. The thinking artist needs only his own imagination."--Arthur This doesn't ring true to me. Many artists have shared in groups, from NY's Algonquin Round Table to Paris's Cafe Flor. Influence, imitation, dialogue are all parts of art. There are many groups of local artists, sometimes producing group shows, sometimes just supporting each other physically and emotionally and aesthetically. In the city, there are communities of artists living in lofts and creating together. Not all artists live at Walden Pond.

By the way, the "other" was as important to Sartre as the alone and responsible individual. In Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre comes close to reformulating Descartes's "I think, therefore I am" into the much more communal minded "We think, therefore we are."

aplumpton · November 3, 2009

"Many artists have shared in groups.......Influence, imitation, dialogue are all parts of art."

"I hang out with poets, painters, a couple of playwrights, and we love to talk about the stuff we're doing."

Fred, I must admit that you are absolutely right (and fortunate, in regard to your second statement). My comment that groups are a dead end for the artist was far too black and white. I guess I was reacting to how some groups tend to exhibit a fortress mentality and a sometimes blind conformity to their particular movement or aesthetic (which I guess is fair enough in itself) and I ignored the facts of the benefits of collegiality, friendship and intelligent discussion and support of each other's efforts. I also relate to what you said in your first post, including the need to refer to the word art in the descriptive sense, implying action that does not need to be defended or categorized. I guess that responds very well to the question of the OP.

mizore · November 3, 2009

Arthur, I think that I find group identity in the sense that you're talking about really boring. I don't relate to groups; I relate to people. But groups of friends who stimulate each other is a very good thing.

Art as an activity that can be done better or worse, I'm fine with. It's when artist becomes "us vs. those people who are not artists" that I have a problem with it, probably because I used to be that self-indulgent until I found out that writing s.f. made me not an artist in some folk's eyes.

fate_faith_change_chains · November 3, 2009

- Fred, I viewed Sartre to be giving importance to the other(s) but only in terms of the ultimate freedom of the single individual who, in choosing for this freedom of being and embracing its contingency, must also choose not to deny this same freedom to others. A contradiction of some sort.-

I doubt, therefore I might be !

clive_murray_white · November 3, 2009

When I talk about group I actually mean artists in general - I've no time for formal groups and have often been heard to say - groups tend to wind up being organisations for the protection of the mediocraty of their own members.

Age, stage of artistic development and where one lives has a lot to do with the way people behave. When I was young I hung out in a major capital city with other cutting edge, hard nosed reformers vigorously ramming our art and "new views" down everybody's throats.

The big thing about cities is that you can surround yourself with people who think pretty much like you and you can have really high level dicussions about detail as opposed to generalities.

I actually left the city 1) because I felt there was different art in me, I had no idea what it was, and 2) because I beginning to form the view that I may be allowing myself to be seduced into making art by committee - ie, by sharing my percieved problems with my colleagues and listening too readily to them.

The first thing I noticed after leaving the city was that you couldn't surround yourself with like minds and that your old city artist mates really thought they'd lost one of the gang who'd gone for the soft life and almost retired from serious art activity.

Making paintings sculptures photographs etc in one's own studio is lonely by anyone's definition and in my case I didn't like that much as I felt it could make me a bit bitter and twisted.

The new art that I talked about was roundly rejected by the artworld but as fate would have it I got a wild job as "Senior Company Artist" for a massive coal fired power station and had a big studio right in the middle of it, the workers would drop in and chat, offer me advice etc.

For the first time in my artistic life I actully felt that I was a useful member of society. I have remembered this and now live in a huge recycled factory in a tiny little village, part of the building is an art gallery showing contemporary art, we have 3 studio apartments that we let out to artists. My studio is here and its open to the public. (I find this very helpful because my work is in effect road-tested on a very wide audience before it leaves the workshop - I have a belief that the artist is responsible for any reading that someone can make about their work - I do not permit myself the luxury of saying "you are looking at it wrongly")

The resident artists, most frequently photo based, all have different aspirations which means if we are going to help them we have to learn all sorts of new things - again both helpful to the artists and us alike. Years ago I would never have thought, as a sculptor, that I'd be working with a Korean video-installation artist or (sorry about the old fashioned word) avant guard composer.

I think it is a little sad that most artists favour a fortress mentality when the rewards for allowing yourself to be a useful member of a community are very sustaining.

All the best to all - Clive

Norma Desmond · November 3, 2009

Phylo--

I think for Sartre it's not just about not denying the freedom to others (which is certainly a part of it). I think it's stronger, so in choosing for ourselves we are, in fact, choosing for others. Our individual choice is also a choice for the group:

"The first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders. And, when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men. The word 'subjectivism' is to be understood in two senses . . . 'Subjectivism' means, on the one hand, the freedom of the individual subject and, on the other, that man cannot pass beyond human subjectivity. It is the latter which is the deeper meaning of existentialism. When we say that man chooses himself, we do mean that every one of us must choose himself; but by that we also mean that in choosing for himself he chooses for all men. For in effect, of all the actions a man may take in order to create himself as he wills to be, there is not one which is not creative, at the same time, of an image of man such a he believes he ought to be. To choose between this or that is at the same time to affirm the value of that which is chosen; for we are unable ever to choose the worse. What we choose is always the better; and nothing can be better for us unless it is better for all. If existence precedes essence and we will to exist at the same time as we fashion our image, that image is valid for all and for the entire epoch in which we find ourselves. Our responsibility is thus much greater than we had supposed, for it concerns mankind as a whole. . . . In fashioning myself, I fashion man."

Norma Desmond · November 3, 2009

"I think it is a little sad that most artists favour a fortress mentality when the rewards for allowing yourself to be a useful member of a community are very sustaining." --Clive

</blockquote>

Clive, I have a hard time understanding your move from your own anecdotal experience to your claims about "most artists."

I'd have to know more about why you think your own experience says anything about either art groups or big city life in general.

I'll tell you my experience. Several of the artists I am friends with consider their art only alongside the community service they do. One painter friend is one of the founders of Code Pink and spends most of her time traveling the country throwing pies (among other activities) at politicians' faces. In her spare time, she does other kinds of service. Several of my regular companions participate actively in Art Against Aids programs. Simultaneous to my getting serious about photography, I've gotten much more involved in community activism and outreach. My photography seems to go hand-in-hand with participating in more of such activities. My relationships with artists don't prevent me from participating in a broader community as well.

It would be hard to imagine that all city artists have traveled your path.

Do you think artists more than anyone else gravitate to like-minded groups as a protective mechanism? I've seen many people surround themselves with like-minded folks, not just artists. An artist is as likely or not to want to reach out of his or her social comfort zone as anyone else.

clive_murray_white · November 4, 2009

Fred,

It is one of my common failings to over generalise, ie, use expressions like "most artists" in this case it is apt but silly because it simply triggers responses like yours.

The easiest way for you to work out whether these are anecdotal experiences or come from as broad a range of valid experiences as could probably be concieved I'd suggest you start by Googling me.

The most extreme case of a fortress mentality I ever experienced was when Clement Greenberg had someone open up David Smith's Bolton Landing home for me and what amazed me most was that the roof was 1/4 inch plate steel and the lower section of the building contained jail like partitions and barred doors - it was explained to me that Smith really believed that he was making great art and he felt that he needed to 'protect" his art 'til people woke up to his genius.

Another example was when Philip Guston befriended me when I was at a small dinner party in NY because Rosenburg and a bunch of the old Abstract Expression group were giving him a very hard time for changing from abstract to his later figurative work. Their pressure on him was extreme, he was being called unAmerican and disloyal by his good friends. I asked Analie Newman if this had happened before, she said it went on all the time.

I had an NY dealer at that time who explained to me that it would be best for me if I spent at least half the year in NY so that I could "meet the right people" more often.

I've done my share of protesting too but that it actually hasn't any real significance in relation to art - it is just one of the habits that most artists have. Pie throwing sounds like fun, but the thing that often amuses me more is that artists then expect the society to finacially support them - now how silly or rude is that?

Do you think artists more than anyone else gravitate to like-minded groups as a protective mechanism? Yes, but maybe no more than terrorists, minority groups, illegal imigrants and university students.

I've seen many people surround themselves with like-minded folks, not just artists. Just the artists do it more, more often and more predictably than most others.

An artist is as likely or not to want to reach out of his or her social comfort zone as anyone else. It would be nice to do a survey about that, I've never seen it in any part of the world over the past 40 years.

Norma Desmond · November 4, 2009

Clive--

Thanks. I don't need to google you. It's pretty clear where you're coming from.

clive_murray_white · November 4, 2009

I don't mind leaving it at that as well, but only wanting to discuss things with people who agree with you seems slightly futile to me.

Mention dealer, Greenberg, Smith and Guston in one small reply and it says where someone is coming from? I think not.

In their day they were as left as you could get in the US. Very much in the same camp as Sartre.

aplumpton · November 4, 2009

A very good friend of mine is a stone sculptor whose abstract art has seen much public approval (response of clients) in the more recent years of the 15 he has been at it. He has not bothered to join local artists groups or become involved in joint publicity. As an early age (50) retired criminologist, his background was classical junior college education, but not specifically art. For that reason (in part), he is not on the provincial short list for the 1% projects (that is, the grants of 1% of the cost of new public buildings, given to permit a work of art to "embellish" the new building).

His wife does all his publicity and promotion and runs his gallery and sculpture garden, while he simply works at his art and helps with the housework. In that way, he does not compromise or encumber his creative activities by business ones, and remains independent in his work.

I'm not sure of how many others approach art in that manner, but if I could get my better half as interested as his wife in the business aspects, I would happily spend all my time doing what I like most. Maybe not a recipe for great success, but one that can make you content with your vocation.

I also appreciate the idea of community involvement, as mentioned by Clive, Fred and others. That is often well recognised, and sometimes beneficial (Spending more than a month to research and to conceive a model of a metal sculpture to commemorate the first European settlers at a local historic park got me to only second place in a competition, but the experience was wonderful and the visibility was useful, even if I received no monetary compensation from the effort).

luis_g · November 4, 2009

Do you think artists more than anyone else gravitate to like-minded groups as a protective mechanism? Yes, but maybe no more than terrorists, minority groups, illegal imigrants and university students.

______________

Clive, thanks for clarifying your position on the like-minded group thing.There's some things even Google cannot find.

What a good thing it is that law-abiding, majority, patriotic white citizenry like you (um....didn't you claim to be an artist?) don't gravitate to like-minded groups, or succumb to the fortress mentality and things like walled and gated communities, high-security private compounds, armored vehicles, private police forces, assault weaponry for self-defense, concealed weapon carry permits, and safe rooms.

With that, I'm out of this thread. Thanks to all, specially Fred, Wouter, & Patrick.

mizore · November 4, 2009

Being an artist is a lot like being a programmer in some ways -- you can work on Open Source projects while holding down a day programming job; you can be one of the people who would be difficult to get on with a day job whose wife supports you while you do Open Source and Libertarian politics. You can teach programming at a college without really having skills necessary to do a job (I knew someone who fell into this category). I suppose one could be a computer poet and throw down lines of code in interesting patterns (someone surely has done this) or write code designed to get computers to weird random things (I think there've been installations like this) and thus can become an programmer who is also an artist.

clive_murray_white · November 4, 2009

I joined this thread because the topic interests me and I felt I may have something to contribute.

But I am dismayed to see how easily words can be so quickly misinterpreted (maybe purposely by some), how extreme exaggeration seems the order of the day and resorting to name calling a little too prevalent.

I simply can't believe that anyone could think that I ever said, as is claimed, that artists are terrorists or anything like it.

Just about every one of the overly romantic sterotypes attached to artists have been used in this discussion.

I may have made a better contribution if I had started out by using Cindy Sherman as an artist/photographer who has a goal to produce art but manages at the same time to express herself comprehensibly and to sustain our interest. Above all else she helps us understand what it is to be human.

fate_faith_change_chains · November 4, 2009

<a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_MuWNJtJ8XS4/RkuVRrlaL1I/AAAAAAAAAg8/LEKDgORa1-M/s1600-h/michals.sherman.jpg">Who is Sidney Sherman ?</a>

http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-photography-lost-its-virginity-on.html

I favor Duane Michals anytime, intelligent photographer who doesn't feels the need to make necessary intelligent photographs.

clive_murray_white · November 4, 2009

Cindy Sherman not Sydney Sherman, sure I'd prefer Duane Michaels ahead of him any day.

Cindy Sherman is arguably the only photographer who can be classed as a great artist, recognised as such by both art and photography and hugely influential on a great deal that is happening in art these days.

Photography would probably prefer that some of the really great photographers were equally recognised sadly that hasn't happened yet.

luis_g · November 4, 2009

Clive typed- " I simply can't believe that anyone could think that I ever said, as is claimed, that artists are terrorists or anything like it."

The reason you can't believe it is because no one said or thought the above. Please re-read the responses to your statement carefully.

Clive typed- " But I am dismayed to see how easily words can be so quickly misinterpreted (maybe purposely by some), how extreme exaggeration seems the order of the day and resorting to name calling a little too prevalent."

Not purposely. And it had nothing to do beyond the discussion on the fortress mentality, which you clearly ascribed to "artists, terrorists minorities, illegal immigrants and students". All I said is that the fortress mentality is a lot more pervasive than that. It certainly is in the US, where the poor and terrorists can only afford to do so socially and conceptually, but the richer classes can and do so materially , socially & conceptually. I included you in the latter, because you certainly did not identify with the former.

Re: Cindy Sherman...

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/25644/

I can only imagine how jealous she must be about Prince's $3.4 m "Cowboy". I disagree with the notion that Sherman's the only photographer to be regarded as an artist. About 23% of the two main auction houses' 2008 Spring fine arts sales income were solely from photography. And fine-art photography's heyday seems to be waning.

...and you have plenty to contribute, and I am glad you are here.

clive_murray_white · November 5, 2009

Hi again, I think something like the last three out of four threads on this forum have batted around arguments about artists who use photography in their art and photgraphers who should be considered or recognised as great artists.

So when I said:

Cindy Sherman is arguably the only photographer who can be classed as a great artist, recognised as such by both art and photography and hugely influential on a great deal that is happening in art these days.

Photography would probably prefer that some of the really great photographers were equally recognised sadly that hasn't happened yet.

I didn't think that it could ever be interpreted as "Sherman's the only photographer to be regarded as an artist"

One of the things that I take great heart from is that regime change occurs as frequently in art as it is does in any other sphere of activity. One of the things that could almost be considered an axiom in art is that it shows in visual terms the values of the time in which it was produced. It runs concurrent with everything else.

That said, I find myself musing on the idea that the obscene values, greed and excesses in the financial market that produced the Global Financial Distaster must also be evident in the art/s of the time. And just as people are trying to reintroduce responsibility, decency, integrity and honesty into the ways that people deal with each other in many fields there will be an equivalent correction in art.

Nothing is truer in art than the new looses its newness very quickly and then has to slug it out with everything that went before it.

If history is anything to go by, the art that will gain currency over what was being made prior to the crash is already out there but no one has dared notice it yet. When there is such a general change in art, the newly favoured practicioners bolster their positions by elevating artists from the past who are seen to have been precursors or influences on the new wave. That could mean that although fine-art photography's heyday may indeed be waning its great individual practicioners could be substantially elavated.

Forever the optimist.

aplumpton · November 5, 2009

Movements seem to me to be as much as anything else convenient categories in which to place artists (as we do with economists, politicians and architects). While some initiatives and practices do stem from several persons working on similar approaches or who accept and promote similar creative concepts, many such movements are formulated by the academics or other observers and often after the fact. How many creative artists of the somewhat distant past (say, pre 1800) were associated with what they would describe as a movement. Carravagio, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Monteverdi, Jesualdo? More recently, Kandinsky and Der Blaue Reiter, the Impressionists. and the Fauvists were undoubtably working in certain ways to change the art aesthetic, but when you look at each artist he tends to stand mainly as an individual creator.

Is not Fine Art Photography simply a very general and perhaps superfluous term? It doesn'treally define an art movement. "Les beaux arts", or the fine arts, is simply a distinction that places the practice at an academic level, just as classical architecture or formal architecture, based upon formal principles of practice and of measure can be separated from vernacular architecture, or the architecture of the people of different regions.

Fine art photography does allow some practitioners to separate themselves from the photography of the ordinary person, the vernacular photographer, and perhaps also many hard-working and talented commercial photographers. The labels of other more specific photography movements seem to have been derived after the fact, or conveniently chosen as analogues to other mainstream art movements.

Content is the artist who can work outside of any "regulations" of an art movement, yet be free to borrow some of the thoughts of that movement.

Any folly that he creates is mainly his own. It cannot hurt anyone. In financial practice, we have less freedom or desire to accept the follies of unregulated actors.

luis_g · November 5, 2009

Arthur typed: " Is not Fine Art Photography simply a very general and perhaps superfluous term?"

Not in the context in which I used it, where I wanted to be very specific about what aspect of the medium I thought was lapsing out of its heyday, to the exclusion of all others.

Re: The commentary on movements as opposed to individual artists...

Back in the day, when communications were far more limnited than they are now, what we would call a movement was a far more localized thing, more like people emerging from certain lines of thought derived from particular mentors & their students. This goes on today, for example, with the famous descendants from Bernd and Hilla Becher classes at Dusseldorf. Their students, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Candida Hofer (among others), do not form a movement of any kind, but mimic the way threads of thought developed long ago.

There are no more "movements", which has made the Postmodern era more challenging for historians and critics.

When one stands back and looks at a region/era/country/school/movement, the categories become more distinct. If you peep closer, the individual tends to stand out. It's a question of resolution.

Clive typed: " And just as people are trying to reintroduce responsibility, decency, integrity and honesty into the ways that people deal with each other in many fields there will be an equivalent correction in art."

Clive really is an optimist! The public's failure to grab the pitchforks & firebrands and oil up the guillotine -- or banish the architects of disaster -- means we will suffer repetitive waves of the same uncorrected crap. Hopefully less so in the arts, because so many people have been bankrupted, which is a guillotining of sorts, that right now, there's more room at the inn, so to speak, than there has been in generations. While many recognizable galleries have gone under, and most are hurting, I am seeing lots of tiny spaces and cafes picking up the slack. These are the nurseries of tomorrow's artists and venues. The economic debacle will make short work out of the current trend towards abstraction, and emphasize both well-established artists, even lesser works, and emerging artists (because they're cheap...er...affordable and easy to manipulate). Those in the middle will get squeezed hard, IMO.

aplumpton · November 5, 2009

Luis, do you not think that Clive's optimism is merited these days, at least in human activities more definable and subject to control than art and art tastes? I would think that the bottom up change process will become more important in future, in all human activity, as that is about the only way that reasonable change will occur in complex democratic societies. Whether bottom-up art tastes will impact art and photography may be less evident. You are probably right about the trends in acceptance of high end and emerging art. That has always been the case I think, while the middle ground of art may well take a hit, as you prophesize.

luis_g · November 5, 2009

It's not that I disagree with the viability or merit of the idea of Clive's humane optimism, but that I'm not seeing evidence to support the notion that it is happening. In a perfect universe, humans learn from their mistakes, make corrections, and sally forth in new directions. In this universe, one-trial learning is the exception, not the rule.

Speaking of bottom up, Flickr is a vastly underestimated populist entity, one that has already caused a quiet revolution & has many more surprises in stock after this period of rapid expansion begins to cool off, people coalesce, its own traditions and stars are more established, and more gallery owners recognize and seize the magnitude of this huge and largely untapped market. It is no longer a sub- culture.

We will, within ten or less years, see an in-camera program (and many PC programs) based on Flickr image ratings. The first version of this is already out on the web. Presently crude, it doesn't take a visionary to imagine what comes next. Anyone who thinks that people in the business of art won't be running pictures through this is deluding themselves. It could also be done by region, income, credit ratings and many other parameters. It's hard to say where this will go, but it looks like a primarily web-based populist parallel market for photography. Critical writing, mentoring and editing services will inevitably become valuable parts of all this, simply because of their scarcity.

Flickr is the quiet 800 lb gorilla in the room.

mizore · November 5, 2009

The thing that made the rural country music scene what it was is that people wanted the music and enough of the audience played well enough to know who played better than average, who played really well. I think what happens at best is that people will want to see good photographs and will put pressure on each other and themselves to learn how to do it better, to understand how to play off the limitations of certain cameras (I have a friend who is beginning to learn how to get his camera to take visually interesting shots). I'm somewhat dubious about critical writing, mentoring and editing because none of that appears to be anything other than the tail of the dog, and none of that was happening in the rural mountain music scenes, which is as close as we've got living to a populist art tradition.

It becomes a living tradition because it means things to the people participating. I put more run of the mill stuff up on Flickr and Facebook than I put up here. Those places are for communicating with family and friends, some of whom are also photographers.

For the arts, I'm not sure cheering when the work looks better and not saying anything when the work looks not so interesting isn't about as useful as it gets. We all have to figure out what we can about the form, but it's not obvious to me that I can't get that from reading things done by people I consider good poets or good photographers rather than trusting that my local college creative writing teacher or photography teacher will give me more than I'd get reading and looking at work by people who seem to me to be at the top of this game. I've had the useless workshops with the minor academic poets. Would rather shoot baby pictures for JC Pennys than go that round with minor photographers.

Art and Fear -- we learn by doing and paying attention. We can learn from others, but it's not evident that being the student of a great mechanic won't be more useful for learning how to approach work than taking classes from a person who isn't a master at photography (this concept was originally Gary Snyder's). "The last three lines work best" is the way poets talk to each other and I've read that painters do similar things -- "I like it here." Growing skills is almost an organic process. Even if the person needs lot of theory going in, the theory has to become integrated in practice for it to be useful.

Sometimes the problem is people don't think they can take interesting photographs. Here we see equipment chasing; other places, people simply don't consider that they could do anything as good as someone with talent and don't try to get better. Or they try to cargo-cult what they think the other photographer with talent did.

It's getting late in the day and I need to do some photography rather than philosophize about it.

Very little criticism written by non-poets has been useful to me when I was writing poetry; tons of critical work by people like Eliot, Yeats, W.H. Auden, and the like have been. The younger photographers will figure out who's necessary to them, or not. If they want mentoring, they'll ask for it.

clive_murray_white · November 5, 2009

Re:

While many recognizable galleries have gone under, and most are hurting, I am seeing lots of tiny spaces and cafes picking up the slack. These are the nurseries of tomorrow's artists and venues. The economic debacle will make short work out of the current trend towards abstraction, and emphasize both well-established artists, even lesser works, and emerging artists (because they're cheap...er...affordable and easy to manipulate). Those in the middle will get squeezed hard, IMO.

Thought you may find this interesting <a href="http://www.cratemen.com/">http://www.cratemen.com/</a>

I think we tend to forget that many art movements, although not formally constituted, were identifiable by who hung out with who, most often in bars and cafes.

Like minds are often drawn together this way - while bars may still form an integral part in the way art develops, I'm sure that sitting by the computer chatting to people from all around the globe is very similar, that's why we're on this thread not one dealing with new photgraphic gear or macro snaps of bugs.

So while I'm having breakfast with you today, you are having a beer after work with me yesterday!

all best Clive

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