When the viewers are the only "artist" around

[AJHingel]

<p>""I think you're trivializing creativity a little bit""<br>

I think you are totally right, Julie, and not only a little bit ! <br>

<br>

Let me be more precise, then. My basic understanding of "creativity" is related that of the Platonic tradition of the Demiurge shaping the material world and that of Marx/Lenin's "demiurge" : half creator/half craftsman (which, according to them was lost with (capitalist) industrialization). This is of course an idealtype (Weber), but it tells us, that we are all <em>potential</em> creative shapers of the world through our actions. I do believe therefore, that all people in one way or another shape their immediate world, using materials and tools, or through mental actions only. Experimentation is an inherent part of that creative process. <br>

<br>

This being said, I do however not believe that all people are in the image of a demiurge, shooting photos, being experimental and creative. In fact, I believe as mentioned earlier, that an increasing proportion of people shooting photos use the camera as an automate, only, with the objective of registering the seen in view of sharing and keeping for memory. If something "creative" comes out of that, it would be by "accident", and it is for a <strong>viewer</strong> with creative eyes (and training) to find it.<br>

<br>

Julie, concerning the classical 'top-down" conception of art, it is more than a conception. It is in fact just describing what happens in galleries, museums and on the art marked, whether we like it or not. You ask: what happens if bottom-up" arts gain momentum. I have difficulty of finding examples of such a process, where the top-down way actors and institutions have not picked it up very rapidly and turned it into their own benefits reproducing the top-down logic. They (gallery owners, experts, museum curators etc) are actually payed to do exactly that - picking up newcomers and new trends apart from celebrating the already found.<br>

</p>

<p>No, the real alternative to the top-down model of art, which governs the world of art are all those artists who refuse to play the game and therefor go about with their art in smaller circles of likeminded artists and admirers, artist who stay mostly poor or doing second and third jobs besides. </p>

[AJHingel]

<p><em>""...limits the realm of artists to viewers, is arrogant and unfair to the facts""</em><br>

Michael, I agree, it would have been unfair, had I said that. The title of the thread is provocative and not what really goes on. Artists are artists and will continue to be artists. What I suggest is only, that the number of shooters around and photos available are increasing that rapidly, that photographical art and creativity will find its sources more and more outside the restricted circle of "artists". "Viewers" will be the mediators of that change and not artists. Neither arrogant, nor unfair, to point at that trend towards a new order of things in the world of photographical arts.</p>

[gmazza]

<p>Finally read all posts.<br>

<br />Interesting time to observe, what will happen ?<br>

<br />In a historical perspective, every change in photo media was followed by massive flow of snapshoot photos. There were texts when the <em>daguerreotype</em> was invented about a lot of meaningless photos. When mainstream changed to film, turning the photo process cheaper, there were at these times reports of snapshoots and the death of art trough bad photography volume.<br>

<br />The digital only changed this to more cheap, more people doing it, and with a much more powerful sharing media as the internet.<br>

<br />Will this be the end or one more circle who knows /</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>I agree, Gustavo, history shows us that photography has been through such cycles with the announcement that painting would be dead and even visual art of any kind would be killed. Did obviously not happen! <br>

Future is indeed the most difficult thing to predict :)</p>

<p>If you go back in history and look, for example, at old Japanese prints, those of the Kano or Tosa schools (XIV-XVIII century), that produced some of the most beautiful prints in the history of the country, they are mostly not signed. Few artist can be connected to the individual prints and for any print, at least three different artists did every one of those that now hang on the world museum walls: the drawer or painter, the carver and the printer. Well, if you accept the idea, that in the field of contemporary and future photography most creative shots will have been done by individuals, who probably had no intention and knowledge about the artistic quality of an individual shot, we are back in such an anonymous artistic world.</p>

<p>The thing is however, that today's art world is obsessed with artists as individual personalities, that can be marketed and programmed and supported to come up with new art works regularly to feed a hopefully growing market. Gallery owners take them in as breeding stock for future profits.</p>

<p>If I'm right, that "the viewer will be the only artist around", it will be a game-changer (sic!) for arts, the market and the for the role of viewers and the artists alike. One could say that this is one of the reasons why it will not be happening. PEOPLE is what makes the art world tick and art works are a secondariness necessity. Sometimes it is worthwhile thinking in absurdities.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>[<em>putting on my Devil's Advocate hat</em>]</p>

<p>Two points:</p>

<p><strong>First</strong>, those "odd Japanese prints" were physical objects. When I look through the book, <em>The Art of the American Snapshot</em> (from the National Museum's show of that name), I would bet that 95% of the snaps (found as prints in shoe boxes and such, at flea markets and on-line auctions) would never have made it out of a digital camera. The 5% that I think might have made it are those that are funny/jokes. The 95% of the rest (several of which I think are truly outstanding accidents) certainly would not have made it to someone's onscreen internet site where the person showing the work is well aware that the it's "on display" to a wider audience.</p>

<p>If you have to get a print made before you find out it was a boo-boo, and you then throw it in a shoe-box because ... you paid for the print and it has some minimal value, then there is fodder for "the viewer" who may find it in another life. But that's not going to happen with boo-boos that can be seen and deleted in-camera or at any point thereafter. Also, a shoe-box is a long way from someone's public online web site.</p>

<p><strong>Second</strong>, in Devil's Advocate mode, I will claim that far from being an outlet for creativity, for most people, especially the "recreationally artistic", photography is their <em>least</em> creative activity. When they attempt to "create art" they make what "looks like art". In other words, they <em>suppress</em> all their own genuinely creative inclinations in favor of what they have seen "art" look like somewhere else, done by someone else. Or, if they're not trying to be artistic, they make pictures that are utilitarian in the way that pictures are supposed to be utilitarian; i.e. they imitate "what photos are supposed to look like." </p>

<p>To borrow Michael Linder's definition, above, "... sometimes all it takes to do so is a "good eye", intuition, being in the right place at the right time, pure dumb luck, or a combination of all or some of these". That is not enough. There has to be recognition. Something says "this!" If the "this" that is recognized is a matching, a similarity to what has been modeled somewhere else, by someone else ("art is what art looks like"), then that's not creativity, it's <em>suppression</em> of creativity.</p>

<p>The fact that pictures are so often made with online display in mind only exacerbates the above. There is even less possibility of the happy-accident surviving the Delete button. There is no physical object to wander off and be serendipitously discovered by 'the viewer who is 'the only "artist" around.'</p>

<p>[<em>taking off my Devil's Advocate hat</em>] Creativity requires an active/intentional investment of the self. Not imitation. Certainly not suppression.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p><em>""those "odd Japanese prints" were physical objects""</em><br>

Not really "odd" but surely old, were actually woodblocks for printing. I fail to see the great difference from digital files. Both are intermediate media for printing, or not. Both are and will be subject to enormous destruction over time, but some will end up in attics and shoeboxes and even PN or Flickr and be found by potential viewers, throughout time.<br>

<br>

With or without my own Devil's Advocate mode, I agree with your second point.<br>

<br>

<em>""Creativity requires an active/intentional investment of the self. Not imitation. Certainly not suppression.""</em><br>

Totally agree. But that active/intentional investment of the self can also be that of a viewer.</p>

[alan_zinn]

<p><em>Good</em> art is supposed to cause anxiety. I get the most anxious when enjoying art -- doing it and looking at it -- when it causes me to doubt what I firmly believe. I often doubt the serious artfulness of contemporary work compared to widely admired <em>masterpiece</em>s. There is a sort of check list we all keep. Yes, dabblers do make work that looks like what art is <em>supposed</em> to look like. We ALL do. Our personalities and our knowledge of the subject govern how much authority <em>governs </em>our creativity. No matter how much we know we must be given <em>permission</em> to invent. We like to be see art thought out or "explored" before we try it. To thrive ,working artists, create communities that encourage that.<br>

It IS rather too easy to say art is always in flux -- a moving target. Artists and their "styles" can find themselves in and out of art-survey texts in their own lifetimes.<br>

Although most agree there are no reliable aesthetic certainties. Essentialism regarding art escapes the most brilliant modern scholars.</p>

<p>Sounds like we have democratized art to an extent that the word has no real meaning. Even elephants and orangutans are doing it. We need a new word. Let's call it "Stuff To Look At" or, STeLA. No more arguing what it is. Your STeLA is valued more than mine but that is OK. Someday my STeLA might be remembered more than yours. Hey! let's go to MOMA and look at STeLA! STeLAaaaa!</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>Anders - Point well taken. I indeed must have misread the OP.</p>

<p>Julie - You are using the phrase "not enough," followed by the statement that "There has to be recognition. It seems to me that this involves an implicit limitation. Are you taking the position that a poor schlep with an iPhone who takes a 'happy snap" which turns out to be an incredible photograph has not created art because he/she doesn't recognize it as such? </p>

[Julie H]

<p>"Are you taking the position that a poor schlep with an iPhone who takes a 'happy snap" which turns out to be an incredible photograph has not created art because he/she doesn't recognize it as such?"</p>

<p>"... an incredible photo": Would that be that photo that he just deleted in-camera because he, its one and only viewer, thought it sucked?</p>

[steve_mareno1]

<p>What happens is we, the viewers, are stuck w/ a lot of bad crap to look at. It's always been this way. How many artists were really great artists? If it were easy, everyone would be making great stuff, and trust me, they aren't. Photos are no different than any visual art medium. Not special at all. However, corporations and the media have convinced consumers that they too can be a "pro", if only they spend enough money on the products that are for sale. Most people are smart enough to understand that going out and spending a thousand dollars on canvas, paints, brushes etc won't make them an artist. Just like buying a piano doesn't make one a musician. But the manipulation by the media has been so successful, many people think that buying that high end DSLR will make them a photographer. Then they go and make a gazillion snaps, and we're stuck w/ them. I almost never look at online photos on flickr and other photo hosting sites. It's really awful out there. 99% of "art" is usually very bad, and it's probably worse than that for poetry. Yet that tiny percentage that works makes it all worthwhile.</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>Julie: If we are fair to the facts, deleting such a photograph easily may happen. That's called life. I have no doubt that there is a huge, perhaps inestimable, number of photographs go unnoticed, including those taken by members of PN. An image you may delete in-camera because you thought it was crap, if viewed by someone else, might be considered differently.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>[<em>Michael -- "deleting such a photograph easily may happen" Tell me about it ... I have realized, in the act of deleting ... that maybe ... Oh well. It's gone.]</em></p>

 

<hr />

<p><em>Not related to the above</em> ...</p>

<p>To forget is to remember something new. Photography can be the perfect tool for this. But what does creation have to do with it?</p>

[alan_zinn]

<p>To expect ANY level of understanding of photography, let alone art, from the general public is folly. The topic is too broad. <br>

Ideally a person learns both art history and how to create art concurrently. Somewhere along the way they get a clue. They can then visit a museum or gallery and have a few modest tools to make their own evaluation. Even a narrow understanding -- "I know what <em>I</em> like, plus some."</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Alan I think you are way too restrictive.<br>

The quality of most art is that can speak to vast proportion of people, if not all. You don't have to "know about art for you to benefit from it. Knowing about art increases however our understanding and the impact art has on us as individuals and civilization. <br>

I'm as critical as you when observing the massive number of tourists who visit a museum like Louvre - almost 9 million last year. Most of these are led to pass Mona Lisa and some of the very big and spectacular paintings of Delacroix or Jacques Louis David in the hall beside. It would not astonish me if they would know almost nothing about the painters who painted these paintings and in which period and even less about their pictorial styles. Nevertheless, I'm convinced that good art speaks on many levels and some of it is received by any eyes that happen to spent a minute or two in front of it, liking it or not. For me it is one of the qualities of most art.<br>

On the other hand, I totally disagree on the criteria: "I know what I like" as having anything what so ever to do with "knowing about art". </p>

[Julie H]

<p>Anders why the contempt for people you know nothing about, the nature of whose experience of the Louvre you know nothing about?</p>

<p>Whatever their experience of art or of just being there in the Louvre (the experience of it is more than just what it contains), it's not somehow a zero sum game versus whatever your own experience consists of. If their conception and experience of art (maybe "I know what I like"; maybe not) is not the same as yours, it in no way diminishes yours (though you act as if it does). And further, your disapproval has no effect on theirs</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Julie I must express myself very badly.</p>

<p>I think it is a fact of life, that few people actually have much knowledge in the field of art. If you believe differently and can refer to some sources that contradict my impression, I would be happy to learn.<br>

Actually, I did not write that they knew nothing, I did write, that: "I would not be astonished if..". My very concrete knowledge about the state of art of art education in schools in many countries, tells me, that it is not totally wrong to believe that art literacy levels are fairly low in general in most countries. </p>

<p>What I tried to express was, that these great numbers of people passing by great works of art in museums like Louvre, actually bring something essential with them despite their possible meager formal knowledge on arts. Great art have impact on viewers. Whether they come out declaring, that they liked the individual works, or not, is not essential.</p>

<p>No contempt for any viewer of arts! On the contrary great respect not only for the viewers as viewers of art, but also for the extraordinary force of art. Where I have some disrespect, concerns only those (many?) who physically are in front of great art in museums, but chose not to look up and in stead concentrate on texting or small-talking with their friends. You actually have to look up to be a viewer of art !</p>

<p>Where, by the way, did you, Julie, get the wild idea, that it is for you to judge my respect for other people ? </p>

 

[alan_zinn]

<blockquote>

<p>Great art have impact on viewers. Whether they come out declaring, that they liked the individual works, or not, is not essential.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes. You can't exit the show without exiting through the gift shop. :-)<br /> Van Gogh umbrellas and Cezanne tote bags -- what a legacy for them. Museums do a very good job of marketing today. Good for them. Enough of the snobbery. The display designs are stunning here at the MFA. The Current Samurai exhibit overwhelms me. <a href="http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions"> LINK</a><br /> I Know nothing of that art and was greatly impressed. Have Kurosawa 's <em>Ran</em> on my movies to watch list.</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>Here's $43 million in art just auctioned off. OK it's a painting, but art, or high art, is measured by what people will pay. Gursky's got a long way to go.<br />Watch the short video too if you get a chance. Actually I thought the painting attracted me to it. I thought that it wouldn't. How does this apply to photography? Well anyway, your thoughts?</p>

<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/onement-vi-barnett-newman-painting-auction_n_3276987.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/onement-vi-barnett-newman-painting-auction_n_3276987.html</a></p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Alan K. You can look at art from the American 60's without reading, but you cannot understand it: Adorno wrote during the same period:</p>

<blockquote>

<p ><em>"Today it goes without saying that nothing concerning art goes without saying, much less without thinking. Everything about art has become problematic: its inner life, its relation to society, even its right to exist."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p ><em><br /></em>The oneness/onement paintings of Barnett Newman have been discussed and explained by himself and many, many others on hundreds of pages (see his writings and interviews<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Barnett-Newman-Selected-Writings-Interviews/dp/0520078179"> here</a> - they has just been reedited and published a couple of months ago). It is not Duchamp (Newman hated him!) nor Dadaism, nor anti-art paintings. But nihilism and Man faced to the end of the world, maybe ! Barnett Newman's paintings are purely philosophical. I'm personally deeply touched by them. I would find it very peculiar if photography in the US passed the same period without the same questionings, but maybe it would not surprise me. After all, that was the period of "The Americans" photos of Robert Frank. </p>

<p >If the Newman paintings are worth $40+ millions is only because someone out there is ready to pay it (plus auction commissions and charges !). The huge accumulations of idle fortunes and the financial crisis explains the latter, maybe. It has only something to do with art because the paintings are considered historical examples of good art by the experts and the art market makers, which is taken as a guarantee for the investment.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Alan Z., I agree with you about the absurdities of the commercial circus happening around museums. The museum spokesmen would tell us, that it is all part of the business model around modern museums and expositions and that it turns out to the benefit of the Arts. Sometimes one wonders. </p>

[Julie H]

<p>Anders, I was responding to your statement: "On the other hand, I totally disagree on the criteria: "I know what I like" as having anything what so ever to do with "knowing about art"."</p>

<p>And, "Great art have impact on viewers." The adjective "great" is supposed to be assumed, but I think it's only to be assumed by a particular segment of the population's preferences/taste. I don't think that's "wrong" (or "right"). I simply don't think "great" can be assumed as being somehow part of the work as opposed to part of its cultural positioning. Much of what is assumed to be "great art" has little or no impact on many people, and I think this is not a failing, but simply a fact of its irrelevance to their own lives.</p>

<p>Maybe an analogy will show more what I mean. The following is from an essay about (food) taste by Carolyn Korsmeyer:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"… <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu">Bourdieu</a> characterizes the eating habits of the leisured bourgeoisie as the "taste of liberty or luxury" and those of the working class as the "taste of necessity." The latter favors food that is nourishing and filling, bulky, gulpable, massy. The taste of luxury is for lighter fare, since it need not nourish a body engaged in hard labor. Luxurious taste also puts a premium on the presentation of dishes and the visual display of a table; it is tolerant of the fiddling necessary to consume dainty or elaborate dishes without dribbles and spills.</p>

<p>"The links that Bourdieu draws between literal taste and aesthetic Taste contrast interestingly with the comparisons made by classic philosophies of Taste, for he has in a way turned the value hierarchy on its head. Unlike most philosophies of Taste, Bourdieu emphatically rejects the qualitative distinction between literal and aesthetic Taste. There is no universality of Taste untainted by class privilege, no pure judgment of aesthetic pleasure. And therefore there is no need to stipulate a particular sort of Taste to ground universal aesthetic standards. Both kinds of taste are part and parcel of the same social forces. In fact the oral pleasures of tasting, primitive and infantile, subtend the developed preferences of aesthetic Taste and remain their point of reference. The philosophical superiority of aesthetic Taste is an illusion rooted in the attempt to make class distinctions irrelevant to contemplative ideals of aesthetics, but far from being irrelevant, they have been rendered only invisible."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And from an essay by Jean François Revel which can also be applied to the idea of "great art" versus ... the rest:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"I do not mean to say that culinary art is always the prolongation of popular cuisine, which is a refined way of preparing food but one that never aims at the unexpected and indeed steers clear of it. Often the reformers of gastronomy, on the contrary, must know how to react against family cuisine, which clings to its errors as to its qualities and can both drown in grease and boil to death things that ought to be grilled plain or barely poached. These remarks are intended to demonstrate, however, that great cuisine is not only the cuisine of the privileged. Rich people, the wealthy classes, are not necessarily those that eat the best. Since antiquity, a real connoisseur such as Horace has reacted by deliberately and judiciously embracing rusticity as an antidote to the pretentious mixtures of parvenu gastrophiles who, thanks to their heavy-handed combinations, worshipped their pride rather than their stomachs."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Art that is "filling, bulky, gulpable, massy" usually doesn't find its way into any museum. It is, nevertheless, what many people find "nourishing" within the demands of their particular lives. They may well have no need for "dainty or elaborate dishes without dribbles and spills" no matter how "great" it may be. I think "impact on viewers" is due to nourishment, not to any assumed "greatness." "Rich people, the wealthy classes, are not necessarily those that eat the best."</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Ok, so let's discuss the question on liking something, taste and arts.</p>

<p>I read Bourdieu concerning taste, in line with what wrote concerning "I know what I like" type of criteria and art. I quote your Bourdieu quote above:<br>

<em>""And therefore there is no need to stipulate a particular sort of Taste to ground universal aesthetic standards. Both kinds of taste are part and parcel of the same social forces.""</em><br>

Liking something says more about the social forces in the social space (the system of relations, alliances, and power struggles, according to Bourdieu), than it says about the object that is liked. <br>

<br>

If you wish to discuss culinary habits and "haute cuisine", I'm ready, Julie, but still you will find little to support your apparent intentions to declare that what individuals happen to like is always "great" by definition. The French great dishes (cuisine) are made and were made in family circles in the cities, and found their way into restaurants in the 18th century. The Italian and Spanish great dishes came from the country side of individual farms and small villages, before arriving on the tables of city folks and restaurants. The great kitchen tradition of these countries were not that of the bourgeoisie but that of ordinary traditional families, ut they would all fiercefully react against those who "clings to (their) errors ... and can both drown in grease and boil to death things that ought to be grilled plain or barely poached" - whether they like it, as such, or not.<br>

<br>

I disagree with you, when talking about art, that ""<em>impact on viewers" is due to nourishment</em>" only. It is also a quality of "great art". The relationship between nourishment and art can be influenced and reinforced by knowledge and understanding. <br>

<br>

When this is said, I must admit, that using a concept like "great art" invites for some justifiable harsh critics. Much declared "great art" has proven to be fakes or simply loosing their perceived "greatness" after a season or two. Other declared great art works, stay in the category for centuries most of which you will find in the world's museums. Great art, it is surely not an objective characteristics of any works of art, but appreciations of certain (professional) people and often contested by others.<br>

</p>

<p>The extreme opposite understanding is that there is no "great art" at all, it is all a travesty, and that all is flat and equal, and subject to the appreciation of the individual and it's likings.<br>

</p>

<p>The whole history of arts tells a story that is nearer the first than the second position, in my eyes.<br /><br>

</p>

 

[michaellinder]

<p>OK . . . I know I'm setting myself up to receive some severe body blows, but here goes anyway.</p>

<p>On a previous trip to New York City, I had the privilege of my cousin's accompanying me to the Frick Museum. This was advantageous because he has an MFA degree (teaches filmwriting at the Tisch School, NYU) and is very well versed in art history and painting techniques. As we viewed each painting, his expertise dramatically enhanced my experiencing this amazing collection. Just before we left the museum, I expressed my gratitude for his serving as my personal docent.</p>

<p>I've already confessed to not having my cousin's art background. Yet, at my level, I nonetheless am able to have a thorough appreciation for works I've previously seen only reproduced in books. I would have that appreciation even if I had visited the museum alone on that occasion.</p>

<p>My concern is that some of the posts I've recently skimmed appear to treat casual users of cameras in devices other than cameras <strong><em>per se</em></strong> as not being able to appreciate what they create from time to time. Please understand that in no way are they as qualified as "serious photographers." And I do not, and will not, diminish the role that such photographers serve to create and promote photographic art. However, I also don't want to see casual users of cell phone cameras dismissed out of hand.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Obviously, you did not receive any "severe body blows" on that basis, Michael. :))<br /> The whole questioning, I tried to open, was not aimed at dismissing anybody. The question was on the quality of photos, which ends up among the billion others, which the photographers themselves did not appreciate as anything else than casual snapshots, but which by others, like the trained, professional art viewer, might be considered as "great art". My viewpoint is that the future of art belongs to a significant degree to the act of these viewers of art: gold-diggers of photographical art, one could call them.</p>

[dan_south]

I found the opening post difficult to understand. Here is my attempt at a translation. Is it accurate?

 

"As time passes, it takes less and less skill to be a photographer and more skill to be a viewer of photographs."

[AJHingel]

<p>Right ! And, the result is, that photos that will end up as "great" in the future will probably have have been found by qualified viewers picked up among the billion of shots made by non pretentious shooters, more than through the portfolios of art photographer. </p>