When the viewers are the only "artist" around

[albert_richardson1]

<p>I'm a little late to the party...</p>

<p>This whole discussion reminds me of the old proposition that (some large number - say 10,000) monkeys at typewriters, given enough time, would eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. The monkeys would have no idea what they are doing in either the making or the appreciation of their results. A human expert would have the onerous job of reviewing the results to see if, in fact, any literature much less Shakespeare ever showed up.</p>

<p>This seems to me to be very similar to the original proposition. To paraphrase: Many (millions, perhaps) ignorant people with cameras take many more millions of pictures having no idea of what they have done. A few, but too few, privileged photographic image critics are the only ones available who can properly appreciate the images they see. Isn't it a shame so many idiots are ruining the pastime (profession, serious hobby) for nothing. I'm sharing this thought because we PN readers who find these comments are the overburdened elite who do appreciate photographic art!</p>

<p>I suppose this characterization of the OP will offend some. The sentiments expressed are not new. It strikes me as an elitist reaction against what is undoubtedly a true cultural phenomenon. There really are millions of PWC taking digital pictures of everything imaginable. A significant number of them probably have a genuine knack for it. Others have the ability to pay attention to what they are doing so that they get better at it as they go along. I cannot enter other peoples' minds to be able to tell who thinks she/he is an "artist" and who doesn't. Would anyone care if I could?</p>

<p>Does it really take a critic to recognize a well made photograph? Affirming this notion reflects a pretentious and elitist point of view whereby the author attempts to mislead the reader into giving him more credit than is due. Asking how there can be art with no experts to recognize it is a silly and idle waste of time. The expert doesn't make the artist, the artist makes the expert. That is, the expert does not tell the artist what to do. In fact, she/he spends her time following artists' work and careers to try to understand how it fits together in the big "picture of things." Snapshots - not so much.</p>

<p>The OP is certainly not the first person to find a way to tell us that the world is going to Hell in a hand basket!</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Albert, not to defend the OP (see my disagreements with Anders in my previous posts) but I do think that this part of your post is not entirely fair:</p>

<p>Albert wrote: "Many (millions, perhaps) ignorant people with cameras take many more millions of pictures having no idea of what they have done. A few, but too few, privileged photographic image critics are the only ones available who can properly appreciate the images they see."</p>

<p>I think that the two sides of this divide are not (necessarily) seeing the same picture. In other words, its not that the "millions" have no idea; they just have a *different* idea of what they've done. The "privileged" ones are finding artistic content that Anders feels was not originally seen precisely because it wasn't what "they" were "doing."</p>

<p>An example might help. Here [ <strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/snapshot01.jpg">LINK </a></strong>] is a photo in which a pair of people are apparently trying to make a copy of another photo. They've messed up by not getting close enough -- which "messing up" has allowed all kinds of extra stuff to enter the frame. In particular the reflections (tower, photographer, etc.) in the car, all the forms, shapes, textures, etc. that some "privileged" person (I'm finding this in the National Gallery's book from their show of anonymous snapshots) recognized as having interesting -- artistic -- merit. It seems very unlikely that the maker of the picture saw it as such.</p>

<p>Another example that raises similar questions is here [ <a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/snapshot02.jpg"><strong>LINK</strong></a> ]. It's not necessarily that we have dummies versus experts; it's that we have people essentially "seeing" two different pictures.</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>Anders, I don't think I stated that <strong>you</strong> were dismissing anything. Rather, I stated a general concern. I also think I finally understand your overall point - that it will take a "trained eye" to evaluate a casual snapshot.</p>

 

[AJHingel]

<p>I expected some harsh reactions to my questions, but maybe not insults. But never mind, they don't touch me. Rather, I find them amusing and an unarticulated signs of being short of arguments.</p>

<p>Putting that aside, why cannot it be accepted, as a fact of our common reality :</p>

<ul>

<li>that no two photos are alike and that some are more interesting than others;</li>

<li>that such distinctions are not always only subjective, but that in some cases, a photo can be seen as totally uninteresting and common by a great majority of viewers (mine on Photonet for example !);</li>

<li>that other photos, few in number, might be recognized as exceptionally creative and challenging to the eye by another or the same great majority;</li>

<li>that there is out their, in society, something called ART and that there are institutions, galeries, markets, networks of artist and schools of art, and individual artist who shoot photos within that context and fail or succeed as art photographers;</li>

<li>that most photos shot by most of us and by a growing number of photographers are shot totally outside such a frame of reference of ART;</li>

<li>that, among that enormous and growing number of shots, there is an increasing number of photos, that the art community and its "viewers" (critics, specialists, gallery owners and artist alike) functioning as some kind of gatekeepers, would recognize as "art" in line with, what recognized art photographers are doing when they succeed;</li>

<li>that such photos, discovered by viewers and not introduced by artist of the art community, will have a prominent place in the future of art photography;</li>

</ul>

 

<ul>

<li>not to forget, that the term "art community" is highly reductive of what actually goes on around art and artists, and that the term "art" is already contested area, by artists themselves (the Marcel Duchamp syndrom!) or by the very concept itself, but that none of that, makes art and non-art disappear as relevant phenomena in a discussion like this.</li>

<li>and certainly without forgetting that throwing around accusations of <em >elitism</em> tells more about the accuser than about the accused.</li>

</ul>

[Julie H]

<ul>

<li>that no two photos are alike and that some are more interesting than others;</li>

<li>that such distinctions are not always only subjective, but that in some cases, a photo can be seen as totally uninteresting and common by a great majority of viewers (mine on Photonet for example !);</li>

<li>that other photos, few in number, might be recognized as exceptionally creative and challenging to the eye by another or the same great majority;</li>

<li>that there is out their, in society, something called ART</li>

</ul>

<p>From here I add commentary:</p>

<ul>

<li>and that there are institutions, galleries, markets, networks of artist and schools of art, and individual artist who shoot photos within that context and fail or succeed as art photographers; <strong>[it can just as well be artists who are known and appreciated by (substantial parts of) society other than the established and institutionalized one you describe]</strong></li>

<li>that most photos shot by most of us and by a growing number of photographers are shot totally outside such a frame of reference of ART;<strong> [of YOUR kind of ART. That particular frame may be just as blind to any other that is outside of its frame as are the "growing number of photographers" to the institutionalized frame that you describe.]</strong></li>

<li>that, among that enormous and growing number of shots, there is an increasing number of photos, that the art community and its "viewers" (critics, specialists, gallery owners and artist alike) functioning as some kind of gatekeepers, would recognize as "art" in line with, what recognized art photographers are doing when they succeed;<strong> [again, YOU recognize certain types of pictures that "fit" your frame; you are, however, equally as likely to be blind to what others appreciate as ART in their own frame.]</strong></li>

<li>that such photos, discovered by viewers and not introduced by artist of the art community, will have a prominent place in the future of art photography;<strong> [in YOUR future of photography; you may be missing an entirely different "frame" of art that proves at least as potent as yours.]</strong></li>

<li>not to forget, that the term "art community" is highly reductive of what actually goes on around art and artists, and that the term "art" is already contested area, by artists themselves (the Marcel Duchamp syndrome!) or by the very concept itself, but that none of that, makes art and non-art disappear as relevant phenomena in a discussion like this.<strong> [i do not claim that it makes the art/non-art distinction disappear; rather, the "frame" cannot be assumed to precede the art that constitutes it (as Albert pointed out).]</strong></li>

<li>and certainly without forgetting that throwing around accusations of <em>elitism</em> tells more about the accuser than about the accused.</li>

</ul>

[AJHingel]

<p>Julie you are reading your previous remarks into my comments. No ! I don't talk about MY preferences or type of art. I'm talk about "Art" which includes innumerable types and expressions , that all are totally independent of my preferences, or your's for that sake. And furthermore, I do not either buy the closed encircled frame logic of art, as you and Albert also argue against.</p>

<p>The art world is not "closed", despite frequent efforts, that always turn up, trying to reject newcomers or new revolutionary expressions (again Dada and Duchamp, like the Impressionists and the American Abstractions of the sixties are good historical examples). Maybe one could actually say, that, by definition, what is considered Art and part of the art world is the most open institutional framework (in a sociological understanding) that one could imagine. This does however not delete the fact, that there is, at a given moment of time, something that in artistic terms qualify, and other things that fail.</p>

<p>By the end of the day I think what differs between us, is not the answer to the question on whether the art world and art exist (seems to me to be an obvious fact like sunset every evening), but whether it is of our concern.<br /> Personally - (it would certainly not surprise you, that there I speak about MY preferences) - I get, in general, more inspiration, food for thoughts and pleasure from the selective few works of art "<em>viewed</em>" and gathered by art curators around the world in galleries, museums and private collections, than from the thousands of snapshots on internet. The only message I have tried to sell above, is that these "viewers" (gatekeepers of the artworld, all in competition) will more and more find works of art according to their criteria of what is art and what is less or not at all, among the mass of photos presented outside the traditional spheres of art and artists.</p>

<p>Does that degrade any of our shots ? Not at all, in my view. They are mostly not considered as art by the art world out there, but they have numerous other qualities that make them important for each one of us - mine included.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Okay, I think we're finding common ground. Maybe we can agree, not on what is recognized as art but what is overlooked; that both the art establishment AND outsiders or snappers or ... anybody else, is just as capable of NOT realizing the (possible) power of a photograph's content.</p>

<p>Just by chance, I find this posted today on <a href="http://www.americansuburbx.com/2013/05/john-szarkowski-on-robert-franks-book-the-americans-1986.html">ASX</a> (American Suburb X). This is Szarkowski (art establishment) talking about his first reaction to <em>The Americans</em>:<br>

.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>“I saw it I suppose very shortly after it was published, when I was still working as a photographer myself, and it was, frankly, shocking. I sensed the power in it, and the authority about it but there was much about it that I didn’t like … <em>The Americans</em> was received with mixed critical reaction. Not primarily because of its subject matter, although many people thought so at the time. There had been many people who clearly disliked it or hated it. Looking back on it now, if you analyze the subject matter of <em>The Americans</em>, it is fact is subject matter that has been recorded, described with considerable depth by a good many other photographers.</p>

<p>"It was something in the very bones of the photographs themselves – something about the look of the pictures that suggested that, whereas what was being described had to be described because it was there, it didn’t have to be described according to the rules and formulations that were thought of as being good photography… We all knew those things existed… but the way in which they were depicted made them seem more difficult to accept, more pessimistic. There was something approaching a sharp edge of bitterness in the look of the pictures. And of course what was eventually learned from that it was not necessarily the sensibility that gave the pictures their bitter taste, but rather the knowledge that the medium itself was much more plastic, and was open to a wider range of invention that we ever realized."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>.<br>

... <em>the knowledge that the medium itself was much more plastic, and was open to a wider range of invention that we ever realized</em> ... " True for all of us, including the art establishment.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Thanks, Julie. An interesting account of this necessary openness to new forms of expression and ways of using of the medium, here photography, which makes the viewer (Szarkowski in your text) essential.<br /> <br /> Actually, if I can come back to Duchamp, he did indeed once say: "<strong><em>It is the viewer that makes the painting</em></strong>". When speaking about his ready made, he also continuously conveyed the message, that it is the contradiction that makes art: contradiction to what is expected; contradiction to tradition. Art is uncomfortable and disturbing and never just beautiful and nice (<em>beau et joli</em>) he would say. <br /><br /> <br /> I fell on a discussion in an issue of the French magazine: "<em><a href="http://www.artcroissance.com">ART Croissance</a>" </em>(April-June 2013) with the title of "<em>Death to Subjectivity</em>". The article (by Adeline Christova) argues for some core charcteristics of art. It enumerates four :<br /> <br /> <strong>A continuation of history of art -</strong> Art works in dialogue (personal process of construction/deconstruction) with art, already made, as a witness of present time. No artist is independent from history of art, but must open an individual dialogue with it.<br /> <br /> <strong>Art is an introduction to the future - </strong>Artist are visionary and art works are prophetic. This element of art, which announces something that will happen, does not lay in the medium it uses, but in the themes, questions and approaches it communicates.</p>

<p><strong>Art is the result of a creative proces </strong> - Art works are not a decorative space made on an impuls, but the result of creative process of dialogue between transcendent reflections transformed into a form/material.</p>

<p><strong>Art is a territory of sensitivity </strong>- This is where the "viewer" comes in. Art exists where there is evidence of an inner sensitivity. Art does not transmit a pre-established sense or message, but something more than what can be expressed in words.</p>

<p>One could of course write a similar list of criteria for what-art-is-not/what-is-not-art.<br /> Reading and reflecting on these criteria on art, I would put myself in the category of decorative image makers, at best. Still much to learn...</p>

[dan_south]

<blockquote>

<p>This whole discussion reminds me of the old proposition that (some large number - say 10,000) monkeys at typewriters, given enough time, would eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

It will never happen. I don't care if it's 10 billion monkeys typing for the rest of the life of the universe. They'll never produce the complete works of Shakespeare. <br>

<br>

Intelligence is not random. Good writing will never result from an army of ham-fisted monkeys pounding on keyboards. High quality photographs do not occur without thoughtful and emotional responses to light and form. Spray and pray camera phone jockeys are not going to replace Nat Geo and Life, etc. They may become fashionable for a while, but that will fade quickly.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Those who pronounce such propositions have likely never read Shakespeare.<br /> Here is his Sonnet N° XXIV:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd</em><br /><em>Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;</em><br /><em>My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,</em><br /><em>And perspective it is the painter's art.</em><br /><em>For through the painter must you see his skill, 5</em><br /><em>To find where your true image pictured lies;</em><br /><em>Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,</em><br /><em>That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.</em><br /><em>Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:</em><br /><em>Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me 10</em><br /><em>Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun</em><br /><em>Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;</em><br /><em> Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;</em><br /><em> They draw but what they see, know not the heart.</em><br>

<em> </em></p>

</blockquote>

<p><em>There are 153 others, if interested.</em></p>

[Julie H]

<p>Dan wrote: "It will never happen."</p>

<p>Um... You've heard of evolution?</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Survival of the fittest does not necessarily include more likelihood of being able to write the Shakespearian Sonnet N° 155 !</p>

[Julie H]

<p>You don't get "more likelihood" from randomness. The selection pressure on the monkeys is that you (Anders) are <em>not</em> selecting -- from the random production of marks that you take to be "letters" and interpret as "words" -- anything (from their manifold production) other than the Sonnet that you happen to desire. Don't confuse what the monkeys do with what you "read" out of it.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>To try to bring this back on topic ...</p>

<p>Suppose you have a 700 character (letter) Shakespeare Sonnet. You also have one monkey. The monkey sits at the typewriter and types 700 random characters. Whatever <em>specific</em> configuration (the exact arrangement of letters) that the monkey produces in that single effort are no more nor no less likely/probable than is the arrangement that comprises the Shakespearian Sonnet. No random arrangement of 700 characters is more likely than any other random arrangement of 700 characters -- including that which comprises the Shakespeare Sonnet. </p>

<p>In expecting, in searching for, in expecting Shakespeare's Sonnet, you may very well overlook all kinds of other interesting, exciting, mysterious, magnificent, surprising arrangements that someone who is not looking for Shakespeare's Sonnet might well discover. They might make these discoveries <em>because</em> they aren't looking for Shakespeare's Sonnet.</p>

[dan_south]

>>>Those who pronounce such propositions have likely never read Shakespeare.<<<

 

Those who cannot defend their position with reason resort to discrediting the source of opposing ideas. See also: 'the

proud man's contumely, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes'.

 

>>>Heard of evolution?<<<

 

Evolution has yet to produce a Shakespeare-typing monkey. Would you suggest that given movie cameras and enough

time that a bunch of monkeys would eventually film Citizen Kane or Gone With The Wind? Good luck waiting for that to

happen. It underscores the ridiculousness of the original postulation.

[AJHingel]

<p><em>""You don't get "more likelihood" from randomness.""</em><br>

But, survival of the fittest is exactly not a random evolution, or is there something I did not grasp ?</p>

[Julie H]

<p>"a bunch of monkeys would eventually film Citizen Kane ... ?" Orson evolved from ... the Orson factory?</p>

<p>" ... is there something I did not grasp ?" The unfitter?</p>

[dan_south]

<p>Orson Welles didn't evolve from a monkey (a common misconception about evolution).</p>

<p>Monkeys wouldn't type random letter sequences. They would type semi-random clusters of repetitious gibberish such as: hjkjklhjklhkhjllhjklhjkklhjklhjhjk</p>

<p>Don't expect the sonnet-writing monkey to evolve anytime soon. </p>

 

[AlanKlein]

<p>Great artists touch the souls of the simple who lack in understanding of what art is. If you can effect people like that, then you're really something!</p>

[luis_g]

<p>I have been lurking for some time, read the entire thread, and went back to the original question by Anders...</p>

<p><strong>Anders - "</strong>I have been wondering, since some time, what happens with especially photography as an art (?), as a creative medium (?), when a greater and greater proportion of creative and artistic photos are made by photographers who have little understanding of the creative dimensions of their photos."</p>

<p>My prediction: Initially, another schism. The conventional photo-enthusiast/pseudo-pro contingent (about 97% of PN) did just this over the last 100 years or so. They developed their own aesthetic (further tribalized in places like Flickr which bled into Instagram) to establish an identity between the art world (which they often seem to despise) and the snappers at large.<br>

Now we have this enormous number of people who are avidly photographing, mostly with their phones, bypassing everyone and everything else. No man is an island, but enough millions of them are a continent, one that dwarfs every other camp in the medium. <br>

What is going to happen? What is about to happen has already happened: They have developed means of production, distribution, a hierarchy of venues, their own vocabulary, aesthetics and more. Many are uneducated sophisticates, most bring some kind of interdisciplinary approach to the medium. This *is* the elephant in the room, and its mass is going to engulf and its tidal pull everything else. Eventually, new dialects and fusions will emerge from all this. Photography as we know it will represent a minority viewpoint (it already does) and those who engage in contemporary practices will define the near future.</p>

<p> </p>

[AJHingel]

<p><em>""They developed their own aesthetic...to establish an identity between the art world...and the snappers at large.""</em><br>

<br /> Luis, I agree. The <em>"conventional photo-enthusiast/pseudo-pro contingent" </em>are developing aesthetics at the door steps of the "art world" as they have always done since the invention of photography in the 19th century. This phenomenon boomed in the 1930s and '40s when cheaper cameras came on the market and has clearly exploded since digital photography arrived. There is no elephant around.<br /> Also in other art forms, like painting or sculptures, the same large category of "<em>enthusiast/pseudo-pro contingent" </em>have always been there. Most of these, which includes, as you write, without doubt, most of the PN-active members, have no relation or ambition of being part of the "art world" (which some of them even "despise" - some of last century's greatest artist always despised the "art-world" ! Duchamp being one of them, for example, yet another time), but they surely have concerns of aesthetics, artistic technics and references and most of their works, stay, mostly, "undiscovered" by those active in the "art-world" - whether it concerns them or not.</p>

<p>Already there, among the mass of photos of this largely undefined group of "<em>photo enthusiasts",</em> the mentioned "<em>viewers of art</em>" of the OP, the present and future door keepers of the art-world, have a gold mine of potential picks of "great art" to be discovered over time. However, my main subject-source of undiscovered photos is to be found in the millions of other photos shot outside the group of PN-like enthusiasts, by people just pressing to shoot photos, they wish to keep and share - or forget about in files and shoeboxes.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Anders whatever the art establishment gets from the "gold mine of potential picks of "great art" to be discovered over time" will be only the (dead) meat, not the living creature that it was in its natural environment. You may make some fancy cookery with it, but its cooked power will only be that which the art establishment has projected into/onto it in accordance with its own aesthetic -- which has next to nothing to do with the power that thing has in its native milieu.</p>

<p>Story: For many years, oceanographers believed the deep ocean to be void of life because when they pulled up their nets, all they got was a jellified formless goo. But when they finally developed vehicles that could take them down there, that could stand the immense pressures, the total darkness, the near-freezing temps, they found the most incredible, amazing, bizarre life forms living in extraordinary diversity. Take those creatures back to the surface and they explode. Put them into a pressurized container and they may survive -- like a bird in a cage. The cage becomes part of the conception of the creature. You can only know these creatures IN the (their) deep.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>""has next to nothing to do with the power that thing has in its native milieu.""<br>

<br>

You don't really have the choice do you, Julie. You might go and see Michelangelo's Apolo/David statue in Accademia in Florence, but you have neither the artist at your disposal and neither the profit of his contemporaries and still it is "great art". You might sit down and read what others have written about that work for a year of two and statue will grow in interest make your emotions and understanding even greater. You don't need any "fancy cookery" to appreciate it, or do you ?<br>

I agree, however, that probably in the field of photography, those "great" photos that might be found by digging down in shoeboxes of forgotten photos, in the future, will have very little chances in galleries and other places where "great art" are supposed to be found. Gallery owners do not live of great art but mainly of what they consider "great artists", which can be marketed and ensure a continuous flow of profits from future works of the handpicked artists. Single exceptional shots will have much more the form of star dust to profit of those that can appreciate it. Artistic and often professional viewers are there to facilitate that also.</p>

 

[Julie H]

<p>Michelangelo (and all artists) make their art "to" and/or "for" somebody (even, in the most intensive case, if only "for" themselves). In your post previous to the last -- and the part from which I quoted and to which I was responding -- says this: "people just pressing to shoot photos, they wish to keep and share." They aren't making art.</p>

<p>Unselfconsciously re-acting to stuff gets the "being" of the casual shooter, but I don't think you get art without self-consciousness; that is what the "art" of art is.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>If I try come back to the four dimensions of art, that I mentioned above (just as example):</p>

<ul>

<li><strong>A continuation of history of art </strong></li>

<li><strong>Art is an introduction to the future </strong></li>

<li><strong>Art is the result of a creative proces </strong></li>

<li><strong>Art is a territory of sensitivity</strong></li>

</ul>

<p>I would agree with you, Julie, that one of them, the creative process, would, I would think, demand a conscious process of molding (to quote a friend of mine), but whether it necessarily demands "self"-consciousness, I think, can be debated. <br /> The so-called "primitive arts" or "Tribal arts", which are anything but primitive, but clearly considered "art", as for example the pre-colombi art (<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KxEG-iJ49Bw/TfhecCKop5I/AAAAAAAANmM/uoncgMJ_N84/s400/Amazon_03.jpg">as this</a>), certainly demanded: "continuation of history"; indices of change - "future" (in some cases); were based on a creative proces and epitomized the sensitivity of a culture and maybe, some cases, that of a self-conscious creator.</p>

<p>Julie, in the post you referred to, I did not I think write: "They aren't making art". It would be contrary to my main message. You can actually do tons of conscious things with a camera, without consciously trying to make "art". </p>