The question arises:
Would it be art if you thought it was art?
Would you say it was art if I thought it was art?
How about if an art academic thought it was art?
You come to it with preconceived ideas about what makes a good
photograph. We all do.
I taught that a good photograph might be good because of the mood or the
moment or the light or the composition or the sense of place or sense of
time or the lesson in it. Any one factor if strong enough could make it
a good photograph.
But what is a BAD photograph? Is there such a thing?
The picture of Patty Hearst, robbing a bank, shot by a bank security
camera, sold to every newspaper in the world and was on the cover of
many magazines.... It's an iconic photograph. Is it bad? The quality is
not good at all. Can it be good simply because it's the daughter of the
media magnate?
Somebody (Besides me) thought it worthy of hanging on the wall of a
museum.... They come to it with a different set of preconceived ideas
than you or I do. But if I want to grow, I need to learn what those
ideas are. I need to find out why THEY thought it was a good photograph.
On the other hand, I'm an old dog and new tricks are hard to learn and I
struggle to keep up. I long for the smell of hypo and acetic acid... the
slippery prints as they fall into the washer and the smell of them drying.
But here I am getting to the heart of Photoshop CS5... is it bad cos
it's digital.... maybe. But thank God for Photoshop... it's how I've
made my living for 6 months now in a new city.
There's no right or wrong answer.
herschel
On 1/27/11 10:39 PM, Andrew Sharpe wrote:
Hmm, again. Aperture or not, it still isn't a very compelling image, nor
particularly well made. It's just *supposed* to be odd. Compared to the
odd of an Erwitt or Kalvar photograph... well, for me there just isn't a
comparison.
Andrew
On 01/27/2011 03:59 PM, lookaround360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Lea,
The Jaimie Warren red faced woman has an Aperture book and the show is
"Make it Strange." You should have told us "experts" that in the first
place! All you needed to do is Google her! More exclamation marks...!
AZ
LOOKAROUND - Since 1978
http://www.panoramacamera.us
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [SPAM] Kemper Museum revisited
From: Lea Murphy<lea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, January 27, 2011 5:19 pm
To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students
<photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I took a long lunch and revisited the Kemper hoping to find a docent available. I was told that docent visits are by appointment only.
The woman at the desk asked if she could help me and I was only too happy to let her know I had some questions about how two particular pieces of art came to be hanging in the museum.
She asked which two and when I told her she agreed that the woman with the red face was a piece she didn't care for at all, either.
Here is a link to the image: http://messengerbird.com/news/2008/12/15/jaimie-warren/
But HOW did it land here, I asked.
It ends up that the creator, Jaimie Warren, GIFTED it to the museum.
Jaimie lives in Kansas City, is more of a performance artist than a photographer (as I think of the term photographer) and does workshops in collaboration with the museum, especially programs aimed at interesting children in art. As best I understand it Jaimie does her 'performance art' by setting the stage for herself then hands her camera off to someone else who takes the photograph. Is THAT a being a photographer? Hmmmmm.
The very helpful woman at the desk further informed me that the Kemper Museum has a team who recommends what purchases to make to the the acquisitions team who in turn make recommendations to Mr. Kemper who writes the checks and buys the art. The Kemper is privately owned and open to all, free of charge.
Desk Helper completely understood my interest in how something so unarty (my words) could be hanging in a museum.
She assured me that many voices and many sets of eyes look at each piece acquired.
Gifting. That answered a lot of my questions.
So far as Tina Barney's wedding photograph is concerned, I sent an email to a friend who is a docent at the Kemper and she wrote this in reply:
That's a piece by Tina Barney. Love her or hate her. Anyway, she takes photos that are posed to look as if they're NOT posed--sort of a huge snapshot. She chooses the clothing (bridesmaid ca. 1965?) and hair, and then goes for a story telling shot. When I've toured it with kids, I've asked them to tell me what's going on--who's mad at whom, etc. They love it. Great photography? I'll let you be the judge of that.
Knowing it's a staged photo completely changes my perception of it. It doesn't move it to the level of art in my mind but I can appreciate that the photographer was striving to say something, get a rise out of the viewer, that it wasn't an accident blown up really, really big and hung on the museum wall.
These pieces, by the way, are part of the exhibit called Make it Strange, Developing a Medium which presents images curated in order to show photography's ability to represent things for 'what else they are', the distanced approach to reality that offers viewers an alternate mode of seeing. It hopes to demonstrate how photography disrupts perception with a defamiliarizing effect.
*******
I feel very fortunate to live so close to two excellent museums, The Nelson-Atkins Bloch Museum and The Kemper. By living close it's easy to take advantage of what they exhibit, that they are open free to the public makes it almost criminal not to go. To put your eyes so close to a painting as to see the brush strokes that made it, to see fingerprints of the artist who sculpted a piece or to gaze deep into the tones of a photographic print made by a master is an overwhelming experience. I am not ashamed to say I have left these museums with tears in my eyes more often than not.
********
Kim, I wrote that I was uneducated in art not with any shame but to show point of reference...basically that my views come from what I see, read and think about what I've seen and read, not from having spent hours in a classroom. I love that all the world...books, magazines, the web, fellow artists, museums, galleries and my own brain are my classroom. I try to learn a little something every day and I'm usually successful.
Lea
your kids . my camera . we'll click
www.leamurphy.com
