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Postmodernism, et al. I'm getting annoyed.

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Doug,

In cave paintings, multiple legs give the impression of movement, especially in flickering light of oil lamps! Try blinking and your guys are moving too!

Chauvet_running_bison.jpg


Running Bison Chauvet Cave Source

Asher
 

Chris Kresser

New member
I apologize that I haven't had the chance to read every message in this thread yet. But yesterday I was reading "The Art Spirit" by Robert Henri and I came across a passage that I think is relevant here. Within the academic and commercial art communities we often hear the phrase "the public does not appreciate art". The idea is that the public is too stupid to understand what good art is or to recognize it when they see it. Henri's response to this:

Perhaps the public is dull, but there is just a possibility that we are also dull, and that if there were more motive, wit, human philosophy, or other evidences of interesting personality in our work the call might be stronger.

A public which likes to hear something worth while when you talk would like to understand something worth while when it sees pictures.

If they find little more than technical performances, they wander out into the streets where there are faces and gestures which bear evidence of the life we are living, where the buildings are a sign of the effort and aspiration of a people.

When the motives of artists are profound, when they are at their work as a result of deep consideration, when they believe in the importance of what they are doing, their work creates a stir in the world.

Henri was writing about painting 85 years ago, but his observations are timeless and of course apply equally well to photography. What is missing in much of postmodern art, for me, is the "profound motive" and the "deep consideration" that Henri outlines as prerequisites of important work. So much of what I see today is based on a clever idea or hollow aesthetic trend, rather than an authentic, personal response to life.

I too have grown very weary of it all. I've identified a few photographers whose work inspires me (some well known, others not) and I simply stick with their work for inspiration and pleasure. I've also taken solace in the artists of yesterday and beyond whose work to me seems so much more real.
 

doug anderson

New member
Chris, I agree with much of this. The "attitude" of so much contemporary art is so jaded, droll and detached, so unaware of the world's suffering. I'm not championing an entirely political or humanist art, but I think people are hungry for what is real (reality is not boring if truly perceived), real in the sense that Coleridge meant when he separated Imagination and Fancy. A very old idea, but one that still has resonance for me.

I'd be interested to know which photographers/artists you admire.

Doug
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
But what's the finction of art? Is it in fact to celebrate life?

The idea is that the public is too stupid to understand what good art is or to recognize it when they see it. Henri's response to this:

Robert Henri: "Perhaps the public is dull, but there is just a possibility that we are also dull, and that if there were more motive, wit, human philosophy, or other evidences of interesting personality in our work the call might be stronger. A public that likes to hear something worthwhile when you talk would like to understand something worthwhile when it sees pictures. If they find little more than technical performances, they wander out into the streets where there are faces and gestures which bear evidence of the life we are living, where the buildings are a sign of the effort and aspiration of a people. When the motives of artists are profound, when they are at their work as a result of deep consideration, when they believe in the importance of what they are doing, their work creates a stir in the world."

Henri was writing about painting 85 years ago, but his observations are timeless
Maybe not.

His views may well be a holdback to Victorian English Art Critics who felt art needed a purpose, especially a moral one! With a purpose, it better be understood or the purpose would be defeated! That school of thought took us back for 50 years perhaps, but by the end of the 19th Century, we were pretty well past that. Maybe not the people in the street, but artists and photographers. Art for Art's Sake is another approach. (Politics for politics sake, music for music sake, morality for moralities sake and religion for religion only. When we mix up activities and purposes, then the very of nature of art changes.

Not that one cannot have good art with purpose, message or honor to some idea or creed, (and, yes, easy for anyone in the street to appreciate). Of course, these do not prevent any artist doing a great job. However none of these elements:

  1. are required.
  2. are part of some "higher" form of art.
  3. give rise to the most original art forms.
and of course apply equally well to photography.

You can take your pick.

  1. Photography can be for no purpose, just for love of that pursuit! Or is can be directed to some need.

  2. One can make a perfect representation so it seems as if one is actually there, (i.e. factive images ). It could be for memories (weddings) or art and in these uses one might make an "even more perfect or idealized version" that has really departed from what we could experience if we were also there (the fictive image).

  3. Then one can make derivatives that have idealized or romantic simplifications, distortions, layers of other matter and so forth to present some idea beyond what was seen in the fashion that painters might do. We use the tools: imagination consideration, creativity and skill. Some of us may be also lucky enough to reach inwards, a measure of genius perhaps, to draw on esthetic secrets from within. When it all works, and that's very rare, we progress from a good picture to a moving work of technical and or esthetic merit that we'll cherish according to our taste.

Taste? Just like food, one needs cultural exposure and that's another subject.

What is missing in much of postmodern art, for me, is the "profound motive" and the "deep consideration" that Henri outlines as prerequisites of important work. So much of what I see today is based on a clever idea or hollow aesthetic trend, rather than an authentic, personal response to life.

So, Chris, not to be confrontative, it is merely still an opinion, an argument, (not a tested assertion) that we should be making pictures with "profound motive" or even with "deep consideration".

If you come across a beautiful child, butterfly or cloud. Your camera may go up to your eye, frame the beauty and the camera would do the rest. For sure, people with a reasonable workflow with then have a great picture to show. If it were David Goldfarb, we'd also have a technically perfect albumin print. Someone else would produce a 3 ft poster on an inkjet, pretty well perfect each time. There need be no "profound motive", just reflex response and certainly no "deep consideration".

That "lifting the camera to the eye" is from trained esthetic awareness and cultural values. The skill is in the approach. That's where most pictures are ruined but the others have it and can succeed. However, it's the extensive application of genius that gets us, on a very rare occasion from a competent photographic picture to great art. In any case, the observer may not "get it" and so that can be no objective criterion for saying photography is good or not.

Unless one has to sell the stuff, so what? It's just the artist who has to like his/her work in the first instance. Reference to higher purpose has nothing to do with art, although it would not disqualify any photography for such dependence or utility.

I'm not rejecting the value of great consideration and profound motive. However, these may be just utilitarian tools in putting together a fashion shoot with a whole team of 20 assistant or simply planning a picture carefully with the sun going down by the Ponte Vecchio in Florence in
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Just for reference,

Robert Henri

Birth 1865 (Cincinnati, Ohio)

Death 1929 (New York City)

Lived/Active in New York/Pennsylvania


{
4349_Robert_Henri_bio.jpg


Robert Henri - Self Portrait


Often Known For portrait and social realist genre painting, teaching

Born Robert Henry Cozad in Cincinnati, Ohio, Robert Henri became one of the leading personalities in American art, known for his teaching skills, ethnic portraits, especially spirited children, and insistence that artists should adhere to social realism and give rein to their own artistic instincts.

During his growing up years, he lived between Cincinnati and Cozad, Nebraska, founded by his father John Jackson Cozad, a gambler and real estate promoter. Source
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
But what's need for art and our photography: does it have to be even agreeable?

and another source.

Robert Henri

Encyclopedia of World Biography | Date: 2004

A revolution in American art circles was led by Robert Henri (1865-1929), instigator of what was referred to as "The Eight" and the "revolutionary black gang." Henri, along with John Sloan, William Glackens, George Luks, Everett Shinn, James Preston, Edward Davis, and Charles Redfield, held academic and officially sanctioned art in contempt. They complained that it was cloistered, effete, monotonous, and "fenced in with tasseled ropes and weighed down with bronze plates."

These young artistic rebels believed that American art should be public in the broadest sense of the word and have relevance to the people, not just to art experts. According to Henri, American artists had too long been under the sway of the standards and subject matter of European high art. Henri and The Eight challenged the enshrining of European aesthetics. Following in the footsteps of novelists such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, and the essayist Henry David Thoreau, who celebrated what they called "an American spirit," Henri turned his artistic vision to native themes. By doing so, he insisted that the unique qualities of America should shape its artists and its art.

Henri was born Robert Henry Cozad on June 25, 1865 in Nebraska. He studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Henri became fascinated by the realism of his teacher, Thomas Eakins, who counseled his students to study their own country and to "portray its types." To the dismay of the academy, Eakins insisted that his students paint from nude models rather than from plaster molds. Eakins's rebelliousness against the decorum of academic art cost him his job but won the admiration of Henri, who continued his studies with Eakins's gifted student, Thomas Anshutz. In 1888 Henri left for Paris and enrolled in the bastion of classicism, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, for two years. While in Paris the radical Henri found Post-Impressionism, the European challenge to academic art, uninteresting.

Read more here.

So, yes, the guy is a character and colorful but hardly a dispassionate critic. However, he's important in the development of 20th Century American art. He's well respected and loved by his ardent followers. However, it's perhaps under-serving his greatness to merely consider him a "guru". He had a major influence on George Bellows, John Sloan and Dennis Hopper. Henri would send his students to the streets of the city of New York to get life as it is! (Paradoxically, Henri, himself never followed that rule and was mostly a studio painter.)

Asher
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Doug and Chris,

Let me clearly acknowledge your desire for art which has the essence of life that can inspire us. I have that too! See post # 4 above for an example of what especially makes me happy to see here in OPF. We have much more. I'll give some pointers. Let me know if we are lacking in this respect by the pictures shown here. We have to put aside glamor and product work and the like.

What would you be looking to see more of? Do you have examples of what you really like?

Asher
 

doug anderson

New member
Asher: of late, I have liked Jonas Bendiksen's work, especially his book, Satellites. It is visual poetry at its best. He has the excitement of the amateur and the craft of the professional. He does not wear his intellect on his sleeve, and yet I believe he is genuinely visionary about the human condition. You can find some of his work at www.magnumphotos.com. There is a pull down menu for photographers.

Of the elders, I have been enjoying Bruce Davidson, Gary Winogrand, Cartier-Bresson, and Dianne Arbus.

Of the commercial photography that is everywhere I admire the technique, but seldom the vision, which seems to be obsessed with surfaces, reducing the models to ciphers.

A good poem begins one place and winds up another, so that the reader is always taken by surprise, even with the quotidian. I think a great photograph does the same. One enters the vision one way and winds up another. I am thinking of Bruce Davidson and Dianne Arbus, in particular, because they seem always to be asking, "Yes, but do you really see the world you sleepwalk through daily?"
 

doug anderson

New member
addenda to last post

Speaking of Elders, I love the work of Alvarez Bravo and the younger photographers, like Graciella Iturbide and Marianna Lampolski who have been influenced by him, or, rather, influenced by Mexico itself. The term "magic realism," which has become a buzz word for Latin American writers like Gabriel Marquez and Jorge Amado, is really a visionary method of seeing what is actually there. It is "magic" and "real" because reality, seen by a visionary, is magic. Frequently these photographers are referred to as surrealist, but I believe that designation is wrong. In surrealism, the hand of the artist is always visible in the conscious manipulation of reality: the egos of Dali or Man Ray are always foregrounded in their work. Not so with the above mentioned Mexican photographers who have seemingly made themselves empty of ego to contain the image. They have, in a sense, become film itself, or sensor itself.
 

Chris Kresser

New member
Asher,

I think there's plenty of room for all of the opinions expressed here. I also think there's room for more than one perspective on what makes good art, and indeed, this is the way it should be because of the subjectivity of both the question and answer.

The quote I shared from Robert Henri was in response to Doug's original post, which I felt some resonance with. At another time I may have responded differently. I've in fact found myself arguing your case - even elsewhere at other times on this forum, I believe - and have no trouble seeing the validity of your points.

I'm certainly not an authority on art. I was mostly expressing what I feel is lacking in much of the art I see today, rather than making a general statement about what all art should be. I was also revealing something about my personal taste. For example, I am not moved or inspired by the vast majority of street photography (HCB being a notable exception). It just doesn't do much for me, to be frank. Yet I can accept (at least some of it) as art without enjoying it.

Regards,
Chris
 

Chris Kresser

New member
Doug,

I've recently been enjoying the work of random photographers I've discovered on Flickr.

I appreciate the work of Burtynsky and Chris Jordan. While I realize that such an overt social and political message presented so literally is a turn-off for some, it's not for me - at least in these cases. Perhaps it's only because I resonate so deeply with their aims.

But it need not have political motive for me to enjoy it. I like any work that communicates feeling and soul, regardless of subject matter. For example, I like Larry Wiese's haunting, moody cityscapes. I am moved by Michael Kenna's landscape work. Sebastian Salgado's work is very evocative. Rinko Kawauchi's exquisite still life's of ordinary household scenes are incredibly powerful.

You mentioned HCB and Arbus - both of whom I enjoy. There are many others - but this is who springs to mind now.
 

doug anderson

New member
graciela iturbide

artwork_images_1050_204545_graciela-iturbide.jpg


Whereas almost everybody knows the work of Alvarez Bravo, Yampolski and Iturbide are less well know. Here is an Iturbide photo. I love the boom box.
 

doug anderson

New member
Doug,

I've recently been enjoying the work of random photographers I've discovered on Flickr.

I appreciate the work of Burtynsky and Chris Jordan. While I realize that such an overt social and political message presented so literally is a turn-off for some, it's not for me - at least in these cases. Perhaps it's only because I resonate so deeply with their aims.

But it need not have political motive for me to enjoy it. I like any work that communicates feeling and soul, regardless of subject matter. For example, I like Larry Wiese's haunting, moody cityscapes. I am moved by Michael Kenna's landscape work. Sebastian Salgado's work is very evocative. Rinko Kawauchi's exquisite still life's of ordinary household scenes are incredibly powerful.

You mentioned HCB and Arbus - both of whom I enjoy. There are many others - but this is who springs to mind now.

I remember a shot by Burtynsky that scared me: all those tires. Very effective. Don't know Jordan but will look him up.
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Indeed, Chris, there is "plenty of room for all opinions expressed here".

Here are two facts concerning art appreciation to keep in mind.

1. A person's points of view change with factors such as age, life experiences, exposure to art and artists. It is, for example, very common for someone to get new eyes after they've been through a traumatic ordeal such as a near-fatal disease. One's point of view also often changes as one's personal wealth and/or social standing change. So your point of view today may very well be quite different from what you'll see in ten or fifteen years.

2. Enjoyment of any form of art work comes from within you, not from the work itself. Quite literally, art appreciation is all in your mind.

As a personal account to tie these together, when I was a teen and early-20-something I just could not get my eye past technical evaluations. What is "it"? How large was a piece? What was the medium used? Was it bright or dark? Was its subject familiar and rendered "well"? What does it "mean"? What was it worth? These types of snap judgements buzzed in front of my eyes like a gnat swarm whenever I viewed a new work. I simply could not get past them and, as a result, the works I "liked" tended to be somewhat self-evident and offering few challenges to the eye or mind.

Today, 30+ years later, while I still ask many such questions they are no longer swarming intellectual barriers to taking something into my mind. I don't feel I have to decide like/don't like at that moment, or even ever. The financial value of the work is a minimal matter of curiosity. I don't feel angry or threatened viewing a work that I can't comprehend instantly. Nor do I feel that I have to make personal judgements about the artist's skills. Yes, some works really are devoid of meaningful conceptual foundations. But their existence does not categorically negate all contemporary art any more than the abundance of poor amateur photographers would disqualify all photography from consideration.

So my point is simply that your art opinions may very well change, perhaps dramatically, as you move along the trail of life. In fact if you do not observe such a change you might wonder if your life wheels are stuck in ruts.
 
Isn't it funny and sometimes strange how things in life play out? What I mean is, today I started reading this thread for the first time. I was looking at some of the works of the photographers people were talking about. I saw Doug's post about Edward Burtynsky, particularly concerning a photo that he once saw that scared him. A photo of tires. I thought to myself, what on earth kind of photo of tires could scare someone? So I used the wonderful Google to find out for myself. I went to Burtynsky's website and looked at some of his wonderful work. It was truly inspiring and yes, even frightening to some degree. I looked at everything he had on his site. Then the funny part happened. I was scanning through the TV menu trying to find something to watch and there it was. On the Sundance Channel they were showing a documentary about Edward Burtynsky and his work. It was called "Manufactured Landscapes" and it was fabulous and it was scary. I got to see again, all of the same images I had just been looking at a few hours previous. It just struck me as a wild coincedence. Or was it?

I work in manufacturing and a lot of our business has been moved to China. Ignorantly, I for some reason tried to blame China for that. In reality it is our own companies, and our own greed and need for that extra dollar, that has put our manufacturing sector in such a horrid state. The Chinese are only trying to make a living and feed their families just like we are. It's pretty sad to see what we are doing now to such a great and once beautiful country like China, all in the name of progress and commerce, and I wonder if they would have just been better off staying sealed off from the rest of the world like they had been for so many centuries? If you get a chance to see the documentary and Burtynsky's work I think you will like it as much as I did.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I work in manufacturing and a lot of our business has been moved to China. Ignorantly, I for some reason tried to blame China for that. In reality it is our own companies, and our own greed and need for that extra dollar, that has put our manufacturing sector in such a horrid state. The Chinese are only trying to make a living and feed their families just like we are. It's pretty sad to see what we are doing now to such a great and once beautiful country like China, all in the name of progress and commerce, and I wonder if they would have just been better off staying sealed off from the rest of the world like they had been for so many centuries? If you get a chance to see the documentary and Burtynsky's work I think you will like it as much as I did.
James,

Maybe we shouldn't have introduced clean water and antibiotics before we had knowledge, skills and morals to inform us on how to deal with each other. To me, that's one of the greatest ironies of the modern world! Clean water and antibiotics as well as distribution systems for food can increase suffering! This is especially true where there's aversion to family planning. Even with that, a continued increase in masses of population means dams to collect water, ruining habitats, mass removal of populations with increased central control and individuals having few rights. Rivers are poisonned and the only unstoppable product is human waste. For all the cost, there's little, if any real improvement in the quality of life.

This might be the nidus of a new thread. It's not part of the post-modernists, except to see they too don't have many ideas on this issue either!

Asher
 
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