'Scuse me, but... what the hell???
You don't get to redefine terms and bend them to fit your argument! Pictorialism IS a movement in photography.
It is, yes, but the term was first used at least 50 years before photography was even invented. It's not exclusively a photographic term.
And if you really need it knocking out of the park, you can consider the Camera Obscura "cheat" used by the Dutch Masters in the 17th century as a photographic innovation in realism which spawned Modernism.
The obscura has been used for thousands of years though. Ironically the very argument you are using here, is the very one that led to the original use of the term pictorialism
It was first used to describe the traditional art values that dictated that everything should be "correct", and that the epitome of art is that which accurately represents reality. It was picked up, and used later on to describe the photography that looked like that... that looked like the kinds of paintings that tries to be faithful to reality. However, all they achieved were photos that looked like paintings
They were ignoring the inherent qualities of their medium and trying to make their work more acceptable to the art world by trying to create paintings with a camera. Steichen's
The Pond - Moonlight (incidentally, one of the most expensive photos ever sold) is a good example of pictorial photography. You are correct, it IS a photographic term, but it was appropriated, and wasn't first used exclusively as such. However... perhaps I'm being pedantic here... apologies...
The point is though....
While someone like Monét or Manet is now regarded by most as a "classic" artist, you have to appreciate how radical they were at the time. Composing paintings that had people halfway out of the frame, or looking out of the frame at something we couldn't see, and skies that contained unrealistic colours etc. This was a shocking disregard for the "values" of art at the time, and this was the beginning of the modern art movement. It was not a rebellion against photography, but against traditional art values that had stood stalwart for centuries unchallenged.
However, you can't say that because obscuras were used as drawing aids it is proof that "photography" spawned modern art. That's taking it a little bit too far. Isn't that like saying the ancient Greeks invented photography?
What's going on in this thread however (and we all know this is the case), is exactly what happens when anyone mentioned Andreas Gursky.
"It's crap!... it's boring and anyone could have taken it".
My main objection is the quick, glib dismissal of something as crap because you don't like it. It's just disrespectful. I could understand it if Parr's work was actually crap... meaning, it was out of focus, under exposed, post processed to death, or poor quality in some other way, but it's not. It's clearly work by someone who knows very well what they are doing. It's clearly work by a master photographer who can wield his equipment as good, and probably better than any of us can. To dismiss it as a snapshot is just really missing the point. It's MEANT to look like a snapshot.
I find it ironic that reality in photography is acceptable in photo journalism, sport, "street" etc... yet it seems to have no place in "art". Art must be pretty? Is that it? It seems that to be art, photography must look as little like a photograph as possible. It must eschew all vestiges of "snapshot" otherwise it's not art.
Yet... and here's what's really funny... the
masses praise someone like Paul Lung as an "artist" because all he does is create pencil drawings that look like snapshots
If there's no "visible"
craft on display, most people will disregard it as rubbish. I mean no offence, but people who do not understand art seem to react like this, and this is why amateur photographers seem to post process their work to death, thinking that they need to add "something" to remove it from all the other images they see: They don't realise that's not what makes something art. So when someone like Parr comes along, they think "That's crap... it's just a snaphot" as if there is something inherently wrong with that aesthetic. Suddenly everything the image contains, it's message, meaning and intent, is lost because we can't see past the fact that it is not a pretty landscape, or extravagantly lit studio shot.
That's a shame.
I think Warhol is a good example of someone who laid it bare in his Pop Art, which I think is in significant part a self-parody which his clients in large part didn't detect.
Of course it's self parody!! You say this as if you've discovered something
... you also say it as if parodying an art form can't in itself move that art form forward.
Parr is doing the same thing. If you don't see the self-deprecating nature of his work, then you need to open your eyes.
I didn't say I don't like ANY modern art, or that none of it has intrinsic value; b) No, I'm not saying that NO art has any intrinsic value. Silly.
You said that almost all modern art has no intrinsic value, and that
"Its value is instead bestowed upon it and perpetuated by its peddlers, and their followers."
Well.. in that case, ALL art has no intrinsic value then. It's some canvas, or photographic paper.. some oils, or charcoal, or silver. Not really worth much. ALL art's value is fixed by those who appreciate it, not by the artist. Yet when some affix a value to something by Hirst or Emin.. all of a sudden, they are idiots apparently. The same people who expound such narrow minded nonsense probably expect someone to part with money for THEIR OWN work though.
You seem incapable of recognising that an individual can have a good appreciation of art and STILL find nothing of worth in some (or, for some, even any) forms of modern art. IF it's true that people who don't "get" Parr are ignorant, then the ignorance is matched or even excelled by those opposite.
This rests on making the distinction between not liking it, and actually stating that it has no worth. The ONLY reason this has gone on for so long is that this seems to be quite an elastic statement. It really isn't though. There's a massive leap from
"I don't like it and I don't see anything in this for me" and
"It has no intrinsic worth". You Simon, not I, used the work "intrinsic". By that statement, what you are saying is that almost all modern art has absolutely nothing of any value
in it whatsoever, and anyone who thinks so, is wrong.... just by using "intrinsic". "Intrinsic" means it's no longer your opinion, and it's an inherent, internal quality of the medium itself.
Crap is short hand for 'I do not like this'. Why worry whether someone thinks something you like is crap. It's no more significant than any other preference.
....back to hypocrisy again. Because it's just rude, offensive, and demoralising.. that's why. Like I said earlier... you wouldn't say that to someone in here, so why say it about anyone at all? Would you say it to your child when he/she proudly presents you with a drawing they've done? No. So why level such a statement at Parr, who's work is clearly FAR from crap? To me it doesn't matter if it's someone sat next to me, or someone famous I'll never meet. You can't just dismiss great work as crap because you don't like it.
Conceptual art is for other black polo neck wearers. It is not for the masses who like things to look like what they're supposed to.
Not sure if you're trying to be ironic, or you genuinely think that.... or which is more scary.
The art world claims that they are better because they understand some art work that the rest of the world thinks is a bad joke. Each side pities the other's naivety. It's how it is
The "art world" claims nothing, I'm quite sure. I'm sorry, but the behaviour on display here has maybe got something to do with the attitudes that produce things like
"Conceptual art is for other black polo neck wearers"... I mean.. way to go with the cultural stereotypes there. Right... so all artists and people who appreciate it are like that huh? So, in contrast, all people like you are Sun reading, whippet walking, flat cap wearing working class people who hold their knives like pencils while eating?
Brilliant... that's that sorted then. We all know our place, and everyone's happy.
The problem is the insecurity of people who fear art.
I suppose. I hadn't considered looking it that way.
Most of the conceptual art I'd been thinking about had been more of the unmade bed, piles of bricks scenario. It's different with photographic work somehow.
So have you just had an epiphany then? Penny dropped?
We all know the story of the Emperor's trendy new clothes, that only clever and intelligent, (who were not "ignorant") people could see. What the courtiers and furriers really feared was the one child in the crowd, who - not knowing or perhaps caring that he was required to run with the sheep around him - said "I don't see it, it's crap!"
I could say the opposite is true though. That because the popular opinion of "art" is that it's just a bunch of "black polo neck wearers" worshipping the emperor's new clothes, then it's clearly crap.
Rinse and repeat.
There's a fear of art... people suspect their being hoodwinked if they themselves can't see it's "intrinsic" worth.
I don't fully understand M theory or certain other quantum theories, but I don't distrust the physicists developing such theories. It's POSSIBLE they could be making all this up to win research grants for all I know... but maybe they're following their life's passion and calling, and to hell with those that don't understand and think it's a waste of money.
Hate is a harsh word. The guys photos do nothing for me, though I accept others feel differently. So his work does nothing for me, but to call it crap is a bit silly, it is just not to my taste.
A sensible standpoint right there.
Pookey, it is not what you "say", it is how you "say" it.
?? Errr... I am what I am.... ?
Not sure why you're telling me this Fracster.. I can no more change the way I write than I can will myself to get my long lost 6 pack back again
Ok.. big post there... apologies... but don't bother ranting at me... if you can't be arsed reading it, move on... don't moan about it.
