A Little Rant today.
“I saw Cady Harran wearing army pants and flip-flops, so I bought army pants and flip-flops” — Mean Girls.
Recently at APE a post entitled “Why We Love Bad Photography” made me pause and consider what that meant to me. It ended up consuming quite a bit of my thoughts yesterday, as I believe it is a very tip of the iceberg on how the ‘art’ community decides on all things aesthetic. And how we allow people with agendas other than to illuminate and educate to attempt to teach us something.
First of all, I would like to state that I am not part of the “We” referred to in the headline. Are you? A show of hands… how many of you would like to admit to liking bad art. How many of you get up in the morning on a quest for banality? Really? Me neither.
From Rob’s post:
“If it requires more effort to consume, many will not bother with it. Think about a story crammed with words you don’t recognize. Taking the time to look those words up in a dictionary adds considerable effort. And, if you consider spending your free time developing your taste for finely crafted prose, you really need to be committed on another level to make that kind of investment. The same applies to photography.”
This is somewhat troubling to me. Is it being suggested that only “difficult” work be considered worthy? Only work that takes time to ‘understand’ can be considered good art. Does ‘good art’ require more ‘effort’?
I don’t think so. The work of Robert Mapplethorpe, with Lisa Lyon, or his incredible ‘Flowers’ need no ‘deep understanding’ or ‘education’ to be enjoyed. At least not to me. Edward Weston, Wynn Bullock, Imogen Cunningham and Paul Caponigro’s work are all pretty accessible. (Yeah, but them dudes are all old…-ed.)
OK, then how about Joni Sternbach, Kate Orne and Nadav Kander? (And, Imogen ain’t no dude, ed.)
There are many photographers who are making images that are accessible, interesting and engaging. Without double page ‘artists statements’ that require a couple of thesauruses to decipher.
I also think the preclusion that something be ‘difficult’ or ‘challenging’ to be a red herring argument. There clearly is no set of guidelines that set out how an image must be seen to be good. There is a huge history of work that was both accessible and considered to be ‘acceptable’ to the art world.
But there are those who simply have to be more… let’s say, “ethereal’ and ‘above’ the masses, the peons and the ‘little’ people.
Art remains one of the few bastions of that elitist attitude. It remains one of the few areas where one can simply ‘proclaim’ that this art is ART, and if you don’t get it… well, who would have expected YOU to get it. You are obviously unable to ‘get it’ given your limited taste and education.
Thanks.
But there may be more of an agenda for elitist exclusiveness than to illustrate and elucidate? If I show you some drivel and tell you that it is art, and “everyone” agrees that it is, you have three possible reactions:
1. Agree with me, thus showing me that you are as in tune with the “everyone” and “get it”
2. Disagree with me, opening yourself to being considered to be less ‘educated’ and ‘artistically savvy’ – a member of the great unwashed masses that simply don’t ‘get it’. Note that this sometimes is accompanied by a headshake, nod of the head, and a tsk tsk of pity.
3. Not give a shit what I say, make up your own mind and challenge my ‘drivel art’ to exculpatory investigation.
I have seen this phenomena on many more occasions than I would like.
“If it requires more effort to consume, many will not bother with it.”
This is true. But that effort has nothing to do with the value of what we are making an effort to consume. There is no correlation between difficulty and value. It can be very difficult to read a menu in a foreign country, constantly checking the conversion tables and the translations. Does that equate to a valuable literary engagement? Not really, but it may save you from having something that would surprise your gastronomic system.
From the original post at 1/125 referred to by A Photo Editor:
“This is quite interesting. While it is aimed at the problem of why people like Stieg Larsson, it is very applicable to photographic contexts, as well. (Would it be too much to say “the problem of why people like Chase Jarvis”?)
If you show the average viewer of photographs (which is to say, an average person in any country which is at least modestly industrialized) a bunch of Chase Jarvis’s work and a bunch of Alec Soth’s work, there’s an excellent chance you’ll get a better response to the former, for largely the same reasons that Lewis enumerates.”
I found it somewhat less than tasteful to compare one photographer to another. I am sure that neither photographer asked to be compared to the other, but nonetheless, they were.
To quote: “the problem of why people like Chase Jarvis”. This is a problem? That people like an artists work is a ‘problem’?
In what way? _________________________
How would a photographer who is popular with a lot of people be a problem?_________________________
To whom? _____________________________
Or is this a backhanded ‘wink’ to people who are really “in the know” and oh-so-clued-in to the game? Sort of a “Look, I went after the popular guy” sort of peer review enhancement. A “middle tier” assault meant to separate from the current tier and catch the eye of the “upper-tiers”, perhaps?
(I read an examination of the “Mean Girl” syndrome recently. It had a very cogent ring to the examination – and the art world.
The most aggressive “mean girls” are the ones in the middle tiers, trying to make points with those on high, while driving a visible wedge between them and their peer-levels and those below their current tier. The least aggressive were the ones at the very top – and those at the very bottom. Once a girl had reached a peak position, she felt no reason to be aggressive, entirely satisfied to watch the melee from a safe perch at the very top. Only when directly challenged would the aggression show itself, but even then, the top tier girls turn toward the ‘middle tier’s’ looking to gain favor to ‘handle’ the interloper.
Those on the bottom couldn’t give a shit about any of it. Consequently they were sometimes fodder for the mean girls games, but mostly just left alone. No aggression is usually seen until the moment when the ‘social’ climb begins to the middle tiers.)
Sounds like so many blogs and forums out there. And it is totally indicative of the fine art world as I have seen it. I am fairly sure that Alec Soth couldn’t care less whether Chase Jarvis is popular or not. He is a ‘top tier’ photographer because of his talent. Equally, Jarvis is popular because of his talent, and I would also suspect has no animosity toward Soth. (Of course I am not speaking for each of them, and if one of them hates the other one’s guts and wants to totally ‘bust a cap’ on the other one, I would beg they step forward and clear that up.)
Additionally, there is the very important discussion of genre and expectations. Comparing a commercial photographer to a fine art photographer is a little disingenuous. There are vastly different reasons for the work to be created. It is like comparing a high quality commercial woodworking craftsman with a sculpture that made things from his own vision.
One has a group of parameters that are tightly constrained and the other has naught but his own vision to work from.
Both create something out of wood. One for display and one for commerce.
Could each do the others work?
Certainly it has not been my experience that most ‘fine art’ photographers can move into the purely commercial arena. Are there fine arts shooters who do work for editorial and advertising? Of course. However, I am willing to bet that the commercial entities that hire them will allow them to do THEIR OWN work, not that of a group of CD’s, AD’s, AE’s and the client teams. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that.
And it has also been my experience that a lot of commercial shooters find moving into an arena where there ARE NO parameters and clients and AD’s equally challenging. Some photographers love the challenge of the job.
Quick… which is “better”? – a concert level pianist playing a perfect Shostokovitch Concerto, or a jazz pianist doing something cool with “On Green Dolphin Street”… (One is playing the notes written for them, keeping steady with the conductor and the orchestra who are also playing the notes as written – little to no improvisation. The other one is using the piano and a few lines of melody to make something totally unique without any structure at all and no written notes.)
Why did you choose what you chose?
What “problem” is created by those cretins who chose the other one?
Both play piano, isn’t that enough to compare their ‘value’ in the art world? There simply has to be a winner and a loser in that matchup, right?
No. I don’t think so.
Both pianists have vastly different challenges while sitting at their keyboards. They both have to have complete mastery of their instruments in order to play their music with the care and artistry that the genre’s require. Could we necessarily move one to the others genre without a problem? Nope. And that means nothing as to the value of each players music.
But here we have someone tossing one photographer (or genre) under the bus while promoting another. And in reality, the success of Jarvis is in no way linked to the success of Soth. We could throw another couple of hundred photographers under the bus and it would not have any impact on Soth, or his work. His success is not due to how many “lesser” (proclaimed) photographers get thrown under busses from mid-tier’s looking for favor from him. He is already top-tier due to his talent and hard work.
To expect to gain from another artists failure is not what art is all about, is it? I do not see any correlation between the art one produces and the success of someone else. NONE.
In fact, it is this elitist crap of looking down on others while trying to gain favor with those we see above us that continues to balkanize our field. There are simply no ‘truths’ to whether there is art or not in any given piece. There is only the decision by a group that it is ‘art’ that makes it so.
Kinda like in high school… you are ‘cool’ only when someone else who is already ‘cool’ decides you are. There is no key to entry, no difficult words to know, no education that needs to be fully engaged with… only the nod from those already there.
That may be a great way to keep the nerds out of your cool group with the great cafeteria table… but a goddam shame when it comes to deciding what art IS.
“I don’t hate you because you’re fat – you’re fat because I hate you..” – Mean Girls.
Personally, I like and admire the work of Soth and Jarvis. I also like Shostokovitch, Snow Patrol and Ornette Coleman, Horowitz and Jarret, Robbins and Heinlien. I am sure you have wide ranging likes and dislikes. Life is so much more interesting to me when I don’t care about impressing the mid-tiers so I can garner favor with the top tiers. I just love it hanging down here with the regular folk.
We only get pissed when our beer runs out, and the pizza gets cold. ‘Burp’…
Thanks for listening to my Rant. Follow me on Twitter, and visit my Lighting Workshop site at Learn to Light for information on the lighting workshops. And no, they are not sanctioned by the central art committee chairmanship. Sorry.
Absolutely brilliant post. I like myself as somewhat of an outcast because I no longer am expected to worship the “top” folks and step on the “bottom” folks in order to be appreciated. I purposely reject most of this nonsense and simply create and live in a way that is fulfilling to me. Everything else seems very caste system or high school-like and it is ridiculous.
I mentioned that cops beating on photographers makes me think of the “jocks” vs. “nerd/artists” wars of high school, but apparently, that is not the only place where such a social caste exists. I thought it was tasteless of the author to single out Jarvis that way and purposeless. No one learned a thing and two completely different types of artists were compared for no apparent educational purpose. Even for an opinionated purpose, it still didn’t make sense since again, they create in different genres. The “mean girls” analogy you provided seems exceptionally psychologically accurate. I wish our industry did not have that, but since it does, for the most part I duck, dodge and ignore.
I like who I like, and am not led to liking someone because someone else does.
Never have… never will.
Don, Thanks for this. What sums it up for me is the quote that you pulled out of the article: “the problem of why people like Chase Jarvis” – along with your response, “This is a problem? That people like an artists work is a ‘problem’?”
I don’t disagree that after much thought I can come to a conclusion posthumously that one photographer contributed more to the arts and society than another but when I first read the comparison my little voice said, “no, I’m not that guy who can place judgment on good and bad in that way.” And I’m thinking that Soth might even be very uncomfortable that he was compared favorably to Jarvis – compared at all for that matter.
The fact that the two names fall together in one sentence of critics says volumes.
A reply to one of my comments on the string was that Jarvis doesn’t even have an Agent and therefore wasn’t in the same league caused me to bow out of the discussion. No depth of thought there.
Depth of thought only goes as deep as “how will this play with my peers”? I was totally disheartened by the rush to become a sycophant. Creative? I think not.
Well…..It all depends on your philosophical grounding. If you believe in absolutes then there must be an absolute scale. If there is an absolute scale people will always want to know where people fall on the scale. Especially so in some fields, like art and music. If everything is relative then nothing really matters and we can all just slide thru life not caring about it.
I like to think the dichotomy is akin to the difference between white bread and steak. You eat the easily digestible white bread, enjoy the sugar rush and you’re hungry again fifteen minutes later. You bite into a steak, the flavors are more complex and varied, the nutrient rush more substantial and you can run for hours on the nutrients.
I think you do an intellectual disservice to make all things equally valuable. The best book I ever read was Nabokov’s “ADA”. It was a bear to read, required one to know some other literature to which allusion were made and it read like savoring the best red wine you ever put in your mouth. But a tiny fraction of a percentage of the people who lined up to read his popular book, “Lolita” have read “ADA”. In some ways it’s inaccessible to many readers. That doesn’t diminish its value as important literature. And it doesn’t diminish the influence it’s had on a generation of serious writers.
When we say a Slim Jim is equal to a Ribeye is equal to Chateaubriand is equal to soy nuggets we screw up the discernment that makes living life fully an aspirational ride.
“I think you do an intellectual disservice to make all things equally valuable.”
But I am not making all things equal in value. Not at all.
There are better cars and better food and better airplanes.
They can be quantified. Measured.
They can be put neck and neck and have specific tests made to them to show outcomes that are ‘better’ for the parameters being measured.
Then one can be declared ‘better’ than another by clear, concise metrics.
(Also – please do not misunderstand my point on difficulty. Whether something is difficult or not has no bearing on the value. Some things that are very difficult to engage are very valuable. But the value is not based on the difficulty, rather it is based on the content of the offering.)
Steak and bread have different properties that can show them to be different and ‘better’ for certain situations.
– Running a marathon, grab a steak. The measurement we have for that steak to be considered good are ‘sustainable, nourishment, protein.
– Wanting a PBJ, well… I would choose the bread. Using a steak would be a lousy choice if our goal is to create a great PBJ.
The points I am making are:
1. That without a measurement tool, or specific set of metrics to measure against, it makes it quite difficult to say objectively that one photograph is better than another photograph.
2. Comparing a body of work from a commercial photographer to that of a fine art photographer with nothing but the reviewers “take my word for it” attitude doesn’t inspire confidence.
3. In art, as in most aesthetic endeavors, the metrics are unknown, and all too often are simply applied after the fact by the viewer. This means they are in constant flux, and without specifics, nor have they been agreed on by all parties involved. There simply are no metrics involved.
My daughter is a figure skater. There have been countless times when she has received scores of 9/9/5/9/2/6. Six competent, expert, high level skating judges gave her scores that ranged from 9 to 2 – total win to total disaster. Same skate. Same kid. Same rink. Same time.
It is one reason I have never considered it a ‘sport’ as a sport has metrics that can be met. Cross the line faster than someone else and you win. Skating becomes more ethereal. More personal. I would no more tell that judge that gave my daughter a smackdown as I would praise the one who gave her a nine. Next time it could be in total reverse.
“When we say a Slim Jim is equal to a Ribeye is equal to Chateaubriand is equal to soy nuggets we screw up the discernment that makes living life fully an aspirational ride.”
We are not talking about meat, though. Meat has specific metrics… quality of the beef, how it is prepared, the cut of the meat… all kinds of discernible and measurable. And more importantly, we would have agreed upon values based on the outcome of the use of the meat. Slim Jims are wonderful in a saddlebag for a quick snack. A Chateaubiand is less than perfect for a snack, but absolutely the cut of meat I want for a dinner steak.
And try getting a three year old to quiet down with anything that isn’t a chicken nugget. If the goal is a quiet kid at lunch, neither the slim jim or the fine steak are gonna do.
We are talking about photography.
For someone to say “this photographer is better than that photographer” – without reasons given, without parameters of agreement, no metrics, no discernible measurable and quantifiable differences smacks of simple elitism.
That was my point.
Interesting read Don.
As in most things in life, beauty is mostly in the eyes of the beholder. In my opinion, our personal perspective (along with past & current environment) changes how we see thru the lense of life.
When I first saw the title “Why We Love Bad Photography” I thought they were discussing why technically incorrect photographs can resonate — you know, like deliberate blurring, over/under exposure, cross processing, through-the-viewfinder, etc. That’s a pretty interesting question.
The actual question (why we love photography that “the Academy” has deemed bad) is boring because it has such an obvious answer. The Academy’s judgment of quality is too simplistic.
Tweaking the Academy is too easy, but that won’t stop me. (But if it’s easy, is it still art? Oh my.) Check out my photo, er, I mean image, or rather capture of my cat sleeping on folded laundry on top of my dryer. What? You’ve seen that done a hundred times by hobby shooters? C’mon man, I’m quoting those guys. Don’t you see the hidden inner meaning? Well, even if you don’t, I can still post it on http://icanhascheezburger.com but in an ironic and hip way. “Meh” photography’s gonna be the next wave.
And that’s my issue with the Academy view. If they take a risk with a photograph and it fails, they can blame the viewer for lack of sophistication. Or they can avoid taking a risk and shoot in the style of the day. (Someone pointed out how similar the work featured on 500 photographers is. Too sad.) Rob Haggard of APE did comment a few days ago that “everyone understands which photographs are good and which are bad.” So that’s settled.
Kirk, I’m surprised you’re engaging degree of difficulty as a plus, especially when your photography (which I love) draws the viewer in so effortlessly.
Anyway, there must be 101 sketchy things written about photography daily. People think strange things about photography and there’s no point worrying about it.
“If they take a risk with a photograph and it fails, they can blame the viewer for lack of sophistication.”
And then the winking and nodding start and the others in the academy jump in to defend the artist.
I would love to share an example of this that I saw happen right in front of my face, but I am waiting for permission from the gentleman who did the experiment. It was extremely enlightening, and it forever changed how I viewed elitist ‘academicians’ or whatever they want to be called.
I like nnnn’s work; it’s engaging and affecting. I dislike mmmm’s work; it’s pedestrian and uninteresting. This is because I have elitist/plebeian tastes.
Art, of whatever sort, is fundamentally a product. This is true whether you buy it because it complements the color of your couch, tells a story that’s important to you, or causes you to spend hours contemplating its details.
A fundamental tenet of economics is that different products have different values for each person. (This is convenient in that it allows a free-market economy to function.) Provide me with a product that meets my needs at a price (in time, effort, money, whatever) that I think is fair, and I’ll buy (or “buy”) what you’re selling. It’s unlikely that you’ll buy the same product at the same price. Works for me.
So, that said, what is art?
“Art” is the noise a seal makes.
😎
“Art” is the noise a seal makes.
LOL… well, yeah.
Don,
It all seems to me to be part of the idea that a “real” artist is a starving artist; that if you make a good living off of something then it must be commercialized and therefore must be inherently bad. I don’t know the financial issues of Soth or Jarvis, but my best guess would be that Jarvis takes home quite a bit more.
But how is value assigned to art? I mean value in terms outside of whether or not it was commissioned. Art is a highly personable thing and each viewer will see it differently. There are things people can generally agree upon, but if you look at an image is there a solid, technical way that one can tell that a photo is good, great, or compete shit? Someone might look at Walker Evans’ images of houses and churches and think it nothing more than a snap shot.
There is no clear line where one can separate the technical from the personal from the eye of the photographer to the chance that it was just sheer luck. We like what we like. We appreciate things that speak to us.
Why others should care so much about what I like is their problem, not mine.
joe
“It all seems to me to be part of the idea that a “real” artist is a starving artist; that if you make a good living off of something then it must be commercialized…”
So if one is a semi-starving commercial photographer, they are lost in that great limbo between starving artists and the vast riches of commercialism… 🙂
“Someone might look at Walker Evans’ images of houses and churches and think it nothing more than a snap shot.”
Yeah. Have you ever noticed that some people are obsessed with ‘who shot it’ rather than admiration at first glance? I have shown work to certain academic/artsyfartsy photographers and the first question is “Who shot it?”
I think they are wanting to know if the work has been ‘vetted’ for authenticity before making any kind of disclaimers.
Kinda like a guy I know who loved a piece of music he had heard. Said the sax solo was terrific. When he was told it was Kenny G, he was horrified. “Everybody” knows that Kenny G is not a good saxophonist. Yeah… the ‘everybody’ who only listen to the memes and and desperately want to make it higher and higher up the mid-tiers. He was totally confused by his thinking that the solo was pretty good and the player was not part of the ‘in’ crowd.
Goofballs.
[i]Yeah. Have you ever noticed that some people are obsessed with ‘who shot it’ rather than admiration at first glance? I have shown work to certain academic/artsyfartsy photographers and the first question is “Who shot it?”[/i]
I think you’ve got it exactly right. Sort of like how if you believe that if the wine you’re drinking was expensive you experience it as tasting better. “Who shot it?” might add to the pedigree of the image and influence ones mind as to how good the image *should* be, but ultimately people who spend two minutes looking at a photograph not knowing who shot it will know whether they appreciate it or not, regardless of who shot it.
joe
Hi Don,
Agree with you 100%, great post. Thanks also for the link to a great site, enjoyed seeing some of Robert Mapplethorpe’s work again and will be exploring more fully what looks like a great resource!
Many thanks
Patrick
I have always loved Mapplethorpe’s beautiful clean eye.
So, what is “good photography”? How can there be any possible consensus of “what is a good photograph” other than popularity? Do the “academians” have rules for what makes something “good” or “bad” in their book? How do the photographers who don’t spend 10 years in art school figure it out? Is it all natural or an acquired and honed skill?
It took me years of going to art museums and becoming frustrated before I came to terms with the fact that there is a lot of art that I just don’t “get” – it doesn’t make the art any less valuable, and it doesn’t make me any less sophisticated…. It’s just the way it is. There’s no problem in that.
I recommend to every reader: Go to an exhibit with another photographer that you respect and discuss the work on display. You will find out how differently each of us sees, and the ensuing discussion will always be enlightening.