Tuesday, March 18, 2008

PHOTO IS DEAD! THE BATS HAVE LEFT THE BELL TOWER!




So Fotofest....POLL

It's Great! I plan on checking out ten or more shows!
7 (19%)
Eh, I'll go to a couple things.
8 (22%)
Could care less... What's the difference?
4 (11%)
Photo is dead.
17 (47%


Do photographers read? Do they go online? Maybe they just don't care for this blog, or maybe they actually think their own medium is D-E-A-D! I personally feel photo is boring... Not much excites.. but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough? Let's hear what you have to say. I leave these posts open to conversation with YOU, but unfortunately, the only comments we ever get here are from people complaining (under anonymous) about a non-art related post. Yet, when I post my majority art material, the same people don't comment. So apparently they ARE more interested in "gossip". I even did a little smack down to Houston taggers over the Obama mural, but they didn't bite. I'm sure taggers can read (small sentences), so where were they? We get around 400 hits a day, so speak up!

So have you seen any interesting photography in the past five years? ten? 20? If yes, then post some info or links.

Next question: What would you like to see more of in this blog?


UPDATE:

Finally, some heartfelt replies:

Anonymous Sebastien said...

Photo is not dead Sean, but the institution of Photography is broken. How can photo be dead when Robert Adams, William Eggleston, Goldin, Sebastio Salgado, Araki, Gibson, Misrach, Eptsein, Christenberry, Moriyama, Struth, Shore, Meisel, Lee fucking Friedlander are still working. People like Wolfgang Tillmans, Juergen Teller, Jason Fulford, Zoe Strauss,Lars Tunbjork, Naoya Hatakeyama, Paul Graham, Simon Norfolk, Philip Lorca-DiCorcia, Roe Etheridge, Mike Slack, Alec Soth are working full force. People like Jason Evans, Esko Mannikko, Boogie, Michael Schmelling, Ed Panar, Bill Sullivan, Rinko Kawauchi, Jason Lazarus, Todd Seelie, Shen Wei, Katy Granan, Thomas Holton, Alejandra Laviada, Ryan McGinley are just starting to wow us.
The photos you see in institutions are often chosen by people with a background or interest in either Photography as conceptual strategy or Photo-journalism. That includes most of the faculty at the photo-schools. Imagine your favorite songs or novels discussed solely in terms of historical context, structuralist dissection, possible meaning, social impact. How about the wit, the beauty, the elegance, the emotion of these things. Whenever I read something about my medium in an art rag it reads like autopsy. No wonder people think photo is dead.
No knock against folk like The Atlas Group, Jeff Wall, Fred Wilson, Gregory Crewdson, Vik Muniz, Sophie Calle, Lorna Simpson, Christopher Williams, Thomas Demand (some of these artists I find amazing and vital) But they are not the children of Talbot, Atget, Stieglitz, Evans, Lange, Frank, Arbus i.e. the main body of photography as an artform. Can you remember a moment in painting when the Sean Landers, Peter Davies school or Magazine illlustrators where given precedence over Cezanne and Velasquez? Because it happens repeatedly in photography.
I think it was Lorca-DiCorcia that said that photography is a foreign language that everybody thinks they can speak. Like any art it takes time, attention, and knowledge to fully appreciate.
For those out there that prefer to enter any concept through words, I would recommend you start with Robert Adams, Stephen Shore, Vince Aletti, Szarkowski. I apologize for this posts haphazard nature, I was not expecting such a blow and I'm still reeling.

3/18/2008 05:02:00 PM


Thanks for the comment. What does everyone else have to say of the institution of photography? How is it broken? When it wasn't broken, what was it like? How can it be fixed. I'm interested especially what Sebastien says: "Imagine your favorite songs or novels discussed solely in terms of historical context, structuralist dissection, possible meaning, social impact. How about the wit, the beauty, the elegance, the emotion of these things. Whenever I read something about my medium in an art rag it reads like autopsy. No wonder people think photo is dead."

I think it's because of photography being championed above all other mediums by leftist political ideologues like October magazine that is still stuck in the world of "historical context, structuralist dissection". How do we get over that? Should we? Have we? Are we?

16 comments:

Frank said...

FotoFest is the only big art festival in Houston. And quite an event it is. That seems to give some indication of its life, no?

Anonymous said...

Photo is not dead Sean, but the institution of Photography is broken. How can photo be dead when Robert Adams, William Eggleston, Goldin, Sebastio Salgado, Araki, Gibson, Misrach, Eptsein, Christenberry, Moriyama, Struth, Shore, Meisel, Lee fucking Friedlander are still working. People like Wolfgang Tillmans, Juergen Teller, Jason Fulford, Zoe Strauss,Lars Tunbjork, Naoya Hatakeyama, Paul Graham, Simon Norfolk, Philip Lorca-DiCorcia, Roe Etheridge, Mike Slack, Alec Soth are working full force. People like Jason Evans, Esko Mannikko, Boogie, Michael Schmelling, Ed Panar, Bill Sullivan, Rinko Kawauchi, Jason Lazarus, Todd Seelie, Shen Wei, Katy Granan, Thomas Holton, Alejandra Laviada, Ryan McGinley are just starting to wow us.
The photos you see in institutions are often chosen by people with a background or interest in either Photography as conceptual strategy or Photo-journalism. That includes most of the faculty at the photo-schools. Imagine your favorite songs or novels discussed solely in terms of historical context, structuralist dissection, possible meaning, social impact. How about the wit, the beauty, the elegance, the emotion of these things. Whenever I read something about my medium in an art rag it reads like autopsy. No wonder people think photo is dead.
No knock against folk like The Atlas Group, Jeff Wall, Fred Wilson, Gregory Crewdson, Vik Muniz, Sophie Calle, Lorna Simpson, Christopher Williams, Thomas Demand (some of these artists I find amazing and vital) But they are not the children of Talbot, Atget, Stieglitz, Evans, Lange, Frank, Arbus i.e. the main body of photography as an artform. Can you remember a moment in painting when the Sean Landers, Peter Davies school or Magazine illlustrators where given precedence over Cezanne and Velasquez? Because it happens repeatedly in photography.
I think it was Lorca-DiCorcia that said that photography is a foreign language that everybody thinks they can speak. Like any art it takes time, attention, and knowledge to fully appreciate.
For those out there that prefer to enter any concept through words, I would recommend you start with Robert Adams, Stephen Shore, Vince Aletti, Szarkowski. I apologize for this posts haphazard nature, I was not expecting such a blow and I'm still reeling.

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Anonymous said...

Nah, Sean is dead (or married... same dif...) Ergo, this blog is dead.

b.s. said...

nope, on average it's doin' better than feb when sean was still alive! when he rises from the dead, he should be pleased, mr. a. nonymous. But your nameless comment is noted, thank you for not participating in the conversation.

Anonymous said...

Polaroid just announced that they will no longer be producing ANY instant-developing film.

Digital cameras can be purchased from candy machines.

Cell phones are snapping 2mgpx shots and be swapped (charged) like hot cakes.

Talentless hacks can look like talented professionals as long as they can get access to the right equipment.

Photographers totally segregate themselves from the rest of the art world.

Public schools are dismantling and ending their photo programs.

Individuals are massing collections of millions of photos.

REAL photo journalists are being killed, extradited or censored.

Photoshop geeks are ruining the essence of originality and propagating false idols by totally manipulating what they look like.

I'll stop myself short by saying yes, PHOTO IS DEAD!

Anonymous said...

artshouston, "FotoFest is the only big art festival in Houston"??

WTF?

You don't get out enough...

Anonymous said...

sebastien, lots of people decide to focus their efforts on lost arts... Just because people are using a medium it does not mean it's prominent in the culture.

BTW, Which of these words are yours? What are you trying to say? All I see is a bunch of quote and name droppings...

Anonymous said...

One more thing. Stop pretending like you have 2 people running this blog sean!

b.s. said...

thanks for the comments Shumate.. that's something i've thought of too... in relation to social networking sites like MYSPACE.COM... where everyone is now a designer... and they are also all "photographers" now... they think because their photo is blurry it's art... instead of just not staying still... my gf calls it blur shitography... so how bad is it when art becomes more "democratic" through its accessibility... how bad or good? it's really interesting

Btw, Shumate.. it's true, I'm def. not Sean... I think most can tell from my writing style? But I assure you he hasn't existed in here for about a month now... Do you miss him?

b.s. said...

btw, i think there's only one maybe two quotes in Sebastien posts... Sounds like his own words to me... It's ok... i'm jealous of his way with words too, Shumate.. no need to criticize him for that

Anonymous said...

Derek, I use only one quote by Lorca-DiCorcia in the last paragraph that's it.
The names are an answer to "maybe I'm just not looking hard enough?" from the original post, they are not "droppings".
I personally know no photographer that willingly segregates himself/herself from the artworld. I'm sure it happens but I see no trend.
Art is not prominent in the culture. Nothing at Documenta, Venice, Fotofest, The Gugenheim, Basel, nothing at any of it has the impact of a Kardashians' episode. If you choose to live, work, comment in this arena understand that it is minuscule and largely irrelevant for most people.
Let's play a game of equivalents. Nobody uses quills anymore. Pens are cheap and plentiful, most of this country's population knows how to read and write, most of it is done on computers and cell phones anyways, does that somehow destroy literature? Are Roth and Dick irrelevant because there is a post-it note on my refrigerator that list the ingredients I need to pick up for tonight's dinner? Same thing can be said about the moving picture: the technology is everywhere, everyone is familiar with it, the archives are vast but I don't see this stopping talented filmmakers.
If you can't tell the difference between Robert Adams and a wanker that can afford the same camera it isn't Adams' fault, it's not the camera's fault, and it definitely isn't the wanker's fault.
"REAL photo journalists are being killed, extradited or censored." This is new?
I was not exactly crystal in my original response. I am not exactly claiming these thoughts to be original, but here is the condensed version: Good photography is out there and it's plentiful, but the big art institutions are focusing on work that is often didactic and pandering to the intellectual positions that are currently in vogue. A lot of the work that is good is often buried under stultifying rethoric. Photography also looks easy so people are going straight to responses like "how do I complicate this?" and "anyone could do this?" without ever applying any real scrutiny.

Anonymous said...

s.o.b. No offense but knowing sean I wouldn't put it past him to deliberately write in another style with the sole purpose to stir things up and make it more interesting.

Having him as your icon with his face drawn on does not help convince me.

And no, I don't miss him. He's an integral part of our culture and I always run into him in one format or another.

Also, what makes you think I'm jealous of sebastien? I was really referring to the name dropping but since so many people lift shit off the internet and post it as theirs how was I to tell that the strand of names wasn't a copy and pasted quote? After all, who else includes more full names in their comment than actual writing?

b.s. said...

yeah it (the sean photo) was my ridiculous attempt to make him appear kidnapped, but it looks more like i slapped black tar on his face... whoops... anyway, trust me, at some point you'll tell the difference

sebastien was answering me when i said maybe i wasn't looking hard enough, so he threw out names for me to check out

so i wouldn't call it name-dropping in this instance... but i understand your concerns... it's true, these days it's hard to tell

Sebastian said...

maybe photography is suffering more from canary in the mine shaft syndrome (than actual death) just in terms of its inherent transparency as a medium, it suffers more (or more conspicuously) than other mediums in its attempt to transmit (whatever it is) in a world of increasingly thinning vacuousness and outright hostility towards anything (really) meaningful (i.e.: not meta-meta-meta-meta...ad infinitumness). if anything at least (maybe) its not dwadling its way through higher and higher (deeper and deeper?) levels of pointless poo-poo-covered cynicism where (it seems) everything else is headed...

(sebastian #2)

Anonymous said...

Photography is not dead...But for me it has changed alot. I used to be a dark room rat but now while I still use film I use the computer to color correct and print etc...Go see my stuff upstairs at the Glassell Junior school (till the end of March). Let me know what ya think. Its a group show and there are some great artists in the show. Cynthia Batmatis' work is really cool, her stuff is downstairs. Enough of my babbling I need to get back to work.
carol sandin kelly