harlan erskine — photography/blog

Tonight’s Art Photo Tweet Chat we will have an open discussion on Paul Graham‘s essay “The Unreasonable Apple.”

Graham begins his discussion with a quote from Jeff Wall:

This month I read a review in a leading US Art Magazine of a Jeff Wall survey book, praising how he had distinguished himself from previous art photography by:

“Carefully constructing his pictures as provocative often open ended vignettes, instead of just snapping his surroundings”

Graham goes on to say how photographer should be insulted by this. I hear what he is saying but I also understand Wall’s position after seeing countless portfolios of photographers who are really just snapping their surroundings and not thinking much of it. These shooters are nostalgic for an era that, in my book, never really existed. Graham sites photographers Walker Evans to Robert Frank, Diane Arbus to Garry Winogrand, to Stephen Shore in a category of photographers that are less appreciated then photographers like Jeff Wall, or Cindy Sherman or James Casebere or Thomas Demand. While I understand where he is going I feel like the photographers he sites as under-appreciated are actually very appreciated but they are from an older generation of photographers.

We have seen their work and new photographers that want their work appreciated as are have to go beyond what these photographer have made and push the medium further. This is funny because I think thats what the new generation of photographers like Paul Graham are doing. I’m thinking about Alec Soth, Larry Clark, Taryn Simon, Sze Tsung Leong as well as Paul Graham and many others. Sure, they are shooting some sort of ‘document’ of what is in front of the camera but they are arranging them into a poetry all their own. A poetry that speaks in a current dialogue.

An interesting example of how this type of work fits into the art world right now can be seen at the Guggenheim Museum in a newly opened show Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance. Even at the Guggenheim there are photographers who are operating in a “snapping their surroundings” method like An-My Le, Sally Mann and Hiroshi Sugimoto.

A lot of bloggers have been talking and quoting from this essay:
Conscientious: “hyperbolic, overblown, risible”
la pura vida: OpEd: The Beautiful Burden
Conscientious: “Continuing the debate about photography”
Adam Bell: The Unreasonable Apple
Touching Harms the Art by Luke Strosnider: Paul Graham – The Unreasonable Apple
We can shoot too: “Quote of the Week – Paul Graham”

In a related post Franklin Einspruch talk about the broader ideas of conceptual art vs ideas of beauty. Its worth a read and fits into this conversation. Artblog.net: “Conceptualism for Sale: How the Art World Uses Low Standards for Fun and Profit.”

Join in tonight at 9 pm EST.
We’ll discuss Graham’s essay and how or if ‘documentary’ photography fits / doesn’t fit into the art paradigm.

These Art Photography Twitter Chats anyone can join in or just read it live by using the hashtag #photoartchat on Twitter. One easier way to transform twitter into a chat room is Tweetchat.com and entering the photoartchat room here: http://tweetchat.com/room/photoartchat.

To keep up with the latest on these chats you should follow OcularOctopus on Twitter, here:
http://twitter.com/OcularOctopus
and me, harlan erskine here: http://twitter.com/harlanerskine

So, last Thursday I get an email from the publisher of the blog Artist A Day asking me for permission to be featured on his website. I was in the middle of a freelance job and I quickly looked at the blog. If you’re not familiar with the blog, everyday the blog posts a new artist with two images from that artist followed by their bio and or statement and a link back to their website. And they allow their readers to rate each artist on a scale of one to five stars and post comments below the post. After seeing that few days before he contacted me, my friend Jen Stark was posted and was doing nicely in the site’s ratings I gave them my blessing to post me (link). (maybe they got to my work from a link from her?)

Right after I gave them permission I got a little freaked out thinking back to my old rating/commenting experiences with someone posting me on metafilter and I was also thinking of Alec Soth’s experiences with the dpreview lighting forums. But I didn’t have much time to really think it over I had to get back to what I was working on so, I was hopeful this wouldn’t lead down a bad road.

So, first of all I have to thank everyone for all the lovely comments. Its seems like their audience was the right one for this kind of thing. I have heard Metafilter and forums like dpreview have a different critical (?) audience.

Its also been fun to watch as the site seemingly goes through and posts new artist from my link section. First came Emiliano Granado then Amy Stein and then today Alec Soth!

So all this raises some questions for me that I haven’t adequately answered. What does looking at artwork in the small format of the internet and then rating it to to art? it this progress? how does or doesn’t this encourage critical discourse to allow for instant knee jerk ratings? What would happen if we were to give viewers rating meters when they browsed the MET or MoMA? Does art need a high popular rating to be critically good? In regard to this last question I am thinking no high popular ratings might kill good art. But then again I feel like lots of art would be considered good it its audience spent more time with it to understand it better.

Photo of the 2008 New York APAID show by Susan Sermoneta.

A few weekends ago, I went out to see The AIPAD Photography “show”. I wouldn’t call it a show – that would give it too much credit. The only thing that was like a show was the price.

$25 dollars for the day.

No student ticket pricing.

Zero.

What is wrong with these people? Are they that elitist that they need to overcharge EVERYONE? Even the bigger more prestigious and more historically significant show, The Armory Show has a fair student price of $10. I am glad I didn’t post this right after I went since I was in a angrier mood then and I maybe would have said something rash.

I almost didn’t go until I found an artistic method of entry. As for how the fair was? It was ok there were some highlights and some embarrassments. I would post them here but I wouldn’t want to help them. One thing I will note is how interesting it is to see who isn’t represented at these fairs but are in other fairs. Those famous Germans with the big price tags weren’t there at all as far I saw.

So, next year AIPAD please consider at student pricing all the cool Art Fairs are doing it.

Lots of blog coverage here here here here and countless others…

Alec Soth, Bonnie (with a photograph of an angel), Port Gibson, Mississippi 2000

Alec Soth’s departure to blogging has left a deafening silence in the Internet for me. From September 3rd, 2006 through September 30th, 2007, Alec provided a haven for not only reading about photography but a virtual hub to openly discuss and debate photography away from the forum hounds. However, as I think about the mark he made in the community the silence has made me think about the roll of blogging in the photographic and art communities. These questions keep circling through my head:

• What and how do blogs function in the long term?
• What happens to his blog now that it is idly sitting on his server?
• What is it now but an archive of artist’s thoughts over the course of a year? How refined is it? Would Alec change anything he wrote?
• What does Alec think of his yearlong experiment? Is this it or will he ever return and blog/write again?
• What would a blog from Jeff Wall (1980 or today) read like? Longer more theoretical posts? Would that work? Does Jeff Wall Google himself?
• Is there a place for an October like blog? would the Art and Photography communities care?
• Do long form and/or more theoretical essays have a place in the blog format?
• How does blogging about photography affect your art work and your standing with in the art world? which follows What did Alec Soth get out of making his blog?

All this was sparked by a recient post from Christian Patterson who is feeling burnt out on the whole blog thing. We’ll see what happens with his blog as the months roll on it doesn’t seem like he has thrown in the towel yet.

As for me, I feel like I never really put enough effort into this. Therefore, this next year I hope to be more vigilant with this blog thing, give it a real show, run it through its paces, and then evaluate it. Maybe a medium of journals and magazines can better discuss photography but maybe there is a place for this as well—despite some recent dwindling numbers?

Interesting new blog How’s My Dealing? is a place for Artists to share their positive/negative experiences with critics, curators, and galleries. There aren’t too many comments so far and some of the comments a bit on the whiny chip on my shoulder side but this experiment could be quite interesting and telling if the right people find it and start posting constructive comments. With enough support it could turn into a Epinions for the art world.

Last Saturday and Sunday, I visited the Phillips de Pury & Company auction house in Chelsea for their Fall Photography Auction preview. Auctions provide a great opportunity to view artwork up close and to inspect it in atypical ways. For example, if the artwork that is not in an artist’s frame you may ask them to un-matt and inspect the print-there is usually interesting writing and markings on the back of the work and you can see how the print is aging. When you see the art out of its frame you get to know the print in a completely different way. Sometimes the print was yellowing and sometimes you could see that it was even more stunning then any catalogue or mechanical reproduction could ever match-take that Walter Benjamin! Below are a few choice shots of their artwork viewing room.

Alec Soth’s Cadillac Motel, 2005 "Color coupler print. 40 x 32 in. (101.6 x 81.3 cm). Signed in ink on a label affixed to the reverse of the frame. One from an edition of 7." On the wall at Phillips during sunset.

Leni Riefenstahl’s Nuba Portfolio on a viewing desk. "Berlin: Fine Art Photography, 2002. Thirty color coupler prints. Each approximately 22 3/4 x 17 in. (57.8 x 43.2 cm) or the reverse. Each signed and titled in pencil on the mount; each numbered 13/15 in ink, copyright credit and reproduction limitation stamps on the reverse of the mount. Two colophons, one in English and one in German. Contained in two linen clamshell cases."

According to this study, artists look different. No, they don’t mean physically – apparently “artists” look differently at images visually examining more of the whole image then just key features.

I wonder who their study used for the artists and did they include photographers in this pool of artists to study? Maybe they see differently from other artists? maybe they see the same or maybe this is why some magazines have been separating photography from art all along.

Recently Nancy Spector gave an interesting Keynote address at the Society for Photographic Education in Miami. I don’t see he keynote address online but I did find this talk she did with Matthew Barrney at the Hirshhorn from January earlier this year. enjoy.

Meet the Artist: Matthew Barney

Interesting project by Hanne Mugaas and Cory Arcangel “Art Since 1960 (According to the Internet).” Not only is the project interesting in an of itself, That the internet is providing a unique and alternate version of art history but it is also a great collection of video links. So, stop being board and start watching some youtube.

Below is an Andy Warhol clip included in the project.