From a Linkedin conversation published May 29, 2014. Christine Hauber wrote: “The only people that really matter to me in whether my photography is fine art or not are the buyers. I have no desire to attend any sort of critique by highly educated fine art MFA photographers because 1. they are not my buyer and 2. their work is in competition for wall space. Thus their objective is probably not in my best interest. Now dont get me wrong...I have been in camera clubs and I did get my BA in commercial photography. Both gave me the skills and knowledge I needed to move forward with my fine art photography career. I learned everything about lighting and composition, but was never pushed into the fine art.... your images need to have a deeper meaning and purpose The photographers in my camera club were amazing, but most did not have a body of work and that is what would have been needed for a gallery show. I often look at what photography does end up in the fine art photography galleries and often wonder if most photographers went to the same school...the school of lets make these images dark, blurry and something most people would not put on their walls.” Christine Hauber christinehauber/ Reading Christine, I must say, sent me for a loop and made me think. Here is what came to my mind which I also wanted to write for those who read her post but may not have as many tools or time and access, as I have worked at creating for myself for decades now, in order to know and understand a few things about fine-art photography. The only people that really matter to me, regarding whether my photography is “fine art” or not, are my peers, fine art photographers, painters, print-makers, sculptors whose expertise and sensitivity I seek. I do also like a good conversation with knowledgeable and experienced art critics, photo critics and historians; in other words experts who know “what they talk about” and use a language and an experience that makes me think and grow whether I like it or not. They can articulate their thoughts, justify their comments, refer me to interesting sources or works by other artists that inspire them. I am not interested in “impressing” the general public by a visual recipe / formula that I would keep on repeating ad nauseam to win ribbons in a camera club competition (I have witnessed that) or for my commercial photography (I see that a lot too–for instance if one look at some of the best fashion magazines, Avedon and especially Penn are being regularly plundered without any imagination or particular original skill): a pat on the shoulder or a check from an indiscriminate audience cannot make me grow. The latter pays the bills no doubt but I know the difference between usual material needs and my need as a human being or an artist to grow, question, investigate, charter new territories, and learn and grow. There is a community of artists that know this is important and that will give as much as they will receive because we make each other grow. Generosity and humanism is part of being a good artist, not just a commercial success. I am in this field because of the smart, creative and generous people I have met; I thank them for their gifts and my best way to acknowledge them is to do the same and transmit to others who want to know and grow. As the reader may have guessed at this point, I doubt that “ignorance is bliss” or that feedback by uneducated and sophisticated people in a particular field (it does not mean they are uneducated in others, let us be clear here), whose only strength, the way Christine describes them, is their check-book, are people I will turn to for a good instructive and challenging conversation, in order for me to grow. It is just common sense. Insecurity and the desire not to challenge ourselves sometimes make us say things that… have no (common) sense. Thinking that other fellow artists, or professors in an MFA program, art critics are more likely to trick one (real) fellow-artist about his/her work than help is a strange approach to the world, defining it as just a competitive ground where everyone will stab everyone else in the back. Christine I am glad I am trying to create a world that is away from your experience (not that yours is not grounded in some real aspects of our world, but it is not the only way or aspect of it. Insulating oneself may work for a snail or any mollusk (sorry the metaphor and its representation in my mind just cracked me up! I thought I would share it to bring a smile to this sometimes rather earnest conversation! ;o) ) [No, not everyone that could tell you a few important and justified things about your work, with a knowledge base that may exceed yours in your own field–at least in some aspects of it–is not after you and your wall-space Christine (you may not share the same wall space with them to start with!)] Not that insecure, vindictive, and stupid people, those more interested in control, money, their individual needs at the expenses of others around them, rather than build communities based on respect and exchange, do not exist… once those are identified I would advise anyone to simply avoid them,… or if possible, convert them, at least give them one try! ;o) Fine-art, photography included, is more about a shared personal journey, one that evolves and that can be followed by an audience, experts or not, in its trajectory of growth through a coherent and coherently organized body of work (a not just a bunch of disorganized milestones only reflecting the latest fad in software be it filters, ultra sharpening, panoramas or HDR!!). It is not about applying recipes with more or less sophisticated tools; it is not thinking that “creativity” is just a matter of filters or tricks. An artist’s life, once any technique has been learnt and mastered, is about self-discovery through challenges motivating creativity. It is a long, challenging (on many levels), sometimes highly frustrating, path. Because of the highly focused nature of their paths, real artists, not just craftsmen or women, go beyond, in their area, anything we know or have experienced. They come back and share their newly acquired experiences and knowledge by translating them in their medium of choice. The medium (by definition) is just the channel not an end populated with either easy or elaborate tricks. Real art is “honest” and is definitely not about competition except with oneself (again I encourage anyone interested in art to read Zola’s novel “The Masterpiece” (“L’œuvre” in French) about his experience of Paris and the art salons at the end of the 19th century told through the eyes of the main protagonist that he created in the light of one his best friends’ experience: Paul Cézanne). As for “dark and blurry,” I wonder what your experience of serious fine-art photography galleries is, Christine. These days if I can think of anyone with probably some of the highest level of exposure I can think of, names such as Gursky, Struth, Parr. In the past ten years they have had some of the best shows, the best exhibitions of this world. Even if I do not agree 100% with everything they have done, their works command respect. They are dedicated to a high level of art, the first one more technical and crafty (but commanding the highest prices as more decorative with big, clear and sharp prints (using a few digital tricks too–you should look at his work if you have not so far, Christine), the two latters, far more interesting as deeper and more meaningfully creative and challenging in my mind. This for a start… and then if we go back in time I doubt we will find a lot of dark and blurry pictures in most valuable collections, except for the Pictorialist episode in which there are also real masters, either public or private (so much for buyers, some do actually know a thing or two about the field ;o) which makes them interesting buyers that can have a conversation other than about competition and check-books). Something I have learnt about buyers is that you cannot fundamentally change their tastes but you can educate them. They have a tendency to enjoy it once they make the effort, as meaning on top of esthetic pleasure enters their lives. And sometimes “dark and blurry” may be the way. In conclusion it is not about the tools but about the experience (esthetic experience is part of it, but only one part; it should just be the tool of access not just the end), the questioning of our condition as human beings and artists, the meaning that is shared. “Dark and blurry” may be the tools for some who have something to say else than “dark and blurry” or “see what I can do in the darkroom or with this or that software” in order to make a damn tree or rock in a deserted meadow have more visual impact than a damn tree or rock in a deserted meadow. Unary photographs (“unary” comes from Roland Barthes’s “La chambre claire” for those interested in quotations ;o) I will pass on Sontag for today though ;o) ), photographs with one simple center of interest (right in the middle of the frame for instance), overshadowing everything else, without intricate relationships between the various elements contained in that frame in order to create sophisticated meaning, enhanced by a technical trick have high visual impact, they are perfect Camera Club productions, often very limited in terms of real creativity, challenge, chartering unknown zones, long-lasting experiences. They meet some of the requirements of commercial photography: high impact, simplicity of content and reading. Fine-art, and, coming back to our conversation and this thread, fine-art photography [the way I have defined them, I understand that too] are a totally different ball-games, ones whose manifestations most of us should regularly expose ourselves to (kind of easy these days with the internet which does not replace the real experience of a print though) in order to challenge ourselves and grow. Learning from the best cannot be a bad thing, and I do not think, Christine, as a conclusion, that neither buyers or beholders are our best advisers and role-models. © Bruno Chalifour, Rochester NY, May 30, 2014.
Posted on: Fri, 30 May 2014 12:45:39 +0000
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