I came across this post (An Illustrated Case of the Misguided Photographer Believing his Work is Art) the other day and I can’t say that I agree with it.
The authors main point seems to be that art has to be created from nothing. You start with a “blank canvas” and you make something:
For a photographer to be an artist, the photographer will have to create something. Photographing something that is already in existence, whether landscape, still life, or even street candid photography is not creating something. It’s documentation.
According to him only certain types of photography qualify as art: i.e. staged photography. Anything else is just documentation. Not surprisingly his photographic works of art have been created by photographers famous for staging their photographs:
You see, I’ve seen works of art in photography. It’s usually rather elaborate. It’s not one of those things that happen with a quick snap. Of the works I’ve seen, the most memorable piece is by David LaChappelle, titled “Jesus is my Homeboy.” I remember absolutely loving it, when I first saw it many years ago. Though now being more mature, I find the connection to Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” to be rather unoriginal.
In recent years, I’ve moved on to Gregory Crewdson. And believe me, his photographs didn’t just happen overnight (in the figurative sense, though literally, it was taken overnight). I especially love the surreal in his hyperrealistic photographs of Middle America. There’s always something just not quite right, that makes you take a second longer look at details of his work.
So once you’ve seen art in photography, you will never mistaken photographic documentation as art.
To me art is something that moves me; something that makes me come back again and again to re-consider it; something that arouses my passions; something that makes me think. It’s got nothing to do with whether or not it was created from nothing. Shakespeare is a great artist, not because he created something from nothing, but because even 400 years after his death he makes us laugh; makes us cry; makes us feel joy; makes us feel sad; makes us come back again and again to his plays. Also remember that when Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa he wasn’t gazing at a blank wall. He had model. So it must be “documentation” then. Can’t possibly be art.
I particularly disliked the condescending tone:
To be fair to this blogger. I too am not an artist. I am a content creator. What I have over him is an education in fine art, and career experience as a designer. So I have a better understanding of what art is.
Presumably the pictures the author presents are his own (and I quite like them) so I can’t comment on the pictures he refers to, but one would think that the curators of such prestigious institutions as the NY Museum of Modern Art would have a decent “understanding of what art is” yet they still insist of having exhibitions of “documentation”. The Met Breuer presently has a exhibition of works by Diane Arbus. She took pictures of freaks, outcasts, prostitutes, carnival people. Clearly “documentation” right? So why does the Met Breuer exhibit such stuff?
I thought the discussion about whether or not photography was, or was not, art ended some time ago. Apparently not.