I’m for a manly image that stands on its own two feet and speaks for itself, not one hiding in a herd, hoping that the many will provide weight otherwise missing. So as an artist, I don’t like “projects” very much, and by a “project” I mean a tightly focused idea, like one I saw in “Aperture” a while back: empty parking spaces in Europe. Of course there are projects and there are projects; Edward Weston’s trek through the American West after receipt of his Guggenheim in 1937 was a project so vast as to not be a project as I mean it. Projects can be wonderful for documentarians of all sorts: photographs of old people, old towns or businesses, the politically alienated and the like. Projects of this sort can make powerful calls to action of the type that make the world a better place. Even photographic artists have a long history of doing projects to benefit conservation groups, etc., and I certainly have no problems with fine art photography dealing with political and/or environmental concerns as well as aesthetic concerns.
My problem with “projects” is that they put too much emphasis on the subject for the kind of art I make. A book or folio dedicated to photographs of churches of the Old South, for example, puts the subject matter front and center in a way that is antithetical to what I’m trying to do as discussed in many prior blogs (In brief, I am more of a formalist and therefore place a bit less emphasis on content in my images.). Unfortunately, now-a-days it has become almost a requirement to do a project to get one’s work published. “LensWork”, the wonderful fine art photography magazine published by Brooks Jenson, is explicit that it is unlikely to publish photographs that are not part of a project. Many portfolio review judges will be unimpressed if a “random sampling” of an artist’s work is presented, downgrading it as a “best of” collection, rather than a project of some sort, which is considered of more value.
Why are projects necessary? For example, how does creating 15-20 images of vanishing mining towns contribute to the art-worthiness of a given image of someone or something in the mining town? It may perform a valuable documentary, sociological or political function, but is it Art or better Art because it is part of a project? The artist does more than document something, i.e., provide content. If anyone thinks that a Modernist like Ansel Adams merely documented beautiful lighting conditions aka “captured the light,” they should look at the many “finished” versions of “Moonrise” over Hernandez, New Mexico to see what was really captured and how his artistic intent evolved over time; this is not documentation, but Art.
If we admit that most “projects” put documentation of subject matter first, then much of what is put forward is primarily documentation. This being the case, we must also admit that there is no great need to shape Art into a project unless the artist’s vision demands an emphasis on content. Perhaps I have now arrived at a pretty good way to distinguish “fine art” photography from other equally valid approaches to photography: fine art photography emphasizes form/beauty over content.
If you want to read a very rigorous theoretical discussion of the relationship of form, which he attacks as authoritarian, and content, which he supports as more utilitarian, I suggest: Art & Discontent, Theory at the Millennium by Thomas McEvilley. For those of you that think “beauty” is simplistic or out of date, I suggest The Secret Power of Beauty by John Armstrong.
No. 27: “Projects”
I’m for a manly image that stands on its own two feet and speaks for itself, not one hiding in a herd, hoping that the many will provide weight otherwise missing. So as an artist, I don’t like “projects” very much, and by a “project” I mean a tightly focused idea, like one I saw in “Aperture” a while back: empty parking spaces in Europe. Of course there are projects and there are projects; Edward Weston’s trek through the American West after receipt of his Guggenheim in 1937 was a project so vast as to not be a project as I mean it. Projects can be wonderful for documentarians of all sorts: photographs of old people, old towns or businesses, the politically alienated and the like. Projects of this sort can make powerful calls to action of the type that make the world a better place. Even photographic artists have a long history of doing projects to benefit conservation groups, etc., and I certainly have no problems with fine art photography dealing with political and/or environmental concerns as well as aesthetic concerns.
My problem with “projects” is that they put too much emphasis on the subject for the kind of art I make. A book or folio dedicated to photographs of churches of the Old South, for example, puts the subject matter front and center in a way that is antithetical to what I’m trying to do as discussed in many prior blogs (In brief, I am more of a formalist and therefore place a bit less emphasis on content in my images.). Unfortunately, now-a-days it has become almost a requirement to do a project to get one’s work published. “LensWork”, the wonderful fine art photography magazine published by Brooks Jenson, is explicit that it is unlikely to publish photographs that are not part of a project. Many portfolio review judges will be unimpressed if a “random sampling” of an artist’s work is presented, downgrading it as a “best of” collection, rather than a project of some sort, which is considered of more value.
Why are projects necessary? For example, how does creating 15-20 images of vanishing mining towns contribute to the art-worthiness of a given image of someone or something in the mining town? It may perform a valuable documentary, sociological or political function, but is it Art or better Art because it is part of a project? The artist does more than document something, i.e., provide content. If anyone thinks that a Modernist like Ansel Adams merely documented beautiful lighting conditions aka “captured the light,” they should look at the many “finished” versions of “Moonrise” over Hernandez, New Mexico to see what was really captured and how his artistic intent evolved over time; this is not documentation, but Art.
If we admit that most “projects” put documentation of subject matter first, then much of what is put forward is primarily documentation. This being the case, we must also admit that there is no great need to shape Art into a project unless the artist’s vision demands an emphasis on content. Perhaps I have now arrived at a pretty good way to distinguish “fine art” photography from other equally valid approaches to photography: fine art photography emphasizes form/beauty over content.
If you want to read a very rigorous theoretical discussion of the relationship of form, which he attacks as authoritarian, and content, which he supports as more utilitarian, I suggest: Art & Discontent, Theory at the Millennium by Thomas McEvilley. For those of you that think “beauty” is simplistic or out of date, I suggest The Secret Power of Beauty by John Armstrong.