Re: [Leica] What is fine art photography?

[Martin Howard <howard.390@osu.edu>]

Nathan Wajsman jotted down the following:

> For me, this list is a sad commentary on what passes for "art photography"
> these days. To see Cindy Sherman on top of a list is an abomination, as is the
> absence of people like Salgado, Koudelka, Cartier-Bresson etc. etc.
> 

I've always understood art as having two functions: (a) the creation of
objects for aesthetic pleasure, (b) as an (often) non-verbal comments on
philosophy and society to provide criticism and provoke thought.

Prefacing this discussion with the fact that I'm not intimately knowledgable
about Sherman's photography, I don't find it the least troubling that it is
considered valuable art photography.  I don't always find it aesthetically
pleasing, but I do think that it serves purpose (b) above much more than
anything I've seen by HCB does.  HCB took wonderful pictures of life around
him and he is and always be one of my photographic heros (he's the reason I
started taking pictures).  But I find Sherman's pictures of herself as a
commentary on media, reality, socially constructed ideals of beauty and
value to be valuable contributions to the critique of the age we live in.

The list presented by Erwin ranked current photographers according to their
auction sales.  Art, as an economic commodity, is fickle and subject to
similar forces as the stock market.  However, art even more so, because
there is little or no inherent value in what is being sold: stocks, at least
somewhere, reflect the value of a company and not just confidence in it.

So, the list can just as easily be looked upon as "what consitutes good
investment within photography in the world of art commerce today" as it can
"what constitutes good and valuable fine art photography".  The absence of
certain photographers from the list does not necessarily reflect whether the
art community consideres their work fine art or not.

M.

- -- 
Martin Howard               | "...key features are the distinctive rear
Visiting Scholar, CSEL, OSU | lighting clusters that make the Maserati
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