Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2015/04/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Doing an "edition" is foreign to photography as the negative was good for unlimited prints as certainly would be a digital file. Any other graphics printmaking process had a limited run by nature of its materials. This is not photography's nature. And it turns out the gallery people find that decidedly bad for business. This was a controversy decades back and most of the key people I admired considered destroying ones neg after a run to bring the prices up be an abomination. A very few did it. But now decades later its caught on. Now I'm noticing as I go to galleries during the year and the big AIPAD show with a hundred photo galleries from all over the world once a year that this kind of stuff is coming back. A print will have a number 6/14. The sixed print out of a run of 14. Wow that bums me out! What the insurance companies did to the practice of medicine the gallery owners are doing to photography. Corrupting it. Turning it into a crass joke. On 4/5/15 7:42 PM, "George Lottermoser" <george.imagist at icloud.com> wrote: > Of course blue chip artists like James Rosenquist, Jasper Johns, and > hundreds > of others fly in the face of many of your "claims" to a hierarchy of Fine > Art. > Not to mention the fact that Rembrandt, Durer and hundreds of other > "Classical > Masters" were print makers as well as painters and draftsmen; who earned > their > keep as portraitists to royalty; and illustrators for the church. And our > most > renowned sculptors also cast multiple bronze sculptures as well as totally > utilitarian doors, gates, portrait busts, etc.. And the exceptions to your > formulaic assessment go on and on and on through the history of "Fine Art" > going all the way back to the cave illustrations and the Venus of > Willendorf. > > We can off our gratitude to the Fine Artists who make the Fine Art, using > any > and all media available to them, in every conceivable combination. > > Even as the critics and curators attempt to categorize, pigeon hole and > understand what they're looking at, reading, and listening to. > > a note off the iPad, George > > On Mar 23, 2015, at 9:32 AM, Larry Zeitlin via LUG <lug at leica-users.org> > wrote: > >> Is photography art? I depends on whom you ask. I serve as an art critic >> for several New York state regional newspapers and have plenty of >> opportunity >> to visit art and photo shows. Artists, critics and show curators have an >> implicit hierarchy of visual art roughly arranged in inverse relationship >> to >> the utility of the effort. Fine art is art with no apparent purpose except >> its own being. It is nice to look at but no one NEEDS fine art. At the >> top of >> the list are the painters who work in oils, next are the watercolorists >> followed by those who work in collage. Near the bottom of the list are >> etchers, printmakers and photographers. Indeed some curators refuse to let >> photographs be exhibited in art shows at all, consigning them to the >> purdah >> of photo shows. >> Lower on the list, in a separate category, are the applied arts. This >> is >> "art" with some functional use. The work of most photographic >> professionals, >> especially those whose pictures adorn magazines, advertisements, >> newspapers, >> etc. fall into this category. Architects are applied artists too, >> differentiated from sculptors because buildings have a use apart from >> being >> merely decorative. Commercial artists are clearly applied artists no >> matter >> how good their work. I know whereof I speak. I live in Westchester near >> the >> border of Connecticuit and advertising and commercial painters and >> photographers are as common as dust mites. >> At the bottom of the list are craftsmen. Crafts are artistic creations >> with a utilitarian purpose. It takes just as much skill to design a >> Barcelona >> chair or fabricate a fine pair of shoes as it does to make a painting >> except >> it is not considered "art." Most art venues will simply not exhibit crafts >> except during the holiday season where they hope to make a lot of sales.? >> For the last 50 years I have had a grasshopper weathervane fastened to >> the >> chimney of my house. It is a beautifully crafted sculpture of hammered >> copper >> made by the descendants of the very craftsmen who made the similar >> weathervane that adorns Faneuil Hall in Boston. If polished and exhibited >> as >> art it would be accepted by almost any art show but as a weathervane it >> has a >> function. It is not considered art but craft. I.e not acceptable as "art." >> The curse of photography (and etching and printmaking) is its >> reproducibility. Copies of the work can be made virtually identical to the >> original except not bearing the fingerprint of the artist. This caps the >> appreciation value of the original. There is a financial virtue in >> destroying >> the plates or negatives. While some photos can sell for a lot of money, >> the >> highest price paid for a painting is 60 times the highest price paid for a >> photograph. See Wikipedia for comparative pricing. >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_paintings >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_photographs >> Those of you that consider photographs fine art remember that amongst >> artists it is considered a pretend art. A pseudo mechanical (OK digital) >> process of capturiing an image. At best it is an applied art. >> All of which reminds me of that old joke:?A young man buys himself a >> boat >> and a Captain's hat. He says to his mother, "Now I'm a Captain." >> His mother responds "You call yourself a Captain and I call you a >> Captain. >> But do real Captains call you a Captain?" >> >> >> Larry Z (a highly educated and reasonable photographer) >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information -- Mark William Rabiner Photographer http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/