Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Are you an artist?
#17

Zig Wrote:Oh dear, I think my jury would be out a long time on this one matthew! Just a few scattered and unsynthesised thoughts:
wow. I'd love to see what you come up with when you plan to write an essay.

Zig Wrote:Nowadays, what is considered art does sufficiently reflect society's desire to enthrone mediocrity and obsolescence: tenth-rateness and self-deluding pride has conned and lied its way into the space hitherto occupied by excellence.
And I wonder how much of that it because of photography. It's a very democratic medium; almost anyone can participate. Further, since it's a mechanical means of reproduction, so there's no need for a long and difficult apprenticeship or skills-building period. Certainly it helps, but anyone can get lucky.

Cameras are a mass-market item, photography can be a mass art form. And with everyone able to produce it, and so many different opinions on What Art Is, who can say what isn't art? Uli, your anecdote is a perfect example of this, but it still took an original thought to take something, wrap it in tape, and call it art. It's still an original expression. Odd, probably pointless, and self-indulgent, but original. There's no original though in the simple act of taking a photo, and the results become subjective. Sometimes, the worse it is, the better. If you print it large enough, or put it in a big enough frame, what can't be called art?

Zig Wrote:I recently left a "bohemian/poetic" circle in a local town as the "poets" were not imbued with any form other than a nihilistic "performance"-style doggerel; [...] "Art" is what an artisan does; that is, there should be a degree of craftsmanship, hard work, innate skill and a period of apprenticeship in which the "artist's" focus is on pursuing excellence ....
I agree with both sides of this. Perhaps that's two reasons why I don't want to think of myself as an artist: there are already too many self-styled artistes (said with a bad French accent) in the world, and I don't see myself as having either innate or earned skills. There's a difference between being a craftsman and an artist; maybe I'm aspiring to the former.


shellby, a very clever person commented that after a great meal, nobody asks what pots were used. Oddly, some kitchen equipment is sold with the pitch that it'll do all the work for you (like cameras).

...when I went into the camera store eight months ago, I asked which of the cameras in the display case had an auto-compose feature. (None of them did, but I bought one anyway.) But, it's not a harmless joke. I've seen ads where P&S cameras are shown with little chalk-figure outlines to tell the operator how to compose a portrait.

matthewpiers.com • @matthewpiers | robertsonphoto.blogspot.com | @thewsreviews • thewsreviews.com
Reply


Messages In This Thread
Are you an artist? - by matthew - Feb 16, 2006, 18:21
Are you an artist? - by Petographer - Feb 16, 2006, 19:58
Are you an artist? - by muzza - Feb 16, 2006, 20:51
Are you an artist? - by wulinka - Feb 16, 2006, 20:56
Are you an artist? - by matthew - Feb 16, 2006, 21:42
Are you an artist? - by wulinka - Feb 16, 2006, 21:59
Are you an artist? - by adam - Feb 16, 2006, 22:21
Are you an artist? - by shuttertalk - Feb 17, 2006, 00:07
Are you an artist? - by Schellamo - Feb 17, 2006, 03:08
Are you an artist? - by Don Schaeffer - Feb 17, 2006, 09:06
Are you an artist? - by wulinka - Feb 17, 2006, 13:21
Are you an artist? - by Banded Drake - Feb 17, 2006, 18:01
Are you an artist? - by matthew - Feb 17, 2006, 20:53
Are you an artist? - by shellby - Feb 17, 2006, 23:40
Are you an artist? - by Zig - Feb 18, 2006, 05:31
Are you an artist? - by Banded Drake - Feb 18, 2006, 06:20
Are you an artist? - by matthew - Feb 18, 2006, 13:35
Are you an artist? - by noisynoodle - Feb 18, 2006, 13:49
Are you an artist? - by Kombisaurus - Feb 18, 2006, 23:19
Are you an artist? - by Toad - Feb 19, 2006, 00:41
Are you an artist? - by matthew - Feb 19, 2006, 10:32
Are you an artist? - by Kombisaurus - Feb 23, 2006, 00:27
Are you an artist? - by EnglishBob - Feb 23, 2006, 11:33
Are you an artist? - by shuttertalk - Feb 23, 2006, 17:41
Are you an artist? - by EnglishBob - Feb 23, 2006, 19:53
Are you an artist? - by wulinka - Feb 23, 2006, 20:56

Possibly Related Threads…
Thread / Author Replies Views Last Post
Last Post by wulinka
Feb 7, 2008, 00:23

Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 2 Guest(s)