Thoughts On The Artistic Process, Artist's Statements, Etc.

Click HERE for a blog post by photographer Paul Butzi, who, in the very first line of the post, writes, "I hate artist's statements." He proceeds to make a humorous argument against the concept of an artist's statement. He makes good arguments. And, although I could make some arguments about why artist's statements are helpful tools, I can't say that his argument is wrong, per se, or even flawed in any way. You may sympathize when you read what he has to say.

Below is a video in which painter Lucio Pozzi talks about an exhibit of what he calls "Mini Paintings". When you consider that most of his work is large enough to take up an entire gallery wall, calling these paintings "mini" seems like an extreme understatement. These paintings are a side-project he has done for decades that is a huge contrast from the rest of his work. Most of the video doesn't speak to any of the concerns brought up in class, but eventually he begins to talk about how when he works with these mini paintings, they act as a way for him to relax a bit, and that he insists on "not knowing what I'm doing" while he works on them. He has rules that remain consistent for all of these works, but after that he just goes for it, doing whatever feels natural without planning. He ends the video with a statement along the lines of, "It is a good feeling to spend some time working on these rather than getting up in the morning and saying, 'Ok, now I have to make another Lucio Pozzi.'" I think, perhaps, he may be speaking to similar frustrations to those voiced in class. In other words, what I think Pozzi is saying here is, "The work that I am known for is an exploration of concepts that I have to think about, question, and plan for. That is rewarding, but exhausting. It is nice to occassionally break away from that and work on something that is just as rewarding in the end, but requires far less planning and thinking." This is a decades-long established, successful, and historically important artist saying the same things that you, as students, are saying.

And now we have April Gornik. Yes, another painter. But, listen to her trying to put into words the things she thought about while making the work in the particular exhibition that she was displaying. She uses some flowery language, and it is easy sometimes to get lost in everything she is trying to communicate. I have shown this video to Art Appreciation classes, of which about 2/3 of the students have no art background at all. Often, the comments that I get afterward are along the lines of "Why did she talk so much about those paintings? I was enjoying just looking at the work. Then she started talking too much. The work didn't need all that explanation. It's all right there anyway. She made it all too technical. etc." See what you think...

Here's my point. The concerns you guys have in class are not new. They are as old as the establishment of "fine art" itself. The age-old question is: "Why can't it just be enough that the work is done?" I get it. These are valid concerns. So valid, that, as you can see above, well-established artists struggle to address them as well. In answer to your questions about why we are working in a method that seems to be chronologically backward from how you've worked previously, I present two considerations:

1. Thinking about what you want to say and planning exactly how you are going to say it BEFORE actually attempting to do the work gives you direction and puts you better in touch with yourself, your interests, and what it is that you want to tell the world. Let's put it in terms of professions other than art: Do you want the mechanic working on your car's engine to just dive in and start experimenting with everything without first spending a little time thinking about what the problem might possibly be and developing a plan? If a scientist wants to conduct an experiment, he has to first decide what question he wants to answer (how does gravity work? what is the atomic weight of hydrogen? is nicotine addictive? etc.). Then he has to develop a plan for an experiment that will get him results that will answer his specific question. We often like to place art on a pedestal separated from other professions because it is so uniquely (and humanly) expressive and has no right or wrong answers. But, art is not so unique of an endeavor that it shouldn't require at least a little early planning and legwork to be GOOD art.

2. The profession of art requires proposals and artist's statements, often times LONG before the work is finished. Even in fashion photography, wedding photography, or advertising, you will be asked by your client to give a full description of what you plan to do, how you plan to do it, and what you want the audience to experience when looking at your images. It is difficult to do that without having practiced. So, perhaps in whatever professional capacity you plan to use photography, your client may not expect you proceed with your work in exactly the same manner in which I am asking you to proceed. BUT, my hope is that, by getting some practice in defining, refining, and perfecting your conceptual approach NOW you will be all the more ready when your professional situation demands it.

WHEW! Ok, so, I hope this helps put some of your concerns to rest. Other than this, I can only say that this is how we're going to do things in this class. If you have disagreements with the process, then make your own decisions on how you will work when you leave this class. My job here and now is to get all three of you to think HARD about why you do what you do and to facilitate your discovery of methods of communicating your particular "why" to your audience.

Make sense?

For Allison: Narrative Environment Images

Christopher Crawford has a wonderful series of photographs titled "Forgotten Indiana". Before you just completely give up on your church door idea, give his work a look. The vast majority of them are, indeed, examples of narrative environment. There are no people in any of these images, but the story of what happened in each environment is in the details. He also gives a literal narrative that he has written to accompany each photo when you click on it, but these aren't really even necessary. The narrative that we, as audience, construct in our minds based on the details we see in the photograph is the real point. Some of these images are very specifically of doors. See if there's anything here that helps you validate your church door idea.

There's also Joe Miller's series of "Places" photographs, which have some relationship to what you're talking about, I think. Check them out HERE.

So, before you give up completely, look at what others have done with similar concepts. THEN make up your mind.

For Sara-Lane: Some Fashion/Art Photographers

HERE is a gallery of images by Candice Wouters. As you can see, Wouters seems to be very interested in fashion and making "beautiful" pictures. Her work has, if not an "old" look, at least a "retro" look. This comes from her use of color, lighting, and the faded-out nature of some of the prints. The have a 60s, 70s, and in some cases early 80s appearance. But, pay attention to what she's doing here. She's not JUST making "awesome-looking" images (which they certainly are). She's got a purpose for them, and it's not particularly what you called "some deep meaning". She is trying to subvert the conventions of "fashion photography" by applying them to (in most cases) self portraiture. She's using a high-fashion stylistic approach for her own purposes. Is she trying to get us to think about how women have been portrayed in the mass media images to which these refer? Is she trying to give us a powerful woman in the type of imagery in which women have historically been merely sex objects? Whatever she may be trying to convey, she has us thinking. And it's because of conceptual choices that she made and the interactions, within each image, between the subject (figure) and her environment. In the case of the work your planning, what is the relationship between subject and environment going to make us think about? What are these images going to do?

Also, check out these links to photos by August Bradley:

http://www.augustbradley.com/

August Bradley Fashion Photography

Notice how what he's interested in is taking old Baroque and High Renaissance portraiture conventions and combining them with the conventions of contemporary high-fashion photography. Now, he does some major digital manipulation of these images to give them the appearance of something that exists somewhere between photography and painting/illustration. Still, I think there are things to observe and learn from in his work. It is the creation of something that feels almost too perfect to be real, while simultaneously too realistic to be a complete fabrication that is Bradley's main focus. He wants us to notice the reference to older master paintings while forcing it to coexist with high-fashion.

Maybe neither of these artists speak to exactly what you want your particular series to do. I just want you to notice that each of them has a specific purpose behind his or her images. So, what do you want your work to do? Or, at the very least, how, specifically, are they going to communicate the things that you are interested in when it comes to fashion and the antique?

For Caroline: Documentary Photographs Of Events

Here are a couple of galleries of documentary photographs of events by photographer Nicole Kuntz:

THE BUSINESS AT THE TRIPLE ROCK SOCIAL CLUB: MINNEAPOLIS, MN

WEEKEND NACHOS/RELENTLESS/BRING THAT SHIT : ECLIPSE RECORDS 2010 ST.PAUL, MN

Notice that what seems to interest Nicole Kuntz in these particular series is not only capturing and recording the things that happened at these events, but the subculture of the people attending and participating in the events. She also uses a flash followed by a long exposer in order to get motion blur effects to depict and communicate the frantic and frenzied energy of the moment.

Claire Martin takes amazing documentary photographs focusing on mundane or "everyday" life, but she seeks out human beings who make for unique and maybe even unusual subjects. So, although she may intend a completely objective motive, it is her juxtaposition of ordinary/mundane/everyday events with extraordinary/unique/grotesque people that clue us into what Claire finds interesting.

So, in answer to your questions in class, I suggest this: looking at these photographs, very documentary and experimental in style, do you think that each photographer went into the situations she was photographing without some idea of what it was she was looking for and some idea of how she was going to accomplish what she wanted to communicate? Kuntz seems to have made very specific decisions about where to stand and her aperture and shutter speed settings to capture the feeling of that place. Those, I will gamble, were choices made beforehand with specific concepts in mind. The consistent manner in which Martin presents her images of the unusual participating in the mundane tells me that she very intentionally made conceptual decisions ahead of time, before going out and looking for her subjects. BUT, would I suggest that they restricted themselves to ONLY work within those parameters while shooting? Not at all! Without experimentation, without seeking out new and interesting ways to communicate one's ideas, a photographer will merely constantly return to interpretation mechanisms and formats with which he or she is familiar, and the resulting images become stale. I hope this puts at least SOME of your concerns at ease.

HERE is an interesting article on documentary photography and how it's sub-genres are defined and pursued by photographers. It may be helpful to you.