Darren Daz Cox, now in Pekin Illinois!
Is Security Cam Photography Art? Is an Onion on a Chopping Board Art?
In the art group discussions on photo sharing site Flickr, a common concern of newbies is if their photography is art or not. People have been conditioned to think of the word ‘art’ as something that only an elite group of people can do and while they might be able to reach that ‘level’ it won’t be overnight. Well, the facts show that if you want to be an artist, that’s good enough, you are one – no training, no test and you sure as heck don’t have to have sold anything to join the art world. All that is required is your attitude. Punk is an attitude! (as Hell-n from 80′s punk band ‘The Wrecks’ screamed so perfectly).
The problem with photography to many ‘artists’ is that it doesn’t even require a human being to take a photograph while the craziest ‘art’ piece at least has some human input (Yoko put the apple on the ladder, Duchamp presented a urinal as art) .
A security camera can take photographs and if all photography is art then security cameras are artists and that is a paradox. Obviously a security camera isn’t an artist, it has no aescetic reasoning only instructions to follow. Say we took a random still from a security camera and put it in an art gallery, is it art? Does it become art by entering the domain of other art? If so then we have an answer, yes, photography is art when it is presented as art and this world is absolutely full of it, art that is.
Duchamp’s "Fountain" was voted the "most Influencial work of modern art" in 2004 by CNN and serves to illustrate the point that art doesn’t have to be ‘good’ to be legit. But can it just be randomness?
You could get a security camera to upload random snaps to Flickr and if you present the snapshots as ‘art’ they are, according to our theory.
Most photography I see on Flickr is pretty standard stuff, amature photographers often try to look like profesionals by using techniques such as good lighting, proper focus and color correction but after a while images of an onion on a chopping board start to annoy me no matter how creatively presented or properly lit to give the feeling of warmth and comfort that homemade soup gives on a cold winter day *screams*.
If I stumbled upon a series of images with the occasional random event like a wind blown piece of trash, I might stop and look a little closer, often the most enjoyable quality of what makes art real is when it allows your imagination to work. Remember that scene in American Beauty (1999 film)?
So your photography is art and even a photograph taken by a non-reasoning or thinking thing can stand next to one taken by Ansel Adams with equal glory if it is presented properly.
The word ‘art’ has become so generic that it can apply to just about anything. If something is considered art by a museum it IS art, especially if someone pays 60 grand at auction for it, but Manzoni’s can of his own feaces that the presitigous Tate gallery in London sold for such a huge amount only widens the gap between ‘good’ and what is literally crap art.
I have wrestled with this concept for decades now and have concluded that just because it doesn’t look like art to me, it’s not just some kind of fraud. I respect avant garde artist David Byrne but I don’t see what he sees in some of the art he likes, sometimes the only reason that I give it a second look and try to stretch my mind to accept it as something legit is because I know David Byrne is legit and has no reason to lie.
The question that eludes us is why some people still feel the need to question what is art in this world where it’s been proven time and again that pretty much anything goes. That creep who starved a dog to death in a gallery in some pathetic country is considered an artist so torture and murder is art when its presented as art in an art gallery right? (sorry, I will not link to give publicity to that piece of art but you can check the art groups on Flickr to see that the story)
In the 1960′s when social boundaries were being challenged in many ways, ‘artist’ Les Levine wanted to show another side to the ‘worth’ of art. (Gail Dexter,1968 Toronto Star quoted him as saying) "Art can raise your whole level of consciousness. But, once you’ve absorbed the work of art, you want to move on to other things–only you can’t because art has antique value. You can’t throw it away. Soon, it becomes just an object, a piece of furniture."
look at the state of the ‘art world’ today, on one hand Les Levine was right on the money, people can’t throw old art out even if they don’t like it, we can see that every time we turn on PBS and see The Antiques Roadshow (American tv program where people bring in old things to get appraised for historical and more importantly, monitary value. In typical American fashion there are winners and losers by virture of how much their junk is worth, and as a sad commentary on contemporary society, none of them in their 15 minute of fame ever says "I need to donate this rare artifact to a museum!").
However, some ‘art’ can’t be thrown away, the dog that was starved to death in an art gallery, the psychopath who put goldfish in a blender in an art gallery, Lynard Skynard who sold their song for a chicken restaurant jingle, only senility or a brain trauma can remove that ‘art’ now. Oh and onions on chopping boards too…
I know my art is art!
*update I made this sketch of the nude girl into a big oil painting!*
Originally posted 2008-01-29 20:32:01. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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January 30th, 2008 at 8:34 am
For me, art is dependent on conscious intent. A security camera photograph is not art, as there’s no conscious intention behind it. The plastic bag blowing in the wind is not art – the video footage of it is. I think the real problems start when we start to make value judgments concerning what is “good” art and what is “bad”. And I think that often when these judgments are being made, the first thing the one judging does is to deny that piece the definition of art and the creator, the role of artist.
Anyway, just a few random thoughts…
I’m off to backlight that onion sitting on the chopping board, that I was about to take a photo of
January 30th, 2008 at 9:13 am
haha! Sometimes our value judgements are all that separates art from garbage. The plastic bag blowing in the wind is only art because someone sees it as art, otherwise it is a documentary of randomness. Does art exist outside of the realm of our imaginations??