YES. IT IS ART.

Documentary photography can be art photography too...

“Pictures which are going directly from the eyes to the heart...“

(An inscription in the visitor‘s book of my 2015 „Leftovers“ exhibition in Lucca)

   "Is photography art?" may seem like a silly question to some (or many, or most) but it has been a debate which started more or less right at the moment when Joseph Nicéphore Niépce made the first photograph in 1826 or 1827 and this debate is still going on. If I would get 10 Euro every time I had this discussion over the last 30 years or so I would be a very rich man...

  The invention of photography had an dramatic impact on the careers of illustrators and painters. The livelihood of many artists was jeopardized by the camera, which they often viewed as a mechanical device or passing fancy, rather than as an artist's tool. Few denied that photography was an ingenious invention of the modern age but many saw it as a threat to the traditional values associated with art. The public debate on whether images were photography as art or mere documentation began back then, often centering on the camera, rather than on the talents and intent of the photographer.

Let‘s start with a definition of "Art Photography" - that is how Wikipedia is defining it: 

• Fine art photography is photography created in accordance with the vision of the artist as photographer.
• Photography that is done as a fine art - that is, done to express the artist's perceptions and emotions and to share them with others.
• The production of images to fulfill the creative vision of a photographer
• Creating images that evoke emotion by a photographic process in which one's mind and imagination are freely but competently exercised.

   Photography is an art when the photographer is an artist. It is immaterial that the photo can be replicated a thousand times (thus depriving the 'original' of its unique status). A photographer's art is his ability to capture a moment of reality and turn it into viewable image of interest and/or beauty. At the end of the day a camera is not so very different from a painter's brushes and paints. It is no more than a set of tools with which a photographer tries to create an image: an image to stir our soul, in the way that images do.

An Artist's Statement: 

Every time I take pictures, I don't photograph a motive, but the picture of a motive. To transform this motive into a picture, one must convert it into the "medium photography", meaning that everything you observed at the motive, experienced, felt you have to express with the given characteristics of the medium - the whole pallet of the grey tones . The more exactly one knows the tools, the more successfully the conversion is. The successful picture - and not the motive itself - then represents the photographic correspondence, the photographic equivalent of the experiences with this motive. In this doing the artistic photography arranges itself into a row with all other representing arts.

Only the picture contains the message.

  One could say that when the one of the leading institutions in modern art, the MoMA in New York, has a separate department for photography (as it has since 1940) the question „Is photography art?“ could be seen as solved. Today, fine art photographs can be seen in many leading museums around the world, even such revered and conservative like the Albertina in Vienna...

"I have discovered photography. Now I can kill myself. I have nothing else to learn." 

Pablo Picasso

"I have always been very interested in photography. I have looked at far more photographs than I have paintings. Because their reality is stronger than reality itself."

Francis Bacon

Posted in: Oppinions

WHAT TO LOOK FOR...

Art Photography must not be boring...

   Photographs have been collected since its innovation. As early as the 1850s photographs were sold by art galleries. In 1854  the first auction of photographs took place in London (although the first auction in the USA was only a century later). By the early 20th century photography was established as collectible (but the debate about „photography as art“ is still going on even today) and from the 1970th on we can find the market as we know it today.

  Seeing an investment potential can be a reason for collecting photographs but an increase in value is never guaranteed and is very much depending on what is called „art market“, which is following more or less the up and downs of the economy, reflecting every crisis (reflected e.g. in the downfall of auction prices in the 1990s or 2008).

   In my opinion aesthetic considerations are far more important. As already said before: Collect what you love. For a beginning concentrate on one specific theme, period, style or artist. Later on your collecting decisions may evolve and change when your knowledge increases. And with everything in life it very much depends on how much money you want (or can) spend...

   First of all I would suggest some reading. There are a lot of books about the „theory of photography“ (also imho most of them are more confusing than helpful). There are some „musts“ you should read: Susan Sontag‘s On Photography, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography by Roland Barthes or Walter Benjamin‘s On Photography and The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. All these book my help you to get some background on the philosophical base of photography...

WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHS

[This of course is not a complete list. There are quite a number of other aspects that have to be taken into account (such as storage, presentation, etc), with which I will deal in another post.]

• Artist

So you found a photography you like. Or you have heard about an „upcoming“ photographer who‘s work you like. Try to learn as much as possible about her/him. Many (established) photographers have written books about their work. 

Some examples of book by or about photographers. I personally can recommend each of it...

  Try to learn how they are thinking, what they have to tell you about their work, the ideas behind it. Look at their bios: do they exhibit regularly, is their work critically acclaimed? What is their place in the present market, the history of photography (although this are points to take into consideration when you are collecting as an investment only).

• Image

Most important thing: Do you love it? Or as the collector Arnold Crane stated: „I look for nothing [in a photograph]. It looks for me! It hits me first in the gut and then in the eye!“

• Condition

All photographic materials are affected by physical, chemical and biological deteriorations. Photograph stability refers the ability of prints to remain visibly unchanged over periods of time. Different photographic processes yield varying degrees of stability. Most contemporary photographs are expected to be in a pristine condition. 19th century prints are often faded. Generally speaking on can say that, under optimal conditions, the durability of a (classic) barite paper is  about 100 years, of PE (polyethylene) papers about 30 years and color papers between 15 years and 30 years. A contemporary ink jet print could last, depending on the used paper and ink, between 60 to more than 200 years. 

The condition of a print has a big influence on the price. Ansel Adams famous picture Moonrise, Hernandez can vary between $0.00 and $600,000, depending on the condition. The latter price was achieved at auction for a 1948 vintage print with a clear and documented provenance in excellent condition. The current price for a late print in very good to excellent condition is $50-60,000. And the Ansel Adams Gallery reports about a print of Moonrise that looked like it had been a pinup in a machine shop, with heavy oil stains on the mount, smudges and scratches on the surface, that basically had zero value on the market.

• Signature

In the 19th and 20th centuries, signing a photograph was the exception rather than the rule. More people were making photographs than buying them. it wasn‘t until the latter part of the 20th century, when the market for photography became a reality, that the practice of signing became more common.

• Existing prints, editions

Rarity can be an important factor for evaluation. Most contemporary artists are producing limited editions but prior to the 1980s most photographers did not limit their prints. Be also aware of how each image is limited. Sally Mann, for example, is doing her limited editions as 25 prints in the format of 20x24 inch, 25 prints in the format of 8x10 inch while reserving the right to produce yet another 25 in 16x20 inch, so you can never know haw many prints exist (without checking with the artist or her dealers).

This are only a few points that a novice collector should take into consideration. I will deal with some more in upcoming posts. So stay tuned. ;-)