The “Change" and the "New
Six years ago, at the dawn of the '90s, a museum director enthusiastically wrote: "The Eighties are over. And I would give anything to know what the Nineties have in store for us." We cannot blame this director for reacting like a novelty store owner since he was merely subscribing to the prevailing notion that art is a form of entertainment spectacle, capable of sustaining the interest of those involved with it—creators, critics, viewers, resellers, and buyers—through its constant transformation into something invariably new, continuously feeding the consumptive entertainment thirst of an audience addicted to the modern rhythms of media and dependent on them.
This decade-wise segmentation of artistic production succumbs to the general decimal methodology of fashion clothing, whose obligatory continuous change reflects market needs, but not necessarily those of the individuals comprising it. Individuals, at least in terms of creation, should not be willing to fragment their personality and work into decades, nor be defined by the "best" decade of their lives, as it is evident that, for every creator, a reflection must be constituted by the total consideration of five or six creative decades of their entire life. Unless, of course, we replace the artistic anguish of exploration with the anguish of following the fashion parade—a type of angst not much different from that of a middle-aged person who behaves like his juniors, continuously adapting to behaviors that are foreign to him. Art history teaches us that changes were usually due to a long gradual evolution, the logic of a path, a reform—not a revolution, even if this term is often heard in art. Revolution? Perhaps each time a genius, with the originality that their uniqueness constituted, sealed the history of art with something that, without this genius, could not have existed. And this does not constitute evolution, but a bright exception, after which, of course, the evolution is always different.
This study of history shows that the only "new" thing that can exist in art is the artist themselves, who emerges from a stable, long-term path, unrelated to the anxious, decade-by-decade changes that the modern artistic tide tries to impose.
The "Past" and the "Limits
It's not only the techniques that follow today's logic of the fashion world but also the ideas, which in turn obviously influence the former. One of these ideas, widely disseminated since it matches today's need for minimal effort and minimal knowledge, claims that we are no longer interested in the past of art since art has already died. This trend of definitive finality, already dubbed "Endism," is likely due to the approaching end of the century, something that has been observed to psychologically affect people. It may also be due to the volume of information we hold about the past, which creates the impression that everything has been said and done, and nothing else remains for us.
However, whatever the reason for this prevailing view, we can bypass it as fruitless. It would indeed be more respectable if its proponents refrained from any action. Like an elderly person, facing their imminent end, who no longer manages their life, either lying down waiting for death or hastening it through suicide. Those who remain creative, what do they do again in relation to a past they deny?
But if we accept that we "live" an end (and we live it in the sense that we deal with it), we will behave in the only way we know how, the "in-life" duration all the more (as the thinker Axelos aptly observes) because the end can last longer than life. After all, denying the life of art presupposes an education, a culture, which means nothing else but a relationship with the past. The end itself has a typical life of almost a century if we think that Alfred Stieglitz's magazine "Camera Work" had already hosted an article titled "The Death of Art" in 1912.
The study of the past, not only of the works themselves but also of the theoretical texts, informs us that even two thousand years ago, the substantial problems of art were roughly the same. If we add that the substantial (existential) problems of humans must not have radically changed, then we conclude that art throughout its history was nothing but an attempt (by individuals) to adapt an (artistic) language to their own measures, thereby offering a (personal) positioning against the world and the history of art (theirs). This effort always finds (positive or negative) inspiration in the artistic language that has already been shaped in the past, and thus we can consider art within a (re-)cyclical course. Everything has happened and everything will happen again with each creator's unique presence being the distinguishing difference. Art will cease to have meaning when we lose our belief in the uniqueness of each artist. In the uniqueness of their presence, not their work. This approach would suffice to liberate all young creators from the anxiety of "neologism" and to value the opportunities for knowledge and study of the past that modern technology and science offer us. Thus, the artistic concern would only have to do with the creator's struggle with themselves and with the very nature of their art.
Here, however, another doctrine of "fashion" intervenes, advocating that the boundaries of each form of art have been erased, and even more so, the boundaries of art as a whole. Art can now be anything and in any form. This apparent freedom returns the creator to a chaotic infantile state, where they are forced to rediscover art and its forms, consciously ignoring the boundaries that a long past has set. However, the new boundaries can only be a redefinition of the existing ones. Neither a denial of them nor a transcendence. And their ignorance, if it carries a creative hope, is within the honesty of their oblivion and not in the pretense that they never existed. And one deserves to become a child again through the wisdom of knowledge that leads to simplicity, not with the artificial return to the starting line. Perhaps all this constitutes nothing but pretexts in the face of the continuous threat of creative dead ends—an artistic escapism.
It is a common place, however, confirmed by the testimonies of great creators, from Da Vinci to Bacon, that absolute freedom is the enemy of the artist, who, in any case, is forced to place their own limits, consciously limiting a freedom that battles them. Yet even their own limits will be set in relation to a past, since the previous works (which are also the limits) made artistic creation "accessible" to an audience that knows no other (artistic or any) language beyond the most elementary spoken word, bypassing the problem of talent, since with proper theoretical support everything holds and everyone floats, making the teaching of art easier since they can analyze "logically" the starting point, the means, and the purpose of the works, in short, achieving many birds with one stone.
The "Word" and the "Image"
Photography (to return to the starting point of our thoughts) is always more vulnerable than other arts to every kind of fashion since it has a much shorter past, much easier technique, and much smaller general acceptance and esteem from the broad public compared to other arts. Following the upheavals and reversals of its older artistic siblings, it always manages to exhibit greater zeal in its effort to mimic them, and to be ridiculed in a more blatant manner.
From the mid-'70s, it began to feel discomfort with its poor role and, envious of the success of others, enlisted itself in the movement of postmodernism and conceptualism, showing tendencies on the one hand neo-pictorialist and on the other patricidal, in the sense of denying its form and past. Endless artistic interventions, interventions, and distortions led to constructions (usually, however, constructs), which justified their existence through their apparent kinship with corresponding works of established artistic forms, or through their hosting in sanctified artistic establishments, or through the evident surprise they caused by their attempt to be included in the world of photography, or, finally, through the high prices they achieved in the artistic market. A common characteristic of these dominant images of the previous decade, however, was the denial of humble photographic depiction.
The '90s (to finally resolve the dilemma of the unfortunate director mentioned earlier) witnessed a new turn towards the acceptance of a photographic record. It began globally to be strengthened a photography with evident elements of classical photographic reproduction (even if electronic processing had intervened), but with an evident absence of artistic concern through the choice of framing, technique, and more particular and personal content. It had to be declared clearly that, if there was something interesting, it should not be sought in the work itself, but in what it referred to, not inside it, but around it. The problem of art ceased to be embodied, even for the artist, in the work.
This turn proves an alignment with the rest of the world of art, which, in schematic terms, is divided between "entertainment" where every manifestation fits, even applied or decorative art, and the area where the (supposed) thoughtful artistic analysis dominates. There are certainly works that manage to belong to both categories and indeed this happens with the most trivial and most obvious among them, since these characteristics ensure both the breadth of the entertainment function towards the public and the theoretical basis of the analysis for the "experts." This analytical approach to photographic images turned the attention also to scorned photographs of worthy and great photographers of the past, who had the misfortune of not referring to more complex and established artistic forms, since they did nothing else but pure photography. Now the new "admirers" have found the tool to approach them. A tool that leads to conclusions and analyses that would surprise not only their creators but also anyone not willing to come from the City to seek cinnamon on some summit. It is true that nowadays, the word and philosophical thought are increasingly impoverished, compared to the almost absolute dominance of trivial images. And images have the power to achieve a triviality that the word cannot claim. The worst that can happen to it is for the number of words to be restricted and the content of concepts to be emptied, while the image possesses a greater scale of aesthetic nonsense and vulgarity.
In the eyes of those who, deep down, harbor little esteem for the images they make and much for the word they never served, the latter can vindicate the former by substituting what our eyes fail to discern. At the same time, the word provides an outlet for creators who did not know which way to go after the black squares of Reinhardt and Stella, or the technical acrobatics of photorealism, without having the courage to confront the work itself, or even to turn back. As Picasso said, a work must be challenged by another work and not by a bottle dryer, thus referring to Duchamp's famous find-work.
The "Teaching" and the "Fashion
The various photography schools around the world, adopting the above approach, were led to the obligatory verbal support of the images that the emerging student-creators attempt to create, both before and after they make them. The same method ended up being used to analyze the images of old and important photographers. It is a common phenomenon, however, that schools follow fashion, given that this facilitates the teachers and the connection of the schools with the market. The general logic of education today, which is its relationship with the production machine, is self-evident (although not correct), to influence artistic education as well. A few years ago, abstract expressionism was imposed (by force or indirectly), a few years later, conceptual art, and who knows what will follow.
At this point, it would be useful to present some real examples to make the epidemic perceptible in practice. In a fine arts school in France, a young female student was pressured to propose a topic on which she would work. So far, the practice is not condemnable, since a specific topic, which she would have chosen herself, would help her avoid the risk of dispersion and laxity. She chose the mirror as a topic, an interesting, general, and abstract topic, loaded with fairy tales and dual realities. From there, however, her teacher turned the requirements into preconditions. He asked her to study all the old photographers who had worked with mirrors, so she would not do something similar. He asked for sketches and specific diagrams of the photographic shots she subsequently aimed to execute, as well as argumentative support for what she wished to achieve, to ultimately judge if she succeeded. With this admirable method, he greatly facilitated his role as a guide and critic, but artistically nullified the young photographer, since, firstly, he turned her sources of inspiration into examples to be avoided and, secondly, he vanished the charm of the photographic process and search, as well as the element of surprise, which awaits every artist in front of their own work.
A bit further, in London, in one of the most famous fine arts schools, the photography class collectively visited an exceptional exhibition of a contemporary English photographer. When a student attempted to start a discussion of critical evaluation of the photographs, he encountered the refusal of his teacher, who recommended that before any discussion, they should call the photographer himself and first listen to what he was aiming to achieve with his photos. This teacher forgot that a work of art is all the more interesting, the more abstract and multifaceted it is, and moreover, that once it escapes the hands of its creator, it belongs now to the eyes of its viewers, whose emotion must remain free from the intentions of the creator, but also the latter from the desires of the viewers.
The "Critic" and the "Fashion"
Innumerable examples from books and magazines exist. However, let's consider two from the most prominent art magazines, such as Art in America and the French Art Press. In the former, in the April 1996 issue, an article was published dedicated to the well-known contemporary Canadian photographer Jeff Wall. His typically huge photographs, which are colored (though color does not play a significant role in this case in photographic composition, so that black and white reproduction would harm them), are analyzed by the writer in a way that borders on comical, although it should not aim for such an effect. For instance, in the photograph titled "Giant" (1992), where a digitally processed oversized nude figure of an elderly woman was added to a public library setting, the art critic notes: "...The mythical figure, five times larger than the scale of the rest of the photograph, does not elicit reactions from the students around her. The geriatric Amazon...maintains a sensuous torso and breasts, which suggest both the physical losses that come with age and the erotic identity that, nevertheless, stubbornly persists. Wall’s giantess (perhaps an echo of the long-lost matriarchy) looks at a piece of paper in her raised hand with the demeanor of an experienced librarian, like a divine idealization of the quest for knowledge pursued by the surrounding students, a quest that ultimately will not save them from the devastations that time inflicts on the flesh..."
For another photograph with the striking title: "Adrian Walker, artist, painting a specimen in the Anatomy Department laboratory at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver," the writer notes: "...Walker gazes, in a clinical environment, at the amputated arm of a corpse. Both the observer and the subject are 'detached' each in their own way. Here, the often observed dichotomy in Walker's work, between images that correspond to Michael Fried's 'theatrical mode' directed towards the viewer and images that fit his own introspective and absorptive method, is led to its philosophical climax. The exemplarily absorptive photograph - a picture of photographic production itself - is in fact a study of impotence. For death, the greatest physical upheaval in the antiseptic environment depicted here, can be analyzed and recorded, but not transcended. The hand that draws will inevitably become like the hand being drawn, which it already mimics. Alone, with his chin in hand, the contemplative artist faces the ultimate denial of all human endeavors, including art."
The entire article follows a similar style and argumentation. Indeed, Jeff Wall often parallels his photographs with specific paintings by Velázquez, Delacroix, Brueghel, Caravaggio, etc.
In the other magazine, the French one, a good French theorist, Regis Durand, comments on one of the most uninteresting photographs of an excellent young German photographer, Thomas Struth, resorting to a method of simple description, akin to a tautology with the image: "We are faced with a very large canvas similar in dimensions to those of the great old painters (182X230). We discern in it the interior (a part of the interior) of a church. Not a perspective view that would exploit the depth or breadth or even the architectural rhythm of the building, like, for example, in the paintings of Sanredam, but a close-up view, parallel to the nave's aisle. In front of us, a small side altar surrounded by two large columns, and a wall covered with paintings. In front of this wall, positioned haphazardly up to the first level, people sitting on benches, obviously tourists and not believers, are looking forward in their right at something we do not see. Some others are looking at the painting above the altar, a Virgin with Christ."
It should be noted that the aforementioned photograph is reproduced in color and occupies half a page in the magazine. After a series of equally self-evident observations and unanswered questions ("..we are compelled to wonder what constitutes the real subject of this photographic tableau"), the commentator concludes regarding the nature of Struth's work: "...these works constitute an insightful testimony on our era, on the way we are present in the world and the historical stratification from which it is composed. In this case, they speak to us about the astonishing expansion of cultural tourism, about the frenzy (almost desperate, as Thomas Struth somewhere says) of art consumption, and about the irreparable transformation of our relationships with the works of the past, which have now become emblems or paradoxical fetishes, simultaneously idealized and degraded..."
The "Analysis" and the "Approach”
It is a fact that a variety of thoughts can be woven and numerous conclusions drawn about any work of art, which may interest other intellectual areas and sciences, or more simply, relate to the personal memories of any viewer. And naturally, no one imagines hindering these references, which use the specific work of art as a starting point and spark of their arguments, even if they lead to extreme and arbitrary associative processes and conclusions, such as connecting astigmatism with El Greco or mental illness with Van Gogh.
However, when we approach a work as a piece of art, that is, as a work of the spirit that generates emotion, whether to assess its value, place it in the artistic/historical space, or inspire viewers and students, then our contemplation has the obligation to respect the creator and the art by remaining focused on the work.
In general, there are two ways to engage with the work and derive our conclusions from (and not around) it. Either by using specific technical language, i.e., details that substantiate the characteristics of its production in the space to which it belongs. For instance, the use of colors and volumes by Cézanne, perspective by Masaccio, rough brushstrokes by Van Gogh, or sfumato by Leonardo. (Here we might recall the charming exaggeration of De Chirico, who said that a good painter is evident from the way he prepares his canvas). Or again, to use abstract, and even better if we have the ability, poetic language, to approach the (artistic) content of the work. For example, speaking of the austerity of the forms of Piero della Francesca or the charm of the forms of Botticelli, or even more so, as Malraux does, saying that "Piero's work speaks of a God who has no Paradise." Such an approach may sound strange, or even useless, to the ears of an innocent viewer, since he may think that the technical details are merely tools, while abstract language fails to give him explanations. Nonetheless, the work of art exists only thanks to these technical details. Depth of field, camera angle, choice of frame, degree of contrast are some of the tools used by the photographer to transform a subject, known or insignificant, into a significant and personal photograph. But abstract language also helps the recipient, since it discreetly brings him closer to the work, while simultaneously declaring that a work of art cannot be interpreted, because to do so would mean its negation, that insinuation ceases to function emotionally when stripped bare, and generally that the realm of art is the world of abstraction.
In the modern verbosity about works of art, particularly in photography, there is a focus on the depicted subject and the more or less obvious commentaries that the artist attempts on it. However, a subject is significant only because the artist chose it, not because it is considered significant. Since, therefore, the subject (significant or insignificant in life) becomes significant through the artist's choice and handling, it should interest us only as a starting point for our approach, aiming at the enjoyment of the way the creator defined its artistic significance and charged it with emotion.
On the other hand, the detection, from the analyst's side, of comments and observations, which are supposed to be made by the artist on the actual reality through the (significant) real event, is firstly arbitrary and secondly should have minimal importance in front of the detection of the relationship, which the work of art inevitably has with the world of art in general and the consequent artistic emotion of the viewer. Thus, we observe the contradictory course of having started from the point of a general agreement, that simple copying and recording of reality cannot be the subject of art, to end up today considering the role of photography as the commentary on reality. And at least the recording was present in the work, but the comments are usually subtitles that the theoretical analyst arbitrarily derives from the context. It would not be an exaggeration to characterize such philosophical/commentary tendencies, which have recently prevailed in the art world, as a philosophical "Viper Nora," since with amazing seriousness they touch on common, if not simplistic, topics, about which a random person can speak with much more substantial and authentic language from the experiences of his life.
It is sad that many, especially young, photographers, either because they are products of these analysts/teachers, or because they want to become products of analysts/critics, or because this facilitates the handling of their artistic dead ends, have entered the game of verbose interpretation and support of their works. And, indeed, the fewer they have to say with these, the more they say outside of these.
The "Frame" and the "Size"
In their anxious journey, they adulterate their technical choices or theorize their weaknesses. For instance, lately, there is a disdain for the 'frame.' And by this word, we do not mean just the form, but the entire concept of composition with its extension in the space of (artistic) content. Many of the lauded contemporary photographs could start or end at another point. As if the artist did not want to emphasize to us that he chose something that without him would not have been chosen thus. But without choice, there is no perspective, without perspective, there is no personality, and without personality, no emotion or admiration is born. Also, gigantism in photographs is fashionable. The less right one has, the more loudly he shouts to impose it. However, it is an honest, if not correct, view of some photographers who, half jokingly and half seriously, argue that since the big buyers are Banks and not private individuals, they will print in huge sizes to decorate the banking buildings. But the argument that a photograph exists only through its specific size is futile. The size has to do with the space in which it will be displayed and the use that will be reserved for it. The photographer may prefer (or be accommodated by) one size or another. The impression may be different in front of a huge or a tiny image. The function may be different on the wall from the page. However, the value of the work cannot be due to its size, nor be negated by it. But the rule of impressionism, which characterizes the aesthetics of our days, is also followed in this case. We want everything more and bigger, as if we all suffer from hunger syndrome and mass myopia. Moreover, even the sizes of souvenir photographs from 6X9, which were standard years ago, have now comfortably reached 13X18 and perhaps in a few years we will receive from the neighborhood photo studio a giant folder of memories measuring 30X40 centimeters.
The "Artist" and the "Emotion"
What should a young photographer who also logically desires to pave a path to success actually do? Because criticizing what seductively proposes fashion may be easy, resistance is harder, and even harder is the counterproposal. Before any other thought, he should accept that he decides and is responsible for his work. And that he must be beyond any fashion. As well as that, what he loves from the past is present for him, and he has no obligation to shape (even per decade) an original artistic language. He has time, shortly before his death, to wonder about this. He should also wonder what success means, for himself, not for society. And to know that different content "successes" are rarely "achieved" with the same movement. Usually, one success is the enemy of another. He should also understand that when art serves an ideology, even if that ideology concerns art itself, then usually the ideology and history benefit at the expense of the work of art. And, finally, he should treat photography and its language with the abstraction and clarity that music as an art imposes. Where all thoughts, titles, messages become untraceable sounds. If he discovers and learns to handle a photographic language where everything is apparent but suggestive, like the sound, and everything abstract but absolute, like the notes, then perhaps his work will acquire originality and power. And if he manages to hide behind each of his choices (from that of the subject to that of its presentation and a part of his heart), then he will convey an emotion, which, like every emotion, will be outside of every fashion.
Plato Rivellis