July-August 2006
Commemorative photography is considered - and indeed is - a popular means of entertainment and memory recording. In contrast, artistic photography uses recording as a provocation of an esoteric character, which restricts it to a small circle of initiated viewers. One could argue that every art form, especially at its higher levels, is the privilege of a limited group of people who are familiar with it. However, the distinctive difference in the case of artistic photography, a difference that burdens its mysterious esoteric character, is that it is simultaneously an extremely poor artistic medium, which moreover lacks the luxury of mediocrity. A photograph is either significant or not. It either exists or does not. Choices based on leniency do nothing but attempt to salvage essentially non-existent photographs. But even those that are saved or stand out do not possess multiple levels of approach, interpretation, and admiration. To be appreciated, they must be faced in their entirety. On the other hand, they lack the corresponding aspects of skill, interpretation, language, substance, melody, and narrative, as seen in theater, cinema, dance, music, or painting, where the approach and appreciation can refer to specific elements of the work.
Furthermore, the subtlety of distinctions and limits that make one photograph more valuable than another is not perceived by the average viewer, who is actually unable to appreciate photographic quality. The differences between a very important portraitist and a clearly uninteresting one are not so obvious to the viewer, who usually sees only the depicted faces. The absence of technical proficiency and difficulty also deprives the viewer of the chance to admire what they cannot appreciate.
These are some of the reasons why photography was excluded for so many years from the artistic accolades it deserved, as only a few recognized the essential significance of its apparently insignificant details through its austere simplicity. This explains why even today, those professionally involved in other arts (theorists, historians, journalists, gallery owners, teachers, etc.) often make monumental errors when expressing opinions about photographs, something that rarely happens when dealing with other forms and categories of art. When they think they have mastered photography, it eludes them. A real irony, when this comes from the most insignificant and until recently scorned artistic medium. And when they try again to accept, understand, and tame it, they resort to mental and verbal exaggerations that do not fit its humble presence.
Finally, the sum of significant photographs taken by the few great and known photographers is a very small percentage compared to the total global photographic verbosity, which constitutes the photographic education of the average viewer. If this viewer rapidly goes through these significant photographs, they will struggle to identify substantive differences between them, with the exception of subject matter and form, which even then tend to repeat almost monotonously. And if, out of an excess of conscientiousness, one chooses a longer duration of reading, they will find that the photographic image tends to defensively shrink, repelling boredom.
What ultimately needs to be understood and accepted is that beyond the familiarity that every artistic medium requires and deserves, the esoteric character of photography (and the inherent difficulty in understanding it) is not addressed by stirring it up or by an inherently impossible interpretation. Photography asks only for the innocent availability of the mature viewer, who will place themselves at the same level of photographic poverty, to grasp the poetic content of the photograph and the creator's entire work, respecting its fleeting presence, fleeting like the photographer's gaze upon the world.
Plato Rivellis