civilized ku # 74 ~ reflections on photography
Monday, January 7, 2008 at 09:56AM 
Reflections • click to embiggenThis past weekend, I was introduced to the photography of Jeff Bark. Jeff Bark is a former NYC fashion photographer of considerable fame, repute, and fortune. Currently, he is an emerging 'darling' of the Fine Art World, Photography Division. His prints sell for $18,000 a pop and his first solo exhibition is now on display at the Michael Hoppen gallery in London.
The photo 'schtik' that Mr. Bark has employed to great art-critic acclaim is to spend a great deal of time and effort to make elaborate studio sets in which to stage nude models (see his Abandon series). The resultant pictures are said to "reinterpret old masters" (painting masters, not photography masters) with a care to lighting and exposure that "is more like the attentive solicitude of a still-life painter".
Even though "he works with a camera, film, and all of the accoutrements of mise-en-scene ... his medium for all visual purposes, is painting". He uses "a large-format camera, soft lighting and long exposures to create a painterly texture ... each (scene) constructed with all the care and skill of a Renaissance masterpiece."
Caveat - the following rant is not in any way, shape, or form about Jeff Bark's pictures. My first inclination from limited web and print publication viewing is to like them.
The Rant -
I don't know if Jeff Bark has any desire to be a 'painter' who uses a camera, film, etc., but it seems that notion, without a doubt, is the message that is being broadcast far and wide by the academic lunatic-fringe art critic / curatorial class. I swear, if I read one more review of photography wherein the only references to 'skill', 'care', 'lighting', 'exposure', etc. are those that are linked to painting / painters, my head is going to explode.
It seems rather obvious to me that the current class of art-history trained art critics and curators know little or nothing at all about the history of photography. If they did, they might actually recognize that Jeff Bark's photography references the past work of many of photography's masters, and, in the case of 'mise-en-scene', the past work of many film (motion picture) masters.
Come on guys, get your heads out of your dark and narrow painting-history asses. Take the time and make the effort to learn something about photography and its broad and detailed history. Then you might even be able to comment about how the 'skill', 'care', 'lighting', 'exposure', etc. in a photograph references the 'skill', 'care', 'lighting', 'exposure', etc. of current and past masters of photography.
Because, what the hell, in the case of "lighting' (as an example), the skill that Jeff Bark employs in the making of and that is exhibited in his prints are those of a modern 'master' working with electricity and multiple 'artificial' lights, with which he actually creates the quality of light that he wants to best meet his purpose. This is a very different skill from that of Renaissance masters who used available / found light to achieve their purposes.
And while you're at it, get some counseling to deal with your painting fetish. Photography is not painting. Photographers do not need to act or think like painters. The medium of photography is inherently different from painting - it, by its nature, is promiscuous and discursive. A photographer can make lots of pictures and produce them in limitless quantity. Neither of those facts, in and of themselves, diminishes in any way the value of a photograph as Art.
Both of these characteristics of the medium of photography - promiscuity and print proliferation - are (to the art critic / curatorial class) like the elephant in the living room. Nobody wants to admit that it exists, much less talk about it. But, in fact, these are the single most perplexing dilemmas, re: photography, that are facing the Fine Art World today -
Can the single act of making an individual work of Art that can then produce an endless number of originals - not 'copies', not 'reproductions' - and therefore be owned by countless individuals, be valued as Fine Art?
To date, the answer is an absolute and emphatic "No!"
No real reasons are given. It's just the historical momentum that since the ordained mediums of painting and sculpture only have one original - all the rest are just 'reproductions', therefore, it must also be so with photography. It seems very obvious to me that the only segments of the Art World that this idea serves is Art marketers and the art-history fetish critics and curators.
Pardon my French, but, f**k them. There has to be a better way.
Reader Comments (3)
Hear, hear! Although perhaps a little less vehement.
One thing this brought to mind was how i like to view a painter's work. I find I derive greater insight into their "public" work by studying their sketch books, studies & cartoons first - I always look for these in museums. They are also well-regarded in that sense by the art-crit world.
Not much different to the proliferation in photography. Maybe photogs need to start putting together side-displays of their polaroids as insight into the workings of the master.
Who's paying 18000 per? Fools and their money.
dude, why don't YOU try to do some real photography instead of snapping some crappy photos of whatever and adding some cheesy-ass border on photoshop because you wish they looked like chromogenic prints you did in the darkroom with a full frame holder but you're just not good enough or not dedicated enough to accomplish. then perhaps you can have any word on 'skill', 'care', 'lighting' and 'exposure' or whatever the hell you want to talk about people that spend days carefully working on this seemingly popular genre of tableau vivant these days. i agree that there is a lot of crap in the art world, and usually the down-grader of any work are in the statements, but really, why would you not believe someone would pay that much for a bark? it's gorgeous. it's crafty. it is very well executed throughout and that demands a lot of skill. it's all a photo should be in the beauty realm. this allusion to painting i find, comes from a somewhat return of beauty of in the artworld. people are so tired of concept and having to read about images in order to understands images, that there is nothing better than something plainly beautiful and enjoyable, but also multilayered for the more exigent and educated crowd. but if you find the problem is in rhetoric and vernacular being used to describe photography, maybe you should re-think your statement as well, because it's not that far off that.