kitchen life # 42 ~ neither fish nor fowl - my dilemma

Banana in sink ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenAs I have been aimfully google-ing around the web in search of enlightenment, re: rhopography, I came across Australian Joachim Froese's website whereon he has a page devoted to his Rhopography. IMO, his pictures are very nice.

That written, and much like the PR piece for the Frame of View pictures by David S. Allee (see diptych #25 ~ explanation entry, pt. 1), Joachim Froese's Rhopography Artist Statement could be lifted nearly whole cloth (if I were a plagiarist) and used as the artist statement for my decay and disgust body of work. The only change I would have to make would the words "black/white photography" inasmuch as my pictures are made in color.

However, again much like the Allee PR bit, while Joachim Froese's statement could be used to very accurately describe my decay and disgust work, I could not have written that statement without the help of an artspeak MFA academic.

That written, when I have talked with a couple curators, gallery directors, and general viewers regarding my decay and disgust pictures, I always mention my intent to: a)"reference 17th Century Flemish still life paintings" (which, I might add, were painted in color, not black and white) and b)make pictures which are "highly subjective constructions of, and reflections on, society" and its mores.

In most cases I do not need to tell viewers that I make pictures which "show a scenario that does not exist in reality" inasmuch as my pictures are quite obviously of 'constructed' scenes, arranged and constructed by me. However, if asked about the black border around my pictures (any of my pictures, not just my decay and disgust work), I do mention that the intent of the black border is twofold: 1)a throw back to an analogue tradition used as a deliberately employed signifer which implies that my pictures' "language stays strictly within the tradition of documentary photography that signifies truth" and 2)to create an ambiguity relative to the methodology of my picture making - is it digital? is it analogue? does it matter? Or, to put it in artspeakese, so that viewers might be "taken off-guard when deception is presented in as ‘old fashioned’ black/white photography print making gestures".

So, you might be wondering, other than providing you with a late-night sleeping aid, what's my point in all of this

Well, to put it succinctly, as I have been trolling about in what amounts to the tangential alternate reality universe of the academic lunatic fringe, I have come to the conclusion that my pictures, all of my pictures, fall into a somewhat no-mans-land, picture world wise.

That is to write, on the one hand there is the non-academic picturing world. A world populated by those for whom a picture is just a picture. Which is not to write that, for them, a picture can not reach them on a level beyond the visually obvious. However, when a picture does so, it is most often on a purely emotional level, not an intellectual one. And, if they were to hang a picture on their wall, it would so they could look at it, not think about it.

On the other hand, there is the MFA picture making crowd. A world populated by those for whom a picture is never just a picture (if it is just a picture, who cares?). For them, a picture is much more about serious picture making intent which is concept driven. While they might derive some visual pleasure looking at the pictures they make, they seem to enjoy much more, thinking, talking, and writing about them. If they were to hang a picture on their wall, it would be for it to serve as a device to instigate intellectual / academic discourse.

In a very simple nutshell, the difference between the two worlds is one believes, if a picture needs words, it is a 'failure'. The other believes, if a picture isn't accompanied by lots of words, the picture is just a picture and is, therefore, also a 'failure'. It would not be much of stretch to write that one group considers the other to be picture making simpletons, while the other group considers the other to be picture making pinheads.

Me? I kinda have one foot in one world and the other foot in the other world. I like pictures which are both visually interesting and intellectually stimulating. One quality without the other very rarely gets it done for me.

But therein is my dilemma - the non-academic crowd tends to ask, "why did you take a picture of that?", whereas the MFA crowd tends to ask, "why did you made a picture of that?" And, just to complicate things, the non-academic crowd wants an answer which is as simple and easy to understand as possible, whereas the MFA crowd wants a verbose answer which plums the depth and breadth of the history of the visual arts and all of the metaphysical / existential implications and associations thereof. It's enough to make me want to be a bullet in my head, metaphorically speaking of course.

Personally, artistically speaking wise, I find the one group to be (on the whole but not completely) rather shallow and the other (on the whole but not completely) rather tediously and annoyingly dense. I mean, seriously, to my eye and sensibilities, if someone's pictures are all visual flash and dash or, conversely, all conceptual flapdoodle, what's the point?

That asked, I guess for some the point is strutting your technical wizardry, while for others it's making sure the world knows you got yer book learin' money's worth. But for me, my picture making heroes will always be those who manage to make visually interesting (even challenging) pictures without employing pictorial excesses and whose pictures have meaningful meaning (even challengingly so) beyond the literal / visually obvious but without all of the de rigueur intellectual gymnastics and gyrations so beloved by the academic lunatic fringe.

Comments

[John Linn]

Mark, I have worked with (and even was managed by) several MFAs and they were all about getting the job done and doing it with good quality design and imagery. They did not have any interest in a "verbose answer which plums the depth and breadth of the history of the visual arts and all of the metaphysical / existential implications and associations thereof."

It seems to me there are examples of highly regarded picture makers that did not follow the "MFA" path you describe, but instead were elevated by others. Vivian Maier is only one obvious example. Perhaps you need a good agent to "elevate" your work (assuming that is your objective). Maybe that is a difficult hurdle but your work, IMHO, seems deserving recognition beyond your hundreds of blog followers.

Getting back to your objective... you seem to detest the "MFA crowd" but at the same time you seem miffed not to be embraced by them... or am I getting that wrong?