“Over”… like, “Dead”? Or, like, “Finished-for-now”? I don’t think Photography is dead, maybe slightly moribund, and it is finished as we knew it, but still capable of the surprise that we have become so inured to. There has been a protracted crisis of representation that has left behind a myriad of claims on Photography’s legacy and no sure future to proclaim. Most predictions are based on technical developments that alter the form more than the content. The delivery system is rapidly shifting but the content is little altered. The most realistic of mediums seems to be suffering from a detachment from reality. Photography’s role as a verification of the world is lost. Reality has become a parallel universe with photographers returning with different versions of what it truly looks like. And nobody really believes any of them. What is being called “abstraction” has taken the position that photography of photography or investigations of the nature of perception offer the only uncorrupted path to a truth worth knowing. After years of questioning the nature of photographic truth we have arrived at a place where truth is measured by the degree of the lie and the only thing positive is a double negative. Neologisms abound as artists vie to define something that doesn’t exist – something new. It has come to the point where everything is an instant cliché which is doubled by its expression as another cliché mediated by a computer. Thus the question: “Is Photography over?” I suggest Photography is just tired. The fatigue seems partly a result of its sudden over-inflation and equally sudden deflation: stress fractures in its credibility. I find that issue displaced. The real question should be “Is Art over?” To me, it is more like:”Was it ever relevant”? To that I say Photography has always been an unwelcome bedfellow to Art, which is for most of the world irrelevant, and Photography has been, and remains, relevant. So, if it’s over then the issue has to be looked at as either a precursor to the demise of Art’s sanctity, or the liberation of Photography from the threadbare criteria that Art History has imposed.
William James said, “Wisdom is learning what to overlook”. We now look at everything, including the invisible. Photography, a mechanical form of looking, is intrinsically limited in what it can show. There lies the wisdom. The current crisis is partially caused by attempts to extend Photography’s capability. Maybe it will succeed and show us something new we don’t really need to see, or maybe it will fail and be the wiser for it.
Read responses from Vince Aletti, Walead Beshty, Trevor Paglen and others and learn more about SFMOMA’s 2-day panel symposium “Is Photography Over?” HERE.
James,
You sir are funny.
bd
If the real question is “Is Art Over” than you should have titled your post by that question.
I could not disagree more with your premise: photography is tired? Where have you been hiding? Oh, yes, in MFA program. Well, you are projecting, mate. When I was getting my masters I was tired, too.
Photography is far from tired. It’s alive, exploding with new science and methods, and art. Far from being in crisis, photography is merging with neuro-photography, and the neuroplasticity of photography.
You talk about the medium, but the medium is not suffering relative to reality.
You miss the point with your double negative and getting caught up in the truth vs lie issue. Photographs are both objects and subject matter. The state of present day imaging is McLuhan…the medium is the message.
Hey Jim,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I would like to quickly respond:
1. It is amazing that you are able to disagree with me as the statements made in the post are not mine. That’s why PhilipLorca diCorcia’s name is there along with a quotation mark and indented paragraph.
2. The post is titled “Is Photography Over?” as that is the title of the symposium from which the quotation came. Had the topic of the symposium been “Is Art Over”, then i might have gone with that for the post title.
3. Yes, I am in an MFA program, but this week I’ll be hiding at the New York Photo Festival where I’m exhibiting (except for this friday when I’ll be hiding on a corporate assignment). I will be showing physical prints and not “projecting”. You can also catch me hiding at the photo agency I work with: Institute for Artist Management
4. I neither talk about the medium nor do I miss the point with a double negative (at least not in the post above). Please refer to point number 1 for clarification.
best,
jp
discussing how photography is dead is the new black . i’m hungry !
Is art dead, is music dead, is writing dead, are we dead? Yes, yes, yes, yes, but why should that stop anyone…