A few days ago photographer and blogger, Amy Stein broadcasted via her Facebook status a complaint about the definition of "emerging photographer":
Amy Stein: Can we please come up with a better benchmark for "emerging photographer" than age!?! Unrepresented? No solo exhibitions? Something?
Her status update set off a first storm of over 55 comments from a variety of perspectives. Much of the conversation centered around what the term means and how even today age is used as a factor for eligibility as an "emerging photographer." This is of course a silly factor to weather an artist is coming onto their own. Especially considering the recent New York Times article on a 94 year old painter emerged onto the art scene. Much of the conversation floated between the frustration in the looseness of the "emerging" definition and the problem with age discrimination until New York Art Critic dropped by to add his thoughts:
Jerry Saltz: I do not think that the word "emerging" is the problem; it merely denotes a phase of one's exhibiting career. I think that the lurking problematic term is, ah, "photographer!"
Photography is clearly going through simultaneous death-throes, transformation, rebirth, and other out-of-medium experinces.
That is what you should be thinking about. That's where the real THRILL will be.
That's where we will begin our chat for tonight using that quote as a starting point for our weekly photo art chat.
Ofer Wolberger has an interesting related post on his blog horses think here:
I obviously don't think that photography is dead but it's definitely due for some re-invention and I don't mean the digital kind.
Lately, I've been excited by some photographers who seem to have found a natural way out of the medium. That's not to say that they give up on making photographs. On the contrary, they continue to make photographic work but they are also beginning to engage in other art making practices. The freedom to begin exploring visual ideas through other mediums seems to lead to a re-freshed perspective when it comes back to photography.
Wolberger then points to several photographers who are pushing outside of their photograph to express themselves. His list includes:
Brian Ulrich, City Life, 2008-2009
from Christian Patterson's Out There
submitted jpeg from Jason Lazarus' Try Harder
Sam Falls, Figure Drawing (girls like us), 2009
A few artists I would like to add:
Wolfgang Tillmans and the sculptural photography he loops into his exhibitions.
Simen Johan for mixing in his sculptures with photograph in his series "Until the Kingdom Comes"
Phillip Toledano from his "America the Gift Shop" series.
And recently Alec Soth's web project:
Las Vegas Birthday Slideshow from Little Brown Mushroom on Vimeo.
Alec Soth celebrates his 40th birthday in Las Vegas by making a slideshow.
For more information, go here: http://littlebrownmushroom.wordpress.com/?page_id=894
I'm sure there are many others I will add them as they come up.
So...
where is art photography NOW? dead/alive/rebirth?
what is transforming, rebirthing into
how do the practices of documentary live along side the conceptual, constructed, abstract and appropriation?
art art photographer's artists or art artist art photographers? does it even matter?
Join in tonight at 9 pm EST.
These Art Photography Twitter Chats anyone can join in or just read it live by using the hashtag #photoartchat on Twitter. One easier way to transform twitter into a chat room is Tweetchat.com and entering the photoartchat room here: http://tweetchat.com/room/photoartchat.
PS., you should follow OcularOctopus on Twitter, here:http://twitter.com/OcularOctopus and me here: http://twitter.com/harlanerskine