Category: creativity

bee shit

Posted on Posted in as written, creativity, fact, overnight notes, the fora

Keeping the image from falling too far. “the misty territory of truthful fiction”

imagery stimulates the creative.. often stepping across the boundary setup by prior makers. An image type, structure, content, will make it into another mode. Ads/Art/Commerce/Collection.

People who like photographs to be of things, make photographs of things they like .. The things they like often are places; often large places, with large cameras. These same photographers rarely make photographs of people … frequently they avoid people.. 

When presented an image, an object, a picture of people … people presented without adornment, without background ,so that your attention is directed towards only that person..if you don’t like that type of person, you won’t like that photograph.  You probably won’t like the photographer. You may feel confronted, intimidated.

Too often, a hardened view becomes a prejudice. Unexamined, so extending into more matters. Their prejudice extends deeper than their aesthetic matters, it has to vilify, not only them ,but those like them, even those who like them — a prejudice down to explaining the glasses. Maybe even cameras, cities

We know, of course, these critics  don’t apply such level of scrutiny to themself. Instead they conform. Limiting what they know to when they were 30.

Richard Avedon [1923-2004] , in 1979, was commissioned by the Amon Carter Museum [Fort Worth, TX, aka Cow Town] to produce photographs attentive to to people with overlooked occupations — to summarize the West. The overlooked westerner. Laura Wilson, a Dallas photographer, worked with Avedon on the project.

[ Richard Avedon died in San Antonio, TX, on assignment…]. His work, in overview, is here.

>> I like the picture. Obviously, it was staged; most beekeepers don’t wear their bees. But it’s still a natural picture – its natural bee behavior. I think those who were against Avedon before…are the ones who were most vocal about this picture when it comes out.— Ronald Fisher. Not from “.. some place up north…” Still selling Vacant Acres honey[2024]

Initial contact. Davis, California, which, even to this day is in the West, not the north… within CA is is east of San Francisco.

Richard Avedon – Ronald Fisher, Beekeeper, Davis, California, May 9, 1981, printed 1985

Note: Bay Area Avedon: “A career retrospective that covered all areas of Avedon’s photography, it was Avedon’s initial collaboration with the curator and museum director David Ross.  The first of Avedon’s photographs from In the American West debuted at Berkeley, an oversized portrait of Boyd Fortin, the rattlesnake skinner.  The show was disrupted (though not closed) when Avedon’s 30-foot-long mural of Andy Warhol and Members of the Factory was vandalized by a visitor who tossed an iodine-filled balloon at Warhol’s head, destroying the photograph. ” — UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM, BERKELEY, CA, 1980

Links, refs:

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It took years for Carnie to see behind the mask:

Photography’s Prize

Posted on Posted in artgame, creativity, on photographers, Theory, visual mindTagged , , , , , ,

[price/prize] Photography arrived as entertainment, as substitute skill for the leisure class. By 1970 it had gained acceptance in many Art Schools. The 1980s was comfortable for specialized photography galleries; collectors had appetite.

Understanding the awards as assignment; what you should have known. These are Digests of the great works, those artists changing barriers, sometimes by crossing them; sometimes by crossing them off. Self-study assignment: use this to dig into yourself.

They began with an historian building meaning, making a market. The later recipients have re-evaluated the history of photographic uses.

The MacArthur foundation issued its first prize in the field to a historian, Beaumont Newhall in 1984. Photography had much sand to walk before attaining this acceptance. The most recent fellow is Wendy Red Star. Her stated area of focus: 2-D Visual Art, Photography, 3-D Visual Art That she doesn’t list herself as being a Photographer has caused the TOP, Part Time Salesman, concern about his beloved Photography. She may not even use a camera. What will happen to photography without cameras. What can we review. What will we sell.

Wendy Red Star, Peelatchiwaaxpáash / Medicine Crow (Raven), 2014, from the series 1880 Crow Peace Delegation. Original photograph by Charles Milton Bell, 1880, from the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

[https://aperture.org/interviews/people-of-the-earth-wendy-red-star/ ]

Some win more… the contest of merit loves to use another’s choice… path dependency isn’t just for mountain climbers. Get one award, another follows.

https://www.macfound.org/ [ based in Chicago, and in 2014 it was the 12th-largest private foundation in the United States] The Fellows Program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Fellows_Program

awards are signs

winning one prize, gaining grants or exhibition history becomes easier with prior recognizitions.

Offer something rewarding to the awarding agent, without being so novel to cause doubt. The more conservative the award, the more palatable must be the recipient.

to those who don’t have them who don’t make signs . Awards are more important to those who have not won an award … they guide the young and disappoint the old

Why Some Hate Art

art travels greater boundaries of space, time, legal, geographic as well. Art transcends; can remain dormant until some future needs it.

non-artists are pissed off, but they can’t change art. Although they can’t participate in art they can participate in church, business, in the commerce of church, in law. They cannot participate in Art, other than as consumers. and has blockades so if they don’t want to consumer set up a blockade 

within the US, public grant and award are used to diminish by those believing God as money 

In constant refrain: dig deeper than the advertisers understand. If the applause goes to the amount of the award, then the clapping is noise.

The prize provides access. Sometimes that is good.

“If I could make an income and have a couple of friends to enthuse with me over ideas and things, I should never enter the Art market, and never exhibit.” Man Ray 1922.