[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.
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