Placeholder: Flowers, Photos, Art

I keep thinking I need to take another whack at “What is art?” in the context of my photos. Most recently, the iris photos. But, as I think about it, the essay grows and grows in my mind until it oversteps the bounds of a blog post. So, instead, I offer this place holder.

The burden, the theme, is, of course, what’s the difference between art photos and the rest, which might be calendar shots or national geographic shots (considered as a generic type of photo) or greeting card shots or family album shots or just photos? What’s the difference, the distinction, the activator? The affordances?

Of course, it took awhile for photos to be accepted as art. Even longer for color photos. That’s a side issue, I think. Maybe not.

In the background there is Duchamp’s urinal. It’s not the object, it’s the setting, the mindset. But would the joke slash provocation have worked with a man’s suit or a flower pot or a sewing machine? Then came Warhol, with the Brillo boxes, soup cans, electric chair, Marilyns, and, yes, flowers. More provocation, less joke, less provocative, however, as the career wore on.

Still: all the photos.

The issue first arose when photographing graffiti. Graffiti is, of course, someone else’s art, if art it is. So the photograph should efface itself to present that art, no? That’s what it said on the interwebs about photographing graffiti. But what about Jon Naar’s photos? He got context, often more context than graffiti. Was he ‘wrong’? Of course not. Naar’s photos were (the) art. & they presented the graffiti quite nicely, thank you very much.

In my experience, the route of encounter is important. How you come upon the graffiti, what you see first, then next, and after that. Move in close to get the texture of the wall, or some detail. Then back, side to side. It’s all part of the experience. How can you get that in a photo that simply effaces itself into the graffiti? When you see the paints peeking through the leaves, that’s important, no?

So photographing graffiti has its challenges & provocations. Its mysteries, if you will.

Same with photographing irises. The Japanese, van Gogh, and, yes, National Geographic. Yes to all the color and wild geometry. yes yes yes But, what about the dead blossoms? Dry wrinkled & shriveled in tans and browns dead blossoms? They’re still irises, no?

But are they art?