WashPost--Blake Gopnik on High art and Commercial art in photography

[Tony-S]

Just passing this along. Not sure I buy into it too much. Photography will continue to evolve, just like it always has.

[David A. Goldfarb]

If you're going to post a link to an article, it helps if you can post a brief summary, so people can decide whether it's worth it to them to click on the link. I've updated the title of the thread to provide a bit more information.

The author, Blake Gopnik, is looking at the easy blurring of lines between fine art and commercial art photography that doesn't happen as easily in media like painting and sculpture, and is asking whether this will continue to be the case in the future, or will commercial photography become ever more conventional and repetitive and more distinct from fine art photography ("fine art" in the technical sense meaning work that is only for display and not illustration or commercial art--"fine" in this sense has nothing to do with quality or aesthetic value).

I don't think I buy into it that much either. Gopnik seems to take Annie Leibovitz as the paradigm example of commercial photography, says that she's just rehashing Avedon, and concludes that interesting commercial photography is dead. Leibovitz is a major figure, and some of her work is pastiche of other styles, but she does a wide range of things, sometimes for art directors who want pastiche I'm sure, and there are a lot of photographers out there doing other kinds of work.

[Barry S]

Gopnik is not exactly encyclopedic in his knowledge of photography, and the article meanders without offering insights. Is he even aware of the many artists involved in commercial projects these days? He aspires to be inducted into the holy pantheon of dead white guy art and seems barely connected to contemporary art let alone photography.

[Anscojohn]

Gopnik is not exactly encyclopedic in his knowledge of photography, and the article meanders without offering insights. Is he even aware of the many artists involved in commercial projects these days? He aspires to be inducted into the holy pantheon of dead white guy art and seems barely connected to contemporary art let alone photography.

********
Years ago I read an interview with Charis Wilson. Interviewer quoted S. Sontag on Weston's nudes. Wilson replied: "There is a lot of poppycock written about photography."

[TheFlyingCamera]

Gopnik is a long-known "art snob" in the DC arts community. If it hasn't been anointed into the canon by the cognoscenti running museums in New York, or at least high-end commercial galleries, it isn't high art in his opinion, and the only art that counts is "high art". As Barry put it, he is a "dead white male wanna-be".

[Videbaek]

All art, high low in the middle or in between, is commercial art if it gets shown, bought and sold. Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the Sistine chapel ceiling by the Pope, for a princely sum. Richard Avedon was commissioned by Vogue to illustrate magazine spreads. As for Leibovitz copycatting Avedon who copycatted... who? She does celebrity photojournalism and portraiture, c'mon. There aren't so many ways to skin these cats. A few of her pictures are inventive and memorable -- David Byrne's leaf jacket springs to mind; most are as disposable as the magazines they are in. A handful of photographic images in the growing maelstrom.