Casa da Luz Fotografia wrote:
Concept of artistic work evolves over time, but there are some lines that mark art.
And when i look at viewfinder some backgroud appears as that line, am i right?

I think it might depend on what is to be done after you click the shutter. For the initial experience of a view through a viewfinder appearing to you as art, yes, then it is art.

I'm still reading...

Paramour Productions wrote:
the Krychevsky art work that I rescued in Venezuela is being auctioned at Sotheby's on April 17, 2007.  You can find out more by contacting either:

The Ukrainian Museum, 222 East 6th Street, 212-229-0100 online at ukrainianmuseum.org
contact: Maria Shust, Director

Zorya Fine Art, 38 East Putnam Avenue, Greenwich, CT 06830, 203.869.9898
contact:  Zorianna L. Altomaro, gallery owner

Had to plug it again.

Anyway, first a recommendation.  While I don't agree with all of [Benjamin's] theories surrounding art, I do many of them.  I was especially interested in what [he] had to say regarding film and it's impact through editing.  There is a movie you probably have not seen, but you should.  It has been recently re-mastered and is actually beautiful to watch again - the first time in my lifetime.  This movie is Fritz Lang's "M".  Since this was one of the early sound films, much was made of his use of sound in the film and that tends to overshadow the remarkable cinematography and editing that truly made the film great (and was about fifty years ahead of it's time by Hollywood standards), not to mention the fact that its story is that of a kinder-murderer.  I bring it up, because the film was made in 1931 and is the quintessential example of what you were referring to.  In early hollywood, many films were still made largely as stage productions.  Certainly there was a difference even then, but the potential had not really been realized.  The presidium arch remained it was simply transformed into the edges of a reflective screen.  However Lang, truly acted as surgeon by cutting in to the body of work through his use of montage, which was a technique not used in American film at the time, to bring the viewer across the arch and into the scene itself.   Even such simple devices which we today take for granted in cinema, a policeman reading a note and the camera cutting in so the viewer may read the note as well, was groundbreaking for its time.

Ahk! I must see the beginning of the montage. I will view M asap.

The film was indeed a phenomenon.

And that was when film decided that it was no longer enough to show a world to someone, as a play does, but instead it was important to bring the view into it.

In light of "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", then, by bringing things closer--by things I mean both art-objects and a film itself as an art-object--instead of having to (conceptually or physically) go to them, is the aura decayed?

Does aura decay when a film is more than a recording of a stage play? I don't think so. Especially not in the case of M, or what I know of it without having viewed it. Of course, this opinion is culturally influenced in that the tradition of art contemporaririly, makes quite a bit of room for editing, one might say our tradition is editing. Or perhaps it is the ritual.

By bringing film into the equation you raise a whole host of issues, which, quite frankly, would take days of writing to go through.  But the first and most obvious is what is art, what is entertainment and where do the meet.  Ancillary to that is where do all the pretentious assholes that deem what films are art fit in.

This is most likely the heart of what two previous posters were questioning. One brings up his experience as an Art Director (in one of the largest art markets in the world, mind you), therefore eschewing any responsibility for the "how to know" what is "good". For him, it is good if he will show it to her clients. Which, in turn, equates good with commodity-fetishism.

Funnily enough, I was an assistant director of a gallery in Chicago several years ago. On countless occasions I would show work to collectors that I, quite frankly, thought was kitsch--next essay, by the way, will be Greenberg's most famous--a relic of bad taste. However, the pieces had seemingly subjectively been endowed with a monetary value (or possible value), and were therefore prized.

I guess, in more of a direct response to that post:

The work featured in this thread is work I would show in my gallery, The Holden, of course. Though this gallery may be merely conceptual in nature, at best a book, I'd like to see it that when I sell off my company (another story altogether, talk about commodity!) I will buy and personally comission work from these photographers to hang on pristine white walls.

Then, all I have to do is have my ArtForum friends write a review or two, call up one of the Getty clan in the neighborhood, and voila!

Moving on...

K. Holden wrote:

I didn't get this joke until the middle of last night. I'm such a terrible JAP.

That's ok....it was a bad 1:00am kind of joke to begin with.

Dave Wright Photo wrote:
x

I think you've posted some excellent images, but I'd like to know which gallery, exactly, you're referring to, when you call them gallery-worthy.

I know a number of art collectors through my years of essentially running a gallery in one of the largest art markets in the US, and I wouldn't show most of the images you've posted to my clients.

This was the post I referred to in my last, for reference. I'll have to edit "she" to "he". Sorry 'bout that gender confusion.

K. Holden wrote:
Anyone wanna see it?

Yes, please.

Lestari wrote:
WOah.. nice ones Holden!!

I love your stuff

Thank you dear!

Novus Ordo wrote:
This will prove to be another interesting thread.  **sits and watches with favorites button on stand by**

LOL, I wish I didn't have to do this as well.. It would be rather cool if MM had a "My Threads/Subscriptions" feature that tells you when a new post (or reply) is added..!

Aaron S wrote:
Two things:

1.) I think Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction should at least be prefaced with the date in which it was written.

2.) The Fountain at the SFMOMA is a reproduction, there was a small number authorized by Duchamp as the original was lost.

1.) It is. 1936.

2.) Oh yeah! I forgot about that! Well, now it serves as an even better example.

3.) Where the fuck have you been?

4.) Kisses to you, sweetheart!

K. Holden wrote:
1.) It is. 1936.

2.) Oh yeah! I forgot about that! Well, now it serves as an even better example.

3.) Where the fuck have you been?

4.) Kisses to you, sweetheart!

Even better is when people see a Manzoni piece in a museum.

Today I wnet to a gallery here, and them went to the museum here. (Largest collection of Ceramics in the world, first museum designed by IM Pei, and a Pollock I'd never seen before, on top of some other things).

Then I played with a 5x7 19th century camera, and found some negatives from Maybe just after The Great War that I'm gonna print.

Also, Steiglitz photographed Fountain.

K. Holden wrote:
So, do you believe in the idea of the aura, Aaron? And is it decayed?

I don't know if I believe in it.

The only thing I can say is decaying, is the soul.

Justin N Lane wrote:

wow, I just shot that on tuesday

These are others of yours, Mr. Lane, I find to be outstanding contributions to art:






Nipples and vaginas (I continue to hold my position that this rule is bullshit):
https://img5.modelmayhem.com/070128/14/ … 70600c.jpg



And especially this one:

K. Holden wrote:

I'll probably hate some of these as soon as I post them, so enjoy before they get deleted. Also, I'm not usually one for disclaimers, but everything is intentional.

Your work is very interesting, K.  You've chosen, by in large, a "snapshot" style of finishing the pieces which entices me towards the "casual" but at the same time the color and precise composition tend to lead me to believe thay are anything but casual.

Most interesting to my eye is Archive I, figure 6.08 (if I've got that right, I hope so).  The addition of paint to the montage is very organic and quickly speaks to me.  It is perhaps the most direct statement in all of your pieces, IMHO, and it immediately draws me in.

Aaron S wrote:

I don't know if I believe in it.

The only thing I can say is decaying, is the soul.

I disagree, Aaron.  While the soul is perhaps intensely challenged today, I think we could arguably state that it has always been so.  But decaying?  More so than when in history?  I think it is maturing rather than decaying.

K. Holden wrote:
J. Schumacher

That penguin is so damn popular. The image should be slightly darker; my monitor was off, but I didn't want to lose all the comments.

(ps. surprised to find myself in this thread....)