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October 29, 2009
There appears to be an emerging debate around the art institution, photography and Flickr arising out of the discovery of Vivian Maier. The heading of the debate is elites, flickr and chipmunks, and one undercurrent is that Flickr is not being taken seriously by the art world, and that it is stereotyped as nothing but kittens, sunsets, and chipmunks.
Jin at Shooting Wide Open says:
I really think there’s no reason not to embrace the net. In class, I’m reading about Stieglitz and his distinction between the professional photographers who are just out to make money and the true artists, about museum curators as elite taste makers, and about photography’s slow acceptance into the art world. One thing that occurs to me is that if we aren’t interested in how the general public uses and perceives photography, if we keep putting down supposedly low brow incarnations of photography, how can we possibly expect the majority of the public to look at the art photography that we find interesting or to increase funding for the arts? Why is it that arts funding is not a priority in this country? What do the arts offer the average person by his own reckoning, rather than what an artist, curator or critic tells him he should get out of it?
This position defends Flickr in terms of helping to raise visual literacy and in helping us to start somewhere with lots of photos of kittens, babies, sunsets or flowers. Jim Colberg's response at his Conscientious Redux highlights the importance of good art, acquiring an appreciation for, cultural elitism and the role of role of art not necessarily being entertaining but is transformative.
By transformative Colberg means when art:
does something to you, when, after being subjected to it, you’re a different person - regardless of whether you smiled or laughed about what you saw or not. That, I believe, is the true essence of art, and that’s something we should aim for.The role of curators or critics is to point this out - that’s what they’re being paid for. Of course, there’s the lingo, the “art speak”, but it’s easy to ignore that (just don’t read the press releases).
Fair enough. He then turns to Flickr.
So back to Flickr...there are two major problems with the usual complaints about it not being taken seriously by the art world. First of all, it’s not true. There are lots of people who use the site to find “vernacular photography”, say, or to collect images and transform them (for example Penelope Umbrico; also Joachim Schmid, etc.). Second, one of the reasons why so many critics or curators don’t consider Flickr is simply because they are looking for something else.
Well, there is a divide between the art institution and Flickr and it's the old fault line of high culture versus mass culture; art v kitsch, professional v. propfessional.
hyperallergic--(Hrag Vartanian is an art critic who writes about photography and Flickr (here and here) responds by saying that art is also experimental and that:
the main thing that makes Flickr unattractive is that it is dominated by ad-educated aesthetic, by which I mean, sleek, surface-based, and impressionable with little beyond that point. That’s not to say that much of the “art” being produced today isn’t informed by that aesthetic, just that most of the best art gives you more than just that.
Vartanian's interpretation of Flickr's aesthetic is a reasonable one.Such an aesthetic has emerged on Flickr aesthetic, but there is also a lot of work on Flick that is in opposition to this aesthetic.
Vartanian's response is questioned by La Pura Vida's Bryan Formhals on his Tumblr:
It’s futile to attempt to stereotype a community as large as Flickr. There are thousands of photographers that are working in the fine art and documentary genres. It’s not all ‘vernacular’ or “sleek, surface-based” photography. I’m constantly amazed that intelligent people make such flippant comments without really understanding the variety of communities that are using Flickr.
He adds that Flickr is simply one channel that photographers can use to distribute and broadcast their work. Most serious photographers are intelligent enough to distribute their work through various channels. Flickr, for the most part, is more geared toward networking and meeting other like minded artists. But it’s also a great place to find new work from photographers who maybe just finding their voice.
Colberg's reply is that one of the reason why people ignore Flickr--or don't take it seriously-- is the poor quality of the discussions both on Flickr and about Flickr. It is poor quality because:
it’s not so much about discussing Flickr, it’s about denouncing those people who dare to question Flickr as elitist or, in this case (a variant), as people who just don’t (what is really meant is: don’t want to) understand it. This is not much different from how people like Bill O’Reilly, Shaun Hannity, or Keith Olberman operate: Instead of engaging with a debate, carefully push those buttons that you know will make your real audience react.
This is a red herring in that Formhals at La Pura Vida was making the reasonable point that the tendency to stereotype Flickr as nothing but kittens, sunsets, and chipmunks is mostly made by people who haven’t invested the time to explore (and so don't know) the various groups and communities that have developed on Flickr.
However, discussions around Flickr, aesthetics and photography are pretty poor and often dogmatic. Most are better at image production that cultural or aesthetic criticism.
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Hi Gary,
But you may have missed that I mentioned that I'm an avid Flickr user and I write about stuff I find there. Colberg is right to point out that Formhals only seemed to read part of my post. It's aggravating to have a discussion with people who don't read the whole idea, Formhals' response to me has almost nothing to do with my points.