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I RECEIVED A NOTIFICATION FOR A Call For Entries for the 13th Annual Photography Exhibition, aka: FRESH 2024, presented by the Klompching Gallery in New York. What does FRESH look for? FRESH looks for the very best examples of new contemporary fine art photography. We’re looking for single bodies of work with a consistent vision and originality—photography that is FRESH!
The notification, which put an emphasis on the idea of “new” fine art photography with a consistent vision and “originality” or, in their words, photography that is “fresh”, kinda got to to thinkin’. That is, to be precise, along the lines of, have we reached the end of photography (fine art division)?
CAVEAT to be perfectly unambiguous, I am not proposing that the making of photographs with the intent of creating fine art is at an end. What I am questioning is whether it is still possible to make fine-art photographs that are “new” (aka: “fresh”). And, for purposes of this topic, it should understood that I, above any other consideration, believe that a photographs is the embodiment of the act of selective seeing. END OF CAVEAT
Let me start with my perspective, re": the medium of photography (fine art division); after a century of meandering around the visual arts landscape searching for an identity which would “legitimize” it as a recognizable medium of expression-separate from the other visual arts-with its own, unique vocabulary / characteristics / conventions, it attained a level of maturity during the 1970s when it embraced its unique and intrinsic relationship with, and as a cohort of, the real world wherein any thing and every thing was considered to be referent acceptable.
And, the practioners of this new way of seeing, did so, without apology or reservation, in full-blown color. They were not bound by the rules. Rather, they were interested in how they, as unique individuals, saw the world….
“Preoccupation with private experience is the hallmark of the romantic artist, whose view is characteristically self-centered, asocial, at least in posture, anti-traditional….[they are] different in spirit and aspect from that with which we are familiar in the [romantic] photography of the past generation … photography which has tended to mean the adoption and adaptation of large public issues, social or philosophical, for private artistic ends … generally expressed in a style heavy with special effects, glints and shadows, dramatic simplicities, familiar symbols, and idiosyncratic techniques … [the new work is] uncompromisingly private experience described in a manner that is restrained, austere, and public…” ~ John Szarkowski
While Szarkowski’s words are to be found in his essay-describng Eggeleston’s work-in the William Eggeleston’s Guide book, he could have easily been describing the work of the veritable hordes of contemporaneous fine art picture makers-and those who have followed in Eggelston’s (tripod) foot prints (and continue to do so). That written, here’s my point…
… I have not seen any evidence of a “new” way of seeing. iMo, and to my eye and sensibilities, the maturation of the art of selective seeing-restrained, austere, and public- which emerged en force in the 1970s continues to be the foundation on which the medium can rest its claim of being unique amongst the visual arts and the de facto manner in which most fine art photography is made.
That written, despite the fact that what was once a “new” way of seeing is no longer new (can you make something new / fresh from something old?), iMo, it is still not only the best and only manner in which to see the real world, but also the best way to the making of surprising fresh pictures. And, even though it has been said that every thing that can be photographed has been photographed, that does not mean that every thing that has been photographed cannot be seen afresh.
So, no. I do not believe we have reached the end of photography. Then again, maybe we are just beating on a dead horse while waiting for the next new thing to come roaring down the tracks.