Lucy Soutter

Why art photography.

So, after reading The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, I have now moved onto Why Art Photography? By Lucy Sutter. There is a couple of interesting chapters that drew my attention on photographic truth and hopefully the book will give a general idea of what makes an art photograph.

Introduction.

In the introduction she states:

Artistic subject matter and elevated ideas were not enough in themselves to validate photography as an art form (P3)

This is a good bit of insight because works of art are split into two, the medium and the subject matter. For instance the painting of the Birth of Venus, is first of all a painting and secondly it’s a depiction of a mythical scene, something that the artist created. It has a uniqueness, due to there being the original and then there is the subject matter. So when this is applied to photography, firstly the medium can be infinitely recreated and secondly the subject matter is captured from a form of reality.

She then goes on to mention that:

The labels of “artist” or “photographer” are constructed by institutions and academic discourse (P4)

Here she basically points out that the person who takes the photograph provides a context, which then helps with the interpretation of the image. It’s a bit like when you go to a gallery, I’m always looking for the white card that tell me about the artwork, who painted or captured the image and an interpretation. These I always find useful and offer guidance but goes to show how important it is for the artist or photographer to be named and their reputation.

Soutter also mentions that truth is nothing but a human assumption, that is a concept which is made by mankind. This in itself implies that truth is just in the human mind and that it is just a conclusion, a judgement. Again this is one of those things that seems really obvious but never really think about until someone mentions it. Truth does not exist independently of mankind.

Another point raised in the introduction is that some photographs are made for non art reasons and as photography can have this dual purpose then this undermines photography as an art. So, an art photograph has to be asserted as an art photograph rather than it being assumed its art, which is different to painting or sculpture where the assumption is that its art to begin with.