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Frankly..??
Crap.
And THAT is the challenge we all face today.
Am I missing something? The photos I just saw actually won? WTF?
Yep, we will get this more often, the more photography becomes part of the contemporary 'art' world. - one reason why I am happy to see it as a craft rather than 'art' form, even though I do accept it is an art. Anyone can be an artist but only someone with talent can be a craftsman despite the art being more elitist and valued ..... Hmmmm
Looks like an interesting concept to me. I often think there's a reverse snobbery involved in scoffing at some art work, but then again, some art work is so rareified, you'd wonder what on Earth is going on. Think Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichenstein etc. The work illustrated here is a body of work conceived and worked on over a period of time, and is I think deserving of a little bit of study rather than ignorant abuse. A couple of things come to mind - a Schweppes winner a couple of years ago was a snap of a little girl holding a baby bundled in a blanket in front of a rundown building which looked like a tenement. That won a portraiture competition. The other was something along the lines of "A Day at the Seaside" and showed two elderly ladies wearing Macs and Rainmates, standing in a bus shelter in the pouring rain. The photographer himself said he was surprised to win. A few years ago in Sligo, the Iontas Open Art competition was won by a photograph of a tatty folding bed with a tatty mattress on it. The tattymattress had been slashed with a Stanley knife and a teddy bear was shoved up into the slash with it's head poking up. Total crap. That was adjudged the winner by the curator of a museum in Madrid. Who was flown in to judge the competition and flown out again before her results were announced. Don't abuse the artist, abuse the judges instead? I notice that the lady in question in this thread won by virtue of a public vote. Something must have looked good!
Sometimes I think reverse snobbery can accurately be described as the 'Emperor's clothes' effect .. When some people look beyond an accolade or art world recognition and are grounded enough to see things for what they are and see them as they would be seen in any other normal environment had any one of us pitched up with such images ...
The virtues of a public vote also don't attract automatic validity from me as they are open to as much abuse as statistics ... dependent on manipulation of many kinds. The clique system, and vote pimping and click whoring that goes on everywhere by some more than others, not to mention the expectations of the voting public to conform to the type of image they are preconditioned to expect to see in such surroundings of national contemporary art awards ... Unconventionally lit, awkward, badly composed, odd tones, mundane, miserable, etc etc .. And certainly no well lit, colourful, happy, well composed images .. Lol .. Far too mainstream ..
As far as a concept goes .. I would rather see one good image than a hundred good 'concepts' ... I have thought of many concepts that never may produce good images .. Concepts are an idea, images are the practical application of what one wants to achieve. Most of us won't even be given the benefit of having the ability of conceiving a concept worth any scrutiny or recognition unless we have some acceptance in the world of art already.
Also don't be too quick to write off the ordinary man's disdain for art in prestigious surroundings as merely 'scoffing' because of the presumption that the prestigious establishment know better or have a more educated and objective view .. That is a case of snobbery in as clear an example as can be.
Also your use of the judgement 'total crap' about some work you mentioned is as opinionated and subjective as any here on the award winners discussed so it shows we all equally have, and are entitled to have an opinion, however, biased, snobbish, subjective or educated ....
Personally most awards achieve nothing and teach us nothing ..... And like newspapers, are tomorrow's chip paper.
As far as I can see it's not the two photos that have won but the collections they are part of, isn't that right? If so, then I think they are interesting collections and good photographs too. Better than anything I do produce. If it's the two stand-a-lone photos then I think she has better in the collections.
Quote: As far as I can see it's not the two photos that have won but the collections they are part of, isn't that right? If so, then I think they are interesting collections and good photographs too. Better than anything I do produce. If it's the two stand-a-lone photos then I think she has better in the collections.
agreed; hence my link above puts it into context.............................................(I quite like whippets - having three of them!)
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