Douglas Crimp

Douglas Crimp

Photographic Activity of Postmodernism

Crimp takes up the argument as to the legitimacy of photography as fine Art.

Reading his cerebral conflict between the Modernists and Postmodernists

does shed a nicely laid out history of the 100 plus year old dispute.

That old argument is revived with the advent of the take no prisoners, anything goes , everything is art followers of Postmodern/ Pluralism.

Crimp points out the past battle and the road blocks to acceptance of photography-as-Art, as usual the first big step is convincing the old ,staid institutions, those who sit in judgment.

I find it hard to disagree with the past stands of the Modernists; photography is a mechanical / chemical process, there is no hand of the artist in it, it is a process of capturing and copying. Shot a thousand photo and one will be good, or build a set, stage it, Photoshop it wha-la art! Please.

Crimp starts his arguments to give photography a sense of uniqueness and originality by going out in left field, starting with performances by artist in the 1970’s , as he stumbles down the path of the presences of the artist in his or her absence.

Crimp has taken one the institutions must to be accepted as original art list and is trying to apply the concept of presence to photography.

He now jumps to concept, that of Being There attempting to give the same meaning to being there (at a one time performance) to viewing a photographic print, I am not buying that. There is a big difference between the meaning of having the felling of “being there” on looking at a photo and the meaning of “being there” at a live performance.

One is original the other a copy, I view this attempt to deconstruct the meaning of Being There a bit underhanded.

Crimp moves on to justify photography used in the works of Warhol, Rauschenberg as a window to entry of photography, but the photos used are representations of a trash society, filled with meaningless ads, photos of celebs or advertised flashy product, using or should I say reused , repurposed not as art but as metaphor for shabbiness.

Crimp’s next move is to the ghostly, photographs contain an Aura!

This he describes a as threat to the high art, which have both presence and an Aura.

Again I must say Please!

The only aura in photos you will find is on Ghost hunter or Ghost busters.

Both fake high jinks, sure not art.

Another cultural misconception is the one he presents as the connoisseurship of photographic style , seen in the photographer hand!

Please, he or she simple pushes another button in there Photoshop program!!

Crimp again has taken leave to stretch the meaning of words and even change the meanings to suit his intent.

“Fashion photos, advertising photos , snap shots. At the origin of every one there is an artist therefore each can find its place on the spectrum of subjectivity For it has long been commonplace of art history that realism and expressionism are only matters of degree, matters, THAT IS of style.

I don’t buy that.

Photography has its place as journalism, editorial; documentation; advertising and fashion, no amount of redefinition can change the fact that photography is a mechanical, chemical, digital that can be mastered.

Will Crimp now call the computer programmers artist, after all they are the real creative people who invented the very program used by today’s photographers..?

Drew