The phone camera is the Kodak Brownie of the 21st c.
jd
On 10/29/07, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Just watched a program on photography - in particular, vernacular
> photography - and it's interesting that even the ordinary photographer
> has a lack of sentiment, camp or kitsch about their photographs.
> People seem to lose it with their cats or dogs; still, a wonderful
> lack of knowing generally about what they produce.
>
> The mobile phone or digital camera is the inheritor of this tradition.
> The playfulness and lack of sentiment, lack of artifice in the
> majority of cases is refreshing. Sure Photoshop can be and is used but
> is easily discredited and mocked. Watch the talking heads of YouTube
> sometime.
>
> Roger
> On 10/29/07, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > It actually brought on a further set of reveries about art and its
> > subjects. Go into any museum and you'll find hundreds of portraits of
> > the once-famous and those who were able to pay to have their features
> > rendered in a medium more permanent than flesh. In most cases even
> > important historical actors have been significantly forgotten. Look
> > at the Mona Lisa or a Raeburn portrait, or a Rembrandt, or the parade
> > of Borbon kings and princelings by Goya and one is rarely interested
> > in researching their lives. It's the painting we value as object.
> > Does it matter to us which king and queen stand in the doorway at the
> > rear of Velasquez' Las Meninas?
> >
> > Or restrict it to entertainers. Toulouse-Lautrec painted and drew
> > figures as iconic at the time, as immediately recognizable as Marilyn
> > Monroe. A few of them are remembered for a particular song that's
> > remained popular in France, though nowhere else, but their faces
> > would have been forgotten if not for their presence in T-L's posters.
> > And the posters remain so compelling that even in the cheapest
> > mass-produced versions they sell like hotcakes. T-L was among those
> > (and the best of the lot) transforming the industrial process of
> > lithography into a dominant medium, bringing a post-impressionist bel
> > epoque sensibility, and an amazing hand, to bear on japonisme in
> > depicting his own floating world.
> >
> > Great art adds value that lasts when the subject no longer has iconic
> > value. Eventually we remember the subjects because the artist chose
> > or was hired to depict them. Somebody probably remembers the name of
> > the courtesan who posed for Botticelli's Birth of Venus and several
> > of the figures in La Primavera, but her name is now only that and a
> > footnote to the social history of Florence.
> >
> > So what about Andy Warhol's various Marilyns, a photographic image
> > transferred by assistants to a silkscreen and reproduced under his
> > direction in various ways? How dependent are they on her iconic
> > status, which probably won't last more than another 30 years at the
> > outside? Would they be considered kitsch or camp if the subject were
> > as unheroic in the popular imagination as Michael Jackson? Is there
> > the added value of great art to sustain them?
> >
> > How much, to cite a different artist, would we value Duchamp's urinal
> > if he hadn't also been a great and seminal (no pun intended) artist
> > in media other than shopping?
> >
> > I don't know if Warhol would have cared. I was at his estate
> > auction--the good one, the one of his art collection--through the
> > good offices of a curator friend. The detritus of the rest of his
> > collecting--mostly the silliest junk, which seemed as random as the
> > tshotshkes most of us gather and then only occasionally remember why
> > we bought them. In his case there was a warehouse full of them at his
> > death. Some of the art was wonderful, but a lot of it was hard to
> > distinguish from the tag sale junk.
> >
> > The audience was well-heeled to say the least. This was a major event
> > to be seen at, apparently. Much of the crowd could have endowed a
> > third world orphanage for the cost of the clothes on their backs. I
> > remember one very well-maintained young woman whose pumps were
> > mosaics of small pieces of differently-colored leathers. Well-heeled
> > in both a non-metaphoric and a metaphoric sense. The crowd bought
> > every scrap, at above-estimate prices, value added, presumably, for
> > what's called in the trade "association," which meant "Andy touched
> > it." Which is supposed to confer some grace, like the relics of saints.
> >
> > But even that sense depends more on the housing than the object.
> > Remove the bone from the reliquary and it's anonymous. Remove the
> > piece of moon rock from behind the label, likewise. At a point in the
> > not-too-distant future, even if Warhol's work remains more than a
> > footnote, his own iconic status will have diminished to the point
> > that a urinal from his collection (he did collect them, but of the
> > bed-pan variety) with the best of provenance will only be worth a few
> > bucks more than any other old urinal. If the current owners aren't
> > careful about labelling and housing their children will sell it at a
> > garage sale along with the cracked teacups. Even if they keep it it's
> > unlikely to maintain its pride of place on the mantel.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > At 11:26 AM 10/29/2007, you wrote:
> > >Wow. That's some piece of work! One of its ironies is that as a
> simultaneous
> > >commentary and meta-commentary, the work's aesthetic content remains
> beyond
> > >the natural lifecycle of its subject's career. I doubt that the
> original
> > >purchaser bought it simply on account of being Jackson fan, though who
> > >knows?
> > >
> > >The ghastly smiles shared between monkey and Michael, rendered in a
> medium
> > >with decided enlightenment/evolutionary associations (Josiah Wedgwood
> being
> > >grandfather of Charles Darwin) invite the pointed question, did we
> evolve
> > >for THIS? (Answers on the usual postcard.)
> > >
> > >P
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On
> > > > Behalf Of Mark Weiss
> > > > Sent: 28 October 2007 00:05
> > > > To: [log in to unmask]
> > > > Subject: Re: sentimentality & 'classism' Re: New at Sharp Sand
> > > >
> > > > Somebody somewhere is living with a lifesize painted ceramic of
> > > > Michael Jackson and his dog, for which privilege said someone paid
> > > > over $5.5 million a few years ago at auction. Check it out:
> > > > http://server1.fandm.edu/departments/English/d_steward/koons.jpg
> > > > Jackson's sun having set that's a lot of low-cost porcelain now. One
> > > > has to have been incredibly stupid.
> > > >
> > > > I'll confess to a deep affection for select garden gnomes. Among the
> > > > more harmless creatures. Not that I live with any.
> > > >
> > > > Otherwise I pretty much agree, except that you've left out a
> > > > category, kitsch that's deliberately produced as kitsch, without
> > > > irony, to appeal to its primary audience, people who collect kitsch
> > > > without irony (for whom kitsch is not kitsch?).
> > > >
> > > > Mark
> > > >
> > > > At 02:16 PM 10/27/2007, you wrote:
> > > > >(Apologies if you receive this more than once: the original went
> AWOL
> > >some
> > > > >hours back. CW)
> > > > >
> > > > ><snip>
> > > > >I don't think it's any truer that kitsch is the commodification of
> > > > >high culture. [MW]
> > > > ><snip>
> > > > >
> > > > >Perhaps _dominant_ would have been better, with less sense of
> > >consecration:
> > > > >kitsch as the impression of democracy without the underlying
> reality,
> > > > >sneered at from the sidelines. I wouldn't underrate its dangers
> BTW.
> > > > >
> > > > >During what were (perhaps) its 19th C origins somewhere in Germany
> you
> > > > >bought (having made a little money) the trappings of advancement
> off the
> > > > >peg; but what you actually got were very bad paintings, almost a
> sort of
> > > > >Giffen good, because you couldn't afford the good ones or couldn't
> tell
> > >the
> > > > >difference. And then, of course, all those miniatures of the Eiffel
> > >Tower,
> > > > >those fake furs, faux wood, all those cocktail cabinets...
> > > > >
> > > > >The sneer that's often used for kitsch was also used for fish
> knives
> > > > >incidentally; Cf Betjeman. Here the point was, presumably, that
> fish
> > >knives
> > > > >were owned only by someone who had also 'bought his own furniture'.
> > > > >
> > > > >But I have left out garden gnomes. Though that's maybe not their
> loss. Or
> > > > >indeed yours necessarily.
> > > > >
> > > > ><snip>
> > > > >Jeff Koons achieves kitsch, for instance, equally by appropriating
> > >already
> > > > >kitsch children's toys and greek sculpture. [MW]
> > > > ><snip>
> > > > >
> > > > >Just as *irony* and *sentimentality* come to blows over feigned
> emotion,
> > > > >over who is swindling whom exactly, so *kitsch* and *camp* are a
> sort of
> > > > >argument over subjectivity. On the one hand, the _creation_ of
> kitsch is
> > > > >objectifying, commodifying and all those boo! hiss! things.
> Whereas, on
> > >the
> > > > >other, the _recognition_ of kitsch is (at least potentially) a form
> of
> > >camp,
> > > > >a sort of emperor's clothes moment which returns the subject back
> to the
> > > > >thick of things, where it belongs.
> > > > >
> > > > >Koons (whom I also abhor) is certainly making use of *camp*, as
> indeed
> > >you
> > > > >go on to suggest. However, the stuff used by the great commodity
> broker
> > > > >isn't employed to promote some sort of helpful break but to
> > >_anaesthetise_
> > > > >instead. Thus the gap between *kitsch* and *camp* becomes so narrow
> that
> > > > >they almost coalesce. (The analogy might be with Warhol's
> *Marilyns*,
> > >where
> > > > >the gap between the set comprising these works and some notional
> set of
> > > > >monetary tokens likewise reduces to zero.)
> > > > >
> > > > >CW
> > > > >_______________________________________________
> > > > >
> > > > >'The possibility now arises that art will no longer find time to
> > > > > adapt somehow to technological processes.'
> > > > >(Walter Benjamin)
> >
>
>
> --
> My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
> "In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons."
> Roman Proverb
>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]
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