Impact Of Photography On The Art World

After a steady progression, pictorial photography as a movement emerged. Pictorial photographers believed that their field is more than just an objective, mechanical media. Photography was not just about capturing the documentation and information contained by an image, but rather, about the effect and the mood they translate. The images began to have meaning and a reason for their capture, completely transforming the images produced.

In the second half of the twentieth century, artistic movements made pushes in order to move beyond the traditional gallery space, changing the terrain of displaying and making art. An artist’s body of work no longer needed to reside inside of a gallery or art collection, and artists became free to explore other ways of creating and displaying work. In this vein, Andy Goldsworthy works sculpturally with natural media, and leaves the sculptures within a particular environment, often expecting his work to decay quickly. Many times, the only evidence of any art he makes is the photographs taken during the process. By more traditional standards, art of this nature is entirely contradictory. What is the point of pieces of visual art that cannot

Marcel Duchamp stated that "It was his achievement to treat the camera as he treated the paintbrush, as a mere instrument at the service of the mind” (Biography.com, 2017). In addition, the photogram might seem expressive and abstract, yet on the contrary, it is the precise medium to document the everyday objects in an unrepeatable and somehow uncontrollable way. The artist cannot predict how the selected objects will be recorded under the light sources that were tampered with. From the first glance, the image completely dissociated from its original subject, allowing one’s memory to fill the gap. Yet below its surface, the image is an accurate documentation that captured a moment of psychical intensity. It revealed a new visual experience, using objects in the simplest way. One can say that the use of this medium disclosed reality more preciously due to its invisibility and mysterious representation (The Museum of Modern Art, 2017).

In this selection of the book, Gitlin discusses a seventeenth-century Dutch painter by the name of Vermeer. Vermeer was known for being able to”fr[ee]ze instants, but instants that spoke of the relative constancy of the world in which his subjects lived” (Gitlin 558). People collected Vermeer’s paintings for display throughout their homes. Gitlin sees Vermeer as the seventeenth-century version of the media. In that time, the images painted were relative to the people’s era and private world. In today’s world Vermeer would be the equivalent to a celebrity photographer or movie director. If Vermeer, or any other artist of his time, were to see today’s households, they would find that the once private space inside the home is now much more dominated by images of the outside world than what would have been possible in the 1600’s.

Uelsmann’s work was not well received in the photography community. His creations were not considered photography; however, he was well received in the art community. John Szarkowski hosted a solo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in 1967. Uelsmann was considered “iconoclastic” and “set out to convince critics that photography offered alternatives to the conventional “purist” sensibility…” Uelsmann debated that photos could “evoke elusive states of feeling and thinking triggered by irrational and imaginative juxtaposition” (Kay). Uelsmann has succeeded in finding a following among photographers and artist alike. In the past forty years, Uelsmann’s work has been exhibited in over 100 solo shows throughout the US and overseas. He has permanent instillations in museums worldwide (Taylor). Uelsmann’s photos are now revered for their original technical form as well as their surreal matter (Johnson).

The photograph is a very powerful medium. The French painter Paul Delaroche exclaimed upon seeing an early photograph “from now on, painting is dead!” (Sayre, 2000). Many critics did not take photography seriously as a legitimate art form until the 20th century. With the

Meanwhile, photography as a commodity in the industrial world at that time, its status in galleries and museums is determined by the price it sells, which means the higher the price is, the higher position it stands. This situation increases the gap between this photography and another type of photography, which works simply for exposing abuses caused by jobs, races, sex, social classes and etc. that people are unfamiliar to accept and consume.

Secondly, the medium that Hoch and Rosenquist use witnesses how mass media, industrialization, and mass consumption marched. The photomontage is like a poster or a magazine page while the oil painting is like most large-scale billboard paintings. The Beautiful Girl and The Light That Won’t Fail I are given the feel of an advertisement. In Hoch’s photomontage and Rosenquist ‘soil painting, we see Hoch and Rosenquist were engaging with the new forms of mass media of their time periods. Hoch, as Dadaist, made a great contribution to developing photomontage as medium of representation. Dada artists replaced paint all together, making use exclusively of ready-made

Photographs are also manifestations of time and records of experience. Consequently, writings on photographic theory are filled with references to representations of the past. Roland Barthes (1981, 76), for instance,

The definitional meaning in any form of art is dependent on the receiver, and their own perceptions. In Chapter Thirteen, Photography’s discursive space, contributed by Rosalind Krauss, analyzes perception of photography and the attempt to transform revelation from one perceptional context to another. For example, an illustration of a mountain may represent beauty to one observer, while another observer may identify the photograph as a geographical documentation.

What was the effect of photography on painting in the nineteenth century? The photograph was developed in 1839 simultaneously in England and France by Talbot and Daguerre. That is the technique of chemically fixing of an image produced by exposure to rays of sun. William Fox Talbot was an English scholar and scientist who developed the negative and positive process. He used sensitive paper soaked in sodium hyposulphite called calotype. This became the basis for all subsequent photography. Photography joined the art-world after a long struggle. Although early photography such as Daguerreotype and Calotype appeared by the mid 19th-century, photographs only began to be displayed in art galleries and museums only in the early 20th century.

Art critic Robert Hughes once said, “People inscribe their histories, beliefs, attitudes, desires and dreams in the images they make.” When discussing the mediums of photography and cinema, this belief of Hughes is not very hard to process and understand. Images, whether they be still or moving, can transform their audiences to places they have either never been before or which they long to return to. Images have been transporting audiences for centuries thanks to both the mediums of photography and cinema and together they gone through many changes and developments. When careful consideration is given to these two mediums, it is acceptable to say that they will forever be intertwined, and that they have been interrelated forms of

I will show analogue photography as constant experiment, of light as material and of the photograph as a concrete and generative object. I will challenge photographic codes of representation in favor of abstract works that are both self-contained and part of a larger dialogue.

In today’s society, technology and art go hand in hand. Art has been around for a long time but technology such as computers are still very new. These two mediums have comingled and now evolve and effect the other. Art has changed to reflect the vast improvements technology has contributed to communication and the ability to create using digital space. Technology has also changed with artist pushing the boundaries of what is technical possible in the digital realm. Much of today’s art is created and presented in digital formats. The question of whether digital art is truly art has risen among many critics in the art community.

Benjamin’s death in 1940 at the age of 48, is rumored to be a suicide when the Naza’s took office, but is still a mystery. His ideas and concepts however, would live on for decades to come. Much of what he wrote about when discussing art came essentially after the development of photography and film. In his work, “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Benjamin addresses his perception of the changes in art and the aesthetic experience congruent with societal changes. He writes with concern of how the great artworks are viewed after the introduction of photography and film. His idea of mechanical reproduction changed the art world as society knew it, particularly in how the public views artwork and the value of that work as more and more people are able to own, view and discuss it. This paper will specifically look at aspects of Benjamin’s groundbreaking essay and how educators can relate his ideas to the practices in their art classrooms.