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Can Photography be regarded as a valid Artform?
This entire article is © James
Wakefield 2002.
Reproduction Prohibited. All Rights Reserved.
Section Five: Examples of Artists who use Photography
in their work
Probably the best way to answer this question is to
examine how artists use photography in their work, or as individual
works in their own right.
I will examine the work of four artists who used photography,
and concentrated primarily on form than the actual content
of their photographs. It could be argued that these works
are as abstract as the work of any painters:
Edward Weston produced a number of images of a pepper.
[Currently seeking permission to reproduce:
EDWARD WESTON: PEPPER NO. 30, 1930]
This image is highly abstract, and would not necessarily be
interpreted as a pepper straight away. It is more like a sculpture,
the texture relating to human skin. The photographer in this
case has managed to lose the subject entirely in favour of
focussing on the form.
Such a method does away with the ‘recording’ and
‘documenting’ nature of photography and deals more
with the aesthetics of the image, which is surely what art
is all about, proving that this image could be interpreted
as art.
Man Ray is a very famous artist, who said he photographed
what he could not paint, and painted what he could not photograph.
This statement proves that he regarded photography as simply
a tool for expressing his art, he did not dismiss it simply
because it was ‘quicker’ than painting.
[Currently seeking permission to reproduce
photos by Man Ray]
Andrew Goldsworthy creates artwork from nature, using
grass, rocks, ice, trees etc. to create beautiful formations.
His work is unlike anyone elses, but if it were not for photography
then there would be no way he could show his works to people,
primarily because they only last a matter of days in most
cases and also because for anyone to see them would mean them
having to travel a great distance as they are usually created
in the remotest areas such as the Yorkshire Dales.
If it were not for photography, then this artist would be
ruined.
[Currently seeking permission to reproduce
photos by Andrew Goldsworthy]
David Hockney has created some very famous photo-montages.
He said the camera was limited in it’s view of the world,
because it can only see one viewpoint whereas we can see two,
allowing us to judge distance. He decided to create montages
in order to ‘recreate what we see around us'.
[Currently seeking permission to reproduce:
DAVID HOCKNEY: PEAR BLOSSOM HIGHWAY]
Continue to Section Six
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