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| Christopher
Wright's personal view.
It
may be about photography, or it may not.
It depends upon what I find interesting at the time.
Is
no, or a little, knowledge a dangerous thing when it comes
to judging photography? Or is that lack an unbiased opinion
of a works' worth? Local art exhibitions can be dangerous
to your mental health and should carry a warning along
the lines of
"Caution: the opinions of judges at this exhibition
can be extremely bruising to one's ego!"
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I live in a country town that has
a thriving arts community and the local arts council holds
a couple of exhibitions/competitions each year. These are
open to all visual artists — painters, photographers,
potters, sculptors, textile workers — and the entries
tend to be jumbled together around the exhibition space.
The entries are judged in
categories and this is where some rather curious things
occur. Mostly there is a single judge and this person tends
to be a painter, which in my view tends to mean that the
other art forms are short changed as usually, neither the
interest or the technical know-how is there.
Secondly, there tends to
be some ambivalence about whether or not photography should
be put in a category of its own, or sprinkled among the
paintings and judged in a wider art context.
This is not about whether
photography is art per se, but whether or not it is fair
to have photographs judged by someone who is not an expert
in the field.
I
think I have mentioned this before but we had an exhibitions
of nudes (paintings and photographs) judged by a woman
who dismissed my two prints as :obviously made by a man!"
I didn't think that was relevant at the time, and reflection
has made it even less so. Especially as the winning image
was also made by a man.
Mine were certainly overtly
sexier, but is this a criteria for judging an image? Don't
get me wrong, I liked the winning picture and have a print
of it in my collection, I am talking about criteria for
judging. I am prepared to accept composition, tonal qualities,
subject matter, adherence to the exhibition's them but the
sex of the photographer shouldn't be an issue.
Neither should whether the image is colour
or black and white, yet far too many people, including photographers
who should know better, view black and white as essential
for "art" photographs. Quite
peculiar.
All
of which is a long winded way of saying that a great deal
more education is needed before photography is recognised,
not as art, but as a branch of the arts as valid and as
important as painting or sculpture.
To do that we have to keep
pushing our trolley out there showing work, entering competitions,
publishing photographs that aren't merely sales aid for
crap, and talking to gallery owners and curators. I have
to say it's slow maddening work, but it does feel good when
someone appreciates your efforts. |
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