User:Lucian Wester/Essay setup 2

Photography and Conceptual art. The aesthetic of administration.

The following essay arose from two questions mentioned ad the end of my last essay. The first has a direct link with that essay wherein I tried to find a reason why we consider photography to be objective? I questioned myself how photography got it self accepted within the discourse of fine art? The second question has to do with a fascination that I have with the work of the Bechers. What where there ideas about photography and how important is there work for photography and its place within the art world?

Bechers The period wherein the Bechers started working was the post-war Germany in the 50th and 60th. In those days the majority people that tried to deny ideology, an ideology of anti-ideology, because of the horrific things that happened during the Second World War. Although the work of the Bechers can be seen as an industrial archaeological project, they tried to preserve the industrial architecture of their time because it was rapidly disappearing. But this isn’t only thing why the Bechers made their work, more than an archive is their work about: Objectivity. Their aim was to suppress their own subjectivity as much as possible from a piece of work. And they did this by: ‘This difficult and disciplined form of expression is achieved in the strict adoption of a constant, straight, composition, unchanged over nearly half a century.’ (Sarah James, p.51) The Bechers tried to increase this rejection of the ideology and identity for instants by not only photographing German industry but from all over the world and combining them al together.

In their work they created a typological arrangement in which the photographs together form a generic type. ‘The typological arrangement of their photographs enables the viewer to sense the similarities between each and the emergence of a generic type, whilst simultaneously registering all of the differences between the structures and their eccentric characteristics.’ (Sarah James, p.53) By showing their photos in this serial way and creating this generic type the subject, the industrial architecture, becomes more abstract. The work can be both seen as aesthetic and anti-aesthetic, for it isn’t picturesque but it is realistic in the sense that it shows us the beauty of the reality. The modernistic idea of aesthetic is to closely entwined whit ideology and therefore the horrors of the War. The photographs by the Bechers bear the same opposition as the concepts of subject and object (particular and general).

Photography before conceptual art.

Conceptual art. Most of the Conceptual artist original had a sculptures background and all had teachers coming from the Minimalist movement. Within this movement there was al lot of discussion upon the status of the art object, but the object itself, the shear fact that a work of art should be an object, wasn’t been questioned. The early Conceptualist disappointed with art world around the mid sixties started to reject the object and tried to make art that hat no physicality. ‘Because the proposal inherent in Conceptual art was to replace the object of spatial perception experience by linguistic definition alone (the work as analytic proposition), it thus constituted the most consequential assault on the status of that object: its visuality, its commodity status, and its form of distribution.’ (Benjamin H.D. Buchloh p.515)

‘This move from is to why derives its content initially from two sources: linguistic philosophy’s emphasis on matters of truth as matters of sense and context, and minimalist sculpture’s recognition of the importance of context as a means of ‘seeing’ the artwork.’ (John Robberts 1997 p.17)

Ad the foundations of conceptual art lies the conflict between iconophobia (the fear of images) and iconophilia (the love of images) that can be traced back to the Enlightment.

The conceptualist tried to install a new self-criticism, one without the notions of good taste and aesthetic sensitivity and with the ‘negative critique of the avan-garde’ (John Robberts 1997 p.11)

‘By ultimately dismantling both along with the conventions of visuality inherent in them, they firmly established an aesthetic of administration.’ (Benjamin H.D. Buchloh p.525)

‘Just as the readymade had negated not only figurative representation, authenticity, and authorship while introducing repetition and the series (i.e, the law of industrial production) to replace the studio aesthetic of the handcrafted original, Conceptual Art came to displace even that image of the mass-produced object and its aestheticized forms in Pop Art, replacing an aesthetic of industrial production and consumption with an aesthetic of administrative and legal organization and institutional validation.’ (Benjamin H.D. Buchloh p.520)

‘This change – one from ‘appearance’ to ‘conception’ – was the beginning of ‘modern’ art and the of ‘conceptual art. All art (after Duchamp) is conceptual (in nature) because art only exists conceptually.’ ( Joseph Kosuth, 1969 p.232)

Art is like a proposition, it ads something of value to the concept of art. After it has succeeded in its goal the work of art will be of no value anymore the concept of art, it will only be historical object.

‘In other words, what is important in art is what one brings to it, not one’s adoption of what was previously existing.’ ( Joseph Kosuth, 1969 p.233)

‘Works of art are analytic propositions. That is, viewed within their context – as art – they provide no information whatsoever about any matter of fact. A work of art is a tautology in that it is a presentation of the artist’s intention, that is, he saying that a particular work of art is art, which means, is a definition of art. Thus, that it is true a priori (which is what Judd means when he states that ‘if someone calls it art, it’s art’). ( Joseph Kosuth, 1969 p.232)

Art should always question its own nature, it should be self-reflective. Conceptual art investigates art itself.

‘Conceptual art interrogates modern art as a complex of institutions which produce styles, types of objects, and discourse, rather than questioning art in the academies’ terms, of works of art first and foremost.’ (jeff Wall 1985 p.506)

Some quotes from Image as Icon by Tracey Warr:

The photograph has a compromised status as evidence and proof. There is plenty that the photograph leaves out (sound, time, space, often the audience). ...Lengthy, complex performances with audience participation are reduced to just one image – the 'good' image from a picture editor's point of view – reproduced over and over in surveys. This is likely to be the most composed image, one that immediately conveys a clear reading... (32)

The icon is a distillation of an unknowable, incomprehensible mystery to a visible, tangible manifestation. ...The icon makes the intangible and invisible accessible in portable form and therefore creates a market for the priceless and the immaterial. (35)

With the disappearance of the original source in performance the performance photograph itself takes on the role of icon, whereas for the painting or sculpture there is always an authentic source and then representations. (35)

The photographic document also has an uneasy status between art document and artist's publicity stunt. (36)