I wonder how much it makes a difference if/when galleries put archives or catalogues online. I've mostly trained myself out of taking pictures at galleries and especially would never take photos of others but archiving is useful and I often can't afford a $50 show catalogue. I think there's a lot of accepting the fallibility of memory too: it is okay to see something and consider it deeply and allow it to move you and it's also okay to forget it a little afterwards, because being truly present to art isn't a state of mind you want indefinitely
It might make some difference, perhaps; as Squire described, and as I have done before, people sometimes take a photo of a painting as a future reference (though taking a photo might be easier than looking for it later in a catalog). Still, I think many people take photos for the others reasons she described.
On a school trip I was taking photos of building until a friend told me it was senseless, that the internet was filled with plenty of photos already. That was in 2006, mind you. It made sense to me, and I stopped. People who take photos of the Mona Lisa don't need a catalog to find an image of the painting.
penetrability (therefore femininity) 😭😭😭😭🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🔫🔫🔫🔫🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪 this is an exceptional piece because of its content and because of your extremely intentional world choice
“digitally mediated” vs raw. IM writing a manifesto about this exact thing! It’s pro “friction” which is the raw you speak of. Our experiences with the world should be painful and intense and certain and crazy and fever pitch, NOT MEDIATED in any way. ESPECIALLY not through tech BLAGH!
As someone who has experienced similar frustrations when experiencing the MoMa’s Rothko collection and feels uncomfortable being the subject of photographs, I found this incredibly compelling! Aside from the personal archive aspect of photographing art, I think it also makes us feel some sense of ownership or mastery over it somehow. Learning to put my phone down at art museums has been a much more humbling experience.
Oh this is beautiful. I see so much of Roland Barthes’ influence in your words, and I love how you describe the immense vulnerability and violation of being photographed. It really does feel like being flattened down into an object and being robbed of your capacity for self-definition (and the same effect applies to this whole photograph-a-piece-of-art phenomenon!!) This piece me think about a previous essay you wrote about photography over the summer— you replied to my comment suggesting I read Camera Lucida, and I did. Thank you thank you thank you
This was a great article to read and so insightful! You observing intentional art, and being the unintentional subject of someone else's idea of art who would nonetheless make people feel something, but so far removed from what you expected of the artistic experience.
i'm curious if you've ever read susan sontag's 'on photography' - yours and her ideas seem very intertwined. if you haven't (or even if you have) it's so incredible fascinating to see how this concept of the camera as simultaneously a vehicle of invulnerability and one that probes into vulnerability threads through the years and becomes more relevant. that line about penetrability and femininity was also really beautiful :)
There are two kinds of culprits at whom fingers are pointed here. I've been guilty of one, and have captured the other.
I couldn't help notice such persons myself, walking from one painting to the other, taking photos like they were tasked with creating a catalog. Or at least I had, long ago and far away. I don't see them any more, I don't know if it's a matter of time, space or just me no longer noticing them.
And took photos of these people. First merely any such persons. Then I'd notice curious relationships between the photographers and the paintings the shot. Then it was not even photographers, but just silent spectators. A couple watching a Pierre Auguste Cot's Springtime, an academic Rococoesque painting of a couple sharing a swing, the girl in sheer clothing, hanging on his neck. A bald to a polish man taking photos of still life with a skull. A couple standing before the prowling tiger of Rousseau's The Dream, the man wrapping his arm around her waist and standing slightly before her, as if to protect her from the immanent attack. A man sitting at the end of a row of Egyptian seated sculptures. My biggest regret is not besieging Warhol's soup cans and taking more photos of people taking photos next to them.
It would never have occurred to me that anybody else intentionally took photos of museum visitors.
i have neve felt more seen and validated. i always loved the idea of capturing events in my life -- be it an afternoon stroll, or a solo cafe date... but at the moment i would be so immersed in the experience i forget my phone existed to take pictures... but whenever i remember that 'hey this is beautiful let me capture it' the act of putting out my phone and finding the right angle somehow blands the experience
I wonder how much it makes a difference if/when galleries put archives or catalogues online. I've mostly trained myself out of taking pictures at galleries and especially would never take photos of others but archiving is useful and I often can't afford a $50 show catalogue. I think there's a lot of accepting the fallibility of memory too: it is okay to see something and consider it deeply and allow it to move you and it's also okay to forget it a little afterwards, because being truly present to art isn't a state of mind you want indefinitely
It might make some difference, perhaps; as Squire described, and as I have done before, people sometimes take a photo of a painting as a future reference (though taking a photo might be easier than looking for it later in a catalog). Still, I think many people take photos for the others reasons she described.
On a school trip I was taking photos of building until a friend told me it was senseless, that the internet was filled with plenty of photos already. That was in 2006, mind you. It made sense to me, and I stopped. People who take photos of the Mona Lisa don't need a catalog to find an image of the painting.
penetrability (therefore femininity) 😭😭😭😭🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🔫🔫🔫🔫🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪 this is an exceptional piece because of its content and because of your extremely intentional world choice
“digitally mediated” vs raw. IM writing a manifesto about this exact thing! It’s pro “friction” which is the raw you speak of. Our experiences with the world should be painful and intense and certain and crazy and fever pitch, NOT MEDIATED in any way. ESPECIALLY not through tech BLAGH!
As someone who has experienced similar frustrations when experiencing the MoMa’s Rothko collection and feels uncomfortable being the subject of photographs, I found this incredibly compelling! Aside from the personal archive aspect of photographing art, I think it also makes us feel some sense of ownership or mastery over it somehow. Learning to put my phone down at art museums has been a much more humbling experience.
Her work is harder to see, but another artist to consider these questions was Francesca Woodman.
Oh this is beautiful. I see so much of Roland Barthes’ influence in your words, and I love how you describe the immense vulnerability and violation of being photographed. It really does feel like being flattened down into an object and being robbed of your capacity for self-definition (and the same effect applies to this whole photograph-a-piece-of-art phenomenon!!) This piece me think about a previous essay you wrote about photography over the summer— you replied to my comment suggesting I read Camera Lucida, and I did. Thank you thank you thank you
This was a great article to read and so insightful! You observing intentional art, and being the unintentional subject of someone else's idea of art who would nonetheless make people feel something, but so far removed from what you expected of the artistic experience.
i'm curious if you've ever read susan sontag's 'on photography' - yours and her ideas seem very intertwined. if you haven't (or even if you have) it's so incredible fascinating to see how this concept of the camera as simultaneously a vehicle of invulnerability and one that probes into vulnerability threads through the years and becomes more relevant. that line about penetrability and femininity was also really beautiful :)
There are two kinds of culprits at whom fingers are pointed here. I've been guilty of one, and have captured the other.
I couldn't help notice such persons myself, walking from one painting to the other, taking photos like they were tasked with creating a catalog. Or at least I had, long ago and far away. I don't see them any more, I don't know if it's a matter of time, space or just me no longer noticing them.
And took photos of these people. First merely any such persons. Then I'd notice curious relationships between the photographers and the paintings the shot. Then it was not even photographers, but just silent spectators. A couple watching a Pierre Auguste Cot's Springtime, an academic Rococoesque painting of a couple sharing a swing, the girl in sheer clothing, hanging on his neck. A bald to a polish man taking photos of still life with a skull. A couple standing before the prowling tiger of Rousseau's The Dream, the man wrapping his arm around her waist and standing slightly before her, as if to protect her from the immanent attack. A man sitting at the end of a row of Egyptian seated sculptures. My biggest regret is not besieging Warhol's soup cans and taking more photos of people taking photos next to them.
It would never have occurred to me that anybody else intentionally took photos of museum visitors.
i have neve felt more seen and validated. i always loved the idea of capturing events in my life -- be it an afternoon stroll, or a solo cafe date... but at the moment i would be so immersed in the experience i forget my phone existed to take pictures... but whenever i remember that 'hey this is beautiful let me capture it' the act of putting out my phone and finding the right angle somehow blands the experience