©Daniel Gordon
I want to continue the conversation from my previous post entitled “Galleries, Galleries, Galleries” on the realization I am having about photographers using “traditional” methods of manipulation in their work. This topic was brought up in my theory class this week and I would like to add a couple other shows to the list that reflect this theme. This time the shows are at two heavy-hitting museums, The Met and MOMA. The Met’s show, Surface Tension, is a grouping of work that explores alternative photographic methods of production. You see artists like Gerhard Richter, Wolfgang Tillman, Marco Breuer, Christian Marclay, and Adam Fuss among others. The majority of these artists have one thing in common, they used “traditional” (non-digital) methods of manipulation in order to create a photographic image. The other show at MOMA, New Photography, is a collection of work by 6 emerging photographers; Daniel Gordon, Sterling Ruby, Leslie Hewitt, Carter Mull, Walead Beshty and Sara VanDerBeek. While much of the content of the pieces in this show reads on a sophomoric level, i.e. graffiti with blood on it, mutilated female bodies, ads in newspapers, the ideas for the production of the work are advanced. It keeps with the same theme I am beginning to see all over the place, and dare I say that it’s a reaction to the mass consumer world of digital imaging? Perhaps artist photographers are indeed moving away from Photography (with a capital “P”) and into a hybridized state of production as a critical response to this mass consumer photographic culture? Whatever it is, it seems to be an emerging trend.