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Re: Censorship issues

Bob and Bob wrote the following:
> >>I begin my lectures on photographic prints as objects of
> >>art by holding up a photo of a car and asking, "What is this?"  The
> answer
> >>is always a chorus of "a car".   When I point out that it is a
> PHOTOGRAPH of
> >>a car they scream,  "semantics".   I reply that they have skipped the
> object
> >>of art completely and gone directly to the subject...because the photo
> has
> >>been accepted by our society as a surrogate reality.
>
> I think it IS semantics. Sure, it is a photograph, but what do you expect
> the majority of people to say? I would say it is a car as would 99
> percent of the people who look at the image.
> BOB

DEAR BOB,
    Q.E.D. as they say at the end of mathematical or logical proofs.  You
have expressed exactly that belief that makes photos of nudes more pointed
in their effect on most people than paintings of nudes.
    What I try to teach with that example is that a photograph is a
"RE-PRESENTATION" of a subject...NOT the subject itself...as most people see
it.  I am trying to show that a photographic print is an OBJECT of art, in
and of itself, an abstraction, really, which has  its own characteristics,
aesthetics, and artistic life, beyond its representational aspects.
    This opens up so many possibilities for the photographic artist beyond
the accepted limitations and boundaries.  This is what artists are supposed
to do...isn't it?  To go further, find new forms and concepts...to do
something new...even if it is a new combination of existing forms...if only
to show our purely unique vision of what has already been photographed many
times.   IMHO, it is what we strive for.
                                                CHEERS!
                                                    BOB
PS:  If you doubt the "abstraction" part, consider that a color photograph
is three dimensional reality flattened into two dimensions!  And a black and
white photo has all of the color drained out...this is quite an abstraction!
Further, research has been done with societies isolated from the modern
world and its media who simply do not "read" photographs...they do not
understand them...they do not see the subject even if they are photos of the
viewers!  This may indicate that photos are, perhaps, cultural conventions
and are not even universally representational.