From: Alejandro Lopez de Haro (alhr@wanadoo.fr)
Date: 06/09/02-01:57:18 AM Z
Hello Judy:
Judy Siegel wrote: "But what do "honest" and "art" have to do with each
other anyway?"
Honesty and art have much to do with each other as with business and
businessmen, law and lawyers, medicine and doctors, journalism and
journalist, father and son, husband and wife.
Regards,
Alejandro López de Haro
----- Original Message -----
From: "Judy Seigel" <jseigel@panix.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Sunday, June 09, 2002 4:26 AM
Subject: Re: Fresson and handmade
>
> On Sat, 8 Jun 2002, Alejandro Lopez de Haro wrote:
>
> > My point is that if someone uses the photographic medium as a medium of
art
> > and if he or she sells themselves as artists, then they must be involved
in
> > every step of their work, because otherwise they are not being honest to
the
> > viewing public.
>
> That's a series of linked opinions with zero demonstrability.
>
> The old masters were, even by standards of today's photographers, almost
> certainly *artists*, but nobody said MUST about "every step of their
> work." In fact having an atelier & lots of flunkies was a token of their
> success and desirability. Some did little more than draw the "cartoon," if
> that.
>
> (Of course "involved" is a fairly broad definition. If I tell my printer
> do it on such & such paper I'm *involved.*)
>
> But what do "honest" and "art" have to do with each other anyway? Some of
> the greatest artists in history had no morals at all. Making an
> essentially neutral proposition (work flow) into *ethics* is turning our
> own personal preference into a moral imperative. The only dishonesty would
> be to say I did it myself if I didn't.
>
> I don't recall this in other media, except perhaps surgery where if you're
> paying some high-priced celebrity, you don't want his/her resident cutting
> you up. It suggests an inferiority complex about *photography*... that
> it's not really art after all, unless.... etc. etc.
>
> Otherwise, why stop at photography -- shouldn't architects build their own
> buildings, engineers smelt their own steel & hook up their own bridges,
> fashion designers sew their own dresses, chefs peel their own onions, and
> if Tiffany didn't blow his own glass he, too, was a crook.
>
> As for "if he or she sells themselves as artists." Some of the greatest
> photographs in history were NOT done as "art." (Would you like an Atget?)
> Not to mention that some of the hokiest garbage awaiting its place in
> history's landfill is done by folks wrapped in the flag of *artiste.*
>
> Judy
>
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