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When isn't photography Art? |
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Written by Edward Mendes
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Thursday, 03 January 2008 |
 | Mendes On Photography
january 2008
When isn't photography Art? | |  
Images by David Schroeder
Most days start the same way for me, to borrow a line from the Beatles; I wake up, fall out of bed and drag a comb across my head. I then make my way to my computer to check my email, read up on the latest headlines and filter though my MySpace friend requests and comments. I’m sorry to say it but it’s been my experience that most MySpace blogs are less then intriguing, many of them are unintelligent, lack a point and other than “because” are unable to follow a logical path to defending a position. Unfortunately however I’m ashamed to say that doesn’t stop me from browsing them occasionally to see what’s going on in the minds of others. Recently I was on the page of a friend of mine and noticed she had a blog entry entitled “Censorship at Mistlin”. Located near my hometown, The Mistlin gallery is the home of the local art association so I decided to read on. Now I realize that for most of you reading this the day-to-day happenings at the Mistlin gallery doesn’t mean much, but in this particular instance I think its pertinent.
The controversy is over photographs entered into, juried into and hung in the gallery for a show whose theme is the human form, entitled Figuratively Speaking. After only a day of being hung in the gallery the images were taken out of the show in response to complaints of pornography from a couple members of the community viewing the show. Now, of course people’s tastes in art are as different and varied as just about anything on the planet, in fact my senses are often offended when I see unquestionably weak images included into a show of any theme or caliber. The problem in this instance is that the images removed were not weak in any way, the use of lighting, composition and posing of models were all done in a professional, beautiful manner and the images were in no way foul, something I would have a problem with.
In addition, when put into context of the show and after viewing the other pieces hung that were not taken down it’s very difficult to make a logical, intelligent argument for the removal of the pieces. The theme of the show was the human form and thusly every piece in the show involved nudity and virtually every piece centered around the female form, there were oil paintings of nude women, water color painting of nude women, a 5 foot tall bronze sculpture of a nude woman and of course a handful of photographs, whose numbers were decreased after the removal. When asked about the removal of the images the gallery director has responded with answers more creative than many of the pieces entered in the show itself, and seem to change depending on the day and the person asking the question but have included, “they are too real because they are photographs”, “the woman modeling are too beautiful and therefore the image objectify women”, and my favorite, “the other images in the show remain because they (paintings, sculpture) are art.” The images were also compared to what you would see in Playboy and Hustler.
The gallery has the right, as every gallery should, to not included pieces that are of an untactful or foul manner but not after the images were accepted into the show and deemed as fit to hang by the jury committee. The juries have the right to not let certain images be hung if they feel the image is not in good taste or is unfit, via subject, quality or presentation to be hung for public viewing. This was not the case here, an opinion which has been voiced in writing to the gallery director by each of the three (3) jurors for the show.
Really it comes down to why is photography “judged” under a different set of rules? How can a photo realistic painting of the nude human form be hung without question while a similar, if not the very photograph that was the inspiration for the painting be seen as foul or pornographic? Now certainly this isn’t the case everywhere and in all honestly the Mistlin gallery has shown nude photography in many shows in the past. In fact many images I’ve seen hung in past shows at the gallery have been of a much more sexual nature, which makes me wonder why these? Why give into a couple of complaints now? How many hundreds of people come into the gallery on a weekly basis? Only a couple of complaints change the content of a show; and in the end chips away at the artistic integrity of a gallery and an association in general? I guess the 99.5 percent of people not offended by the images are wrong, shame on you. It’s clear that if the images were paintings they would have been seen as art by the gallery director and not removed. I wonder what the gallery would have done if a show of Joel Peter Wilkins work was being shown? Go ahead, if you’re not familiar with his work look him up and tell me what you think, would his images be “too real and exploitive” or would the possibility of income via the sell of this highly collectable artist color the world a beautiful shade of rose? I wonder if the Mistlin’s gallery director has a MySpace blog.
*Disclaimer*
In the sprite of full disclosure I feel compelled to acknowledge the fact that I know and am personal friends with all parties involved with this story, both the artists and the gallery director. This fact weighted heavily upon me when first mulling over whether I would publicly voice my opinion on the matter. In the end however, I can’t deny my emotional attachment to the art of photography and my desire to see the medium make addition strives to gain respect as an art form, a journey that as seen by events such as this, is a continuing uphill battle. |
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Edward Mendes |
| About the author: |
| Edward is the owner of Edward Mendes Photography, one of the top portrat studios in the Central Valley of California (Ceres). Edward's fine art prints are carried by a number of galleries thoughout California and his highly acclaimed images are parts of many private and public collections. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 14 February 2008 )
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