SHOW-ME-WHAT-YOU-KNOW IN CLASS ASSESSMENT #5
We will consider the ways in which photography changed and proliferated at the turn of the 21st Century with the popularization of the Internet, Digital Photography, and Software that enables photo manipulation. A discussion of how these changes forever transformed global visual culture and impacted contemporary art practices.
1) What characteristics of this artwork make it POSTMODERN vs MODERN? This evaluates how you apply analysis from the course ideas to a new, unseen artwork.
ARTIFACT > Struth, Thomas. “Audience 11, Florence.” Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT, chromogenic print (72 13/16” x 117 11/16”). 2004.
Struth’s work, Audience 11, Florence (2004) examines the collective experience of individuals looking at artworks in an art museum. Struth’s focus on the gallery going spectators moves this picture from the modern into the post modern. There is no traditional artwork being specifically focussed on here, rather, the post modern focus is on an examination of how people engage and see. The result is quite literally Struth using his camera as a mirror to capture a precise moment in time, a reflection of a gallery going public in 2004. There is a revealing of both the whole as a group of people together in the museum, as well as of each individual represented where some people’s gaze is clearly fixed on an unseen art object. Two men in a black t-shirt on the right appear to be in awe of whatever they are looking at; as do a young man in a red shirt with two women to his right appear to also be astonished by what they are seeing; and finally, a girl in a white shirt on the left is holding a book, looking up at the art object in contemplation. Other people’s gazes however, are not on the object. Some seem to be distracted: a group of four people on the right are engaged with each other in conversation (while a young black girl in a red t-shirt watches them); an older couple on the left appear to be figuring out how to use some kind of device (perhaps museum audio guides?); a dark skinned woman behind the couple on the left appears as if she is looking straight ahead into a kind of blank void (possibly tired from a day of tourist activities); and one person isn’t even facing the art object, standing with their back to the scene. Altogether, the image provides a look of various moments of self-consciousness and self-reflection people have in these kinds of spaces. This focus makes this post-modern photograph more personal than the artworks created in the modern moment. Meaning is further created and shaped as the work’s large size makes it feel like the kind of history paintings one could view in a museum like this. As such, this post-modern work looks back at, plays with, and references not only ideas related to the modern, but with ideas related to the entire cannon of art history.
2) Summarize THREE key points that you think best explain the take-away ideas of Grundberg’s The Crisis of the Real for your group’s section. In your response, make sure to include direct reference to how your assigned group image helps to make the argument. This question asses your understanding of core concepts explored in the weekly class reading.
One idea explored by Grundberg is centred on how post-modernism is a continuation of modernism, a natural development, evolution, and shift of how modernism worked. Specifically, Grundberg describes how, “…one can see the seeds of a postmodernist attitude within what we think of as American modernist photography” (12).
ARTIFACT > LEFT: Abell, Sam. “Malboro Man Advertisement, Malboro, 1980s.” RIGHT: Prince, Richard. “Untitled (cowboy).” Guggenheim Museum, 1989.
Grundberg also explores how modern artists began using photography in new ways, primarily with how photographs work as signs that create new possibilities for meaning making. With Richard Prince’s Untitled (cowboy) (1989), he has chosen to focus in on the image of the cowboy from the original advertisement, which removes all ties to the advertisement’s original content and context. As such, the photograph from the advertisement no longer functions in support of the Marlboro brand. With the cowboy riding alone in a dry, arid, desert landscape, he is still a representation of cool, and he operates as only a cowboy - he just is.
Finally, Grundberg describes how meaning making is contingent on what viewers bring to the table, as “…all we see is seen through the kaleidoscope of all that we have seen before.” This allows one to engage with images like Prince’s appropriation of the Marlboro Man advertisements on a post-modern level, questioning the authenticity of the original image, and allowing for contemplation of why it was made. Some may know that this image was appropriated, as they may remember the original Marlboro Man advertisements. Others, especially younger audiences, are likely not familiar with the advertisements, leaving room for them to ask questions about the picture that is presented. Is it a throwback to the idea of the Wild, Wild West, a never-ending landscape waiting to be tamed by European explorers? Or perhaps it is a throwback to the idea of the lone cowboy, such as ones popularized in movie Westerns of the 1960s and 1970s, staring actor Clint Eastwood? Ultimately, for every person that isn’t familiar with the context of the advertisements, how they see Prince’s image will vary greatly from person to person.
3) Critically reflect on your opinion of Richard Prince’s New Portrait series. Do you think his artistic process is fair and legitimate, or do you think his work is somehow unethical? Do you think your opinion would be different before you learned about the characteristics of postmodern art? This question interprets how you have reflected on a major debate in current art history regarding photography. I am looking here for your honest assessment and opinion, so feel free to speak openly and honestly.
ARTIFACT > McKeever, Rob. “Richard Prince’s New Portraits.” Gagosian Galleries / CBC News, 2015.
Richard Prince’s use of Instagram images seems to be fair and legitimate, especially when one remembers how Meta has always been very clear about how its users do not retain any kind of copyright control over the imagery and videos they post to Meta platforms. That control is in Meta’s hands, as it allows them to use people’s imagery for its own ends. This ambiguity also leaves the door open for other people to test the boundaries of that control, which Prince has done with his New Portraits series. But Prince doesn’t simply reshare the Instagram images online. Here, he has changed the context behind how the images exist and are experienced by viewers - moving them from the screens of our smart phones to life size prints hung inside the walls of an art gallery. He has also ensured that comments he has made to each of the comment sections of his selected images are visible in his enlargements, contributing to the dialogue surrounding the images both on and offline, which is a very Post-Internet idea. There definitely would have been a time when I would have hated this kind of approach to making art as I would have viewed it simply as theft. But now I do view them as artworks which adds new dimensions to the original images. His commenting on the photos alerts the original image makers that something might be up, especially if they visit his profile and learn more about who he is. And when they learn that their work is now hanging in galleries, being sold for a lot of money by a world-renowned artist, those Instagram users would be able to leverage that exposure, as their feeds gain notoriety and new views in ways that they would not have been able to otherwise achieve.
4) Please discuss how your assigned artwork / artist fits within the POST-MODERN art movement. In your response, make sure to reference the Grundberg article directly, and you can also reference ideas related to Monday’s lecture concerning Walter Benjamin and Marcel Duchamp to extend your arguments. This question assesses how you are applying core course ideas to your curatorial project.
ARTIFACT > Vierkant, Artie. “Image Objects.”
Artie Vierkant fits into the post-modern as he blurs the lines between what a finished artwork is. During his fluid process of creating an artwork, meaning shifts as the formal mediums used shift. A further blurring of meaning making also occurs when viewers take and distribute their own photographs of the image online, or when they use Vierkant’s augmented reality smartphone app to further alter and change the images they take of his work. This provides both artists and audiences with opportunities to create and play with a plethora of new ideas related to Vierkant’s original work. This ties back into Grundberg’s article and discussion of how images are mediated, as Grundberg states how: “The photograph suggests that our image of reality is made up of images. It makes explicit the dominion of mediation” (13).
Grundberg also notes how our reality is shaped by the ubiquity of imagery, which is something Vierkant is clearly interested in. Specifically Grundberg describes how with “…the postmodern condition: it see s impossible to claim that one can have a direct, unmediated experience of the world; all we see is seen through the kaleidoscope of all that we have seen before” (13). Finally, I found that Vierkant’s work also seeks to, as Grundberg notes: “…problematize the relations of art and culture” (14). Vierkant has democratized the experience of both viewing and sharing an artist’s work of art, allowing for new collaborations and dialogue between both artists and viewers, one that is ultimately contingent on how individual’s conceive of and experience the world around them.
Grade Received: A / A+