Conceptual Photography
21st of June 2019
Source photographic journal made three films asking photographers, artists. Curators and editors for their response to the question ‘What is Conceptual Photography?’ No-one had any clear-cut answers but there are some interesting opinions being discussed, like alternative views to straight photojournalism by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin. John Hilliard talks about being known as a conceptual artist in the 1960s and 70s. Hilliard is still taking photographs today. Watch the video and then write a paragraph explaining what you understand by the term ‘Conceptual Photography’. Provide some examples of recent work that you believe falls into this category.
www.source.ie/feature/what_is_conceptual.html
Born in 1887, Marcel Duchamp was a French photographer, who shaped and lead the Dada movement. This movement challenges the belief system surrounding art. What is art, how it should be created. Duchamp was a painter but changed his direction as he wanted to experiment with ideas. In 1917, Duchamp put forward a piece of art into the New York Society of Independent Artists, in the form of a urinal, which he signed ‘R. Mutt’. He began using objects themselves as pieces of art. He choose readily available items and declared they were art. In his series of ‘Readymades’, Duchamp aim was for “an ordinary object [could be] elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist” (MOMA). This practice does raise some good points, why can’t an object be art, when designated by an artist. Art is about vision, the vision of the artists, so what does it matter is the artists is showing an mundane item. Duchamps work contributed to the beginnings of Conceptual art.
The videos from Source were interesting. They started talking about the actual term, conceptual. According to critic, Lucy Sautter, it should perhaps be called ‘idea art’ as this would be more fitting. The artists using the conceptual genre don’t care about the long established traditions in photography. Context is also key in conceptual photography as it can dramatically change the meaning, as not everyone will understand the underlying messages. Sautter goes on to say that conceptual art is anti; anti subjective, anti personal and anti emotional. Suzanne Mooney created a piece of work entitled Make love to the Camera, in which she combined diagrams from old photographic books. Her aim was to explore a love hate relationship. Critic Sean O’Hagan conceptual art is open to abusive criticism. Oliver Chaharin doesn’t believe in conceptual art, he believes that “all photography is conceptual…All photography is an abstraction of reality” (Chaharin, cited in Source). Chaharin and Adam Broomberg created a project together which involved travelling with the army to Afghanistan with a roll of photographic paper, unrolling it and exposing it for only 20 second. The faced difficulties, as if they said they were artists they wouldn’t have been allowed to do this, so they said they were photojournalist. When they tried to advertise their work, the editor of the Guardian newspaper thought they were joking (Source).
After watching the videos from Source, I think conceptual photography is quite an open genre. In the art world it took a firm hold during the 1960s and the 1970s. In which the artists looked outside of the traditional photography value, they experimented and created. Many are staged images, which represent the artists vision, an idea if you like. But all photography is born from an idea surely? Conceptual photography seems like a free for all, it allows for expression, experimentation, ideas could be completely out there or quite simple. The true definition is hard to pin point. The video doesn’t really clarify anything as far as a true definition is concerned but it was nice to hear from artists and how they view conceptual art.
Bibliography
MOMA. Marcel Duchamp and the Readymade. At: https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/dada/marcel-Duchamp-and-the-readymade/ (Accessed on 12th of June 2019).
Source. What is Conceptual Photography? At: www.source.ie/feature/what_is_conceptual.html/ (Accessed 12th of June 2019).
Tate. Marcel Duchamp. At: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/marcel-Duchamp-1036/ (Accessed 12th of June 2019).
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