John Voss Photography

Friday, September 2, 2011

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Just a bit of "attitude", thank you very much!

"The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public."

Henry Geldzahler

"Art is not like other culture because its success is not made by its audience. The public fill concert halls and cinemas every day, we read novels by the million and buy records by the billions. We, the people, affect the making and quality of most of our culture, but not our art. The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires." from Wall and Piece by Bansky quoted by Bill Jay in LensWork No. 67.

"Art has gotten a bad name as the realm of unctuous charlatans, greedy dealers and their glamortrash clientele--the hang of smartypants fish-wrapper scribblers and toot-brained mummies who dress like Johnny Cash. As cartoon-like as it seems..., the fashionable art world constitutes a tiny fraction of the comprehensive art world, but it has plenty of money behind it." James L. McElhinney

"Where is it written that our sensibilities must be sullied by the seamier side of life along with our intellects? We know the world is a vale of tears.Must art pile it on in yet heavier doses? There was a time when the world thought that the artist was chosen, and that they were on a mission not to tell us what we have but what we might have if we'd only get our act together and see beyond the obvious.Art was supposed to transcend life, not imitate it.

Crap is obvious - and I for one am wearied by its presence. Show me please the light at the end of the tunnel.Show me yet once again how beauty can nourish my inner being.

Don't show me what is, show me what can be,and how I might get there - even if only in my mind - as I lose myself in a painting,a musical score,a poem,or photograph.". Raymond Steiner, Art Times Journal

"A serious photograph not only sets itself apart from all other moments but also captures the particularity of its subject—a face, landscape, tree, store front, tool, cigarette butt, pattern of ice crystals—while at the same time revealing its universality. Again, that is what art does—what art demands and requires. Without particularity a photograph is but a meaningless generality. A photograph of a non-descript parking lot that could be anywhere in urban America, whether that photograph is eight feet by eight feet and hanging at MOMA or four inches by four inches in an automotive magazine, is exactly the same thing—a trite generality. The photograph that captures the particularity of its subject stops us because it lies outside the daily barrage of trite and general images we are bombarded with. It holds us because it is like no other moment. It holds us because it has seized its subject as it has never before been seized. " John Wood, 21st Editions

"Objectivity and subjectivity are always a constant battle. When I work on something, I try to be as subjective as possible. Then, as I go along painting, I want to gain a certain degree of objectivity in order to know if anything's working. I look through mirrors; I turn the painting upside down; I try to go outside the house or studio and try to peer through windows as if I'm somebody else looking at it. I go through all these motions to try and see it from an objective point of view." Jamie Wyeth, 2004, from his website

“I always think that being a good photographer is less about knowing rules than knowing yourself. What I make of a subject comes from inside of me.” Michael Levin

Usually Close to Home

The photographs on this blog have mostly been made in the Hudson Valley of New York State. As much as I might love to visit a host of other iconic and exotic locales, I love where I live, and find making photographs here a rewarding experience.

As to their being in black and white, the venerable photographer, teacher and writer David Vestal offered that he listened to radio because the images were better, and photographed in black and white because the colors were better. I agree completely about the photographs.

John Voss Photography

Friday, September 2, 2011

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ARTIST STATEMENT

Just a bit of "attitude", thank you very much!

Usually Close to Home

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John Voss Photography

Friday, September 2, 2011

0 comments:

ARTIST STATEMENT

Just a bit of "attitude", thank you very much!

Usually Close to Home

Interested Parties