# Discussion - Is Context Important?



## pgriz (Aug 14, 2012)

_Warning - another long post...

_Only if you want to understand.

Context provides the critical information needed to decipher a communication. Statements, writings, actions, and other expressions lose meaning when they are taken out of context. 

Sometimes, context is not important. A statement of "I Love You" on a valentine's card that is given to classmates in grade school, has much less need for explanation, than the same phrase uttered by a person who was never able to say it before, to someone they will never see again. A snapshot, taken out of boredom of the litter on a desk, does not need much context, compared to a photo taken of the same desk to be used in a murder evidence case. But without knowing the context, it is difficult to know if the image is meaningful or banal.

Many of our discussions of photography touch upon the photographic elements, but rarely provide much context by which we can determine what we are looking at. So we often have to ask what the objective of the photographer was in making the image, because we cannot determine it from the clues in the image.

But do/should we care about the context? If the image is decorative, then perhaps context is less needed, as the image is essentially self-contained. But if the image is of an event, or a place, or of a group, then context becomes important to allow us to understand what it is we are seeing. It is possible to have a false context, which propaganda uses to create an illusion that does not in realy exist. 

Amolitor recently posted a number of images that are famous and taken by historically-renown photographers. He challenged us to critique them. Without the context of how the images were taken, when, and why, it was almost impossible to give a meaningful critique. And yet, without that context, we are seeing the image only as decoration. We may read into it things that never occured to the original photographer, but we are then substituting our context for that of the photographer.

What about the deliberately ambiguous image? This example practically invites us to insert our own context to decipher the image, and in adding our bits, we create new meaning. But that approach relies partly on the image-maker knowing the various contextes that exist concurrently, and therefore uses that knowledge to create the ambiguity.

Another context that is very familiar to all of us the the setting within which snapshots are made &#8211; a family event, a shared experience, a famous location. With the context in place, the mommy/daddy goggles areusually fully on. Without the context, all we see is some person, in an unknown setting, doing something. We know this when looking at photos of relatives that we don't know &#8211; not very interesting. But if we are told that the image is of Great-great-uncle George and the lady besides him was his mistress who made him abandon the family and move to colonial Cuba where he then made a fortune in sugar plantations, then the image becomes much more interesting. 

In my mind, without context, we have incomplete communication. With the right context we can see and understand. So if it isn't decoration, tell us the context.  Tell us why we should care.


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## Derrel (Aug 14, 2012)

In what context are you asking if context is important?

Sorry....could...not...resist. Your post is long and boring and filled with important stuff. Ooops...did I say boring? I meant "deep". Yeah....context...with the proper caption, even a boring photograph can be made to seem very exciting and interesting. When we see photos that are presented with ZERO context, our interpretation of the photos is haphazard, random,unscripted, free-form, unprejudiced, and so on...

When we see a photograph that comes to us with "an introduction", or "a letter of recommendation from a trusted associate", or even a photo credit line or copyright notice with the photographer's identifying marks, I am convinced that our perception of said photograph is influenced; sometimes only a little, but many times, influenced to a very significant degree.

A cheezy, gaudy MWAC copyright notice slapped on, large, atop of an image, carries/conveys a VERY different message than say, an image run with the name of some shooter, and "Getty Images" tagged onto it. Art house photos that are prefaced with a lengthy artist's statement, and then individual captions, predispose the viewers who see them.

"*Context. It's what's for dinner.*" No, wait, that's supposed to be, "Beef. It's what's for dinner." Sorry...am I just a clown....or am I nursing a killer hangover? What is the context in which this is being written?


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## pgriz (Aug 14, 2012)

I was trying to figure out how much we need to know about an image to be able to evaluate it. Is eye candy sufficient? Does the image fail if it doesn't evoke emotion? Context seems to supply meaning. Could be wrong.

"Long and boring?"  Yeah - could be.  Going to be the "SNOOZINATOR!"


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## cgipson1 (Aug 14, 2012)

Yes.. to all the above!


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## Derrel (Aug 14, 2012)

Context is everything. Well, almost everything! That's why I said your post was "boring", and then changed it to "deep". I was using a mock insult to get sleepy TPF readers' heart rates up, so they'd take some INTEREST in what I was writing...

Context is so powerful that we can take a photograph made of an emotionally neutral scene, and write a caption for it, and that caption can make people feel angry, or sad, excited, or repulsed. Images seen in a "gallery" or "museum" must be better than those displayed "on the web", right???


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## unpopular (Aug 14, 2012)

I'm sure I have a long boring post of my own on this topic. I'll come back later.


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## Solarflare (Aug 14, 2012)

I had a fun discussion recently with some kind of, well, logic reduced individual that claimed that in one of my postings, my sentence 3 was contradicting sentece 1 because he didnt take into consideration that sentence 3 was spoken in context of sentence 1 and I didnt explicitly wanted to repeat the information already given in sentence 1.

So yeah, context is important. Otherwise we would have to speak with extreme redundancy.


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## amolitor (Aug 14, 2012)

I believe that a good image will stand on its own. A good image is one which evokes something in many of its viewers -- not everyone will be affected, not everyone will like it, but many people will be affected.

Almost any photograph will evoke something in SOME people. Snapshots evoke memories in the people who were there, regardless of quality. The point of a "good" image is that it's closer to universal (although, as I suggest, no image is truly universal).

All that said, when we look at a photograph, we bring a ton of baggage. Every photograph we've ever seen. Our life, our experience. Things we know about photography. Everything we have inside us will affect, however slightly, how we react to an image.

Context is just another source of stuff we can bring to the image. The name of the photographer. The Artists's Statement. The caption or title of the photograph. The other photographs on the walls nearby. All these things get added to the baggage we're bringing when we look at a photograph, and they too will affect how we react.

The point of a "good" photograph, though, is that it doesn't need that stuff. It approaches universality, "most" people feel something when they look at it.

Whether that reaction is based on "real" things or not seems hardly to matter, to me. What does it matter if I don't recognize Winston Churchill, and instead imagine a narrative of a portly bookseller, furious with a shoplifter? I am reacting, the image moves and affects me. Certainly differently than if I knew it was the former PM of Great Britain, but it affects me, and that's good.

Context changes things, but I don't think it makes them "better" or "worse", only different.

[ There is one case I have run across where it might matter -- some images are pretty much nothing by themselves, but in a collection of related images the whole becomes something greater than the parts, it tells a collective story. In this case the "context" is just the other photographs in the collection, though. ]

EDIT: One more thing. If a photograph needs a bunch of text or explanation to be "good" well, that's ok, but you're doing multimedia art at this point, blending photography and text into a whole. It is not, to my mind, "photography"


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## cgipson1 (Aug 14, 2012)

Solarflare said:


> I had a fun discussion recently with some kind of, well, logic reduced individual that claimed that in one of my postings, my sentence 3 was contradicting sentece 1 because he didnt take into consideration that sentence 3 was spoken in context of sentence 1 and I didnt explicitly wanted to repeat the information already given in sentence 1.
> 
> So yeah, context is important. Otherwise we would have to speak with extreme redundancy.



Coherency helps also!


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## Derrel (Aug 14, 2012)

The statement, "_a good image will stand on its own," _is one of the most often-repeated half-truths in photography. And I say that NOT to be controversial, and NOT out of malice, but simply because it is a HALF-truth. The statement is almost a cliche, and it ignores a HUGE aspect of human behavior, and fails to address the entire issue of HOW "images" are actually presented, and how they are actually consumed.


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## unpopular (Aug 14, 2012)

Austin Kleon illustrates the following James Kochalka quote very clearly, that art is not about communication, but rather understanding:






(CC, 2007 Austin Kleon - from James Kochalka, "The Horrible Truth about Comics" | Flickr - Photo Sharing!)



> &#8220;What is art not? Well, as I&#8217;ve described it, Art is not about communication. Art is not a way of conveying information. It&#8217;s a way of understanding information. That is, creating a work of art is a means we have of making sense of the world, focusing to make it clearer, not a way of communicating some understanding of the world that we already hold. If you already hold a clear understanding of whatever then there&#8217;s no reason to create the work of art. So you don&#8217;t. In fact, you can&#8217;t. If you are trying to demonstrate some fact pictorially this is called illustration. Illustration is superficial, no matter how skilled, because it is secondary. The idea comes first and the illustration explicates it.&#8221;


James Kochalka "The Horrible Truth about Comics" _The Cute Manifesto,_ 2005

If art is not about communication, but rather understanding, then I am not sure that art must stand on it's own in order to be successful. Certainly throughout art history - in particular performance art - vagueness has been used to encourage and incorporate audience interpretation (Beckett's _Waiting for Godit, _Lynch's _Lost Highway _and _Inland Empire_). In such works, little context is provided and the interpretation will vary depending upon the viewer's own experiences.

In such cases, the audience's own context as well as the artist's hold equal importance. This seems in line intentional fallacy, the idea that a work doesn't need to reflect the artists intentions in order to have value. I agree with this idea a great deal, what the artist had in mind doesn't really play much a role in how I interpret a piece of art work, but on the other hand how I value a piece of work doesn't really affect how the artist interprets it either. Why should the artist be confined to the experiences of the audience, why should the audience be confined to the experiences of the artist?

(Sorry if I'm being vague. I have a migraine coming)


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## unpopular (Aug 14, 2012)

Derrel said:


> The statement, "_a good image will stand on its own," _is one of the most often-repeated half-truths in photography. And I say that NOT to be controversial, and NOT out of malice, but simply because it is a HALF-truth. The statement is almost a cliche, and it ignores a HUGE aspect of human behavior, and fails to address the entire issue of HOW "images" are actually presented, and how they are actually consumed.



I think one of the biggest problems with this statement, "a good image will stand on it's own" is that you risk resorting to aesthetic tricks rather than creating anything of significance, and this is illustrated throughout modernism. In an attempt to create something which is universally appealing, you end up watering down content to the point that it is merely an illusion of something worthwhile.

Nice to look at and experience, but once it's out of view it's virtually forgotten.


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## amolitor (Aug 14, 2012)

Derrel said:


> The statement, "_a good image will stand on its own," _is one of the most often-repeated half-truths in photography. And I say that NOT to be controversial, and NOT out of malice, but simply because it is a HALF-truth. The statement is almost a cliche, and it ignores a HUGE aspect of human behavior, and fails to address the entire issue of HOW "images" are actually presented, and how they are actually consumed.



That's a perfectly fair statement.

Perhaps I should say that a good image "should be capable of standing on its own" with some caveats about how the experience will be different, and less complete than if (fill in whatever's necessary).

This is certainly subject to disagreement, but my personal opinion is that an image which cannot evoke and be powerful all by itself, stripped of the photographer's name, the title, and everything else, then it is -- probably -- not a "good" image. And no, I do not think I have ever made one. They have been made, however.


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## unpopular (Aug 14, 2012)

A photograph should be an *object* on it's own, something that is _experienced _rather than merely _viewed. _Art should engage and incorporate the audience in a participatory way.

By the sound of it, it seems that this is more what you meant.


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## amolitor (Aug 14, 2012)

I think I feel like it's worth parsing this a little further, having re-read the OP.

There's levels or degrees of context. It would be absurd to suppose that an alien being, with no exposure to human culture whatsoever, would "get" the greatest of our photographs, or indeed any of our art. So, there is at least the shared context that every human shares with every other human required. Beyond that there's degrees of literacy, which might reasonably be required to "get" a lot of art -- you have to have experienced some art somewhere, maybe read some books. Maybe you really need to be steeped in western european culture and its offshoots to get some thing. A "Christ Figure" to select the favorite symbol of all high school english teachers, is likely to be almost meaningless to some people walking this earth.

When I say that a good image should be capable of emotional power all by itself, I am probably, implicitly, assuming that it is being viewed by someone familiar with western european culture and its offshoots, someone who is socio-economically lower middle class or wealthier. The viewer, in broad strokes, I assume to be rather like me. What should NOT be necessary is image-specific context, like the name of the photographer, the date on which it was taken, details about the subject matter, and so forth.

Where one draws the line in "degrees of context" is pretty arbitrary. Allow me, if you will, to further re-write my notion of a good image:

"A good image should be capable of emotional, evocative, power in many of those people who view it if they have access to some rough approximation of the surrounding cultural milieu."

That's a hell of a mouthful, innit? This is a subject that's interesting to me, and I want to be precise. Sorry about that.


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## KenC (Aug 14, 2012)

There seems to be a theme here, expressed at least to some extent by many who've posted here, that an image should stand on its own and one that evokes more feeling or reaction with a title or text or other supplied context (aside from what the viewer brings - cultural symbolism, etc.) is somehow a lesser image.  I have two problems with this: (1) there is always a context supplied with the photo - whose photo it is, how it is presented or shown, etc. (I know some who've commented on here have mentioned this), and (2) sez who??? - any one of us can have an opinion on this, but what difference does it make?  If someone defines what a good image is, and they create one that does not fit their own definition, are they then obliged to trash it?  If they see an image made by someone else that does not fit their definition, yet their initial response to it is positive, do they have to pretend they don't like it to be self-consistent?


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## Derrel (Aug 14, 2012)

I just wanted to pop back in and add a quick comment about my earlier statement about images standing on their own, etc.

*A good image can stand on its own. A good image with a good caption can take flight. A good image with a great caption can soar!*

Anyway, just wanted to toss that thought into the mix.


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## amolitor (Aug 14, 2012)

KenC said:


> (2) sez who??? - any one of us can have an opinion on this, but what difference does it make?



Sure, anyone can have an opinion, all I'm really doing is expressing mine. There are loads of different theories to choose from, if you don't feel like making up your own. I find the others to lead to unsatisfying consequences (well, to be exact, to more unsatisfying consequences than my take on it does, there's unsatisfying stuff down every path it seems)



KenC said:


> If someone defines what a good image is, and they create one that does not fit their own definition, are they then obliged to trash it?



Good lord I hope not!



KenC said:


> If they see an image made by someone else that does not fit their definition, yet their initial response to it is positive, do they have to pretend they don't like it to be self-consistent?



There's a difference between "I like it" and "I think it's good". One of the reasons my approach is so appealing to me is that when I like something, I can just like it. If I *react* to something in an interesting way, and if I suspect that other people will, generally, tend to *react* to it in a similar interesting way, then I say "I think it's good". There's no judgement anywhere in here about whether something should be trashed or not. Why do I use the word "good" here, when I clearly mean "evocative"? Well, I happen to think that the point of art is to BE evocative. So, all I really mean when I say a photograph is "good" is that I think it's successful as art, it creates (I think) reactions in viewers which are interesting (to the viewer).


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## jaicatalano (Aug 14, 2012)

You make a very good point(s). Should we care? It depends on those that are presenting their work and what they look to get out of it. There are only a select group on here that actually care. Even when I read harsh comments you can feel the respect for their craft or passionate hobby.


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## skieur (Aug 14, 2012)

Derrel said:


> The statement, "_a good image will stand on its own,"_.



Yes, and the reverse of that is "a poor image needs a context."

I agree completely.

skieur


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## unpopular (Aug 14, 2012)

**** you, skieur, and the modern horse you rode in on!

seriously though, I completely disagree with this statement.


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## skieur (Aug 14, 2012)

A typical "amateur" response.   My horse may not be modern but it is much more "professional" and more "experienced" by decades than yours.
Seriously your view would not be taken seriously by any of the photographers that I work with or associate with.

skieur


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## bratkinson (Aug 15, 2012)

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". 

We've all heard this at least a million times. What constitutes a good picture to me likely isn't a good picture from your perspective. Hey, different strokes for different folks.

In terms of context of a picture, in my estimation, pictures have any of a number of "purposes" in my book. Recording a memory, such as a wedding, or a vacation to Timbuktu, or whatever. Some of these can be shot with a very 'sentimental' mood...lighting for example, or the bride looking at a picture of her deceased grandmother, etc. 

Some images are there to record posterity...photojournalism, if you will. Think of the Berlin Wall toppling, or the final "farewell wave" of departing president Richard M Nixon.

Other types of images are to provoke us, either favorably or unfavorably. How many of us remember like it was last week seeing little John-John Kennedy saluting his fathers casket as it went down the street? Or the soldiers putting the US flag atop Mt Suribachi? Or the firemen putting the flag atop the ruins of the World Trade Center? Those are once in a career photographs of one in a million photographers. 

And then there are context situations that I am intentionally trying to 'relay' or 'capture' in the photo that others clearly see it. One of my favorite shots is one I took in downtown Chicago on a summer day last year with a crowd of 30 or so pedestrians waiting for the WALK light with 4 or 5 big, orange Interstate highway DETOUR signs on a pole to their immediate right. There was also zero traffic on either street at the intersection. The contrasting colors and contrasting 'statement' of the picture still strike me. Do I like it? Yes. Do you? I really don't care. As mentioned above by others...what I like is what I like. What you like is what you like. There may be concurrence, but certainly not on everything.


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## amolitor (Aug 15, 2012)

The argument that not everyone likes everything, so who cares if you don't like my work is a bit of a cop-out.

Work that you do for yourself, great, love it, enjoy it. I don't have any interest in taking that away from anyone. If I don't like a piece of your work, who cares? I'm just one guy.

If nobody likes a piece, or has any sort of interesting reaction to it, then it's simply not very good. You are welcome to love it, there's nothing wrong with that. Perhaps it evokes a cherished memory for you, maybe you love it because you made it. That's all fine. It's still not very "good".


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## manaheim (Aug 15, 2012)

amolitor said:
			
		

> I think I feel like it's worth parsing this a little further, having re-read the OP.
> 
> There's levels or degrees of context. It would be absurd to suppose that an alien being, with no exposure to human culture whatsoever, would "get" the greatest of our photographs, or indeed any of our art. So, there is at least the shared context that every human shares with every other human required. Beyond that there's degrees of literacy, which might reasonably be required to "get" a lot of art -- you have to have experienced some art somewhere, maybe read some books. Maybe you really need to be steeped in western european culture and its offshoots to get some thing. A "Christ Figure" to select the favorite symbol of all high school english teachers, is likely to be almost meaningless to some people walking this earth.
> 
> ...



Someone mark a calendar.  I agree with every word here.

I was going to respond to this (awesome!) thread with some words of my own, but amoliter has literally said everything I wanted to say.


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## pgriz (Aug 15, 2012)

I started the thread because in a number of discussions of images, the context of the image changed perceptions of what that (or those) image(s) were about.  As many posters noted, a good image "should" stand on its own.  And for many images (landscape, macro, portraiture, wildlife, abstract) which deal with primarily the visual aspects, that is generally sufficient.  But when it comes to images of situations or people, the context often provides a fuller picture of what is going on.  Images of events, groups, and some street photography, usually benefit from us knowing the background (context) to the images.  Does it diminish the image if we don't know the context?  Not necessarily - but it helps to interpret what we are seeing.

Amolitor very perceptively links our understanding of images to the cultural milieu within which we are immersed, and of which we are for the most part unaware.  Part of our cultural baggage is reliance on symbols as shortcuts to more complex ideas.  But this reliance is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways - it allows quick processing of ideas and meaning, and it also obscures the meaning behind the symbols.  Propaganda relies on the power of symbols to arouse emotion and prevent examination of the underlying premises.  Marketing imagery taps deeply into the cultural symbology to push the buttons that influence our behaviour.  Same goes for political imagery.  Knowing the context to the images serves as a reality check on what we are seeing - do we trust the view that the photographer (or imagemaker) is trying to get us to accept? 

Posters also discussed the characteristics that affect our perception of the "goodness" of an image.  Knowing that an image was taken by a famous photographer, for instance, tends to skew the perception due to our reverence for authority figures (not always, and not for everyone, but it is there).  Knowing the subjects also affects our feelings of the image since we transfer the feelings we have towards the subject(s) to the image (also known as mommy/daddy goggles).  Incorporation of certain symbols has the effect of transferring the person's perception of those symbols to the image (as in images of flags, religious icons, symbols such as swastikas, certain brand names, etc.).  Post-processing the images also has the effect of creating a different reality - which may be perfectly fine if the end result is essentially decorative, but may be very damaging if it distorts our perception of reality (think of doctored political images).

I do agree that a great image should be able to stand on its own.  But there is often more to it than the image itself, and knowing the context allows us to verify if we (should) trust what we are seeing and what we are feeling.


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## 2WheelPhoto (Aug 15, 2012)

Derrel said:


> The statement, "_a good image will stand on its own," _is one of the most often-repeated half-truths in photography. And I say that NOT to be controversial, and NOT out of malice, but simply because it is a HALF-truth. *The statement is almost a cliche,* and it ignores a HUGE aspect of human behavior, and fails to address the entire issue of HOW "images" are actually presented, and how they are actually consumed.



I saw it on several "suchandsuchphotography" FB blogs, so it just has to be "full-truth"!?


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## amolitor (Aug 15, 2012)

Great points, pgriz.

I tend to view photography as "art" and "not art" but I've been mulling over the fact that there's many purposes to a photograph.

A news photograph might be art as well (see Magnum) but its original intent is to illustrate a story. If it has meaning divorced from its content, that's probably just a happy accident, the entire raison d'etre of the image is to talk about its immediate context, all the stuff that's just outside the frame literally and figuratively. Fashion is arguably a bit like art in that it is usually trying for a pretty abstract evocation, but what it's evoking is something very specific, sales-oriented, and not generally "enlarging of one's humanity" or whatever it is we want art to do. Again, it could be art, but that would be a happy accident. And so on.

I need to mull these things over a bit, hopefully without vanishing down some rabbit hole of classifying photographs into 12987987 overlapping types.


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## pgriz (Aug 15, 2012)

This discussion also intersects with a long-standing arguement in the arts community about whether to link the motives of the art-maker (painter, musician, choreographer, film-maker, etc.) to the art.  Should the art piece be seen in isolation (as we argue that a great image should be seen), or should it be seen as a thread in the fabric of creation of the artist?  Suppose, for instance, that you hear a piece of music, and you feel it is absolutely sublime and evokes tears of emotion in you.  Then you find out that the music was composed by a mass murderer.  Do you dissociate the creator from the creation?  Some argue that the created piece now has its own existence, and should not be tainted by the notoriety of its creator.  What if the inspiration for the music came from the dying screams of the murderer's victims?  How do you react to the piece knowing that background?

This speaks to the reality that the world is much more messy and complicated than we would like it to be, and that moral and ethical judgements often mix with the esthetic ones.  This also intersects with the commercial interests - how much importance do we place on the motives behind the creation of a beautiful art piece?  If the art piece was created by a starving artist in some unheated loft, compared to one created to the pampered daughter of a billionaire, would knowing the source help or hinder our appreciation of the works?  What if it was commissioned by an company infamous for committing acts of great environmental damage, trying to whitewash their reputation with the artistic community?  Knowing about the genesis of the art piece (ie, the context within which it was created) seems as important to me as seeing the end result.


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## amolitor (Aug 15, 2012)

Conceptual art, and similar theories that place the artist (process, intent, etc) more front and center are not things that appeal to me.

I get that important work has been done in these ways, frequently political or social commentary. I agree that it's.. a "thing".. and it might even be art. It's certainly not all of art, it's not art that I particularly like, and I find that these ideas lead to logical conclusions that I dislike. Sometimes the commentary that the piece makes is powerful and important. Sometimes desperately important. There are sticky question that arise quite quickly, though:

What happens when we lose the provenance of a piece? Does it lose it's art-ness? If I am illiterate, or visually impaired and cannot read the text next to the elephant dung nailed to the wall that tells me about the artist's intent, is the piece not "art" for me, but it is "art" for the sighted? These, and a million related questions boil up quickly, and I don't like my answers to most of them. The result seems to me pretty intellectually unpalatable.

Obviously there are people who are perfectly ok with it -- not everyone who loves Conceptual Art is a moron, surely many of them have asked themselves some of these questions (which are not subtle, at least some of the questions that arise are perfectly obvious). These people are evidently OK with the answers. Who am I to fault them?


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## rexbobcat (Aug 15, 2012)

I think intent matters. There's no way of reading an artist's mind to tell if they're BSing or not, but...If I painted two circles and a square on a canvas just for the sake of painting two circles and a square in a gallery, and a bunch of critics show up and say "it clearly shows the struggles of the middle-class during this economic recession", I know that that is just BS, but if I say "oh yeah, that's totally what I was going for" then who's going to question it without looking like an ass?

It's almost like a fluke or a bluff that is almost impossible to call somebody on. 

I'd like to believe that intent is a large part of art, but it's impossibly difficult to empirically prove an artist's intent, so....I don't know...


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## pgriz (Aug 15, 2012)

If you read the bafflegab that passes for much literary writing in artist magasines, you find yourself in a strange world of obscure references and inside jokes and a vocabulary of incomprehensible turgity, and this is all supposed to enlighten the readers in the method or style of the artist being fawned over.  What it does do is create an intellectual fog which softens the edges of artistic incompetence and hides the hollowness of vision. Bah.  Conceptual Art requires the viewer to be in on the joke, to understand the concept, and to apply a serious amount of suspension of judgement.  It's not my cuppa tea, and periodic exposures to it have not illuminated my ignorance as much as they left me convinced that it is (relatively) easy to sell almost anything if you have the right angle.  Of course, that attitude has earned me the reputation of a trologditian luddite.  Pftt.  I say the emperor has no clothes.


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## amolitor (Aug 15, 2012)

Here's an example of something that I think counts as conceptual art, and which I thought was a pretty powerful something-or-other:

In our local museum, The Chrysler Museum of Norfolk, VA, we have an exhibit by black artists. Obviously there's a lot of stuff about race, and so on. I like some of it, I don't like some of it. One of the pieces was the carpet from the artist's grandmother's living room (or some other relative, or some other room -- it doesn't matter) literally just ripped out of the apartment and hung on the wall.

It was stained and beat up and old and kind of nasty. Just a hunk of carpet, like any other cheap used-up carpet. As a piece trying to stand on its own, a complete and abject failure - less than nothing. Literally garbage.

As a piece inside a concept, with the narrative of "my grandmother's living room" it's quite powerful and evocative. You look at it, even for a moment, and you instantly feel connected in an abstract way to a long life lived, to a degree of poverty, to history and story. None of it really expressible in words. It didn't work for everyone, my wife absolutely could not get past the "but it's a carpet. nailed to the wall." but it worked pretty well for me.

I guess I have to say that it's art, since it was moving and powerful. But the carpet's not the art, it's the carpet and the narrative and the context, all tied together, and it probably doesn't make sense AT ALL outside of the specific narrative of race in the USA in the 20th and 21st centuries. It's not very durable art, and where the edges of the "piece" are is really a pain in the ass to get a handle on. It's not visually appealing AT ALL, I outright disliked looking at it. The fact that it is moving and powerful raises all kinds of ugly questions (as I suggested above). But, damn it, it moves me, I can't deny it.


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## Derrel (Aug 15, 2012)

Dirty carpet as art? zOMG---I am surrounded by fantastic artwork!!!!!! I feel so fortunate!


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## pgriz (Aug 15, 2012)

Derrel said:


> Dirty carpet as art? zOMG---I am surrounded by fantastic artwork!!!!!! I feel so fortunate!



My wife would say you need to use your vacuum cleaner more.

But in the example brought to us by Amolitor, the rug is just one element in the narrative, and the narrative provides the context within which we can attach meaning to that element.  Without that context, it's just a dirty rug.  With that context, it provides a tangible link to a long life lived under hard conditions.  To me, that's not "Conceptual" art, but an exhibit with good story-telling.


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## unpopular (Aug 15, 2012)

skieur said:


> A typical "amateur" response.   My horse may not be modern but it is much more "professional" and more "experienced" by decades than yours.
> Seriously your view would not be taken seriously by any of the photographers that I work with or associate with.




OH NO. NOT THAT!!! Not being taken seriously by skieur and his protog buddies!

You're absolutely right, contemporary art is a complete farce, and those guys at MoMA are just imbeciles by comparison to your infinitely shallow wisdom on the topic - they should all just throw away the the photographs by Woodman, Nakadate and Rafert and hang senior portraits instead!!!!

Please, oh please do forgive me skiuer. I want nothing more than to be taken seriously by "the pros"! I'll erase my entire fine art education in exchange! Just don't banish me to being the dreaded "amateur"!!!!!

That is. Unless I sell a print. Then I'll be in the "pro club" ... maybe I'll just continue down that path.


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## unpopular (Aug 15, 2012)

pgriz said:


> Derrel said:
> 
> 
> > Dirty carpet as art? zOMG---I am surrounded by fantastic artwork!!!!!! I feel so fortunate!
> ...



I hear that Jeff Koons has a couple for sale.


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## amolitor (Aug 15, 2012)

unpopular said:


> skieur said:
> 
> 
> > A typical "amateur" response.   My horse may not be modern but it is much more "professional" and more "experienced" by decades than yours.
> ...



To be honest, I could not even work out what skieur's original remark meant. This twitter aesthetic of keepiing remarks under 140 characters is completely beyond me.


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## unpopular (Aug 15, 2012)

But he's a pro!


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## unpopular (Aug 15, 2012)

rexbobcat said:


> I think intent matters. There's no way of reading an artist's mind to tell if they're BSing or not, but...If I painted two circles and a square on a canvas just for the sake of painting two circles and a square in a gallery, and a bunch of critics show up and say "it clearly shows the struggles of the middle-class during this economic recession"



I used to really agree with this, but now I am not sure. Does your intent change how the image is interpreted? What right we have to tell others how to experience the world, including the art which we put out there? If a critic says that your painting is about "the struggle of the middle class", you can (and should) say, that is not what I had in mind - but it nonetheless cannot change what the critic _had_ seen when he or she experienced the piece.

We have this sense that art is about the artist, and I think that this is a very selfish position to hold, and self righteous to insist upon. People see art for what it is, sensory input which is interpreted by our memories and experiences.

At the time I did not really appreciate my poor grade, but in one art theory class I took the professor told us that an art critic should relate what he or she sees in a piece of art - and nothing else. If the artist had made a statement, then this too is context that can be taken into account, however, in most cases we are left only with the information contained within the image, so kind of making judgements about what the artist had intended is pretty insignificant; we don't need the artist to appreciate, interpret, experience, or value the art which he or she created.

That said, one critic does not establish true value. If nobody else sees the metaphor in the geometric study which which hypothetical Rex painted, then the critique has no value, and if the critic is only acknowledged due to his or her authority, then that value is as mislead as Skieur's "but i'm a pro" assertion!

(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Criticism)
^^ though I realize that new criticism does conflict with my views on context - but that's a whole different post entirely.


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## pgriz (Aug 15, 2012)

> Does your intent change how the image is interpreted?



It doesn't, but if the artist says "this is what I was seeing, and this is how I interprete that", then that information may color the viewer's view.



> What right we have to tell others how to experience the world, including the art which we put out there?



It's not the "right" but sharing a point of view.  Since I don't inhabit other people's minds, seeing something from a different point of view compared to mine is interesting to me.  I may not be able to fully "get" what the other person is seeing/feeling/thinking, but it's a worthwhile effort to try.  Which is not to say that if someone tells me "this is the only way to look at this", that I would close my mind to other possibilities.



> We have this sense that art is about the artist, and I think that this is a very selfish position to hold, and self righteous to insist upon. People see art for what it is, sensory input which is interpreted by our memories and experiences.



Would have to disagree with you...  I see art as something tangible that an artist produces which may reveal the artist's vision, influenced strongly by the artist's imagination, technical skill and willingness to share.  Without context, you are left only with the artifact, to which you can react in any way that strikes you.  With context, it becomes part of a larger body of work which can reveal movement or evolution of ideas and techniques.  

As for being branded an "amateur"...  well, there are worse insults.  I am quite happy to be branded an "amateur", someone who enjoys the activity I engage in, and find worth trying to get better at.  After all, the root of the word is "aimer", French for love, with the sense of an amateur being someone who does something for the love of it.  In my photo club of about 150 people, the "pros" hold the serious amateurs in very high regard.


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## unpopular (Aug 15, 2012)

pgriz said:


> As for being branded an "amateur"...  well, there are worse insults.



I'm only insulted because of the context it was in. I have no issue by being an "amateur", I do have a problem my views being attacked for no other reason than not being a "professional".


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## manaheim (Aug 15, 2012)

Can I try?

Let's assume for a moment that context assumes the human condition as a given and aliens are not looking at our works.

Some art needs context, some doesn't.  A dirty carpet hung on the wall without context would likely be regarded as just some bizarre attempt to cover a hole.  Understanding it was placed there to communicate more makes some of us think further and gives it meaning.  "Whistlers Mother" requires no context.  "The Scream" requires no context.

Some art is enhanced by context, some is not.  "The Scream" becomes more interesting as we learn more about Van Gogh and his struggles.  My picture of the skyline of Boston is no more interesting if you know about me or the day I took it.  (forgive me lumping my work in with Van Gogh- I have no convenient master examples at hand)

Some art "means something", some art doesn't.  My English teacher in high school insisted that every single written work had intended meaning, even though I dug up several articles where an author said "oh god no, I didnt hide some meaning in it, I just thought it was a cool story.". Heck all but one of my images are nothing more than "I thought this would look cool.". (again, forgive my impertinence)

Art is necessarily interpreted by all who see it.  They come to their own conclusions, regardless of intent, or lack thereof.  Intent communicated will naturally affect that interpretation, but the interpretation was still first the viewer's own.

A powerful image will have a powerful effect if it strikes a chord with the viewer, regardless of intent, and regardless of whether the viewer got any message that the artist intended.  

An image that has to be explained is weaker than one that does not. 

An artist that consistently gets across his intent is a more communicative artist than one who does not.  An artist who chooses to agree or disagree with an interpretation of his work is making a huge mistake.

The intent may be there.  It may not.  The viewer may see it.  They may not.  It may be accurately communicated.  It may not. 

In the end the only thing that matters is the impact it has on the viewer.


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## unpopular (Aug 15, 2012)

manaheim said:


> Some art is enhanced by context, some is not.  "The Scream" becomes more interesting as we learn more about Van Gogh and his struggles.



But what were Edvard Munch's demons?


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## skieur (Aug 19, 2012)

amolitor said:


> unpopular said:
> 
> 
> > skieur said:
> ...



Well, keeping it simple, the photographer is "supposed" to use his skills in the technology and the art/composition understanding to communicate "something" (emotion, humour, understanding, point of view, personality, etc.) to the viewer through the photo.  If he/she has been successful then NO CONTEXT is necessary. Everyone sees the "meaning" or whatever of the photo.  Explanation is only necessary if the photographer has screwed up and failed.

skieur


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## unpopular (Aug 19, 2012)

*art is not about communication*


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## skieur (Aug 19, 2012)

unpopular said:


> *art is not about communication*



Well, you can believe what you want, BUT among other things, I write the art curriculum that is taught in the school systems and my view is accepted by the art and photographic associations that I associate with, and gather input from on a North American level.

skieur


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## unpopular (Aug 19, 2012)

So you write some art curriculum for the Dog River high school and your local camera club pats you on the back.

Come on Skieur. Give me a break. Your position is about 60 years stale.


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## Fred Berg (Aug 20, 2012)

unpopular said:


> *art is not about communication*



If this is true, why does this forum exist? Your own participation in this discussion would seem a little contradictory if you really hold this view.

_Of his picture, the one that stood now on his easel, he had at the bottom of his heart one conviction--that no one had ever painted a picture like it. He did not believe that his picture was better than all the pictures of Raphael, but he knew that what he tried to convey in that picture, no one ever had conveyed. This he knew positively, and had known a long while, ever since he had begun to paint it. But other people's criticisms, whatever they might be, had yet immense consequence in his eyes, and they agitated him to the depths of his soul. Any remark, the most insignificant, that showed that the critic saw even the tiniest part of what he saw in the picture, agitated him to the depths of his soul. He always attributed to his critics a more profound comprehension than he had himself, and always expected from them something he did not himself see in the picture. And often in their criticisms he fancied that he had found this. 
_
This passage about the artist Mihailov taken from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina supports the idea that art is indeed about communication and that the opinions of those receiving the work do matter to those who create it. This passage more or less sums up TPF and the reason for joining and taking part.


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## baturn (Aug 20, 2012)

OK! I read to the middle of the second page, and now must decide whether to sleep and tackle all this profundity in the morning, or have another rum and press on. ------------------Rum won!


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## baturn (Aug 20, 2012)

oh yeah! And when did this become a pissing contest between unpopular (a very revealing handle) and skieur?


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## pgriz (Aug 20, 2012)

Started around post 20, I think. Skieur is arguing that an image should be self-contained, whereas unpopular argues that the image must be experienced to be understood, and external knowledge is essential to this understanding. Whatever the merits of Skieur's professional knowledge and experience, Skieur has not presented in this thread his arguements why context is irrelevant. Skieur's statement:


> Well, keeping it simple, the photographer is "supposed" to use his skills in the technology and the art/composition understanding to communicate "something" (emotion, humour, understanding, point of view, personality, etc.) to the viewer through the photo. If he/she has been successful then NO CONTEXT is necessary. Everyone sees the "meaning" or whatever of the photo. Explanation is only necessary if the photographer has screwed up and failed.


is an assertion that perceiving the visual content is sufficient in itself to determine the meaning or the communication of the image.

On one level, that is certainly true, and a well-crafted image SHOULD convey enough clues to the viewer to allow them to understand the image. However, the discussion of context goes beyond the individual item (whether it is an image, or a piece of music, or a choreographed performance) to a larger discussion of the environment in which the item was created. The state of mind of the creator of the item, the environment in which the creator lived, the influences of society, and the expression through other items by the artist, all influence what ends up in a particular piece. 

To Skieur: I take it as a given that an image should be well crafted. I disagree with you that explanation is never necessary. If a piece was created under the influence of an ideology (not necessarily political), this bias may not be apparent to the viewer, and in fact the creator may work hard to hide that bias, then the viewer will be responding to an image which is on one level false. The image may succeed brilliantly, but the meaning the viewer would associate with the image would be different if they knew the context behind the image creation. Well-executed political/propaganda imagery succeeds by presenting a particular view which biases the viewer who doesn't ask the followup questions. I am sure you know of examples where the choice of crop on an image changed the perceived meaning of the image.

Edit:  Perhaps you are referring to captions, which supply additional information, or explain what we are seeing in an image.  Certainly, if captions are necessary to give us a clue as to what's going on, the image is not a strong image.  However...  providing context goes beyond what may be identified in a caption.  The image may give us a snapshot of a particular event, but does not tell us what happened before that may have led to the event, or to the relationship of the people involved in the event.  The framing of the image often hides as much as it reveals.  What is hidden, why is it hidden, and why this framing and perspective, are things we should be asking when seeking to understand what an image (of an event) is showing us.


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## unpopular (Aug 20, 2012)

baturn said:


> oh yeah! And when did this become a pissing contest between unpopular (a very revealing handle) and skieur?



It seems every time skieur has an argument, he backs it up with some sort of vague way to shine himself as an expert in whatever we're talking about. For starters, I hate fallacy, and have zero tolerance for it.

---

I'm not alone in my views, mind you. Nor is Kolchalka. In particular Russian-American philosopher Blücher argues that communication is specific to place and time, while art is timeless, can change meaning and by these virtues makes it timeless - not because it has one specific meaning between one party and another (communication) but because it has many (art).

If art were communicative, then art would be successful only within the group of people who have the experiences and knowledge to decode it. Art is not some kind of codex, it is an experience or object of itself. When you look around you, you _experience_ the world you're in, art is no different. Objects in the world around us do not "communicate" with us, they exist and we experience them. Successful art is not something everyone decodes a unison meaning of precisely what the artist had intended, but rather one that everyone understands and is able to experience.

In fact, if art were exclusively communicative, then all we'd need to do is reduce art to a codex of signs and symbols which could be interpreted with absolute certainty - and in fact we have this in the form of cliche. Is every photo of a sunset then the greatest artwork? We know what it is and what it represents with certainty, and there is no disagreement about the artist's intention.

I do not believe that art is a cheap facsimile of reality, it's not simply some record of what was at one time experienced, but rather an experience unto itself to be interpreted within the context of the audience's own world view.


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## rexbobcat (Aug 20, 2012)

I can see how art isn't about communication.

The best communication comes from conciseness with little room for interpretation. However, art is all about interpretation. I don't mean interpretation on the artist's part, because that happens with communication as well. I mean interpretation from the viewer. If a listener has as much room to interpret a message as a viewer of art does, then the communicator and message must be pretty ineffective/bad. So...I guess that means art is ineffective/bad at communicating? lol

I'm sure that there are exceptions and such that I haven't accounted for, but come on. Since when does anyone enjoy trying to interpret a vague or misleading message.


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## manaheim (Aug 20, 2012)

Aren't we being a little pedantic?

Art isn't, perhaps, communication... but art can and does communicate from time to time.

To some, art is a method of communicating.

To some, communication is received from art.

etc.


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## amolitor (Aug 20, 2012)

skieur said:


> If he/she has been successful then NO CONTEXT is necessary. Everyone sees the "meaning" or whatever of the photo.  Explanation is only necessary if the photographer has screwed up and failed.
> 
> skieur



Taken to the logical extreme, this is manifestly false. If "everyone" includes hypothetical aliens that "talk" with radio waves, that "see" with sound waves, and reproduce by fission, and live on the surface of a star, then you're going to have some trouble even communicating the idea of a photograph to them. If "everyone" includes illiterate members of nomadic tribes in the Sahara and profoundly autistic men in Chicago, you've still got quite a row to hoe.

If by "everyone" you mean "middle class moderately well educated white dudes like me from the USA" then your definition of everyone is pretty narrow.

Photographs are meaningless without some degree of shared culture. It is facile and glib to claim that a photograph should be comprehensible with no context at all, and such a statement suggests that you haven't thought it through to any great extent.

It's really, I am convinced, about the degree of shared culture, of context, that is necessary to render an image accessible.

- Andrew


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## Derrel (Aug 20, 2012)

EVERYTHING WE ENCOUNTER is encountered within **some type** of context. NOTHING that we see, hear, read, touch, or feel, exists in a vacuum. How about the next question we debate is another good one, like, oh, let's just say we debate the question, "Is oxygen needed for humans to live?"


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