Just because a photograph looks real, do you actually know the truth behind it?
The article that I have looked at is all about how people view and see the work differently but respectably once it has been edited and manipulated and changed of the truth. Andreas Gursky’s work ‘Stockholder Meeting’ shows exactly this, he was exhibiting his art work at the Museum of Modern Art in spring 2001; there was a mixture of feelings and views towards his work which left the viewers puzzled and a little confused at why the work was the way it was. Even thought the work was up and been displayed, the general word around the gallery was that the image that was up was ‘weird’.
His work was seen as a ‘montage with flat footed minimalist pretence’ his work with the digital and technological world, became to some extent, art, but an uninteresting result. Traditional techniques and ways were seen as magic and gave somewhat an interesting and appealing piece of art work. Michael Fried explained that ‘stockholder meeting’ was dismissed from his 2008 book on contemporary photography as “one of the few outright failures in Gurskys retrospective exhibition.”
The work was withdrawn and when a Google image search is done there aren’t any results or records of his work. The work was seen as stepping outside of photography into photomontage and breaking the boundaries of it, but it is a different and alternative way of viewing and thinking about an image.
The photograph came straight from the photo lab to the museum in 2001; it landed within this historical blind spot, where it raised suspicion of the digital aspect of photography, where high quality printing was still new to the general public. The edited parts of the work can be seen mainly around the heads of the people in the image and shows the work of Photoshop. Obvious manipulation to the image had happened and this could be seen, so this then made the viewers question whether the other artwork had been ‘Photo-shopped’ as well. Some of the images had been highly composited but others hadn’t. The viewers of the artwork left the museum feeling uncertain about the amount and use of the technology that had been used (implications of the work).
Personally I think they had the right to question the work and wonder why it had to be edited and changed so much. In this case the viewers did know the truth behind this piece of artwork as it could be seen clearly because of the level of technique used to manipulate it. But in other cases, photographs cannot always be as truthful as they may make out, simply because of how high the digital technology is and the level of which people can now change and manipulate an image. It is becoming a challenge for people to work out that an image isn’t the truth but on the other hand every time we see a photograph we are questioning whether it has been manipulated and edited of the truth.
Certain Artists and photographers stay away from the digital technology and changing images and stick to more traditional ways of exhibiting and getting a natural look of an image. Now that we have all this new technology and ways to change how an image once looked and completed twist it of the truth, photographers are wanting to go back to analogue and the original/traditional way of photographing.
Digital composites and manipulated images have changed the way the world views and judges’ images and this will not change, no matter how many photographers start using analogue and traditional techniques again. Film photography acts as a reassurance that not all photography is digitally enhance, even though film has always been editable, it has changed the way we view life. “This reassurance is highly attractive, but almost certainly false.”
Reference: -
Author: Lord, Benjamin
Afterimage; July/August 2010, Vol. 38 Issue 1, p5-8, 4p
Feature Article
Accessed: - 01.03.2012
Edward Leffingwell wrote a comment in the Art of America about the whole point of the work was so you kept visiting the gallery on several occasions so that the “viewers stopped to figure out this work”. Some people saw his work as not a realistic view and exhibit because of the amount of technology that had helped him create the cut and paste piece of work.
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