Contemporary art photography and the discourse that surrounds it takes its values and key phrases both from Conceptual Art of the 1960s and 1970s and Postmodernism of the 1980s (Bull, 2010).
Key features of contemporary art photography according to Soutter (2018), include an evasiveness in its interpolation but openness in its ethics, a reliance on external narratives and stories around the photographers personality and career, as well as the desire for ambiguity. In other words, favourable works are those which are somewhat ‘illogical, uncertain and riddled with elements of contradiction, fiction and fantasy’ (Soutter, 2018: 34).
But in order to understand these values we need to go back and look at the earlier art movements outlined above.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a conceptual shift in art and art photography which saw ‘phrases such as ‘investigate’, ‘explore’ and ‘question’ become a central part of art discourse’ (Bull, 2010: 137). This attitude concerned not only the reflection ‘on the medium itself’ but it also sought to raise issues which related to the social world, beyond art (ibid).
Decades later, the discourse that art can or should be ‘’seeking’ to ‘investigate’, ‘explore’, ‘question’, ‘challenge’ and/or ‘interrogate their subject and their medium’ is a core element of contemporary art photography (Bull, 2010: 144). Furthermore, Soutter (2018) argues that ‘contemporary art’s reliance on external narratives’ also stems from the values propagated by the Conceptual Art movement/era (26).
This is also what I aimed for within my own practice. Using art as a research method, contrary to notions of ‘art for arts sake’, my project follows a conceptual approach, basing its aim on an external narrative concerning the issue of environmental breakdown and the emotional toll this takes on humans, i.e. ‘Eco-Anxiety’.
Thus we can see that there was a shift from art as ‘expression’ towards art as ‘research’ (Bull, 2010: 144). This ‘anti-expressive conceptual art’ paved the way for ‘a more narrative kind of art’ something which we can observe in todays’ art photography (Soutter, 2018: 26). Likewise, the Conceptual Art movement also emphasised art which was ‘based in part on the activities and personality of the artists’ (ibid).
This, as well, is one of the features of contemporary art photography, as oftentimes there seems to be the need for an explanation as to why the artist created their work (Soutter, 2018). Consequently, contemporary art photographers have begun to embrace this “biographical, anecdotal” aspect of their practice (Soutter, 2018: 27).
Similarly, my specific circumstances, such as being an Environment Communication student as well my personal interests in and engagement with topics around Environmentalism provides context for my photographic work.
Another remark made by Bull (2010) surrounds the use of the word ‘beauty’ within the art context. While critical analysis of art during the 1980s and 1990s understood ‘beauty’ as ‘almost politically incorrect’ in describing and analysing art, the term has made a comeback, influenced by fashion photography and the tableaux (Bull, 2010:144). As such, ‘aesthetically pleasing composition and lighting have returned as almost subversive elements in the context of contemporary photographic art’ (ibid).
In relation to my own project this means that I as well, sought to create images that carry a message about a wider social issue (that of ecological crisis and accompanying ‘eco-anxiety’) but doing this through an aesthetic approach. As I mentioned here, I was personally influenced by the visuals of fashion photography when I developed the idea for project.
Overall, Soutter (2018) believes that identifying the subject matter of a contemporary art photograph is oftentimes easy. However, she warns that by assuming that ‘what is shown is the most important feature’ or in other words focusing on a photograph’s literal depiction, one risks missing out ‘on a tremendous richness of ideas’ (Soutter, 2018:17). The meanings of photographs are signified in various ways and ‘with subject matter being only the most obvious’ (ibid).
In the context of my project this was a point I pondered over as well. I realised that what makes photographs striking is not a very accurate depiction of what you are trying to say, in my case using a melting ice block to resemble the melting glaciers, but photographs become powerful when their meaning is evoked in an elusive way. Soutter (2018) speaks of exactly that when she writes: ‘For after all, don’t we want photographs to be able to do more than just point us to things in the world that remind us of something we already know?’ (17).
References:
Bull, S. (2010) Photography. Oxon: Routledge.
Soutter, L. (2018) Why Art Photography? 2nd ed. Oxon: Routledge
