Photos that exploit

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I mean is there an ethical breach b/w the works of nan goldin, larry clarke, ryan mcginley.

has goldin become so artifical that all she is someone who trades in artifice ?
has clarke become a dirty old man who fictionalizes his exploitation in order to make it sort of acceptable.

how can i do those sort of photos, w/o risking realtionships or w/o ossofying aesthetics.

― anthony, Friday, 16 July 2004 15:39 (twenty-one years ago)

what sort of photos?

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 16 July 2004 16:21 (twenty-one years ago)

http://photos.friendster.com/photos/90/38/6718309/4889735518462l.jpg

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Saturday, 17 July 2004 02:24 (twenty-one years ago)

http://img16.photobucket.com/albums/v48/w1nt3rmut3/omg_nazis_luv_kittenz.jpg

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Saturday, 17 July 2004 04:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Many of McGinley's photos are setups, with the models acting out their parts, aren't they? (I'm thinking specifically of the naked hipster girl jumping up in front of a marker-graffitied wall, he set that up with a trampoline)

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Saturday, 17 July 2004 04:43 (twenty-one years ago)

has goldin become so artifical that all she is someone who trades in artifice ?

I haven't really followed her since the Ballad of Sexual Dependency.
What kind of stuff is she doing now?

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Saturday, 17 July 2004 05:39 (twenty-one years ago)

im even thinking of the ballad...

― anthony, Saturday, 17 July 2004 06:19 (twenty-one years ago)

ok, give me an example of an "artificial" photograph in TBOSD, because I never thought of it that way, but I'm interested in this POV.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Saturday, 17 July 2004 06:23 (twenty-one years ago)

its not the objects themselves, although i am sure i can find some...its how the objects are t aken. she is no longer anything but noan goldin photogtrapher and can only present herself thru the photographic lens.

how is that presentation any different then cindy sherman, arent they both playing for the camera ?

(another thot:she named it after a brecht/weil song, if that ist a sign for "i am now engaging in decadent theatrics", what is?)

look at this image:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0893813397.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
(its impt, its the cover of her book, its the only one that appears when you google the title, et. al)
there is an assumption of a clarity of vision, how honest she is by letting us watch this intimate moment, but it isnt intimate at all, it is a double refraction--we see him thru her, who is seen thru a camera lens)

or this image:
http://www.designautopsy.com/blowup/portfolios/e-h/Goldin/photographs/020.jpg
where her first instinct after her boyfriend beats the shit out of her is to take a photo--what are the political implications of that ?
(i have a couple, none to pleasent)

― anthony, Saturday, 17 July 2004 06:31 (twenty-one years ago)

where her first instinct after her boyfriend beats the shit out of her is to take a photo--what are the political implications of that ?

OK, I had a hunch you were going to bring this up. I always assumed that, as is common in a case of someone being assaulted, the photos were taken for legal purposes and maybe only later she included them in the work to make a statement about battered women or whatever. It's cynical to think that she took those thinking, "Ooooh here's my chance, this picture's gonna be brutal! I'll show him!" or whatever. Please tell me your ideas about what the photo implies politically. I have an idea of what one might be, but I don't want to jump to conclusions...

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Saturday, 17 July 2004 06:40 (twenty-one years ago)

its not a legal photo, its too well composed, too clean. i think that she views her victimhood as her trangressive ticket to fame and fortune in the art world, esp. as a woman and it has been.

― anthony, Saturday, 17 July 2004 06:45 (twenty-one years ago)

There's nothing that says you can't use good composition in a photo you're taking to document something for legal use.

― Layna Andersen (Layna Andersen), Saturday, 17 July 2004 06:49 (twenty-one years ago)

but paying such close attention to the lighting, the wardrobe, the framing, the compostion suggest at least an alterior meaning

(and if it is a ruse, it wouldnt have worked if she wasnt so fucking good--i take pictures every so often and i dont consider them art, but i frame and compose them in such a way/w. such care/w. such attention to detail that they do not document the vargaracies(sp) of everyday life, and i want them to do that...and my photos arent large cibrochromes.

even my poloroids, the object is made to correspond to exterior aesthetic goals (one of which being the immeidacy and importance of venacular objects...which is why i have a few pictures of plastic ducks and swans)

i think that the tension there is the last great elephant in photographys living room

― anthony, Saturday, 17 July 2004 06:52 (twenty-one years ago)

all right, I saw that one coming but like I said, I didn't want to put words in your mouth. I'm not going to deny that the idea of a woman who "views her victimhood as her trangressive ticket to fame and fortune" is a fiction, or some kind of misogynistic construct, because that does happen to the best of my knowledge. But let me ask you this: If Nan Goldin was a gay man who had taken that photo after being brutally fag-bashed(for lack of a better term), would you feel the same way about the photograph?

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Saturday, 17 July 2004 06:56 (twenty-one years ago)

wait that came out wrong. I meant to say I'm not going to assert that the idea of a woman who "views her victimhood as her trangressive ticket to fame and fortune" is a fiction, or some kind of misogynistic construct, because that does happen to the best of my knowledge.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Saturday, 17 July 2004 06:59 (twenty-one years ago)

not exactly the same, because intimate partner violence suggests a level of codepenecy that isnt there with ... (can i even make that arguement?)

weegee, is he art ? are his photos of corpses art ?

― anthony, Saturday, 17 July 2004 07:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know much about Nan Goldin's personal life....how do you know this was some codependent recurring type thing? Did she keep hanging around him after he did that to her? If we know she did for sure, that could change my opinion somewhat.

Fine then, a gay man beat to shit by his boyfriend. Same situation. Same question.
I'm only driving at this because of the "esp. as a woman" bit. Is this only shady if a woman does it? Is it shady at all? Does it matter the circumstances involved in the composition? Don't the ends justify the means in art? Or am I reading too many Warhol books to have a fair value judgement on "authenticity"? That's what I'm asking.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Saturday, 17 July 2004 07:28 (twenty-one years ago)

i know what you are driving at, i think i am metioning that she comes from a v. explicit femminist need to document womens lives, and i think that i would feel similar things in a queer context, cause there were similar reprucssions

― anthony, Saturday, 17 July 2004 07:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not trying to break your balls here anthony, it's just that TBOSD provoked a feeling of empathy in me more than anything else, regardless of any alleged artifice involved, and if it does that to me, for me, it is a successful work, period. But I see your points. I also think you may be paying to much attention to the man behind the curtain so to speak. Unless you know them personally, and even then, what guarantee do you have that any artist is authentic? Doesn't anyone have an alterior motive of some sort, whether it's a simple as just wanting to be famous, or wanting to push forward an ideology like feminism, the gay rights movement, racial equality? What's wrong with any of this?

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Saturday, 17 July 2004 07:57 (twenty-one years ago)

As to your original question as well, since I pulled something of a thread derail:
how can i do those sort of photos, w/o risking realtionships or w/o ossofying aesthetics.
my guess is the only way to do this sort of work is to not worry about those things.

I'm also wondering if someone can give me an example of an ethical artist esp. a photographer?

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Saturday, 17 July 2004 08:27 (twenty-one years ago)

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