Digital BW, The Print

The current fad of ginormous prints at many NYC galleries has been a major peeve of 
mine. In fact, when I went to Gagosian to see Alec Soth's "Niagra" I was so put off by the 
scale I couldn't look for long, and so I felt I had potentially missed "seeing" them. Once I 
saw these same prints in his book I felt an impact completely missing (for me) from the 
show.

Jeff Wall was a different story, however, but I think he is one of the few who consciously 
uses scale for critical purpose (like his work or not). I enjoyed them much more at the 
exhibit than in books. The downside to his work is that the possibility for private 
collection is minimal both due to their scale....and the price. Ouch.

I just think there should be an integral reason for monster prints, other than what's 
fashionable in the marketplace. Maybe I'm just missing a point not accessible to my 
sensibilities.

I'm very fortunate to be friends with Paul Caponigro, who lives in my neck of the country. I 
was gifted one day at his studio with an opportunity to go through a large portfolio of his 
older work. Holding these prints in my hands created a private space for me to truly see 
them, contemplate them at my liesure and viscerally absorb them. It was an increibly 
moving experience. I absolutely could not imagine that it would have felt so personal, had 
the prints been larger - perhaps requiring me to look at them on a table or on the wall -  
and that afternoon helped me make some decisions about the scale of my own work.

 And Clayton...some of what e have discussed regarding size has also given me food for 
thought....thank you.

It's a personal decision, and I guess large scale just gives me more to think about in terms 
of the artist's intention, which isn't a bad thing at all. But I really believe that covering a 
wall won't make up for that "something" that can't be faked by an initial impact due soley 
to scale.

Tyler...I wish I could make it out to your show to see your photographs "in the flesh". I got 
so much from your feature in LensWork! I did go to the link and saw the other two 
photogrphers work....nice contrasts there. Congratulations!

Sarah





--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, jerry rushing <elvis24105@...> 
wrote:
>
> bravo 
> 
> Clayton Jones <cj@...> wrote:          Tyler,
> 
> >...I'm pretty tired of all this huge stuff, the photographic
> >integrity of the image is often lost, they lose presence and
> >substance. 
> 
> Yes! Glad to hear you say that. My epiphany came about 15 years ago
> at an AA exhibit where everything was 16x20 or larger. I became aware
> of a sense of unease while viewing them and it finally hit me that I
> enjoyed his pics more in a good book on my lap. That was the
> beginning of my scaling down and experimenting with smaller sizes. My
> favorite now is a 6x8 image on letter size paper. Held in the hands,
> it's the same FOV as viewing a 16x20 from about 4 feet. 
> 
> >Many are printing big simply because they can...
> 
> Or are pressured into it by gallery owners and/or buyers. 
> 
> >But many of my favorite things by others are quite small. 
> >Caponigro's latest stuff is amazing...little still lives.
> >I was told Nick's are around 8" square. 
> 
> I'm glad to hear that. It definitely goes against the mainstream. Do
> you have to be famous before people will accept small prints? 
> 
> Actually, I think that people who really understand and love
> photography don't care about print size. Loving photography as an art
> form doesn't have anything to do with filling space over the sofa. 
> For example, I don't recall Szarkowski ever complain about print size
> in any of his books. I've seen people gush over giant prints as
> "magnificent" that were IMO terrible photos.
> 
> Regards,
> Clayton
> 
> Info on black and white digital printing at 
> http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
> 
> 
> 
>          
> 
>        
> ---------------------------------
> Luggage? GPS? Comic books? 
> Check out fitting  gifts for grads at Yahoo! Search.
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>