Digital BW, The Print

We have a very large traveling show on post-modernism art at 
our local arts center here in Nashville. It's the Paine Webber 
show. Much of it is photography, and the key seems to be -- big 
is good. There are several of the Andreas Gursky prints in there 
-- C-Prints, that will surely fade in short order. Here's a link to the 
"99 cent store" image:

http://www.moma.org/gursky/

Most of the prints are measured in feet, rather that inches. My 
friend Wolf commented on one BW image from another 
photographer: "If that frame was on your contact sheet, you'd say 
to yourself, 'That's an OK image. But it'll probably end up as an 
outtake'". I agree wholeheartedly. But at six by nine feet, I guess 
it's better. 

The Crewdson photograph of the neighborhood car wreck was 
strong though, and since it was shot on 8x10 it held up nicely to 
the large blowup.

What really bugs me are those multi-paragraph "captions" that 
somebody else writes, that sit next to each image, that give 
"context" to the image. Who says these are needed? It's like 
when they play dramatic music at a key point in a movie; making 
you, forcing you, telling you how you should feel at that time. And 
there must be some minimum word-count for these captions, 
because they drone on and on, with multi-syllabic horseshit 
sentences.

We were advised by the security guard to stay at least "14 inches 
away" from these C-Prints. Why? Would the oil in our fingers 
leap out onto the print at 13 inches? Does spittle only travel 13 
inches?

I don't know -- this art world stuff is nuts. I think unless you live in 
Cambridge or within a 100 mile radius of NYC, it must be 
hopeless. It's almost like cell-phone range: once you get outside 
of that 100 mile NY radius, the art world language gets staticky 
and broken-up, and too hard to understand.

Mark Tucker, feeling like Andy Rooney

I always get the feeling that when "art" and "art photography" gets
discussed by certain groups of photographers and printers, it often seems to
be done so in a way that  shows a sense of being threatened by it. I've
never quite understood this.

Last Fall when I was in London I went to the Tate Modern - twice in fact,
because I was so blown away - there were gigantic Gursky prints, Struth's
photographs of people in museums placed ironically around the building.
There were also Picassos and paining and photowork by David Hockney  as wall
as work and many photographs by the Surrealists.

I loved it all - some works I liked much better than others. The experience
was exciting and stimulating.

Personally I love Gursky's 99c store shot - does anyone here have one that
does what that image does? have you taken the shot? printed it, shown it?
I've never seen a shot like that, printed like that. So do we just lack the
imagination or what? It epitomises consumerism, garish cheap kitsch and much
more. I wish I'd taken it. And most colour work thee days is C Prints
(hopefully Crystal Archive) - there ain't really any more dye transfer, and
I don't think anyone cares what it's printed on, especially those who view
the work - it's not about the material (well maybe the guy who paid $250,000
for it - but I'm sure for that price Gursky will re-print it if it fades -
after all I'm sure he still has the file....! That's the joy of digital
    )

tim a

> -----Original Message-----
> From: marktuckerdotcom [mailto:mark@...]
> Sent: February 23, 2002 12:48 PM
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Digital BW] AIPAD, C-Prints, Gursky
>
>
> We have a very large traveling show on post-modernism art at
> our local arts center here in Nashville. It's the Paine Webber
> show. Much of it is photography, and the key seems to be -- big
> is good. There are several of the Andreas Gursky prints in there
> -- C-Prints, that will surely fade in short order. Here's a link to the
> "99 cent store" image:
>
> http://www.moma.org/gursky/
>
> Most of the prints are measured in feet, rather that inches. My
> friend Wolf commented on one BW image from another
> photographer: "If that frame was on your contact sheet, you'd say
> to yourself, 'That's an OK image. But it'll probably end up as an
> outtake'". I agree wholeheartedly. But at six by nine feet, I guess
> it's better.
>
> The Crewdson photograph of the neighborhood car wreck was
> strong though, and since it was shot on 8x10 it held up nicely to
> the large blowup.
>
> What really bugs me are those multi-paragraph "captions" that
> somebody else writes, that sit next to each image, that give
> "context" to the image. Who says these are needed? It's like
> when they play dramatic music at a key point in a movie; making
> you, forcing you, telling you how you should feel at that time. And
> there must be some minimum word-count for these captions,
> because they drone on and on, with multi-syllabic horseshit
> sentences.
>
> We were advised by the security guard to stay at least "14 inches
> away" from these C-Prints. Why? Would the oil in our fingers
> leap out onto the print at 13 inches? Does spittle only travel 13
> inches?
>
> I don't know -- this art world stuff is nuts. I think unless you live in
> Cambridge or within a 100 mile radius of NYC, it must be
> hopeless. It's almost like cell-phone range: once you get outside
> of that 100 mile NY radius, the art world language gets staticky
> and broken-up, and too hard to understand.
>
> Mark Tucker, feeling like Andy Rooney
>
>
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>
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>

Funny thing, if you go to www.99only.com, they
actually feature Gursky's photo on their front page. 
A bit of tasteful irony.
 Great image, though.

  Daniel Perez


--- Tim Atherton <timphoto@...> wrote:
> Personally I love Gursky's 99c store shot - does
> anyone here have one that
> does what that image does? have you taken the shot?
> printed it, shown it?
> I've never seen a shot like that, printed like that.
> So do we just lack the
> imagination or what? It epitomises consumerism,
> garish cheap kitsch and much
> more. I wish I'd taken it. And most colour work thee
> days is C Prints


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