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Big Art Saturday, September 30, 2006 | 2:10AM

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One of the things I love about being a grad student is that everyone in the program really is there because they want to be. You can argue that it’s the same with undergrads, but you’d be wrong. And many times, even the most hardcore undergrad photography students go on to never touch a camera again after graduation.

So when our Photo Arts class was held at the High Museum yesterday, we learned about presentation, presentation, and more presentation. Obviously the big trend in photography right now is giant color prints. Moreover, giant color prints of really boring subjects. I’m not saying everything we saw was weak, but the fact that a giant print (I’m guessing something like 8 feet wide) of a truly boring image is still a bad image is obviously missed by many people in the art world. There was some strong work on show, but it was not in the majority. And unfortunately, there were only 4 artists in the main gallery, with far too many (gigantic) prints to actually hold my interest. It was simply overstimulation. I’d much rather look at a concise body of work with, say, 10 outstanding images than 40 that were so-so. Is that odd? It certainly seems to be.

And the cost of these prints? Most likely near $1000 each. Oh, I’m not talking about the purchase price. I’m talking about the cost of having them printed by a master printer in New York. Sure, there are other places, but it seems one of the best labs is in NYC. So why would you spend $40,000 (or more?) on mediocrity? Because it sells, I assume. And the idea is certainly tempting: make a lot of lame work, and make a decent profit. It’s a formula that I just can’t reconcile with my approach to photography and art. I don’t like the current trends in much of the contemporary art scene. I don’t enjoy purely conceptual art most times (most, not all). But at the same time, I struggle with making meaningful work that doesn’t feel like it’s been done before. I constantly beat myself up with the idea of being inspired -vs- copycatting. And part of the problem with much of the work from the High was the lack of originality (on top of the visual weakness).

So getting back to one of my points, the presentation of the main work was very nice. There was a show up of work from the collections of Atlanta photography collectors in the basement area of the museum. Most were big name contemporary and early- to mid-20th century photographers. But the interesting part about the images was how poorly some of them were presented. And yet they were hung in a museum. We spoke about how, since these were from collectors and possibly shipped haphazardly, they were not a reflection of the artist’s presentation skills. Still, it was a shame to see prints partially falling out of their mats. And, on the other hand, there were some images that weren’t even spotted, so that certainly wasn’t the fault of the collector.

At the conclusion of our class, we spoke about upcoming openings in the area, since this is Atlanta Celebrates Photography (ACP) month. And as it turned out, our own professor Elizabeth Turk had a couple of pieces hanging at the MOCA-GA (Museum of Contemporary Art - Georgia) for a show called “Artists Photographing Artists”. Essentially we were required to attend this opening, and for a very good reason: artists supporting artists. More importantly, artists supporting colleagues. Imagine having a show where none of your classmates or professors or friends showed up. So anytime one of us has a show from SCAD, it only makes sense to show up and support them.

Tonight was the opening, and while there were some very good pieces (Elizabeth’s were among the strongest, btw), the printing on many were quit sub-par. And these were supposedly professional photographers. The highlight of the opening, however, was when the subject of one of the photos came in and, supposedly because she didn’t like her portrait, taped a different image over it. In fact, the image she taped up looked like a cheap inkjet print on regular typing paper in a plastic sleve. It was taken down in short order, but minutes later, I saw her posing for a snapshot in front of the image, as if she was pleased with it.

As a group, we went out to eat afterward at a Mexican restaurant a few miles away. There were 9 of us (including 2 spouses, of which mine was one) and we actually talked about photography. I’d missed that once I graduated, so it was great to get back into the swing of things.

And to bring this all back around to my opening statement, we were all happy to attend the opening, which is why we decided to hang out as a group later on. Tomorrow night is a portfolio review and artist lecture, so most of us should be attending again.

Finally, we are starting a photography club on Thursday. I’ve been spearheading a campaign to get both grads and undergrads interested and involved. While most grad students are obviously self-motivated to churn out new work, the undergrads wait until the last minute. So because so few project deadlines have hit, we’ve seen very little of them at the school outside of class time. So when we meet, one of our objectives as a club will be to meet each other, and look at work. The whole point of the first meeting is to decide our purpose as a club. Personally, I’d like to see our funding (if/when we get some) go to guest lecturers, at least partially. But we’ll see what everyone decides and I’ll make mention of it here.

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Comments

Danielle | Sunday, October 1, 2006 | 11:21AM

Walker | Sunday, October 1, 2006 | 11:41AM

Danielle | Tuesday, October 3, 2006 | 6:53AM

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