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Hi Char, that is a very interesting article. I find it really odd that some people would feel the need to misrepresent their technique – to make it seem like they used brush and paint, when they instead used a photograph and printer. If the work of art stands on its own as art, why should the artist be ashamed of how it was done? It seems that in some cases anyway, art is being judged not as art, but as sweat and eye-hand coordination.
Some people are quick to say that a camera “lies,” and that it’s easy to tell when an artist uses a photograph, because they bring the photograph’s lies into their painting. And yet, according to this article (and the comments), it is quite easy to fool jurors into thinking that a photograph printed on canvas is an original painting – one that deserves a prize. What if that cheating artist instead submitted that same artwork as a photographic artwork? Is it suddenly bad art, or mundane art, because it involved “simply” taking a picture with a camera?
Certainly, if the artist stole the original image from another artist, then there is theft involved. I think that in an art jury, there needs to be a system set up to check artworks for copyright infringement, just as professors need to check student papers for plagarism.
Anyway, I’m reading a used book I just got, “Realists at Work,” that has a lengthy interview of Chuck Close. He’s a photorealist, in that he uses photographs, but he’s certainly not hiding his technique. He celebrates it.
It’s my understanding that one of the distinguishing characteristics of photorealism is that the source material is necessarily one or more photographs, not imagination or real life. It actually is the source material that matters. Philosophically, it is the embrace and celebration of the photograph.
Hyperrealism is a term sometimes used interchangably with photorealism. Currently it is also used to refer to a contemporary spin-off of photorealism. It is often considered more expressive than photorealism, not in its use of personal color or distortions, but in subject matter. While photorealism of the 70s and 80s dealt mostly with the depiction of mundane, emotionally neutral objects, current hyperrealism often depicts more personal images or images with social or political significance.
The term “hyperrealism” also refers to the exaggeration of detail and sharpness that goes beyond the resolution of the photograph and goes beyond the resolution of the actual objects to create a sharp, pristine look that cannot exist in reality. The artist doesn’t “distort” the photograph, but makes it more real than real.
Hi Virgil, it’s true, people seem to be talking about lots of different things when they use the words photorealism and hyperrealism.
Here’s a video of a discussion panel of artists at a photorealism exhibit in New Jersey last year. (Unfortunately it has rather poor sound quality, but it shows a lot of artworks – sculptures as well as paintings.) http://vimeo.com/33166510
They do still very much embrace photography and other forms of technology as part of the process in art-making. I don’t think it’s quite right to say that the goal is to produce a painting that looks like a photograph though. That may be part of the process, but not the goal of the artwork overall.
And here’s an article reviewing (rather unsympathetically) the same exhibit. http://hyperallergic.com/36031/our-own-directions-louis-k-susan-p-meisel/
This video is interesting too, an exhibit of photorealistic art of the 70s with the artists (now quite old) talking about their paintings. Good sound quality, lots of images. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFhJRfJUcUM
Nope… you missed my point entirely, Virgil!
I was absolutely incensed that an Artist was publicly humiliated and Robert Genn intimated that it was justified because the work was photo realistic and engendered questions about its originality… Then he wrote his letter wondering why she wanted a public apology! Wow.I agree completely with your assessment… but surely there’s a respectful way to handle the concerns and questions.
[INDENT][INDENT][FONT=”Georgia]…” painting photorealistically may open the painter to questions and reservations of jurors and viewers who may wonder about the use of technology in their painting processes.”[/FONT][/INDENT][/INDENT]
Frankly, I don’t care how anyone chooses to paint… all styles are fascinating… and one style doesn’t engender intent or emotion more than another… they’re all just different… but that’s another discussion, isn’t it?
Recently, I participated in a juried exhibition and was quite surprised by the volume of photographs that were accepted into the show… in fact, next year’s show may suffer because many of the painters were very unhappy… The second place ribbon was awarded to a photograph printed on canvas…
One photograph had been overpainted and was labelled a mixed media. I guess I was ok with that… to some degree…
But, the photographs were not purported to be anything other than what they were… photographs…
I don’t understand your point in this sentence… Guilty until proven innocent???????
[INDENT][INDENT][FONT=”Georgia]”Since a number of photorealists do apparently still embrace the use of technology in the making of their paintings, it does support the questioning by jurors and viewers about the degree of “human effort” in photorealistic paintings, doesn’t it?”[/FONT][/INDENT][/INDENT]
Lots of non photo realist painters embrace the use of technology in the making of their paintings.
Char --
CharMing Art -- "Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." Leonardo DaVinci
Certainly an artist needs to abide by the rules of an art show and copyright rules in general. (And of course, the jurors need to do any interrogation of an artist about whether rules were broken in private. Really, they should do their homework first, if possible, and not need to question the artist at all.)
The use of photographs and projectors and other mechanical and digital technology is certainly not new. Image projection type devices were used centuries ago (camera lucida). I still find it puzzling that people don’t want to consider an artwork on its own, as the image itself, but are concerned about whether the artist used technology to make it. As I said earlier – people claim that it’s easy to tell if an artist used a photograph. If this is so, then there is no deception involved. Jurors can base their decisions on what they see in the picture. Is it good art or not? Rather than, how good is the artist’s eye-hand coordination at painting a realistic image? Should they judge on art or on sweat?
I haven’t seen much photorealist art in person, so I don’t have much of a reaction to it. I do respect the philosophy of the photorealists (and hyperrealists) in general though – “Yes, I use photography! And projectors! My artwork is ABOUT technology and its impact on human experience. My artwork is ABOUT modern society and its banal shiny commercial airbrushed surfaces. It’s ABOUT the digitalization of data and the flood of intricately detailed information about everything around us.”
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