Google Street View Artist Gets MoMA Show

[jan normandale]

Originally Posted by chikne

Coming from NikonHSwebmaster, one shan't expect an answer of higher standard.

I recall you mentionned once working in some art institution, and if that is true, the students there are to be pitied.

Wow.. what's that all about?

[alistair.o]

Thank you RayPa. I had never heard of Doug Rickard and so I googled him (irony in there somewhere) and got to look at his web site(s) and read .

This work in question , New American Pictures, is very interesting and challenging on many levels for me. I have mentioned before that my wife, an artist, has, and is, educating me from a cloistered view of art and what isn't art (in other words my bigotry) into accepting the challenges.

Some of the images are very powerful indeed. What I'm about to say may have my pilloried but I stand by it:-

What is the difference with the mindset that will not open up and the mindsets of the people who lynched the Negros, because they are not like us? (see Doug Rickard - These Americans)

[StefanJozef]

These images are I think powerful and arguably innovative. Warhol was original and innovative. Where would we be without Warhol? Where would we be without the surrealists of the inter-war period? Surrealist ideas influenced the development of documentary photography. Read "City Gorged With Dreams", a book about surrealism and documentary photography in inter-war Paris. It's about the exploration of a real-life surreality encountered on the streets of the city, in this case Paris but it could be any city. Isn't this the essence of street photography? Isn't this why we drag ourselves round cities day after day?

[paulfish4570]

this is sterile stuff, a crafty gimmick at best, done by a fellow too lazy to get out and chase light for himself.

[Gabriel M.A.]

Originally Posted by StefanJozef

Where would we be without Warhol?

We would be without Warhol.

[jsrockit]

Originally Posted by paulfish4570

this is sterile stuff, a crafty gimmick at best, done by a fellow too lazy to get out and chase light for himself.

Perhaps it isn't about chasing light...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriation_(art)

[jan normandale]

Originally Posted by PKR

We have Leveraged Bond Funds, Leveraged Corn Futures, Leveraged Buy Outs and the concept has caught on in the gallery world. So, we now have a lot of Leveraged art.

So.. the next big thing is going to be "Art Futures"? Funny ... I like it. ;- )

[dave lackey]

Originally Posted by paulfish4570

this is sterile stuff, a crafty gimmick at best, done by a fellow too lazy to get out and chase light for himself.

+1 on that, Paul. Poorly done, but still gets recognition.

Whatever floats their boat, but I would rather tread water.

[Steve M.]

Did the gallery publish that ArtSpeak manifeto detailing the artist's working methods? Are they nuts, or just plain stupid? You don't want to ever do that, not for this guy or anyone else unless you're detailing classic approaches. That's like detailing how someone made a mixed media piece. Who cares?, and why even put up question marks in the buyer's minds?

They must rely on art grants from the government to survive.

The image you posted there looks really good.

[gns]

And here is a link to the MOMA show. Not a solo show, but a group show called, New Photography 2011 (I think an annual event)...
http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1199

[jan normandale]

MoMA : New Photographers: "...The artists in New Photography 2011 approach image-making from very different perspectives, making for a truly dynamic combination."

I think the critical point in the group show "New Photography" is the quiet substitution of the phrase "image making" for photograph. This change allows the use of anything in any way to be used to create an image. Photographs are just one of the possible components to the "image making" process.

This used to be called "decoupage"... LINK 1 and LINK 2

[semilog]

Originally Posted by Jamie Pillers

Ray,
I have similiar feelings about this work. I find the images striking and they remain in my brain.

Is it art? Silly to try answering that question, since there's an infinite number of definitions. Is it interesting? Definitely.

I think the most profound thing about this work is that it throws down a gauntlet (intentionally or not) of "Don't get too comfortable with the status quo, photographers." This is the same kind of challenge that Daguerre and others threw into the culture of Only-Painting/Sculpture-Is-Art.

To me, Google Street View images are just data sitting there waiting to be used by anyone. And should Google get a cut? Not in my opinion... unless they want to pass it along to we who've had our privacy yet again infringed upon. Buy, hey, that's the new world.

Great post. And to those who have been slagging Rickard as some dude sitting around in his underpants, he (1) is a damned decent street photographer in the more conventional sense; (2) is working solidly within an established tradition; and (3) runs what might be the best photo-crit web site on the whole internet (it's certainly in the top 5). I'll assume that you all know about it already and that if you don't, you know how to find it.

[semilog]

Originally Posted by porktaco

it might be art. it's not photography.

Your comment might be nonsense.

[semilog]

Originally Posted by buzzardkid

So, let me get this straight: if I go to the gallery, take pictures of this 'photographers' work and put them up for sale for USD 6,000 thats okay I reckon?

It's not that I am doing anything that he didn't do himself, and Google should be coming after him in the first place, not me, right?

Guess I'm off to snap some snaps then!

If you used miniscule fractions of the photos, comparable to the miniscule fraction of the absolutely vast Google Maps database mined by Sultan, that would likely be (or at least, should be) fair use. Just as Sultan's use of those images should be.

[semilog]

Originally Posted by gns

I have no problem thinking of these simply as photography. How different is this really from taking your camera down to the Greyhound depot and getting on the 12:00 to the next town, and making all your photos from the window of that bus?

These pictures got me thinking of the many previous photo projects made from cars, from Robert Frank's bus pictures to Friedlander's, America By Car. And in between, Meyerowitz, Winogrand, Wessel and probably many I don't know about.

Bingo. Photography is about editing, choice, selection, inclusion, exclusion, description, composition, perspective, light. All of those elements are present in Rickard's project. I find it interesting how tightly circumscribed the views of many forumites here are, how vast the terrain that would be excluded from art in general, and photography in particular. It is somewhat dispiriting.

[celluloidprop]

Originally Posted by PKR

What this guy has done is no different than having him go through your or my stock images, picking the ones he likes best and claiming them as his art.. as it was his taste that picked them. Most curators draw the line in any art with "human intent" in the creation.

This is quite different from sorting through already-curated 'art' (a set of stock images) - he combs through Street View and essentially composes the 'photographs' himself. That's the conceptual basis and defining element of the work.

Is $2500-6000 for a print, in my opinion, obscene? Yeah, but that's the way of the art world. "The bourgeoisie have, after all, made it a scam."

[gns]

For those interested, hear Rickard talk about his work on this video posted to his gallery's facebook page... http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephe...24573624233259

(or direct link to Pier 24 site...http://www.pier24.org/programs/videos.html)

[RayPA]

Another example of sourcing Google Street View.




/

[gns]

Video of his recent talk at ICP is now available on-line...
http://lectures.icp.edu/videos/Rickard2012.html

Gary

[semilog]

Thanks, GNS. I'm about halfway through this talk and it's just terrific.

[lcpr]

It's like street photography from the comfort of your own home. Come to think of it, Google should be classed as one of the great street photographers in history - I can't think of any other 'body of work' that has encompassed such a broad range of locales.

[andersju]

This is interesting stuff, but (based on only having seen Doug Rickard's web site) I have to say that I find Jon Rafman's Nine Eyes of Google Street View to be much better; one of the most fascinating collections of photos I've seen in the past few years.

[semilog]

^-- I did read your whole post. It in no way negates what you wrote in the last sentence, and that last sentence does not do you any credit.

[jan normandale]

Originally Posted by andersju

This is interesting stuff, but (based on only having seen Doug Rickard's web site) I have to say that I find Jon Rafman's Nine Eyes of Google Street View to be much better; one of the most fascinating collections of photos I've seen in the past few years.

I've seen / followed Jon's blog and posted about it elsewhere on the net. Interestingly he's a Canadian / Montréalais and his work (not just the curated google work) is very good

[Gabriel M.A.]

Originally Posted by semilog

Great post. And to those who have been slagging Rickard as some dude sitting around in his underpants, he (1) is a damned decent street photographer in the more conventional sense; (2) is working solidly within an established tradition; and (3) runs what might be the best photo-crit web site on the whole internet (it's certainly in the top 5). I'll assume that you all know about it already and that if you don't, you know how to find it.

Credentials don't make something "good" or "correct" ipso facto: Doctors in the turn of the 19th/20th century recommended smoking due to its "soothing" qualities and "proven good" effects on health.

Somebody may be the best tailor in the world, but once they start selling clothes out of cloth that cannot be seen by "those unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent", one cannot help but point out that the Emperor is indeed in a birth-suit.