Changing places: The rebranding of Photography as contemporary art By Alexandra Moschovi. The texts explains the discrimination of art in the museums in the 1980’s with this exploring how photography has become a title of contemporary art. This was suggested early on in the text that photography wasn’t a form of art and this was frowned upon with this being not up to the same standards as Painting and sculpture which were presented within the art galleries. My opinion of the text was that it was very hard to engage with the text being very hard to understand and intrigue with. Alexandra Moschovi shows a clear view into photography and the evolution within the last couple of decades.
Following on from this the text goes into great detail and discussion within the art form of photography and why it was so frown upon. An example of this was a quote that states “In the late 1980’s the museums of modern art in New York, Photographers work would be kept separately to photographers works produced by artists” An quote which intrigued me throughout the text states “Apart from its contested role as representation, what was equally significant in photography becoming a privileged medium in conceptual practice was the fact that it was not fully-legitimized as high art but still retained its functionality and status as commodity rooted in the ‘middle-brow’ vernacular. I understand briefly about where these opinions could have spiralled from with paintings being a piece which cannot be copied whereas photography can be copied and edited upon again. The text starts to highlight key discriminations towards photographer and how this much frown upon, knowing this though. I definitely class photography a strong art form as another other type of art. The text goes on to tell us how this ‘law of Genre’ was shifted by “an emerging generation of artists who would dispense with the modernist idea of the medium”. Although understandably the emergence of photography must’ve been vastly different in comparison to historical fine art. I don’t believe this quote at all with photographers being able to create a piece which can show emotion, a story behind it or expressing themselves or a politic message which can also be done with a painting as well or sculpture with photography being in the same category as in this in my opinion.
For the sixties generation, art photography remained too comfortably rooted in the pictorial traditions of modern art. However many people finally saw photography’s potential with this being used for many things such as fashion, stop motion and documentary photograph. The sudden change in society and up rise of technology played a big role in photography being considered an art form and eventually resulting in photography having a place in museums. I found the text very intriguing and interesting however was very difficult to follow in many places with the text being very confusing in some places and frustrating not to be able to understand what the writer had meant about the following information. However in many places I was very intrigued with a debate going through the piece of writing, trying to understand both parts of the debate.
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