PhotoDude.com

Sun. May 25, 2003

Passing for Art

Passing for Art – It’s a question to which we return again and again … “what is art?” The inside joke answer is, “whatever you can get away with.”

Last week, you may have heard about the art museum in the news because their display got them criminal charges: “A Danish art museum director was acquitted of animal cruelty charges Monday after a court ruled that a display featuring goldfish inside working blenders was not cruel [...] The installation was the work of Chilean-born Danish artist Marco Evaristti.

Now, the “artist” didn’t place the goldfish in blenders that were turned on. That was a choice left to the viewer, a choice that at least two made. And the court’s verdict? It’s not animal cruelty, so it must be art!

And in the New York Times, we read about Big Hot Blurry Painterly Nudes!: “The images in the other series, ’Machines,’ come from a set of glass-plate negatives from the 30’s that Mr. Ruff acquired when an industrial-drill company near his studio went out of business. Most were straightforward photographs of lathes and drill-sharpening machines, probably intended for reproduction in an industrial catalog. In some, the background had been whited out, creating the effect of a strange, ghostlike fog hovering behind the machine. From these negatives, Mr. Ruff made a series of large prints, adding only a few touches of color mostly muted, dusty greens that enhance the mood of industrial nostalgia.”

I’m not familiar with Thomas Ruff’s work, and he has quite a body of it, according to this article. Much of it clearly fits the definition of art. But here’s my question:

If you acquire some old negatives from the 30’s, and simply make straight prints adding a slight color cast … have you made art, or have you simply made prints?

I know that if I did so, people would say, “so what? What have you done, other than make some green prints?” Apparently, once you’ve established a reputation in the gallery world as an artist, you can get away with a lot more.